Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading... Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minorby S. R. F. Price
None Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Price’s 1984 work on the worship of the Roman emperor in Asia Minor is still a must-read classic in Roman religion. He argues that rituals of imperial worship were cultural responses to the kind of power the emperor represented. So emperor worship, at least in Asia Minor and other eastern provinces of the empire, was not some kind of political manipulation imposed by Rome, a theory popular when Price wrote. Nor was it a dull formality. Price argues that imperial worship was meaningful to those in Asia Minor and other eastern provinces, just as meaningful as the traditional cults of the Greek gods. Understanding the imperial cult is key because its imagery and rhetoric are critiqued by and subsumed into early Christianity. I also read this for a reading course in Greco-Roman religions. By beginning the book with a survey of the development of Hellenistic religion and Temple worship, Price eases into the topic of how Roman emperors grew to be worshipped in the same manner. Drawing on literary sources and archaeology, and comparing the rituals of Imperial temples to those of Greek gods, he concludes that the worship of Roman emperors was far from some sham religion meant to honor Asia Minor’s controlling rulers. The emperors of Rome were honestly worshipped as divine. Price discusses temple construction, the cultural context, and the rituals that were performed. Caesar worship became hopelessly intertwined with public religion, commerce, government, entertainment, and ceremony. Why is this topic interesting to me? Because the rise of the Imperial Cult mirrored the rise of Christianity, and in Asia minor especially, it must be considered a primary competitor to Christianity. The Book of Revelation provides the most clear Christian response to the Imperial Cult in Asia Minor, severely opposing its abominable worship. While very little is mentioned in Price’s book about Christianity, the Christian scholar will, of course, read the book with the topic of Christian opposition and particularly John’s Apocalypse in the back of his mind. I’m unaware of any more exhaustive research on this topic, and for that reason, it’s an important book. I did, however, find the writing too dry for easy reading. You will learn, but you will dig hard to do so. no reviews | add a review
In his study of the Greek cults of the Roman emperor in Asia minor, Simon Price attempts to discover why the Roman Emperor was treated like a god. He contends that ever since the emergence of Christianity within the Roman Empire the problem has been misinterpreted; a Christianizing distinction between religion and politics has led to the cult being considered simply as a form of political honours. Drawing on anthropology as well as numismatics and archaeology, literary sources and inscriptions, Dr Price offers a fundamentally different perspective. He examines how the Greek cults of the Roman Emperor located the Emperor with their subjection to the external power of Rome. The book falls into two major parts. The first analyses the historical, social and cultural contexts of the Imperial cult, showing that the cult was deeply rooted in the Greek cities. The second focusses on the evocations of the rituals of temples, images and sacrifices. It casts light on the architechural development of Greek Cities, on cult statues in the ancient world and on the vitality and flexibility of the Greek religious system. In his concluding chapter the author draws out some of the general implications of the book; comparative material from Africa and Cambodia help our understanding of the relationship between religious ritual and political power. This book, which assumes no knowledge of Latin or Greek, will appeal to students and teachers of ancient history and archaeology. It will also attract anthropologists, historians and others interested in the interpretation of rituals and in the history of early Christianity. No library descriptions found. |
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)939.2History and Geography Ancient World Ancient history in other areas Western Asia MinorLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |