Roman Religion

 

The Romans had a religion like no other. It was practicly the same as the Greek religion but the names are slightly altered. The names in Roman are names of the planets.

If anything, the Romans had a pragmatic attitude to religion, as to most
things, which perhaps explains why they themselves had difficulty in taking
to the idea of a single, all-seeing, all-powerful god.
In so far as they had a religion of their own, it was not based on any
central belief, but on a mixture of fragmented rituals, taboos,
superstitions, and traditions which they collected over the years from a
number of sources.
To the Romans, religious faith was less a spiritual experience than a
contractual relationship between mankind and the forces which were believed
to control people's existence and well-being.
The result was essentially twofold: a state cult whose significant
influence on political and military events outlasted the republic, and a
private concern, in which the head of the family supervised the domestic
rituals and prayers in the same way as the elected representatives of the
people performed the public ceremonials. As circumstances and man's view of
the world changed, individuals whose personal religious needs remained
unsatisfied turned increasingly during the first century AD to the mysteries,
which were of Greek origin, and to the cults of the East.
Many of the gods and goddesses worshipped by the Romans were borrowed
from the Greeks, or had their equivalent in Greek mythology. Some of these
came by way of the Etruscans or the tribes of Latium. The Diana to whom
Servius Tullius built the temple on the Aventine Hill was identified with the
Greek Artemis, but some of the rites attached to her at Aricia, the centre
from which he transferred her worship, went back to an even mistier past.
The priest of Diana at Aricia, who was always a runaway slave, held the title
of king. He took office by killing his predecessor, and held it for as long
as he was able to defeat other runaway slaves in single combat. A fugitive
slave could challenge him by breaking off a branch from a particular tree in
the sacred grove; no naturally the resident priest kept a close watch.
Occasionally tradition threw up a deity whose roots had been forgotten. Such
a one was the goddess Furrina, who gave her name to the grove in which Gaius
Gracchus met his death; her festival was regularly observed on 25 July.
Unfortunately, by the middle of the first century BC, no one could remember
who she was or why she was being celebrated.
Most form of religious activity required some kind of sacrifice. And
prayer could be a confusing matter due to some gods having multiple names or
their gender even
being unknown. The practice of Roman religion was a confusing thing.
The Roman was by nature a very superstitious people. Emperors would
tremble and even legions refuse to march if the omens were bad ones.
If the Roman State entertained temples and rituals for the benefit of
the greater gods, then the Romans in the privacy of their own homes also
worshipped their domestic deities.
To the Roman peasant the world around simply teemed with spirits, omens
and religions phenomena.
The religion of the Roman State reflected the ways of private worship,
while retaining traditions from the period of the kings.
Under the nominal direction of the pontifex Maximus, administrative and
ritualistic matters were the responsibility of four colleges, whose members,
with one or two exceptions, were appointed or elected from the ranks of
politicians and held office for life.
The fifteen members of the College of Augurs exercised great learning,
and presumably also diplomacy, in the interpretation of omens in public and
private life, and acted as consultants in cases of doubt. Each carried a
crooked staff, without any knot in it, with which he marked out the square
space of ground from which official auspices were observed. The members of
the College of 'Quindecemviri Sacris Faciundis', the fifteen priests for
special religious duties, were the keepers of the Sibylline Books, which they
consulted and interpreted when requested to do so, and ensured that any
actions prescribed were properly carried out. They also had responsibility
for supervising the worship of any foreign deity which was introduced into
the religion of the state from time to time, usually on the recommendation of
the Sibylline Books.
The earliest state religious festivals were celebrated with games, such as
the very first one recorded at Rome, the festival to Conusees at which the
Serbian women were kidnapped. The Consualia, traditionally celebrated in
Rome on 21 August, was also the local Derby Day, the main event of the
chariot racing calendar. Whether it was a case of cause or effect, the
underground granary, which housed the sacred shrine of Consus where the
opening sacrifice was conducted, was conveniently situated in the middle of
the Circus Maximus, where the racing took place.
Another of the original racing festivals was the Equirria to Mars on 15
October, this time on the Campus Martius, with its grisly climax.
Religious festivals could be grave as well as joyful. February saw both
kinds. During the nine days of the Parentilia, during which the family dead
were worshipped, state officials did no business, temples were closed, and
marriages forbidden. In complete contrast was the ancient and somewhat
gruesome Lupercalia, at which the deity honored was probably Faunus, god of
fertility, but the proceedings reflected the origins of Rome itself. They
started in the cave where Romulus and Remus were supposed to have been
suckled by the wolf. Several goats and a dog were sacrificed, and the blood
smeared over two youths of noble birth. The pair then ran a prescribed
cross-country course, wearing goatskins and carrying strips of hide, with
which they whipped people as they passed. They blows were supposed to
promote fertility, and women wanting to become pregnant would place
themselves at strategic points on the course to receive their stripes.
The marathon festivities of Mars from 1 to 19 March were even more exhausting
for the participants. Two teams each of twelve celebrants known as Sail
(jumpers) put on the helmets, uniform and armor of Bronze Age warriors and
leapt through the streets, chanting and beating their shields. Each night
they rested, and feasted, at a prearranged hostelry or private house.
The festival of Vesta in June was a more sedate and dignified affair.
For a week, the storehouse of treasures in the temple was open to the public
(but to married women only), who came barefooted with offerings of food. On
15 June the vestal virgins swept the place out, and public business, which
had been suspended during the festival, was resumed. As an extra touch, on 9
June mill-donkeys were hung with garlands of violets, decorated with loaves
of bread, and given the day off. There was not a month in the Roman calendar
which did not have its religious festivals. August, the sixth month of the
old calendar, hosted, in addition to the Consualia, festivals to Hercules
(god, not just of victory, but also of enterprise in business), Portunus (god
of harbors), Vulcan (god of fire), and Volturnus (god the river Tiber). It
was the month, too, in which the ancient festival of Diana was remembered on
the Aventine.
That January should find itself the first month in the revised calendar was
entirely appropriate. Janis, who gave his name to it, was a god unique to
the Romans and has no equivalent in any other mythology. He was the god of
beginnings as well as of the door, which you meet you of course meet when you
first enter a house. He not only began the year, and received the first
state sacrifice of the year at the Agonia on 9 January, but the first hour of
the day was sacred to him, and his name took precedence over all others in
prayers. He's bearded, double-headed image appeared on the first round
bronze coin of the republic, the as, in about 300 BC, and also on the
earliest silver coins, minted in Capua. The gates of his temple in the north
east corner of the forum were, it is said, kept wide open in times of war.
This meant that they were closed only twice in the succeeding seven
centuries.