Talk:Religion in ancient Rome

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[edit] Dispute

Isn't Roman religion properly refered to as Pax Romana? Dustin Asby 05:26, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No, that means the "Roman Peace," i.e., the time when there were no wars in the area of the Empire, because the Empire ruled/controlled all. Compare to Pax Americana, which was used in the 90's to refer to the general trend of worldwide peace, under care of the USA. Sadly, I haven't heard P.A. used lately... Krupo 05:34, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)
What you're thinking of is the Pax Deorum, which is a completely different concept. It stems from a contract that the early kings of Rome had with the principal gods... And the religious responsibilities of those in a particular domus to their ancestral spirits to assure the prosperity of Rome. Basically, people perform the regular orthopraxic rituals to both god and spirits alike, and they would in turn show their appreciation. It goes much deeper than that, not taking faith into account, but that's the basic theological principle of it. --Kaelus 11:47, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps the ancient Roman Religion should be refered to as "Cultus Deorum Romanorum". I believe that this would be the proper form.Catoni52 00:47, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
I've consulted with a few people about this, Catoni... and I'm not sure. The Romans never thought of religion as something that was seperate from everyday life. They made a distinction of public religion versus private, but usually just referred to their religion as "being Roman", or their "ancestral tradition". Polytheistic religion in Indo-European societies, especially in the Mediterranean, was MUCH more complex than modern textbooks and current monotheistic religions would have us believe; Romans thought of religions divided between the religion of the "state", and countless "cults" (in the original sense of the word), some of which enjoyed public sanction, and other which did not. In fact, I suspect this is why the article hasn't been edited much... it's difficult to clarify the complexity of Roman religion without included a mountain of information accompanied with detailed explanations. I know this is why I haven't even taken a stab at it... it would take an ungodly amount of time to include detailed introductory information, followed by even more detailed information broken down into sub-articles. But I do believe you're right... if we were to call it anything in Latin, that would be an excellent choice. As for the proper form, well... My knowledge of Latin is pretty elementary. Hopefully there's a latininist watching who can correct our work. Kaelus 11:29, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed move

  • A better title would be Religion in Ancient Rome. What do those who have this topic on their Watchlists think? I'd like to add Paul Veyne's material from A History of Private Life vol. I. --Wetman 17:54, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This article is serious need of a rework, which I'll do at some point. This is about the most pathetic account of the religio romana I've seen to date. I'll try to reference as much as I can, from Beard to any Oxford sources. But I would do this primarily from my own knowledge of the subject. --Kaelus 11:41, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

There is also a bit about Roman Religion in Roman Mythology that should be in this article. FWIW, Encyclopedia Britannica has this article under the heading of "Roman Religion". We are not bound to EB, but it is one precedent. Stbalbach 23:42, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

One useful approach in recasting this article would be to discuss the differences between the Roman pantheon and their Greek "equivalents", so patly expressed in the current version. --Wetman 07:31, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Kaelus is quite correct: with no offence to the original writer, the views in this article are nearly a century out of date. They derive chiefly from the influential book by William Ward Fowler, The Religious Experience of the Roman People (1911). The paragraph on di novensides and indigetes derives from the thesis of Georg Wissowa, author of an important German handbook on the subject of ancient Roman religion and cult (1904 and 1912); he himself later abandoned this thesis. Interested readers should therefore not use this article in its present state. I too, when time permits, will attempt a new article.--llcohee 23:18, 11 Jan 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the present article is terrible. I have restructured the article, and rewritten the section on the imperial cult. I'll probably do the same with the section on the spread of christianity, and maybe some little things on foreign cults. I don't know much of Republican religion, so maybe others could do that part of the rewriting...--Hippalus 22:09, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

If nobody vehemently disagrees before, say, the first of March, I'll move the article to Religion in Ancient Rome as Wetman suggested earlier.--Hippalus 16:45, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree this article should be moved. There's also "Persecution of" article that should be merged into here by someone more knowledgeable on the topic. I'm trying to trim down the "Persecution by/of" articles. Grandmasterka 02:45, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I guess we should move it to a new section of the section 'Imperial religion', probably 'the end of paganism' (I moved the template there), and give it a somewhat wider outlook than it has now. What do you think?
As you see, I completed the move. I already solved the double redirects, will start solving the single redirects soon. I chose for 'Religion in ancient Rome' without capital A (as in Military history of ancient Rome). Kudos on the Roman religion infobox by the way, beautiful!--Hippalus 16:20, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! Great work indeed. This is also a good move because "X in Y" is usually preferable to resorting to an adjective form like "Yan X"; some places have rather strange adjective forms, but nothing in English has an unusual "in" form. Good show. -Silence 03:55, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request for information

Can people with more knowledge on the subject of classical religion than myself include a few lines on priestesses etc on Women as theological figures. There does not seem to be much on priestesses under that heading either.


