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By the height of the Empire, numerous international deities were cultivated at Rome and had been carried to even the most remote provinces, among them Cybele, Isis, Epona, and gods of solar monism such as Mithras and Sol Invictus, found as far north as Roman Britain. Foreign religions increasingly attracted devotees among Romans, who ...
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- Early Roman religion
Roman religion, beliefs and practices of the inhabitants of the Italian peninsula from ancient times until the ascendancy of Christianity in the 4th century ce, during a period known as Classical antiquity.
The Romans, according to the orator and politician Cicero, excelled all other peoples in the unique wisdom that made them realize that everything is subordinate to the rule and direction of the gods. Yet Roman religion was based not on divine grace but instead on mutual trust (fides) between god and man. The object of Roman religion was to secure the cooperation, benevolence, and “peace” of the gods (pax deorum). The Romans believed that this divine help would make it possible for them to master the unknown forces around them that inspired awe and anxiety (religio), and thus they would be able to live successfully. Consequently, there arose a body of rules, the jus divinum (“divine law”), ordaining what had to be done or avoided.
These precepts for many centuries contained scarcely any moral element; they consisted of directions for the correct performance of ritual. Roman religion laid almost exclusive emphasis on cult acts, endowing them with all the sanctity of patriotic tradition. Roman ceremonial was so obsessively meticulous and conservative that, if the various partisan accretions that grew upon it throughout the years can be eliminated, remnants of very early thought can be detected near the surface.
This demonstrates one of the many differences between Roman religion and Greek religion, in which such remnants tend to be deeply concealed. The Greeks, when they first began to document themselves, had already gone quite a long way toward sophisticated, abstract, and sometimes daring conceptions of divinity and its relation to man. But the orderly, legalistic, and relatively inarticulate Romans never quite gave up their old practices. Moreover, until the vivid pictorial imagination of the Greeks began to influence them, they lacked the Greek taste for seeing their deities in personalized human form and endowing them with mythology. In a sense, there is no Roman mythology, or scarcely any. Although discoveries in the 20th century, notably in the ancient region of Etruria (between the Tiber and Arno rivers, west and south of the Apennines), confirm that Italians were not entirely unmythological, their mythology is sparse. What is found at Rome is chiefly only a pseudomythology (which, in due course, clothed their own nationalistic or family legends in mythical dress borrowed from the Greeks). Nor did Roman religion have a creed; provided that a Roman performed the right religious actions, he was free to think what he liked about the gods. And, having no creed, he usually deprecated emotion as out of place in acts of worship.
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Gods, Goddesses, and Greek Mythology
In spite, however, of the antique features not far from the surface, it is difficult to reconstruct the history and evolution of Roman religion. The principal literary sources, antiquarians such as the 1st-century-bce Roman scholars Varro and Verrius Flaccus, and the poets who were their contemporaries (under the late Republic and Augustus), wrote 700 and 800 years after the beginnings of Rome. They wrote at a time when the introduction of Greek methods and myths had made erroneous (and flattering) interpretations of the distant Roman past unavoidable. In order to supplement such conjectures or facts as they may provide, scholars rely on surviving copies of the religious calendar and on other inscriptions. There is also a rich, though frequently cryptic, treasure-house of material in coins and medallions and in works of art.
For the earliest times, there are the various finds and findings of archaeology. But they are not sufficient to enable scholars to reconstruct archaic Roman religion. They do, however, suggest that early in the 1st millennium bce, though not necessarily at the time of the traditional date for the founding of Rome (753 bce), Latin and Sabine shepherds and farmers with light plows came from the Alban Hills and the Sabine Hills, and that they proceeded to establish villages at Rome, the Latins on the Palatine Hill and the Sabines (though this is uncertain) on the Quirinal and Esquiline hills. About 620 the communities merged, and c. 575 the Forum Romanum between them became the town’s meeting place and market.
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Nov 13, 2013 · 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. From an initial...
- Donald L. Wasson
Mar 22, 2018 · The Roman Empire, at its height (c. 117), was the most extensive political and social structure in western civilization. Building upon the foundation laid by the Roman Republic, the empire became the...
- Joshua J. Mark
- What are the dates of the Roman Empire?The Roman Empire began in 27 BCE and, in the West, ended in 476 CE; in the East, it ended in 1453 CE.
- Who was the first emperor of Rome?Augustus Caesar was the first emperor of Rome, reigning 27 BCE-14 CE.
- Who were the Five Good Emperors of Rome?The Five Good Emperors of Rome were: Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius who reigned between 96-180 CE.
- Why did the Roman Empire fall?The Roman Empire in the West declined and fell in 476 CE for many reasons including: political instability, religious/cultural instability, governm...
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 ).
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.
Most famous gods and goddesses. Ancient Roman religion had a rich pantheon of gods and goddesses, and there were many deities that were widely worshipped and revered. Some of the most famous Roman gods and goddesses include: Jupiter - the king of the gods, associated with thunder and lightning.
