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On 06/01/2006 20:15, Padraic Brown wrote:
Cool. The speakers of my romconlang family aresupposed to have a funky constructed religion. I tried to make something a bit like as if classical Roman religion had gone through something like the process that "streamlined" archaic Iranian religion into Zoroastrianism.Sounds interesting. Would Mithraism take part in that at all?
Kind of, but not directly. I took some inspiration from the bits of Mithraism that were most similar to Christianity (significance of son of a solar/sky deity) and Mithraism's popularity within the military, though I wanted to lose the more exclusivistic elements of Mithraism (or it wouldn't have sufficient popular appeal :)
I decided an original IE-style Roman-like pantheon would be streamlined by a particular reformer into focus on a trinity of solar god, chthonic goddess, and divine culture hero son (who seen as the founder of my Romance-speakers' original city state, sort of like Romulus/Remus and Mithra rolled together with a bit of Mars :). Other deities would be relegated to positions more like the angels/saints (kind of like the Zoroastrian ahuras).
This streamlining is originally the work of a spiritual reformer (vaguely inspired by Numa Pompilius). However, it takes place at a time in history when my pseudo-Romance speakers are developing a militaristic empire, and a later reformer (lossely inspired by Tullus Hostilius) who makes the religion more evangelistic and militaristic, making close identification between the emperor and the chief solar deity (and the divine culture hero son). This new version of the cult is first promoted popularized within the military, which spreads it as the empire spreads. Civil administrators and military commanders come to have roles as religious leaders, though military and civil society have slightly different emphases in the their expression of the faith with seperate priestly hierachries -- but everything is ultimately headed by the emperor as a (semi?)divine representative of the gods.
Eventually, the empire declines and falls (of course! ;). Actual civil administration and military function in the territories of the former empire come to be handled by kings of barbarian invaders, though these come to adopt the imperial religion and allow the former imperial civilian and military structures retain ritual roles: the offices of the former imperial civilian administration evolve into a lay priesthood, while the former imperial military structure evolves into a monastic priesthood, both linked back to a pope-like high priest figure who continues the emperor's religious functions.
That's the basic idea. I'm toying with having -- in lieu of the sorts of crusades we have in Real History -- the advent of a high-priest who wants to transform himself back into an emperor in the old style by whipping up the faithful in a campaign to restore the political unity and glory of the old empire. Haven't quite worked out how it would all work in the pseudo-history, but it would promise to be big, dramatic, and messy :)
Admittedly, most of my conlang work regarding this conreligion involves trying to cook up names alternate names for important gods and new titles for officials and priests and suchlike!
I'll have to scope the madeupreligions group :)Please do! The group could use some discussion.
Though their group's blurb _seemed_ to indicate that members were chiefly making up religions they were actually going to practice, and I wouldn't necessarily recommend people practice my made-up Roman-derived religion at any stage of its pseudo-history :) Though perhaps I misread it!
Cheers, Carl -- Carl Edlund Anderson mailto:cea@hidden.email http://www.carlaz.com/