| The Sun - Photo: NASA |
JULIUS CAESAR, THE FATHER OF AUGUSTUS
Julius Caesar was the first Roman to become a god. He had finally defeated his rivals at the Battle of Munda during the Great Roman Civil Civil War on March 17, 45 BC. The games commemorating the founding of Rome were to be held the next day -- chariot races, gladiator fights and other spectacles -- and were rededicated to Caesar, as if he were the founder of the city. He was beloved by the people of Rome, and was given a house built like a temple, and was the first living man to have his portrait put on coins. His family claimed to be descended from the goddess, Venus, and he was the pontifex maximus, the chief high priest in the ancient Roman religion. If he became a living divinity, his name would be Divus Julius when ratified by the Senate. His enemies put a stop to that when they assassinated him on the Ides of March 44 BC.
Augustus was born Gaius Octavius on September 23, 63 BC. He was the grandnephew of Julius Caesar. In his will, Julius Caesar named Octavius as his adopted son and sole heir, so when Julius Caesar was murdered, the 18-year-old Gaius Octavius became Gaius Julius Caesar Octavian, and one of the wealthiest and most powerful citizens in the Republic of Rome.
In July 44 BC, four months after Julius Caesar's assassination, Octavian held funeral games in honor of his adopted father, incorporating the games into the celebration of the goddess Venus that Caesar had established two years earlier. Astonishingly, a bright comet miraculously appeared in the skies during the games -- a comet that has been verified by historical records. Octavian proclaimed that Julius Caesar had become a god and joined his ancestor, Venus, in heaven. Julius Caesar was deified as Divus Julius in 42 BC, and was worshipped as a god by the masses. Octavian took the comet as a sign of his own rebirth and the dawning of a New Age. Octavian had become Divi Filius, son of the divine.
After nearly two decades of conquering and destroying his enemies -- including Mark Antony and Cleopatra -- and expanding Rome's reach, Octavian received the title "Augustus" from the Roman Senate on January 16, 27 BC, transforming the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire with Augustus as its first emperor.
| A denarius minted c. 18 BC. Obverse: CAESAR AVGVSTVS; reverse: comet of eight rays with tail upward; DIVVS IVLIV[S] (DIVINE JULIUS) - Image: Classical Numismatic Group, Inc |
THE MONTH OF AUGUST
Prior to Emperor Augustus, the month of August was called Sextilis because it was the sixth month in the ten-month Roman calendar. It became the eighth month around 700 BC when January and February were added to the calendar, but was still called Sextilis. (To this day we still use the wrong numbers for the last four months of the year -- September is not the seventh month, but the ninth, yet we do not call it "November" after the Latin word novem for "nine.") Before Julius Caesar came along, the Roman calendar was often manipulated for political purposes. Julius Caesar reformed the calendar on January 1, 45 BC, aligning it with the Sun, and renaming the seventh month "Iulius" after himself, the month in which he was born.
After Augustus came to power, in 8 BC he renamed Sextilis "Augustus," a month dear to his heart, but not because it was the month he was born. From Wikipedia:
Whereas the emperor Augustus Caesar, in the month of Sextilis, was first admitted to the consulate, and thrice entered the city in triumph, and in the same month the legions, from the Janiculum, placed themselves under his auspices, and in the same month Egypt was brought under the authority of the Roman people, and in the same month an end was put to the civil wars; and whereas for these reasons the said month is, and has been, most fortunate to this empire, it is hereby decreed by the senate that the said month shall be called Augustus.
Ironically, Caesar Augustus would die on August 19, AD 14 in the month he created, at the age of 75.
| Roman fresco of goddess Diana hunting, 4th century AD, from the Via Livenza hypogeum in Rome |
Centuries before Augustus came on the scene, Romans had already been celebrating the Nemoralia on the Ides of August, a three-day festival in honor of the virgin goddess, Diana. Diana was a complicated goddess -- a triple goddess of the Moon, the hunt and the underworld -- as well as wild animals, virginity, fertility and childbirth, and was often depicted with a bow and arrow. Worshippers carried torches and candles to the shores of Lake Nemi, a volcanic lake just south of Rome in the city of Aricia, and adorned hunting dogs with garlands of flowers. It was a day of rest for women and slaves, to whom Diana offered protection.
