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Volume 5, Issue 1
  • ISSN: 2052-3998
  • E-ISSN: 2052-4005

Abstract

This article discusses the previously unexplored intersection of the reception of classical antiquity in extreme metal with Satanic and anti-Christian themes. It is demonstrable that the phenomenon has roots in the genesis of extreme metal itself, especially in its inheritance from biblical and literary history of the associations between Satan and Roman emperors. As extreme metal evolved over the past three decades, that theme combined with the perception that imperial Rome had undertaken widespread and sustained persecutions of Christians, including spectacular executions for the sake of popular entertainment, throughout the three-century history of the early Church. This is despite the consensus of many modern historians that the Romans were largely tolerant of Christians and persecutions were brief, isolated, more humane, and cost much fewer lives than early Christian sources suggest. It is evident that metal artists inherit, and thereby perpetuate, a tradition manufactured by Christian sources that have largely been debunked; yet these artists depart from those Christian sources by denying the appeal of martyrdom and shifting sympathies to imperial Rome and its ‘Satanic’ emperors. Like Satan himself, these emperors function as symbols of masculine aggression and liberation of the passions from contemporary political and moral systems. Such anti-establishment sentiments, especially among Italian artists, can manifest in fantasies of a Roman Empire reborn. By their artistic license, extreme metal artists continue to reshape a literary and artistic legacy of the imperial Rome and constructions of persecution narratives developed over the course of the late antique, medieval and modern periods.

© 2019 Intellect Ltd
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/content/journals/10.1386/mms.5.1.35_1
2019-03-01
2024-09-16
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/content/journals/10.1386/mms.5.1.35_1
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  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): Christianity; Classics; extreme metal; Nero; persecution; reception; Roman Empire; Satan

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