Religion in the Roman Empire (Die Religionen Der Menschheit, 16)

"The Roman Empire was home to a fascinating variety of different cults and religions. Its enormous extent, the absence of a precisely definable state religion and constant exchanges with the religions and cults of conquered peoples and of neighbouring cultures resulted in a multifaceted diversity of religious convictions and practices. This volume provides a compelling view of central aspects of cult and religion in the Roman Empire, among them the distinction between public and private cult, the complex interrelations between different religious traditions, their mutually entangled developments and expansions, and the diversity of regional differences, rituals, religious texts and artefacts."--Page 4 de la couverture Cover 1 Titlepage 4 Imprint 5 Contents 6 Introduction: Living Roman Religion 10 1 Approaching Roman Religion 10 2 The Idea of Religion 12 3 Lived Ancient Religion 14 4 The Story of Rome 18 5 Themes and Methods 22 Bibliography 23 Empire as a field of religious action 26 1 A Religion of the Empire? 26 2 Emperors in the Religious life of the Roman World 28 3 Empire as an interaction sphere 31 4 The Empire in the World 34 5 Empire and Religions 37 Bibliography 39 The City as a Field of Religious Action: Manufacturing the Divine in Pompeii 44 1 A city full of gods 44 2 The Gods in Action 54 3 Working with the Gods 56 4 Conclusion 60 Bibliography 61 Sanctuaries - places of communication, knowledge and memory in Roman religion 62 1 Sanctuaries - places for people and gods 62 2 The role of sanctuaries in an empire full of differences 68 2.1 New temples and gods under new rulers 72 2.2 Villages, towns and regions: spatial-religious references and regional traditions in sanctuaries 77 2.3 Sanctuaries as places of permanence, political appropriation and religious change 79 3 Costs, events and experiences: Visitors, users and religious specialists in a sanctuary 85 3.1 Space for experience—ersonal needs and religious experience 87 3.2 Oracles, healing and life counselling 89 3.3 Great feasts and great gifts 91 4 Collection of knowledge and objects - sanctuaries in the dynamic between memory and oblivion 94 Bibliography 96 People and Competencies 108 1 Introduction 108 2 Public priests 109 3 Divination, diviners and the diagnostic value of signs 114 4 Oracular officials in the Eastern Roman Provinces 120 5 Anchoring religious innovation 122 6 Small-group religious entrepreneurs 123 7 Developing a priestly role in Christ-centred imaginations 128 8 The philosophers as religious experts and henotheistic tendencies before Christianity 130 9 Setting borders to religious experts 134 Bibliography 135 The Gods and Other Divine Beings 142 1 Introduction 142 2 The Gods and Roman ›Religion‹ 143 3 Whose Roman Religion? 145 4 Interacting with Divine Beings in the Roman World 152 5 Intellectualizing Religious Experts 160 Bibliography 163 Managing problems: Choices and solutions 167 1 Introduction 167 2 Mainstream options 169 2.1 Healing waters, therapeutic dreams 170 2.2 Divinatory shrines 178 2.2.1 Oracles, mainly in Italy 179 2.2.2 The eastern Mediterranean 182 2.3 Settling the dead 183 2.3.1 Monumentum and sepulcrum 184 2.3.2 Ritual meals 186 3 Minor ritual specialists 189 4 Self-help 195 5 Conclusion 199 Bibliography 200 Artefacts and their humans: Materialising the history of religion in the Roman world 211 1 Introduction: From (Late) Prehistoric to Roman 211 2 Artefacts and religious change in the Roman world 214 3 Objects, affordances, and religion 215 4 Objectscape and semiotic form 216 5 How new objects and materials change religious practices: ÜcfSemiBoldItÝautomataÜfyMyriadProÝÜcfSemiBoldÝ 218 6 Religion in the Empire of things 220 7 Beyond wood 221 8 With terracotta (and double moulds) 223 9 Through marble and ÜcfSemiBoldItÝcaementiciumÜfyMyriadProÝÜcfSemiBoldÝ 226 10 Led by lead 228 11 Conclusion 229 Bibliography 231 The Impact of Textual Production on the Organisation and Proliferation of Religious Knowledge in the Roman Empire 235 1 Introduction 235 2 Calendars: Appropriating Time and Systematizing Religious Action 237 3 Controlling ›Religion‹: Legalization and Ratification of Religious Knowledge 240 4 Re-framing ›Religion‹: Exegesis, Appropriation and Translation as Means of Reiterating Old and Propagating New Religious Ideas 245 5 Texts and Rituals in the Second Century CE: A€Century of Intense Religious Experimentation 247 6 ›Religion‹ as Philosophy in the Second Sophistic 251 7 Martyrologies: Textualizing Death and Embodying ÜcfSemiBoldItÝdevotioÜfyMyriadProÝÜcfSemiBoldÝ 255 Bibliography 257 Economy and Religion 263 1 Introduction 263 1.1 The wider context: the demography and macro-economy of the Roman Empire 264 1.2 Implications for expenditure on religious activity 266 2 Income, outgoings and the nature of the evidence 268 3 Public versus private: an unhelpful opposition?Ücf+supÝÜcf-supÝ 269 4 Funding civic and imperial religion 272 4.1 Standing revenues of sanctuaries and their protection 273 4.2 Revenues from sacrifice 275 4.3 Regular income from non-agricultural sources 277 4.4 Variable income: patronage 278 4.5 Income versus wealth 280 5 The finances of associations and small religious groups 284 6 Pilgrimage as an economic factor 287 6.1 Competition stimulates business 288 6.2 Infrastructure and services in and around pilgrimage sites 291 7 Conclusion 293 Bibliography 293 Abbreviations 307 Figures 309 Index 312 Places 312 Names 314 Keywords 316 "The Roman Empire was home to a fascinating variety of different cults and religions. Its enormous extent, the absence of a precisely definable state religion and constant exchanges with the religions and cults of conquered peoples and of neighbouring cultures resulted in a multifaceted diversity of religious convictions and practices. This volume provides a compelling view of central aspects of cult and religion in the Roman Empire, among them the distinction between public and private cult, the complex interrelations between different religious traditions, their mutually entangled developments and expansions, and the diversity of regional differences, rituals, religious texts and artefacts"--Back cover

The Roman Empire was home to a fascinating variety of different cults and religions. Its enormous extent, the absence of a precisely definable state religion and constant exchanges with the religions and cults of conquered peoples and of neighbouring cultures resulted in a multifaceted diversity of religious convictions and practices.This volume provides a compelling view of central aspects of cult and religion in the Roman Empire, among them the distinction between public and private cult, the complex interrelations between different religious traditions, their mutually entangled developments and expansions, and the diversity of regional differences, rituals, religious texts and artefacts.