The Cambridge History of Religions in The Ancient World: Volume 1, From The Bronze Age To The Hellenistic Age.

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS
IN THE ANCIENT WORLD
VOLUME I
From the Bronze Age to the Hellenistic Age
he Cambridge History of Religions in the Ancient World provides a compre-

hensive and in-depth analysis of the religions of the ancient Near East and
Mediterranean world. he fourteen essays in Volume I begin in the third mil-
lennium bce with the Sumerians and extend to the fourth century bce through
the fall of the Achaemenid Persian empire and the demise of Alexander the
Great. Its contributors, all acknowledged experts in their fields, analyze a wide
spectrum of textual and material evidence. An introductory essay by the General
Editor, Michele Renee Salzman, sets out the central questions, themes, and his-
torical trends considered in Volumes I and II. Marvin A. Sweeney provides an
introduction to the chapters of Volume I, as does William Adler for Volume II.
he regional and historical orientations of the essays will enable readers to see
how a religious tradition or movement assumed a distinctive local identity, even
as they view its development within a comparative framework. Supplemented
with maps, illustrations, and detailed indexes, the volumes are an excellent refer-
ence tool for scholars of the ancient Near East and Mediterranean world.
Michele Renee Salzman is University of California Presidential Chair (2009–

2012) and Professor of History at the University of California, Riverside. She is
the author of three books and numerous articles, including On Roman Time: he
Codex-Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity (1990);
he Making of a Christian Aristocracy (2002); and he Letters of Symmachus:
Book 1, translation (with Michael Roberts), Introduction, and Commentary
(2011). She is on the Editorial Board of the American Journal of Archaeology and
has served on the Executive Committee of the American Academy in Rome.
Marvin A. Sweeney is Professor of Religion at the Claremont School of

heology. He is the author of nine volumes and numerous studies, including
1 and 2 Kings: A Commentary (2007) and Form and Intertextuality in Prophetic
and Apocalyptic Literature (2005). He is the Editor of Hebrew Studies, the
founding Editor of the Review of Biblical Literature, Co-editor of the Forms of
the Old Testament Literature commentary series, Mitarbeiter for the De Gruyter
International Encyclopedia of the Bible, and CEO of the Ancient Biblical
Manuscript Center for Preservation and Research.
THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY
OF RELIGIONS IN THE
ANCIENT WORLD
VOLUME I
FROM THE BRONZE AGE TO THE
HELLENISTIC AGE
Edited by
Michele Renee Salzman Marvin A. Sweeney
General Editor Claremont School of heology
University of California, Riverside
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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he Cambridge history of religions in the ancient world: from the Bronze
Age to the Hellenistic Age / [edited by] Michele Renee Salzman, Marvin A. Sweeney.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
isbn 978-1-107-01999-7 (hardback set) –
isbn 978-0-521-85830-4 (volume 1) – isbn 978-0-521-85831-1 (volume 2)
1. Religions. 2. Civilization, Ancient. I. Salzman, Michele Renee,
1953– II. Sweeney, Marvin A. (Marvin Alan).
bl96.c363 2012
200.93–dc23 2011049012
isbn 978-0-521-85830-4 Volume I Hardback

isbn 978-0-521-85831-1 Volume II Hardback
isbn 978-1-107-01999-7 Two-volume Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of url s
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CONTENTS
List of Figures and Maps page vii

List of Contributors ix
List of Abbreviations xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction to Volumes I and II 1

michele renee salzman, general editor
Introduction to Volume I 23
marvin a. sweeney, editor
Part I. Mesopotamia and the Near East

. Sumerian Religion 31
graham cunningham
. Assyrian and Babylonian Religions 54
tammi j. schneider
. Hittite Religion 84
gary beckman
. Zoroastrianism 102
prods oktor skjærvø
. Syro-Canaanite Religions 129
david p. wright
. Israelite and Judean Religions 151
marvin a. sweeney
v
vi Contents
Part II. Egypt and North Africa

. Egyptian Religion 177
denise m. doxey
. Phoenician-Punic Religion 205
philip c. schmitz
Part III. Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean

. Minoan Religion 237
nanno marinatos
. Mycenaean Religion 256
ian rutherford
. Archaic and Classical Greek Religion 280
emily kearns
Part IV. he Western Mediterranean and Europe

. Etruscan Religion 309
nancy t. de grummond
. Roman Religion through the Early Republic 336
jörg rüpke
. Celtic Religion in Western and Central Europe 364
dorothy watts
Suggestions for Further Reading 387

General Index 393
Index of Citations 441
Textual and Material Sources 441
Scriptural Sources 448
FIGURES AND MAPS
figures
1. Uruk (Warka) vase page 42
2. Representation of Ra from the temple of Ramesses III,
Medinet Habu, dynasty 20 180
3. Osiris and king Amenhotep II from the tomb of
Amenhotep II, hebes, dynasty 18 182
4. he sun-god in the form of the beetle, Khepri, from the
White Chapel of Senwosret I, hebes, dynasty 12 185
5. Procession of the solar barque, from the temple of
Ramesses III, Medinet Habu, dynasty 20 189
6. Pylon of the temple of Ramesses III, Medinet Habu,
dynasty 20, showing the king smiting foreign enemies 190
7. Senwosret I and his ka, from the White Chapel of
Senwosret I, hebes, dynasty 12 196
8. Step pyramid complex of Djoser at Saqqara, dynasty 3 199
9. Mastaba complex of Senedjemib family, Giza, dynasty 5 200
10. Punic priest officiating at altar 214
11. Plaque inscribed with eleven lines in Punic 215
12. King accompanied by griffin 243
13. Divine palace. Ring from Poros, Crete 245
14. Man shaking tree and woman dancing; scene of ecstatic
divination. Ring from Vapheio, Peloponnese 245
15. Wounded girl. Mural from hera (Santorini) 248
16. Woman leaning over a stone; scene of estatic divination.
Ring from Hagia Triada, Crete 249
17. Goddess and young god or king greeting each other under
a solar sign. Ring from hebes 251
vii
viii Figures and Maps
18. Seated goddess receiving offerings from lion-creatures under

sun and moon. Gold ring from Tiryns 251
19. God (?) in a boat attacking Leviathan-type sea monster. Ring
impression from Knossos (slightly restored) 253
20. Sacrificial procession from Pitsa, near ancient Sikyon,
ca.540–530 bce 292
21. Plan and reconstruction of the Argive Heraion, a major
extra-urban sanctuary built on a terraced slope 295
22. Libation at an altar. Attic red-figure oinochoe (wine jug)
ca.480 bce 300
23. Bronze model of a sheep’s liver 312
24. Bronze Etruscan mirror with scene of Pava Tarchies
reading a liver in the presence of Avl Tarchunus 313
25. Model of the city of Rome 338
26. Terracotta figures of Herakles (Hercules) and Athena from the
Temple of Mater Matuta in the Forum Boarium 340
maps
1. Mesopotamia and Persia 55
2. Anatolia and Syria 85
3. Egypt and Canaan 130
4. Israel and Judah 152
5. he western Mediterranean 206
6. he Aegean 238
7. Etruscan Italy 311
8. Central Italy 312
9. Rome 337
10. Celtic Europe 365
CONTRIBUTORS
Gary Beckman is Professor of Hittite and Mesopotamian Studies at

the University of Michigan and studies the reception and adaptation of
Syro-Mesopotamian culture by the Hittites of ancient Anatolia. He is currently
completing an edition of the tablets of the Epic of Gilgamesh recovered at the
site of the Hittite capital, Hattusa.
Graham Cunningham is a Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge. He
specializes in the cultural and linguistic history of the ancient Middle East and
is the author of Deliver Me from Evil: Mesopotamian Incantations 2500–1500 BC
(Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1997). He has also published on religious studies
from a more interdisciplinary perspective as in Religion and Magic: Approaches
and heories (Edinburgh University Press, 1999).
Nancy T. de Grummond is the M. Lynette hompson Distinguished Research
Professor at Florida State University. She was named Charles Eliot Norton
Lecturer for the Archaeological Institute of America for 2011–2012.
Denise M. Doxey is Curator, Ancient Egyptian, Nubian and Near Eastern Art
at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She is the co-curator of the recent exhibi-
tion he Secrets of Tomb 10A: Egypt 2000 BC and co-author of the accompanying
catalog.
Emily Kearns is a Senior Research Fellow at St Hilda’s College, University
of Oxford. Her most recent book is Ancient Greek Religion: A Sourcebook
(Wiley-Blackwell, 2010).
Nanno Marinatos is Professor of Classics at the University of Illinois at
Chicago and author of Minoan Religion (1993) and Minoan Kingship and the
Solar Goddess (2010).
ix
x Contributors
Jörg Rüpke is Fellow for History of Religion at the Max Weber Centre
of the University of Erfurt and co-director of the research team “Religious
Individualisation in Historical Perspective.” He has recently been appointed
Honorary Professor of the University of Aarhus (Denmark).
Ian Rutherford is Professor of Classics at the University of Reading. He is the
author of Pindar’s Paeans: A Reading of the Fragments with a Survey of the Genre
(Oxford, 2001) and a co-editor of Seeing the Gods: Pilgrimage in Greco-Roman
and Early Christian Antiquity (Oxford, 2006) (with Jas Elsner) and Anatolian
Interfaces: Hittites, Greeks and heir Neighbours, Proceedings of an International
Conference on Cross-cultural Interaction, September 17–19, 2004, Emory
University, Atlanta, Georgia (Oxbow Books, 2008) (with M. Bachvarova and
B.-J. Collins).
Philip C. Schmitz is Professor of History at Eastern Michigan University. He
specializes in Northwest Semitic epigraphy and is a member of the editorial
advisory boards of Carthage Studies (Ghent) and Studi Epigrafici e Linguistici
sul Vicino Oriente Antico (Verona). He was assistant editor of the Anchor Bible
Dictionary and editor of the Index to Book Reviews in Religion.
Tammi J. Schneider is Professor of Religion in the School of Religion at
Claremont Graduate University. Her most recent book is An Introduction to
Ancient Mesopotamian Religion (Eerdmans, 2011).
Prods Oktor Skjærvø is Aga Khan Professor of Iranian at Harvard University.
His most recent books are he Spirit of Zoroastrianism, containing translations
of Zoroastrian texts (Yale University Press, 2012), and Manikeiske skrifter, trans-
lations with E. homassen (Bokklubben, 2011).
Dorothy Watts is an Honorary Research Consultant and a former Head of
Classics and Ancient History at the University of Queensland. She is a Fellow
of the Society of Antiquaries of London and a Fellow of the Australian College
of Educators. Her most recent book is Boudicca’s Heirs: Women in Early Britain
(Routledge, 2005).
David P. Wright is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near East at Brandeis
University. His most recent book is Inventing God’s Law: How the Covenant
Code of the Bible Used and Revised the Laws of Hammurabi (Oxford, 2009).
ABBREVIATIONS
Agora he Athenian Agora: Results of the Excavations Conducted by

the American School of Classical Studies in Athens (Princeton,
–).
ANEP J. B. Pritchard, he Ancient Near East in Pictures (Princeton,
).
ANET J. B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old
Testament (Princeton, ).
CAT M. Dietrich, O. Loretz, and J. Sanmartín, he Cuneiform
Alphabetic Texts from Ugarit, Ras Ibn Hani and Other Places
(Münster, ) (second edition of  German edition).
CIS Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum (Paris, –).
CMS F. Matz, H. Biesantz, and I. Pini, eds., Corpus der minoischen
und mykenischen Siegel (Berlin, –).
COS W. W. Hallow and K. L. Younger, eds., he Context of Scripture
(Leiden, ).
CTH Emmanuel Laroche, Catalogue des texts Hittites (Études et
commentaries ; Paris: Klincksieck, ).
DCSL he Diachronic Corpus of Sumerian Literature (http://etcsl.
orinst.ox.ac.uk/).
DMG M. Ventris and J. Chadwick, Documents in Mycenaean Greek,
nd ed. ().
DMic Francisco Aura Jorro, Diccionario micénico,  vols. (Madrid,
–).
ETCSL he Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature
(http://dcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/).
FGrH Felix Jacoby (ed.), Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, 
vols. (Berlin and Leiden, –).
IG Inscriptiones Graecae (Berlin, –).
xi
xii Abbreviations
KAI H. Donner and W. Röllig, Kanaanäische und aramäische

Inschriften (Wiesbaden, –).
ILLRP Inscriptiones Latinae Liberae Rei Republica, ed.
A. Degrassi, vol. , nd ed. (Florence, ),  (Rome, ).
KUB Keilschrift-urkunden aus Boghazköi.
LSAM F. Sokolowski, Lois sacrées de l’Asie mineure ().
LSCG F. Sokolowski, Lois sacrées des cités grecques ().
LSS F. Sokolowski, Lois sacrées: supplement ().
NGSL E. Lupu, Greek Sacred Law: A Collection of New Documents
(Leiden, ).
RIB R. G. Collingwood and R. P. Wright, he Roman Inscriptions of
Britain (Oxford, ).
Rix ET Helmut Rix, Etruskische Texte, Editio Minor,  vols.
(Tübingen, ).
Syll. W. Dittenberger, Sylloge inscriptionum Graecarum, rd ed.
(Leipzig, –).
hesCRA hesaurus Caltus et Rituum Antiquorum,  vols. (Oxford,
–).
TLE Massimo Pallottino, ed., Testimonia linguae Etruscae (Florence,
).
INTRODUCTION TO VOLUMES I AND II
michele renee salzman
defining ancient religion

“Religion” is not a native term; it is a term created by scholars for their intellectual
purposes and therefore is theirs to define. It is a second-order, generic concept that
plays the same role in establishing a disciplinary horizon that a concept such as
“language” plays in linguistics or “culture” plays in anthropology. here can be no
disciplined study of religion without such a horizon.1
Any effort to define religion in the ancient Mediterranean world is con-

strained from the very outset by the absence of a single-word equivalent
in the ancient languages. he English word “religion” does not convey
the same meaning as the Latin word from which it is derived. Religio is
“a supernatural feeling of constraint, usually having the force of a pro-
hibition or impediment” or “a positive obligation or rule.”2 his latter
sense is reflected in the importance attached to required ritual among
the Romans, who generally associated it with active worship according to
the rules. Christian authors were ambivalent about the suitability of the
word to their own beliefs and practices. In the third century, the Christian
apologist Lactantius continued to use the word religio to describe the tie
between god and man.3 But Augustine later found the word problematic
because it could also refer to an obligation owed to another human or
to a god or gods. Hence, Augustine wrote, using the term religio “does
not secure against ambiguity when used in discussing the worship paid
to God”; and so it was possible to employ this term only by abolishing
1
Smith, “Religion, Religions, Religious,” 193–4.
2
Oxford Latin Dictionary, s.v. religio 1. and b.
3
Lactantius, Inst. 4.28; Bremmer, “‘Religion,’ ‘Ritual,’ and the Opposition ‘Sacred vs. Profane,’” 10.
1
2 Michele Renee Salzman
one meaning of the word, namely, the observance of duties in human

relationships.4
I mention Augustine’s reflections on the problems of finding the right
terminology to express his notion of his faith and rituals directed toward
the one true Christian God, because his redefinition of religio has helped to
shape modern usage. One standard contemporary dictionary, reminiscent
of Augustine’s understanding, defines religion as “the belief in and worship
of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods,”
or “a particular system of faith and worship.”5 As J. Rüpke has observed,
even more inclusive descriptions of religion as “an active response by
human beings to the call of the sacred,” or as “an experience of the numi-
nous,” “merely … substitute a less specific term, albeit quasi-Christian
or para-Christian, for the Christian God.”6 Increasingly, historians have
come to understand how modern notions of religion have been shaped by
the European religious tradition and the efforts of theologians to find in
the term “religion” a means by which they “could claim [Christianity] to
be a special form of a much wider phenomenon.”7 As they have shown,
the analytical category of religion was constructed by “relatively recent
intra-Christian debates, Enlightenment intellectuals, and colonial encoun-
ters in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.”8
Modern culturally constructed definitions of religion have also distorted
earlier studies of ancient religion. For some time, there was a tendency
to dismiss pre-Christian religions because they did not comport with a
Protestant understanding of piety; this led to a tendency to view public
cult worship as formulaic and to a devaluation of ritual.9 Yet, as historians
of religion have emphasized more recently, public cult and ritual figured
prominently in the ancients’ understanding of their own religiosity. In the
first century bce, for example, Roman elites used the term religio in talking
about what we could call religion precisely in order to stress its “strong rit-
ualistic aspect … connected with active worship according to the rules.”10
Cotta, the representative of Academic philosophy in Cicero’s On the Nature
4
Aug. Civ. 10.1 includes a discussion of terminology, including his preference for the Greek word,
latreia, meaning ritual and service to a deity (ritu ac servitudine), akin to cultus in Latin; see too
Aug. Pref. to Civ. 6.
5
he New Oxford Dictionary of English, s.v. Religion; and cf. he American Heritage Dictionary, s.v.
Religion.
6
Rüpke, Religion of the Romans, 5.
7
Ibid., 6, aptly citing the work of J. Z. Smith, “Religion, Religions, Religious.”
8
See especially Smith, “Religion, Religions, Religious,” 179–96; Asad, Genealogies of Religion, 27–54;
and Nongbri, “Dislodging ‘Embedded’ Religion,” 445.
9
For a brilliant discussion of this, see Smith, Drudgery Divine.
10
Bremmer, “‘Religion,’ ‘Ritual,’ and the Opposition ‘Sacred vs. Profane,’” 10.
of the Gods, claimed that “the religio of the Roman people comprises rit-
ual, auspices, and the third additional division consisting of all such pro-
phetic warnings as the interpreters of the Sybil [sic] or the soothsayers have
derived from portents and prodigies. … I hold that none of these religiones
should ever be omitted” (3.2.4). he plural, religiones – literally “religions”
but here more likely what we mean by religious practices – points to this
ritualistic emphasis as a key component of the first-century Roman elite
notion of “religion.”11
In order to avoid preconceptions arising from definitional pitfalls, the
contributors to these volumes have tried to analyze ancient religions on
their own terms, in full cognizance of how these traditions diverge from
modern definitions of religion. Most ancients, like our first-century-bce
Romans, saw nothing wrong with entertaining multiple “religions” or reli-
gious practices for multiple deities. In keeping with this wide variety of
practices and gods, “religious” practitioners might include the sorts of peo-
ple whom moderns might not consider particularly “religious,” that is,
diviners, augurs, soothsayers, and even the public officials who regularly
also performed key public rites such as sacrifice.
Coexistence of such diverse rituals and deities was possible partly because
ancient religions did not necessarily have their own systematic set of core
beliefs and principles, with sacred texts, personnel, and rites. Rather, as J.
Rives observed in reference to Roman religion, “it is almost impossible,
apart from a few exceptions such as Judaism and Christianity, to identify
any coherent or unified systems of religion at all.”12 Nor did all ancient reli-
gions possess the same “normative” religious components (i.e., sacred texts,
sacred personnel, a moral code, a coherent systematic body of knowledge).
Because the transmission of religious knowledge in the ancient world took
place through various channels, it is all the more critical that modern
scholars resist the tendency to elevate textually based religious traditions
(or at least textual evidence) over other forms of religious expression. In
certain ancient cultures, such as the Minoans on Crete, knowledge of the
divine was realized through myths, but the sacred personnel – of which
we are largely uninformed – seem entirely dependent on the palace and
the king; in others, such as the empire of the Hittites, there are no extant
theological tracts to trace the notion of the divine.13
11
Ando, he Matter of the Gods, 5–8, on this passage; and cf. Ngombri, “Dislodging ‘Embedded’
Religion,” 448–50.
12
Rives, Religion in the Roman Empire, 5.
13
For Minoan religion on Crete, see Marinatos, Chapter 9 in Volume I; for the Hittites, see Beckman,
Chapter 3 in Volume I.
In contrast to the modern American ideal of the separation of church

