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85-446: It seems that from the first version of the tomb of Julius II (1505) a series of "Prigioni" was planned for the lowest level of the mausoleum – a series of more-than-life-size statues of chained figures in various poses, leaning on the pilasters which framed a set of niches, each of which would contain a " winged Victory ". With one on each side of each niche, it must have been initially intended for there to be sixteen or twenty Prigioni. In

170-505: A piaculum before entering their sacred grove with an iron implement, which was forbidden, as well as after. The pig was a common victim for a piaculum . The same divine agencies who caused disease or harm also had the power to avert it, and so might be placated in advance. Divine consideration might be sought to avoid the inconvenient delays of a journey, or encounters with banditry, piracy and shipwreck, with due gratitude to be rendered on safe arrival or return. In times of great crisis,

255-421: A broad, inclusive and flexible network of lawful cults. At different times and in different places, the sphere of influence, character and functions of a divine being could expand, overlap with those of others, and be redefined as Roman. Change was embedded within existing traditions. Several versions of a semi-official, structured pantheon were developed during the political, social and religious instability of

340-457: A circular element is framed by a rectangle. Religion in ancient Rome Religion in ancient Rome consisted of varying imperial and provincial religious practices, which were followed both by the people of Rome as well as those who were brought under its rule. The Romans thought of themselves as highly religious, and attributed their success as a world power to their collective piety ( pietas ) in maintaining good relations with

425-636: A composition, and often filling spaces in spandrels or other gaps in architecture. These represent the "spirit of victory" rather than a full-blown deity. Pairs of winged victories continued to appear after the Christianization of the Roman Empire and gradually evolved into depictions of Christian angels . A pair, facing inwards, fitted very conveniently into the spandrels of arches, and have been very common in Triumphal arches and similar designs where

510-399: A globe, and holds aloft (or offers) a wreath or a palm-branch, not symbols of war but of triumph, and a peace that was consequent to victory. Other images show her as human-sized, driving a triumphal war-chariot , or in free-standing statuary, standing on the right-hand palm of a much larger figure, typically Rome's supreme god, Jupiter , or war-god Mars , or Roma , divine personification of

595-426: A lawful oath ( sacramentum ) and breaking a sworn oath carried much the same penalty: both repudiated the fundamental bonds between the human and divine. A votum or vow was a promise made to a deity, usually an offer of sacrifices or a votive offering in exchange for benefits received. In Latin, the word sacrificium means the performance of an act that renders something sacer , sacred. Sacrifice reinforced

680-399: A long-form poem covering Roman holidays from January to June, Ovid presents a unique look at Roman antiquarian lore, popular customs, and religious practice that is by turns imaginative, entertaining, high-minded, and scurrilous; not a priestly account, despite the speaker's pose as a vates or inspired poet-prophet, but a work of description, imagination and poetic etymology that reflects

765-503: A matter of divine destiny. The Roman triumph was at its core a religious procession in which the victorious general displayed his piety and his willingness to serve the public good by dedicating a portion of his spoils to the gods, especially Jupiter , who embodied just rule. As a result of the Punic Wars (264–146 BC), when Rome struggled to establish itself as a dominant power, many new temples were built by magistrates in fulfillment of

850-446: A pig on behalf of the community. Their supposed underworld relatives, the malicious and vagrant Lemures , might be placated with midnight offerings of black beans and spring water. The most potent offering was animal sacrifice , typically of domesticated animals such as cattle, sheep and pigs. Each was the best specimen of its kind, cleansed, clad in sacrificial regalia and garlanded; the horns of oxen might be gilded. Sacrifice sought

935-449: A priest on behalf of the community. Public religious ritual had to be enacted by specialists and professionals faultlessly; a mistake might require that the action, or even the entire festival, be repeated from the start. The historian Livy reports an occasion when the presiding magistrate at the Latin festival forgot to include the "Roman people" among the list of beneficiaries in his prayer;

