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Roman Religion

The religion of Rome exercised a decided influence on the government of the state. The groundwork of the religion of the Greeks and Romans was laid before their separation. The Romans brought their own gods and own form of worship with them into the valley of the Tiber. The elements, then, of their religion, like their clan-constitution, were older than the state; the development was peculiar and characteristic of the Roman mind.

The Roman was eminently religious. He saw the agency of the gods in everything. To him all nature, the heavens, the earth, the mountains, the rivers, swarmed with divine beings. Wherever he turned, whatever he undertook, whether at home, on his farm, or in the forum, he sought with scrupulous care to learn the will of the gods by prayer and offerings. The Roman, on his entrance into Italy, had the home and the domestic hearth, and had learned how to till the soil. The gods, then, whose protection he especially sought, were those of nature - of the forest, the field, the grove, the mountain, and the home. Hence the honor early paid to Jupiter and Jnno, the god and goddess of the clear sky; to Saturnus, the seed-sower; to Tellus, the nourishing earth; to Ceres, the goddess of germination and growth; to Consus and Ops, the god and goddess of the harvest; to Pales, the goddess of the flocks; and to Jupiter, the god of the vine. Jupiter was worshiped under names according to the matter for which his aid was needed : as Jupiter Terminus, the god of boundaries ; Jupiter Elicius, the god of lightning ; and in the Capitol as Jupiter Optimus Maximus. These were all worshiped with festivals, each in his own proper month - the Satuntolia in December, the Tellilia, Cerialia, Paliiia in April.

The romans heard, especially, the voices of their gods in the stillness of the forest. Pliny calls the groves the first temples of the gods. Here before the trees, as before the altars of their gods, the Romans offered their devotions. The oak was sacred to Jupiter; the olive to Minerva. The fig-tree was an object of especial worship, for it was near the fig-tree at the foot of the Palatine that the twins Romulus and Remus were found. Near by was the Lupercal, where the god Lupercus dwelt. His festival, called Lupercalia, was celebrated every year, on the 15th of February. After sacrificing to the god in his cave, the priests ran through the streets dressed in goats' skins, beating all whom they met with strips of goats' leather. The year closed with the festival to Terminus, called the Terminalia, the god of boundaries.

The Roman gods loved to have their thrones erected on the lofty hills, as Jupiter Latiaris on the Alban Mount, from the sacred summit of which he could survey the whole plain of Latium, and as the old Italian deity Apollo Soranus, the god of the sun, on Mount Soracte. In addition to these there was the worship of Vulcan, the god of fire and the forge; of the Arval Brothers, who invoked in May the creative goddess Dea Dia to bless the growth of the seed; that of Neptune, the god of the sea, by the sailors, and of Volturnus, the god of the Tiber. In fact, every person, house, curia, and tribe, had its own god, to whom each offered sacrifices and prayers. Particularly dear to the Roman was the worship of the goddess Vesta, with her eternal fire burning on the household hearth, the "living symbol of the goddess. Her worship was intimately connected with that of the Penates, the protectors of the house, and of the Lares, the departed spirits of ancestors who watched over the family.

Besides these deities who watched over the fields, the flocks, and the house, the Romans also paid worship to Jupiter, the protector and preserver of the state, whom the Latins worshiped on the Alban mount as Jupiter Latiaris, and the Romans on the Capitoline as Jupiter Optimus Maximus. The Ides of each month were sacred to him, and a great festival, the Ferice Latinos, was celebrated once every year on the Alban Mount. By his side stood Mars, the protector of the citizens, the father of Romulus and the Roman people; to whom March, the first month of their year, was consecrated, and to whom a great war festival was celebrated at the beginning and end of every campaign.

After the union of the Palatine Romans with the Sabines on the Quirinal, the Roman religion, influenced by the addition of new and conservative elements, entered upon a new period of development. Both tribes before their union had worshiped Jupiter and Mars as their supreme gods, and now in common they paid their devotions to Quirinus, the god of the united Ramnes and Tities. The point of union for the two tribes was found in the curia, which had a religious as well as a political significance. Each curia had its own place of worship, under the direction of the curio and his priest, the flamen curialis, and out of the thirty curiae one was selected, called curio maximus, who presided over the whole.

The Roman government was modeled on that of the family. The state religion also found its counterpart in that of the household. As the family had its own domestic altar, so the state had a common altar in the temple of Vesta, the goddess of the house. Just as the family offered sacrifices on the domestic hearth, so the state offered sacrifices to the gods either in this temple or its rotunda, the so-called domus regia. In the regia were worshipped the two gods of the Ramnes and Tities, Jupiter and Mars, and that of the united people, Quirinus, and the old Latin deity Janus, god of the beginning and end of everything, and the one whom the Romans invoked before any other god.

To Janus all gates and doors were sacred, and he therefore carried a key in his hand to open and lock them. He is always represented with two faces, one before and one behind, and hence called Bifrons, or Biceps. As the god of beginning he opened in the morning the gates of Olympus and closed them at evening. To him the month of January was sacred, and the first day of that month, when the labors of the husbandman began anew, sacrifices of wine, incense and fruit were offered to him. He was invoked particularly at the beginning and end of every war. When the two cities on the Palatine and Quirinal were united, a gate called the Janus was erected in the comitium, through which their armies passed going to or returning from war. This was always open in time of war and closed in time of peace, to signify that in peace the two communities were separate, but in war united for mutual protection.

In the temple of Vesta were worshiped Vesta and the Penates and Lares. The house near by was called the regia, because the worship due to the gods honored there belonged to the king as high-priest of the nation. In order that it might never be neglected, on account of the other duties of the king, three priests, called flamines, were nominated for life to assist the king, viz.: the flamen Dialis, the priest of Jupiter, the god of the Ramnes, and his wife flaminica, corresponding to the paterfamilias and mater familias of the family; flamen Martialis, the priest of Mars, the god of the Titles, and flamen Quirinalis, the priest of Quirinus, god of the united community. In the temple of Vesta were six virgins, virgines Vestales, daughters of the household of the Roman state, to correspond with thefilice familias, the daughters of the family. They kept the fire always blazing on the common household hearth. This was considered the most sacred worship in Rome.

The king also had charge of the worship of the curies (and hence famines curiales), and also general oversight over the college of Salii and Fratres Arvales. To the custody of the Salii was entrusted the care of the sacred shields, ancilia, which were kept in the temple of Mars on the Palatine, and every year, on the first of March, they made a solemn procession through the city, chanting hymns and dancing. There were two sets of Salii, the Salii of Palatine and Quirinal, which commemorated the union of the Romans on the Palatine and the Sabines on the Quirinal. The Salii were twelve in number, and were always selected from the patricians.

The unity of the Roman state after the banishment of the king was preserved by conferring those priestly duties which the king alone performed, upon a rex sacrorum or rex sacrificulus and his wife regina sacrorum, both of whom perfoimec their sacrifices in the regia, he to Jupiter, she to Juno. Ha was nominated by the pontifex maximus, and inaugurated in the comitia curiata calatii, just as the king was. He ranked higher than all other priests, but in influence and power was inferior to the pontifex maximus. He held his office for life like the king, but was not allowed to hold any political or military office, and was exempt from all civil and political duties. He lived on the via sacra in a domus publica.