[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review]
The book, edited by John A. North († 2025) and dedicated to Simon Price († 2011), has seen its publication delayed by more than ten years. Focused on a few central themes (Gods and goddesses; War-rituals; Priests; Communication; Innovations), it is conceived as a companion volume to The Religious History of the Roman Empire: Pagans, Jews and Christians, published in the same series in 2011, and presents the same structure –equal number of chapters, half translated, half in their original English, with an invitation to contributors to add an afterword. As John North points out in his introduction: “the work collected in this book marks a definite, but contested, phase in the development of ideas about Roman religion: for some scholars it will still present a basis for future study; for some others it will mark the end of one era and the launching of a very different one”, in which greater attention is paid to “lived religion”. There is no doubt in my mind that the important articles usefully compiled by John North in this book still form a basis for future research, primarily because they are based on a critical and historical analysis of sources. It is indeed this attention to sources that matters, beyond the debates that we, as scholars, may have between proponents of ‘polis religion’ or ‘lived religion’, who must continue to maintain a constructive – and multilingual – scientific dialogue with each other. Similarly, to echo one of the last paragraphs of John North’s introduction, the opposition between “rite” and “faith” should not be hardened: “It is important to be clear that both the view that the Romans had rituals, but no beliefs, and that they had beliefs in exactly the same way as do modern Christians are absurd exaggerations of their real position. […] Perhaps the most convincing way of resolving the evident tension between the ritual world of religion and its other world of belief, debate, and argument is to reconsider the relationship between ritual and other media of communication.”
Christopher Smith (Chap. 1 [1996])[1] moves from the Roman festival of the Robigalia to explore, on the basis of the archaeological evidence from Osteria dell’Osa, the nature of Latin religious experience from the eighth to the sixth century B.C.: “burial in the formal necropolis at Osteria dell’Osa was […] the privilege of the leading kinship groups or gentes. […] Some time at the end of Period II, a special sacrifice took place. This was the deposition of an adult dog […] associated […] with crop success and with the deities of the earth.”
In reaction against an assimilation of Roman priests to those of the Christian Church, John Scheid (Chap. 2 [1984]), returning to prosopographical analysis and to the appropriate categories of Roman public law, shows that, in the Republic, supreme power can be split “into two areas which are quite separate but intimately bound up with one another: sacred power and the power of magistrates.” But, Scheid insists, one should not forget the magistrates for all that: “the priests were far from being the only celebrants of the religious life of the Roman state: it was consuls, praetors, aediles, or censors –amongst others– who offered the great public sacrifices […] who took the auspices…”[2].
Mary Beard (Chap. 3 [1989]) highlights the disjunction between the mythological image of the Roman Republican public priests and the image gained from an analysis of their public role. Such a disruption could result from a “narrow definition of priestly activity”, mainly based on the major priestly colleges; from a “partisan quality of the priestly mythology […] either to subvert or to legitimate the monopoly of priestly power by the political elite”; or from the tensions between “the political focus” of the Roman religion and “its simultaneous claims to links with the other word” – third hypothesis, that she favours.
After excluding negative concepts (Holy War, jihad) for describing the links between religion and war at Rome, Jörg Rüpke (Chap. 4 [1997]) underlines the communicative aspect of the civic Roman religion: the auspices, which were part of the checks and balances and established the legitimacy of the departing field commander; the vows of temples[3] or games (ludi) and the rituals of routine during the campaign (at river crossing; upon reaching a camp; at a popular feast celebrated among the troops); the re-entry rite of triumph, which served “as a medium for exchanging external military success for internal, urban prestige within society”. In the perspective of the ‘material turn’, it is also important to emphasize how much: “a city filled by the arches and temples of triumphant generals and houses decorated with spoils […] would have shaped memories and situational identities of those involved as victors, beneficiaries, or captives of war…”
Andreas Bendlin (Chap. 5 [2006]) criticizes the etic model of ‘civic religion’ or ‘state religion’, which “reifies as a system structures that may have been fluid” and “marginalizes religious practices and ideas that lie outside the political discourse field”, but doubts “whether the alternative focus on individual religious agency –as advocated for by those endeavouring to reconstruct […] ‘lived religion’ […]– proffers a viable methodological alternative”. According to him, the polyvalence of the “divine world and historical developments can be properly understood only if we […] map the ensembles of gods, sanctuaries, cults, myths, and theologies in the concrete social and geographical space[4]; it must also investigate how the gods’ availability varies according to place, time, and context[5].” Against the structuralist ‘Paris school’, Bendlin does not consider “epithetization of the gods as a deity’s progressive atomization into her, or his different functional aspects”: taking the example of Jupiter Optimus Maximus and Jupiter Tonans, he thinks that “we are not dealing with a case of functional additions in a logical system of meaning and action. Rather, the two gods are ‘persons’ differentiated by way of their individuality”[6].
