Mean Gods Part 4
In my previous Mean Gods blogs, we discovered the Roman gods’ all-consuming and intimate role in daily life. From sunrise to sunset, people honored the gods—praying in the morning, before meals, when sealing a business deal, falling in love, having a child, setting out on a journey, or just buying food. Religious practices were deeply woven into even the smallest aspects of existence. It was your performance before the gods and society that proved your devotion.
And failing to honor the gods wasn’t just a personal risk. Divine wrath could extend to an entire city or empire.
This brings us back to the Roman virtue of Pietas, or piety—an unshakable duty to fulfill one’s obligations to the gods. These sacred responsibilities weren’t just personal routines but community-wide obligations carried out by temple priests, elected officials, or government leaders who also held priestly titles. Their duties included elaborate rites of prayers, rituals, sacrifices, and festivals, all meticulously performed to (Marcus Arelius © José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro) honor a specific god or goddess.
And precision was everything. A single mistake—a priest stumbling over an incantation, incense burning out too soon, or a sacrificial bull resisting its fate—could render the entire ritual invalid, requiring the ceremony to be repeated. Failure to properly honor the gods was no trivial matter; it was an offense that could bring famine, disease, earthquakes, or volcanic destruction.
Vesuvius volcano Pompeii
RealCarlo, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org
/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Festivals weren’t just about ritual sacrifices; they were grand spectacles meant to display public devotion. Lavish feasts, music, processions, gladiatorial combat, wild animal hunts, theatrical performances, and chariot races were all offered in honor of the gods, demonstrating gratitude and pleading for continued favor. Because the gods were as fickle their blessings as they were in their punishments. (CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)
This was the world the early Christians lived in—a world where refusing to worship the emperor-god was more than an act of personal belief. It was a public insult, a dangerous rejection of the divine protectors of Rome. To deny the gods of the empire was to endanger not only yourself but your entire community.
And so, Christians—who refused to participate in the state-mandated worship—were labeled
atheists. Not because they didn’t believe in a god, but because they rejected the gods of Rome. This wasn’t just heresy—it was treason. A crime punishable by death.
The martyrdom of early Christians wasn’t simply an act of persecution; it was, in the eyes of their neighbors, a necessary defense. To Romans, Christians were seen as reckless outliers, risking divine wrath upon everyone by their defiance. Their refusal to honor the gods wasn’t just dangerous—it was unforgivable.
And so, the real atheists of the ancient world were not those who had no gods at all, but those who refused to worship Rome’s.
(John Joseph Kilpin Fletcher, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
This blog also seen on HHHistory.com – https://www.hhhistory.com/2025/05/mean-gods-part-4-will-real-atheist.html