Day of Empire_ How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance--And Why They Fall - Amy Chua [34]
For the most part, Roman religion coexisted with native local cults in the new regions of the empire. In some places this took the form of layered religious recognition. In Mauretania, for example, a local market was known to be protected by Jupiter (a god in the Roman pantheon), Juba (a deified local king), and Genius Vanis-nesi (the local guardian spirit). Elsewhere, locals fused gods together. For example, Saturn and Jupiter were treated almost as one in Northern Africa; the Celtic god Lug was subsumed into Mercury; and Minerva was associated with a number of local goddesses such as Sulis, the water goddess of Bath.26
But Rome's inclusive treatment of religion also had its limits. To begin with, cults or customs that were deemed “un-Roman” or morally repugnant were forbidden. Thus the Roman Senate banned the Druid practice of human sacrifice, as well as the rite of self-castration followed by worshippers of the Phrygian goddess Cybele. Other deities fell victim to politics. The Egyptian gods Isis and Serapis—widely identified with Antony and Cleopatra— were banned by Emperor Augustus when he emerged victorious in Egypt. It was not until two centuries later that the emperor Caracalla received Isis and Serapis into the Roman pantheon.27
On the whole, the Romans were remarkably successful at incorporating local gods into the empire's religious system. But the monotheistic religions of Judaism and Christianity—with their refusal to acquiesce in Roman pagan rituals—presented more serious challenges.
The Jews of antiquity lived mainly in their ancestral homeland in Palestine and the coastal cities of Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean, including Alexandria, which was home to the largest community of Greek-speaking Jews. The Jews posed a unique problem for the Roman empire. In the “happy melting pot” of Rome's major cities, the Jews often built separate Jewish quarters centered around their own synagogues and courts and resisted attempts to replace Hebrew with Greek or Latin. Although there was also a large number of Greek-speaking “Hellenized” Jews, the Jewish tendency to live separately led many Romans to consider the Jews to be “internal barbarians.”
At first the Jews thrived in the empire, enjoying the same strategically motivated tolerance that Rome extended to other groups. Around 161 BC, the Jews approached the Romans after being harshly attacked by the Syrian king Antiochus IV. Eager to weaken Syria, Rome made a declaration of friendship with the Jews. As the century progressed, the relationship strengthened. Julius Caesar granted the Jews freedom of worship and legal autonomy throughout the empire. In return, the Jews provided Caesar with military support; after Caesar's assassination, Roman Jews returned night after night to the funeral pyre, mourning his death.
Caesar's successor, Augustus, also treated the Jews favorably, even making exceptions to ensure that the Roman government's grain collection and distribution schedule did not interfere with the Jewish Sabbath. The Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria wrote glowingly of Augustus’ tolerance:
Augustus knew that much of the city of Rome on the Tiber's farther side was inhabited by Jews. Many were freedmen who now had become Roman citizens…[H]e did not banish them from Rome or strip them of their Roman citizenship just because they took pains to preserve their identities as Jews. He did not compel them to abandon their places of worship, or forbid them to gather or receive instruction in the laws…He respected our interests so piously that with the support of nearly his whole household he adorned our temple through the magnificence of his dedications, and he ordered that forever more whole burnt offerings should be sacrificed every day as a tribute at his own expense to the most high God.
Other emperors were far less accommodating. Hadrian banned circumcision and the teaching of Jewish law. Caligula