This original Roman spirit was based on a human type characterized by a group of typical dispositions. Among them we should include self-control, an enlightened boldness, a concise speech and determined and coherent conduct, and a cold dominating attitude, exempt from personalism and vanity. To the Roman style belong virtus, in the sense not of moralism, but of virile spirit and courage; fortitudo and constantia, namely spiritual strength; sapientia, in the sense of thoughtfulness and awareness; disciplina, understood as love for a self-given law and form; fides, in the specifically Roman sense of loyalty and faithfulness; and dignitas, which in the ancient patrician aristocracy became gravitas and solemnitas, a studied and moderate seriousness. The same style is characterized by deliberate actions, without grand gestures; a realism that is not materialism, but rather love for the essential; the ideal of clarity, which eventually turned into rationalism in only some Latin peoples; an inner equilibrium and a healthy suspicion for every confused form of mysticism; a love for boundaries; the readiness to unite, as free human beings and without losing one’s identity, in view of a higher goal or for an idea. We may also add religio and pietas, which do not mean “religiosity” in the Christian sense of the word, but instead signify for a Roman an attitude of respectful and dignified veneration for the gods and, at the same time, of trust and re-connection with the supernatural, which was experienced as omnipresent and effective in terms of individual, collective, and historical forces. Obviously, I am far from suggesting that every Roman man and woman embodied these traits; however, they represented the “dominant factor” and were embodied in the ideal that everybody perceived to be specifically Roman.
Der nicht kämpft hat schon verloren - Who does not fight has already lost
Organitza’t a nivell local!
Defensa el teu espai!