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1020-773: A provincial Roman citizen who made the long journey from Bordeaux to Italy to consult the Sibyl at Tibur did not neglect his devotion to his own goddess from home: I wander, never ceasing to pass through the whole world, but I am first and foremost a faithful worshiper of Onuava . I am at the ends of the earth, but the distance cannot tempt me to make my vows to another goddess. Love of the truth brought me to Tibur, but Onuava's favourable powers came with me. Thus, divine mother, far from my home-land, exiled in Italy, I address my vows and prayers to you no less. Roman calendars show roughly forty annual religious festivals. Some lasted several days, others

1105-454: A range of religious activities. Some public rituals could be conducted only by women, and women formed what is perhaps Rome's most famous priesthood, the state-supported Vestals , who tended Rome's sacred hearth for centuries, until disbanded under Christian domination. The priesthoods of most state religions were held by members of the elite classes . There was no principle analogous to separation of church and state in ancient Rome. During

1190-415: A sacred duty and privilege of office. Additional festivals and games celebrated Imperial accessions and anniversaries. Others, such as the traditional Republican Secular Games to mark a new era ( saeculum ), became imperially funded to maintain traditional values and a common Roman identity. That the spectacles retained something of their sacral aura even in late antiquity is indicated by the admonitions of

1275-459: A series of miraculous events. Romulus and Remus regained their grandfather's throne and set out to build a new city, consulting with the gods through augury , a characteristic religious institution of Rome that is portrayed as existing from earliest times. The brothers quarrel while building the city walls, and Romulus kills Remus, an act that is sometimes seen as sacrificial. Fratricide thus became an integral part of Rome's founding myth. Romulus

1360-524: A single day or less: sacred days ( dies fasti ) outnumbered "non-sacred" days ( dies nefasti ). A comparison of surviving Roman religious calendars suggests that official festivals were organized according to broad seasonal groups that allowed for different local traditions. Some of the most ancient and popular festivals incorporated ludi ("games", such as chariot races and theatrical performances ), with examples including those held at Palestrina in honour of Fortuna Primigenia during Compitalia , and

1445-503: A small altar for incense or libations . It might also display art works looted in war and rededicated to the gods. It is not clear how accessible the interiors of temples were to the general public. The Latin word templum originally referred not to the temple building itself, but to a sacred space surveyed and plotted ritually through augury: "The architecture of the ancient Romans was, from first to last, an art of shaping space around ritual." The Roman architect Vitruvius always uses

1530-418: A temple or shrine, where a ritual object might be stored and brought out for use, or where an offering would be deposited. Sacrifices , chiefly of animals , would take place at an open-air altar within the templum or precinct, often to the side of the steps leading up to the raised portico. The main room (cella) inside a temple housed the cult image of the deity to whom the temple was dedicated, and often

1615-584: A vow to a deity for assuring their military success. As the Romans extended their dominance throughout the Mediterranean world, their policy in general was to absorb the deities and cults of other peoples rather than try to eradicate them, since they believed that preserving tradition promoted social stability. One way that Rome incorporated diverse peoples was by supporting their religious heritage, building temples to local deities that framed their theology within

1700-457: A white cow); Jupiter a white, castrated ox ( bos mas ) for the annual oath-taking by the consuls . Di superi with strong connections to the earth, such as Mars, Janus, Neptune and various genii – including the Emperor's – were offered fertile victims. After the sacrifice, a banquet was held; in state cults, the images of honoured deities took pride of place on banqueting couches and by means of

1785-623: Is a deified abstraction, entitled to a cult . But unlike Nike, she has virtually no mythology of her own. Victoria first appears during the first Punic War , as a translation or renaming of Nike , the Greek goddess of victory in peace or war. Nike would have become familiar to the Roman military as a goddess of Rome's Greek allies in the Punic Wars. She was worshipped in Magna Graecia and mainland Greece, and

