Quote:
Originally Posted by Skybird
Maybe the answers given by other authors are not necessarily always contradictive or wrong, but complementary?!  |
That can, and often is the case. But the issues Engels raises about decline of Religion and migrant/freedmen appears, upon further bedtime reading, to be hard to prove or even unfounded.
On the decline of religion, Mary Beard in her book
'Religions of Rome Volume I' that any decline, or lack of, is nearly impossible to prove conclusively. She argues that contemporary sources shouldn't be taken literally, as there appears to be a considerable 'nostalgia' factor to them (Cicero) or bias (Augustine writers). Further, she gives evidence of founding of new and renovation of old temples during the 1st century BC, which would show that religion was not in decline. Lastly, she argues that for example the post of
Flamen Dialis was left open, not because of decline of religion, but because of the disturbances of the 1st century BC. Other priests did the job of the priest of Jupiter, so there was no disturbance of religious ceremonies in that regard. She concludes that, while it is not possible to get a 100% picture of religion in the late Republic, in her view the decline is exaggerated.
In his book
'The Freedman in the Roman World', Henrik Mouritsen argues that there was no crisis caused by the release of slaves, and that Augustus' laws to curb this 'crisis' were ".
..peculiarly half-hearted and easily circumvented, and the mismatch between their supposed aims and actual content suggests they might be better understood as official declarations which emphasised the need for proper selection and ‘quality’ control in the manumission process."
and
"Augustus’ ambition to cut the number of freedmen has become a widely established ‘fact’, but the overall impact of his laws was probably modest. The limitations imposed on owners’ rights to free their slaves were to a great extent symbolic and would have done little to reduce the scale of manumission."
and
"While there is broad consensus on the background and motives of the Augustan reforms, most attempts at explaining the actual harm caused by freedmen have remained vague. Apart from the increased cost of the grain dole – which was solved by fixing the number of recipients – it is difficult to pinpoint any specific problems arising from manumission during the late republic."