1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910797746703321

Autore

Scheid John

Titolo

The gods, the state, and the individual : reflections on civic religion in Rome / / John Scheid ; translated and with a foreword by Clifford Ando

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania : , : University of Pennsylvania Press, , 2016

©2016

ISBN

0-8122-9198-0

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (200 pages)

Collana

Empire and After

Disciplina

292.07

Soggetti

Religion and state - Rome

Cults - Rome

Rome Religion

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Includes index.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Translator’s Foreword -- Preface -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. The Critique of Polis-Religion -- Chapter 2. Polis and Republic -- Chapter 3. The Individual in the City -- Chapter 4. Civic Religion -- Chapter 5. Civic Religion and Identity -- Chapter 6. For Whom Were the Rituals Celebrated? -- Chapter 7. Religious Repression -- Chapter 8. Civic Religion, a Modality of Communal Religion -- Chapter 9. Emotion and Belief -- Chapter 10. Why Did Roman Religion Change? -- Chapter 11. The Gods, the State, and the Individual -- Notes -- Index -- Acknowledgments

Sommario/riassunto

Roman religion has long presented a number of challenges to historians approaching the subject from a perspective framed by the three Abrahamic religions. The Romans had no sacred text that espoused its creed or offered a portrait of its foundational myth. They described relations with the divine using technical terms widely employed to describe relations with other humans. Indeed, there was not even a word in classical Latin that corresponds to the English word religion. In The Gods, the State, and the Individual, John Scheid confronts these and other challenges directly. If Roman religious practice has long been dismissed as a cynical or naïve system of borrowed structures unmarked by any true piety, Scheid contends that



this is the result of a misplaced expectation that the basis of religion lies in an individual's personal and revelatory relationship with his or her god. He argues that when viewed in the light of secular history as opposed to Christian theology, Roman religion emerges as a legitimate phenomenon in which rituals, both public and private, enforced a sense of communal, civic, and state identity. Since the 1970's, Scheid has been one of the most influential figures reshaping scholarly understanding of ancient Roman religion. The Gods, the State, and the Individual presents a translation of Scheid's work that chronicles the development of his field-changing scholarship.