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1870-422: Is among the most complete of the group and shows clear definition in his legs, torso (especially on the left hand side) and his arms. His hands and head are less worked, while the back is completely unsculpted. The whole surface gives clear traces of the chisels and scrapers used in the sculpting process. Because of its unfinished state it has an extraordinary energy (already noted by Bocchi in 1591), which connects

1955-419: Is exceptionally detailed. All due care would be taken of the animals. If any died or were stolen before the scheduled sacrifice, they would count as already sacrificed, since they had already been consecrated. Normally, if the gods failed to keep their side of the bargain, the offered sacrifice would be withheld. In the imperial period, sacrifice was withheld following Trajan 's death because the gods had not kept

2040-406: The mos maiorum , "the way of the ancestors" or simply "tradition", viewed as central to Roman identity. Roman religion was practical and contractual, based on the principle of do ut des , "I give that you might give". Religion depended on knowledge and the correct practice of prayer, rite, and sacrifice, not on faith or dogma, although Latin literature preserves learned speculation on

2125-490: The spolia opima , the prime spoils taken in war, in the celebration of the first Roman triumph . Spared a mortal's death, Romulus was mysteriously spirited away and deified. His Sabine successor Numa was pious and peaceable, and credited with numerous political and religious foundations, including the first Roman calendar ; the priesthoods of the Salii , flamines , and Vestals; the cults of Jupiter , Mars, and Quirinus ; and

2210-506: The Etruscans had. Etruscan religion was also a major influence, particularly on the practice of augury , used by the state to seek the will of the gods. According to legends , most of Rome's religious institutions could be traced to its founders , particularly Numa Pompilius , the Sabine second king of Rome , who negotiated directly with the gods . This archaic religion was the foundation of

2295-571: The First Jewish–Roman War and the Bar Kokhba revolt . In the wake of the Republic's collapse , state religion had adapted to support the new regime of the emperors . Augustus , the first Roman emperor, justified the novelty of one-man rule with a vast program of religious revivalism and reform. Public vows formerly made for the security of the republic now were directed at the well-being of

2380-587: The Greek Olympians , and promoted a sense that the two cultures had a shared heritage. The impressive, costly, and centralised rites to the deities of the Roman state were vastly outnumbered in everyday life by commonplace religious observances pertaining to an individual's domestic and personal deities, the patron divinities of Rome's various neighbourhoods and communities, and the often idiosyncratic blends of official, unofficial, local and personal cults that characterised lawful Roman religion. In this spirit,

2465-515: The Ludi Romani in honour of Liber . Other festivals may have required only the presence and rites of their priests and acolytes, or particular groups, such as women at the Bona Dea rites. Other public festivals were not required by the calendar, but occasioned by events. The triumph of a Roman general was celebrated as the fulfillment of religious vows , though these tended to be overshadowed by

2550-484: The Magna Mater 's statue while her own temple was under construction. Victoria had several other shrines throughout Rome. In Imperial-era Timgad , victoria victrix (conquering victory) was given credit for Imperial successes. Victoria's coin images and cult images are probably based on an original cult image used in her temple. Her cult images show her in the attitude of a winged woman who steps forwards, supported on

2635-560: The Palladium , Lares and Penates from Troy to Italy. These objects were believed in historical times to remain in the keeping of the Vestals , Rome's female priesthood. Aeneas, according to classical authors, had been given refuge by King Evander , a Greek exile from Arcadia , to whom were attributed other religious foundations: he established the Ara Maxima , "Greatest Altar", to Hercules at

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2720-500: The Roman Republic (509–27 BC), the same men who were elected public officials might also serve as augurs and pontiffs . Priests married, raised families, and led politically active lives. Julius Caesar became pontifex maximus before he was elected consul . The augurs read the will of the gods and supervised the marking of boundaries as a reflection of universal order, thus sanctioning Roman expansionism and foreign wars as

