Ennius translated the work of Graeco-Sicilian Euhemerus, who explained the genesis of the gods as apotheosized mortals. Though the household Lares do just that, and at least some Romans understood them to be ancestral spirits. As the Romans extended their dominance throughout the Mediterranean world, their policy in general was to absorb the deities and cults of other peoples rather than try to eradicate them,[4] since they believed that preserving tradition promoted social stability. Potter, 241-3: see 242 for Decian "libellus" (certificate) of oath and sacrifice on papyrus, dated to 250 AD. Persecutions increased where Christian churches were burned and all of this continued under the reign of Diocletian (emperor in the east), ending in the Great Persecution. The Hellenization of Latin literature and culture supplied literary and artistic models for reinterpreting Roman deities in light of the Greek Olympians, and promoted a sense that the two cultures had a shared heritage. [103] As Roman society developed, its Republican nobility tended to invest less in spectacular funerals and extravagant housing for their dead, and more on monumental endowments to the community, such as the donation of a temple or public building whose donor was commemorated by his statue and inscribed name. The first "outsider" Etruscan king, Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, founded a Capitoline temple to the triad Jupiter, Juno and Minerva which served as the model for the highest official cult throughout the Roman world. They were given high-status seating at games and theatres. Beard et al, Vol. Judaism in Ancient Rome. These objects were believed in historical times to remain in the keeping of the Vestals, Rome's female priesthood. During the Augustan era, the city of Rome probably housed around a million people, including an unknown number of provincials: by Mouritsen's estimate, around 200,000 Roman citizens were eligible to vote in Rome itself during the late Republican era but during major elections, the influx of rural voters and the bottleneck of the city's ancient electoral apparatus meant that perhaps 12% of eligible citizens actually voted. The Romans did not embrace Christianity until after the period when they were in Caledonia. Other than the pontifexes there were augures, individuals who read the entrails of animals and the flight of birds to interpret omens, or in other words, the will of the gods. Christian heretics as well as non-Christians were subject to exclusion from public life or persecution, though Rome's original religious hierarchy and many aspects of its ritual influenced Christian forms,[210] and many pre-Christian beliefs and practices survived in Christian festivals and local traditions. When he offers sacrifice, the victim's liver appears "damaged where it refers to his own fortunes". Therefore, civil and religious law limited the number and kind of religious offices allowed an individual and his family. [40] Even private prayer by an individual was formulaic, a recitation rather than a personal expression, though selected by the individual for a particular purpose or occasion.[41]. [211] Yet Theodosius accepted comparison with Hercules and Jupiter as a living divinity in the panegyric of Pacatus, and despite his active dismantling of Rome's traditional cults and priesthoods could commend his heirs to its overwhelmingly Hellenic Senate in traditional Hellenic terms. [200][201] At Constantine's death, he was honored as a Christian and as an Imperial "divus". Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms. Other funerary and commemorative practices were very different. Most others were plebeians, the lowest class of Roman citizens. [95] In 207 BC, during one of the Punic Wars' worst crises, the Senate dealt with an unprecedented number of confirmed prodigies whose expiation would have involved "at least twenty days" of dedicated rites. The spread of Greek literature, mythology and philosophy offered Roman poets and antiquarians a model for the interpretation of Rome's festivals and rituals, and the embellishment of its mythology. This nevertheless represents a substantial increase from the estimated 1% adult male enfranchisement rights of 145 BC. In some cases and in some places the edicts were strictly enforced: some Christians resisted and were imprisoned or martyred. Besides their own festival of Vestalia, they participated directly in the rites of Parilia, Parentalia and Fordicidia. The survival of such a child for four years after its birth would have between regarded as extreme dereliction of religious duty. [189] At some time around 302, a report of ominous haruspicy in Diocletian's domus and a subsequent (but undated) dictat of placatory sacrifice by the entire military triggered a series of edicts against Christianity. The benevolent, divinely fathered Servius Tullius established the Latin League, its Aventine Temple to Diana, and the Compitalia to mark his social reforms. These cults had often expensive, long, or trying initiation processes, which differed between cults, but prospective members were promised with a path to a better atmosphere and an atmosphere that fostered social bonds, known as mystai. His cult had further precedents: popular, unofficial cult offered to powerful benefactors in Rome: the kingly, god-like honours granted a Roman general on the day of his triumph; and in the divine honours paid to Roman magnates in the Greek East from at least 195 BC.[171][172]. [145] Politicians of the later Republic were less equivocal; both Sulla and Pompey claimed special relationships with Venus. Because Romans had never been obligated to cultivate one god or one cult only, religious tolerance was not an issue in the sense that it is for monotheistic systems. 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