The Romans co-opted the twelve Olympian Greek gods and changed their names, but the gods retained much of their essential natures.The Romans conflated the virgin goddess Diana with the virgin Greek goddess, Artemis, whose worship stretched back to pre-Hellenic times. Both Diana and Artemis were the daughters of the primary Olympian god, Zeus in Greek mythology, and Jupiter in Roman mythology.
By the time the Romans had conquered the Latin people of Aricia in 338 BC, Diana Nemorensis had been worshipped in the sacred grove of the Arician forest since very ancient times. The Grove of Diana was a healing sanctuary that would grow into a small city with Hellenized architecture and an international clientele. The moon goddess Diana was revered by Augustus, who had ties to Aricia on the maternal side of his family.
| Virgin and Child on the Crescent Moon with a Diadem by Albrecht Dürer (1514) Rijksmusem |
Meanwhile, around 4 BC, Jesus Christ was born to a Jewish virgin named Mary in Bethlehem, a city located on the West Bank in Palestine in the Roman province of Judea, six miles south of Jerusalem. With her husband, Joseph, she had traveled from Nazareth -- 90 miles away -- supposedly in order to register in the census ordered by Emperor Augustus, which did not take place until AD 6.
The Archangel Gabriel had appeared to Mary and told her she would be the mother of the Son of God, conceived by the Holy Spirit, chosen above all women on earth for her goodness and purity, fulfilling the prophecy in the Old Testament of the promised Messiah.
At the time of the birth of Jesus, Herod the Great was the King of Judea, a title bestowed upon him by Roman Senate, with whom he had close relations. Herod died in 4 BC, and his kingdom was divided among three of his sons and his sister. Under Augustus in 6 AD, Judea was turned into a Roman province, and the general population was taxed. The Roman prefect was granted the power of a supreme judge and had the authority to order a criminal's execution.
After Augustus died in AD 14, his stepson, Tiberius, was named emperor. Pontius Pilate was the Roman prefect of Judea when Jesus Christ flipped Judaism on its head, and challenged the pagan gods. With words as his only weapon, Jesus was a charismatic leader who could draw a crowd. He claimed God was his father. He rode a donkey into Jerusalem on Passover, surrounded by adoring masses. He went into the Temple, flipped over tables and drove out the merchants, accusing them of turning his Father's house into a den of thieves. He was a threat to the Jews, and an annoyance to Rome.
Around AD 30 or 33, Pontius Pilate condemned Jesus Christ to death, reportedly for claiming to be the Son of God and the King of the Jews. Jesus was crucified on a cross on a Friday and placed in a tomb, his mother Mary and others at the scene. On Sunday morning, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and found it empty. Jesus then appeared to Mary Magdalene and his disciples before he ascended body and soul into heaven forty days later. At the time of his crucifixion, Rome had severely underestimated the power of the mission of Jesus Christ.
| Christ Pantocrator in the Basilica of San Marco, Venice - Photo: Cat Bauer |
As the centuries passed, it became clear that Jesus Christ had founded an entirely new religion, Christianity, with devout worshippers willing to die for their faith. The highest of Christianity's holy days is Easter or Pascha, a movable feast tied to the Moon that celebrates Jesus Christ's resurrection from the dead. There is a difference between the way the date is calculated between the Western Roman Catholic Church, which uses the Gregorian calendar, and the Eastern Orthodox Church, which uses the Julian calendar.
For its first 300 years, Christianity was viewed by Rome as an illegal religion, and most Roman citizens, who were pagans, sought to repress it. Initially, persecution of Christians was carried out on a local level, instigated by pagan mobs. Christians were forced to renounce their religion and sacrifice to the Roman gods upon fear of death. One particularly gruesome form of capital punishment was damnatio ad bestias, condemnation to beasts, a blood sport reserved for the worst criminals and Christians.
