Tombs and burial customs are an exquisite source for social history, as their commemorative character inevitably expresses much of the contemporaneous ideology of a society. This book presents, for the first time, a holistic view of the funerary culture of Rome and its surroundings during the third century AD. While the third century is often largely ignored in social history, it was a transitional period, an era of major challenges - political, economic, and social - which inspired creativity and innovation, and paved the way for the new system of late antiquity. Barbara Borg argues that during this time there was, in many ways, a return to practices known from the Late Republic and early imperial period, with spectacular monuments for the rich, and a large-scale reappearance of collective burial spaces. Through a study of terraced tombs, elite monuments, the catacomb nuclei, sarcophagi, and painted image decoration, this volume explores how the third century was an exciting period of experimentation and creativity, a time when non-Christians and Christians shared fundamental ideas, needs, and desires as well as cemeteries, tombs, and hypogea. Ambition continued to be a driving force and a determining factor in all social classes, who found innovative solutions to the challenges they encountered.

This edited collection addresses the role of ritual representations and religion in the epic poems of the Flavian period (69-96 CE): Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica, Silius Italicus' Punica, Statius' Thebaid, and the unfinished Achilleid. Drawing on various modern studies on religion and ritual, and the relationship between literature and religion in the Greco-Roman world, it explores how we can interpret the poets' use of the relationship between gods and humans, cults and rituals, religious activities, and the role of the seer / prophet and his identification with poetry.
Divided into three major sections, the volume includes essays on the most important religious activities (prophecy or augury, prayers and hymns) and the relationship between religion and political power under the Flavian emperors. It also addresses specific episodes in Flavian epic which focus on religious activities associated with the dead and the Underworld, such as purification, necromancy, katabasis, suicide, and burial. It finally explores the role of gender in ritual and religion.

Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History (402/3 CE) gives a vivid account of the confrontation between the Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius and the Western usurper Eugenius. To many, the defeat of Eugenius and his pagan followers along the Frigidus River in 394 was the last gasp of a vigorous pagan revolt in the late fourth century, one spearheaded by the Roman aristocracy. This elaborate campaign to derail Christianity, as the story goes, consisted of identifiable pagan literary circles, pagan patronage of the classics, and pagan propaganda in art and literature. Recently, however, scholars have shown this picture to be wanting in accuracy and nuance. Alan Cameron's The Last Pagans of Rome will replace this view with a richly detailed portrait of pagan society during the pivotal fourth and early fifth centuries. The subject of his book is not the conversion of the last pagans but rather the duration, nature, and consequences of their survival. It is widely believed that pagan aristocrats remained in the majority till at least the 380s, and continued to be a powerful force well into the fifth century. On this basis the main focus of much modern scholarship has been on their supposed stubborn resistance to Christianity. Rather surprisingly, these aristocrats have been transformed from the arrogant, philistine land-grabbers most of them were into fearless champions of senatorial privilege, literature lovers, and aficionados of classical (especially Greek) culture. The dismantling of this romantic myth is one of the main goals of Cameron's book. If a pagan aristocracy did not mount a defiant political and cultural rearguard action, what did they do? If elite culture at this time was not starkly divided between pagan and Christian, what did it look like? By sifting through the abundant textual evidence-from the Church Fathers Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome to the classicizing authors Claudian, Macrobius, and Aullus Gellius-as well as the visual evidence (diptychs, illuminated manuscripts, silverware, and ivories), Cameron develops sophisticated and comprehensive answers to these questions. Among the provocative conclusions he makes is that the many activities and artifacts previously identified as hallmarks of a pagan revival were in fact just as important to the life of cultivated Christians. Far from being a subversive pagan activity designed to rally pagans, the promotion of classical literature, learning, and art-and its acceptance by many elite Christians-may actually have helped the last reluctant pagans to finally abandon the old cults and adopt Christianity. Throughout Cameron's careful analysis he engages, often with wit and pugnacity, with the mountain of scholarship on the subject. The culmination of several decades of research, The Last Pagans of Rome will be quite simply a landmark publication.