and state, ancient religions cannot be confined to a specific sphere of life;
on the contrary, religion in the ancient world extended into “areas that
nowadays are not identified as religious at all.”14 It has often been said that
ancient religion was “embedded” in daily life in the ancient world, a refer-
ence to the ways in which religion was integrated into all areas of ancient
society.15 In Rome, for instance, senators could meet in any ritually inau-
gurated space or templum; but before they entered to vote on issues of the
day, they were sure to burn some incense and pour some wine for the god-
dess Victory. Although the incorporation of religious rituals into political
life is distinctive of Greek and Roman religions, it is also found in several
others traditions, including Babylonian, Sumerian, Egyptian, and ancient
Israelite/Judean religions.
he difficulties of studying ancient religions – with their diverse gods,
rites, personnel, and beliefs across the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean
regions – have caused some historians to question whether the ancients
had anything at all comparable to a modern category of religion, so deeply
embedded in Christianity as it has been and hence so different from ancient
ideas about religion or religions.16 But granted the absence of an ancient
category comparable to the modern term “religion,” modern scholars need
not be bound by the words used by the cultures they study.17 Rather, the
contributors to these volumes have discerned in antiquity the components
of what are nowadays taken to characterize religion.18 In these essays and in
the volumes as a whole, the editors and contributing scholars have taken
the view that if scholars are explicit in how they define “religion” and its
components, they can recognize religion even in very diverse and unevenly
documented ancient societies. Our aim is not only to advance understand-
ing of religion in the ancient world and in the cultures in which these
religions thrived, but also to augment our understanding of the category
“religion” as a cultural construction.19
14
Rüpke, Religion of the Romans, 6; Beard, North, and Price, Religions of Rome, 1.43.
15
Although Nongbri, “Dislodging ‘Embedded’ Religion,” 440–60, argues with some reason that the
trope of embedded religion can “produce the false impression that religion is a descriptive concept”
rather than a constructed one, this does not negate the close integration of ancient religion as a
constructed category in ancient society.
16
See especially ibid.
17
For this emic/etic distinction applied to ancient religion, see, for example, Bremmer, “‘Religion,’
‘Ritual,’ and the Opposition ‘Sacred vs. Profane,’” 12; and Rüpke, Religion of the Romans, 6. For a
more generalized discussion, see McCutcheon, he Insider/Outsider Problem, 17.
18
See, for example, Rüpke, Religion of the Romans, 6, on religion among the Romans in the Republic:
“It [ancient religion] knew gods and their temples; it knew holy days and priests.”
19
his is in essence how I take J. Z. Smith to intend the categories of description and redescription to
work; see Smith, Drudgery Divine.
approaching ancient religion

he religions of the ancient Mediterranean each had their own trajectory,
which unfolded in specific places and times. How adherents conceptual-
ized and communicated with the divine varied considerably within indi-
vidual religious traditions. he local variations and the unsystematic nature
of ancient cult make it all the more important to examine ancient religions
as they were expressed in particular places and time periods. In the third
century ce, the Christian writer Tertullian attested to the local dimension
of ancient religion: “Each province and city has its own god: Syria has
Astarte, Arabia Dursares, Noricum Belenus, Africa Caelestis, Mauretania
its own princes; the Egyptians even worship animals.”20
he aspects of ancient religion analyzed in these essays – rituals, prac-
tices, and forms of divine knowledge – are based on a broad consensus
among scholars of ancient religion about its most critical components.
Byron Earhart’s view of religion is a standard one, but it is worth including
here for it lists these components succinctly: Religion comprises a “distinc-
tive set of beliefs, symbols, rituals, doctrines, institutions and practices that
enables the members of the tradition to establish, maintain, and celebrate a
meaningful world. … [And it] is a tradition that is handed down, moving
through time and manifesting a continuous identity along with a tendency
to change and be transformed.”21 his view of religion and its key compo-
nents serves as a guidepost for scholars of diverse ancient religions.
In order to approach these diverse religions in a systematic way, how-
ever, contributors were asked to address the same set of topics concerning
ancient religion in the ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean regions
(see below). Moreover, each author was asked to restrict his or her essay to
a specific time period. he death of Alexander and the end of his empire
was a turning point for many ancient societies, and hence it was used by
the editors to divide the religious traditions between Volumes I and II. But
because this date is not relevant to all religions, it was not strictly adhered
to by all contributors. Local variation and diverging, independent scholarly
opinions explain the chronological overlaps between the two volumes.
We see many advantages in this approach. Each chapter looks at ancient
religion in its physical, social, political, and cultural context. In taking into
account the influences of neighboring religions and peoples, authors have
sought to re-create the reality of fluid interactions in antiquity. he essays
are analytical, rather than merely descriptive of orthopraxy, mythology,
20
Tertullian, Apol. 24.7.
21
Earhart, ed., Religious Traditions of the World, 7.
or textual evidence. Each author has incorporated the most recent schol-
arship on relevant texts and material culture. Although the resulting
volumes present a history of the religions of the Ancient Near East and
Mediterranean worlds, they do not simply reflect recent trends in scholar-
ship; they are intended to shape the future trajectory of that scholarship as
well. Read together and in their diversity, we hope the ancient religions can
be felt as well as analyzed. Ancient religion has recognizable components,
but because it is radically different in so many ways from religion in the
twenty-first century, it continues to intrigue.
As an organizational tool, the editors established seven topics that we
considered important for arriving at a more synthetic understanding of
ancient religion.
First, because the history of each religion (as above) has been exca-
vated and reconstructed through the lens of past scholarship, we asked
each author to consider how modern theories have shaped and some-
times distorted perceptions about specific religions and their origins. In
Volume I, E. Kearns’s essay, “Archaic and Classical Greek Religion,” builds
on and critiques earlier arguments about the importance of the polis or
city-state for understanding Greek religion.22 William van Andringa’s essay,
“Religions and Cities in Roman Gaul (First to Fourth Centuries ce),” in
Volume II shows how the modern notion of “tolerance,” a term tied to
the history of modern states, is ill-suited to define religious phenomena
associated with the ancient city. Historiography can be critical, as here, in
enabling modern scholars to discern errors of earlier scholars in viewing
ancient religions.
Second, each scholar was asked to consider the nature of ritual and its
relation to conceptualizing divinity. Given the strong emphasis on orthop-
raxy in many ancient religions, this component is central to a wide range
of cultures. However, the nature of the surviving evidence for ritual var-
ies considerably across traditions. In the case of the ancient Israelite and
Judean religions down through the age of Alexander, we can extract evi-
dence for ritual only from texts; here we can see how these rituals relate
to a notion of the divine through the perspective of the originators of
these texts, as M. Sweeney has observed in his essay, “Israelite and Judean
Religions,” in Volume I. On the other hand, for other religions, such as
that of the Hittites, only illustrations of ritual in material culture remain;
there are no theological treatises or surveys of belief, a fact that forced G.
Beckman to elucidate the meaning of Hittite rituals for conceptions of
22
For more on the polis-religion model and its critics, see my discussion below.
divinity through a reconstruction of very diverse evidences in his chapter

on Hittite religion in Volume I. Similarly, in Volume II, B. Shaw’s dis-
cussion of the evidence for human sacrifice in Punic cult in North Africa
depends mostly on material evidence.
hird, scholars were asked to consider the relationship of their religious
tradition to the social and historical contexts within which that religious
tradition developed, with specific reference to how public religion relates
to political life and how private or domestic religion is integrated into
social and cultural life. In his analysis of Sumerian religion in Volume I,
G. Cunningham discusses how political change – the rise of the city-state
in the middle of the third millennium bce and the growth of regional
state/empire in the later third and early second millennium bce – reflected
onto the divinities worshipped. Although the nature of the Sumerian evi-
dence did not allow Cunningham to discuss private or domestic religion at
length, other historians have been able to do so for their areas. L. Roller’s
contribution, for example, examines traditional religions in Greece and
Asia Minor in Volume II and includes the phenomenon of private cult at
the bequest of an individual donor to perpetuate the memory of a family
member. One example was the case of a wife setting up cult honoring the
Muses and the “heroes,” a term used to designate cult rites in memory too
of her deceased husband. Roller’s essay extends our understanding of the
cult of the dead as practiced by individual Greeks.
In considering their particular religious traditions, authors were asked
to consider, fourth, the influence of other religions and cultures. In his
chapter on ancient Israelite and Judean religions, Sweeney observed Near
Eastern influences on the Northern Kingdom of Israel including the use
of golden calves as typical mounts for YHWH and Canaanite influences
including the use of uninscribed cultic pillars (massetbot), likely a symbol
associated with the Canaanite god Baal that came to represent YHWH in
Israelite sanctuaries such as Beth El (Genesis 28). Shared cultural patterns
are relevant, though they also highlight the distinctive nature of ancient
Israelite and Judean religions. Such shared cultural patterns can be seen in
numerous traditions; N. Marinatos, for one, has elucidated the particular
practices found in Minoan religion through comparison with Egypt and
the Near East in her essay in Volume I. he Hellenistic influence on reli-
gions in the eastern Mediterranean, in Egypt and the Roman Near East, is
discussed in Volume II by several authors (see, among others, F. Dunand,
J. van der Horst, T. Kaizer, F. Trombley, and M. Stone).
Because religion was so often integrated into the social and political fab-
ric of ancient societies, we asked contributors to consider, fifth, changing
ideas of religious identity and community. Judaism, for example, appears

quite distinct in diaspora communities, such as those of Asia Minor, Italy,
and Egypt, as compared to Judaism in Palestine, and so required separate
treatments in Volume II. D. Watts traces how the coming of the Romans
affected Celtic religion in her essay in Volume I, and W. van Andringa
also considers the impact of the Romans and urbanization on religion in
Gaul in his essay in Volume II. In keeping with our interest in religious
identity and community, we requested that contributors incorporate the
role of women in ancient religion within their specific local context. his
is a topic that has too often been overlooked in histories of ancient reli-
gion, in part because the surviving evidence so frequently highlights the
religious roles of men. One instance of this interest is the referencing of
women in Jewish communities in Italy along with their male relatives by
G. Lacerenza in his contribution in Volume II. Similarly, D. Trout has
incorporated the role of aristocratic women along with men in Christian
circles in Italy in his study in Volume II.
Last, because of the very diverse nature of the evidence for many ancient
religions, authors were asked to consider all sorts of evidence, including
(where possible) key monuments and material culture. his last area takes
on added import because for many ancient societies, religion was so much
a part of daily life. D. Doxey, for one, analyzed Egyptian religion not based
on any one written doctrine, but rather through a variety of material evi-
dences – funerary spells, literary works, inscriptions, excavations of temples
and tombs, images of gods and goddesses. In some regions, the material
evidence is all we have; in others, texts predominate. But even where doc-
umentary texts survive – as for Manichaeism and Zoroastrianism in Iran
and Armenia in the Parthian and Sasanian empires – authors were asked
to incorporate material evidence to present a more balanced response to
the topics noted above and to try, where possible, to extend analysis of reli-
gion beyond the kings and elites of their respective societies. his was not
always possible. At the end of certain essays where these are particularly
relevant, a list of key textual and material sources provides suggestions for
further study; bibliography has been included for each essay.
he contributors naturally differed with respect to how much emphasis
they gave to these topics. In addition to individual judgment, the vagaries
of the surviving evidence required authors to privilege certain components
and/or topics over others. At times, they have had to adopt innovative
methodologies to address the diverse nature of ancient religion and/or the
uneven evidence about it. Using textual and temple archaeological evi-
dence, T. Schneider sees in the enuma elish text and the myth of Atrahasis
evidence of the shared Assyrian and Babylonian notion that “humans were
created so the gods did not have to work.”23 Another creative approach had
to be adopted in order to comprehend the sparsely attested evidence for
Syro-Canaanite religion. D. Wright uses analogy in his chapter to explain
the Syro-Canaanite association of deities with natural phenomena; in
this culture, he observes, deities, conceived as sentient but more powerful
agents than humans, were thus responsible for events in the observable
world (i.e., the cycle of the seasons, calamitous droughts or floods) on
analogy with the ways humans act as agents in society.
hese volumes present components of each ancient religious tradition
within its specific place and time. As scholars of these religions discuss
these topics, we believe these volumes can provide a more synthetic under-
standing of the ancient religious tradition under consideration.
Moreover, analysis of the same components and topics will allow for
comparison across religious traditions. Indeed, in the midst of the diversity
of rituals, practices, and conceptualizations of the divine in the essays in
these volumes, there emerge certain shared concepts and categories of reli-
gion. Sacrifice is one such rite that has been considered central to ancient
religion. Yet sacrifice entails a range of practices that varies across religions,
holding contemporary ritual significance as well as mythical import, or
even being transformed, as in Jewish and Christian traditions, to com-
memorate a symbolic historical moment.24 Similarly, the Sumerian prac-
tice whereby a temple, the symbolic center of the city, takes on interrelated
functions as the earthly residence of deities and as an administrative center
for the city is another category of religious life that is found in numerous
cities across the ancient world, from Mesopotamia to Greece and through-
out the Mediterranean, East and West. Widespread, too, are such shared
components of religion as divination, the veneration of ancestors, sha-
mans, the assumption that the divine dwells in material objects, and the
attribution of divine favor to political rulers.
Scholars have suggested that a partial explanation for such pervasive
commonalities across ancient religions is the presence of shared conceptual
23
Schneider, Chapter 2 in Volume I. Schneider denies the view of scholars, such as the influential A.
Leo Oppenheim (Ancient Mesopotamia, 171), that we not consider Mesopotamian religion as a valid
analytical category.
24
he centrality of sacrifice in non-Christian traditions and even the value of “sacrifice” as an analytical
category has been called into question; see McClymond, Beyond Sacred Violence, and Frankfurter,
“Egyptian Religion and the Problem of the Category ‘Sacrifice,’” 75–93. Certainly, variation in the
ritual and in the objects of sacrifice as well as its significance exists across traditions, but the fact
remains that animal or plant sacrifice was a pervasive ritual in all the ancient religions included in
Volume I. In Volume II its metaphorical importance for Christian and Jewish religious traditions
still makes sacrifice a key shared concept in the ancient religions included there.
and linguistic categories.25 hose who were speakers of ancient Semitic lan-
guages – Old Akkadian, Assyro-Babylonian, Hebrew, Phoenician, Aramaic,
Palaeo-Syrian – and those who were speakers of an Indo-European lan-
guage – Italic, Celtic, Indo-Iranian, Hellenic, Anatolian – may have also
shared a religious “knowledge” of divine powers, such as the names and
categories or institutions in the area of cultural practices that we call reli-
gion.26 he name of Anath in Egyptian texts in the late period, for instance,
shows Israelite influence.27 But, in discussing religion in the Roman Near
East, T. Kaizer notes that the “jury is still out” as to the degree to which
relevant phraseology in Semitic languages “was shared between differ-
ent local and sub-regional communities.”28 How much weight we should
grant these linguistic or cultural influences in explaining types of religious
behavior varies by region, and in many areas it is contested. For the schol-
ars in these volumes, of greater significance are the analysis and description
of the particular religious pattern and what that pattern tells us about the
culture and religious tradition in which it is found.
More relevant, and more often discussed in these volumes, are the similar
sociopolitical systems that appear in relationship to rituals, practices, and
conceptions of the divine. In the Near East and Mediterranean, the city-state
(polis) alternated with the regional empire as the dominant socio-political
institution. Indeed, Volume I begins in Mesopotamia with Sumerian reli-
gion because there, with the agricultural revolution, we find the emergence
of the world’s first cities and states.29 But, as G. Cunningham noted, the
Sumerians (as attested by the Sumerian king list) considered kingship an
institution descended from heaven and passed from city-state to city-state;
to the Sumerians, kingship was a divine gift to the city-state that in turn
required devotion to the gods and goddesses of the city-state. Similarly, in
its most fully developed form in the archaic and classical poleis in Greece
and Rome, “the public cults of the city, shared in some sense by all who are
25
Graf, “What Is Ancient Mediterranean Religion?” especially 4–5 and 11–12, raises this issue elo-
quently. his is not to deny the possibility that biological and cognitive approaches to religion
might also be relevant to understanding religious commonalities; these commonalities are, however,
not at odds with the social significance of local religious representations, nor are they the object of
historical analysis in these volumes. For a defence of these two approaches to religion, see Martin,
“Disenchanting,” 36–44.
26
Rüpke, Religion of the Romans, 3; Lipinski, Semitic Languages, 21–4. For a good overview of the
Indo-European languages, see Fortson, Indo-European Language and Culture, 1–16.
27
Frankfurter, private correspondence, 7 February 2010.
28
Kaizer, Chapter 2 in Volume II.
29
he “State and Urban Revolution,” ca.3100 bce, led to the adoption of the Sumerian city-state
model by different language speakers who represent the three major ethnic groups in Mesopotamia,
namely, the Sumerians, Semites, and Elamites. For a schematic but clear overview of these develop-
ments, see Nagle, he Ancient World, 1–53.
citizens of it, occupied a central place in ancient religion. hose cults were
controlled and presided over by priests drawn from the civic elite, which
collectively also had authority over the entirety of religious action within
the polis and by its citizens.”30 In Greece and Rome, as in Mesopotamia and
in Phoenician-Punic sacrificial legislation, many scholars have interpreted
ancient religious traditions based on what, in the Greco-Roman tradition,
G. Woolf has called “the polis-religion model”; central to this approach
is the homology of the sacred and the socio-political.31 And because the
polis-religion model of the archaic and classical poleis in Greece and
Republican Rome spread though the Mediterranean in the Hellenistic and
late Roman Republican periods, scholars have found additional reasons
for religious similarities across broad regions. he development of regional
empires – which often coexisted with city-states – also has been linked to
ancient religion. he worship of the king in Hellenistic empires, for exam-
ple, has long been considered as a model for the worship of the Roman
emperor in Greece and Asia Minor as well as in the western Mediterranean
in the first three centuries ce.32
Because religion in the ancient world often provided a sacred or mythic
framework for sanctioning political ideology and institutions, understand-
ing the relationship between religion and socio-political developments is one
focus of the essays in these volumes. Scholars who have advanced a “polis-
religion model” – meaning (as above) that the core of the Greco-Roman
religious tradition is to be found in the public cults of the city, which must
be understood as a religious as well as social community33 – have argued
that it is simplistic to consider ancient politicians as insincerely “manip-
ulating” religion for political ends. A more nuanced appreciation of the
interconnectivity of these areas of ancient society rejects such a view and
sheds light on new religious developments. Viewed in this way, the cults
created for the new Cleisthenic tribes and the new role for freedmen in
the imperial cult in the western provinces of the Roman empire emerge as
sincere expressions of religious as well as civic identity. he polis-religion
model has thus enabled scholars to see beyond the modern western stress
30
Woolf, “Polis-Religion and Its Alternatives,” 41.
31
Ibid., 42–5; Woolf discusses this term and the influence of the views of C. Sourvinou-Inwood,
“What Is Polis Religion?” 295–322.
32
For more on this observation, see Woolf, “Polis-Religion and Its Alternatives,” 71–84; and Roller,
Chapter 11 in Volume II.
33
Rives, “Graeco-Roman Religion,” 270. As Rives notes, the phrase “polis religion model” is not
restricted only to Greek city-states, nor is it a single coherent model. Rather, it is used here as by
Woolf and other scholars to summarize a set of current ideas about the nature of ancient religion
and its relationship to the socio-political traditions of the ancient world.
on the private manifestations of religious commitment. Religious ritual in

