Mos maiorum
The mos maiorum (
Family and society
The Roman family (the familia, better translated as "household" than "family") was hierarchical, as was Roman society. These hierarchies were traditional and self-perpetuating, that is, they supported and were supported by the mos maiorum. The pater familias, or head of household, held absolute authority over his familia, which was both an autonomous unit within society and a model for the social order,[4] but he was expected to exercise this power with moderation and to act responsibly on behalf of his family. The risk and pressure of social censure if he failed to live up to expectations was also a form of mos.[citation needed]
The distinctive social relationship of ancient Rome was that between patron (patronus) and client (cliens). Although the obligations of this relationship were mutual, they were also hierarchical. The relationship was not a unit, but a network (clientela), as a patronus might himself be obligated to someone of higher status or greater power, and a cliens might have more than one patron, whose interests might come into conflict. If the familia was the discrete unit underlying society, these interlocking networks countered that autonomy and created the bonds that made a complex society possible.[5] Although one of the major spheres of activity within patron-client relations was the law courts, patronage was not itself a legal contract; the pressures to uphold one's obligations were moral, founded on the quality of fides, "trust" (see Values below), and the mos.[6] Patronage served as a model[7] when conquerors or governors abroad established personal ties as patron to whole communities, ties which then might be perpetuated as a family obligation. In this sense, mos becomes less a matter of unchanging tradition than precedent.[8]
Tradition and evolution
Roman conservatism finds succinct expression in an edict of the censors from 92 BC, as preserved by the 2nd-century historian Suetonius: "All new that is done contrary to the usage and customs of our ancestors, seems not to be right."[9] However, because the mos maiorum was a matter of custom, not written law, the complex norms that it embodied evolved over time. The ability to preserve a strongly-centralised sense of identity while it adapted to changing circumstances permitted the expansionism that took Rome from city-state to world power.[10] The preservation of the mos maiorum depended on consensus and moderation among the ruling elite whose competition for power and status threatened it.[11]
Democratic politics, driven by the charismatic appeal of individuals (
During the transition to the Christian Empire,
After the final collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD and ascension of the various Barbarian kingdoms, the old Roman mores were then either superseded by or synthesized with the traditions of the Germanic elite and subsequent feudal values.[citation needed]
Values
Traditional Roman values were essential to the mos maiorum:
Fides
- The Latin word fides encompasses several English words, such as trust/trustworthiness, Fides whose role in the mos maiorum is indicated by the history of her cult.[19] Her temple is dated from around 254 BC[20] and was located on the Capitoline Hill in Rome, near the Temple of Jupiter.
Pietas
- Pietas was cultivated as a goddess, with a temple vowed to her in 191 BC[23]and dedicated ten years later.
Religio and Cultus
- Related to the Latin verb religare, "to bind", imperial cult (ancient Rome).
Disciplina
- The military character of Roman society suggests the importance of disciplina, as related to education, training, discipline and self-control.[citation needed]
Gravitas and constantia
- Lars Porsennaby holding his right hand in a fire.
Virtus
- Derived from the Latin word vir ("man"), virtus constituted the ideal of the true Roman male.[29] Gaius Lucilius discusses virtus in some of his work and says that it is virtus for a man to know what is good, evil, useless, shameful or dishonorable.[30]
Dignitas and auctoritas
- Dignitas and auctoritas were the result of displaying the values of the ideal Roman and the service of the state, in the forms of priesthoods, military positions and magistracies. Dignitas was reputation for worth, honour and esteem. Thus, a Roman who displayed their gravitas, constantia, fides, pietas and other values of a Roman would possess dignitas among their peers. Similarly, by that path, a Roman could earn auctoritas ("prestige and respect").[31]
See also
- Religion in ancient Rome – religious practices in ancient Rome
- The Ancient City – perennial 1864 book by Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges
- O tempora, o mores! – exclamation by Cicero, most famously in first Catilinarian oration ("Oh what times! Oh what customs!")
- Roman Polytheistic Reconstructionism– contemporary movement reviving traditional Roman religion
Notes
- ^ Karl-J. Hölkeskamp, Reconstructing the Roman Republic: An Ancient Political Culture and Modern Research (Princeton University Press, 2010), p. 17 online.
