The Roman polytheistic religion involved the
worship of many different gods and goddesses.
Diana was goddess of the moon and hunting;
the Greeks called her Artemis. The Romans
depicted her in statues that decorated their
temples with her short hunting tunic, bow,
and arrows.
Apollo was the god of the sun, music, and
medicine; the Romans and Greeks called him
by the same name. They portrayed him as a
beardless young man, often with a lyre.
Just like us, the Romans enjoyed hearing stories
about gods like Apollo and Diana, but did
they actually believe those stories?
My name is Susan Dunning, and I research Roman
history and religion at Somerville College,
Oxford. Today, we’re going to explore whether
the Romans really believed in their gods.
Did they feel some kind of personal, emotional
attachment to them when they worshipped them
in their religious ceremonies?
We’re going to address these questions about
Romans and their gods by taking the approach
of an Oxford tutorial. We’ll look at some
primary sources, that is, images of Roman
art and texts by Roman authors, and identify
who and what we find in these sources.
We’ll then look at their contexts to see
how these sources fit in with our understanding
of the society in which they were created.
Does the text or image give us new information
about ancient Rome? What does the source not
tell us?
In the process, we will learn to ask good
questions about what is going on in our sources.
There is no such thing as a stupid question,
but some questions are better than others
at helping us find the information we need.
Finally, we will use what we have learned
to see the strengths and weaknesses in the
answers others have already given, and in
the questions they have asked.
Let’s start out with some basic information
about how the Romans worshipped their gods,
and apply the question I just asked: did the
Romans believe in their gods or feel emotionally
attached to them in their religious ceremonies?
This monument shows a typical scene in Roman
worship: a sacrifice of something precious,
such as livestock, as a gift to the gods.
In this scene, we see a procession of men
leading a pig, a sheep, and an ox to an altar
to sacrifice to Mars, the god of war and farming.
The choice of these three animals indicates
that this is a special kind of sacrifice called
a ‘suouetaurilia’.
The animals are all male, because Mars was
a male god; goddesses received female animals.
The men wear togas, a formal kind of attire
that showed they were Roman citizens. The
man at the altar, an emperor, has his toga
carefully drawn over his head, to show that
he is sacrificing in the Roman style. He will
recite prayers to Mars asking that the sacrifice
will be acceptable. After this, slaves will
kill the animals, and parts of them will be
burned on the altar.
Everything must be done carefully and correctly:
if the prayers are said incorrectly, or an
animal gets scared and tries to bolt, or if
the slaughtered animal shows some kind of
defect in its organs, the whole rite must
be redone, or the god will be angry. Many
scholars have concluded that because the Romans
set so much store by these formal rituals,
they weren’t concerned with what the performers
thought or felt as they were doing so, or
if they actually believed the gods existed.
What mattered for Romans, they argue, was
getting the details of the outward actions
correct.
But we can get more context for sacrifices
from a different source. In 17 BCE, the first
emperor Augustus decided to create a new festival,
the ‘Saecular Games’, to celebrate the
arrival of a new age (‘saeculum’) of peace
and prosperity at Rome after civil wars. Augustus
wanted to show the Romans that he enjoyed
the special favour of the gods, especially
his patron Apollo, and that this favour would
be bestowed on the next generation of Romans.
His elaborate festival included numerous sacrifices
at night and during the day, as well as theatrical
games and chariot races. To record the details
of the Saecular Games, Augustus had this large
inscription set up.
At a high point in the in the festival, Augustus
prays: ‘“Apollo. As it is prescribed for
you in those books – and for this reason
may every good fortune attend the Roman people,
the Quirites – let sacrifice be made to
you with nine ‘popana’ and nine ‘liba’
and nine ‘phthoes’ [all types of cake].
I beg you and pray.” … To Diana in the
same words.’
We also read that afterwards a choir of twenty-seven
boys and twenty-seven girls, representing
the next generation, sang a hymn in front
of Augustus’s new temple for Apollo and
Diana.
