Античная мифология в историческом контексте

The Conclusions

The trea­ting of an­ti­que my­tho­lo­gy in a con­text of a po­li­ti­cal his­to­ry of the an­cient world and struggle of a chris­tia­ni­ty with the pa­ga­nism shows surpri­sing ro­bustness and plas­ti­ci­ty of the an­ti­que myth. The he­roic my­tho­lo­gy, as shown in the first sec­tion, firstly pro­mo­ted crea­tion aris­toc­ra­tic et­hos in the nob­le At­tic fa­mi­lies, and then en­cou­ra­ged de­ri­va­tion of ci­vil com­mu­ni­ty and distri­bu­tion of aris­toc­ra­tic et­hi­cal va­lues on wide layers of com­mu­nal col­lec­ti­ve. The myth has ap­pea­red the po­tent pro­pa­gan­da wea­pon in arms of aut­ho­ri­tiers and of ru­ling eli­te du­ring the fol­ding of the At­he­nian sta­te­hood, and in pe­riod of her hey­day. Ne­ces­si­ty to use aut­ho­ri­ty of the myth for a sub­stan­tia­tion of major po­li­ti­cal and so­cial and eco­no­mic con­ver­sions pro­ves its do­mi­na­tion in mass con­scio­us­ness of At­hens as most forward Hel­le­nic po­leis and con­fu­tes ima­gi­na­tion about the cer­tain­ty of tran­si­tion “from the myth to lo­gos” in clas­si­cal pe­riod of the Greek his­to­ry.

Alongsi­de with tra­di­tio­nal my­tho­lo­gy for the At­he­nians as well as for the Ro­mans the­re is a my­tho­lo­gy of the spe­cial so­cial-po­li­ti­cal sort, so-cal­led pa­ra­his­to­ric my­tho­lo­gy. In its de­ve­lop­ment it is pos­sib­le to de­tect so­me com­mon fea­tu­res. The pa­ra­his­to­ric my­tho­lo­gy both in At­he­nes, and in Ro­me is ma­de out du­ring the fol­ding an an­ti­que ci­vil com­mu­ni­ty. The ap­pea­ran­ce of the im­pe­rial ten­den­cies in ex­ter­nal po­li­cy of the At­he­nian and Ro­man sta­tes was mir­ro­red in “im­pe­ria­list” in­terpre­ta­tion of the “na­tio­nal” myth. For At­he­nians it is so-cal­led “new my­tho­lo­gy” of Pe­ric­les epoch. For the Ro­mans ac­tua­li­za­tion of the myth about Aeneas, Cy­be­le’ “pre­cept” to re­ven­ge the Greeks for cor­rup­ting of Troad took pla­ce af­ter transfer­ring a sta­tue of the Great God­dess to Ro­me in the end III Cent. B. C. when Ro­me be­ca­me the most po­ten­tial power in Me­di­ter­ra­nian. Howe­ver by vir­tue of his­to­ri­cal rea­sons pa­ra­his­to­ric myth has tur­ned in im­pe­rial uto­pia, which im­por­tant com­po­nent be­ca­me the myth about “eter­nal re­turn” of “Gol­den Ages” on­ly for the Ro­mans as “re­vi­val” “of the Ro­man myth” at the ti­me of Augus­tus prin­ci­pa­te.

In epoch of prin­ci­pa­te the Ro­man sta­te ga­ve most se­rio­us at­ten­tion to at­ta­ching of ar­my with va­lues of an an­cient cul­tu­re as a who­le and to ideals “of the Ro­man myth” in par­ti­cu­lar, ac­ti­ve­ly using in va­rio­us means of pro­pa­gan­da the my­tho­lo­gi­cal cha­rac­ters and ima­ges. Pays on it­self at­ten­tion surpri­singly har­mo­nic in­teg­ra­tion of the Greek my­tho­lo­gy in cul­tu­re of Ro­man em­pi­re.

The ma­te­rials pre­sen­ted in the se­cond and third sec­tions of the mo­no­gra­phy do not lea­ve doubts that an­ti­que my­tho­lo­gy in I—III Cent. A. D. still was the in­teg­ral part of con­scio­us­ness of an appre­ciab­le part of the po­pu­la­tion of Em­pi­re. Thus, howe­ver, in lo­ca­les with an­cient ci­vi­li­sa­tio­nal tra­di­tions, first of all in Ro­man East, whe­re im­pul­ses of new in spi­ri­tual li­fe most per­sis­tently ma­de the way, went by a comple­te cour­se the pro­cess of cri­ti­cal in­terpre­ta­tion of an­ti­que my­tho­lo­gi­cal tra­di­tion. The apo­lo­gists of a chris­tia­ni­ty II—III in. (in la­tin Pat­ris­tic li­te­ra­tu­re first of all Ter­tul­lia­nus, and in Greek — Cli­ment of Ale­xandria), du­ring their po­le­mics with the Pa­gans de­monstra­ted re­mar­kab­le eru­di­tion in an­ti­que my­tho­lo­gy.

Most ruth­lessly Fa­thers of Chris­tian tra­di­tion cri­ti­si­zed the Ro­man my­tho­lo­gy and es­pe­cial­ly its com­po­nents re­la­ted to the “Ro­man myth” be­cau­se it was a ba­sis of im­pe­rial uto­pia. It was ne­ces­sa­ry for the apo­lo­gists of Chris­tia­ni­ty to discre­di­ta­te the Em­pi­re as a sac­ral ideal. The Ro­man im­pe­rial uto­pia real­ly was the ear­ly va­riant of so­cial uto­pia¹. It proc­lai­med that ideal of so­cial li­fe is ac­hie­ved in Im­pe­rium Ro­ma­num and gua­ran­teed by the em­pe­rors.

