Panel 7.7 – Can the city afford that god?


Organiser/Chair:

  • Anna-Katharina Rieger (University of Erfurt)
  • Johanna Stöger (Leiden University)

Panel abstract

The session seeks to explore the Roman city through the economic dynamics created by the mutual constitution of urban and religious space. Religion has always had a strong physical presence in the ancient city through objects, images, sounds, smells, dress, and above all through buildings and spaces designated to cultic practice and the gathering of people. The Roman city was characterised by the plurality of religious groups and practices, all negotiating, squatting, appropriating and repurposing urban space. One could even claim that the processes of diversification, along the entire spectrum of applied religion (for the civitas, for the emperor, or by individuals), gradually transformed the Roman city into a microcosm of socio-religious interaction with marked economic implications. This transformation might have reworked existing notions of solidarity and connectivity within a city, as well as modifying socio-economic structures for competition and organisation. Moreover, the religious landscape constantly was in dialogue with the physical urban infrastructure. In turn, this plurality of voices was influenced by social and above all economic forces. Of particular interest are points of intersection between the urban infrastructure, the city's economic life, and religious and/or cultic establishments (e.g. sanctuaries, temple areas, shrines, and temporarily dedicated spaces). These include processions, briefly appropriating public space and the wider urban territory, as well as burial places and funerary practices as hubs for integrating the economic functions of the suburbium. We also seek to shed light on the interactions between residents, religious bodies and civic governance, either conflicting or reconciling in their negotiations. Cities, as places of interactions on various levels, allow for the merging of religious, social and economic practices. In this wider context various topics can be discussed: How do sanctuaries and temples function in the competitive environment of a city? How can religious groups negotiate the urban spaces? How do scholae of collegia reflect economic interests within the urban web? When are civic spaces the stages for religious activities, and who invested in them? How can religious and economic infrastructure be related to or manifested in urban space? How do cities affect religious changes or vice versa; how are these changes related to the economic ups and downs of cities?

 

Paper abstracts

1. Marlis Arnhold (University of Bonn)

Religion in the urbs: Defining the special case of Imperial Rome beyond the political centre
The contribution analyses cults and sanctuaries in the city of Rome during the Imperial period beyond the major monuments of the political centre with the Forum Romanum, the Imperial Fora, the Capitoline Hill, and the Campus Martius. So far, mithraea and some other cult-sites, such as the so-called Sanctuary of the Syrian Gods or the Fountain of Anna Perenna received attention in scholarship as individual monuments or under the notion of specific cults. Their integration into urban religion, however, has hardly been discussed. Furthermore, one must ask which other cults were present in the city of Rome which after all provided an extraordinary density and composition of population that in some way or the other was reflected in a multitude of cults. The worship of the gods of Jews and Christians spring to mind but only form two examples out of more that certainly existed and played a role in urban life. How visible, how perceivable were these in the city? Which role did these cults play in urban life and communication (i.e. representation, creation of social identities)? How did various cults work together? How are cults, trade, economic production and, at times also, politics intertwined in sense of functional spaces? Thus changing the perspective on urban religion, not only an eye is cast on the urbs beyond its well-known political monuments but also the question is raised anew, what makes Rome special as a city? Or do we find the same patterns of urban space as elsewhere?

 

2. Kristine Iara (American Academy in Rome)

Appropriating space in urbs and suburbium
The proposed paper, part of a larger research project on Rome’s pagan sacral topography, deals with the relationship between urbs and suburbium as regards religion and religious life in Rome, presupposing that, in terms of the traditional Roman religion, urbs and suburbium were interdependent and complementary parts of Rome’s sacral topography, constituting one coherent area of ritual activity. The paper’s chronological focus is on Late Antiquity, a period of manifold and profound transformations, affecting both Rome’s physical appearance and the civic and religious life of its inhabitants. In the face of these transformations, a core issue is whether the statement of the interdependence and complementarity of urbs and suburbium proves valid for the late antique period as well. The question of the interrelations of inner and outer city-space on a religious level must be addressed from a larger angle of view, as the impact of a relatively new religious group, the Christians, must be taken into account.
The paper addresses, first, how the coexistence of these religious groups affected the space. Can we observe any shifts or changes in its perception, conception and use? Can we observe a competing appropriation of space? Or, rather, shared spaces, appropriated temporarily and rendered sacred when required? Secondly, the paper inquires on religious activities and continuous investments, now subject to changing economic conditions, in these interrelated areas, urbs and suburbium.