Jackiespeel 22:01, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Improvement

Needed; the article is not good. If someone is looking for something to do, for example, not a blessed word is said about private vs. public religion; and the actual forms of worship, I only just now sketched in very briefly, but are otherwise not mentioned. Bill 22:55, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Human sacrifice

Someone added this section to the article Ancient Rome; I just moved it. I don't think it's very good, but while in addition it's not germane under the former article, it's germane here. Someone will improve it, no doubt. Bill 10:19, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

On more careful reading, I removed a paragraph which stated that bad omens led "the College of Priests" — no such animal — to consult the Sibylline Books, etc. The Books were consulted rather rarely: far, far more rarely than the many bad omens than appeared and were recorded. The idea was to see not what might have displeased the Manes specifically, but the gods in general, and to identify which god(s). Few Vestals were accused of betraying her vows. There is no indication that Postumia was put on trial because she dressed well etc.: this is an unwarranted assumption made based on Jim Grout's summary pagelet on the Vestals, in which he quotes Livy (iv.44): who, in turn, reports that (a) Postumia was on trial for unchastity; (b) she was found too fashionably dressed, a sort of a warning to her to watch out not to do anything that might incite people to bring such suits. This looks rather like of face-saving measure by the pontiffs so they themselves wouldn't look too silly.... The "but if ... it's clear ..." is sheer speculation. Slogging thru this human sacrifice stuff is tedious, but I'll probably wind up undoing some more of it; it's amateurish and tendentious, scraping around for evidence to distort in order to give far more prominence to such elements of human sacrifice as there undoubtedly were in ancient Rome than they deserve. No defense of the Romans by the way in my attitude — loathsome cruel people — but let's just stick to bare facts. Bill 22:24, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
A bit more careful reading, and (a) I found it claimed that two Vestals were sacrificed along with the (undoubted) two Gauls and two Greeks — not true; and (b) I realized why much of this addition got my goat: the putting to death of Vestals, regardless of what one may think of it today, was not in any way viewed by the Romans as a sacrifice: rather, as a judicial punishment for a religious crime. That this is so, even if it were not repeatedly stated to be so by the ancients themselves (and conversely, the point of view that it would have been a sacrifice is never stated by a pagan author), is made clear by the nature of sacrificial victims: by definition, great lengths were taken to offer to the gods no defective victim; a faithless Vestal would hardly be a good victim with which to honor a god. Also, the Vestals were not killed by a priest — sacrifices were performed by priests — but, quite on the contrary, were handed over to the common executioner. Bill 22:41, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Human sacrifice" cleanup, continued

Since there are people watching with bees in their bonnets, believing me to have some arcane agenda, here is the justification for my edit just now:

  • added Plutarch ref (conveniently, it happens to be on my own site)
  • deleted bit of nonsense about child sacrifice, which was also hanging in mid-air in its sentence.
  • fixed bit about Cicero, since as it read, it wasn't true: see pro Roscio Amerino, xxxv.100, which merely says, as a tossed-off joke, that gosh, this guy went against the old proverb about "throwing 60-year-olds off the bridge." The origin of the proverb is unknown; at any rate, Cicero says nothing whatsoever about human sacrifice here, and is not talking about the feast of the Argei on the Ides of May. And although this section on "Human sacrifice" seems to have got some of its misinformation about Cicero and Ovid by paraphrasing from this page, and therefore it looked like Ovid might have said this, I went and checked, and Ovid says nothing of the sort either, although at least he is talking about the Argei. Ovid says that it would be a crime to accuse early Romans of sacrificing old men; granted, mind you, that this is an indication that some people did in fact say that in Ovid's time: but Ovid himself says no such thing, quite the contrary. Bill 18:36, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proto-Indo-European religion

This article should probably incude some information from there. Zocky | picture popups 15:41, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Modern Reconstruction of Roman Religion

Would it be appropriate for this article to also mention that thousands of people across the world are actively reconstructiing the Religio Romana, through orgnanizations such as Nova Roma [1] and others? Wombattery 16:08, 6 December 2006 (UTC)


