Augustan Literature and Religion at Rome

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Schultz 8 of the discussion comprises Augustine’s rebuttal. 12 There is, however, one passage in which he quotes Varro directly on this point: Denique cum memoratus auctor civilem theologian a fabulosa et naturali tertiam quandam sui generis distinguere conaretur, magis eam ex utraque temperatam quam ab utraque separatam intellegi voluit. Ait enim ea, quae scribunt poetae, minus esse quam ut populi sequi debeant; quae autem philosophi, plus quam ut ea vulgum scrutari expediat. “Quae his abhorrent, inquit, ut tamen ex utroque genere ad civiles rationes adsumpta sint non pauca. Quare quae erunt communia cum propriis, una cum civilibus scribemus; e quibus maior societas debet esse nobis cum philosophis quam cum poetis.” (Civ. D. 6.6) Finally, although our aforementioned author strives to distinguish the civil theology from the poetic and philosophical as a third type unto itself, he wishes it to be understood that it is more mixed with each of the other two than it is distinct from them. For he says that what the poets write is baser than what the people ought to follow, and what the philosophers write is more than what it is beneficial for the crowd to investigate. He says, “There are elements in civil theology that are inconsistent with those two, yet more than a few aspects of each of them are taken up by it. Thus I will write about what the civil theology shares with them, and what is exclusive to itself. From this it will be clear that we ought to maintain a closer connection with the philosophers than with the poets.” Unfortunately, we do not know where Varro saw the influence of literature on the state religion. We know that Augustine saw it in theatrical productions: following on the passage just quoted, he delivers a lengthy diatribe against the shameful presentation of the traditional gods on the stage. Is Augustine right? Did the Romans regularly present the gods on stage? And if they did, was it religion? It is understandable if you answer those questions in the negative. In contrast to Greek religion, where the centrality of cultic drama is widely acknowledged, its role in Roman religion is little understood and discussed even less. A survey of the indices of many of the handbooks of Roman religion that have appeared in the last 15 years reveals that the topic is usually 12 Wiseman 1998, 17-24, is more certain that Augustine’s rebuttal follows Varro closely than I think Augustine’s text allows. Wiseman offers an excellent treatment of the little literary evidence available on the topic of cultic drama at Rome.
Schultz 9 overlooked, or relegated to brief, cursory treatment of ludi scaenici (festivals with a theatrical component), a ritual form introduced to Rome in 364 when Etruscan dancers (ludiones) were brought in to give a performance as part of efforts to save Rome from a plague (Liv. 7.2.4-13, a passage for which Varro is often identified as a source 13 ). The silence of modern scholarship is reasonable: we simply do not have much in the way of incontrovertible evidence that Romans regularly watched, in religious settings, dramatic performances of the kind of myths that poets and playwrights tell. The evidence we do have is subject to multiple interpretations. For example, Plautus’s Amphitruo, a comedy about the sexual escapades of Jupiter, is certainly an undignified presentation of the gods, but we do not know if it was performed as part of a religious event. Beyond this one play, there are only faint traces of other possible cultic performances, such as the report in Plutarch (Cam. 33.5-7) of the ritual reenactment of the salvation of Rome in its war with Fidenae by female slaves, or Vitruvius’ instruction to place temples of Apollo and Liber Pater next to theaters (1.7.1). Theatrical performances were also part of Augustus’ Ludi Saeculares, but their content is unknown (CIL 6.32323. 100-2, 108-10, and 155-161). There is ample evidence for the secular performance of plays in Rome over many centuries, but that is a different thing from the kind of cultic drama Augustine is talking about. Based on what the literary evidence offers, it seems that Roman ritual drama, if it existed at all, was of minimal importance to religious life and, therefore, it is reasonable to assume a) that Varro did not emphasize it in his work and b) that Augustine is misrepresenting Roman praxis to suit his own ends. But literary evidence (or a lack thereof) is not all we have to work with. Archaeologists have long known that over the course of the second century BCE, throughout the Italian peninsula, people in several different towns began building theater- 13 See Oakley 1998, 40-72.
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Page 15 and 16: Figure 2. The temple at Pietrabbond

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