Dan-el Padilla Peralta
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780691168678
- eISBN:
- 9780691200828
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691168678.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Ancient Religions
Many narrative histories of Rome's transformation from an Italian city-state to a Mediterranean superpower focus on political and military conflicts as the primary agents of social change. This book ...
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Many narrative histories of Rome's transformation from an Italian city-state to a Mediterranean superpower focus on political and military conflicts as the primary agents of social change. This book places religion at the heart of this transformation, showing how religious ritual and observance held the Roman Republic together during the fourth and third centuries BCE, a period when the Roman state significantly expanded and diversified. Blending the latest advances in archaeology with innovative sociological and anthropological methods, the book takes readers from the capitulation of Rome's neighbor and adversary Veii in 398 BCE to the end of the Second Punic War in 202 BCE, demonstrating how the Roman state was redefined through the twin pillars of temple construction and pilgrimage. The book sheds light on how the proliferation of temples together with changes to Rome's calendar created new civic rhythms of festival celebration, and how pilgrimage to the city surged with the increase in the number and frequency of festivals attached to Rome's temple structures. The book overcomes many of the evidentiary hurdles that for so long have impeded research into this pivotal period in Rome's history. It reconstructs the scale and social costs of these religious practices and reveals how religious observance emerged as an indispensable strategy for bringing Romans of many different backgrounds to the center, both physically and symbolically.Less
Many narrative histories of Rome's transformation from an Italian city-state to a Mediterranean superpower focus on political and military conflicts as the primary agents of social change. This book places religion at the heart of this transformation, showing how religious ritual and observance held the Roman Republic together during the fourth and third centuries BCE, a period when the Roman state significantly expanded and diversified. Blending the latest advances in archaeology with innovative sociological and anthropological methods, the book takes readers from the capitulation of Rome's neighbor and adversary Veii in 398 BCE to the end of the Second Punic War in 202 BCE, demonstrating how the Roman state was redefined through the twin pillars of temple construction and pilgrimage. The book sheds light on how the proliferation of temples together with changes to Rome's calendar created new civic rhythms of festival celebration, and how pilgrimage to the city surged with the increase in the number and frequency of festivals attached to Rome's temple structures. The book overcomes many of the evidentiary hurdles that for so long have impeded research into this pivotal period in Rome's history. It reconstructs the scale and social costs of these religious practices and reveals how religious observance emerged as an indispensable strategy for bringing Romans of many different backgrounds to the center, both physically and symbolically.
Apocalyptic Geographies
By Executive Order
Credit Nation
A Decade of Upheaval
Firepower
Forgery and Memory at the End of the First Millennium
The Imam of the Christians
In My Time of Dying
Life on Mars
