The polytheistic religious systems of ancient Greece and Rome reveal an imaginative attitude towards the construction of the divine. One of the most important instruments in this process was certainly the visualisation. Images of the gods transformed the divine world into a visually experienceable entity, comprehensible even without a theoretical or theological superstructure. For the illiterates, images were together with oral traditions and rituals the only possibility to approach the idea of the divine; for the intellectuals, images of the gods could be allegorically transcended symbols to reflect upon. Based on the art historical and textual evidence, this volume offers a fresh view on the historical, literary, and artistic significance of divine images as powerful visual media of religious and intellectual communication.

This book thoroughly revisits divination as a central phenomenon in the lives of ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians. It collects studies from many periods in Graeco-Roman history, from the Archaic period to the late Roman, and touches on many different areas of this rich topic, including treatments of dice oracles, sortition in both pagan and Christian contexts, the overlap between divination and other interpretive practices in antiquity, the fortunes of independent diviners, the activity of Delphi in ordering relations with the dead, the role of Egyptian cult centers in divinatory practices, and the surreptitious survival of recipes for divination by corpses. It also reflects a range of methodologies, drawn from anthropology, history of religions, intellectual history, literary studies, and archaeology, epigraphy, and paleography. It will be of particular interest to scholars and student of ancient Mediterranean religions.

Originally published in 1894, this book contains an exhaustive amount of information on the gods and characters in ancient Greek and Roman Myths. This is the original 1st edition by E M Berens. It includes his original notes and a pronunciation index for every uncommon word or name in the book which is not in most reprints. This is not a blurry, scanned copy of the original. It is a fresh and perfectly printed book.

This classic book comprehensively details the myths of Greece and Rome. Beautifully illustrated and with many chapters including 'Neptune', 'The Trojan War' and an 'Analysis of Myths', this book would be an excellent addition to the bookshelf of anyone with an interest in the subject. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Of all the divinities of classical antiquity, the Greek Hermes (Mercury in his Roman alter ego) is the most versatile, enigmatic, complex, and ambiguous. The runt of the Olympian litter, he is the god of lies and tricks, yet is also kindly towards mankind and a bringer of luck. His functions embrace both the marking of boundaries and their transgression, but also extend to commerce, lucre, and theft, as well as rhetoric and practical jokes. In another guise, he plays the role of mediator between all realms of human and divine activity, embracing heaven, earth, and the netherworld. Pursuing this elusive divinity requires a truly multidisciplinary approach, reflecting his prismatic nature, and the twenty contributions to this volume draw on a wide range of fields to achieve this, from Greek and Roman literature (epic, lyric, and drama), epigraphy, cult, and religion, to vase painting and sculpture. In offering an overview of the myriad aspects of Hermes/Mercury-including his origins, patronage of the gymnasium, and relation to other trickster figures-the volume attempts to track the god's footprints across the many domains in which he partakes. Moreover, in keeping with his deep connection to exchange, commerce, and dialogue, it aims to exemplify and further encourage discourse between Latinists and Hellenists, as well as between scholars of literary and material cultures.

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.

"The Final Pagan Generation" recounts the fascinating story of the lives and fortunes of the last Romans born before the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity. Edward J. Watts traces their experiences of living through the fourth century's dramatic religious and political changes, when heated confrontations saw the Christian establishment legislate against pagan practices as mobs attacked pagan holy sites and temples. The emperors who issued these laws, the imperial officials charged with implementing them, and the Christian perpetrators of religious violence were almost exclusively young men whose attitudes and actions contrasted markedly with those of the earlier generation, who shared neither their juniors' interest in creating sharply defined religious identities nor their propensity toward violent conflict. Watts examines why the "final pagan generation"--born to the old ways and the old world in which it seemed to everyone that religious practices would continue as they had for the last two thousand years--proved both unable to anticipate the changes that imperially sponsored Christianity produced and unwilling to resist them. A compelling and provocative read, suitable for the general reader as well as students and scholars of the ancient world.

Roman politics and religion were inherently linked as the Romansattempted to explain the world and their place within it. As Romanterritory expanded and power became consolidated into the hands of oneman, people throughout the empire sought to define their relationshipwith the emperor by granting honors to him. This collection of practiceshas been labeled "emperor worship" or "ruler cult," but this tells onlyhalf the story: imperial family members also became an important partof this construction of power and almost half of the individuals deifiedin Rome were wives, sisters, children, and other family members ofthe emperor. A Family of Gods seeks to expand current "ruler cult"discussions by including other deified individuals, and by looking athow communities in the period 44 BCE to 337 CE sought to connectthemselves with the imperial power structure through establishingpriesthoods and cult practices. A Family of Gods focuses on the priests dedicated to the worship of theimperial family in order to contextualize their role in how imperial powerwas perceived in the provincial communities and the ways in whichcommunities chose to employ religious practices. Special emphasis isgiven to the provinces in Gaul, Spain, and North Africa. This book will interest scholars of Roman imperial cult as well as Romanimperialism, and religious and political history. It focuses on epigraphicevidence but incorporates literary, numismatic, and archaeologicalevidence where applicable.

