Synergy to Synastry: Roman Lore (S3E6) Podcast Transcript

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Welcome

Renee: You're listening to Synergy to Synastry, the podcast where two corporate girlies call to follow their intuition take you on a journey of self-exploration through metaphysical modalities.

Christine: I'm Christine, intuitive coach and clairvoyant.

Renee: And I'm Renee, psychic intuitive and astrologer.

Christine: We're excited that you're here and honored to be your spiritual guides.

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Renee: Now, let's get into the episode.

Introducing the Roman Lore Mini Series

We are officially entering our next global culture to discuss lore.

Renee: I want to give a big shout out at the top to my intern, Omega, for helping out with the research for this episode.

Renee: She compiled a ton of notes, lots of information.

Renee: I did my own research, and it ended up being so much to sort through, but I'm looking forward to sharing.

Renee: During the recording process for the Greek Lore miniseries, it was pretty apparent that there was a connection, many connections, to the culture we will be discussing over the next three episodes.

Renee: In the first miniseries, we focused on the Hellenistic period, which ran from 300 BCE to 300 AD, or CE.

Renee: This was something I also had to clarify.

Renee: It's 6th century BCE, or BC, or AD, or CE.

Renee: I had to do a lot of quadruple checking to make sure that I was in the right version of the timeline.

Renee: We're actually going to be going back further in time, and then we're jumping to the other side of this Hellenistic period, so we're going to be talking about both before and after.

Renee: As per the title of today's episode, it should be no surprise, the new culture we are looking at is Ancient Rome.

Renee: This lore was predominantly captured by Livy, Dionysius, Plutarch, and Tacitus.

Magna Graecia in Ancient Rome

Renee: Part of the reason that there are a lot of intersections between the Ancient Greek Lore and Ancient Roman Lore is because of the mass migrations that happened at several points in history.

Renee: One of the largest ones I wanted to point out, began around the 8th century BCE.

Renee: So this is minus 800 to minus 700.

Renee: This period was called the Magna Graecia, which means Great Greece.

Renee: During this time, there was a mass migration of Greeks to the southernmost region of Italy.

Renee: Fun fact, all of the areas that were highlighted are actually where my Italian ancestry is from.

Renee: And we do have a running theory, based on some family research that was done, that we actually could just be super Greek.

Renee: And this does partially reaffirm that, because these areas are known to have been populated by immigrants from Greece.

Renee: And in essence, what this does is results in a transfer of lore and practices from their homeland that then get adapted, fused with existing culture.

Renee: And this goes beyond just changing the names for the gods and goddesses.

Religions in Ancient Rome

Renee: Ancient Rome had a very different and tiered religious structure.

Renee: First, we have Dea Roma, which means Goddess Roma.

Renee: And this was a unifying political tool where citizens were worshipping, paying fealty, to the city and empire of Rome itself.

Renee: Not only were there immigrants coming in, but they were conquering other nations and cultures.

Renee: And in order to bring people together, the government itself was personified and made divine in order to unify the increasingly diverse populace.

Renee: Next, we have Sibylle, or the Magna Mater, in other words, Mother Goddess.

Renee: Worshipping this Mother Goddess of fertility, nature, and spirituality in general, had become the official state religion.

Renee: So, we had worshiping of the state, and then we had an official state religion.

Renee: I almost was reading it like Mother Nature in a way.

Renee: Next, we had animism from the Latin root anima, meaning life, breath, and soul.

Renee: This wing of the religious practices contained household spirits.

Renee: It just shows you that religion wasn't restricted to temples or grand ceremonies, but embedded in everyday offerings, rituals, and daily life.

Renee: An animism is not exclusive to ancient Roman culture.

Renee: I'm sharing a quick story from Omega, my intern who I mentioned at the top.

Renee: When she was a kid, her family had left treats and snacks out for the Chinese kitchen god.

Renee: Adults had told her that at the end of the year, he would travel to heaven to report everything about the household to the jade emperor.

Renee: You sought to keep his mouth sweet, so he would say nice things.

Renee: She wrote in her note to me, quote, "sometimes I'd sneak a piece from the offering plate and eat it quickly, then whisper a quiet deal to the kitchen god. This one's just a small loan. Please don't mention it when you make your report."

Renee: I love this.

Renee: I thought this was really cute.

Renee: Thank you Omega for sharing this story.

Renee: Really, that's a great comparison of what was happening during this time period.

Renee: It could be pouring out a small amount of wine before a meal, animal sacrifices, of course, that we had talked about for Greek culture, but a variety of different practices and little rituals tucked in linked to spirits within the home.

Renee: The next and final tier that I'm going to be talking about are the nature and lifestyle deities.

Renee: As you can see, we have a little bit of a thread of connection, but we're within the house, we're in concept, and then we're also expanding out into broader nature.

Common Gods and Goddesses in Ancient Rome

Renee: Some of the top gods and goddesses during this time included Cometus, representing Oracle and Song, Ceres, overseeing agriculture and fertility, Flora, there's no surprise, flowers and springtime, Palatua, overseeing Palatine, which represents the high level courts or palaces.

Renee: As you can see here, this is borderline in the De Aroma department.

Renee: It's like giving a deity to specific structures and systems.

Renee: You have given one to the government, you're giving one to parts of the home, operations, different types of buildings.

Renee: We also have Promona related to fruit and abundance, Portunas connected to doors, keys, as well as livestock, Vulcan related to fire, Volternas overseeing the Tiber River slash rivers in general, and then Vesta connected to the hearth, home, and family.

Renee: I did a huge, huge deep dive into Vesta, which is what I'm really excited to share.

Renee: In addition to online research, the main book that I read to prepare for this mini series is A Rome of One's Own: The Forgotten Women of the Roman Empire by Emma Southon.

Renee: I really recommend it if you are interested in learning about women that have been erased from history.

Renee: There were a lot of really, really great stories in there, and it became very hard to pick.

Renee: She writes, "Women did not exist as individuals and could not be allowed the same agency as men.

Renee: Women existed as daughters, wives, and mothers as relations to men, and they could arrive only if men moved them, like chess pieces."

Renee: Historically here when we're talking about the Roman Empire, the capital, the central point was Rome, founded by a man named Romulus.

Renee: He claimed to be a descendant of Mars, in other words, Ares in Greek lore.

Renee: And upon its founding, it was in fact a male-only city.

Renee: That obviously became an issue for extending the population.

Renee: There's all these stories around how women were kidnapped.

Renee: A lot of these kidnappings resulted in sexual assaults, imprisonment.

Renee: This was not really a great time.

Renee: And as Emma was writing in the quote that I shared, the rights were very much not present because women were viewed as an extension of men who were the center of everything.

Renee: As a result, women who asserted independence and any sort of a desire for autonomy or power were portrayed throughout this time as villains.

The Roman Lore of Vesta

Renee: Now that we have a bit of a backdrop on the culture, we can talk about Vesta.

Renee: Vesta was the first born and last free child of Saturn, the father of Jupiter, and for means of translation, because we were using the Greek terms.

Renee: If you remember from the Greek Practices episode, Saturn is Kronos, Jupiter is Zeus.

Renee: She was later rewarded by Jupiter for her chastity and was gifted a hearth at the center of the home, which she tended to to maintain peace amongst the gods.

Renee: The storytelling about Vesta is incredibly minimal, and yet she was a very significant presence in society and had a huge impact on the lifestyles of the ancient Romans.

Vestals: Role, Responsibilities, and Sacrifices – Content Warnings for Sexual Assault and Murder

Renee: Vesta had six virginal women devoted to her called Vestals.

Renee: They were priestesses, which if you remember in our storytelling here, women were not of high status.

Renee: So this was in some ways a great gig.

Renee: I'll go through some of the cons later.

Renee: But it was viewed as an honor to be a Vestal.

Renee: And from 700 BCE to 782 BCE, it's estimated on simple math, 216 Vestals.

Renee: Historians suspect that there were significantly more.

Renee: And we actually only know the names of 65 of the likely many, many hundreds of women.

Renee: They were appointed by their parents before turning 10 years old.

Renee: And they had to remain single, unattached, and virginal for 30 years.

Renee: Women were often very quickly paired off with husbands, and they would worship in pairs, and that became a general practice.

Renee: So you have someone chosen as a child, forced to, or viewing it as an honor, probably some blend of both, commit to this role for 30 years.

Renee: And what they did was maintain a sacred hearth in a temple in the center of Rome, around the clock, feeding, fueling, monitoring this flame.

Renee: They also looked after sacra, which were sacred objects kept in a special room.

Renee: Ultimately, they were chosen to act as human extensions of her.

Renee: Why they had six women at a time in this role, I did not see, but they just had a group of them.

Renee: And it probably helped with maintaining the fire around the clock because they could take shifts.

Renee: The Vestals also had the power to pardon criminals, even with a single look.

Renee: Now back to the 30-year oath.

Renee: We don't have any record or consensus across historians exactly why 30 years was chosen.

Renee: However, if we want to pull in a little bit of astrology here, Saturn is linked to an approximately 30-year cycle when you have a Saturn return, 28 to 30 years.

Renee: So it could be the reason the Vestals swore this oath for years is because that was the Saturn cycle.

Renee: And what would happen at the end of the years, assuming that they lasted the whole time, they could choose if they wanted to remain in that role.

Renee: So they finally had a choice.

Renee: Now, they've reached somewhere between 30 and 40 years old.

Renee: And they can decide if they want to stay in this high status role or go to a regular life, which they've basically never known.

Renee: What was positive for women about this role is they had a status, they had a position in society, they had a job, something that was a higher calling.

Renee: And they had a power, the pardoning, they had some sort of ability that could change the course of events in society.

Renee: The cons, however, they were chosen against their will.

Renee: They were forced to stay in this position.

Renee: If they failed to keep the fire lit or maintain their purity, even if they were assaulted, it did not matter.

Renee: They would be severely punished and or stripped of this role.

Renee: Punishments could include public murder.

Renee: If something bad was happening in the Roman Empire, such as a widespread disease, government issues, or an ongoing war, there are multiple stories of vestals being buried alive.

Renee: What you can imagine here is that there was an underground area shoveled out and they would take the vestal, put them in there with a blanket, loaf of bread, some food.

Renee: The priests would be faced away so they weren't looking, but then they would cover the hole up.

Renee: Essentially, it was a human sacrifice, so they picked somebody that was super holy and sacred and they were sacrificing them.

Renee: But then they were acting like they weren't actually sacrificing them because the priest isn't watching and they gave them food in a blanket, and it's just, oh, well, I guess they're going to die out because they're going to run out of oxygen.

Renee: Terrible.

Renee: In the book I cited, you can hear those different stories and learn about those women as examples.

Renee: Even the women who were prized, who were honored given a role of privilege and status, they were able to be discarded, used as a tool for the quote benefit of Dea Roma.

The Dawn on Christianity

Renee: Speaking of priests, we can't talk about Ancient Rome without discussing Christianity.

Renee: Up until now, the spirituality in Ancient Rome was very much rooted in the polytheism, nature, rigid routine of sacrifices, rituals and daily practice, in order to stay in favor of the gods.

Renee: We're gonna hop in our time machine and fast forward past the end of the Hellenistic period into 300 CE or AD.

Renee: In this time period, known as the Great Persecution, the Roman Emperor Diocletian ordered the destruction of Christian books.

Renee: So in those first few centuries of AD or CE, this religion was emerging, but there was a really strong current in history, not even just in Rome, as we know, we talked about it in Greece, which was overlapping this entire time, polytheistic religions.

Renee: And here we even had some politics based religions.

Renee: And so any sort of practices that were emerging that felt completely in contrast, and think about this, you're having this group come in saying, oh, there's just one God.

Renee: And here's all these stories.

Renee: There's going to be major, major resistance.

Renee: Diocletian was having any Christian books destroyed within the next years after that.

Renee: So still in the early 300s, the Emperor Constantine took over and he completely flipped the script.

Renee: Not only did he allow Christian books, but he was even having many texts published by the end of the fourth century.

Renee: So this is 300 to 400 CE.

Renee: The Roman Empire officially adopted Christianity at one time.

Renee: It was Sybele, essentially a mother nature goddess.

Renee: And now we have Christianity dictated as the official state religion.

Renee: And because there were so many texts and versions that were written over the hundreds of years, they then had to start deciding which texts were the official one that they wanted people to be following.

Renee: And I'll note here that the earliest complete Christian Bibles were the Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, and Codex Alexandrinus.

Renee: These were all written in Greek and dated from the 4th to 5th centuries.

Renee: We spoke in detail about the value of rituals in ancient Rome.

Renee: So what does this mean for this transition?

Renee: You'd think it would be a very tough habit to drop, right?

Renee: And that means that there had to be an evolution over these hundreds and hundreds of years.

Renee: But also these rituals and practices never actually went away.

Renee: They just kind of became something else.

Renee: So what was accustomed to the people was repackaged.

Renee: So in a way it would feel familiar, but then the practices themselves were different.

The Seven Sacraments

Renee: And this brings us to the era of Roman Catholicism with the seven sacraments.

Renee: Remember how the Vestals guarded Sacra?

Renee: This is an example of a through-line.

Renee: It was already understood hundreds and hundreds of years prior that there were sacred objects, sacred acts, sacred people.

Renee: And a theologian and Catholic convert, St. Augustine, during this time period, said that sacraments were visible signs of grace because they were literal acts to demonstrate your belief and the experience of God's presence.

Renee: Over time, there was a shift to a defined set of rigid sacraments that became infused in the teachings.

Renee: Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Reconciliation, Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders and Matrimony.

Renee: Most of these are rooted in lore, stories associated with Jesus in the Gospels.

Renee: For example, we have the baptism, which is linked to Jesus' own baptism, his command for disciples to baptize others, the Eucharist, originating from the Last Supper, Jesus forgiving people's sins, that's Reconciliation, appointing disciples, that's the Holy Orders, healing the sick, anointing of the sick, him blessing a wedding, marriage ceremony.

Renee: As you can see there, Roman lore was directly informing daily life and practices.

Renee: Rather than participating in rituals in the home or temples, public grounds, sacred spaces, to worship any number of gods or goddesses, the energy over the hundreds of years and centuries was redirected towards the single god.

The Impact of Ancient Rome's Religious Transition

Renee: And this reflects a hugely pivotal time in history that has had major ripple effects and also ramifications still felt today.

Renee: What would the world look like today if Emperor Constantine had not ordered the printing and distribution of these Christian texts, if he hadn't made Christianity the official religion of a very massive empire?

Renee: Well, we know something that came after that was the Crusades, the 11th through the 13th century, which saw millions of deaths on behalf of this religion.

Renee: And there's so many other sequences of events and wars leading up to the present time.

Renee: And of course, I won't even get into all of them.

Renee: This is why stories matter.

Renee: This is why who is telling stories and who is promoting, withholding, or erasing them matters.

Renee: People in power, rewriting history and what truth is in real time, has massive consequences.

Renee: Not only in what people remember, even those who were alive during those time periods, but who makes it into the history books.

Renee: Consider those stories of Forgotten Women.

Renee: Plus, what their actual byline says.

Renee: Who was this person?

Renee: What did they contribute?

Renee: Were they good?

Renee: Were they bad?

Renee: As a closing thought here, it made me think of the song in Hamilton.

Renee: Who lives?

Renee: Who dies?

Renee: Who tells your story?

Renee: Thank you so much for listening.

Renee: I do want to include a little caveat here.

Renee: Obviously, I am not a religious scholar, and my focus here was on general spirituality and weaving together certain themes.

Renee: If you want a more in-depth look at the religions or spiritual practices that I mentioned today, look to many, many other books, texts, podcasts, resources.

Renee: But I do hope that the lore here tickled your brain, made you pause to research something, or got you inspired to read and learn a little bit more.

Renee: Speaking of reading, the next book club, our Soul Rising Book Club, will be covering chapters 8 through 11.

Renee: Make sure to read those before the next episode drops.

Renee: And I will tease here that there are themes from today's conversation that will appear because, of course, because of course there are.

Renee: I couldn't believe it.

Renee: I was researching for this episode.

Renee: And then I had my channel time block to get through however many chapters I could get through during that period.

Renee: I'm sitting there reading it like, are you kidding me?

Renee: Why is the content in these chapters so similar to what I am researching for the podcast right now?

Renee: What is this podcast if not Divine Timing?

Christine: Thanks for listening.

Christine: If you'd like to learn more, the resources we used to prepare for this episode are listed in the show notes.

Renee: If you're curious to develop your intuition, we've partnered with the Nuurvana Be Light program to give our listeners a $500 discount on tuition fees.

Renee: Email us for more details and we'll connect you with the founder, Deganit Nuur.

Christine: Want to connect with us?

Christine: You can reach me, Christine, @ChanneledbyChristine with one L on Instagram.

Renee: And you can reach me, Renee, @_readbyrenee, or connect with both of us via email at synergytosynastry@gmail.com.

Christine: Keep your spirit curious and your aura sparkling.

Renee: We'll see you when the stars next align.

Outro

Renee: What am I missing here?

Renee: Am I missing anything here?

Renee: Does this even make any sense?

Renee: Well, that's all she wrote, people.