Honouring the gods in the classical Mediterranean realm and on its fringes

In the first century BC, in Cicero^[1]'s mouth, the observation Sua cuique civitati religio, Laeli, est nostra nobis [« Each city/people has its religion, Laelius, we have ours. »] is wry. It is intended to set limits to relativism: each people does indeed have customs but those of others could be nothing more than impious superstition by comparison with the inherent, indisputable, apodictic^[2] superiority of Roman rule: nostra nobis. For Cicero each city may well have its cult, its religion, but Rome's was by far the best, very superior indeed. This understanding was later qualified, notably with Symmachus^[3] for whom everyone contributes, by the way they worship the gods, towards approaching one single mystery.

Symmachus wrote at the end of the 4^th century. He was at the time involved in a dispute with Ambrose^[4], Archbishop of Milan who criticised his « Relation » regarding the Altar of Victory. Symmacchus held for polytheism. He did so in the name of the variability of mos^[5] and ritus^[6], pointing out that the urbes^[7] had, through the operation of a mens divina^[8], been allotted cults which differed one from another and which to their mind act as « guardians » : « for everyone has his own customs, everyone his own rites. The divine Mind has distributed different guardians and different cults to different cities. » (suus enim cuique mos, suus ritus est : uarios custodes urbibus cultus mens diuina distribuit, trad. R.H. Barrow). Symmachus' remarks seem to echo Cicero's assertion but they make a further point: namely that the ratio omnis^[9] may remain hidden, beyond reach, inaccessible. This implies that the only knowledge we may have of the gods springs from a partial and fragmented experience, that of customary memory. Hence the assertion: uno itinere non potest perueniri ad tam grande secretum « It is unlikely that such a great mystery should be reached in only one way ». It is worthy of note that Symmachus's line of thought leaps directly from the examination of coutumary rites^[10] to the supernatural entities at whom those widely diverse practices are in effect addressed. Indeed the following sentence asserts that « As souls are separately given to infants as they are born, so to peoples the genius of their destiny. » (ut animae nascentibus, ita populis fatales genii diuiduntur, trad. R.H. Barrow). This shift from protective and warding rites to genii of destiny deserves closer scrutiny.

This shift, framed in astrological terms (genii of destiny), also rests on other data concerning the way the plurality of divine entities was being organised, apportioned, allocated. It is this allocation in a very broad space – applying the Pantheonic model to the oikoumene^[11] – to all the peoples not just a city or a particular community that gives pause for thought.

The public genius, or genius of the city is an ancient Roman conception as shown by the mention on the Capitoline Hill of a shield dedicated to the Genio urbis Romae sive mas sive femina. In due course this idea of a protecting genius seems to have spread to each city or nation; it was given a systematic framework in some philosophical circles as evidenced, notably by Iamblichus^[12] who refers to a repartition of the gods by region. The relation between god and worshipers is presented much as that between the ruler and the ruled, to the extent that the each god is thought to prefer the offering of home produce in sacrifices. Gods and angels attend in their droves the « divine leader who watches over sacrifices ».

Symmiachus' mens divina is thus preceded, in the abstract, by this figure of a god « watching over sacrifices », understood as a sort of universal administrator responsible for the allotment of terrestrial territories. The same theme and the same term « the administration of the world » were already to be found in Celsus^[13] in the 2^nd century in an apparent reference to the strangeness of Jewish lands and customs. In Celsus' theory, the tutelar powers are gods whom he qualifies with a technical terms specific to the Roman administrative terminology: they are “diocetes”. Their allocation is metaphorically identified with the Empire's provinces and their subdivisions. Thus Celsus, leaving aside the relativist creed, resorts to geopolitics to describe the outcome of such an allocation as applied to divinities.