For this rea­son, de­ri­ding the cha­rac­ters of Ro­man my­tho­lo­gy, the apo­lo­gists of a Chris­tia­ni­ty could not pass by the idea about eter­nal re­turn of “Gol­den Age” of the Ro­man sta­te. Is qui­te pro­bab­le, that the Fa­thers of a chris­tia­ni­ty ga­ve so lar­ge at­ten­tion to discre­di­ta­tion of the myth about Phoe­nix be­cau­se of iden­ti­fi­ca­tion this ma­gi­cal bird with Ro­me. This com­pa­ri­son was po­pu­lar in Ro­man clas­si­cal li­te­ra­tu­re.

Whi­le in Eas­tern pro­vin­ces of Em­pi­re an an­cient cul­tu­re, the clas­si­cal my­tho­lo­gy and Pa­gan re­li­gion al­so were in deep dec­li­ne, in the Bal­kan-Da­nu­be re­gion the si­tua­tion was ab­so­lu­te­ly dif­fe­rent. He­re an­ti­que ci­vi­li­za­tion lay for the rai­sing: the­re were nu­me­rous ci­ties, which attrac­ted to them­sel­ves the nu­me­rous settlers firstly from wes­tern, and, sin­ce IIIrd Cen­tu­ry from Eas­tern pro­vin­ces and from na­ti­ve po­pu­la­tion. the rough ra­tes oc­cu­red mas­te­ring na­tu­ral, main­ly of mi­ning oofs of lo­ca­le. That was ti­me of eco­no­mic pros­pe­ri­ty of re­gion. The grea­test ri­se of ci­ties oc­cu­red in a zo­ne of the con­so­li­da­ted boun­da­ry — li­mes, whe­re the an­ti­que be­gin­nings in eco­no­my, so­cial de­vi­ce, cul­tu­re were showed even­tual­ly much mo­re bly, ra­ther than in pro­vin­cial hin­ter­land. Ar­my was the main so­cioc­rea­ti­ve fac­tor the­re. The sta­te, using va­rio­us re­sour­ces of of­fi­cial pro­pa­ga­tion, ef­fec­ti­ve­ly ap­pen­ded sol­dier’s mas­ses to va­lues of an an­cient cul­tu­re. The da­ta of his­to­ri­cal sour­ces con­vin­cingly pro­ve that even du­ring cri­sis of III Cen­tu­ry AD. the an­ti­que cults and “the Ro­man myth” as ideo­lo­gy of im­pe­rial loya­lism do­mi­na­ted in mass con­scio­ussness of this re­gion. It is not surpri­sing that Da­nu­be pro­vin­ces and dep­loyed he­re troops be­ca­me even­tual­ly res­cuers of Ro­man em­pi­re, ha­ving ex­ten­ded her exis­ten­ce for two Cen­tu­ries. The apo­lo­gists of a chris­tia­ni­ty cri­ti­ci­zed the myths con­nec­ted with Her­cu­les, Mith­ra, Cy­be­le and At­tis, not on­ly be­cau­se they were Pa­gan or “bar­ba­rous” dei­ties, but al­so be­cau­se the­se cults were es­pe­cial­ly ac­ti­ve­ly cul­ti­va­ted by the sta­te on a boun­da­ry II—III cent., and al­so in con­nec­tion with their po­pu­la­ri­ty in mi­li­ta­ri­zed pro­vin­ces, to which num­ber Af­ri­ca re­fer­red al­so.

At the sa­me ti­me the ana­ly­sis of gra­ves­to­ne mo­nu­ments’ ico­no­gra­phy of II—III Cent. de­monstra­tes a wide cir­cu­la­tion of ima­gi­na­tions about rein­car­na­tion of souls, im­mor­ta­li­ty, re­vi­val postmor­tem through a cults of Dio­ni­ses, Cy­be­le and At­tis. The New trends were brought by the rec­ruits — na­ti­ves of Eas­tern pro­vin­ces, settlers from the Asian pro­vin­ces which ha­ve ac­cep­ted ac­ti­ve in­vol­ve­ment in mas­te­ring of re­gion in III—IV Cent. AD. Be­si­des the­se in­no­va­tions pre­pa­red the ba­sis for fast widespread of a Chris­tia­ni­ty.

The suc­cess of Chris­tia­ni­za­tion in the Bal­kan-Da­nu­be re­gion was explai­ned not on­ly by the po­li­cy of the sta­te, be­co­ming un­compro­mi­sing in se­cond half IV in., but al­so by dec­li­ne of so­cial groups con­nec­ted with an­ti­que spi­ri­tual va­lues. The mi­li­ta­ry or­ga­ni­za­tion of the ear­ly Em­pi­re was bro­ken dawn as a re­sult of com­mon so­cial and eco­no­mic and po­li­ti­cal cri­sis and as a re­sult of bar­ba­rous intru­sions of an­ti­que ci­ties.

Thus, wide cir­cu­la­tion of ima­ges both cha­rac­ters of clas­si­cal and Ro­man my­tho­lo­gy among the Ro­man sol­diers, ve­te­rans and townspeop­le in the Bal­kan-Da­nu­be re­gion in II—III cent. ref­lec­ted one of last im­pul­ses of an an­cient Greek-Ro­man cul­tu­re in sca­les of all Em­pi­re.