In 68 AD, Mark the Evangelist, Venice's own patron saint and the founder of the Church of Alexandria, was killed by a pagan mob when they put a rope around his neck and dragged him through the streets until he died.
The local persecutions escalated until in 303 AD, during The Great Persecution, the Roman state ordered the destruction of churches, the seizure of Christian property and the burning of Christian texts. Christians were tortured and burned alive or mutilated and forced to work in the copper mines in Egypt.
EMPEROR CONSTANTINE CONVERTS TO CHRISTIANITY
Constantine the Great put an end to the persecution of Christians in AD 313, together with his eastern counterpart, Licinius, with the Edict of Milan, granting the freedom for each individual to worship as he pleased. Constantine was a pagan who converted to Christianity in AD 312. He decreed that Sunday, sacred to the official Roman Sun god, Sol Invictus, would be a day of rest. He reunited the Roman Empire under one emperor and moved the capital to the Greek city of Byzantium, which he renamed Constantinople, founded in AD 324. He built churches, ordered up Bibles and and promoted Christians to high-ranking offices. Constantine was baptized on his deathbed on May 22 AD 337.
Christianity became the official state religion of the Roman Empire with the Edict of Thessalonica on February 27 AD 380. Similar to how Rome absorbed the Greek gods, it changed the images and feast days of the pagan gods to represent the Christian religion.
| Church of Santa Maria Assunta, Torcello, Venice - Photo: Cat Bauer |
There is no mention of how the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, died, and it has been a topic of discussion throughout the ages, including whether to call her the Theotokos, the Mother of God, or the Christotokos, the Mother of Christ. For centuries, it was debated whether she died a natural death, Christ transported her soul to heaven, and on the third day her body was resurrected, or whether she was still alive at the time of assumption.
The Virgin Mary's ascent into heaven is called the Dormition in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Assumption in the Roman Catholic Church. It is the same celebration with different interpretations.
The earliest records about the celebration of the Virgin Mary are lost to history, but reference was made to a feast day as far back as the 3rd century. Then in AD 431, during the time Council of Ephesus, it was decided that the Virgin Mary was to be called the Theotokos, "the one who gave birth to God." The Byzantine emperor Maurice (539-602) selected August 15th as the feast of Dormition, the passing of the Virgin Mary from earthly life.
The Greek Orthodox Church celebrates the Dormition of the Theotokos on August 15, and calls it the "Easter of Summer." It is preceded by a two-week fast, broken by a traditional feast with family and friends. The Orthodox Church teaches that Mary died a natural death at the house of John the Evangelist in Jerusalem, surrounded by the Apostles except for Thomas. The Apostles buried her in the garden of Gethsemane. When Thomas arrived three days later, he visited her tomb and found it empty. So, the Orthodox Church believes that Mary died on earth, Christ took her soul to heaven, and then her body was assumed.
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Papal State institutionalized the Feast of the Assumption as a Catholic holiday on August 15th and moved the secular Ferragosto festival so it would coincide with the religious festival of the Virgin Mary.
During Fascism in the late 1920s and 30s, the regime organized discounted train trips so that working classes in Italy could have an opportunity to relax and visit the sea or the mountains on August 13, 14, and 15, establishing a tradition of traveling to different regions that continues to this day.
In the Roman Catholic Church, it was not until 1950 that Pope Pius XII made the Assumption of the Virgin Mary part of Church dogma, declaring "that the immaculate Mother of God, Mary ever virgin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into the glory of heaven." He did not say whether or not she was already dead.
So in Italy, the festival of the ancient moon goddess Diana was absorbed into the Imperial festivities of Ferragosto, which was absorbed into the feast of Mary, the Mother of God, which was absorbed into the Fascist festivities of Ferragosto...
Happy August from Venezia,
Cat Bauer
Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog
