Ancient Roman Culture

Today’s society knows quite a bit about ancient Roman culture. While much of it owes credit to excavation cites and artifacts, a major contributor to the knowledge possessed today is ancient texts of the time. Texts provide an inside look into what the people were thinking at the time the documents were written. They provide great detail on the culture of the society in which they were created for. Much of today’s knowledge on how the people viewed the emperors, the gods, and the Jewish community comes from texts of ancient Roman people. It is common knowledge that the Romans worshipped gods. Their culture relies heavily on making the gods happy. They have gods for thunder, gods of the gods, gods of fertility, gods of the sea, and many more. To make the gods happy, they made offerings to them in hopes that good fortune would then come their way. Not so well known, however, is the fact that Roman society also treated their emperors like gods as well. While there have always been statues and monuments of the emperors, after Alexander the Great, cults were created not only to pray to the gods for the wellbeing of emperors but also worship towards the emperors themselves (Martin, 132-133). This …show more content…
For decades the Romans had enforced harsh rules against the Jewish community. This resulted in much displeasure and hostility within the Jewish society, which set the fire for passionate revolts (Martin, 148). Evidence of these revolts are found within the article “Letter of Claudius to the Alexandrias” as well, where it is stated, “As for which party was responsible for the riot and feud (or rather, if the truth must be told, the war) with the Jews…” (Letter of Claudius, 287). While the Jewish people fought feverously for their cause, their movement was ultimately put down. The war officially ended when emperor Titus burnt down the Jewish Temple in A.D. 70 (Martin,