John North (Chap. 6 [2008]) is interested in the Livian account (2.8) of the dedication of the Capitoline temple by Horatius (cos. 509 B.C.), which he considers to be full of ritual errors, especially because, so far as the evidence of Cicero’s account goes, in the de Domo, the person who holds the door-post (postem tenere) is the pontifex and not the magistrate. Such an interpretation seems contradictory, however, with the fact that a pontiff did not have the power to perform the dedication. Wouldn’t it make more sense to consider that the pontiff –just as he dictates the formula (praeit) that the magistrate is to pronounce–, holds the door-post only to show the ritual path to the magistrate who alone possesses, on a dedication, performative words and gestures?[7]
Olivier de Cazanove (Chap. 7 [2011]) focuses on two episodes, the notorious episode of the Caudine Forks in 321 B.C. and the recruiting of the Samnite legio linteata in 293 B.C. He proves that “sending under the yoke” was an Italic (and above all Roman) practice, referring to “a traditional concept of victory, where the actual possession of spoils, particularly weapons, and the symbolic humiliation of enemies were enough”. He convincingly argues that the linen enclosure, where the elite of Samnite warriors entered to take the oath, could not “be taken as a model for Italic places of worship in general”, but has been described by Livy “from his knowledge of the Roman encampment”.
Rebecca Flemming’s essay (Chap. 8 [2007]) is conceived as a refutation of the alleged ‘sacrificial incapacity’ of Roman women (De Cazanove; Scheid[8]). After pointing out the mistake of treating “gender categories as ‘givens’”, she claims that the Lexicon of Festus “contradicts any notions of general female exclusion from sacrifice” and “offers numerous indications of women’s wider religious activities as an integral part of the Roman religious landscape”[9]. A recent remark by M.-Th. Raepsaet-Charlier suggests that the debate is certainly not over: “De la même manière que l’incapacité juridique [sc. of women] est avérée et indubitable, il est impossible de considérer autrement la situation féminine face au sacrifice. Il ne suffit pas d’aligner des exemples de sacrifices féminins pour prétendre que l’interdit n’existe pas. Il existe toujours des exceptions, à tous les interdits.”[10]
Denis Feeney (Chap. 9 [2004]) follows the theme of sacrifice from Virgil’s Georgics into Ovid’s Fasti, to provide a test case of the complexity of interactions between ritual and literature. He stresses: “In the Georgics, animal sacrifice is open to multiple interpretation, but Ovid concentrates […] on one powerful Virgilian possibility: he represents sacrifice as a token of the loss of the Golden Age…”
Daniel J. Gargola (Chap. 10 [2004]) invites to take seriously the opening passages of Frontinus and Hyginus Gromaticus on centuriatio, which place its roots in certain Etruscan practices, especially in the division of the world by haruspices. Rather than being dismissed as “antiquarian”, the testimony of both agrimensores reveals that the “link between antiquarianism and administration may have operated, not only in the description of processes but in their formation.” Nor is there any reason to deny any link between centuriation and Roman augury: “Both Frontinus and Hyginus Gromaticus explicitly link the westward orientation of a centuriation network not only with Etruscan haruspices but also with Roman architecti setting the orientation of temples. […] The divergent practices of augurs, haruspices, architects, and surveyors clearly form part of a reasonably unified system.”
Filippo Coarelli (Chap. 11 [2000]) dates the inscribed stones excavated in the district of Santa Veneranda, a mile south-west of Pesaro, to the aftermath of the conquest of the ager Gallicus, at the time of the foundation of the Latin colony of Ariminum in 268 B.C. and considers that the colony’s pantheon reflects the political situation in Rome at the beginning of the third century B.C., shortly after the resolution of the age-old conflict between the plebs and the patriciate[11].
Scheid (Chap. 12 [2006]) illustrates how Octavian exploited –not without republican precedent– the reputation of the great Italic places (e.g. the Etruscan Lucus Feronia turned into a colony or the Lucanian sanctuary of Mefitis Utiana assigned to the municipium of Potentia…). As for some of his restorations (fetials, temple of Jupiter Feretrius, Caeninenses), Octavian demonstrated “at the same time his profound piety, in comparison to the impious, who had dared despoil or neglect these sacred sites.”
In an article originally conceived to be read in association with another, by M. Schofield, on Cicero and divination, Beard (Chap. 13 [1986]) emphasizes that “in the traditions of the Academic school of philosophy, the reader is left to make up his own mind on the most convincing case […]. Those who deduce Cicero’s personal scepticism from the second book of De Divinatione ignore this clear denial of a directed conclusion and neglect to treat the dialogue as a whole, as a balance of arguments for and against divination”.[12]
After discussing the objections of M. Schütz to E. Buchner’s thesis on the so-called solarium Augusti, Alfred Schmidt (Chap. 14 [2002, 2005]) admits the symbolic value of the Augustan arrangement on the Field of Mars, in particular “the alleged correlation of a religious monument of Pax with a meridian as marker of a cosmic visibility of time, which made itself visible as an ‘Apollonic’ force of order, justice and harmony”.