ancient societies such as Rome consisted in public or communal events,
and those involved did not view this in a negative light. Even family and
private cults can be interpreted as, in certain regards, representing “the
state cult on a smaller scale.”34
Although there were important ties between religious and socio-political
institutions and patterns of behavior in the ancient world, it would none-
theless also be misleading to see ancient religion as homologous with them.
he polis-religion model, and along with it, the focus on the public cults of
the city-state or empire, have rightly been criticized for making this error.
and hence overlooking the non-authorized, privately initiated areas of
ancient religious tradition. Oracles and sanctuaries continued outside the
range of city-state or ruler cult. So, too, domestic cults continued, along-
side public civic expressions of religion; these were not merely reflections
of the state cult.35 In truth, a diverse pantheon of deities, practices, and
rites outside of the sphere of the polis-state or the empire continued, show-
ing by its very survival that religion and socio-political life were never iden-
tical.36 Even within any one city, as was certainly the case in one as large as
imperial Rome, the polis-religion model does not adequately address the
complexities of ancient religious life in which the public cults were but one
of many in the marketplace of religious options.37
More importantly, the polis-religion model does not easily explain how
religious change came about. As G. Woolf has observed:
many public “innovations” seem in fact to be responses to changes in what might
be termed the religious koine of the Mediterranean world. If the origins of religious
innovation most often came from the world of “private religion,” any account
that marginalizes non-public cult is bound to be handicapped in accounting for
change.”38
he polis-religion model is certainly handicapped in explaining the con-
tinued popularity of traditional public cults in the fourth and fifth cen-
turies when the state no longer supported them.39 Nor does this model
34
Beard and Crawford, Rome in the Late Republic, 30. For more on this topic, see van Andringa,
Chapter 17, and Kulikowski, Chapter 19, both in Volume II.
35
Woolf, “Polis-Religion and Its Alternatives,” 71–84.
36
For additional criticism of the polis-religion model, see Bendlin, “Peripheral Centres,” 47–63.
37
Rüpke, “Antike Grossstadtreligion,” 13–30.
38
Woolf, “Polis-Religion and Its Alternatives,” 76.
39
For an excellent overview of the criticism of the polis-religion model and of its advances in scholar-
ship, see Rives, “Graeco-Roman Religion,” 268–76.
elucidate what some scholars have considered as key to investigating reli-

gious traditions, namely, the religious mentalities of the people under
consideration.40
In considering the diversity of ancient religions, the central role of geog-
raphy cannot be over-emphasized. In my view, what I would call the geogra-
phy of religion is one master key to understanding religious multiplicity in
the ancient world. Lacking our communications technology and intercon-
nectivity, geography influenced religion in the ancient world far more than
in the modern. One’s religion was determined at first by place of birth, for
religion was entangled with local political and social structures. Physical
places, such as springs or mountaintops, were also intimately connected
with myth and were seen as having immanent in them divine powers onto
which cult was grafted. Such cult associations were not always movable.
Many of these sacred places had religious status for centuries; veneration
of the healing sanctuaries of Aesculapius at Epidauros and Pergamun was
rooted in these places even apart from the cults of the city-state or empires
that developed around them.
Veneration of the same sorts of sacred geography – trees, moun-
tain tops, springs, rivers, caves – can lend a certain surface similarity
to the worship found in the polytheistic religions of the ancient world.
his does not mean, however, that similar geographical places always
had similar sorts of cults, or that there was necessarily a “cultural or
social koine characterized by common modes of relating to the divine.”41
Rather, I want to assert the more fundamental point that certain sorts
of places in the Mediterranean and Near East accrued sacred signifi-
cances that remained central to religious traditions for centuries, even
if the religious practices and significances that developed at these places
changed over time.
Geography, too, is key to understanding the interconnections of reli-
gious influence. Although, in Tertullian’s terms, “each province and city
has its own god,” the same gods and goddesses were worshipped in more
than one city or province. Gods and goddesses traveled along an interlock-
ing complex of water and land-ways into the Near East and around the
Mediterranean Sea. As P. Horden and N. Purcell argued in their important
work he Corrupting Sea, the Mediterranean Sea with its “myriad micro
ecologies” in which one could discern an “all too apparent fragmentation”
40
See Kearns, Chapter 11 in Volume I.
41
Woolf, “A Sea of Faith,” 126.
also had the potential to “unite the sea and its coastlands in a way far
exceeding anything predictable of a continent.”42 he implications for reli-
gion are important:
the (Mediterranean) sea itself has been the medium of religious differentiation, as
it is also the vehicle of religious change. On one hand, it has served to establish
rival conceptual claims about the extent and limits of religious influence. … On
the other hand, it is the milieu in which the Orientalizing religious forms of the
seventh century B.C., Diaspora Judaism and Pauline Christianity were dissem-
inated. In religion, therefore, we see clearly instantiated the important paradox
… that the Mediterranean is both a zone of easy lateral transmission of ideas and
practices and a barrier which promotes divisions between cultural systems.43
Horden and Purcell’s study of the environmental and geographic
linkages of the communities around the Mediterranean Sea reflects the
late-twentieth/early-twenty-first century scholarly recognition of the
importance of geography in enabling different cultures to be “exposed to
a diversity of religions, both indigenous and imported.”44 Indeed, as gods
moved with traders, soldiers, or priests, local religious traditions interacted
with and altered the ways in which a deity and his or her cult came to be
conceptualized and venerated. he Greeks, for example, called the Phrygian
Mountain Mother Goddess of Pessinus “Mountain Mother” (Meter Oreia)
and turned her epithet kubileya into a name, Cybele. But they worshiped
her as a form of Rhea, the ancient mother of Zeus, with rites quite differ-
ent from those used in Asia. In Italy the Romans called this goddess by
her Latin name, Magna Mater, and worshipped her differently than did
her contemporary Greek or Asian devotees.45 he Roman historian Tacitus
famously called this process interpretatio;46 modern scholars refer to it as
assimilation and transformation, and talk of a variety of “Great Mother
religions” just as they speak of a range of “Christianities” and “Judaisms.”
Since geography is so important to the study of ancient religion, the
editors have made geography central both to the organization and to the
approach of the essays in these volumes. Based on the recognition of the
ways in which local geographic factors influenced religion, these essays
disrupt traditional disciplinary barriers separating historians of the reli-
gions of the Near East and of the Mediterranean worlds. Even though
42
Horden and Purcell, he Corrupting Sea , 24.
43
Ibid., 408.
44
Johnston, Religions of the Ancient World , “Introduction,” X.
45
For more on this deity see Roller, In Search of God the Mother, 1 ff.
46
Tacitus, Germania 43.4. For an interesting discussion of interpretatio, see Ando, he Matter of the
Gods, 43–58.
the separation between classics and theology was effectively established in

universities in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, this divi-
sion continues until today.47 Because these disciplinary boundaries do not
reflect ancient realities, however, they should not be reproduced in mod-
ern scholarship. Hence, these essays and their organization into religious
traditions by distinct areas reflect the awareness of how thoroughly inhab-
itants of the Ancient Mediterranean and Near East were influenced by
one another. he editors have thus sought contributors from a wide range
of academic disciplines, including those who study the Judeo-Christian
world religions of today in religious studies, theological, or history depart-
ments, along with those who reside in Classical, Near Eastern, or Semitic
Language departments. Historians who are willing to cross these boundar-
ies, and who are disposed, where possible, to take into account the influ-
ences of other religions on the religious tradition under consideration, can
make real the interconnections between peoples.
Acknowledging that regional variations in ancient religions are the
result of complex processes of transmission, adaptation, and assimilation
has meant that the scholars of these essays do not simply describe partic-
ular cults or deities, or assume simple continuities of practice, though it
is also true that for many religions simply defining and assessing origins
and practices remain difficult tasks. Rather, each was asked to consider the
interaction between place and peoples, indigenous or migratory, as phe-
nomena that change over time. In doing so, they have constructed their
own categories of analysis and used terms that do not necessarily repro-
duce the ancient society’s “native” viewpoint. Granted, the Egyptians may
have had no word for religion, for example. Even so, D. Doxey can isolate
what she views as key components of Egyptian religion – rituals, practices,
and conceptions of the divine. And she can address many of the topics out-
lined above to arrive at a synthetic view of Egyptian religion as deeply tied
to the natural world while mediating “one’s place in a hierarchy including
the gods, the king, the family, peers, and dependents.”48
No book is without its limitations, and the same is true of these vol-
umes. he authors sought to incorporate a wide range of material for each
religious tradition and to consider their specific religions and areas within
broad chronological and geographic limits. Hence, the reader searching
for a theoretical discussion of a specific ritual, such as sacrifice, may find
suggestions where to look for such a discussion, but no extended treatment
47
See, for example, Burkert, he Orientalizing Revolution, 1–8.
48
Doxey, Chapter 7 in Volume I.
in these pages. Moreover, although we encouraged the contributors to con-

sider the influences of other religions and cultures on the tradition under
discussion, the degree to which this was possible or considered necessary
varied by scholarly choice.
some terms of analysis

he importance of finding terms that can work across many diverse ancient
religious traditions has made us all the more aware of the terminology we
have adopted for these volumes. We have self-consciously tried to avoid
vocabulary that even implicitly claims that any one religious tradition was
more evolved than or superior to another.
Because Christian missionaries used the word “syncretism” to censure
the mixing of Christianity with native religious traditions in a colonial
enterprise, its historical associations and normative implications have
made it a problematic term for many scholars in the twenty-first cen-
tury.49 he history of the misapplication of and distortions implied by this
term has led many scholars to reject it entirely. Other scholars, aware of
its historical association, embrace its usage, while attempting to strip it
of its Christianizing sanctions.50 Indeed, the reality implied by this word,
understood rather positively as a “creative, synthetic process by which
any idea, symbol or idiom is appropriated and embraced in a culture,”51
fuels the argument in support of some term to identify this phenome-
non. Some scholars have proposed using the term “hybridity,” derived
from post-colonial theory, to refer to the adaptation and assimilation of
either native or immigrant cultures or languages to the dominant culture
or language.52 But this term does not always seem applicable. When, as
Horace observed, “captured Greece took captive its victor, Rome,”53 the
dominant political culture of the Romans was overtaken by the more cul-
turally sophisticated Hellenic one. In the essays in these volumes, the edi-
tors have advised against uncritical use of either of the terms “syncretism”
or “hybridity.” We have favored instead descriptive and neutral, analytical
language, calling such phenomena as the Christian preservation of a tree
sacred to a Celtic god the incorporation or assimilation of one religious
49
For further discussion of this term, see too van Andringa, Chapter 17, and Kaizer, Chapter 2, both
in Volume II.
50
Stewart and Shaw, “Introduction: Problematizing Syncretism,” 1–26.
51
Frankfurter, “Syncretism and the Holy Man,” 344.
52
Graf, “What Is Ancient Mediterranean Religion?” 10.
53
Horace, Epistulae 2.1.156–7: “Graecia capta Romam victricem captam subducit.”
tradition by another. Even if scholars use these terms with critical aware-
ness, there are complicating implications.54
A term that has proven more intractable is the label “paganism” or “pagan.”
hese words were most often used by late ancient Christians, leading some
scholars to criticize their continued use as implying the “Christian view of
the division in society.”55 Alternative terms for non-Christian, non-Jewish
religionists in the ancient Mediterranean have not been entirely satisfac-
tory. he word “polytheist,” derived from the usage of anthropology, has
been proposed as a more neutral alternative, focusing on the multiplicity
of cults worshipped, “highly discontinuous with one another, highly dis-
similar.”56 However, although polytheists were the majority, not all pagans
were polytheists; a growing number of scholars see monotheistic tenden-
cies among non-Christians and non-Jews in the early Roman Empire and
have argued that some pagans were virtual monotheists, either on the basis
of their philosophical studies or through their focus on a single deity as
supreme, such as that of heos Hypsistos.57 So some pagans are, arguably,
monotheists much as Jews were, insofar as they focused on one god even
as many Jews, although directing their worship to their one supreme god,
also thought that there were other lesser divinities.58 When Christians call
non-Christians polytheists, they are denigrating them just as if they were
calling them “pagans”; in this way, too, they could turn the strong tradition
of philosophic monotheism against non-Christians.59 Substitution of the
term “Hellene”60 for paganism does not resolve the issue either. By the late
Roman Empire, the word “Hellene” came to be used by Christian apolo-
gists and polemicists for non-Christians. When used as a general term to
describe all non-Christian and native religious elements, however, it tends
to give everything an Attic or intellectualizing patina that obscures the fact
that the religions under consideration entailed also Roman, Egyptian, and
native cults and rites.
Given the problems in finding alternative terminology, some schol-
ars have fallen back on the term “pagan,” using it to mean “upholders
of the ancient or traditional religions” of the Mediterranean. P. Chuvin
54
See note 50 above.
55
O’Donnell, Review, 4.
56
Ibid.; Fowden, Empire to Commonwealth, 119.
57
Athanassiadi and Frede, Pagan Monotheism, 1–20; for heos Hypsistos, see Mitchell, “he Cult of
heos Hypsistos,” 81–148, and “Further houghts on the Cult of heos Hypsistos,” 167–208; van der
Horst, Chapter 12 in Volume II.
58
Fredriksen, Review, 532.
59
North, “Pagans, Polytheists,” 142.
60
Trombley, Hellenic Religion and Christianization, 1–58.
has justified his use of this term by turning to the etymology of pagani or
pagans as people of the place, town, or country who preserved their local
customs, whereas the alieni, the people from elsewhere, were increasingly
Christian. hus, for Chuvin, paganism is the “religion of the homeland in
its narrowest sense: the city and its outlying countryside, characterized by
diversity of practices and beliefs.”61 For Chuvin, paganism was essentially
homologous with the city-state, itself a problematic model.62 But Chuvin’s
focus on contacts between native religious traditions and Christianity is
undermined by Cameron, who argues for “pagan” as a fourth-century-
ce idiom for the “outsider.” he very history of its usage by Christians
to make derogative remarks about non-Chrstians has made “pagan” a
desirable term for certain scholars who want to highlight the historical
associations of pagans and paganism.63 Others propose using these terms,
stripping them of any derogatory meaning.64 Given the problems raised by
this term, we have avoided using the labels “pagan” or “paganism.” Rather,
the authors in these volumes have focused on geographically specified,
contextualized religious traditions or practices, rituals, and cults. Where
these local trends become trans-local – as, for instance, in the cult of Isis in
the Roman empire – we have so noted it. Such an approach undermines
the view of ancient religions as unified or uniform, a notion conveyed by
the term “paganism.” Viewing ancient religions as geographically based
religious traditions is in keeping with the geographical organization of
these volumes.
organization of the volumes: beginnings and endings

