While the ancient Roman pantheon in many ways resembles that of ancient Greece, there is much that sets apart Roman mythology. Romans also borrowed from the religions of ancient Egypt, Asia Minor, and the Middle East, and legendary figures such as Romulus and Remus, tied closely to the history of Rome, feature prominently in ancient stories. The major and lesser figures of Roman mythology are presented in this vibrant volume with sidebars spotlighting related facts and concepts about Roman mythology and religion.
First published in 2001. This is a vivid account of what their gods meant to the Romans from archaic times to late antiquity, and an exploration of the rites and rituals connected to them. After an extensive introduction into the nature of classical religion, the book is divided into three pain main parts: religions of the family and land; religions of the city; and religions of the empire. The book ends with the rise and impact Christianity. Using archaeological and epigraphic evidence, and drawling extensively on a wide range of relevant literary material, this book is ideally suited for undergraduate courses in the history of Rome and its religions. Its urbane style and lightly worn scholarship will broaden its appeal to the large number of non-academic readers with a serious interest in the classical world.
Daily religious devotion in the Greek and Roman worlds centered on the family and the home. Besides official worship in rural sacred areas and at temples in towns, the ancients kept household shrines with statuettes of different deities that could have a deep personal and spiritual meaning. Roman houses were often filled with images of gods. Gods and goddesses were represented in mythological paintings on walls and in decorative mosaics on floors, in bronze and marble sculptures, on ornate silver dining vessels, and on lowly clay oil lamps that lit dark rooms. Even many modest homes had one or more religious objects that were privately venerated. Ranging from the humble to the magnificent, these small objects could be fashioned in any medium from terracotta to precious metal or stone. Showcasing the collections in the Getty Villa, this book’s emphasis on the spiritual beliefs and practices of individuals promises to make the works of Greek and Roman art more accessible to readers. Compelling representations of private religious devotion, these small objects express personal ways of worshiping that are still familiar to us today. A chapter on contemporary domestic worship further enhances the relevance of these miniature sculptures for modern viewers.
Examining sites that are familiar to many modern tourists, Valerie Warrior avoids imposing a modern perspective on the topic by using the testimony of the ancient Romans to describe traditional Roman religion. The ancient testimony recreates the social and historical contexts in which Roman religion was practised. It shows, for example, how, when confronted with a foreign cult, official traditional religion accepted the new cult with suitable modifications. Basic difficulties, however, arose with regard to the monotheism of the Jews and Christianity. Carefully integrated with the text are visual representations of divination, prayer, and sacrifice as depicted on monuments, coins, and inscriptions from public buildings and homes throughout the Roman world. Also included are epitaphs and humble votive offerings that illustrate the piety of individuals, and that reveal the prevalence of magic and the occult in the spiritual lives of the ancient Romans.
To undestand the success of the Romans you must understand their piety. Dionysius of Halicarnassus. For over a thousand years, Roman religion satisfied the spiritual needs of a wide range of peoples throughout the empire, because is offered an intelligent and dignified interpretation of how the world functions. It was a firm, yet tolerant, religion whose adherents committed very few crimes in its name and who were healthily free of neuroses. In this short, perceptive study of Roman religious life between 80 BC and AD 69, Professor Ogilvie shows how intimately involved were the Roman gods with human activities. Drawing widely on original material (all of it quoted in translation), he tells us how the Romans prayed, what happened at a sacrifice, what sort of gods they believed in, and how seriously they took their religion - a religion in which actions, , not dogma, was paramount.
"Inspiring reverence and blasphemy, combining paternal benignity with sexual violence, transcendent universality with tribal chauvinism, Jupiter represents both the best and the worst of ancient religion. Though often assimilated to Zeus, Jupiter differs from his Greek counterpart as much as Rome differs from Greece: "the god of Rome" conveys both Jupiter's sovereignty over Rome and his symbolic encapsulation of what Rome represents. Understanding this dizzyingly complex figure is crucial not only to the study of Roman religion, but to the whole of literary, intellectual, and religious history. This book examines Jupiter in Roman poetry's most formative and fruitful period, the reign of the emperor Augustus. As Roman society was transformed from a republic or oligarchy to a de facto monarchy, Jupiter came to play a unique role as the celestial counterpart of the first earthly princeps. While studies of Augustan poetry may glance at Jupiter as an Augustus figure, or Augustus as a Jupiter figure, they rarely explore the poets' richly nuanced treatment of the god as a character in his own right. This book fills that gap, demonstrating how Jupiter attracts thoughts about politics, power, sex, fatherhood, religion, poetry, and most everything else of importance to poets and other humans. It explores the god's manifestations in the five major Augustan poets (Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, Propertius, and Ovid), providing a fascinating window on a transformative period of history, as well as a comprehensive view of the poets' individual personalities and shifting concerns"--
Roman religion has long presented a number of challenges to historians approaching the subject from a perspective framed by the three Abrahamic religions. The Romans had no sacred text that espoused its creed or offered a portrait of its foundational myth. They described relations with the divine using technical terms widely employed to describe relations with other humans. Indeed, there was not even a word in classical Latin that corresponds to the English word religion. In The Gods, the State, and the Individual, John Scheid confronts these and other challenges directly. If Roman religious practice has long been dismissed as a cynical or naïve system of borrowed structures unmarked by any true piety, Scheid contends that this is the result of a misplaced expectation that the basis of religion lies in an individual's personal and revelatory relationship with his or her god. He argues that when viewed in the light of secular history as opposed to Christian theology, Roman religion emerges as a legitimate phenomenon in which rituals, both public and private, enforced a sense of communal, civic, and state identity. Since the 1970s, Scheid has been one of the most influential figures reshaping scholarly understanding of ancient Roman religion. The Gods, the State, and the Individual presents a translation of Scheid's work that chronicles the development of his field-changing scholarship.
Professor Sheldon uses the modern concept of the intelligence cycle to trace intelligence activities in Rome whether they were done by private citizens, the government, or the military. Examining a broad range of activities the book looks at the many types of espionage tradecraft that have left their traces in the ancient sources: * intelligence and counterintelligence gathering * covert action * clandestine operations * the use of codes and ciphers Dispelling the myth that such activities are a modern invention, Professor Sheldon explores how these ancient spy stories have modern echoes as well. What is the role of an intelligence service in a free republic? When do the security needs of the state outweigh the rights of the citizen? If we cannot trust our own security services, how safe can we be? Although protected by the Praetorian Guard, seventy-five percent of Roman emperors died by assassination or under attack by pretenders to his throne. Who was guarding the guardians? For students of Rome, and modern social studies too - this will provide a fascinating read.