Divination and Human Nature casts a new perspective on the rich tradition of ancient divination-the reading of divine signs in oracles, omens, and dreams. Popular attitudes during classical antiquity saw these readings as signs from the gods while modern scholars have treated such beliefs as primitive superstitions. In this book, Peter Struck reveals instead that such phenomena provoked an entirely different accounting from the ancient philosophers. These philosophers produced subtle studies into what was an odd but observable fact-that humans could sometimes have uncanny insights-and their work signifies an early chapter in the cognitive history of intuition. Examining the writings of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and the Neoplatonists, Struck demonstrates that they all observed how, setting aside the charlatans and swindlers, some people had premonitions defying the typical bounds of rationality. Given the wide differences among these ancient thinkers, Struck notes that they converged on seeing this surplus insight as an artifact of human nature, projections produced under specific conditions by our physiology. For the philosophers, such unexplained insights invited a speculative search for an alternative and more naturalistic system of cognition. Recovering a lost piece of an ancient tradition, Divination and Human Nature illustrates how philosophers of the classical era interpreted the phenomena of divination as a practice closer to intuition and instinct than magic.

This is a fascinating exploration of the role of the botanical in ancient Greek and Roman myth and classical literature. This engaging book focuses on the perennially fascinating topic of plants in Greek and Roman myth. The author, an authority on the gardens, art, and literature of the classical world, introduces the book's main themes with a discussion of gods and heroes in ancient Greek and Roman gardens. The following chapters recount the everyday uses and broader cultural meaning of plants with particularly strong mythological associations. These include common garden plants such as narcissus and hyacinth; apple and pomegranate, which were potent symbols of fertility; and sources of precious incense including frankincense and myrrh. Following the sweeping botanical commentary are the myths themselves, told in the original voice of Ovid, classical antiquity's most colourful mythographer. The volume's interdisciplinary approach will appeal to a wide audience, ranging from readers interested in archaeology, classical literature, and ancient history to garden enthusiasts. With an original translation of selections from Ovid's Metamorphoses, an extensive bibliography, a useful glossary of names and places, and a rich selection of images including exquisite botanical illustrations, this book is unparalleled in scope and realization.

In ancient Rome, it was believed some humans were transformed into special, empowered beings after death. These deified dead, known as the manes, watched over and protected their surviving family members, possibly even extending those relatives' lives. But unlike the Greek hero-cult, the worship of dead emperors, or the Christian saints, the manes were incredibly inclusive-enrolling even those without social clout, such as women and the poor, among Rome's deities. The Roman afterlife promised posthumous power in the world of the living. While the manes have often been glossed over in studies of Roman religion, this book brings their compelling story to the forefront, exploring their myriad forms and how their worship played out in the context of Roman religion's daily practice. Exploring the place of the manes in Roman society, Charles King delves into Roman beliefs about their powers to sustain life and bring death to individuals or armies, examines the rituals the Romans performed to honor them, and reclaims the vital role the manes played in the ancient Roman afterlife.

"Silly," "stupid," "irrational," "simple." "Wicked," "hateful," "obstinate," "anti-social." "Extravagant," "perverse." The Roman world rendered harsh judgments upon early Christianityaincluding branding Christianity "new." Novelty was no Roman religious virtue. Nevertheless,as Larry W. Hurtado shows in Destroyer of the gods , Christianity thrived despite its new and distinctive features and opposition to them. Unlike nearly all other religious groups, Christianity utterly rejected the traditional gods of the Roman world. Christianity also offered a new and different kind of religious identity, one not based on ethnicity. Christianity was distinctively a "bookish" religion, with the production, copying, distribution, and reading of texts as central to its faith, even preferring a distinctive book-form, the codex. Christianity insisted that its adherents behave differently: unlike the simple ritual observances characteristic of the pagan religious environment, embracing Christian faith meant a behavioral transformation, with particular and novel ethical demands for men. Unquestionably, to the Roman world, Christianity was both new and different, and, to a good many, it threatened social and religious conventions of the day. In the rejection of the gods and in the centrality of texts, early Christianity obviously reflected commitments inherited from its Jewish origins. But these particular features were no longer identified with Jewish ethnicity and early Christianity quickly became aggressively trans-ethnicaa novel kind of religious movement. Its ethical teaching, too, bore some resemblance to the philosophers of the day, yet in contrast with these great teachers and their small circles of dedicated students, early Christianity laid its hard demands upon all adherents from the moment of conversion, producing a novel social project. Christianity's novelty was no badge of honor. Called atheists and suspected ofpolitical subversion, Christiansearned Roman disdain and suspicion in equal amounts. Yet, as Destroyer of the gods demonstrates, inan irony of history the very features of early Christianity that rendered it distinctive and objectionable in Roman eyes have now become so commonplace in Western culture as to go unnoticed. Christianity helped destroy one world and create another.