In German-speaking countries, the role of the diaconate has been strongly influenced by nineteenth-century ideas of diakonia as service towards the poor. As important as the social initiatives stemming from this perspective have been, in order to correctly understand deacons and diakonia in the early church, we must go back to the sources. For this volume, focused on the first two centuries of Christianity, scholars from a range of backgrounds consider the use of diakonos and related words in the New Testament and extra-biblical sources, both Christian and otherwise. These texts reveal what deacons actually did, helping us to understand the past and giving guidance for the present, particularly in ecumenical discussions concerning the ministry.

Daily religious devotion in the Greek and Roman worlds centered on the family and the home. Besides official worship in rural sacred areas and at temples in towns, the ancients kept household shrines with statuettes of different deities that could have a deep personal and spiritual meaning. Roman houses were often filled with images of gods. Gods and goddesses were represented in mythological paintings on walls and in decorative mosaics on floors, in bronze and marble sculptures, on ornate silver dining vessels, and on lowly clay oil lamps that lit dark rooms. Even many modest homes had one or more religious objects that were privately venerated. Ranging from the humble to the magnificent, these small objects could be fashioned in any medium from terracotta to precious metal or stone. Showcasing the collections in the Getty Villa, this book's emphasis on the spiritual beliefs and practices of individuals promises to make the works of Greek and Roman art more accessible to readers. Compelling representations of private religious devotion, these small objects express personal ways of worshiping that are still familiar to us today. A chapter on contemporary domestic worship further enhances the relevance of these miniature sculptures for modern viewers.

The Roman cult of Mithras was the most widely-dispersed and densely-distributed cult throughout the expanse of the Roman Empire from the end of the first until the fourth century AD, rivaling the early growth and development of Christianity during the same period. As its membership was largely drawn from the ranks of the military, its spread, but not its popularity is attributable largely to military deployments and re-deployments. Although mithraists left behind no written archival evidence, there is an abundance of iconographic finds. The only characteristic common to all Mithraic temples were the fundamental architecture of their design, and the cult image of Mithras slaying a bull. How were these two features so faithfully transmitted through the Empire by a non-centralized, non-hierarchical religious movement? The Minds of Mithraists: Historical and Cognitive Studies in the Roman Cult of Mithras addresses these questions as well as the relationship of Mithraism to Christianity, explanations of the significance of the tauroctony and of the rituals enacted in the mithraea, and explanations for the spread of Mithraism (and for its resistance in a few places). The unifying theme throughout is an investigation of the 'mind' of those engaged in the cult practices of this widespread ancient religion. These investigations represent traditional historical methods as well as more recent studies employing the insights of the cognitive sciences, demonstrating that cognitive historiography is a valuable methodological tool.

The book looks at the worship of the goddess Nemesis within the context of the Roman ludi and offers the first entire collection and analysis of all known archaeological finds and findings that connect the cult of Nemesis with Roman amphitheatres. Several central aspects of the ancient games are thus emphasized: The political and religious dimension of the events as well as the significance and localization of its most representative goddess Nemesis. The goddess can be attributed to a figurative meaning for the demonstration and restoration of the Roman claim for justice - presented in the amphitheatre, where the most complete cross-section of Roman society came together.

The Mythology of Venus is a collection of essays that summarizes the archaeoastronomy, calendar associations, religious and cultural icons, and myths identified with the planet Venus. The book concentrates on Western Europe, the Mediterranean, the Near East, and the East from the Paleolithic Age to the Iron Age. It reveals the archetype of a goddess associated with the planet Venus who is identified with transformation, spiritual resurrection, and enlightenment. The characteristics of the goddess are steeped in sexual metaphors which contain images of birth and re-birth, and they reveal a pattern of symbols that follows the journey of the planet Venus through its cycles in the night sky. Moreover, the journey of Venus and the corresponding icons associated with the goddess are part of an intricate pattern of symbolic language that is seen on ancient monuments and on the ancient calendars of several cultures. Temples from France and Ireland to Greece and Malta trace the journey of the planet Venus and the story of the goddess of Venus.

Greek and Roman mythology has fascinated people for more than two millennia, and its influence on cultures throughout Europe, America, North Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere attests to the universal appeal of the stories. ""Encyclopedia of Greek and Roman Mythology"" examines the best-known figures of Greek and Roman mythology together with the great works of classic literature that are the sources for our mythological understanding. This new encyclopedia presents ancient mythology from a literary perspective and features numerous illustrations from both ancient and modern works of fine art to show how myths have been transmitted in visual form through the ages. The entries include: Greek and Roman gods and heroes, such as Athena, Achilles, Apollo, Heracles, Odysseus, Orpheus, Poseidon, and Zeus; Mythological creatures, such as Cerberus, the Gorgons, the Minotaur, and Pegasus; and great works of literature that provide the sources for classical mythology, including the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides; the ""Aeneid of Virgil""; the ""Iliad and the Odyssey"" of Homer; and the ""Metamorphoses"" of Ovid and much more.