Yes, it absolutely would be; that, however, would also require the name of the article to be changed. I've felt for some time that the name lends itself to some bias (though unintentional) that traditional Roman religion ended with widespread Christianization and the Theodesian decrees. This is untrue; the official public religion ceased during this period, but private devotions, household/familial traditions, and definately community ritual survived up until modern times, to some extent or another. I'm acquainted with one individual whose [extended] family carried on polytheistic religion for centuries, though it was Italic and not necessarily "Roman", and as such is documented to an extent from the 15th century onward. It probably was a continuing family tradition from antiquity, but official documentation only begins there, as public records were scarce up until this period, and such revelations are only documented in the limited sense that identifiable ancestors were executed when discovered, and public record made note of the charges. Some communities have continued rituals that have been credibly identified by scholars as polytheistic and ancient in origin, though Christianized later so the community could retain the traditions without reprocussion. And some Italians have quite obviously continued ancestor veneration in the domicile, though few kept the figures represented in the ancient lararium such as the geniuses and penates. These examples do not even include continuing traditions that survived outside of the Italian peninsula. But I digress... I've gone off on a tangent:

This is something that has needed to be addressed for some time in this article, among other shortcomings. I'm particularly suited to do this edit (without blowing my own horn, mind you), since I've been either directly or indirectly involved in reconstruction efforts for a few years, and have gotten to see the community from the inside out. You're right to say that there are literally thousands who practice Roman religion, and this absolutely needs to be incorporated. Unfortunately, I've been unbelievably preoccupied for some time, and usually undertake only minor edits, and even then I'm not usually signed in. I was hoping someone else would step up to the plate, hopefully someone much more qualified than I, but the edits to this and similar articles have been negligible at best. If you feel you can add something, please do. I'll try to incorporate what I can when I'm able, but it will likely only be a bit at a time until summer. And even then, I'm more concerned with the distinction and elaboration of familial religion versus public religion (Sacra Publica). I'll try to make a substantial edit in the coming week to this effect. But please, to those who have this article on their watchlist: try to incorporate what you know. If you're unsure about something, ask on the talk page. If I can answer it, I will, though I'm by no means an expert.

Also... any suggestions for a new name for the article? The current name isn't adequate, and it seemed like a rushed and misinformed choice, personally. I'd suggest "Roman Polytheism", but what's the concensus? Kaelus 10:29, 7 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Outline of Restructured Article

This is partially for my own benefit before I start editing later, but I'd welcome any input and corrections. Feel free to edit within the outline:

  • Introduction
    • Overview of General Roman Religion
    • Definition
    • Basic Division of Religion
    • Introduction to Historical Development
  • Distinction between ancient Roman religion and Reconstructionism
    • Historical Religion and loss of extant information
    • Literary and Archaeological influence on Reconstructionism
    • More to be elaborated on in Reconstruction-specific section.
  • Treatment of the complexity and worldview of Roman Religion
    • Conception of deities and spirits prior to Greek influence (numina)
    • Legendary founding of State Religious institutions
    • Integration into Roman lifestyle
    • Blood versus Bloodless Sacrifice
    • Evidence of Human Sacrifice
    • Religious Syncretism; common ties to other IE religions with emphasis on common PIE deities and practices, leading into following section.


  • Cultural Influences on Roman Religion
    • Greek Influences
      • Influenced based in the Trojan War
      • Influence of conception of deities and ritual practices, votive objects, etc.
      • Influence of Greek Mythology on Roman mythology
      • Hellenism
    • Latin Influences
      • Sabines
      • Social Wars
    • Etruscan Influences
      • Royal Influence
      • Etruscan rule
      • Sacred Games and Combat [Gladiators]
      • Romanized Etruscan deities


    • Egyptian Influences
      • Cult of Isis, via Greece
      • Brief outline of Serapis and the Egyption 'Trinity' (Serapis, Isis, Horus/Hermes; to be further discussed under Imperial Religion)
    • Germanic & Celtic Influences
      • Adoption and Syncretism of Germanic Deities
      • Spread of Roman deities and religious practices
      • Cultural assimilation of Germanic peoples
  • Variation depending on time period
    • Roman Kingdom
      • Early Triad, later Capitoline Triad
      • Legendary foundation of Rome, and establishment of priesthoods
    • Republican Rome
      • Normalization and influence of Priestly Colleges
    • Imperial Rome
      • Imperial Cult
      • Extended general ov erv iew of assimilation and syncretism of the deities of conquered nations
      • Spread and popularity of new cults