Originally published in 1903, this book traces the influence of the ancient pagan legends of Castor and Pollux, the Dioscuri, on later Christian hagiography. Rendel Harris charts how the Church not only displaced ancient religious practices centred around the Dioscuri with their own traditions, but also how Christians took pagan legends and reshaped them for their own purposes. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in comparative religious history, the history of the early church and the influences of paganism on Christianity.

Historians often regard the police as a modern development, and indeed, many pre-modern societies had no such institution. Most recent scholarship has claimed that Roman society relied on kinship networks or community self-regulation as a means of conflict resolution and social control. This model, according to Christopher Fuhrmann, fails to properly account for the imperial-era evidence, which argues in fact for an expansion of state-sponsored policing activities in the first three centuries of the Common Era. Drawing on a wide variety of source material--from art, archaeology, administrative documents, Egyptian papyri, laws, Jewish and Christian religious texts, and ancient narratives--Policing the Roman Empire provides a comprehensive overview of Roman imperial policing practices with chapters devoted to fugitive slave hunting, the pivotal role of Augustus, the expansion of policing under his successors, and communities lacking soldier-police that were forced to rely on self-help or civilian police.
Rather than merely cataloguing references to police, this study sets policing in the broader context of Roman attitudes towards power, public order, and administration. Fuhrmann argues that a broad range of groups understood the potential value of police, from the emperors to the peasantry. Years of different police initiatives coalesced into an uneven patchwork of police institutions that were not always coordinated, effective, or upright. But the end result was a new means by which the Roman state--more ambitious than often supposed--could seek to control the lives of its subjects, as in the imperial persecutions of Christians.
The first synoptic analysis of Roman policing in over a hundred years, and the first ever in English, Policing the Roman Empire will be of great interest to scholars and students of classics, history, law, and religion.

Sicily and the strategies of empire in the poetic imagination of classical and medieval Europe In the first century BC, Cicero praised Sicily as Rome's first overseas province and confirmed it as the mythic location for the abduction of Proserpina, known to the Greeks as Persephone, by the god of the underworld. The Return of Proserpina takes readers from Roman antiquity to the late Middle Ages to explore how the Mediterranean island offered authors a setting for forces resistant to empire and a location for displaying and reclaiming what has been destroyed. Using the myth of Proserpina as a through line, Sarah Spence charts the relationship Western empire held with its myths and its own past. She takes an in-depth, panoramic look at a diverse range of texts set on Sicily, demonstrating how the myth of Proserpina enables a discussion of empire in terms of balance, loss, and negotiation. Providing new readings of authors as separated in time and culture as Vergil, Claudian, and Dante, Spence shows how the shape of Proserpina's tale and perceptions of the island change from a myth of loss to one of redemption, with the volcanic Mt. Etna playing an increasingly central role. Delving into the ways that myth and geography affect politics and poetics, The Return of Proserpina explores the power of language and the written word during a period of tremendous cultural turbulence.

