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This book, the second of the two volumes that make up Religions of Rome, presents a wide range of documents illustrating religious life in the Roman world from the early Republic to the late Empire (both visual evidence and texts in translation). More than just a "sourcebook," it explores some of the major themes and problems of Roman religion (such as sacrifice, the religious calendar, divination and prediction). Each document has an introduction, explanatory notes and bibliography, and is used as the starting point for further discussion.
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VOLUME 2 A Sourcebook M A R Y B E A R D Lecturer in Classics in the University of Cambridge, and Fellow of'Newnham College J O H N N O R T H Professor of History, University College London S I M O N P R I C E Fellow and Tutor, Lady Margaret Hall, CAMBRIDGE U N I V E R S I T Y PRESS Oxford Contents Acknowledgements Preface viii ix Conventions and abbreviations xiii 1 Earliest Rome 1 2 The deities of Rome 3 The calendar 4 Religious places 5 Festivals and ceremonies 6 Sacrifices 7 Divination and diviners 8 Priests and priestesses 9 Individuals and gods: life and death 26 60 78 116 148 166 194 10 Rome outside Rome 11 Threats to the Roman order 12 Religious groups 13 Perspectives Glossary 239 260 288 349 365 Deities and their epithets 369 Bibliography 371 371 1 Literary texts 2 Secondary literature Details of illustrations Index of texts cited General index 375 402 405 410 216 Acknowledgements We would like to express our warm thanks to those who gave us advice on the translations in this volume, and helped us in many other ways: in particular to our research assistant, Géraldine Herbert-Brown (funded by the British Academy); also to Jonathan Barnes (12.7e(v)); T i m Bateson (11.5); Michael Crawford; John Crook; John Curran; Richard Gordon (12.5); John Henderson; Richard Hunter; David Langslow (1.4b); Christopher MorrayJones (12.6g); Tessa Rajak (especially for 12.5); Michael Reeve; Joyce Reynolds; John Scheid (4.5); Mark Smith (12.7e(i)); Fritz Zimmermann (12.7d(ii)). Preface 'Religions of Rome' - the traditional, polytheistic religions of the city of Rome and its empire - have a history of over 1, 200 years. It is a history that stretches from the city's origins in the eighth century B.C. to the fifth century A.D., when Christianity was firmly and officially established as the religion of the Roman empire. This book draws on material from throughout this long period, arranging it largely by theme - gods, the calendar, temples, divination, reli gious officials, and so forth. O f course, the character of Roman religion changed enormously during that time, as Rome itself developed from a small village in central Italy to the capital of a world empire, incorporating a wide diversity of religious traditions and beliefs. This book recognizes those changes, but does not attempt to present a chronological account. For that the reader should turn to our companion volume, Religions of Rome 1: A History. There is more at stake in this arrangement than simply a choice of chapter headings. By grouping the material thematically across the centuries, we are suggesting that (despite all the changes) the 'religions of Rome' did retain cer tain significant constants over their long history. We are suggesting, for exam ple, that Roman sacrifice of the fifth century B.C