There is a lot more known about the religions and philosophies of ancient Greece, for example, than ancient Rome.I remember reading on this board about a very interesting and obscure religion that supposedly was the dominant one that the upper classes of ancient Rome practiced in private while concealing the existence of said religion; apparently a cult was formed with some defining principles that were basically the opposite of the principles of christianity, so this cult became even more secretive and ended up vanishing completely as christianity took over rome and its upper classes.Are there any books that go into detail about this religion/cult of ancient rome?
Augustine's City of God, ironically
>>25313976Livy talks about them in his history of Rome. They were the edgy satanists of their day and all got arrested and executed for being edgy faggots. The normal Romans just made offerings to Jupiter when they won a war or got BTFO and lost their equivalent to the mandate of heaven
>>25313976You want Fustel De Coulanges "The Ancient City"
>>25314016outdated book
>>25313976You mean the Eleusinian Mysteries? Nobody knows what they were all about
>>25314126How can a book about Rome be outdated? Was it written in 500 BC?
>>25314126Okay smarty pants, whats a better book?
The Cults of the Roman Empire by Robert Turcan
>>25313976you are probably talking about mithraism. laurent guyenot wrote a lot about all of this. look for his books
>>25314273>mithraismthis might be it. I forgot the name that was mentioned in an old thread and ended up getting confused with the worship of sol invictus, but could not find anything about secret men-only cults for sol invictus.Thanks
>>25313992Literally whataboutism the book. Augustine himself says he is arguing a case fir christianity like a lawyer. He knew he was engaging in rhetoric, but an uninformed modern reader may not.
Read "the god of socrates" by Apuleius if you want a primary source from a roman pagan.
>>25314491Whataboutism is actually a good argumentative tactic.i wrote an essay on it.
>>25314749No I don't think that it is. If you want to convince someone who doesn't have a stake in defending the other position, it doesn't actually show why your position is correct. Just that the other position is flawed too.There's also the problem that the whataboutisms Augustine engages in are so clearly made in bad faith, right from the start. He spends much of book 1 saying that the fact that the Goths sacked Rome after Rome became christian is not evidence that the Gods are angry with Rome, but rather it is evidence that Christianity is the true religion because the Goths left the christian churches of Rome alone and let civilians shelter there generally unmolested, something totally unprecedented in history, and proof that God stayed the hand of the bloodthirsty barbarians. He uses as evidence for this the sack of Troy in the Aeneid, even though he himself says this is just literature, yet he repeatedly treats it as if it were historical fact. What he ignores is that the Goths spared the christian churches because they themselves were Christian, and this was not an army of naked barbarians with two headed axes but a Roman army, led by a third generation Romano-Gothic general wearing the uniform of a Roman magister militum, the equivalent of a modern joint chief of staff for the army, and he sacked Rome to secure the payment for his Roman soldiers that the Roman Emperor had promised but failed to deliver. It was a civil war, not a barbarian invasion. Augustine must have known this, yet he chose to ignore it. And this is just within the first 20 pages.
The first thing you have to realise about Roman religion and philosophy is that way back in the early days they fundamentally transformed their society so they could emulate (LARP) as the Greeks of Magna Graecia. Ironically the Byzantine Greeks would later LARP as Romans. The original religion and mythology would have been much closer to the Celts, but it later got so entwined that we now speak of Greco-Roman mythology instead of just Roman mythology.Rome produced no great philosophers, but Cicero, Juvenal, Julian the Apostate, and Marcus Aurelius are worth your time. As for religion generally, start with Jorg Rupke's Companion to Roman Religion.
>>25315013>The first thing you have to realise about Roman religion and philosophy is that way back in the early days they fundamentally transformed their society so they could emulate (LARP) as the Greeks of Magna Graecia. Ironically the Byzantine Greeks would later LARP as Romans.This is kino
This cult has different names but pops up everywhere with the same themes. Officially banned in Rome in 200BC but persisted across Europe until around 1000AD. Re-emerged around 1800. It was always suppressed by every power structure because it's inherently subversive and dangerous but still favored by degenerate hedonistic elite types. The imagery of Satan comes from the Satyr.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysus#Classical_art
>>25313976I'm not sure what cult you might be talking about. Mithraism was a military cult and not practiced outside of the military, most of the upper class wouldn't have been a part of it, they are the only major secret cult that rose around the same time as Christianity.The Bacchanalia was a secret cult during the Middle Republic, but they were destroyed by the Roman state because they were not regulated by the state, they were a secret cult, but to the Romans, if it wasn't under state regulation or control it was unacceptable, after their purge of the cult they introduced laws to control their gatherings, where they had to report to an official to gather. The Romans simply didn't like secret cults they didn't have a hand in.
>>25314878Okay but the Goths weren't always Christians. I feel that whataboutism is best implied to make your opponent feel guilty about harboring hypocrisy. Here, have a look:https://adolfstalin.substack.com/p/whataboutism-and-why-its-effective?utm_source=publication-search
>>25314491Still, he relates a lot of the Roman theology from Varro's lost works.
>>25315025sounds /x/ tier, maybe they might know some more about it?
>>25315039The cult in question was limited in knowledge to a small amount of people, and had limited entry or strict requirements for entry. I remember that the cult was supposed to be the opposite to christianity, promoting violence and dominance, and tying these things together with philosophy. I had it saved but lost the screenshot and thread link.It may have been men only, but I am not too sure about that detail
Hi OP, I usually have good luck doing the following to get good books:Google “Topic + syllabus” usually brings up lots of undergrad level stuff, textbooks, or are usually primary source heavy if it’s related to classics/philosophy. Occasionally you’ll find quality syllabi with whole bibliographies suited for the beginner rather than an academic“Topic + bibliography” mixed results if you don’t have a .edu. Google is also retarded and produces lots of irrelevant stuffAnna’s archive “Cambridge/Oxford companion or introduction to topic” best method, each chapter has a select bibliography, relevant to the specific discussion. Obviously not limited to Cambridge/oxford, there’s Rutledge, Very Short Introduction series, etc. Downside, this can get overwhelming because a given volume can provide you with years of reading material.
>>25315921I forgot to mention, I post this because asking for recs here is a waste of time, you’ll either get a primary source purist retard or a guy who spams a single secondary source that he believes holds the key to everything. Basically, 21 year old undergrads.
>>25315921OP here.Thank you very much for this, I luckily have some knowledge of using google scholar to find some articles, but your method may prove more effective to read up on this niche subject (google search has died and been replaced by an AI frankenstein).Thank you once again.
>>25315933>>25315921This is pretty outdated. I ask GPT.
>>25315933By the way, would you recommend that I post this thread's same topic question on /x/ or will the replies just be nonsense?I dare not post this on /pol/, even though I know that the pol board occasionally produces in-depth discussion on topic with much supporting info and screenshots.
>>25315921>>25315933Good post. Routledge, Blackwell, and various other university presses have good introductory material too.
