Of gods and Romans
When the worst emperors became living gods they crowded the cosmos with depravity, turning many Romans in disgust from the pantheon
This is Who made our minds?, my Thursday essay probing the greatest, cruellest and most beautiful minds of the past 5,000 years, inspired by my book, The Soul: A History of the Human Mind (Penguin 2024).
Starting next week: join me on my grand tour of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
THE ANCIENT GREEK MIND, fount of the finest expression of what it meant to be human, fascinated the Romans even as they subdued the Greek world and decisively conquered Greece at the Battle of Corinth (146 BCE).
Greek Ptolemaic Egypt fell to Rome in 31 BCE, when Octavian, the future emperor Augustus, defeated the armies of Cleopatra VII and her lover, the Roman general Mark Antony, at the Battle of Actium.
The Roman occupation of Greece was a classic case of reverse conquest, at least in cultural terms. As the poet Horace put it, ‘Captive Greece captured her rude conqueror.’
Greek art and literat…