The Encyclopedia of World Religions

396 S Roman religion

on the Capitoline Hill: the supreme god, Jupiter Optimus Maximus, along with J UNO and Minerva. In early times, Roman gods lacked personality and mythology. Many seem to have been simply abstract powers: Victory, Harmony, the Boundary Stone. From a small settlement on the Tiber River, Rome came to rule all the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. As its power grew, its religion grew, too. From neighbors in Italy known as the Etruscans Romans learned to worship images of gods and to house them in roofed buildings, that is, temples. From the Greeks they borrowed mytholo gies. By 200 B . C . E . many Roman gods had Greek alter-egos: Jupiter was Z EUS , Juno was Hera, Mars was Ares, and so on. The Romans did not simply identify traditional gods with foreign ones. They also imported foreign gods. During the republic they began to worship the Greek healer Asklepios, the “Great Mother” from Anatolia (ancient Turkey), and Bacchus. During the empire (began roughly 30 B . C . E .) they learned to WORSHIP I SIS of Egypt, M ITHRA of Persia, and Sol Invictus of Syria. When the empire was established, the emperor also became the object of a cult. That does not mean, however, that he became a god. The imperial cult took many forms. Emperors were declared gods when they died, or they were wor shipped along with the goddess Roma when alive, or portrayed as the supreme priest, or designated as specially chosen by the gods. Priests supervised Roman religious practices, but they rarely did so as a full-time job. Important priests included the “King of Rituals” ( rex sacro rum ), the “Highest Priest” ( pontifex maximus ), ancient priests known as flamens, the vestal vir gins, the salii who danced at festivals of Mars, and the augurs, who determined whether times were right for conducting state business, includ ing war. Toward the beginning of the fourth century C . E ., it became legal for Romans to practice Chris tianity. By the end of the century, it had become mandatory. Some Romans continued traditional worship for a time. But in the end, Christianity replaced the old Roman religion.

Copy of an altar dedicated to Jupiter (Lesley and Roy Adkins Picture Library)

The Roman state worshipped other gods too. The earliest known include J UPITER , M ARS , and Qui rinus. At the beginning of the republic (tradition ally 509 B . C . E .), Romans worshipped a triad of gods