2805-562: The Senate 's efforts to restrict the Bacchanals in 186 BC. Because Romans had never been obligated to cultivate one god or one cult only, religious tolerance was not an issue in the sense that it is for monotheistic systems. The monotheistic rigor of Judaism posed difficulties for Roman policy that led at times to compromise and the granting of special exemptions, but sometimes to intractable conflict. For example, religious disputes helped cause

2890-512: The cartoon of The Last Judgment . A wax bozzetto of the work at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London is generally considered to have been made by Michelangelo himself. The Young Slave has slightly bent knees as if bearing an enormous force bearing down his back. His left arm is raised to cover his face and his right arm is behind his back, held by a chain which is not visible. The figure

2975-686: The druids as a positive consequence of the conquest of Gaul and Britain. Despite an empire-wide ban under Hadrian , human sacrifice may have continued covertly in North Africa and elsewhere. The mos maiorum established the dynastic authority and obligations of the citizen- paterfamilias ("the father of the family" or the "owner of the family estate"). He had priestly duties to his lares , domestic penates , ancestral Genius and any other deities with whom he or his family held an interdependent relationship. His own dependents, who included his slaves and freedmen, owed cult to his Genius . Genius

3060-532: The fetial priests. The first "outsider" Etruscan king, Lucius Tarquinius Priscus , founded a Capitoline temple to the triad Jupiter, Juno and Minerva which served as the model for the highest official cult throughout the Roman world. The benevolent, divinely fathered Servius Tullius established the Latin League , its Aventine Temple to Diana , and the Compitalia to mark his social reforms. Servius Tullius

3145-421: The harmonisation of the earthly and divine , so the victim must seem willing to offer its own life on behalf of the community; it must remain calm and be quickly and cleanly dispatched. Sacrifice to deities of the heavens ( di superi , "gods above") was performed in daylight, and under the public gaze. Deities of the upper heavens required white, infertile victims of their own sex: Juno a white heifer (possibly

3230-512: The 1520s, when Michelangelo was employed at San Lorenzo in Florence (but historians have suggested dates between 1519 and 1534). They are known to have been in the artist's store on the via Mozza until 1544, when Michelangelo's nephew, Leonardo Buonarroti, asked for permission to sell them (Michelangelo did not set foot in Florence after 1534). This permission was denied and it was only in 1564 that they were sold, along with The Genius of Victory to

3315-697: The Christian emperor Gratian refused the post of pontifex maximus , and abolished state support of Rome's traditional deities and rites. In 382 he had Victoria's altar removed from her temple at the Curia Julia . They had been removed before, by Constantius II , and had been returned after protest. This time, despite widespread anger and anxietie, shared by officials at the highest level, they were not restored. Winged figures, very often in pairs, representing victory and referred to as winged victories , are common in Roman official iconography, typically hovering high in

3400-488: The Church Fathers that Christians should not take part. The meaning and origin of many archaic festivals baffled even Rome's intellectual elite, but the more obscure they were, the greater the opportunity for reinvention and reinterpretation – a fact lost neither on Augustus in his program of religious reform, which often cloaked autocratic innovation, nor on his only rival as mythmaker of the era, Ovid . In his Fasti ,

3485-544: The Compitalia shrines, were thought a symbolic replacement for child-sacrifice to Mania, as Mother of the Lares . The Junii took credit for its abolition by their ancestor L. Junius Brutus , traditionally Rome's Republican founder and first consul. Political or military executions were sometimes conducted in such a way that they evoked human sacrifice, whether deliberately or in the perception of witnesses; Marcus Marius Gratidianus

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3570-561: The Elder declared that "a sacrifice without prayer is thought to be useless and not a proper consultation of the gods." Prayer by itself, however, had independent power. The spoken word was thus the single most potent religious action, and knowledge of the correct verbal formulas the key to efficacy. Accurate naming was vital for tapping into the desired powers of the deity invoked, hence the proliferation of cult epithets among Roman deities. Public prayers ( prex ) were offered loudly and clearly by