Volume I begins in the middle of the third millennium bce in Mesopotamia
because, as noted above, in Sumer we have the first case of a religion that
can be studied via texts as well as artifacts within a complex, urban society.
he contributions conclude, chronologically, with the reign of Alexander
(336–323 bce). his is a relevant turning point for the history of many
ancient religions because the ramifications of his conquests emerged most
clearly in the Hellenistic age that followed the disintegration of his empire.
he Hellenistic kingdoms helped to reshape the ancient world, its politi-
cal, social, and religious horizons, even if, in the western Mediterranean,
these events were only distantly and slowly perceived. Yet diverging local
61
Chuvin, A Chronicle, 9.
62
Chuvin, ibid., sees paganism as a “mosaic of established religions linked to the political order.”
63
Cameron, he Last Pagans, 14–32; North, “Pagans, Polytheists,”142.
64
For a similar practice, see Bowersock, Hellenism, 6.
and regional religious traditions explain why some contributors ended

their essays in Volume I either earlier or later than this period, and some
contributors in Volume II similarly felt the need to adjust the beginning
and ending points to address their particular religious tradition.
he editors decided to begin Volume II with the Hellenistic age and
extend the essays into the late Roman period. It makes sense to define a
general end to the discussion with the demise of the last western Roman
emperor, Romulus Augustulus (476 ce), an event that marked the new
political and social reality of the Germanic kingdoms in the decades of
the increasingly open assertion of Christian religious authority across the
Mediterranean. he persistence of local religious traditions explains why
some authors continued their essays into the next century. It was impor-
tant, however, to continue the volume past the end of publicly financed
polytheism in the late fourth century of the Roman Empire; traditional reli-
gions continued past this date, into the next centuries. Moreover, the fifth
century saw important changes in the nature of Christianity and Judaism,
in response to the Roman state’s support for Christianity. In the late fourth
and fifth centuries, too, we find non-Christians (polytheists, but especially
Jews and Manichees) as well as Christian sects labeled heresies facing dis-
crimination on religious grounds in new ways. he late-fifth-century end-
ing date for Volume II has allowed the contributors to incorporate some
of these changes in their essays. he volume had to stop before the rise of
Islam, for that would have required substantial additions to Volume II that
extend well beyond the fifth century.
he volumes are organized by region because, as noted above, geogra-
phy plays such a central role in understanding ancient religions. As noted
earlier, Volume I begins in Mesopotamia with Sumerian religion, the first
case of a religion that can be studied via texts as well as artifacts within a
complex, urban society. he volume proceeds in this same region to discuss
religion in Old Babylonia/Assyria, the Iranian Plateau (Zoroastrianism),
the Hittite Kingdom, Ancient Israel/Judea, and Syria and Canaan. he
next section moves west to focus on religion in Egypt and North Africa
among the Phoenicians and Carthaginians. Part III turns to the religions
of the Eastern Mediterranean: Mycenaean religion in Greece, Minoan
religion on Crete, and religion in Greece. he volume concludes in the
western Mediterranean with traditional Roman religion in the early and
middle Republic in Italy, Etruscan religion in Italy, and Celtic religion in
Western Europe.
Volume II includes the same regions as in Volume I, although different
religious traditions appear. It begins with Iran and the Ancient Near East,
including traditional religions in these areas, as well as essays on Judaism

in Palestine in the Hellenistic-Roman periods, and post–70 ce Judaism
in Roman Judea and the Near East, ending with Christianity in Syria.
Volume II then turns west to Egypt and North Africa to examine tra-
ditional religions in Egypt, Judaism in Egypt, and Christianity in Egypt,
before looking at traditional Punic and Roman religions and Christianity
in North Africa. Part III turns to Greece and Asia Minor: traditional reli-
gions in Greece and Asia Minor, Judaism in Asia Minor, and Christianity
in Asia Minor. he final section is devoted to the western Mediterranean,
where we have evidence for traditional religions in Rome and Italy, Judaism
in Italy and the West, Christianity in Italy, traditional religions in Roman
Gaul, and Christianity in Gaul; a final essay unites discussion of traditional
religions along with Christianity in Roman Spain.
here are introductory essays to each volume by the volume editors,
Professor Marvin Sweeney for Volume I and Professor William Adler for
Volume II, that provide a framework within which to read the essays. At
the end of each essay, bibliographies are included that contain all works
cited and in some cases, additional materials as well.
bibliography
Ando, Clifford. he Matter of the Gods: Religion and the Roman Empire. he Transformation
of the Classical Heritage 44 (Berkeley, 2008).
Asad, Talal. Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and
Islam (Baltimore, 1993).
Athanassiadi, Polymnia, and Michael Frede. Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity (Oxford,
1999).
Beard, Mary, and Michael H. Crawford. Rome in the Late Republic (Ithaca, 1985).
Beard, Mary, John North, and Simon Price. Religions of Rome: Volume 1, A History
(Cambridge, 1998).
Bendlin, Andreas. “Peripheral Centres – Central Peripheries: Religious Communication in
the Roman Empire.” In Römische Reichsreligion und Provinzialreligion, ed. Hubert
Cancik and Jörg Rüpke (Tübingen, 1997): 35–68.
Bowersock, Glen W. Hellenism in Late Antiquity (Ann Arbor, 1990).
Bremmer, Jan A. “‘Religion,’ ‘Ritual,’ and the Opposition ‘Sacred vs. Profane’:
Notes towards a Terminological ‘Genealogy.’” In Ansichten griechischer Rituale.
Geburtstags-Symposium für Walter Burkert, ed. Fritz Graf (Stuttgart, 1998): 9–32.
Burkert, Walter. he Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in
the Early Archaic Age, trans. Margaret Pinder (Cambridge, Mass., 1998).
Cameron, Alan. he Last Pagans of Rome (New York, 2011).
Chuvin, Pierre. A Chronicle of the Last Pagans (Cambridge, Mass., 1990).
Earhart, H. Byron, ed. Religious Traditions of the World: A Journey through Africa,
Mesoamerica, North America, Judaism, Christianism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism,
China and Japan (San Francisco, 1992).
Fortson, Benjamin W. IV. Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction, 2nd ed.
(Oxford, 2010).
Fowden, Garth. Empire to Commonwealth: Consequences of Monotheism in Late Antiquity.
(Princeton, 1993).
Frankfurter, David. “Syncretism and the Holy Man in Late Antique Egypt.” JECS 11
(2003): 339–85.
“Egyptian Religion and the Problem of the Category ‘Sacrifice.’” In Animal Sacrifice in
the Ancient World, ed. J. Knust and Z. Varhelyi (Oxford, 2011): 75–93.
Fredriksen, Paula. Review of G. Clark Christianity and Roman Society, Cambridge, UK,
2005, JECS 13 (2005): 532.
Graf, Fritz. “What Is Ancient Mediterranean Religion?” In Religions of the Ancient World,
ed. S. I. Johnston (Cambridge, Mass., 2004): 3–16.
Horden, Peregrine, and Nicholas Purcell. he Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean
History (Oxford and Malden, Mass., 2000).
Johnston, Sarah Iles. Religions of the Ancient World (Cambridge, Mass., 2004).
Lipinski, Edward. Semitic Languages: Outline of a Comparative Grammar. Orientalia
Lovaniensia Analecta, 80, 2nd ed. (Leuven, 2001).
Martin, Luther. “‘Disenchanting’ the Comparative Study of Religion.” Method & heory in
the Study of Religion 16 (2004): 36–44.
McClymond, Kathryn. Beyond Sacred Violence: A Comparative Study of Sacrifice (Baltimore,
2008).
McCutcheon, Russell T., ed. he Insider/Outsider Problem in the Study of Religion: A
Reader. Controversies in the Study of Religion (London, 1999).
Mitchell, Stephen. “he Cult of heos Hypsistos between Pagans, Jews and Christians.”
In Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity, ed. P. Athanassiadi and M. Frede (Oxford,
1999): 81–148.
“Further houghts on the Cult of heos Hypsistos.” In One God: Pagan Monotheism in
the Roman Empire, ed. S. Mitchell and P. Van Nuffelen (Cambridge, 2010): 167–208.
Nagle, D. Brendan, and Stanley M. Burstein, ed. he Ancient World: Readings in Social and
Cultural History, 7th ed. (New York, 2010).
Nongbri, Brent. “Dislodging ‘Embedded’ Religion.” Numen 55 (2008): 440–60.
North, J. A. “Pagans, Polytheists and the Pendulum.” In he Spread of Christianity in the
First Four Centuries, ed. W. V. Harris (Leiden, 2005): 125–43.
O’Donnell, J. J. Review of M. R. Salzman, he Making of a Roman Aristocracy: Social and
Religious Change in the Western Roman Empire (Cambridge, Mass., 2002). BMCR
2002.06.04, http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2002–06–04.html.
Oppenheim, A. Leo. Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization. Revised and ed.
Erica Reiner (Chicago, 1977).
Paden, William E. “Comparison in the Study of Religion.” In New Approaches to the Study
of Religion, ed. P. Antes, A. W. Geertz, and R. R. Warn (Berlin, 2004): 77–92.
Price, S. R. F. Rituals and Power. he Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge,
1984).
Rives, James B. Religion in the Roman Empire (Malden, Mass., 2007).
“Graeco-Roman Religion in the Roman Empire: Old Assumptions and New Approaches.”
CBR 8.2 (2010): 240–99.
Roller, Lynn E. In Search of God the Mother: he Cult of Anatolian Cybele (Berkeley,
1999).
Rüpke, Jörg. “Antike Grossstadtreligion.” In Zwischen Krise und Alltag, ed. Christophe
Batsch, Ulrike Egelhaaf-Gaiser, and Ruth Stepper (Stuttgart, 1999): 13–30.
he Religion of the Romans (Cambridge, 2007).
Smith, Jonathan Z. Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the
Religions of Late Antiquity (Chicago, 1990).
“Religion, Religions, Religious.” In Critical Terms for Religious Studies, ed. Mark C.
Taylor (Chicago, 1998): 269–84.
Sourvinou-Inwood, C. “What Is Polis Religion?” In he Greek City from Homer to
Alexander, ed. O. Murray and S. R. F. Price (Oxford, 1990): 295–322.
Stewart, Charles, and Rosalind Shaw. “Introduction: Problematizing Syncretism.” In
Syncretism/Anti-Syncretism: he Politics of Religious Synthesis, ed. Charles Stewart and
Rosalind Shaw (London, 1994): 1–26.
Trombley, Frank R. Hellenic Religion and Christianization. Religions in the Graeco-Roman
World 115 (Leiden, 1993).
Woolf, G. D. “Polis-Religion and Its Alternatives in the Roman Provinces.” In Roman
Religion, ed. Clifford Ando (Edinburgh, 2003): 39–57.
“A Sea of Faith.” MHR 18 (2004), 126–43.
INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME I
marvin a. sweeney
he conquest of the ancient Near East by Alexander the Great of Macedonia

in 333–323 bce constitutes a major turning point in the religious history of
the ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean worlds.1 Alexander’s conquest
marked the first time that a European culture was able to gain political
ascendency over the Near East. It presented the opportunity for Alexander
and his successors to change profoundly the religious landscape of the
ancient world through the promotion of Greek or Hellenistic culture and
religion as the ideal form of human life. he introduction of Hellenization
to the ancient Near Eastern world laid the groundwork for major change in
the religions of the ancient world insofar as the melding of Hellenistic and
Near Eastern cultures and religions ultimately produced forms of Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam that now constitute the major religious traditions
of the western world.
Interpreters of religion have had a mixed reaction to the religious impact
of Alexander’s conquest of the ancient Near East. On the one hand, many
scholars hail the Hellenistic period as a time of great progress in which the
light of Hellenistic culture, particularly its values, awakened the ancient
Near Eastern world, enabling it to pursue new forms of human religious,
cultural, and political expression and achievement.2 Indeed, Greek thought
is widely recognized as the one of the primary foundations for the western
intellectual tradition. On the other hand, many other scholars view the
promotion of Hellenization as an effort to subvert the nations and cul-
tures that now came under Greek rule and to mold them into a relatively
1
For studies of Alexander, see Green, Alexander of Macedon; see also Bosworth, “Alexander the Great,
Part 1,” “Alexander the Great, Part 2,” and Conquest and Empire.
2
See Starr, A History of the Ancient World, 407, 413–34.
23
24 Marvin A. Sweeney
cohesive culture that would serve its new Hellenistic masters.3 Indeed, the
Romans, who were always well known for their willingness to learn the
lessons of their predecessors, likewise employed Hellenization as an impor-
tant tool and weapon to serve their own efforts to unite and dominate the
ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds.
he Cambridge History of Religions of the Ancient World is an effort to
introduce readers to the religious world of the ancient Mediterranean,
including southern and western Europe, western Asia, and northern Africa,
both before and after the reign of Alexander the Great. Volume I presents
the reader with introductions to the religions of the various nations and
cultures that constituted the ancient Mediterranean world before the time
of Alexander. he ancient Near East was well known for its own conquer-
ors, including the Egyptians, the Sumerians, the Hittites, the Assyrians, the
Babylonians, and the Persians, that influenced the religious development
of nations under their control, but it was also well known for its religious
diversity, insofar as the various cultures and nations of the ancient Near
Eastern world also had distinctive forms of religious expression. Volume I
thereby presents the seedbeds of the religious development of the western
world by enabling the reader to understand both the common features and
the distinctiveness of the pre-Alexandrian Mediterranean world.
Volume I approaches its task with a firm grounding in the field of
comparative religions. he comparative study of religion has undergone
tremendous change from its inception in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries and through the course of the twentieth and early-twenty-first
centuries.4 Comparative religion necessarily gravitates between concern
with those features of religious life and expression that are common or
typical among the world’s religions and those features that are unique to
any given religious tradition. Early study in the field tended to emphasize
elements that are common among the religions of the world, largely in an
effort to establish a basis for common understanding of humanity’s various
efforts to give expression to beliefs about the divine or the supernatural.5
Although such efforts were intended to promote dialogue and peaceful
cooperation among the world’s religions, interpreters learned to recog-
nize that such universal foci frequently functioned as the means by which
3
See, e.g., Green, Alexander to Actium, 312–35, and Isaac, he Invention of Racism in Classical
Antiquity ; cf. Said, Orientalism, although it should be noted that Said does not adequately account
for the imperial interests of the East, specifically, Islam, in relation to the West (see, e.g., Karsh,
Islamic Imperialism).
4
For a convenient overview, see Paden, Religious Worlds.
5
E.g., Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion.
powerful nations, religions, or cultures would challenge the validity of

smaller or weaker nations, religions, or cultures and thereby to undermine
and subjugate their smaller and more vulnerable counterparts.6 History is
replete with examples of major religions, such as Christianity, Islam, and
Buddhism, that employed comparative criteria to define the validity of
other religions in an effort to eradicate them altogether or to bring them
under control as the major religions secured their dominant positions in
their respective cultures. As a result, interpreters of comparative religion
have begun to pay increasing attention to the unique features of a given
religious tradition in an effort to understand the distinctive features as well
as the conceptual and social integrity of a given religion in order to under-
stand religion’s role in influencing and bringing to expression the cultures
or societies in which it is rooted.7
his issue is of particular importance for the study of religion in the
ancient Mediterranean world because this region is the birthplace of the
major religions of the modern western world: Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam. It is clear that religion plays a major role in defining the distinctive
nature of each of the cultures that make up the ancient Near Eastern and
Mediterranean worlds, but it is also clear that religion plays a major role
in the efforts of many of the nations in this region to spread their influ-
ence and gain dominance over their neighbors. Ancient Egypt, Sumer,
Babylon, Assyria, Persia, Greece, Rome, and other empires viewed their
major deities as ideal expressions or personifications of the values and
character of their nations. Relations between nations, whether in the form
of treaties that defined the terms of the relationship or in the form of
tribute paid by one nation to another, were generally viewed as relations
between the gods of the nations in question. Likewise, the relationships
between the gods and goddesses within the religious systems of a par-
ticular culture often expressed the relationships between its social and
political components, such as the cities that made up a larger nation, the
bureaucracies that ruled and administered them, the religious function-
aries that were established to oversee the life of the people, and even the
roles assigned to family groups as well as the men, women, and children
within a given culture.8
6
See the discussion of the field in Masuzawa, he Invention of World Religions.
7
See Paden, Religious Worlds, who stresses the need to construct social and historical context in the
interpretation of the unique aspect of any religious system; see also Paden, Interpreting the Sacred,
which emphasizes the role played by the socio-historical context and perspective of the interpreter in
the study of religion.
8
See, e.g., Handy, Among the Host of Heaven.
Numerous issues emerge in the contemporary comparative study of

religion in this region. One is the role of deities as the fundamental focus
of religion and the means by which each culture employs deities as per-
sonifications of the various aspects of its respective worldview. A second is
an enhanced understanding of the role that mythology plays in articulat-
ing the social and political realities of the cultures in which a given religion
functions. A third is the recognition that the social dimensions of religion
demand consideration as much if not more so than the focus on religious
beliefs insofar as each religion constitutes a paradigm for understanding
the social construction of the culture or nation in question. A fourth is the
recognition of the political dimensions and functions of religion, both on
the part of the religions under study and on the part of the religious con-
texts in which the work of comparative religion is carried out. A fifth is the
recognition of the role that gender plays in religious expression and life,
insofar as religion typically defines the roles of men and women in society.
And a sixth is the role that texts, whether oral or written, play in the artic-
ulation of each tradition. Each of these topics underlies the discussions of
the religious traditions treated in this volume.
Volume I treats a very complex religious world in the Mediterranean

and the ancient Near East before Alexander’s conquest. Although many
common elements bind the various religious traditions of the ancient
Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds, each is distinctive in its own
right, often based upon the distinctive characteristics and socio-political
realities of the nation or culture that produced it. he following chapters,
each written by a recognized expert in the field, provide readers with the
insights and tools to begin study of these traditions for themselves.
bibliography
Bosworth, A. B. “Alexander the Great, Part 1: he Events of His Reign.” In Cambridge
Ancient History VI: he Fourth Century B.C., ed. D. M. Lewis et al. (Cambridge,
1994): 791–845.
“Alexander the Great, Part 2: Greece and the Conquered Territories,” in Cambridge
Ancient History VI: he Fourth Century B.C., ed. D. M. Lewis et al. (Cambridge,
1994): 846–75.
Conquest and Empire: he Reign of Alexander the Great (Cambridge, 1988).
Eliade, Mircea. Patterns in Comparative Religion (New York, 1974).
Green, Peter. Alexander of Macedon, 356–323 B.C.: A Historical Biography (Berkeley, 1991).
Alexander to Actium: he Historical Evolution of the Hellenistic Age (Berkeley, 1990).
Handy, Lowell K. Among the Host of Heaven: he Syro-Palestinian Pantheon as Bureaucracy
(Winona Lake, Ind., 1994).
Isaac, Benjamin. he Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity (Princeton, 2004).

