Reviews for Religion of the Ancient Romans

The average rating for Religion of the Ancient Romans based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-05-03 00:00:00 Ellis Hopkins Keats's lines from "Ode on Melancholy" might have served as an epigraph for this fascinating account: "Ay, in the very temple of delight / Veiled melancholy has her sovran shrine." First published in 1903, Jane Harrison's book is a meticulously researched study on Greek ritual. Using contemporary archeological findings and the stringent philological method championed by late 19th century German scholars, she uncovers an archaic sediment of superstition in the festivals performed in honor of the Olympian gods. Descending into the murky cellar of the pantheon she uncovers "ghosts and bogeys" and malignant spirits not entirely put to rest by the gods above. We still tend to think of the Greek belief system as religion - as an ordered theology of business transactions between man and god (I give so that you might give, "do ut des"), but Harrison shows that even in its most Apollonian splendor in the 5th century BC there are still traces of the old order in the religious festivals: superstitious fears, a sense of dread... This might sound like a Nietzsche rip-off, but Harrison (while surely influenced by "The Birth of Tragedy") carefully avoids the facile Apollo/Dionysus binarisms and exposes the ahistorical underpinnings of Nietzsche's account. She is simply the better classical scholar.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-12-02 00:00:00 Donna Lee As Andrew said "They don't write 'em like this anymore". How true! A brilliant study of Greek religion that was a real eye-opener for me. I'd always been put off the Classical world as far too stuffy, erudite and frankly conceited. Reading Harrison's study changed my whole perspective on the subject. While there are huge chunks of this 682 page epic that I have hardly touched; there are several other chapters that I have poured over time and again. Chapter five on 'the demonology of ghosts, sprites and bogeys' is my favourite by far but the chapter on 'the making of a goddess' is not far behind. Other reviewers have more than adequately described Harrison's methods and the foundation it provides for the study of ancient Greek cultures. I'd just like to say that it taught me an awful lot about imagery and its relationship to written texts. Behind the cultured gloss of Classical myth and religion lays a far more primitive layer of ritual and another worldview entirely. The 177 black-and-white line drawings are another bonus.