3655-647: The Emperor safe for the stipulated period. In Pompeii , the Genius of the living emperor was offered a bull: presumably a standard practise in Imperial cult, though minor offerings (incense and wine) were also made. The exta were the entrails of a sacrificed animal , comprising in Cicero 's enumeration the gall bladder ( fel ), liver ( iecur ), heart ( cor ), and lungs ( pulmones ). The exta were exposed for litatio (divine approval) as part of Roman liturgy, but were "read" in

3740-634: The Empire. Imported mystery religions , which offered initiates salvation in the afterlife, were a matter of personal choice for an individual, practiced in addition to carrying on one's family rites and participating in public religion. The mysteries, however, involved exclusive oaths and secrecy, conditions that conservative Romans viewed with suspicion as characteristic of " magic ", conspiratorial ( coniuratio ), or subversive activity. Sporadic and sometimes brutal attempts were made to suppress religionists who seemed to threaten traditional morality and unity, as with

3825-648: The Grand Duke Cosimo I , who placed them in the four corners of the Grotto of Buontalenti before 1591. They were removed from there in 1908 to join the Michelangelo collection which had been formed in the Florentine gallery. Regarding the date of their creation, Justi (and others) have proposed 1519 on the basis of a letter of 13 February in which Jacopo Salviati assured the cardinal Aginesis, heir of Pope Julius II that

3910-600: The Late Republican era. Jupiter , the most powerful of all gods and "the fount of the auspices upon which the relationship of the city with the gods rested", consistently personified the divine authority of Rome's highest offices, internal organization and external relations. During the archaic and early Republican eras, he shared his temple , some aspects of cult and several divine characteristics with Mars and Quirinus , who were later replaced by Juno and Minerva . A conceptual tendency toward triads may be indicated by

3995-459: The Roman state. The goddess Vica Pota is sometimes identified with Victoria, but is almost certainly too ancient for her iconography to have been influenced by Greek Nike, so is treated as a separate deity. Victoria is one of many Roman deities associated with the Sabine goddess Vacuna . With the ascendancy of Christianity, Rome's religious affairs and institutions remained under the authority of

4080-600: The Senate could decree collective public rites, in which Rome's citizens, including women and children, moved in procession from one temple to the next, supplicating the gods. Extraordinary circumstances called for extraordinary sacrifice: in one of the many crises of the Second Punic War , Jupiter Capitolinus was promised every animal born that spring (see ver sacrum ), to be rendered after five more years of protection from Hannibal and his allies. The "contract" with Jupiter

4165-504: The Temple of Janus , whose doors stayed open in times of war but in Numa's time remained closed. After Numa's death, the doors to the Temple of Janus were supposed to have remained open until the reign of Augustus. Each of Rome's legendary or semi-legendary kings was associated with one or more religious institutions still known to the later Republic. Tullus Hostilius and Ancus Marcius instituted

4250-529: The broad humor and burlesque spirit of such venerable festivals as the Saturnalia , Consualia , and feast of Anna Perenna on the Ides of March , where Ovid treats the assassination of the newly deified Julius Caesar as utterly incidental to the festivities among the Roman people. But official calendars preserved from different times and places also show a flexibility in omitting or expanding events, indicating that there

4335-465: The context of the disciplina Etrusca . As a product of Roman sacrifice, the exta and blood are reserved for the gods, while the meat (viscera) is shared among human beings in a communal meal. The exta of bovine victims were usually stewed in a pot ( olla or aula ), while those of sheep or pigs were grilled on skewers. When the deity's portion was cooked, it was sprinkled with mola salsa (ritually prepared salted flour) and wine, then placed in

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4420-486: The course of the reductions of the project which followed, this was reduced to twelve (second project, 1513), eight (third project, 1516) and finally perhaps a mere four (fourth or fifth version, 1526 or 1532), before they were completely eliminated from the project in 1542. According to de Tolnay (1951, 1954) the Young Slave was intended for the space left of the central niche in the project of 1516. The first examples of

