We are lucky to have an article from Dr Steven Green of the Classics faculty at Leeds University, UK.
At Leeds they have an amazingly clever, creative approach to teaching undergraduates about the world of Roman religion.
Its been so successful that they’ve now turned it into a fantastic site called www.romanreligion.org
Check it out, its a fascinating read. In this post Steven tells us about the rationale behind the idea….
The Curious World of ancient Roman Religion:
Learn it and Live it at www.romanreligion.org !
When approaching the topic of ancient Roman religion, it is tempting to try to compare it to a contemporary religion, such as Christianity or Islam, which may be more familiar to us.
There are many differences, but perhaps the most important of these – and certainly the one that fascinates me the most – is the emphasis Roman religion places on doing over thinking. Christianity, for example, teaches us that belief in God is everything. However, when it comes to where and how you should worship God, there is considerable freedom: though there are recognised and long-established Christian rituals in which you can participate (for example, the Eucharist), it is equally acceptable within certain branches of the Church to pray to God in your own place, in your own way, and at your own time.
An ancient Roman would find this all completely the wrong way round! The Romans had incredibly complex rules governing the time, place, personnel and procedure for worshipping a deity, and deviation from these rules in any way was deemed to be a bad omen, and often resulted in the ritual being performed again until it was done correctly. For example, if you were watching an animal sacrifice, and if the priest conducting the ceremony fluffed his ritual words, or if the animal struggled, this would be seen as a bad omen, and the whole procedure would have to be done again from scratch. Whilst the Romans were obsessive with Roman religious procedure, however, they were not particularly bothered by what an individual thought about the actions they were undertaking, or the nature of the particular god they were honouring.
Because I find this area of Roman religion so fascinating, I wanted to find a way of teaching the subject at my University which gave my students the opportunity to engage with both the ‘strict acting’ and ‘free thinking’ aspects of the ancient Roman religious experience.
And then the idea hit me: why not get my students to imagine themselves in the position of an ancient Roman? As part of the assessment for my Roman religion course, then, students are given a specific year, AD 10, and a choice of Roman festivals. In groups of two or three, they are invited to construct an illustrated wiki (webpage) in which they take on the persona of a contemporary religious participant by describing the proceedings of their chosen festival as well as their own feelings and viewpoints about it. For example, one of the chosen festivals was the Lupercalia, a bizarre rite which involves half-naked priests dressing up in goat-skins and flogging people in the streets of Rome. My students imagined themselves as various characters – such as a priest, a priest’s proud father, a depressed wife, an old man, a sceptical philosopher – and composed a narrative in which they tried to explain what they understood by the events that took place. Students were also invited to imagine themselves at the festival of the October Horse, a very weird event which involves chariot-racing followed by two teams of Romans competing in the streets to gain the prize of a horse’s head!
My students, then, are taking part in a project to bring Roman religion to life by exploring the potential diversity of the Roman religious experience at a specific point in its history. Some of these narratives were great, and I didn’t want them to go unnoticed. Therefore, I have set up a website (www.romanreligion.org) on which I will put, each year, the best of the narratives from my students – the Lupercalia ones are already up there, and the October Horse ones are coming soon!
It is hoped that this site will act as ever-growing online educational resource for the benefit of a wide range of learners: university students and school pupils as well as general enthusiasts of the classical world. I hope you will enjoy our attempts to bring to life the curious world of ancient Roman religion!
Tags: ancient history, classics, Creative learning, Dr. Stephen Green, Roman history, roman religion, Roman Republic, teaching, Univeristy of Leeds
