Jacob Latham: Claiming Romanitas: Christian Polemic against the Cult of Magna Mater in Late Antique Rome

Christian polemic against Roman traditional religions has been construed as shadow-boxing. Not so. Rather, late antique Christian authors repeated classical criticisms of the still vibrant cult of Magna Mater both to question the romanitas (a term coined by Tertullian) its aristocratic adherents and to claim that Roman-ness for themselves. From its arrival at Rome in the late third century BCE until the high empire, the Metroac cult was viewed with anxiety, if not always hostility. In Late Antiquity, by contrast, aristocrats increasingly participated in and advertised their affiliations with the cult. Such participation was unsurprising—over the centuries the cult achieved a prominent public position among the religions of Rome—but it did stand in tension with earlier classical literature, especially Martial, a late antique favorite, whose invective against the cult bordered on camp.
And so, Christian authors could pose as defenders of Roman-ness against “oriental” alterity by repeating the polemic of classical literature, a central pillar of elite Roman identity. That is, Christian invective exploited a gap between religious affiliation and Roman tradition. “Parroting” classical literature was not antiquarian, but effective strategy. The aristocrats who participated in the rites of Magna Mater as a means to establish a traditional Roman identity were now, according to classicizing Christian rhetoric, no longer Roman. Participation had become an accusation. In short, Christian authors deployed classically defined romanitas in an effort to claim Roman-ness from the aristocracy of Rome, its ostensible standard bearers.