4505-447: The emperor. So-called "emperor worship" expanded on a grand scale the traditional Roman veneration of the ancestral dead and of the Genius , the divine tutelary of every individual. The Imperial cult became one of the major ways in which Rome advertised its presence in the provinces and cultivated shared cultural identity and loyalty throughout the Empire. Rejection of the state religion

4590-404: The festival had to be started over. Even private prayer by an individual was formulaic, a recitation rather than a personal expression, though selected by the individual for a particular purpose or occasion. Oaths—sworn for the purposes of business, clientage and service, patronage and protection , state office, treaty and loyalty—appealed to the witness and sanction of deities. Refusal to swear

4675-675: The figure to some kind of primordial act of liberation from its prison of crude stone – an epic battle with chaos. The meaning of the Prigioni was probably linked to the motif of the Captivi in Roman art. In fact, Vasari identifies them as personifications of the provinces controlled by Julius II. For Condivi , however, they symbolised the Arts, turned into "prisoners" after the Pope's death. Other scholars have made suggested philosophical-symbolic meanings or links to

4760-512: The fire on the altar for the offering; the technical verb for this action was porricere . Human sacrifice in ancient Rome was rare but documented. After the Roman defeat at Cannae two Gauls and two Greeks were buried under the Forum Boarium , in a stone chamber "which had on a previous occasion [228 BC] also been polluted by human victims, a practice most repulsive to Roman feelings". Livy avoids

4845-452: The form of a holocaust or burnt offering, and there was no shared banquet, as "the living cannot share a meal with the dead". Ceres and other underworld goddesses of fruitfulness were sometimes offered pregnant female animals; Tellus was given a pregnant cow at the Fordicidia festival. Color had a general symbolic value for sacrifices. Demigods and heroes, who belonged to the heavens and

4930-483: The foundation and rise of the city. These narratives focus on human actors, with only occasional intervention from deities but a pervasive sense of divinely ordered destiny. For Rome's earliest period, history and myth are difficult to distinguish. According to mythology, Rome had a semi-divine ancestor in the Trojan refugee Aeneas , son of Venus , who was said to have established the basis of Roman religion when he brought

5015-572: The founding of the Latin League under Servius Tullius. Many temples in the Republican era were built as the fulfillment of a vow made by a general in exchange for a victory: Rome's first known temple to Venus was vowed by the consul Q. Fabius Gurges in the heat of battle against the Samnites , and dedicated in 295 BC. All sacrifices and offerings required an accompanying prayer to be effective. Pliny

5100-605: The gods . Their polytheistic religion is known for having honoured many deities . The presence of Greeks on the Italian peninsula from the beginning of the historical period influenced Roman culture , introducing some religious practices that became fundamental, such as the cultus of Apollo . The Romans looked for common ground between their major gods and those of the Greeks ( interpretatio graeca ), adapting Greek myths and iconography for Latin literature and Roman art , as

5185-582: The hierarchy of Roman religion. Inscriptions throughout the Empire record the side-by-side worship of local and Roman deities, including dedications made by Romans to local gods. 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 increasingly had ancestry from elsewhere in

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5270-403: The histories of Rome's leading families , and oral and ritual traditions. According to Cicero, the Romans considered themselves the most religious of all peoples, and their rise to dominance was proof they received divine favor in return. Rome offers no native creation myth , and little mythography to explain the character of its deities, their mutual relationships or their interactions with

5355-438: The human world, but Roman theology acknowledged that di immortales (immortal gods) ruled all realms of the heavens and earth. There were gods of the upper heavens, gods of the underworld and a myriad of lesser deities between. Some evidently favoured Rome because Rome honoured them, but none were intrinsically, irredeemably foreign or alien. The political, cultural and religious coherence of an emergent Roman super-state required

