Fabio Mora

Ancient Authors and Religion Fabio Mora

The ancient historian not as an objective source, but rather as a subjectivity worthy to be studied, in order to perceive the ancient perception of religion. This is what associate two of my books (1986 on Herodotus and 1995 on Dionysius), against e.g. 1994 on Arnobius. The core of the book on Herodotus is the perception of his theological perspective, finding a place for Greek universalistic assertion of their own pantheon as a global understanding of reality within the wider framework of ancient and superior civilization. More analytically the book on Dionysius (before comparing his selective adoption of former narratives with Livius' and Plutarch's) analyses not only his Greek perception of Roman gods and Roman realities, but also the details of expressions used to speak of religious entities. In the same direction go the papers collected under the title Ancient authors and religion: three concern Herodotus, and the first, interpreting his reticence on Egyptian cults through interference with Greek mystery cults, is my very promising debut. The same topic was resumed, with an extension to Greek Theatre, in a collective book, later translated into English, while the 1986 on his European ethnography only completes what said in my book. The book on Dionysius should have been the first of a trilogy, touching also Plutarch and Posidonius: I am still very convinced of my interpretation of Posidonius, as a watershed introducing a new methodological perspective in ancient ethnography, but on him everything and yet the complete opposite has been written. Why also write on a Posidonius, which in any case might be refused as my, subjective Posidonius? And yet, if he is the watershed in ancient ethnography and in what I call (naive, not yet enough reflexed) ancient Religionswissenschaftliches Denken, without studying him, there is no chance to complete a panorama, where only a few voices really count: on Herodotus I have already written, and on Dionysius too; Posidonius-Strabo is the further major perspective to delineate, and then Plutarch. And so the two papers on Posidonius (SMSR 1993; Fenomenologia 2009, but delivered 2004) are central to my thought, in that they show the methodological innovation I tribute to Posidonius as a decisive step in ancient Religionswissenschaftliches Denken, highlighted in the 1999 recapitulative paper. Even more important is however, in the same 1999, the opposition of good and bad historiography in Storiografia greca and romana.