The Matter of the Gods: Religion and the Roman Empire
Clifford Ando and Berhane Asfaw
Abstract
What did the Romans know about their gods? Why did they perform the rituals of their religion, and what motivated them to change those rituals? To these questions the book proposes simple answers: In contrast to ancient Christians, who had faith, Romans had knowledge, and their knowledge was empirical in orientation. In other words, the Romans acquired knowledge of the gods through observation of the world, and their rituals were maintained or modified in light of what they learned. After a preface and opening chapters that lay out this argument about knowledge and place it in context, the boo ... More
What did the Romans know about their gods? Why did they perform the rituals of their religion, and what motivated them to change those rituals? To these questions the book proposes simple answers: In contrast to ancient Christians, who had faith, Romans had knowledge, and their knowledge was empirical in orientation. In other words, the Romans acquired knowledge of the gods through observation of the world, and their rituals were maintained or modified in light of what they learned. After a preface and opening chapters that lay out this argument about knowledge and place it in context, the book pursues a variety of themes essential to the study of religion in history.
Keywords:
religion,
Roman empire,
Romans,
gods,
rituals,
knowledge
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2008 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780520250833 |
| Published to California Scholarship Online: March 2012 |
DOI:10.1525/california/9780520250833.001.0001 |