The first anthology ever to present the entire range of ancient Greek and Roman stories--from myths and fairy tales to jokes Captured centaurs and satyrs, talking animals, people who suddenly change sex, men who give birth, the temporarily insane and the permanently thick-witted, delicate sensualists, incompetent seers, a woman who remembers too much, a man who cannot laugh--these are just some of the colorful characters who feature in the unforgettable stories that ancient Greeks and Romans told in their daily lives. Together they created an incredibly rich body of popular oral stories that include, but range well beyond, mythology--from heroic legends, fairy tales, and fables to ghost stories, urban legends, and jokes. This unique anthology presents the largest collection of these tales ever assembled. Featuring nearly four hundred stories in authoritative and highly readable translations, this is the first book to offer a representative selection of the entire range of traditional classical storytelling. Set mostly in the world of humans, not gods, these stories focus on figures such as lovers, tricksters, philosophers, merchants, rulers, athletes, artists, and soldiers. The narratives range from the well-known--for example, Cupid and Psyche, Diogenes and his lantern, and the tortoise and the hare--to lesser-known tales that deserve wider attention. Entertaining and fascinating, they offer a unique window into the fantasies, anxieties, humor, and passions of the people who told them. Complete with beautiful illustrations by Glynnis Fawkes, a comprehensive introduction, notes, and more, this one-of-a-kind anthology will delight general readers as well as students of classics, fairy tales, and folklore.

Throughout his narrative of Julio-Claudian Rome in the Annals, Tacitus includes numerous references to the gods, fate, fortune, astrology, omens, temples, priests, the emperor cult, and other religious material. Though scholars have long considered Tacitus' discussion of religion of minor importance, this volume demonstrates the significance of such references to an understanding of the work as a whole by analyzing them using cultural memory theory, which views religious ritual as a key component in any society's efforts to create a lived version of the past that helps define cultural identity in the present. Tacitus, who was not only an historian, but also a member of Rome's quindecimviral priesthood, shows a marked interest in even the most detailed rituals of Roman religious life, yet his portrayal of religious material also suggests that the system is under threat with the advent of the principate. Some traditional rituals are forgotten as the shape of the Roman state changes while, simultaneously, a new form of cultic commemoration develops as deceased emperors are deified and the living emperor and his family members are treated in increasingly worshipful ways by his subjects. This study traces the deployment of religious material throughout Tacitus' narrative in order to show how he views the development of this cultic "amnesia" over time, from the reign of the cryptic, autocratic, and oddly mystical Tiberius, through Claudius' failed attempts at reviving tradition, to the final sacrilegious disasters of the impious Nero. As the first book-length treatment of religion in the Annals, it reveals how these references are a key vehicle for his assessment of the principate as a system of government, the activities of individual emperors, and their impact on Roman society and cultural identity.

A Place at the Altar illuminates a previously underappreciated dimension of religion in ancient Rome: the role of priestesses in civic cult. Demonstrating that priestesses had a central place in public rituals and institutions, Meghan DiLuzio emphasizes the complex, gender-inclusive nature of Roman priesthood. In ancient Rome, priestly service was a cooperative endeavor, requiring men and women, husbands and wives, and elite Romans and slaves to work together to manage the community's relationship with its gods. Like their male colleagues, priestesses offered sacrifices on behalf of the Roman people, and prayed for the community's well-being. As they carried out their ritual obligations, they were assisted by female cult personnel, many of them slave women. DiLuzio explores the central role of the Vestal Virgins and shows that they occupied just one type of priestly office open to women. Some priestesses, including the flaminica Dialis, the regina sacrorum, and the wives of the curial priests, served as part of priestly couples. Others, such as the priestesses of Ceres and Fortuna Muliebris, were largely autonomous. A Place at the Altar offers a fresh understanding of how the women of ancient Rome played a leading role in public cult.