5440-567: The later agricultural or plebeian triad of Ceres , Liber and Libera , and by some of the complementary threefold deity-groupings of Imperial cult. Other major and minor deities could be single, coupled, or linked retrospectively through myths of divine marriage and sexual adventure. These later Roman pantheistic hierarchies are part literary and mythographic, part philosophical creations, and often Greek in origin. The Hellenization of Latin literature and culture supplied literary and artistic models for reinterpreting Roman deities in light of

5525-463: The nature of the divine and its relation to human affairs. Even the most skeptical among Rome's intellectual elite such as Cicero , who was an augur, saw religion as a source of social order. As the Roman Empire expanded, migrants to the capital brought their local cults , many of which became popular among Italians. Christianity was eventually the most successful of these beliefs, and in 380 became

5610-407: The official state religion . For ordinary Romans, religion was a part of daily life. Each home had a household shrine at which prayers and libations to the family's domestic deities were offered. Neighbourhood shrines and sacred places such as springs and groves dotted the city. The Roman calendar was structured around religious observances. Women , slaves , and children all participated in

5695-507: The personal life of the artist and his "torments". Victoria (mythology) In ancient Roman religion Victoria was the deified personification of victory. She first appears during the first Punic War , seemingly as a Romanised re-naming of Nike , the goddess of victory associated with Rome's Greek allies in the Greek mainland and in Magna Graecia . Thereafter she comes to symbolise Rome's eventual hegemony and right to rule. She

5780-460: The political and social significance of the event. During the late Republic, the political elite competed to outdo each other in public display, and the ludi attendant on a triumph were expanded to include gladiator contests. Under the Principate , all such spectacular displays came under Imperial control: the most lavish were subsidised by emperors, and lesser events were provided by magistrates as

5865-431: The powers and attributes of divine beings, and inclined them to render benefits in return (the principle of do ut des ). Offerings to household deities were part of daily life. Lares might be offered spelt wheat and grain-garlands, grapes and first fruits in due season, honey cakes and honeycombs, wine and incense, food that fell to the floor during any family meal, or at their Compitalia festival, honey-cakes and

5950-407: The ruling emperor as pontifex maximus , whether he was Christian or pagan. On the whole, Senates still respected, or at least allowed the performance of pagan sacrificial rites deemed essential to Rome's well-being, including the sacrifice to Victoria at her Senate-house altar before every meeting. This had been an essential procedure ever since the altar had been given by Octavian , in 29 BC. In 379

6035-431: The sacrificial fire consumed their proper portion ( exta , the innards). Rome's officials and priests reclined in order of precedence alongside and ate the meat; lesser citizens may have had to provide their own. Chthonic gods such as Dis pater , the di inferi ("gods below"), and the collective shades of the departed ( di Manes ) were given dark, fertile victims in nighttime rituals. Animal sacrifice usually took

6120-519: The sculptor would have produced four figures for the tomb before the summer of that year. Wilde proposed 1523, because there is a reference to the cardinal Giulio de' Medici (the future Clement VII ) having seen them before he left for Rome on that date. However de Tolnay dated them to 1530–1534, based on stylistic factors, the frequent mentions of unfinished sculptures for the tomb of Pope Julius in Michelangelo's letters of 1531–1532 and because Vasari mentions that they were made while Michelangelo prepared

6205-725: The series are the two Prigioni of Paris, which are mentioned in Michelangelo's letters and were named the "Slaves" ( Schiavi ) in the 19th century: the Dying Slave and the Rebellious Slave . They were sculpted in Rome around 1513. The Florentine Prigioni (The Young Slave , the Bearded Slave , the Atlas Slave , and the Awakening Slave ) were probably sculpted in the latter half of

6290-555: The site that would become the Forum Boarium , and, so the legend went, he was the first to celebrate the Lupercalia , an archaic festival in February that was celebrated as late as the 5th century of the Christian era. The myth of a Trojan founding with Greek influence was reconciled through an elaborate genealogy (the Latin kings of Alba Longa ) with the well-known legend of Rome's founding by Romulus and Remus . The most common version of