- ^ Mos Maiorum, Brill Online.
- ^ Hölkeskamp, Reconstructing the Roman Republic, pp. 17–18.
- ^ Hölkeskamp, Reconstructing the Roman Republic, p. 33.
- ^ Carlin A. Barton, The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans: The Gladiator and the Monster (Princeton University Press, 1993), pp. 176–177.
- ^ Hölkeskamp, Reconstructing the Roman Republic, pp. 33–35.
- ^ Cicero, De officiis 1.35.
- ^ Erich S. Gruen, "Patrocinium and clientela," in The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome (University of California Press, 1986), vol. 1, pp. 162–163.
- ^ Suetonius, De Claris Rhetoribus, i.
- ^ See, for instance, Hölkeskamp's reference to the Republic's "capacity for self-regulation", Reconstructing the Roman Republic, p. 18. Erich S. Gruen, The Last Generation of the Roman Republic (University of California Press, 1974), p. 535.
- ^ Hölkeskamp, Reconstructing the Roman Republic, pp. 29, 41–42 et passim.
- ^ Hölkeskamp, Reconstructing the Roman Republic, p. 42.
- ^ Gruen, The Last Generation of the Roman Republic, pp. 258, 498, 507–508.
- ^ The Second Samnite War was a crucial period in the formation of this new elite; see E.T. Salmon, Samnium and the Samnites (Cambridge University Press, 1967), p. 217, and Erich S. Gruen, "Patrocinium and Clientela," in The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome (University of California Press, 1984), p. 163 online.
- T.P. Wiseman, Clio's Cosmetics (Leicester University Press, 1979), pp. 67–69, 85, et passim.
- ^ Clifford Ando, "The Palladium and the Pentateuch: Towards a Sacred Topography of the Later Roman Empire," Phoenix 55 (2001), p. 388.
- ^ Hölkeskamp, Reconstructing the Roman Republic, p. 34.
- ^ “Bona fides,” Berger. pg 374
- ^ Adkins. pg 78
- ^ Ziolkowski, “Temples”
- ^ Adkins. p. 180
- ^ De Natura Deorum. 1.116
- Ab urbe condita. xxxx. 34
- ^ Adkins. pg 190
- ^ Adkins. pg 55
- ^ Ward. p. 58
- Ab urbe condita. xxii. 58. See also Ogilvie’s Commentary on Livy 1-5.
- Ab urbe condita. ii. 12
- ^ Ward. p. 57
- ^ Ward. p. 57
- ^ Ward. p. 58
References
- Adkins, L. and Adkins, R. Dictionary of Roman Religion. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
- Berger, Adolph. Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law. Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1991.
- Brill's New Pauly. Antiquity volumes edited by: Huber Cancik and Helmuth Schneider. Brill, 2008 Brill Online.
- Oxford Classical Dictionary. 3rd Revised Ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
- Stambaugh, John E. The Ancient Roman City. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988.
- Ward, A., Heichelheim, F., Yeo, C. A History of the Roman People. 4th Ed. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2003.
Further reading
- Fredericks, S. C. 1969. Mos maiorum in Juvenal and Tacitus. University of Pennsylvania Pr.
- Hoffmann, Zsuzsanna. 1982. "The Parody of the Idea of mos maiorum in Plautus." Oikumene , III, 217–223.
- Hölkeskamp, Karl-Joachim. 2010. Reconstructing the Roman Republic: An Ancient Political Culture and Modern Research (translated by Henry Heitmann-Gordon; revised, updated, and augmented by the author). Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press.
- Kenty, Joanna. 2016. "Congenital Virtue: Mos Maiorum in Cicero's Orations." Classical Journal 111.4:429-462
- Segal, Erich. 1976. “O tempora, o mos maiorum.” In The Conflict of Generations in Ancient Greece and Rome, Edited by Bertman, Stephen S., 135–142. Amsterdam: Grüner.
- Tröster, Manuel. 2012. "Plutarch and mos maiorum in the Life of Aemilius Paullus." Ancient Society 42, 219–254.