Recent approaches to the religion of the Roman Republic have stressed its political functions. That might distort reality, but it accords with many contemporary sources. Because religion functioned as an important source of legitimacy for the ruling elite,
They fought or avoided the establishment of any independent religious authority. Yet such authorities existed. Their occasional mention in our sources shows that time and again Rome witnessed the appearance of prophetic figures (vates). Tradition preserved the memory of the Marcian brothers and their prophecies (carmina Marci-ana) from the era of the Second Punic War. The role of such vates seems to have included public criticism of moral misconduct and ethical imperatives. Early Augustan poets revived that role. Horace, for example, uttered his Epodes criticizing contemporary politics and society at least partly in the guise of such a warning
46
Voice.
Religious competence and hence authority could thus come from outside, and were regarded with suspicion by the political elite. The salvation cult of Dionysus, a classic case of the evolution of an independent religious association in Greek cities beginning in the archaic age, spread throughout central Italy during the fourth and third centuries.47 At Rome in 186, the Senate prosecuted Dionysiac (or, to use a cultic title, Bacchic) groups according to Livy on charges of political conspiracy and plotting insurrection (Livy 39.8.3-19.7; see Chapters 22 and 28). 8 The resolution of the Senate in response to the discovery of the ‘‘Bacchic Conspiracy,’’ known from a southern Italian copy (Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus, CIL 12, 581 = ILLRP 511 = ILS 18 = ROL 4:254-59; see also Chapters 2, 22, and 28), refrained from prohibiting the cult as such or infringing the rights of the god Liber/Bacchus. It did, however, severely limit the possibilities of organization by restricting the number of adherents and people who could be present at its rites. The decree also placed formal religious authority in the hands of women only, thus preventing the cult from acquiring any major influence. The copy found in the territory of a Roman colony and the wording has usually been taken to indicate that Rome intended to put this regulation in force in Italy also.49 It is difficult to assess, however, how far the Senate was successful or intended to be successful outside Roman territory proper.
Adherents of other cults were present at Rome. The Isiacs, worshipers dedicated to the female deity Isis, followed a cult the origins of which lay in Egypt but had spread throughout the Mediterranean in Hellenistic times. Exotic features made the cult attractive, but they did not hinder far-reaching processes of cultural interchange. During the last century of the Republic (and during the 60s and 50s in particular) the cult was prosecuted, not for the veneration of a foreign deity, however, but on charges of popular unrest and illegal association.50
The persecution of these cults did not encourage the survival of favorable sources of information about them, and so an assessment of their impact is difficult. Literary and archaeological evidence attest the spread of Dionysiac as well as Isiac imagery. Thus the situation parallels another important area of personal religion, votive religion.51 Tens of thousands of votive offerings - miniature objects, symbols of individual status, reproductions of afflicted parts of the body now conveniently published in the series Corpus delle stipi votive in Italia - attest to the enormous diffusion and social acceptance of this practice (see also Chapter 4). Religious communication here served very personal ends, such as imploring the help of the gods for healing, childbirth, professional success, or wealth. The granting of divine help was acknowledged by the gift the maker of the vow had promised, thus completing and affirming the extended communication. But a secondary communication among humans was involved, too. The wealth of votive dedications announced to others seeking help the power of the god in whose temple or temple area they were set up. Religious action furthered religious action, action toward the gods.
World History
