Shrines

Large temple precincts might house shrines to additional gods, but the landscapes of the Roman Empire were filled with shrines of major and minor scope: lone altars on hill tops, sacred precincts marked out with stones, pillars, miniature temples, and in the forests, no doubt, the votive detritus around trees or rocks that might signal to a traveler that spirits were near (much as one sees in contemporary India or Greece) (see Derks 1998: 132-85; Scheid 2003: 73-5). Such minor shrines provided the location for myth (that is, stories that begin or culminate ‘‘here’’), for village or family tradition, and for the occasional sacrifices and ritual communications that occupied popular religious life as much as the principal gods and their official feasts.

In some cases shrines exemplify a popular piety beyond the world of official temples: outside the walls of the temple of Atargatis at Hierapolis (Syria) stood two pillars on which designated people from local villages would invoke the gods - separately from the priestly cult within the walls (Luc. Syr. D. 28-9; Frankfurter 1990: 169-77). Just outside Jerusalem a healing shrine with two pools continued into the second century ce, eventually to be Christianized beneath a basilica (Jn 5:2-9;

ABD s. v. ‘‘Beth-Zatha’’). Egyptian temples were likewise surrounded by shrines to local gods who ‘‘heard’’ supplicants’ appeals and vows (Frankfurter 1998a: 46-52). Gallo-Roman temples often included minor shrines, votive stelae, and sacred wells in their precincts (Derks 1998: 206-9). One notable type of shrine in temple precincts of the Roman Mediterranean had long been the incubation or voice oracle, a room in which a pilgrim might sleep to receive a divine message in a dream or simply wait for a ‘‘voice’’ to emit from a divine image (Frankfurter 1998a: 150-2, 162-9; Lane Fox 1986: 150-67).

Even without priestly or institutional leadership, some established regional shrines could function as common centers for diverse religious or economic communities: nomadic, pastoral, agricultural, warrior. Devoted sometimes to several gods in the same place, these ‘‘common shrines’’ allowed various types of ritual activity (ecstatic, sacrificial, processional) around the same geographical point. One such cult, at Mamre in Palestine, continued to provide a center for regional piety through the fourth century (Kofsky 1998; Maraval 1985: 133-5):

Here the inhabitants of the country and of the regions round Palestine, the Phoenicians, and the Arabians, assemble annually during the summer season to keep a brilliant feast; and many others, both buyers and sellers, resort thither on account of the fair. Indeed, this feast is diligently frequented by all nations: by the Jews, because they boast of their descent from the patriarch Abraham; by the Pagans, because angels there appeared to men; and by Christians, because He who for the salvation of mankind was born of a virgin, afterwards manifested Himself there to a godly man. This place was moreover honored fittingly with religious exercises. Here some prayed to the God of all; some called upon the angels, poured out wine, burnt incense, or offered an ox, or he-goat, a sheep, or a cock.... No one during the time of the feast drew water from [the well there]; for according to Pagan usage, some placed burning lamps near it; some poured out wine, or cast in cakes; and others, coins, myrrh, or incense. (Soz. Hist. Eccl. 2.4, tr. Hartranft, NPNF2: 261)

Due to the dynamic character ofthese regional shrines - their multiple interpretations and rituals - new legends of angels or holy people inevitably sprang up around them to preserve their vitality in the landscape. Christianization (and subsequently Islam-ization) often took root in the landscape through reinterpreting such common shrines and either extirpating prior traditions or, as in the case of Mamre above, allowing them to persist (Maraval 1985: 51-60; Trombley 1985; Flint 1991: 25473; Frankfurter 1998b).

A new kind of urban shrine that gained increasing importance after the third century was the tomb. Traditional Roman civic religion (both in Rome and its colonies) regarded the place of the dead as properly outside the city boundaries. But the Christians’ propensity to extend the community to include the dead - the martyrs, who might intercede for the living - required a more intimate spatial connection (Rv 6:9-11; M. Pol. 17; P. Perp.). Consequently, by the end of the fourth century, tombs and gravesites had moved inside the cities’ boundaries, as basilicas housing specific holy relics became cultic centers and badges of urban authority (Brown 1981; Caseau 1999: 40-4), and as the faithful increasingly sought to be buried ad sanctos (‘‘by the saints’’). Many of the devotional and festival activities characteristic of regional shrines like Mamre and Beth-Zatha, such as dance, healing, and oracles, came also to typify the cult of saints at their tombs (e. g. for Egypt: Montserrat 1998a; Frankfurter 1998a: 267-72; Papaconstantinou 2001: 313-67).