How does this inscription help us answer the
question about Roman belief in and personal
attachment to their gods?
Augustus’s ritual seems a lot like the sacrifice
to Mars. Augustus is very careful to recite
the words of prayers recorded in books, and
he has taken pains to get the sacrifice right.
On this occasion, Apollo and Diana receive
different kinds of honey-cakes, perhaps a
bit like scones or doughnuts; the number of
cakes (twenty-seven) for each deity matches
the number of boys and girls in the choir.
At first reading, this inscription seems to
support the idea that the Romans weren’t
too concerned about whether or not people
believed that the gods existed or felt any
sense of emotional support and comfort in
worshipping them. What seems to matter for
the Romans is that religious ceremonies go
off without a hitch.
This is when we should pause and think about
what is being left out of the sources we have
looked at. Augustus’s inscription was only
intended to commemorate his festival and give
the bare details. It tells us nothing about
what he, his heir, or other participants thought
about the whole business. Augustus portrayed
Apollo as his special patron and protector
who helped him defeat his opponents and become
emperor: did he feel a sense of pride and
gratitude as he sacrificed in front of Apollo’s
image?
What about the children in the choir: did
they feel nervous as they prepared to sing
in front of the emperor and his officials?
In their hymn, they sang about Apollo and
Diana protecting them: did they feel excited
to represent Rome’s future, and comforted
to enjoy such special divine protection?
Let’s look at another text to see if we
can fill in the gaps left by our first two
sources. In the later first century CE, a
wealthy philosopher named Seneca wrote an
account of how common people behaved when
visiting one of the most important temples
in Rome on the Capitoline Hill. This temple
was dedicated to Jupiter, king of the gods,
his wife, Juno, and his daughter, Minerva,
goddess of war and wisdom. Statues of these
three deities were placed inside the temple.
Seneca writes,
>> SENECA: ‘if ever you go up on the Capitoline,
it will make you feel ashamed just to see
the crazy performances put on for the public’s
benefit, all represented as duties by light-hearted
lunacy.
‘So Jupiter has a special attendant to announce
callers and another one to tell him the time;
one to wash him and another to oil him, who
in fact only mimes the movement with his hands.
‘Juno and Minerva have special women hairdressers,
who operate some distance away, not just from
the statue, but from the temple; they move
their fingers in the style of hairdressers,
while others again hold mirrors.
‘You find some people who are praying to
the gods to put up bail for them, and others
again who are handing over their writs and
expounding the lawsuits they are involved
in.
‘There used to be an old, decrepit but very
experienced pantomime artist who put on his
act every day on the Capitol as if the gods
were enjoying the show – now that they
had been abandoned by human beings.’
Soon afterwards, Seneca adds:
>> SENECA: ‘At least the services they offer
are not indecent or dishonourable, however
unnecessary.
‘But there are some women who hang around
on the Capitoline because they believe that
Jupiter is in love with them, totally undeterred
by fear of Juno’s anger and jealously – formidable
enough, if you believe the poets.’
Seneca gives us a different picture of Roman
worship. These common people are offering
to the gods their time, talents, and services,
not cakes or animals, and there is no mention
of carefully-worded prayers.
The actions the people make – washing, oiling,
braiding hair – are very physical, as if
these Romans wanted to experience a sense
of closeness to their gods. Why would they
do this? Favoured slaves performed such actions
for their masters: perhaps they wanted to
cultivate a relationship with the gods so
that they would have divine help in times
of need. Seneca says that some of the people
wanted the gods to help them in specific issues,
such as lawsuits.
The old actor, the pantomime, doesn’t seem
to have any agenda beyond seeking an audience
to take pleasure in his artistic abilities.
And Seneca claims that some women thought
that Jupiter loved them – the Romans had
many stories about Jupiter’s unfaithfulness
to his wife Juno, and the revenge she took
on mortal women with whom he had love affairs.