"Appropriating space in urbs and suburbium" (Fulltext)

 

3. Anne Kleineberg (Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, CAU)

The Forum Boarium and Holitorium in Rome – Their religious, social and economic significance until the early imperial time
Since early times the two Fora had been important market places and economic transfer points nearby the Tiber port and connected to the transregional road system. Although the emergence of cult places and their interrelation to commercial activities has been pointed out in general, previous investigations concerning the two Fora often dealed with their mercantile function, single monuments or focused on cultic activities and festivals only.
Focussing on the republican and early imperial era the casestudy will take these different aspects into account and analyse systematically how religious and economic practices interact on various levels, even if important earlier developments must be considered too. The different cult places for Hercules will be of particular interest as traders not only vowed the decuma of their profits to him, but could have been the dedicators of a new tempel too. Moreover the Forum Boarium is connected to several public festivals and cultic activities as the annual sacrifice at the Ara Maxima Herculis, followed by a common sacrifical banquet. In addition the triumphal procession crossed both Fora in later times. Due to the erection of temples and porticos from middle republican time on, the market place of the Forum Holitorium increasingly shrunked and had been transformed to a magnificent road framing the triumphal route step by step.

"The Forum Boarium and Holitorium in Rome – Their religious, social and economic significance until the early imperial time" (Fulltext)

 

4. Charlotte Potts (University of Oxford)

Fora as Urban Sanctuaries: Continuities in Form and Function
A connection between temples and communal spaces was a long-lasting tenet of Roman urbanism. In Rome itself, examples including the Temple of Mater Matuta in the archaic Forum Boarium, the Temple of Saturn in the republican Forum Romanum, and the Temple of Mars Ultor in the imperial Forum of Augustus show that a close relationship between cult buildings and places of assembly existed in a variety of periods, political systems, and physical settings. The temple and portico arrangement of early imperial fora closely resembles the architecture of republican sanctuaries, and plans of central areas in settlements including Minturnae, Tarragona, and Leptis Magna in the imperial period represent the extent to which this pairing was replicated even beyond Italy.
Although fora and sanctuaries are usually regarded as distinct architectural complexes, this analysis will show that they shared many formal and functional elements over the period that stretches from their emergence in the sixth century BC to their proliferation in the first century AD. A series of case studies will demonstrate that cult structures were a consistent feature of open spaces concerned with displays of status and power, and that consequently an association between communal spaces and cult buildings can be viewed less as a product of Roman ideology than part of an older, broader Italic phenomenon that was gradually subsumed by its dominant culture.

"Fora as Urban Sanctuaries: Continuities in Form and Function" (Fulltext)

 

5. Asuman Lätzer-Lasar (University of Erfurt)

Your City – Your Arena. Religious Practices as Marketing Strategies for Claiming Urban Space
Aim of this paper is to present the different ways in which various agents of a city (political actors, priesthood, collegia, immigrants and inhabitants) claimed urban space through religious practices.
The focus will be set on ephemeral religious events, such as processions and festivals, which are considered as urban marketing strategies (von Borries). On the one hand these marketing strategies were used by political leaders to legitimize their power, when for example curule aedils organised chariot races in the circus. However, on the other hand they were also used by religious entrepreneurs to compete with other cults and to attract new adherents. Processions, for example, offered the Mater Magna priests the only possibility to annually perform their pivotal ecstatic dance in public visibility. As religious activities beyond sacra publica were not financed by the city administration, the urban marketing strategies were vital for any practitioner living on religion by organising worship of a specific deity. The paper will also take individual strategies of claiming urban space into account, such as single devotees of Isis, which propagated the cult in the neighbourhoods (Seneca).
I will approach the topic by a comparative study of Mater Magna and Isis cult in imperial Rome based on archaeological and literary evidence. The focus will be on urban topography, architecture, visual culture (coins, reliefs) and literary sources.

 

6. Dorothea Rohde (Universität Bielefeld)

Sacred, public or private? Financing the cult of Isis whithin the Roman city
Isis was among the most popular deities of Hellenistic-Roman times. Her cult was attractive because she was deemed omnipotent, queen of the gods, ruler of the sea, the goddess with many names; she promised wealth in this world and salvation in the afterlife. Her cult belongs to the so-called mystery cults and was characterized by an unusual emotional relationship between goddess and devotee. Her main festival opened the seafaring season and therefore was highly important for long-distant traders and for harbor towns in general. Additionally, the emperors showed special interest in the goddess. The cult of Isis, thus, offered a platform for interactions between individual worshipers, cult-associations, city-community, and emperors that had significant religious, economic, and social consequences. To gain new insights into the intermingling of these different levels, an economic perspective is chosen: How was the cult of Isis with its temples, rituals, and priests financed? Which religious, social, and political implications did arise? Taking the temple at Pompeii as a starting point, the epigraphical and archeological evidence of Imperial Italy will be examined in order to provide a better understanding of the Roman city as a place were social, economic, religious, political, and agents interact.

