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Explore the timline of Roman Religion. In many societies, ancient and modern, religion has performed a major role in their development, and the Roman Empire was no different. From the beginning Roman religion was polytheistic.
- Donald L. Wasson
Roman religio (from which the English word “religion” derives) signified an obligation to the gods. According to this principle, Romans were expected to pay attention to divine and religious matters, including the most important aspect of religious practice, sacrifice.
Jul 10, 2023 · Roman religio (from which the English word “religion” derives) signified an obligation to the gods. According to this principle, Romans were expected to pay attention to divine and religious matters, including the most important aspect of religious practice, sacrifice.
This article sketches the main lines of change in the religious life of the region ruled by the Romans, including much of Europe, Western Asia, and North Africa, from the later Republic ( c. 200 bce–c. 31 bce) into the earlier centuries of the Roman Empire (down to the 4th century ce ).
- Imperial Attitudes Toward and Uses of Religion
- Magic and Divination
- The Imperial Cult
- "Oriental" Influences
- Religious Pluralism?
- Role of Women
- Evidence
- State Repression and Persecution
- See Also
- Bibliography
Augustus and his contemporaries thought, or perhaps in some cases wanted other people to think, that the preceding age (roughly the period from the Gracchi to Caesar) had seen a decline in the ancient Roman care for gods. Augustus himself stated in the public record known as the Res gestae that he had restored eighty-two temples and shrines (in one...
A striking development of the imperial period was that the concept of magic emerged as the ultimate superstitio, a system whose principles were parodic of and in opposition to true religio. The definition of magic is contentious and hotly debated. In the nineteenth and earlier part of the twentieth century, many theorists (especially Sir James Fraz...
The imperial cult was many things to many people. Indeed, it can be said that there was no "imperial cult;" instead, there were many "imperial cults," as appropriate in many different contexts. The emperor never became a complete god, even if he was considered a god, because he was not requested to produce miracles, even for supposed deliverance fr...
It has long been standard to employ the category "Oriental religions" in discussing the new religious options in imperial Rome. This category was first widely used, if not invented, by the Belgian scholar Franz Cumont in the early years of the twentieth century in his pioneering studies of Roman religion. For Cumont, the key to understanding the re...
There is a constant danger of either overrating or underrating the influence of these Oriental cults on the fabric of the Roman Empire. If, for instance, Mithraists knew of the Zoroastrian deity Angra Mainyu, what did he mean to them? How did this knowledge affect the larger society? At a superficial level these cults can be seen as an antidote to ...
Gender had always been a factor in the organization of cults. It is important to consider how the appeal of the various cults to different genders determined the membership of new religions. The official civic cults of Rome were principally in the control of men—though there were some exceptions (e.g. Vestal Virgins). Some cults and festivals deman...
Epigraphy and archaeology are the starting point for analysis of the religious history of the Roman Empire. Both types of evidence are the actual products of religious adherents of the period, designed to promote or support their religious actions and beliefs. The interpretation of the iconography of objects, the design of buildings, and the formul...
The Roman state had always interfered with the freedom to teach and worship. In republican times, astrologers, magicians, philosophers, and even rhetoricians, not to speak of adepts of certain religious groups, had been victims of such intrusion. Under which precise legal category this interference was exercised remains a question, except perhaps i...
Apotheosis; Constantinianism; Druids; Emperor's Cult; Gnosticism, article on Gnosticism from Its Origins to the Middle Ages; Hellenistic Religions; Hermetism; Isis; Mithra; Mithraism; Mystery Religions; Sabazios.
General
Georg Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer, 2d ed. (Munich, 1912) and Kurt Latte, Römische Religionsgeschichte (Munich, 1960) are basic works of reference. They are supplemented by Martin P. Nilsson, Geschichte der griechischen Religion, vol. 2, 3d. ed. (Munich, 1974), for the Eastern side of the Roman Empire. Mary Beard, John North, and Simon Price, Religions of Rome, 2 vols. (Cambridge, U.K., 1998) offer a synthesis of newer approaches (vol. 1 is an analytic history, vol. 2 a sourcebook o...
Roman Temples
See Amanda Claridge, Rome (Oxford, 1998). For a full analyses, consult E. Margareta Steinby, ed., Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae, 6 vols. (Rome, 1993–1999).
Roman Images
See Inez Scott Ryberg, Rites of the State Religion in Roman Art (Memoirs of the American Academy at Rome 23; New Haven, 1955); Robert Turcan, Religion romaine, 2 vols, (Iconography of Religions 17; Leiden, 1988).
Oct 27, 2023 · Rome was the home of a number of great writers and thinkers: Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, among others. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, religion and philosophy became one, and the relationship between faith and knowledge came into question.
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Definition. Roman Sacrificial Altar Mark Cartwright (CC BY-NC-SA) In many societies, ancient and modern, religion has performed a major role in their development, and the Roman Empire was no different. From the beginning Roman religion was polytheistic.