Authors and Titles
- Dead Dogs and Rattles: Time, Space, and Ritual Sacrifice in Iron Age Latium, Christopher Smith
- The Priest and the Magistrate: Reflections on the Priesthoods and Public Law at the End of the Republic, John Scheid
- Acca Larentia Gains a Son: Myths and Priesthood, Mary Beard
- Religion and War: On the relationship of a society’s religious and political systems, Jörg Rüpke
- Not the One nor the Many; A Pragmatic Approach to Religious Behaviour in a Polytheistic Society: The Example of Rome, Andreas Bendlin
- Action and Ritual in Roman Historians: Or How Horatius Held the Door-Post, John North
- Rites and Practices of Warfare in Italy between Romans and Samnites: Going under the Yoke and the Samnite Legio Linteata, Olivier de Cazanove
- Festus and the Role of Women in Roman Religion, Rebecca Flemming
- Interpreting Sacrificial Ritual in Roman Poetry: Disciplines and their Models, Denis Feeney
- The Ritual of Centuriation: Frontinus, Hyginus Gromaticus and Centuriation, Daniel J. Gargola
- The Lucus Pisaurensisand the Romanisation of the Ager Gallicus, Filippo Coarelli
- Rome and the Great Places of Worship in Italy, John Scheid
- Cicero and Divination. The Formation of a Latin Discourse, Mary Beard
- The Peace of Augustus, The Equinox and the Centre of the World, Alfred Schmid
Notes
[1] The year of the initial publication of the articles is specified each time in the review, immediately after the chapter number.
[2] See J. Scheid, « Les activités religieuses des magistrats romains », in R. Haensch & J. Heinrichs (ed.), Herrschen und Verwalten. Der Alltag der römischen Administration in der Hohen Kaiserzeit, Köln-Weimar-Wien, 2007, 126-144.
[3] See M. Aberson, Temples votifs et butin de guerre dans la Rome républicaine, Institut suisse de Rome, 1994.
[4] In this respect, A. Bendlin welcomes the undertaking of the corpus of ‘cult places’ in ancient Italy, Fana, templa, delubra (2008-).
[5] On this topic, see Y. Berthelet & Fr. Van Haeperen (ed.), Dieux de Rome et du monde romain en réseau, Bordeaux, 2021.
[6] For further reflections on divine epithets, see N. Belayche et al. (ed.), Nommer les Dieux. Théonymes, épithètes, épiclèses dans l’Antiquité, Turnhout, 2005 ; C. Bonnet et al., “Les dénominations des dieux nous offrent comme autant d’images dessinées” (Julien, Lettres 89b, 291 b). Repenser le binôme théonyme-épithète”, SMSR 84/2, 2018, 567-591.
[7] In this sense, see G. Wissowa, Religion und Kutus der Römer, München, 19122, 394.
[8] J. Scheid later clarified his thoughts: “Les rôles religieux des femmes à Rome. Un complément”, in R. Frei-Stolba et al. (ed.), Les femmes antiques entre sphère privée et sphère publique, Berne, 2003, 137-151.
[9] With a similar approach, see, in addition to the bibliography cited in the afterword: J. Rives, “Women and Animal Sacrifice in Public Life”, in E. Hemelrijk & G. Woolf (ed.), Women and the Roman City in the Latin West, Leiden, 2013, 129-146; M. Oria Segura, “Mujeres y religión en el mundo romano: enfoques cambiantes, actitudes presentes”, Arenal 24/1, 2017, 73-98; ead., “Iconografía de las actividades religiosas femeninas en Roma: visualizando la marginación”, in P. Pavón (ed.), Marginación y mujer en el Imperio romano, Roma, 2018, 223-252; L. González Estrada, “Religión y participación cívica de las mujeres durante la República. Una mirada fuera de Roma”, in Cr. Rosillo-López & S. Lacorte (ed), Cives Romanae. Roman Women as Citizens during the Republic, Zaragoza-Sevilla, 2024, 453-473, particularly 460 and n. 37.
[10] M. -Th. Raepsaet-Charlier, “La place des femmes dans la religion romaine : marginalisation ou complémentarité ? L’apport de la théologie”, in P. Pavón (ed.), Marginación y mujer, 206.
[11] For a critical discussion, see J.-Cl. Lacam, “Le ‘lucus’ de Pisaurum : un lieu de culte sous influences ? Cohabitations et interférences cultuelles dans l’ager Gallicus à l’époque républicaine”, in B. Amiri (ed.), Migrations et mobilité religieuse : espaces, contacts, dynamiques et interférences, Besançon, 2020, 251-270.
[12] For a critical view of M. Beard’s thesis, see Fr. Guillaumont, Le De Diuinatione de Cicéron et les théories antiques de la divination, Bruxelles, 2006, 21-22; cf. ibid., 325-354: “Conclusion. Cicéron pour ou contre la divination ?”.