"We Romans", said Cicero, "owe our supremacy overall other peoples to our piety and religious observances and to our wisdom in believing that the spirit of the gods rules and directs everything." Roman rites and observances took two main forms. One was the domestic reverence of the spirit or genius of the family. The other was the public attitude to the gods and goddesses by whom the destiny and welfare of the Roman people as a whole were supposed to be guided and controlled. During the Classical period, religious observance accompanied all important private and public events and transactions and, no successful outcome went without a vow of thanks or public dedication. Temples, priests and sacred rites were provided by the State. Nothing in the nature of religious services as we know them, in which the body of worshipers as a whole were able to participate, seems to have been celebrated in the temples. Any set forms of prayers, hymns or chants were performed solely by the official priests whose secrets they remained. The ordinary Roman man or woman had little personal part to play in such rites (Handbook To Life In Ancient Greece). While they were being unde

There were official gods like Jupiter or Juno who had their own official festivities , the Games began by being part of the public religious ceremonial of the Roman people. However, by the time of Martial and of Juvenal, the crowds who thronged the streets, the theaters and the circuses had very little knowledge of or interest in any ceremonial meaning there might have once been behind the Games ; nevertheless the ancient traditions inspiring them were kept alive. Many of the Romans themselves were ignorant of this early religious aspect of their apparently mundane, secular games and festivals. So it came about that games staged at first to gratify the gods and to do them honor, soon descended to the very low level of gratifying the baser passions of the hungry, ignorant, lazy and idle mob (Handbook To Life In Ancient Greece).

Modern day religion , Christianity especially with its teaching of mercy, gentleness, loving kindness and charity towards others, even towards enemies ; with is spurning of the world and worldly satisfactions ; with its gospel of self restraint , discipline and sobriety; with its care for the poor ; with its belief in the evil of sin and the faith in one God , the Savior of mankind controls the masses (Handbook To Life In Ancient Greece). I can't help but have the crushing impression that the masses of todays' youth are intentionally being deceived through lies; although it is just an impression. Mistrust of every kind of authority can grew out of this experience of deceit, a skeptical attitude toward the convictions that are alive in any specific social environment an attitude that can never again leave them. It is quite clear to me that the religious paradise of youth, which is soon lost, is an attempt to free from the chains of the "merely personal," from an existence dominated by wishes, hopes, and primitive feelings. I also think the pulpit has lost its position. It speaks no longer with authority. The pews determine what shall be preached. They pay only for that which they wish to buy -- for that which they wish to hear. Of course in every church there is an advance guard and a conservative party, and nearly every minister is obliged to preach a little for both (Crumbling Creeds). He now and then says a radical thing for

Some topics in this essay:
Ancient Greece, Romans Cicero, Help History, Moreover Mithras, Martial Juvenal, Crumbling Creeds, Characteristic Roman, Roman Empire, Christianity Mithraism, Jupiter Juno, roman religion, handbook life ancient, life ancient greece, handbook life, life ancient, ancient greece, mithras cult, temple worship, roman people,