"Mars, when guilty of homicide, and set free from the charge of murder by the Athenians through favour, lest he should appear to be too fierce and savage, committed adultery with Venus"
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A pagan god walks into court, gets a friendly acquittal, and immediately proves the prosecution's point. Lactantius stages this as a kind of moral slapstick: Mars is spared the verdict he "deserves" because the Athenians don't want their war-god to look excessively bloodthirsty, and the very next beat is sexual transgression. The sequence is the argument. Mercy granted for appearances turns into license; civic PR becomes ethical collapse.
The subtext is sharper than a simple "pagan myths are immoral". Lactantius is attacking a whole cultural system that treats reputation as governance. The Athenians aren't weighing justice; they're managing brand: a god can't be too "fierce and savage" because the polis wants to seem orderly, rational, civilized. That self-flattery curdles into complicity. If the city launders homicide with "favour", what stops the god from treating every boundary as negotiable?
Context matters: Lactantius is a Christian apologist writing as the Roman world is transitioning toward Christianity, when elite culture still leaned on classical myth as moral and civic glue. His move is to weaponize the myths against their keepers. By pointing out that the divine exemplars of the old religion are serial offenders, he implies that pagan worship trains citizens in moral incoherence: you can't tell people to honor the gods and then act shocked when honor starts to look like indulgence.
It's also a jab at Athenian prestige. The city famed for law and philosophy becomes, in Lactantius's telling, the place where law bends and philosophy makes excuses for power.
The subtext is sharper than a simple "pagan myths are immoral". Lactantius is attacking a whole cultural system that treats reputation as governance. The Athenians aren't weighing justice; they're managing brand: a god can't be too "fierce and savage" because the polis wants to seem orderly, rational, civilized. That self-flattery curdles into complicity. If the city launders homicide with "favour", what stops the god from treating every boundary as negotiable?
Context matters: Lactantius is a Christian apologist writing as the Roman world is transitioning toward Christianity, when elite culture still leaned on classical myth as moral and civic glue. His move is to weaponize the myths against their keepers. By pointing out that the divine exemplars of the old religion are serial offenders, he implies that pagan worship trains citizens in moral incoherence: you can't tell people to honor the gods and then act shocked when honor starts to look like indulgence.
It's also a jab at Athenian prestige. The city famed for law and philosophy becomes, in Lactantius's telling, the place where law bends and philosophy makes excuses for power.
Quote Details
| Topic | Betrayal |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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