From Ancient Rome to Colonial Mexico

Religious Globalization in the Context of Empire

David Charles Wright-Carr, Francisco Marco Simón, David Charles Wright-Carr, Francisco Marco Simón

• Publisher: University Press of Colorado
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9781646423156
• eBook ISBN: 9781646423163
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Latin American & Caribbean History
• Index: History

From Ancient Rome to Colonial Mexico compares the Christianization of the Roman Empire with the evangelization of Mesoamerica, offering novel perspectives on the historical processes involved in the spread of Christianity. Combining concepts of empire and globalization with the notion of religion from a postcolonial perspective, the book proposes the method of analytical comparison as a point of departure to conceptualize historical affinities and differences between the ancient Roman Empire and colonial Mesoamerica.

An international team of specialists in classical scholarship and Mesoamerican studies engage in an interdisciplinary discussion involving ideas from history, anthropology, archaeology, art history, iconography, and philology. Key themes include the role of religion in processes of imperial domination; religion's use as an instrument of resistance or the imposition, appropriation, incorporation, and adaptation of various elements of religious systems by hegemonic groups and subaltern peoples; the creative misunderstandings that can arise on the "middle ground"; and Christianity's rejection of ritual violence and its use of this rejection as a pretext for inflicting other kinds of violence against peoples classified as "barbarian," "pagan," or "diabolical."

From Ancient Rome to Colonial Mexico presents a sympathetic vantage point for discussing and attempting to decipher past processes of social communication in multicultural contexts of present-day realities. It will be significant for scholars and specialists in the history of religions, ethnohistory, classical antiquity, and Mesoamerican studies.

Publication supported, in part, by Spain's Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness.

Contributors: Sergio Botta,Maria Celia Fontana Calvo, Martin Devecka, György Németh, Guilhem Olivier, Francisco Marco Simón, Paolo Taviani, Greg Woolf, David Charles Wright-Carr, Lorenzo Pérez Yarza
Translators: Emma Chesterman, Benjamin Adam Jerue, Layla Wright-Contreras

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. Ritual Mediation on the Middle Ground: Rome and New Spain Compared
• 2. A Long Way to Become Christian: Romans, Hungarians, and the Nahua
• 3. Human Sacrifice and the Religion of the Other: Barbarians, Pagans, and Aztecs
• 4. The Aztec Sun and Its Mesoamerican Milieu from a Classical Mediterranean Perspective
• 5. Donkeys and Hares: The Enemy Warrior in the Early European Chronicles of the Conquest
• 6. Cultural Persistence and Appropriation in the Huamantla Map
• 7. Comparison and the Franciscan Construction of Mesoamerican Polytheism through Augustine of Hippo’s De Civitate Dei
• 8. Bernardino de Sahagún on Nahua Astrology and Divination: Greco-Roman Traditions, Christian Disapproval and Ambiguity, and Mesoamerican Practices
• 9. A Version of the Millennial Kingdom in the Portería of the Franciscan Convent in Cholula, Mexico
• 10. Smoking Stones and Smoking Mirrors: The Limits of Antiquarianism in New Spain
• Index
• Contributors