Karsh, Efraim. Islamic Imperialism: A History (New Haven, 2006).
Masuzawa, Tomoko. he Invention of World Religions: Or How European Universalism
Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism (Chicago, 2005).
Said, Edward. Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient (London, 1978).
Paden, William E. Religious Worlds: he Comparative Study of Religion (Boston 1988).
Interpreting the Sacred (Boston, 1992).
Starr, Chester. A History of the Ancient World (Oxford, 1965).
 
MESOPOTAMIA AND THE NEAR EAST

1
SUMERIAN RELIGION
graham cunningham
Sumer, in the south of what is now Iraq, is celebrated as the region in which
writing was invented and the world’s earliest urban civilization developed.1
Temples, as the institutions within which writing is first attested and as
the symbolic centers of cities, played a major role in these developments.
In addition, a rich and varied body of religious literature was written in
Sumerian, bringing order to the world, explaining events within it, and
mediating between the human and divine domains. Temples had inter-
related functions as the earthly residences of deities and as administra-
tive centers responsible for receiving and redistributing various types of
commodities, and much of the religious literature is inseparably related to
concepts of kingship. Sumerian religion thus constitutes a complex nexus
of what are, from our perspective, theological, socio-economic, and polit-
ical concerns.
Briefly it can be described as a polytheistic religion, with a strong belief
in the efficacy and necessity of ritual, which expressed human dependence
on the divine while at the same time enabling a reciprocal relationship
between the two. he principal members of the pantheon were anthropo-
morphic and had joint roles, on a local level being identified with particu-
lar cities and on a regional level contributing to the cultural continuity that
united Sumer. he pantheon was fluid and, paralleling the human form of
deities, was organized on the same principles as human institutions. It was
this fluidity that enabled the pantheon to develop, possibly having its ori-
gins in speculation about the physical universe, and subsequently expand-
ing to include deities of pastoral and arable farming, and then of skills such
as metal working and writing, as well as of objects symbolizing political
1
For the Sumerian sites, see Map 1 in Chapter 2.
31
32 Graham Cunningham
status, divine patronage thus stimulating and reinforcing socio-economic

and political change.
Writing was invented in Sumer some 5,000 years ago, and Sumerian
is attested as a high-status written language throughout much of the
ancient Middle East for a period of approximately 2,500 years. he anal-
ysis that follows has a more narrow focus, concentrating on Sumer in the
third millennium, the place and period during which the language was
most extensively spoken and written, and more specifically on the time
during this millennium when city-states were the predominant political
structure.
Much of our reconstruction of Sumerian religion relies on the textual
part of the archaeological record. he analysis therefore begins by con-
textualizing the written evidence, then locates Sumer in space and time,
and concludes by examining in more detail, and in broadly chronological
order, the essential parts of that record. First, however, some minor points
should be made about how references are given for Sumerian literature,
and how Sumerian and Semitic terms are transliterated. he literature is
cited according to its modern titles in two online resources, the Diachronic
Corpus of Sumerian Literature (DCSL) and the Electronic Text Corpus of
Sumerian Literature (ETCSL),2 and in the case of the ETCSL according to
the number a composition has within that corpus. he transliteration con-
ventions are much simpler than those adopted in specialist publications,
which use a wide range of diacritics to indicate variations in pronunciation
and specify the signs with which words were written.
Transliterated names of deities are hyphenated when they consist of
more than one word and are given a literal translation when first men-
tioned. To map the translations onto the transliterations, the Sumerian
genitive case-marker requires a brief description. It is functionally equiva-
lent to the preposition of, but like the possessive ’s in that it occurs at the
end of a phrase and is phonologically bound to the word that it follows.
he forms of the genitive are complex, and the solution typically taken in
transliterating names is not to indicate this case-marker after a word end-
ing in a vowel, as in En-ki, “Lord of (the) earth,” and to suffix an a after a
word ending in a consonant, as in Nin-hursaga, “Lady of (the) foothills.”
As these examples indicate, Sumerian has no article, nor does it distin-
guish between singular and plural in inanimate reference. More impor-
tantly, the examples also show that many divine names begin with a title.
2
See Suggestions for Further Reading at the end of this volume for these resources.
Sumerian Religion 33
he exact nuances of these titles are difficult to recover, and the status that
nin confers was also given to some gods.
from literacy to language-death

From the invention of writing onward, most of the textual evidence from
the ancient Middle East is concerned with administration, including
records of the food and drink given to the incarnations of deities in their
temples, both on a daily basis and at religious festivals. his administrative
focus is particularly pronounced for much of the first half of the third mil-
lennium. However, from roughly 2700 onward (all dates are bce, and are
highly approximate), a wider range of textual types is available, including
inscriptions incised on durable material such as stone and deposited in
temples by rulers.
With their references to rulers, the inscriptions place us more securely
in what can be termed history. However, in some cases even establish-
ing the broad outlines of this historical narrative remains difficult. he
incompleteness of the textual record is one of the factors contributing to
this uncertainty. It is not simply that the accidents of recovery render the
record incomplete, but more that most documents were not written with
preservation in mind. Although the inscriptions were clearly intended for
survival, most writing was instead on clay tablets, which were recycled once
they had served their function, although some were discarded to form part
of a subsequent building’s foundation. It is these discards that are available
to us, as well as instances in which the recycling process was interrupted by
a building being destroyed or abandoned.
he clay tablets can be divided broadly into two types, administrative
and a much smaller group of what can provisionally be termed school
texts, many of which are religious in nature, some being lists of deities,
structured in terms of their importance and the relationships between
them, whereas others are literary compositions, such as hymns in praise of
deities. In addition to content and function, fundamental differences are
seen between the two types of text: administrative records, unlike school
texts, are not attested in multiple exemplars, nor was their content ever
transmitted over time.
Our most extensive record of the religious literature comes from
eighteenth-century schools and results from such processes of transmis-
sion, testifying to the tradition’s cultural and ideological significance but
often making it difficult to identify when its constituent parts were first
composed or how accurately they have been preserved. Similar tablets of
an earlier date are less securely provenanced but may also have come from
an educational context, again suggesting an association between textualiza-
tion and incorporation within the curriculum. Further difficulties remain
in identifying the contexts in which these compositions were originally
performed, whereas other compositions are likely to have been performed
but never textualized, thus lying beyond our recovery.
Bearing these qualifications in mind, what the religious literature depicts
is a pantheon headed by three gods, each identified with a different part
of the cosmos: An, whose name means “he heavens,” associated with that
part of the universe; En-ki (“Lord of the earth”), associated with what was
envisaged as a sacred subterranean ocean, ki thus referring not to the sur-
face of the earth but to its substance; and En-lil (“Lord wind”), associated
with the space between the two. his vertical axis is reinforced by hymns
to temples that describe them as reaching up to the heavens and down to
the underground ocean, figurative praise that was physically realized in the
monumental scale of the temples.
he two most important female deities are Inana, the goddess of
the Venus “star” in its morning and evening aspects, whose name may
be a reduction of Nin-ana (“Lady of heaven”), and the various, to some
degree syncretized, local forms of a mother-goddess, including Nin-mah
(“Majestic lady”), who are associated with birth, child-rearing, and the
creation of mankind. According to creation-narratives such as En-ki and
Nin-mah (ETCSL 1.1.2), mankind has been created by the deities to save
the latter from having to support themselves, work on the fields thus being
a divinely ordained economic necessity, paralleling the ritual presentation
of food and drink to deities in their temples.
he aspects of the cosmos with which the deities are associated embrace
two categories we regard as distinct: nature, that is, the physical universe,
and the human world of social interaction and labor. As is made clear in
the distribution of divine offices in En-ki and the world order (ETCSL
1.1.3), this distinction is alien to Sumerian, both being regarded as depen-
dent upon the divine. his dependence is also expressed in the concept of
the me, a noun formed from the verb me “to be” and thus having a literal
meaning as “being,” or less literally as “essence,” corresponding to one of
the other senses of nature in English, that is, as innate quality or character.
he me were regarded as having a kind of prototype form in the divine
domain that could be realized in the human domain, and they included
the offices and skills, both social and professional, regarded as essential to
civilization. No complete account of the me is known, but many, with a
particular focus on the cult of Inana, are listed in Inana and En-ki (ETCSL
1.3.1), a narrative possibly associated with a ceremony held in honor of that
goddess.3
In addition to being patrons of aspects of the universe, the principal
deities were associated with particular cities, An, for example, with Uruk,
En-ki with Eridu, and En-lil with Nippur. In terms of political structure,
for the middle part of the third millennium these cities can be regarded
as the capitals of city-states, that is, small, relatively independent states
consisting of an urban center, satellite settlements, and an agricultural hin-
terland, with varying degrees of cooperation and conflict, and sometimes
control, characterizing the relationships between the different states.4 In
some cases, a single state included more than one urban settlement, each
having its own satellites and its own patron deity. his description is also
likely to apply to the earlier part of the third millennium, although the tex-
tual evidence from that period is more limited, as is our understanding of
that record. At the end of the preceding millennium the city of Uruk was
of particular importance, and its influence and size may have had political
consequences. Much of the later third and early second millennia present
a more clear-cut political contrast and can be characterized as a period
of regional states, under which the city-states lost their political indepen-
dence and became provinces.
At some stage during this period of primarily regional states, Sumerian
ceased to be spoken, although exactly when remains uncertain. he last
administrative documents in the language date to as late as the eighteenth
century, but these may be following the convention with which writing
began rather than reflecting a spoken reality. hey are outnumbered by
documents in a Semitic language known as Akkadian, first attested dur-
ing the second half of the third millennium. Akkadian is reasonably well
understood because of its similarities to Semitic languages that are still spo-
ken. Sumerian, however, has so far not been convincingly demonstrated to
relate to any other group of languages. In consequence, it is much less well
understood than Akkadian, and to a large degree our understanding of the
language relies on what was taught in ancient schools, lists of Sumerian
words, for example, being accompanied by their Akkadian equivalents as
well as by guides to their pronunciation.
3
Cohen, Calendars, 215–17.
4
Westenholz, “City-State,” 23–42.
cities in the plain

he first places mentioned in the written record from the ancient Middle
East are cities. Expressions for areas are attested only from the second half
of the third millennium onward, vary in application, and differ depending
on language. We tend to refer instead to Mesopotamia, a loanword from
ancient Greek whose literal meaning is “between rivers,” the rivers being
the Euphrates and Tigris, which rise in the mountains of Turkey and flow
down through Iraq to the Persian Gulf. his broad area is divided in two,
at a line running slightly to the north of what is now Baghdad, with lower
Mesopotamia again being subdivided, at a line running to the north of the
ancient city of Nippur.
In Akkadian Sumer corresponds approximately to the south of lower
Mesopotamia and Akkad to the north. However, in what we, following
Akkadian, call Sumerian, the term for the language is instead eme-gir,
whereas Sumer is ki-en-gir and Akkad ki-uri. A literal translation of eme-gir
is as “native-tongue,” noting that in Sumerian a modifier typically follows
what it modifies, so the Sumerian sequence is the reverse of the English.
In the area names ki has the sense of “region,” but the other elements are
more opaque. One possibility is that ki-en-gi is a reduction of a hypothet-
ical ki-eme-gir, in which case it can be analyzed as “native-tongue-region,”
while uri is not attested elsewhere in Sumerian, suggesting that it originated
in another language. Although analysis of the Sumerian area-terms is uncer-
tain, the Akkadian terminology, deriving words for languages from words
for areas, indicates that Akkadian was spoken mainly in the north of lower
Mesopotamia and Sumerian mainly in the south, although both areas are
likely to have been more multilingual than the written record indicates.
Defining lower Mesopotamia in geographical terms is more straightfor-
ward. It consists of the alluvial plain created by the waters of the Euphrates
and the Tigris, bounded by mountains in the northeast, desert in the
southwest, and marshes leading to the sea in the southeast, with the shore-
line of the Persian Gulf lying higher then than it does now. he two riv-
ers enter this area from the northwest, providing transport links to upper
Mesopotamia, and within lower Mesopotamia between the cities strung
out along the banks of the rivers, the more slowly flowing Euphrates being
the most important of the two in relation to the development of Sumer.
he geographical distinction within the alluvial plain is between the
river-plain in the north and the delta-plain in the south, the flat slope of
the land reducing further in the latter, encouraging the Euphrates to split
into multiple shifting channels.
Rainfall on the plain is insufficient to support farming. Profiting from

the fertility of the alluvial soil consequently required the use of irrigation,
while sub-desert outside watered areas provided pasturage for grazing ani-
mals. Exactly how this agricultural economy developed into one that sup-
ported an urbanized society is much disputed. It is, however, clear that
the temples played a significant role in this development. From late pre-
history onward they dominated the urban landscape, as they did the flat
alluvial plain, and later periods show that this visual dominance had a
socio-economic correlate, the temple functioning as a major redistribu-
tive center, receiving and reallocating agricultural produce, enabling some
members of society to concentrate on maximizing food production while
others specialized in artisan-production or administration.
from prehistory to history