  • Variation between geographic localities
    • Urban Rome
    • Italy Proper
    • Roman Provinces
    • Ancient Local Traditions
  • State Religion
    • Major Priestly Colleges
      • Collegium Pontificum
        • Pontifex Maximus
      • Rex
      • Vestal Virgins
      • Flamines
      • Fratres Arvales
      • Sacerdotes
      • Other Minor Colleges
      • Etcetera
    • Auspicies
      • College of Augurs
      • Haruspicy
      • Oracles
      • Sybilline Books
    • Official Cults
    • Unofficial Cults
      • Suppression of some cultii
  • Constantine, Christianization, and downfall of Roman religion
    • Reaction of polytheists to Christianity
      • Vandalism and public disorder by Christians
        • Vandalism of temples, sacred sites, mention by contemporary Christian writers, aspect of "initiation" after baptism
        • Interruption of public rituals
        • Refusal to pay taxes, compare to "Give unto Caesar...", justification as 'citizens of Heaven'.
      • Senate reaction to spread of Christianity, official ban of Christianity as "cultus dangerous to public morality and mos maiorum", persecutions of Christians under two respective emperors
    • Conversion of Constantine
      • Early personal syncretism of polytheism and Christianity, theological division within Empire (and resulting Council of Nicea), and cited treatment of reluctance to be baptised until death
      • Removal of "Religious Tolerance" as official policy
      • Suppression of public polytheistic religion (and Judaism)
      • Declaration of Christianity as the new official "Religio Romana"
    • Outlawed Practices
    • Destruction of Temples, Artifacts, and Libraries (under Theodosius, etc)
      • Possible destruction of Library of Alexandria by Christians, effect on Museum
      • Closing of priestly colleges
      • Destruction of literature, effect of Reconstruction
    • Closing of Oracles and Philosophical Schools
      • Closing of the Delphic Oracle
      • Closing of the Academy at Athens
    • Beginning of "Dark Ages"
  • Survival of Roman Polytheism
    • Emperor Julian
      • Repudidation of Christianity
      • Re-institution of "Religious Tolerance" statute
      • Removal of Christians from public positions and teaching positions
      • Restoration of traditional teaching methods and non-biblical curriculum, revival of rhetoric and drama.
      • Preferential treatment of Jews, offer to re-build Jewish Temple
      • Attempts to re-establish cults
        • Difficulty in re-establishing some cults due to loss of records
      • Attempts to centralize Roman religion; Neo-Platonism
      • Unexpected death; failure to re-establish polytheism
    • Retaliation for reforms of Julian
      • Mass executions ("First Holocaust"- scholarly reference) and forced conversions of remaining polytheists
        • Origin of the word "pagan" from "paganus" as synonym for remaining rural polytheists
    • Identification of deities with Saints, Christianization of polytheistic religious practices and holy days/festivals
        • Valentine's Day
        • Christmas/Saturnalia -- December 25th and significance to Mithras (especially adoration of shepherds, nativity, and Mithraic and Christian "eucharist" / transubstantiation)
        • Adoption of imagery from Mithras and Apollo for depictions of Christ
    • Remote survival of private worship
    • Survival of polytheistic community rituals until modern times (mention especially 'Italic pillar ceremony', provide citations)
    • Conversion of lararium to "home shrine" / connection between 'icons' and 'idols', candle lighting for the departed
    • Adoption of Greek and Roman names, positions: title of "Father" for priests, Pope/Pontifex Maximus, College of Cardinals as survival of Collegium Pontificum, Catholic and Orthodox symbols and vestments as modified survivals (mention Cadeuceus); provide citations
      • Survival of Neo-Platonism (especially through Augustine), continution of classical Greek philosophy
      • Lead into section on modern Reconstructionism; possible survival through "Stregheria", possible influence of Roman and Greek polytheism on Christian gnosticism

-- This is it for Ancient Roman Religion, mainly because I'm turning in for the night. Please, share your thoughts. Hopefully this comes out formatted correctly. Look forward to reading some comments and suggestions on this. Kaelus 11:29, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article doesn't really explain the ancient roman religion at all

It merely mentions it instead of explaining it. No explainations of the doctorines, beliefs, gods, etc. Malamockq 06:04, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

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