Was religious practice in ancient Rome cultic and hostile to individual expression? Or was there, rather, considerable latitude for individual initiative and creativity? Joerg Rupke, one of the world's leading authorities on Roman religion, demonstrates in his new book that it was a lived religion with individual appropriations evident at the heart of such rituals as praying, dedicating, making vows, and reading. On Roman Religion definitively dismantles previous approaches that depicted religious practice as uniform and static. Juxtaposing very different, strategic, and even subversive forms of individuality with traditions, their normative claims, and their institutional protections, Rupke highlights the dynamic character of Rome's religious institutions and traditions. In Rupke's view, lived ancient religion is as much about variations or even outright deviance as it is about attempts and failures to establish or change rules and roles and to communicate them via priesthoods, practices related to images or classified as magic, and literary practices. Rupke analyzes observations of religious experience by contemporary authors including Propertius, Ovid, and the author of the "Shepherd of Hermas." These authors, in very different ways, reflect on individual appropriation of religion among their contemporaries, and they offer these reflections to their readership or audiences. Rupke also concentrates on the ways in which literary texts and inscriptions informed the practice of rituals.

Javier Teixidor has found evidence that belief in a supreme god developed during the first millennium B.C. The Phoenician and Aramaic inscriptions he discusses indicate a trend toward monotheism that facilitated the spread of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The author concludes that the traditional characteristics of the popular religions were preserved during this period and that the Hellenistic culture and the mystery cults did not have a significant effect on popular piety. Here, then, is a major reinterpretation of the religious life of the Near East in the Greco-Roman period based on a reliable source of information. Originally published in 1977. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The phenomena we call magic and mysticism had a profound effect on the shaping of Judaism in late antiquity. In this volume, Michael D. Swartz offers a wide-ranging study of the purposes, world-views, ritual dynamics, literary forms, and social settings of ancient Jewish magic and mysticism and their function in religion and history. Based on the author's studies over the past few decades, he proposes innovative methods for the study of these two phenomena. The author focuses especially on the rituals of early Jewish magic and mysticism, their social contexts, and the textual dimension of this complex literature. He also offers introductions to these phenomena. Michael D. Swartz argues that the authors of these texts employed intricate technologies, literary and artistic forms, and physical practices to negotiate between the values and world-views of their cultures and the texture of everyday life.

Javier Teixidor has found evidence that belief in a supreme god developed during the first millennium B.C. The Phoenician and Aramaic inscriptions he discusses indicate a trend toward monotheism that facilitated the spread of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The author concludes that the traditional characteristics of the popular religions were preserved during this period and that the Hellenistic culture and the mystery cults did not have a significant effect on popular piety. Here, then, is a major reinterpretation of the religious life of the Near East in the Greco-Roman period based on a reliable source of information. Originally published in 1977. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Panthee presents a collective reflection relating to the changes affecting the Graeco-Roman Empire and its religious landscapes. Leading specialists construct a picture of practices and conceptual frames, which, in their diversity and inter-action, model a religious universe whose complexity will help understand our modern globalising world. Panthee propose une reflexion sur les mutations qui ont affecte l'Empire greco-romain et ont remodele ses paysages religieux. Les meilleurs specialistes construisent un tableau des pratiques et des cadres de pensee qui dessinent les contours d'un univers religieux dont la complexite aide a penser le monde moderne de la globalisation.

Canidia is one of the most well-attested witches in Latin literature. She appears in no fewer than six of Horace's poems, three of which she has a prominent role in. Throughout Horace's Epodes and Satires she perpetrates acts of grave desecration, kidnapping, murder, magical torture and poisoning. She invades the gardens of Horace's literary patron Maecenas, rips apart a lamb with her teeth, starves a Roman child to death, and threatens to unnaturally prolong Horace's life to keep him in a state of perpetual torment. She can be seen as an anti-muse: Horace repeatedly sets her in opposition to his literary patron, casts her as the personification of his iambic poetry, and gives her the surprising honor of concluding not only his Epodes but also his second book of Satires. This volume is the first comprehensive treatment of Canidia. It offers translations of each of the three poems which feature Canidia as a main character as well as the relevant portions from the other three poems in which Canidia plays a minor role. These translations are accompanied by extensive analysis of Canidia's part in each piece that takes into account not only the poems' literary contexts but their magico-religious details.