It is to the fifth millennium that the first agricultural settlements in lower
Mesopotamia are dated, the evidence coming from the south rather than
north of the plain, although agriculture is attested much earlier in upper
Mesopotamia. he first temples in lower Mesopotamia also date to this
millennium, including one in the far south at Eridu, which the later liter-
ary tradition celebrates as the original city (he Sumerian king list, ETCSL
2.1.1). In the historical periods Eridu is the earthly residence of the god
En-ki, who is associated with the ab-zu, the first element in which means
ocean, with the second being unclear. his ocean was thought to lie below
the surface of the earth and to be the source of the fresh water in springs,
wells, and rivers, a concept of central importance given the region’s relative
lack of rain. However, the origins of the temple may relate less to the god
and more to the fresh-water ocean, the marshy environment of lagoons in
which it was built being regarded as a manifestation of this essential aspect
of the cosmos.
Archaeological evidence from the temple’s fifth-millennium levels
matches the characteristics of temples in later periods, indicating a com-
bined socio-economic and cultic role. In particular, stamp seals imply that
some temple personnel held positions of authority, possibly controlling the
movement of commodities in sealed containers, and the large quantities
of fish bones suggest divine offerings, and more generally an architectural
framing of ritual within a built environment. he temple was repeatedly
rebuilt in the same place, respecting the sacredness of the site while at
the same time raising the temple ever higher on platforms formed from
previous incarnations, each successive stage increasing in grandeur and
elaboration over its predecessor. As a result, by the end of the third mil-
lennium, when Eridu’s economic, but not its religious, significance had
diminished, the modest fifth-millennium beginnings had been transformed
into a monumental complex consisting of suites of rooms around a central
open space with an offerings table, supplemented by a ziggurat, one of the
few instances of an Akkadian loanword in English, a multi-staged tower
rising in levels of decreasing size, each level having its own terrace.
he fourth millennium, and slightly beyond, is referred to as the Uruk
period (4000–2900), named after an immense city in the south of the
plain whose influence spread throughout much of Mesopotamia. his was
a period of major demographic change, the countryside becoming rela-
tively depopulated while settlements diminished in number but increased
in size from the small villages and few towns of the fifth millennium to
sites of urban proportions. he largest by far was Uruk itself, the largest
city in the world at this time, although other cities increased in importance
toward the end of the period.
Densely populated urban centers surrounded by an agricultural hin-
terland continued to be the pattern for the rest of the third millennium
and beyond. One term used for much of the third millennium is Early
Dynastic, subdivided into Early Dynastic I (2900–2750), II (2750–2600),
IIIa (2600–2450), and IIIb (2450–2350). As the term suggests, this is the
first time we have evidence for sequences of hereditary rulers governing
city-states. However, the extent to which such dynasties ruled throughout
lower Mesopotamia during the Early Dynastic period is uncertain, nor is
the existence of hereditary rule in earlier periods necessarily excluded.
his hereditary principle continued to apply to the rulers of the fol-
lowing imperial states, first during an empire whose capital was Agade in
the north of the alluvial plain (2350–2150), the city-name being related to
the area-term Akkad, and then during an empire whose capital was Ur
in the far south of the plain near Eridu (2100–2000). he founder of the
first of these regional states was Sargon, an anglicization of the Akkadian
Sharru-kin (“he king is legitimate”), and the brief intervening period of
renewed city-state independence is referred to as the post-Sargonic period
(2150–2100).
he beginning of the second millennium saw further political changes
as other Semitic rulers from the north, but this time Amorites, vied for
control over Sumer. Two smaller regional states in the south of the plain,
centered on Isin and then Larsa, were followed by a third empire, founded
in the eighteenth century and centered on Babylon. Babylon’s rise shifted
political power irreversibly to the north and set in motion the ascent of its
patron deity, Marduk, to a position as head of the pantheon. Analysis of

this name continues to defy modern scholars; ancient scholars, however,
interpreted it as a reduction of a Sumerian phrase, Amar-Utu (“Calf of
Utu”), Utu being the sun-god, whose all-seeing daily journey across the
sky led to his characterization as a god of justice and truth.
Setting these political changes within a theological framework was one
of the concerns of Sumerian literature composed during the Ur and Isin
periods, providing the first textual evidence of an interest in assessing, and
to some degree appropriating, the recent past. he same narrative that
specifies Eridu as the earliest city, he Sumerian king list, describes king-
ship as an institution that descends from heaven and is passed from city to
city. his composition is first attested during the period of Ur’s domina-
tion and appears to promote an imperial ideology, restricting kingship to
one city at a time in Mesopotamia, whereas the evidence from the Early
Dynastic period suggests that this type of overlordship was rare. According
to he king list, Ur had already been the dominant city twice before the
end of the third millennium, an account that continues to inform modern
conventions, the late third millennium often being referred to as the Ur
III period.
Although he king list illustrates the principle of social institutions as
divine gifts, and more broadly the principle of divine intervention within
the human domain, it provides no motivation for this intervention. Other
compositions, however, elaborate on the ways in which divine decisions
necessarily precede political changes. For example, he cursing of Agade
(ETCSL 2.1.5), again first attested in the period dominated by Ur, inter-
prets Agade’s fall in traditional terms, that is, as divine punishment of a
ruler’s transgressions. he various compositions concerned with the fall of
Ur develop a different interpretation, presumably because the subsequent
Isin rulers, who sought to portray themselves as heirs to the Ur dynasty,
wished to have an unsullied inheritance.
hese compositions depict divine favor instead as being necessarily
impermanent in relation to kingship, its loss therefore being inevitable.
Although this was a new theory of political change, it was set within a tra-
ditional framework, the compositions lamenting the fall of the Ur empire
focusing on the principal religious centers of Sumer: Nippur (ETCSL
2.2.4), Uruk (ETCSL 2.2.5), and Eridu (ETCSL 2.2.6), as well as Ur itself
(ETCSL 2.2.2 and 2.2.3). he patron god of Ur is a further instance of a
major celestial body, the moon, envisaged as a manifestation of a deity.
Reflecting the moon’s importance for calculating the passage of time, this
god had various names, in particular Nanna as the maximal phase of the
lunar cycle and Suen as its minimal phase, the moon’s crescent-horns also
associating the god with cattle and their fertility. In later periods the full
moon was referred to as Nannar, presumably reflecting the influence of the
Akkadian verb namaru “to be bright.”
the first writing

Initially, however, writing had a very different function than recording
theological accounts of the loss of kingship. It is in Uruk, toward the end
of the fourth millennium, that writing is first attested, where it originates
not as a way of representing a language but as a form of bureaucratic
record-keeping.5 By the end of the Early Dynastic I period, or possibly
later given the provisional nature of our dating of these early tablets, there
is evidence of a more widespread distribution of writing, and of its use to
represent Sumerian, although still in a very limited way.
In some cases the function of the buildings in which these adminis-
trative records were kept remains unclear. However, where the buildings
can be identified they are temples. he earliest records are discards found
among fill used to raise the platform of a temple-complex dedicated to the
goddess Inana. Most of the records from the end of the Uruk period come
from the same temple, with a few of the same date being found in a temple
of the moon-god in Urum, a city in the north of the alluvial plain. Most
of the records dating approximately to the Early Dynastic I period are also
associated with a temple of the moon-god, but instead in Ur.
While these administrative records remain difficult to understand,
they suggest that the temple played a significant economic role, perform-
ing a central function within a redistributive system based on a prin-
ciple of hierarchical reciprocity, receiving agricultural produce or labor
in exchange for providing other supplies or services. he signs in these
documents record book-keeping entries, and, like stamp and cylinder
seals, they may have originated as a language-independent administra-
tive device. Most are depictions of all or part of what they refer to, or of
objects associated with that reference, the sign for the sky-god, for exam-
ple, being a star. Over time the immediacy of this association was reduced
as many signs acquired multiple meanings, and all were reoriented and
written using a combination of wedge-like marks, the term we use for
this script, cuneiform, coming from the Latin for wedge, cuneus. In addi-
tion, a small set of signs was also used to represent sound-sequences,
5
Cooper, “Beginnings,” 71–99.
enabling a wider range of words to be written, and the particular form of

a word to be specified more fully.
Some of these administrative documents have been identified more spe-
cifically as the first records of food offerings for a deity.6 Such offerings,
dedicated to deities in temples but allotted to their attendants, are central
to Sumerian religion, the presence of an honored and therefore benevo-
lent deity being regarded as essential to a city’s viability. he hierarchical
reciprocity implied in this relationship, that in return for the offerings
the deity will bestow blessings, can be interpreted as a sacred counterpart
to the temple’s redistributive role, providing the foundation on which its
more wide-ranging economic activities were based.
Visual evidence of such offerings also comes from Uruk, most strikingly
in relief carvings on an alabaster vase dating to the end of the Uruk period
(see Fig. 1). he lowest bands on this vase depict water, plants, and domes-
ticated animals. he middle band shows a procession of ritually naked men
advancing in unison holding vessels filled with the fruits of the land. he
top, and deepest, band portrays a clothed man (partly damaged) whose
naked attendant presents offerings to a female figure, Inana, standing in
front of her temple. What is thus depicted is a hierarchical and comple-
mentary social structure embedded within a natural order headed by a
deity, and an agricultural economy dedicated to the service of that deity’s
urban institution, the temple.
lexical lists
he next attested use of writing, for recording lexical lists, differs in crucial
ways from the administrative records. hese are lists of semantically related
words, compiled by scholars for use in the education of trainee scribes, and
presumably therefore originating in an educational context, as opposed to
the administrative contexts in which trained scribes practiced their trade.
he somewhat dry term we use to refer to these compilations obscures the
sophisticated ways in which they construct knowledge, and in some cases
reconstruct it as their content was transmitted across time.
One of these lexical lists, he cities list,7 first attested in Uruk at the end
of the Uruk period, is particularly relevant to the relationship between a
city and its patron deity. he principles on which this list is structured
remain uncertain. However, the first six names are of important cities in
6
Szarzynska, “Offerings,” 115–40.
7
Matthews, Cities, 39–40.
Fig. 1. Uruk (Warka) vase. Water, corn growing from water, sheep, men bearing gifts,
and the goddess Inana (Inanna). Five rows of limestone bas-reliefs on a cult vase from
Uruk, Mesopotamia (Iraq). Location: National Museum, Baghdad, Iraq. Photo by
Erich Lessing. © Art Resource, NY
the south of the alluvial plain: Ur, Nippur, Larsa, Uruk, Kesh, and Zabala.
Except for Kesh, probably located farther north than the other cities, each
of these names is written in ways that emphasize the city’s close identifica-
tion with its temple and divine patron.
Nippur is written with the same signs as its patron deity En-lil, the two
often being distinguished by what is referred to as a determinative, a sign
written, but not pronounced, to specify the semantic class of the noun that
it accompanies. he writing of the names of the four cities farther south
than Nippur follows a different principle.
For Larsa and Zabala the sign for a shrine is combined with the sign used
for the cities’ respective deities, the sun-god Utu and the Venus-goddess
Inana, thus being visually “Utu-shrine” and “Inana-shrine.” he sign for a
shrine appears to depict the front of a temple raised on a platform, and the
sign for Utu is of the sun over the mountains; the sign symbolizing Inana
is less straightforward, possibly depicting a temple-doorpost made from
bundles of reed tied together. he writings of the city Ur and its patron
god Nanna offer a variation on this principle. he city’s name is again
written by combining the sign for a shrine with the sign symbolizing the
deity, also perhaps a depiction of a column-like object made from reeds.
However, the writing of the god’s name is supplemented by the sign na,
specifying its pronunciation; over time the initial horizontal wedge in this
sign was omitted, the sign thus being reduced to the one we refer to as KI.
Uruk itself is written only with a modified version of the sign for a shrine,
suggesting that it was regarded simply as the site of the shrine, therefore
requiring no further specification.
he writing of these city-names indicates the principle of one major
deity presiding over one city, although Uruk was the earthly residence of
both An and Inana, two originally distinct settlements, Kulaba and Uruk,
presumably having merged as one. Typically, a deity presides over only
one city. Inana is again an exception, with major sanctuaries in both Uruk
and Zabala as well as elsewhere. Local forms of mother-goddesses are also
patrons of various cities, including Nin-hursaga (“Lady of the foothills”) at
Kesh. In addition, the moon-god and the sun-god are guardians of two cit-
ies, but here the distribution is geographical, Nanna being patron of Ur in
the south of the alluvial plain and Urum in the north, while Utu is patron
of Larsa in the south and Sippar in the north.
heir association with a particular deity expresses the individuation of
cities. However, their incorporation within such lists suggests that they
formed an inclusive community. he deities themselves were also orga-
nized into lexical lists, indicating how religion contributed toward this
sense of a shared identity. Two fragments of what may be deity lists have
been identified at Uruk, from the end of the Uruk period, and at Ur, pos-
sibly from the Early Dynastic I period.8 However, the earliest complete
examples date to the Early Dynastic IIIa period,9 when most of the textual
evidence comes from two cities, Shuruppak, upriver from Uruk, and Abu
Salabikh (ancient name uncertain), upriver from Nippur.
he Early Dynastic IIIa deity lists, cataloging more than 500 gods and
goddesses, are compiled partly on the basis of theological speculation, the
first entries following a hierarchical order, and partly on lexical principles,
many later entries being grouped together in terms of how they are writ-
ten. In contrast to administrative documents specifying divine offerings,
which provide a vivid record of the deities honored in a particular place
at a particular time, the deity lists are more atemporal and regional. he
Shuruppak list begins An, En-lil, Inana, En-ki, Nanna, and Utu. As this
list indicates, An was considered to be the head of the pantheon; he is,
however, a somewhat remote figure, and the other deities appear more fre-
quently, and more actively, in the textual record. he pantheon was fluid
rather than fixed, the first six entries at Abu Salabikh being instead An,
En-lil, Nin-lil, En-ki, Nanna, and Inana. his sequence places less empha-
sis on Uruk deities, listing Inana in a lower position, and more on En-lil’s
city of Nippur, giving third position to his wife Nin-lil (“Lady wind”).
Nin-lil’s incorporation high in the list from Abu Salabikh further indi-
cates the anthropomorphic nature of Sumerian religion: Deities, in addi-
tion to their temple-incarnations requiring food like humans, were related
on the model of family relationships, that is, in terms of marriage and
parentage, albeit with some degree of flexibility. Consequently, according
to one tradition, En-lil and En-ki were sons of An, while Nanna was a son
of En-lil, and Utu a son of Nanna. Inana was sometimes a daughter of An,
but sometimes of Nanna, then being Utu’s sister. Family relationships were
constructed on a local as well as a regional basis, En-lil’s son in Nippur
being the warrior-god Nin-urta, tentatively “Lord of the [arable surface of
the] earth,” the temple-complex containing subsidiary shrines or separate
buildings dedicated to the other members of the divine family.
Confirmation of the complexity of a city’s divine household comes from
later records of offerings. hese show that it was not only the presiding
deity who received daily offerings, as well as being clothed and housed
in great splendor, but also what were regarded as other members of his
8
Englund, “Texts,” 88.
9
Selz, “Enlil,” 212–25.
household, his family, advisors, servants, and sacred possessions, in partic-

ular weapons and musical instruments, each of which had its own name.
In an extension of this principle, and reflecting the sanctity of the temple,
offerings were also given to different parts of the building, such as its gate-
ways and door-bolts.
inscriptions
Inscriptions, that is, writing on durable material such as stone artifacts
and baked clay, are attested from approximately the Early Dynastic I
period onward. Typically these artifacts were deposited in temples, the
material marking them as a permanent record thus being reinforced by
divine recognition and protection. he earliest inscriptions record the sale
by families of that most immovable of assets, land,10 suggesting a greater
emphasis on personalized material wealth. More specifically, this evidence
of family-owned property qualifies any suggestion that the temple was the
sole landowner, although it should be noted that these sale-records are lit-
tle attested in the far south of the alluvial plain. Personalization of status
also characterizes later inscriptions, attested from the Early Dynastic II
period onward, which were used instead to commemorate the deeds of
rulers.11
hese royal inscriptions develop a theology accounting for a rul-
er’s authority, depicting him as the divinely chosen steward of a deity’s
earthly estates. Typically it is the presiding deity of a city who is said to
have selected a ruler, his political and military success being attributed to
this divine approval. However, the principal deities often also contribute,
Nin-hursaga, for example, being described as nourishing a ruler, En-ki as
providing wisdom, and Inana as loving him. Toward the end of the Early
Dynastic period, as city-states vied for control over other city-states, En-lil’s
favor was regarded as the most important. During the subsequent periods
of regional states his city of Nippur played a central role in this ideology of
kingship, religious authority thus being vested in a single deity at the same
time as political authority took the form of a single state. Some city-rulers
were further validated as being of divine parentage. In an extension of this
principle, some rulers of regional states were not simply associated with the
divine but were elevated to that status.
10
Gelb et al., Tenure.
11
Cooper, “Inscriptions,” 227–39.
Administrative records from the Early Dynastic III period provide fur-
ther qualification to the role of temples as landowners, as well as further
evidence of the status of these city-rulers. Most of the records dating to this
period come from two cities, Shuruppak again (IIIa, like the deity list) and
Girsu (IIIb), located in the east of Sumer and the source of most of the
royal inscriptions. he texts from Girsu provide our most complete record
of a temple’s economic role in the Early Dynastic period, indicating its
involvement in irrigation, fishing, arable farming (cultivating cereals, veg-
etables, and fruit-trees), pastoralism (managing herds of cows and flocks
of sheep and goats), artisan-production (of textiles, leather and wooden
items, and metal and stone objects), and long-distance trade. However, as
is the case at Shuruppak, these records also indicate that the city-ruler had
overall responsibility for the temple’s estates, in addition to having exten-
sive estates of his own.
Such monarchical rulers constitute a political authority superior to the
temple, albeit one with many religious responsibilities, although extrap-
olating from these limited data is difficult and it is possible that in other
places and in earlier periods the head of the temple was the head of the
city-state, or that authority had a more distributed form such as an assem-
bly. Some support for the distinctive nature of these rulers, or more exactly
their palaces, comes from the language itself. In Sumerian the word e,
“house,” covering a much wider semantic field that includes “household”
and “estate,” was used to refer to both a human and a divine residence, the
latter conventionally being translated as temple. his suggests a communal
ethos, with differences of scale rather than of principle. In contrast, a dif-
ferent term was used for a palace, e-gal, literally “great house,” a compound
noun on the basis that it was borrowed into Akkadian as a single word.
he administrative records from Girsu also provide the first extensive
references to religious festivals,12 although given their nature they simply
list offerings and provide no description of the rituals that accompanied
their presentation. At this time Girsu, whose patron deity, the warrior-god
Nin-Girsu (“Lord of Girsu”), is ranked seventh in the deity list from Abu
Salabikh, was the capital of a city-state that incorporated various other
urban centers on the same branch of the Euphrates, among them Lagash,
after which the state was named. he festivals served to unite the state, the
ruler’s wife leading processions between the various cities and dedicating
offerings to the deities in each, including sheep and lambs for the senior
deities and goats for those more junior.
12
Cohen, Calendars, 37–64.
he inscriptions themselves also provide examples of royal participa-

tion in ritual, most commemorating a ruler’s rebuilding of a temple or
dedication of an object to a deity in a temple. Indicating the instrumen-
tal and reciprocal nature of Sumerian religion, many inscriptions spec-
ify the divine blessing that was sought in return, namely, that the ruler
should have a long life. Temple-building is also the concern of the longest
inscription known in Sumerian, which again comes from Girsu, but dates
to the post-Sargonic period of renewed city-state independence, under a
ruler whose name was Gu-dea, “(he one to whom the) voice has been
poured,” or less literally “he chosen one.” his inscription, he building of
Nin-Girsu’s temple (ETCSL 2.1.7), is a masterly recasting in narrative form
of the rituals for constructing and inaugurating a temple, and as such can
also be classified as literature.
As in the religious festivals, the inscription serves to unite the state of
Lagash, recounting how Gu-dea travels between its principal settlements
to gain support from their deities for rebuilding the temple, setting the
construction-work within a theological framework of divine approval.
Like other rulers, he is depicted as a shepherd, thus superior to his peo-
ple but responsible for their welfare, who has special access to the deities
through divination, dreams in particular being vehicles for divine messages.
However, although other royal inscriptions offer a somewhat formulaic
vision of a prosperous society, this narrative develops a subtle congruence
between social structure and physical structure, correlating an idealized
social order to the immaculate organization of the temple, the designs for
which are said to come from the deities themselves, from Nisaba, the god-
dess of writing, and Nin-dub, “Lord tablet.”
religious literature
he first evidence of strategies for seeking divine approval other than ded-
icatory offerings is an isolated inscription containing praise of Nin-Girsu,13
possibly dating to the Early Dynastic II period. Most of the third-millennium
sources for religious literature date instead to the following IIIa period,
again coming from Shuruppak and Abu Salabikh. Many of these composi-
tions are written according to a set of conventions that remain opaque to
us, and very few are attested later in a more fully written form. he focus
in what follows is consequently on those that are most comprehensible,
including hymnic, narrative, and didactic compositions, supplemented by
13
Cooper, “Inscriptions,” 228.
references to religious literature preserved on eighteenth-century sources.

