Religion in the eastern provinces of the Roman world was not, it seems, what one would have called “Roman.” In the larger sites of Greece and Asia Minor the main gods were those known since the days of Homer: Athena and Zeus in Athens, Artemis in Ephesus, and Apollo at his oracles in Claros, Didyma, and Delphi. In the rural areas of Anatolia, deities depicted on horseback, so-called “rider-gods,” were especially popular, including the Moon-god Men and a divine couple called Hosios kai Dikaios (“the Pious and the Just”; Delemen 1999). Different sub-regions could be characterized by peculiar forms of worship. In Lydia, the so-called “confession inscriptions” emphasize how worshipers attempted to placate the fury of the gods following sinful behavior (Petzl 1998; Rostad 2002). And in Phrygia, peasants’ sanctuaries have revealed numerous small votive steles on marble, dedications of inscribed reliefs to local gods such as Zeus Ampeleites (“of the grape vine”) and Zeus Thallos (“the young branch”), recording the yearnings and hopes of the inhabitants of the countryside (Drew-Bear et al. 1999). The further east one goes, the more exotic the cults become. In Rome’s real orient, the lands of Syria, Mesopotamia, and Arabia, worship often centered on deities with obscure names and attributes: Bel, Yarhibol, and Aglibol in Palmyra, Azzanathkona in Dura-Europos, and Dusares in the Nabataean realm (Eissfeldt 1941; R. Turcan 1996). Sacrifices were made on high places or in indigenous sanctuaries which often followed ancient Mesopotamian plans, before being adapted to Greek architectural models. Rites were conducted by priests with peculiar headgear and dress. According to all outward appearances, religion in the east looked very different from a Roman perspective. Semitic and other non-classical languages (and their respective scripts) were used alongside Greek in the inscriptions documenting the cults. And the gods and their worshipers were often depicted in sculptures and other visual representations in hieratic fashion and with other non-classical features such as a consistent frontality.
World History
