The living polytheism of ancient Rome.
Virtue
So the last couple of days have had me thinking about virtue and how it intersects with my own practice.
I'm a member of ADF, which encourages the study of nine core virtues as part of one's Dedicant Path study - you can find a nice .pdf study guide here - but ultimately leaves things open to the individual practitioner.
Nova Roma also offers lists of civic and private virtues that they consider to be central to Roman culture. In antiquity, some were also the names of deities (e.g. Fortuna), and could be found on coinage.
When I was in college, I minored in Philosophy because I was struggling to find the Right Answers(TM) to some things. I'd grown up different in a hundred ways, spent time in an abusive relationship having to defend any divergent opinion, believed things my family didn't, etc.
I left college knowing that finding Right Answers(TM) isn't so simple.
Looking to history, or doing comparative studies, or adopting a religious path with a built-in ethics, or observing our own modern cultures...none of these things will yeild the same answers to different people. Context, interpretation, etc. all have an effect.
This was true in Antiquity as well. Consider the Epicureans and the Stoics, whose views of the world led them to value different things, to see virtue differently. Even within each of those schools, from their Greek originators to their late Roman counterparts whose work even got the stamp of approval from their early Christian contemporaries -- I'm looking at you, Seneca -- disagreed among one another.
My own work on this isn't over. I'm curious: how do others navigate this? How do you choose? How do you do the work of virtue?



