Pilgrimage according to a philosopher : a tribute to Michel Meslin

Abstract

In the preface to the study on L 'Homme Romain, M. Meslin has declared that through the analysis of the cultural and religious values underlying the action of the Romans from their origins to the beginning of the Christian era, he sought above all to help us understand the attraction mixed with horror, the fascination laced with distaste, that Rome has continued to exercise for two thousand years, right up to our own day. In fact, M. Meslin has utilized the vast historical knowledge that he developed over many years of scientific study of all the vestiges of the past with which the Mediterranean world is so heavily laden in order to build over very solid empirical foundations a systematic and original anthropology of religion of the greatest contemporary interest.