6375-407: The twins' story displays several aspects of hero myth. Their mother, Rhea Silvia , had been ordered by her uncle the king to remain a virgin, in order to preserve the throne he had usurped from her father. Through divine intervention, the rightful line was restored when Rhea Silvia was impregnated by the god Mars . She gave birth to twins, who were duly exposed by order of the king but saved through

6460-543: The underworld, were sometimes given black-and-white victims. Robigo (or Robigus ) was given red dogs and libations of red wine at the Robigalia for the protection of crops from blight and red mildew. A sacrifice might be made in thanksgiving or as an expiation of a sacrilege or potential sacrilege ( piaculum ); a piaculum might also be offered as a sort of advance payment; the Arval Brethren , for instance, offered

6545-463: The word templum to refer to this sacred precinct, and the more common Latin words aedes , delubrum , or fanum for a temple or shrine as a building. The ruins of temples are among the most visible monuments of ancient Roman culture. Temple buildings and shrines within the city commemorated significant political settlements in its development: the Aventine Temple of Diana supposedly marked

6630-503: The word "sacrifice" in connection with this bloodless human life-offering; Plutarch does not. The rite was apparently repeated in 113 BC, preparatory to an invasion of Gaul. Its religious dimensions and purpose remain uncertain. In the early stages of the First Punic War (264 BC) the first known Roman gladiatorial munus was held, described as a funeral blood-rite to the manes of a Roman military aristocrat. The gladiator munus

6715-485: Was a gruesome example. Officially, human sacrifice was obnoxious "to the laws of gods and men". The practice was a mark of the barbarians , attributed to Rome's traditional enemies such as the Carthaginians and Gauls. Rome banned it on several occasions under extreme penalty. A law passed in 81 BC characterised human sacrifice as murder committed for magical purposes. Pliny saw the ending of human sacrifice conducted by

6800-482: Was a subject of Greek myth. Around this time, various Roman war-deities begin to receive the epithet victor (conqueror) or invictus (unconquered). By the late republican and early imperial eras, Victoria had become a popular civilian and military goddess, both in association with other deities and in her own right. In 294 BC she was given a temple on the Palatine Hill . It was used to store war-booty, and it hosted

6885-497: Was credited with several religious institutions. He founded the Consualia festival, inviting the neighbouring Sabines to participate; the ensuing rape of the Sabine women by Romulus's men further embedded both violence and cultural assimilation in Rome's myth of origins. As a successful general, Romulus is also supposed to have founded Rome's first temple to Jupiter Feretrius and offered

6970-434: Was murdered and succeeded by the arrogant Tarquinius Superbus , whose expulsion marked the end of Roman kingship and the beginning of the Roman republic, governed by elected magistrates . Roman historians regarded the essentials of Republican religion as complete by the end of Numa's reign, and confirmed as right and lawful by the Senate and people of Rome : the sacred topography of the city , its monuments and temples,

7055-522: Was never explicitly acknowledged as a human sacrifice, probably because death was not its inevitable outcome or purpose. Even so, the gladiators swore their lives to the gods, and the combat was dedicated as an offering to the Di Manes or the revered souls of deceased human beings. The event was therefore a sacrificium in the strict sense of the term, and Christian writers later condemned it as human sacrifice. The small woollen dolls called Maniae , hung on

7140-457: Was no single static and authoritative calendar of required observances. In the later Empire under Christian rule, the new Christian festivals were incorporated into the existing framework of the Roman calendar, alongside at least some of the traditional festivals. Public religious ceremonies of the official Roman religion took place outdoors, and not within the temple building. Some ceremonies were processions that started at, visited, or ended with

7225-459: Was tantamount to treason. This was the context for Rome's conflict with Christianity , which Romans variously regarded as a form of atheism and novel superstitio , while Christians considered Roman religion to be paganism . Ultimately, Roman polytheism was brought to an end with the adoption of Christianity as the official religion of the empire. The Roman mythological tradition is particularly rich in historical myths, or legends , concerning

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