 

7. Maura Medri (Università di Roma Tre)

The long life of an extra-urban sanctuary: the Bona Dea sanctuary in Ostia (Regio V, X, 2)
One of the oldest sanctuaries in Ostia was dedicated to the goddess Bona Dea, and the sanctuary located in Regio V, X, 2 is one of two known temples to the goddess in the city. Excavation here yielded three dedicatory inscriptions offered by three female worshippers and donors, named Octavia, Valeria Hetera, and Terentia. While these inscriptions date between the 1st century B.C. and the 1st century A.D, the sanctuary itself existed much earlier than this and continued into the Late Antique period, when the city changed irreversibly and the sanctuary was destroyed. The recently edited study on the adjacent Terme del Nuotatore (Baths of the Swimmer, Reg. V, X, 3) has offered the opportunity for a new analysis of the sanctuary's nine building phases. This fresh reading of the sanctuary’s long life offers an opportunity to re-analyze its relationship both with its neighboring buildings and with the wider city’s socio-economic development, through its diverse time periods.

"The long life of an extra-urban sanctuary: the Bona Dea sanctuary in Ostia (Regio V, X, 2)" (Fulltext)

 

8. Iskander Renato Gregoire Echnaton Sonnemans (Leiden University)

The Mithras-scape: a case-study from Ostia Antica
Within the plethora of Roman cultic practice the Mithras cult took an exceptional role. In contrast to almost all other cults, cultic activities, and their associated material expressions, were focused internally. All cultic space was private and only accessible to initiates. This was a conscious strategy that appears to have helped popularize the cult.
This does however not mean that the Mithraic cult places (mithraea) should be seen as isolated nuclei that functioned independently from their larger urban and social contexts.
In this paper the relationship between Mithraic cult and its urban (socio-economic) context is explored through a number of case-studies from Ostia. The nature of this site offers us interesting lines of enquiry to examine this concurrence of social, economic and cultic demands on Roman society. By looking at the way Mithraic Cult sites interacted with their built environments, combined with the material contents of the cult places themselves, a better understanding of the cult’s larger socio-economic impact can be achieved.
Contrary to the cult’s inward focus and its display of privacy, its socio-economic implications carried much further within the groups adhering to Mithras. It can be suggested that mithraea formed spaces of interaction and stages for self-promotion in various ways that extended beyond the confined cultic space.

"The Mithras-scape: a case-study from Ostia Antica" (Fulltext)

 

9. Winfried Held (Philipps-Universität Marburg)

Zur Deutung und Finanzierung der ‚Roten Halle‘ in Pergamon
Die Rote Halle in Pergamon wurde bisher meist als Tempel für die ägyptischen Götter interpretiert, hinzu kommt nach den Ergebnissen von Ulrich Mania als weitere Elemente die Verehrung orientalischer Götter und der hadrianische Kaiserkult im Rahmen eines Pantheons. Es gibt hingegen zahlreiche Hinweise darauf, dass es sich keineswegs um ein Pantheon, sondern dezidiert um einen Tempel für den Kaiserkult Hadrians handelte, wie ein Vergleich mit anderen Kolossaltempeln für den hadrianischen Kasierkult zeigt. Die damit verbundenen Ideen und Architekturzitate stehen dabei nicht nur im Geiste der Zweiten Sophistik, sondern in einem engen Zusammenhang mit der Selbstdarstellung Hadrians und belegen den Einfluss des Kaisers auf die Bauplanung.
Dies wirft die Frage nach der Finanzierung des Tempels auf. Da für Pergamon keine hadrianische Neokorie überliefert ist, dürfte es sich um einen städtischen Kaiserkult handeln. In beiden Fällen wäre es jedoch Aufgabe der Stadt Pergamon, den Tempel zu bauen und zu finanzieren. Der massive konzeptionelle Einfluss Hadrians spricht jedoch ebenso wie die Bautechnik und die Bauornamentik dafür, dass hier kaiserliche Architekten und Bauhütten tätig waren. Damit dürfte das von Pergamon für Hadrian errichtete kolossale Heiligtum, ebenso wie die kolossalen Neokorietempel Hadrians etwa in Kyzikos oder Ephesos, wohl maßgeblich auch vom Kaiser finanziert worden sein.

"Zur Deutung und Finanzierung der ‚Roten Halle‘ in Pergamon" (Fulltext)

 

10. Aynur-Michèle-Sara Karatas

Cults, money, and prestige: Cultic offices as means of prestige for leading families in Asia Minor
Several inscriptions from the Greek East dating to the Hellenistic and Roman periods reveal that the cultic officials financed festivals and banquets. Cultic officials were members of leading and wealthy families who held the most significant cultic and public offices in their cities.
My paper aims to classify the inscriptions from Asia Minor through a structured approach. The inscriptions demonstrate that the leading families in Asia Minor did not favour all cults. The question arises why some cults were more favoured than others. The expenses for cults changed over time. The Roman rule did not only change the political features of Greek poleis, but also the religious landscape. Some cults were favoured by Roman rulers. This also changed the expenses for certain cults and the immense sum of money given to the sanctuaries. One of my objectives is to analyse the sum of money given by leading families to certain sanctuaries and how this money was used during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. My research and analysis is focused on the epigraphic and archaeological material.

"Cults, money, and prestige: Cultic offices as means of prestige for leading families in Asia Minor" (Fulltext)