These people certainly believe that the gods
exist, and what is more, they feel close emotional
ties to their chosen deities, and want to
nurture these relationships with acts of service.
Seneca, an elite, well-read philosopher, dismisses
these people’s actions on the Capitoline
as indicative of excess, superstition, lack
of education. Would he approved more of ceremonies
like Augustus’s sacrifices at the Saecular
Games?
But we have to rely on him for this information:
we don’t have any surviving records of what
these lower-class people felt, from the women
who braided Juno’s hair to the old actor.
It’s difficult to find ancient sources that
give us insight into experiences of common
Romans, because most of our texts and images
were created by elites.
For our final source, let’s turn to a different
kind of object: an altar set up as a funerary
monument for a little girl named Aelia Procula
in 140 CE. The altar was set up by Aelia’s
parents; her father was a freed slave of the
emperor. Thus, while Aelia’s family was
wealthy enough to afford a nice monument,
they did not have the same social standing
as freeborn Romans.
The altar states that it is ‘sacred to Diana
and the memory of Aelia Procula’; on it,
we see a relief depicting Aelia with the familiar
attributes of Diana: short tunic, hunting
bow and quiver, a dog at her feet. This was
a personal choice for Aelia’s parents: few
Romans were dressed as gods on their gravestones.
Why would Aelia’s parents do this?
The Romans didn’t have a strongly defined
idea of an afterlife: most thought that you
joined ‘the shades of the dead’ in the
underworld and didn’t have much of an individualized
existence. Perhaps Aelia’s parents hoped
that the virgin goddess Diana was a good role
model for their unmarried daughter, and that
as patroness of unmarried girls, she would
look out for little Aelia in the afterlife.
Aelia’s parents chose to make this monument
into an altar: whenever they offered a sacrifice
to Diana on it, they would be thinking of
their daughter; perhaps they hoped that the
goddess would also be reminded of the girl
at the same time. This altar would certainly
support the idea that Romans could believe
in their gods and seek personal relationships
with them. Once again, by turning to a new
type of evidence, we have a broader picture
of the Roman religious experience.
So with these different types of sources in
mind, can we say whether the Romans believed
in their gods? Did they feel emotional attachment
to them in religious ceremonies? We see now
that it’s too simplistic to say ‘no, none
of the Romans believed in their gods, and
they never felt any kind of personal or emotional
connection with them.’ But should our new
answer be that all Romans always felt closely
connected with their gods?
We’ve noticed that the Romans had a lot
of individual choice when it came to their
religious practices: the emperor Augustus’s
sacrifices and hymn for Apollo and Diana look
very different from the everyday Romans on
the Capitoline braiding Juno’s hair or performing
mimes for Jupiter. The philosopher Seneca
clearly disapproved of what common people
were doing. Yet our research still seems incomplete:
even though we have Aelia’s altar created
by a freed slave, we didn’t read anything
written by a woman or an enslaved person.
An answer of ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the
original question doesn’t properly represent
what we learned from looking at a limited
selection of ancient sources.
But let’s stop and think about our own context.
What if our problem lies with the question
we asked?
We have put ourselves into a bind by lumping
ancient Romans together into a single category,
when in fact people differed according to
their class, legal status, education, and
religious preferences.
Our original question limits our ability to
investigate our sources. We should rephrase
the question to allow for the diversity of
Roman experiences; for example: ‘To what
extent did Romans believe in and feel personally
connected to their gods, and how did religious
experiences differ among Romans?’
So when we approach a new subject, we should
always remember to look at several sources
from different perspectives, and not just
stop at the first one we find. We should be
aware of the limitations of our research and
gaps in the evidence.
Finally, we should be ready to revise our
questions as our sources reveal to us new
pathways of thought that we hadn’t imagined
at first. Such an approach shows us the richness
and vibrancy of individual experiences in
ancient Roman society.
