Nietzsche e os romanos

Abstract

Much has been discussed in Nietzsche research about Nietzsche's evident relationship with Ancient Greece, from Thales of Miletus to Plato. Now, it is not possible to say the same when it comes to Nietzsche's relationship with the Romans. However, when we consider what the philosopher explains in the chapter entitled What I owe to the ancients present in Twilight of the Idols (1889), we find statements by Nietzsche himself stating that the Romans were more decisive than the Greeks regarding the constitution of their style. It will also be in this chapter that Nietzsche will consider the Roman aere perennius as a style that would have instilled in him the ambition of constituting and eternalizing his own philosophical project. On the other hand, when we consider especially what is exposed in Aurora (1881) and Antichrist (1888) we find Rome being used by Nietzsche in his criticism of christian morality. This criticism of christian morality was also carried out by the philosopher in The Genealogy of Morals (1887), a work in which Nietzsche supports the thesis that every healthy culture is made up of two classes, the class of masters and the class of servants. The first class would be responsible for creating and managing the values ​​of the current culture, the second class, in turn, would follow and celebrate such values. For Nietzsche, in christianity this order was inverted, as it is the servants who perform the function of the masters, and, with this change, the characteristics of the servants begin to subjugate the characteristics of the masters, in other words, christians who were previously dominated by romans, now exercise the function of masters. In this way, the legacy of Rome will be targeted by christians as an object for their revenge. In short, this entire journey aims to answer the following question: What did Nietzsche owe to the Romans?