Public and Private Religion

Romans followed Greek models of religion. Their chief deity, Jupiter, corresponded to the Greek god Zeus and was seen as a powerful, stern father. Juno (Greek Hera), queen of the gods, and Minerva (Greek Athena), goddess of wisdom, joined Jupiter to form the state religion’s central triad. These three deities shared Rome’s most revered temple.

Protecting Rome’s safety and prosperity was the gods’ major function. They were supposed to help Rome defeat enemies in war and to support agriculture. Prayers requested the gods’ aid in winning battles, growing abundant crops, healing disease, and promoting reproduction for animals and people. In times of crisis, Romans sought foreign gods for help in bringing salvation to their community, such as when the government imported the cult of the healing god Asclepius from Greece in 293 B.C.E., praying he would stop an epidemic. (See “Seeing History: Visualizing the Connection between War and Religion in the Roman Republic.”)

The republic supported many other cults, including that of Vesta, goddess of the hearth and protector of the family. Her shrine housed Rome’s official eternal flame, which guaranteed the state’s permanent existence. The Vestal Virgins, six unmarried women sworn to chastity and Rome’s only female priests, tended Vesta’s shrine. They earned high status and freedom from their fathers’ control by performing their most important duty: keeping the flame from going out. If the flame went out, the Romans assumed that one of the Vestal Virgins had had sex and buried her alive.

Religion was important in Roman family life. Each household maintained small indoor shrines that housed statuettes of the spirits of the household and those of the ancestors, protectors of the family’s health and morality. Upper-class families kept death masks of famous ancestors hanging in the main room and wore them at funerals to display their status.

Religious rituals accompanied everyday activities such as breast-feeding babies or fertilizing crops. Many public religious gatherings promoted the community’s health and stability. For example, during the Lupercalia festival (whose name recalled the wolf, luper in Latin, that had reared Romulus and his twin, Remus, according to legend), near-naked young men streaked around the Palatine hill, lashing any woman they met with strips of goatskin. Women who had not yet borne children would run out to be struck, believing this would help them become fertile.

The Romans did not regard the gods as guardians of human morality. As Cicero explained, “We call Jupiter the Best and Greatest not because he makes us just or sober or wise but, rather, healthy, unharmed, rich, and prosperous.” Roman officials preceded important actions with the ritual called taking the auspices, in which they sought Jupiter’s approval by observing natural signs such as birds’ flight direction or eating habits, or the appearance of thunder and lightning.

Romans regarded values as divine forces. Pietas (“piety”), for example, meant devotion and duty to family, friends, the state, and the gods; a temple at Rome held a statue personifying pietas as a female divinity. The personification of abstract moral qualities provided a focus for cult rituals.

The duty of Roman religious officials was to maintain peace with the gods. Socially prominent men served as priests, conducting sacrifices, festivals, and prayers. Priests were citizens performing public service, not religious professionals. The chief priest, the pontifex maximus (“greatest bridge-builder”), served as the head of state religion, a position carrying political prominence. The most prominent religious ceremonies at which priests presided were sacrifices of large animals, whose meat would be shared among the worshippers.

Disrespect for religious tradition brought punishment. Admirals, for example, took the auspices by feeding sacred chickens on their warships: if the birds ate energetically, Jupiter favored the Romans and an attack could begin. In 249 B.C.E., the commander Publius Claudius Pulcher grew frustrated when his chickens, probably seasick, refused to eat. Determined to attack, he finally hurled the birds overboard in a rage, sputtering, “Well then, let them drink!” When he promptly suffered a huge defeat, he was fined heavily.