hese compositions depict deities more vividly than the gnomic adminis-
trative records, although the vividness often relates as much to the greater
glory of rulers as it does to deities.
An early instance of devotional literature is provided by a hymn to
Nin-hursaga’s temple in Kesh (he Kesh temple hymn, DCSL), also attested
in a later version (ETCSL 4.80.2). Like much other praise of temples, this
hymn emphasizes their role in mediating between the human world and
the divine domains above and below, describing the temple as embracing
heaven and being rooted in the ab-zu. Later, however, the focus of praise is
deities and regional rulers, the eighteenth-century curriculum being dom-
inated by royal praise poetry and hymns to deities that often request divine
blessings for a ruler (ETCSL 2.3.1–2.99.e, 4.01.1–4.33.3). his devotional
literature stresses the fearsome awesomeness of temples and deities, reflect-
ing the intense nature of many encounters with the divine. However, the
rhetoric of terrifying praise is particularly associated with warrior-deities,
suggesting that it was also put to political and military ends, as rulers
sought to assert authority within their own territories and sometimes
beyond them.
Another category of religious composition, referred to as incantations,
is also attested from the Early Dynastic IIIa period onward.14 hese differ
from other religious compositions in various ways, including, in ancient
terms, having only a marginal association with the eighteenth-century cur-
riculum, and, in modern terms, being sufficiently formulaic that they are
rarely classified as literature. he incantations have a more explicit instru-
mental function than the hymns, being used, for example, to provide
release from various types of suffering, such as illness, as well as in contexts
that focus less on the individual, such as vivifying statues with the presence
of a deity. hey employ a wider range of verbal strategies than the hymns
to achieve these ends. One of these extends the same symbolic significance
to sacred purifiers as temples by praising them in similar terms as reaching
up to heaven and down to the ab-zu. However, another takes a narrative
approach to eliding the distance between the human and divine worlds,
describing how a junior deity notices a problem in the human domain
and then seeks advice from a more remote senior deity, who provides the
necessary solution.
In the later periods the senior deity in these narratives is En-ki, the
provider of the fresh water of the ab-zu essential for agriculture as well for
14
Geller, “Incantations,” 269–83.
the purification that is one of the incantations’ primary concerns. As such

En-ki is rarely associated with the divine awe elaborated in devotional lit-
erature, and in other narratives his role is also favorable to mankind. For
example, in En-ki and the world order (ETCSL 1.1.3) he organizes every
aspect of the civilized world, and in Inana and En-ki (ETCSL 1.3.1) he is
the holder of the me that are essential to human life.
he incantations develop a complex theology to account for the suffer-
ing they seek to relieve, to a degree extending on a continuum from ran-
dom attacks by the A-sag (“Arm-beating”) demon to punishment inflicted
by En-lil, whose agent is the Namtar (“Fate”) demon. Narrative refrac-
tions of these two extremes are also attested in the later literary tradition.
In Nin-urta’s exploits (ETCSL 1.6.2) the warrior-god defeats the A-sag,
while En-lil’s relationship with humanity is often depicted as problem-
atic, reflecting his characterization as a storm-god whose tempests manifest
divine anger. his is particularly the case in he flood story (ETCSL 1.7.4),
in which he sends a destructive flood, for reasons missing from the frag-
mentary source. he savior of mankind, who warns of the flood to come,
is also missing, although a brief account in another composition credits
En-ki (he death of Gilgamesh, ETCSL 1.8.1.3), thus paralleling his sup-
portive role in incantations and elsewhere.
he importance of the two deities is reflected in their status as
creator-gods, each using different technical skills to create mankind. En-ki,
in company with the mother-goddess Nin-mah, molds mankind from clay
like a potter (En-ki and Nin-mah, ETCSL 1.1.2), while En-lil, in a pun-filled
composition celebrating the hoe, applies that tool’s associations with agri-
culture and building-construction to the fashioning of mankind (he song
of the hoe, ETCSL 5.5.4). Reproduction accounts instead for the creation
of minor deities, narratives again being attested in which the two gods
play a major role in this sexual process, En-ki with the mother-goddess
Nin-hursaga (ETCSL 1.1.1) and En-lil with his wife-to-be Nin-lil (ETCSL
1.2.1).
he survivor of the flood, sheltering in an ark-like boat, was Zi-ud-sura
(“Life of distant days”), a ruler of Shuruppak, appropriately named given
that his reward for survival was eternal life. Zi-ud-sura also appears in a
didactic composition, but as a prince receiving advice from his father on
the correct forms of behavior (he instructions of Shuruppak, ETCSL 5.6.1).
Descriptions of rulers often set their moral and intellectual qualities within
a broader framework of praise. In he instructions, however, the focus is
solely on the ruler as sage, Shuruppak, named after his city, transmitting
wisdom rather than might on a hereditary principle.
he instructions is another of the few instances of literature attested in

both eighteenth-century and Early Dynastic IIIa versions (DCSL). Other
compositions are conceptually rather than textually similar across time.
For example, in an early cycle of brief hymns, referred to as zame hymns
(DCSL), zame being Sumerian for praise, En-lil assigns a series of deities to
their cult-centers in the south and north of the alluvial plain. his expres-
sion of religious unity is matched in a later collection of hymns to temples
(he temple hymns, ETCSL 4.80.1). However, in the later instance reli-
gious unity explicitly mirrors political unity, compilation of the collection
being credited to En-hedu-ana (“he lord [is] the abundance of heaven”),
a daughter of Sargon, the founder of the empire centered on Agade in the
north of the plain.
En-hedu-ana, the first author to receive such a credit, although with
what accuracy remains difficult to establish, is also attested in two hymns in
which she addresses Inana (ETCSL 4.07.2, 4.07.3), the most complex deity
in the pantheon. hese hymns configure the goddess as a warrior-deity,
their imagery exulting in her ferocity and lust for battle. As such Inana is
the deity most associated with the terrifying awe elaborated in the devo-
tional literature. Other compositions focus instead on the insatiable nature
of the goddess’s ambitions, as she contends in one for the underworld
(Inana’s descent to the netherworld, ETCSL 1.4.1), and in another for heaven
(Inana and An, ETCSL 1.3.5).
En-hedu-ana was also the high priestess of the moon-god Nanna in his
city of Ur in the south of the plain. he gendered complementarity in this
ritual relationship can be interpreted as a metaphorical representation of
the relationship between the human and the divine, enabling elision of the
distance between the two through symbolic union. Visually the relation-
ship is attested much earlier, but with the gender-roles reversed, on the ala-
baster vase from Uruk at the end of the fourth millennium, which depicts
a male figure presenting offerings to Inana.
Textually this relationship is alluded to in royal inscriptions that describe
Inana as loving a ruler, and celebrated in several narratives referring to
legendary rulers of Uruk (ETCSL 1.8.2.1–1.8.2.5). An Early Dynastic IIIa
narrative, Lugal-banda and Nin-sumuna (DCSL), also features one of these
rulers, Lugal-banda (“Junior king”), but gives the female role instead to
Nin-sumuna (“Lady of the wild cows”). However, the most vivid elabora-
tions of the metaphor are associated with later Ur and Isin rulers. hese
rulers are often represented as Inana’s lover in sexually explicit composi-
tions that equate making love with plant cultivation and animal fertility
(such as ETCSL 2.4.4.2, 2.5.3.1), thus configuring Inana as a goddess of
physical love as well as of battle. While more elaborate than the references
in royal inscriptions, these compositions have the same underlying aim:
the depiction of a ruler whose selection by a deity ensures the fruitfulness
of the land.
A further group of compositions, debates, is much less associated with
the elevation of deities and of rulers. In one Inana is wooed by two suitors,
the shepherd-god and the farmer-god, whose different merits are debated,
the former’s butter and milk versus the latter’s crops and contribution to
irrigation (Dumu-zid and En-ki-imdu, ETCSL 4.08.33). Although her
choice is the shepherd, the arguments in favor of both dramatize the com-
plementary nature of pastoralism and farming, the agricultural symbiosis
at the heart of the economy, and the rejected farmer allows the sheep to
graze on the stubble of his fields.
Other debates feature instead personified pairs essential to prosper-
ity: winter and summer, bird and fish, grain and sheep, tree and reed,
date-palm and tamarisk, hoe and plough, and copper and silver (ETCSL
5.3.1–5.3.7). Although one participant is judged the winner by a deity or
ruler, the often-heated arguments enable the importance of both to be
fully appreciated. As is generally the case, identifying the context in which
these compositions were performed is difficult. However, some evidence
associates he debate between hoe and plough with a ritual held to celebrate
the beginning of the agricultural year, when the two implements were pre-
pared for their coming work on the fields.15 In their focus on economic
prosperity and complementary coexistence these debates can also be com-
pared to the late-fourth-millennium vase from Uruk, and they may consti-
tute a more fundamental aspect of Sumerian religion than the glorification
of deities that characterizes much of the religious literature.
conclusion
he preceding account of religion in Sumer during the third millennium
is necessarily constrained by the nature of the evidence. However, what
emerges clearly is the religion’s association with the social, political, and
technological developments that took place during this period, maintain-
ing continuity while at the same time promoting and endorsing change.
he role of the temple, whether acting independently or under the aegis of
a ruler, was of particular importance, being a center for religion as well as
for agriculture, writing, craft technology, and economic redistribution. Its
15
Cohen, Calendars, 90.
redistributive mechanism followed an institutionalized principle of hierar-

chical reciprocity in which a privileged central authority received others’
products and services, some of which it then redistributed. Hierarchical
reciprocity also characterized ritual in Sumer, an instrumental relation-
ship being articulated in which blessings of various kinds were sought in
exchange for divinely directed speech and deeds.
his vision of a structured, complementary human society dependent
on and congruent to a similarly organized divine one pervades Sumerian
religion. hus the deities were envisaged as having human form and needs,
being fed and clothed in their temples, while the relationships between
them were expressed in social form, in terms of status, employment, par-
entage, and marriage. Religion also paralleled technology, the pantheon
expanding to include deities associated with, for example, writing and
other craft skills. Similarly religion paralleled political organization, divine
patronage of a particular city correlating to the importance of city-states
while the development of larger regional states saw religious authority
being vested more in one god, En-lil, and thus in one city, Nippur.
his horizontal axis expressing solidarity was complemented by a verti-
cal axis that elided the distance between the human domain and the divine
domains above and below it. Again this conceptualization was particularly
realized in relation to temples, which are typically praised as mediating
between the two domains by reaching from the earth up to the heavens
of An and down to the sacred underground ocean of En-ki. his tripar-
tite cosmology in turn reflects the dual nature of the principal Sumerian
deities, that in addition to being patrons of a particular city whose inhab-
itants tilled their fields, each was identified with a different aspect of the
cosmos.
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Herman Hansen (Copenhagen, 2002): 23–42.
2
ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN RELIGIONS
tammi j. schneider
Modern scholarly understanding of what constituted ancient Assyrian and

Babylonian religion is complicated because Assyria and Babylonia were part
of the Mesopotamian “stream of tradition”1 beginning as early as the third
millennium bce and continuing through to the first.2 Second, owing in
part to A. Leo Oppenheim’s contention that the history of “Mesopotamian
religion” should not be written,3 religion as a topic has not been thoroughly
pursued in the field of Mesopotamian studies. Oppenheim was concerned
about the nature of the evidence and “the problem of comprehension across
the barriers of conceptual conditioning.”4 Nonetheless, even Oppenheim
proceeded, to some degree, to write a history of Mesopotamian religion.
he world of ancient Assyria and Babylonia (see Map 1) was filled with
numerous deities whose importance they could not ignore. he respon-
sibilities and power of these gods shifted over time and varied depend-
ing on place, affected too by the changing political situation. At the same
time, many fundamental components of ancient Mesopotamian religious
life continued unchanged for centuries. he basic premise throughout all
periods of Mesopotamian history is that humans were created and placed
1
Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia , 13. Oppenheim defines this stream as “the corpus of literary texts
maintained, controlled, and carefully kept alive by a tradition served by successive generations of
learned and well-trained scribes.”
2
“Ever since Jacobsen’s penetrating study of the Sumerian king list, it has been clear that unity and
linearity were something the Mesopotamians foisted onto their past, rather than qualities which
grew from it”; Lieberman, “Nippur: City of Decisions,” 128.
3
Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia , 171. Oppenheim suggests the reasons for not writing a
Mesopotamian religion are “the nature of the available evidence and the problem of comprehen-
sion across the barriers of conceptual conditioning” (172); both issues continue to exist. Despite
his cry not to write such a treatise, to some extent in the pages included under this heading he
proceeds to do so. he power of Oppenheim’s statement on the field is revealed in a recent study
of Mesopotamian religion where Oppenheim’s claim is invoked in a chapter entitled “he Sources:
What We Can Expect from hem”; see Bottero, Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia , 26.
4
Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia , 171–2.
54
Assyrian and Babylonian Religions 55
Map 1. Mesopotamia and Persia.
on earth so the gods did not have to work. Each deity controlled different
elements of the world order, no one god had full control, and which deity
was in charge fluctuated over time and place, affected by political and
social changes.
his chapter will begin with a brief introduction to the borders and
history of Assyria and Babylonia because political changes in these areas
over time affected the religions practiced there, keeping in mind that both
are part of a larger Mesopotamian stream of tradition.5 Our evidence for
these religions is fragmented, so scholars must incorporate whatever lit-
erary and physical remains survive in an effort to better understand what
the Mesopotamians did and what they may have thought about the world
around them. In describing these religions, this chapter will identify their
key components, focusing on Assyrian and Babylonian mythology, gods,
temples, religious personnel, and ritual. My aim is to ascertain the nature
of Assyrian and Babylonian religions, their commonalities as well as their
differences.
5
W. G. Lambert, “he Historical Development of the Mesopotamian Pantheon,” 191, argues that for
ancient Mesopotamia, “the historical method is almost the only way open to study religion.”
56 Tammi J. Schneider
assyrian and babylonian peoples and historical

