Cult, conquest and “religious Romanization. The impact of Rome on cult places and religious practices in Italy, in T. D. Stek, G.J. Burgers (eds.), The impact of Rome on cult places and religious practices in ancient Italy, BICS Supplement 132, London 2015, 1-28. (original) (raw)
Related papers
2015
Rome rapidly expanded in the Republican period, and conquered the entire Italian peninsula with its wide variety of city-states and tribes. The impact of Roman imperialism and expansionism on religious life in the newly incorporated areas has often been regarded as minimal, following the axiom of Roman ‘religious tolerance’. However, literary and epigraphic evidence points at the political and ideological importance of cult sites especially in conflict situations. Moreover, during the period of conquest and political incorporation, incisive changes in religious practices as well as in the cult sites where these were performed, are documented all over the peninsula. The causality between Roman expansionism and these trends is much discussed, and the ‘religious Romanization’ of Italy is currently a key debate. This volume explores the development of religious practices and cult places in the conquered Italic areas, and the role of Rome and its colonies in it. Rather than denying Roman impact and intentionality altogether, it assesses the potential influences of Roman expansionism on the sacred landscapes of ancient Italy in wide and variegated terms. The studies brought together in this volume draw on different types of evidence and approaches, reflecting also the diversity of different national and disciplinary traditions and schools of thought that often have remained isolated in current debates. It presents important new evidence from the inland Italic areas, as well as synthetic discussions addressing key scholarly controversies, such as the agency of Roman magistrates and the role of Roman colonization in ritual change and votive practices. By focusing on the dynamic interaction between authorities, local communities and wider trends in Hellenistic societies, the volume opens new perspectives on religious change in Italy and its relationship to the rise of Rome. BICS SUPPLEMENT 132 ISBN 978-1-905670-58-1 viii + 332 pp, colour and black and white images, index http://store.london.ac.uk/browse/extra\_info.asp?compid=1&modid=1&deptid=158&catid=86&prodid=1219&searchresults=1
This study throws a new light on the Roman impact on religious structures in Republican Italy. In the last four centuries BC, Italy went through immense changes. The Apennine and Adriatic areas were originally inhabited by various ‘Italic’ tribes and characterised by a specific non-urban societal organisation, in which cult places had a pivotal function. From the fourth century BC onwards the area was gradually incorporated by Rome, profoundly altering its geopolitical make-up. The author not only investigates the changing social and political function of cult places in non-Roman Italic society, he also highlights the importance of cult places and religious rituals for new Roman communities in the conquered areas. This research thus opens new perspectives on the issue of the ‘religious romanisation’ of Italy by arguing for a strong Roman impact also in non-urbanised areas. Tesse Stek bases his study on the analysis of archaeological, literary and epigraphic evidence from rural cult places in Central and Southern Italy, including field work on the Samnite temple of S. Giovanni in Galdo.
An External View: Architecture and Ritual in Central Italy
M. Haysom, M. Mili, and J. Wallensten (eds.), The Stuff of the Gods: The Material Aspects of Religion in Ancient Greece, Acta Instituti Atheniensis Regni Sueciae, Series in Quatro 4 / ACTAATH-4°, No. 59: 167-180, 2024
The "material turn" in the humanities and social sciences has brought about an expanded understanding of the material dimension of all cultural and social phenomena. In the Classics it has resulted in the breaking down of boundaries within the discipline and a growing interest in materiality within literature. In the study of religion cross-culturally new perspectives are emphasising religion as a material phenomenon and belief as a practice founded in the material world. This volume brings together experts in all aspects of Greek religion to consider its material dimensions. Chapters cover both themes traditionally approached by archaeologists, such as dedications and sacred space, and themes traditionally approached by philologists, such as the role of objects in divine power. They include a wide variety of themes ranging from the imminent material experience of religion for ancient Greek worshippers to the role of material culture in change and continuity over the long term.
2012
This study explores the changing nature of household cult practices, a currently under-studied category of evidence, in the Roman province of Achaia, from the first century BCE to the fourth century CE, with reference to pre-Roman domestic religion. The primary aim of this investigation is to understand to what extent Roman cult practices were integrated in select households across Roman Achaia. Household religion is an ideal indicator for cultural change and shifting cultural identities; it was essential in both Greek and Roman cultures and vital to the survival of the family unit and the wider community, but was conducted differently in these two cultures. To trace these changes archaeologically, the arrangement and function of rooms within the house are analyzed, and a specific identifiable group of finds are studied contextually. It is argued that the differences lie in the selection of deities, the location of household shrines and their accessibility, both physically and visually, to inhabitants and visitors. The framework within which cultural change is analyzed is "Romanization" that is re-interpreted as "cultural interaction," emphasizing the impact that local communities had in shaping Roman domestic religion in the Roman Empire. To document the dynamic and complex nature of Roman culture and its relation to pre-Roman religious activities within the province, five sites were selected from Achaia: Corinth, Patras, Messene, Athens, and the Piraeus. The sites represent variations between colonies and free cities, different economic interests, different political relationships with Rome, urban development, and concentrations of Roman immigrants. The findings are compared and contrasted with those from Delos, the first substantial
“The Interpenetration of Ritual Spaces in Late Antique Religions: An Overview” (2008)
Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 10
Rituals in the home, rituals in the square, rituals in the temple, the church, or the synagogue -how do they influence each other? It used to be that the world of domestic piety was cast in terms of fertility, children, and hearth, the purview of women, or else (in Weberian terms) the heterodox thinking of maverick craftsmen and intellectuals. Civic piety then comprised public sacrifice, liturgical mysteries, high-minded theology, and the space of men. While there may be some truth to these broad contours, work on the character of piety across these domains has dissolved simplistic contrasts between public and private. Our now requisite attention to pilgrimage, festival, and procession has complicated the picture of public piety, while new studies on how domestic space was represented in Christian and rabbinic literature show the complex interpenetration of institutional ideology and domestic sphere. The home is not isolated from public religion but, as in rabbinic Judaism and Manichaism, the place where religion is thought out, texts are exchanged, ideology is formulated, and individual piety modelled.
2003
This thesis explores the sacred landscape and ritual practices of Iron Age people living in the Marche and bordering regions of Central Adriatic Italy. It achieves this by examining the evidence of votive deposits of figurines and pottery in contexts associated with particular 'natural' features of the landscape, namely, water sources, caves and mountain peaks. Phenomenologies of these places/sites are constructed in order to understand how people using them perceived their landscape and manipulated it in order to meet their religious needs. The relationships between these places and the broader landscape are assessed, where 'landscape' means the physical landscape of this Central Adriatic region, which includes the patterns created by geology, vegetation and climate, as well as by human settlement, such as sites of habitation, cemeteries and routes of communication. Issues regarding how to use phenomenology and whether it is a valid methodology are addressed. Invest...