4. Mos maiorum

[music] It was told that once Giulio Cesare, the great editor of the Lord of Rome, had had an incident of the letter he was transmitting it to him. From that moment he had the habit of reciting a certain hymn before going out on the letter. And, as a latin writer says, with time this hymn had become a moss, a custom, we would say, that is, they all did it. This gives us an idea of how a custom could be born in Rome, that is, it could be an individual thing, a person who began to do a certain thing, who liked it, and gradually this custom spread. [music] This describes Barron, another great ancient Lodite, when it is said that a moss was born as a judgment of the soul, it is said, but then he needed to reach the consensus of the community, that is, they all had to accept it, and above all he had to age like wine, that is, the moss is inveterated, it should be aged like wine, then it really becomes a custom, an habit. [music] This is "Parole che raccontano", a podcast by Sanoma made with Chora Media. This episode is written and read by Maurizio Bettini. For the Romans, moss is, first of all, the major moss, that is, the custom of the ancestors. Who are these maiores? Well, the maiores are fundamental figures of the Roman culture. First of all, the word that distinguishes them means "the greatest", because "major" means "greater" in Latin, so "majores" are the major ones, the greatest, the highest ones, the ones that go further back in time. But it also indicates that, being bigger, they were more authoritative, more important. The ancestors for the Romans are an abyss. These were the ancestors, these were the ancestors, they didn't do it, so we did it, and we didn't do it this way, so they were just, how to say, the arbiters, they embodied the code of behavior of the Romans, and this code of behavior was represented by the maiores, of which the greatest of the ancestors were somehow the managers, the administrators, we could say. There are four words in Latin that are very powerful, small and very powerful, and these words are "mos", then "lex", then "legge", then "yus", the right, a fundamental thing for all the Romans, and then "fas", the divine law or the supreme law of which we will talk for a moment. Is there an etymology to "mos"? It's hard to say. So maybe "mos" comes from a radical "me", which means "measure", to be the measure, but who knows. We are never that much interested in the etymology of "mos", how much we were interested in how it worked. The maiores maiorum, the "mos maiorum", regulated the Roman life with a very wide horizon. According to the "mos maiorum" we had the deliberations of the Senate, for example. There were four ways of deliberating in the Senate that were established by the "mos maiorum". Then there was the religion, the religion, Rome was not founded on a book like ours, that Christian one, which has behind it the Bible, the Old Testament, the New Testament, which is a bit of a rule. In Rome there was no book of religion. There was the custom of the ancestors that regulated what? The priests, the rituals, the sacrifices. In short, everything that regarded the religious life was, in some way, exemplary on the custom of the ancestors. Then there was the right. This is very important for the Romans. The right for the Romans is everything on them, basically, which they then invented. Even the Jews derived from the "mos". That is, the sources of the right were taken from the custom. But then, even for minimal things, they were regulated by the "mos". For example, at the end of a comedy, the author, the great comedographer, could say, "Well, now applaud the spectators, how is "mos" to do, how is "costume" to do? Even this was a custom. And there were even rules of the "buffles". For example, the ancients always tell us that it was "mos" that the actors, when they entered the scene, wore the "subligacula", that is, to say, practically forgive the mutants. They could not go without the mutants, because it was against the "mos". This could not be done. This is, how to say, a phenomenology of the "mos". Everything that the "mos" could contemplate were immutable. The "mos". The "mores". No, they were not immutable. The "mores" changed in time. They changed in time, how they change costumes in time. It is a curious thing, because on the one hand, the Romans say that they strictly adhere to the costume of the antenates. On the other hand, however, this costume of the antenates is regularly reviewed, discussed and gradually moved. For this reason, the Roman society has moved so much in the course of time. There is one thing for Rome that does not change, and it is the other word that is together with the "mos", that is, "fas". What is "fas"? It is the non-negotiable law, the law that regulates the behavior not only of the Romans, but of all men, what basically represents the natural law. What is "contra fas"? For example, the incest. What is "contra fas"? Celebrating a sacrifice a day in which it is forbidden to do it. Here, this is very different from the "mos", because "contramore" can be given, it can be put into discussion in the "mos". The "fas" never. The words they tell are part of "Ascoltando si impara", the series of podcasts by Dattici made by Sanoma in collaboration with Coramidia. The words they tell are written by Maurizio Bettini and Mario Lentano for their history courses published by Sanoma. The ideation is by Giacomo Ombrosi and Andrea Rizzotti. The production is by Coramidia. The voice is by Maurizio Bettini.