The Religion of Ancient Rome

A scholarly survey uses literary, epigraphic, and calendrical evidence to reconstruct native Roman religious beliefs and practices before and after foreign influences. It outlines the religion's antecedents and early institutional forms, then examines domestic worship, agricultural cults and their festivals, and the emergence of state cults with their specialised rites and officials. Ritual techniques such as augury and auspices are analysed, and the calendar's role in public observance is emphasized. The work concludes by considering how ritual practice related to social order and moral expectations within the community.