developments
he terms “Assyrian” and “Babylonian” refer to inhabitants of Mesopotamia,
most of which is modern Iraq, from the second millennium through the
middle of the first millennium bce. he Babylonians occupied the south-
ern part of the flood plain and the Assyrians the north, although these geo-
graphical designations do not reveal the complex differences between the
two concerning language, historical connection to the Sumerians, political
configurations, and religion.
he Babylonians occupied the region extending approximately from
modern-day Baghdad to the shore of the Persian Gulf.6 he name is derived
from the city named “Babili” in cuneiform, which becomes Babylon in the
Greek.7 his area coincides mostly with the area occupied by the Sumerians
in the third millennium.8 he last Sumerian political establishment, the
hird Dynasty of Ur, fell because of economic and political instability.9
Part of this demise is attributed to a new group of people in the area: the
Amorites.
he first two centuries of the second millennium, the Isin/Larsa period,
saw numerous transitional groups try to gain control of Mesopotamia,
with limited success.10 he cultural and religious traditions of the previous
millennium were preserved and modified11 despite the entrance of people
grouped under the title “Amorites.”12 Only under Hammurabi did Babylon
gain control of all Mesopotamia.13 Hammurabi’s successes were military
and political, but they forever changed the role and status of Babylon
and its god, Marduk, to some extent identifying and creating the group
labeled Babylonians. Hammurabi’s heirs did not rule with the authority of
Hammurabi, and in 1595 bce Babylon was sacked in a raid by the Hittites.
he Hittites did not stay to control Babylon, but they took with them the
statue of Marduk, the city god.14
6
Klengel-Brandt, “Babylonians,” 256.
7
Ibid., 256.
8
See Chapter 1.
9
Many histories of the ancient Near East will provide discussions of this topic, but the Lamentation
over the Destruction of Sumer and Ur is the Mesopotamian literary and/or “religious” view of their
disaster; see Michalowski, he Lamentation over the Destruction of Sumer and Ur.
10
Van Koppen, “Old Babylonian Period Inscriptions, 88–95.
11
Sjoberg, “he Old Babylonian Eduba,” 159–80; Buccellati, “hrough a Tablet Darkly,” 58–71.
12
Heimpel, Letters to the King of Mari, 13–25; Schwartz, “Pastoral Nomadism,” 249–58.
13
Horsnell, he Year-Name System and the Date-Lists and he Year-Names Reconstructed.
14
“Agum-kakrime and the Return of Marduk,” in Foster, Before the Muses, 1:273–7.
Even before the Hittites arrived, in the reign of Hammurabi’s son and
successor, Samsu-ilum, two new groups entered the area of Babylonia. In
the south a new dynasty ruled by Iluma-ilum started the Sealand Dynasty,
and in his ninth year he referenced another new group: the Kassites.15 he
origin of the Kassites is unclear, as is the reason for their appearance in
Babylonia, but they controlled the area for the next four hundred years.16
Little is known about the Kassite language, and the rulers soon adopted
the Babylonian language and customs. Although they are always treated
somehow as non-Babylonian, and most scholars argue there is little influ-
ence of their national characteristics reflected in the material remains,17
“the Kassites reigned some four centuries, far longer than any native or for
that matter any other dynasty.”18 Babylonian literature flourished during
this period.19 Some argue the return of Marduk under the Kassites is the
event that precipitated writing the enuma elish, the epic of creation that
plays an important role in understanding the Mesopotamian concept of
the world.20
here is a dramatic westward shift of the Euphrates toward the end of
the Kassite period.21 his led to a population decline in Babylonian cities.
In addition, the Assyrians began to threaten Babylonia. Significant in this
regard is the conquest of Babylonia by the Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta
I in 1235 bce.22 he conquest of Babylon was not prolonged, but its effects
were. It marks the beginning of both the Assyro-Babylonian conflict and
the significant Babylonian cultural influence on Assyria. he Kassites were
destroyed shortly thereafter in an Elamite raid. Babylon was again sacked,
and many of its artifacts taken to Susa.23
In the three hundred years following the fall of the Kassites, Babylonia was
controlled by a series of local dynasties. Nebuchadnezzar I (1125–1104 bce)
began a new phase of Babylonian history when he attacked the Elamites,
recovered the statue of Marduk taken earlier in the sack of Babylon, and
referred to Marduk as “king of the gods.”24 he Arameans entered the area
15
Horsnell, he Year-Names Reconstructed, 192.
16
Brinkman, A Catalogue of Cuneiform Sources.
17
Lloyd, he Archaeology of Mesopotamia, 172.
18
Oates, Babylon, 86.
19
Foster, “he Mature Period,” 203–9.
20
See the discussion of that text below.
21
Brinkman, Prelude to Empire, 3–10; Adams, he Heartland of Cities, 18, 152, 155–8.
22
Grayson, Assyrian Rulers, 231–79. For the Tukulti-Ninurta Epic, see Foster, Muses, 1:209–29.
23
Dieulafoy, “A History of Excavation at Susa, 20–4. See also Arevalier, “he French Scientific
Delegation in Persia,” 16–19.
24
“he Seed of Kingship,” line 25, in Foster, Muses, 1:292.
around this time and disrupted internal stability, reflected in the paucity of
excavated documents. he rise of the Assyrians toward the end of the tenth
century, accompanied by the appearance of the Chaldeans25 in the south,
led a Babylonian chronicle to claim “there was no king in the land.”26
Despite non-native Babylonians dominating the area and political insta-
bility around 1200 bce, much Babylonian literature, including texts that
are treated as “religious,” was standardized.27
Conflict between Assyria and Babylonia continued throughout the
period of Assyrian hegemony of the ancient Near East from the end of
the tenth century until the fall of Assyria in the late seventh century. In
this period, depending on the strength or weakness of the Assyrians, other
groups, such as the Chaldeans, rose to fill the political vacuum. When
Assyria was weaker, such as the period following the reign of Adad-nirari
III, the Chaldeans filled the political vacuum. When Assyria was stron-
ger, its kings tried various tactics to gain dominance, ranging from the
destruction of Babylon (Sennacherib destroyed Babylon, taking Marduk
with him to Assyria)28 to appeasement (Esarhaddon),29 with little success,
although local Babylonian rulers maintained limited control, often with
the help of Assyria. he accession of the Babylonian king Nabonassar in
746 bce is of key importance for modern scholars because, beginning
with his reign, ancient scholars began to keep precise records of historical
events, as exemplified in the new-Babylonian chronicle series.30 Following
the destruction of the Assyrian Empire at the end of the seventh cen-
tury, Nabopolassar (625–605) took the throne of Babylon and established
a new dynasty. His son, Nebuchadnezzar, took on the Assyrian goal of
controlling Egypt, and it is under his rule that the kingdom of Judah
revolted, leading to the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of its people
(2 Kings 24–25). Nebuchadnezzar was also responsible for major build-
ing projects in Babylon, making it a major economic and administrative
center once more.31
Nebuchadnezzar’s reign was followed by three kings with no major mil-
itary or building successes. Nabonidus, who had no hereditary claim to
25
Delineating the differences between the Chaldeans and the Aramaeans is not easy to do, although
the ancient sources do so. See Arnold, “Nebuchadnezzar,” 330–55.
26
Grayson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles and Mesopotamian Chronicles, 286–7.
27
Foster, Muses, 1:207.
28
Luckenbill, he Annals of Sennacherib, 78.
29
For an analysis of the different means of his policy see Porter, Images, Power, Politics.
30
Grayson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles, 10–24 and 69–111.
31
Herodotus, History 1.186; Berossus 27 in Josephus, Ant. 10.11.1.226; Koldewey, Excavations at
Babylon, 734–9.
the throne, came to power already aged. He is known for his devotion to
Sin, the moon god of Haran, likely through the influence of his mother,
Adad-guppi, whose tomb inscription has been preserved.32 What impact
this had on his decision to depart Babylon for ten years while he stayed
in the Arabian oasis town of Teima and left Babylon unable to carry out
the New Year’s festival is debated.33 Shortly after his return, the city of
Babylon fell to Cyrus of Persia, marking the end of Babylonian rule and of
Babylonian religion in this essay.34
Assyrian history follows a different trajectory although it intersects
with Babylonian history and culture at various points. he early history
of the city of Assur is unknown because of a lack of inscriptional evi-
dence, although all texts indicate the area of Assyria was controlled by
the Sumerian and Akkadian south.35 According to the Assyrian king list,
the earliest extant exemplar of which dates to the first millennium bce,36
there were seventeen kings who lived in tents, ten ancestor kings, six early
kings, and six early Old Assyrian kings with genealogies.37 Research on
this list reveals that, like the Sumerian king list,38 it serves propagandistic
purposes, probably to legitimate the reign of Shamshi-Adad, and shares
Amorite attributes with ancestors of the Hammurabi dynasty. As a result,
the data provide more information about how the Assyrians later situ-
ated themselves than about actual historical leaders.39 Despite its prob-
lems, numerous rulers from this list appear on inscriptions from Assur
and are referred to in the texts from the Assyrian trading colony at Karum
Kanesh or Kultepe.40 he documents from Kultepe provide more infor-
mation about this period in Assyria than any remains from Assur itself.41
Both sets of documents reveal a city ruled by a person identified as the
issiak assur or ENSI Assur, not the Akkadian term for “king,” in concert
with city elders.42
32
Longman, “he Adad-guppi Autobiography,” 477–8.
33
Beaulieu, he Reign of Nabonidus, 178–85.
34
Herodotus, 1.178, 190–291; Xenophon, Cyropaedia 7.5.26–30; Daniel 5:30; Glassner, Mesopotamian
Chronicles, 237; Cogan, “Cyrus Cylinder,” 314–16.
35
For an example, see Steinkeller, “Administrative and Economic Organization of the Ur III State,”
19–42.
36
Poebel, “he Assyrian King List,” 263–7.
37
Larsen, he Old Assyrian City-State,” 36.
38
Jacobsen, he Sumerian King List.
39
Larsen, Old Assyrian, 36.
40
Ibid., 37–43. For inscriptions of the pre–Shamshi-Adad kings, see Grayson, Assyrian Rulers, 7–46.
41
Despite difficulties in the publication of these materials a new series, Old Assyrian Archives, is mak-
ing more of these data available. See, for example, Larsen, he Assur-nada Archive.
42
Ibid., 109–59.
During the second millennium, Assyria competed with and was influ-
enced by the Hurrians.43 Assyria’s leaders did not claim the title of “king”
until Assur-uballit (1365–1330).44 His change in title places Assyria on
the same international level as the rulers of the major powers of his day:
the Egyptians, the Babylonians, and the Hittites. He began ousting the
Hurrians,45 was the first to claim the title of “king,” and placed Assyria
on the international stage during a period dominated by the Hittites,
Egyptians, and Babylonians. He was followed by a series of strong kings
under whose leadership Assyria maintained its role as an important power
in the ancient Near East.
Many of the ancient Near Eastern powers of the mid-second millen-
nium fell apart toward the end of the century, and new peoples, such as
the Arameans, entered the area, modifying what and who constituted
Assyria and its religion.46 Only with the reign of Adad-nirari II (921–891)
do we see Assyria recovering as the major political power in the region.
His efforts enabled his grandson, Ashurnasirpal II, to turn Assyria into a
world power. He expanded the borders of Assyria and began to change the
concept of what Assyria was.47 He moved the capital of Assyria from the
traditional home of the national deity Assur in the city of Assur to Calah
(modern Nimrud). Shalmaneser III (858–824 bce) extended the boundar-
ies of Assyria, but his reign ended in turmoil with some of the major cities
of Assyria, including Assur, revolting.48 One of his sons, Shamshi-Adad V,
managed to maintain control of Assyria, but the extent and power of the
state diminished until the reign of Tiglath-pileser III (745–727 bce). One
of Tiglath-pileser III’s many internal changes was to shift the army from
an Assyrian-only army to a standing army that incorporated peoples con-
quered by Assyria and thereby modified the definition of what and who
an Assyrian was.
At its height in the eighth–seventh centuries bce, Assyria controlled
most of the ancient Near East. One of the challenges to Assyria’s kings
was how to control Babylonia. Different methods were tried, alternating
brute force49 with imperial benefactions that included rebuilding the city
43
Wilhelm, he Hurrians.
44
Grayson, Old Assyrian Rulers, inscription A.0.73.6, 115. Note reference to him as king of Assyria in
letters to the Amarna king of Egypt, Akhenaten. Moran, he Amarna Letters.
45
Harrak, Assyria and Hanigalbat.
46
he Crisis Years: he 12th Century, ed. Ward and Joukowsky. For the Aramaeans, see Sader, “he
12th Century B.C. in Syria,” 157–63, and the response by McClellan, “12th Century B.C. Syria,”
164–73, and Lipinski, he Aramaeans.
47
Grayson, Assyrian Rulers.
48
Grayson, Assyrian Rulers II, 180–8.
49
Luckenbill, Annals, 78.
of Babylon using traditional Babylonian rather than Assyrian iconogra-

phy.50 Assyria’s last major ruler, Assurbanipal, built a significant library and
museum in which he gathered all the literature he could find.51 Modern
archaeologists uncovered this library in the mid-nineteenth century, and it
is the basis for much of the extant Mesopotamian literature that we have
today.52 Assur-uballit II is Assyria’s last ruler (614–609 bce), and with him
the Assyrians disappear as a group from the political stage.
mythology
he Assyrians and Babylonians do not have a word for religion, and so
modern scholars must use a wide range of texts to try to understand
their views of what we label religion.53 In the mythology of the Assyrians
and Babylonians we see these peoples’ (whom I will henceforth refer to
as Mesopotamians) answers to questions we would consider religious,
namely, the reason for human existence and untimely death, and the
nature of the afterlife.
Enuma Elish
One of the most important sources for the mythology that may have infused
their religious ideas is the enuma elish (“When on High” in Akkadian, also
referred to as the Epic of Creation).54 his long text addresses the origin of
the earth, the gods, and the role of humans in the world. One key theme
is the notion that the world is full of multiple deities, and man is created
simply to serve them. his religious worldview is reinforced by the evi-
dence that the enuma elish served ritual purposes. Not only does another
text cite it as such, but we also have numerous copies of this text,55 discov-
ered in diverse locations but displaying far fewer variants than other texts.56
However, the Assyrian and Babylonian versions differ concerning the most
important deity in the text, and this thus provides a paradigm for under-
standing issues involved with mythological texts. Clearly, these differences
50
For an analysis of the different means of his policy, see Porter, Images, Power, Politics.
51
Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia , 15–18.
52
Ibid.
53
he definition of myth is complex. Here mythology will be vaguely defined as a narrative that
describes human understanding of the divine realm as explanation for how and why the universe
functions as it does, including the divine relationship to humans and their place in the cosmos.
54
he text has been known since Smith’s A Chaldaean Account of Genesis and published many times,
as recently as the edition by Talon, Enuma Elis˘.
55
Cohen, he Cultic Calendars, 444.
56
See Talon, Enuma Elis˘, xiii–xviii, for the different available manuscripts.
suggest that despite Assyria and Babylonia considering themselves as part

of the Mesopotamian stream of tradition, there is dissent about the specif-
ics of the role and importance of the various deities and, probably, about
the role of each in the world as a result.
Dating enuma elish is difficult. Many scholars have assumed that it
was more ancient than its extant copies, which date to the first millen-
nium. he lack of textual variation in the tablets suggests that the text
had become canonized for ritual use, perhaps as early as the second mil-
lennium.57 he earliest possible date for the text is the first Amorite ruler
of Babylon where Marduk is the patron deity, dating then to the reign of
Sumu-la-el (1936–1901).58 he Kassite ruler Agum-kakrime returned the
cult statue of Marduk to Babylon following the sack of Babylon by the
Hittites; the cult statue’s return to Babylon may have inspired the text.59
he cult statue of Marduk again was returned from captivity during the
reign of Nebuchadnezzar I (1125–1104). A lexical text known as An-Anum
lists the major gods of the Babylonian pantheon together with their sec-
ondary names by assimilation and some of their epithets, and a long sec-
tion with the names of Marduk includes a subsection that corresponds
closely to the names of Marduk appearing on Tablet VII of the epic.60 A
tablet with a list of gods found at the Hittite capital in Anatolia, dating to
the second millennium, shows An-Anum must have included the enuma
elish list of Marduk’s names, and thus some form of the myth was in play
in the second millennium.61
he ritual role of enuma elish is clear because, as noted, a tablet with
ritual instruction for the performance of the New Year festival in Babylon
states the text is to be recited (possibly enacted) on the fourth day.62 he
ritual text contains a gap, so it is possible that more than one recital was
envisaged. he New Year’s festival was one of the major religious events of
the Mesopotamian calendar.63 It originally commemorated the god leav-
ing his temporary residence and entering his permanent residence in his
chosen city for the first time64 and became the ceremony when the king
had his mandate to rule renewed by the gods.65 Enuma elish celebrated the
57
Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia, 229.
58
Ibid.
59
Ibid.
60
Ibid., 230.
61
Ibid.
62
63
See below.
64
65
Dalley, Myths, 232.
exaltation of the Babylonian god Marduk (and in Assyria Assur; see below)
and ascribed to Marduk the reorganization of the universe with Babylon in
the center, making the text a product of Babylonian nationalism.66 he top
officials of the land were called upon to renew their oaths of loyalty to the
king and royal family, meaning the ritual reading or enactment was known
to a wide swath of the population.67
he content of the myth establishes the reason for its importance. he
text begins, “when skies above were not yet named nor earth below pro-
nounced by name” (Tablet 1:1).68 Apsu’s (male/father)69 and Tiamat’s (female/
mother) waters mix together, gods are born in them, and generations of dei-
ties follow. In this process, some of the younger gods are already superior
to their fathers (1:11–20). he younger gods become too loud and anger
Apsu, who calls out to his vizier to discuss the issue with Tiamat (1:24–5).
Apsu wants to abolish their ways, disperse them, and get some sleep, but
Tiamat will not hear of it and insists they be patient (1:25–47). he vizier
sides with Apsu, the younger gods hear of this, Ea lays out a plan, drenches
Apsu with sleep, and slays him (1:46–78). Inside Apsu, the god Marduk is
created from Ea and Damkina and eventually annoys Tiamat (79–110). he
gods turn on Tiamat, who promotes another god, Qingu. Tiamat confers
upon him leadership of the army and command of the assembly, sets him
upon the throne, and gives him the tablet of destinies (1:111–159). Fearing
Tiamat, the gods turn to An and Ea again, who in this case are too afraid
to do anything (2:5). Ea advises Marduk to take the initiative, and Marduk
agrees to do so, only after laying out the terms by which he will do it.
Ea attacks Tiamat, slays her, and uses her split body to create the heavens
(2:127–4:148). Marduk decides to create man from Qingu, who they claim
started the war with Tiamat (6:25) so that “the work of the gods shall be
imposed (on him) and so that they shall be at leisure” (6:5–8).70
Enuma elish contains material concerning how the world was created.
he first gods were created from some preexisting material. he younger
deities overthrow older gods, a motif found in many other polytheistic
mythological texts.71 Marduk is almost unknown before the first half of
66
Foster, Muses, 351.
67
Cohen, he Cultic Calendars, 400–53.
68
Translation of the text here will be from Dalley, “Epic of Creation,” 233–81.
69
he term apsu in Akkadian means, “deep water, sea, cosmic subterranean water, a personified
mythological figure, or a water basin in the temple.” Chicago Assyrian Dictionary A II, 194. he
Mesopotamians believed springs, wells, streams, rivers, and lakes took water from and were replen-
ished by a freshwater ocean that lay underneath the earth in the abzu (apsu) or engur. Black and
Green, “Abzu (apsu),” in Gods, Demons, 27. See also Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography.
70
he reason for creating man here differs from that of Atrahasis; see below.
71
For example, from the classical world, see Hesiod’s heogony, http://classics.mit.edu/hes.th.html.
the second millennium, and in Assyrian versions of enuma elish, the god
Marduk is replaced by the god Assur. he role of humans in the universe is
clear: hey were created from the god Qingu, who began the war between
the younger gods and their mother in order that the gods no longer must
work. In Assyrian and Babylonian religion, humans were created simply
to serve deities.
Atrahasis
he idea that humans were created so the gods did not have to work is rein-
forced, although not the primary focus, in the myth of Atrahasis,72 which
begins with the line, “When the gods instead of man did the work . . .”73
Unlike enuma elish, clay tablets with the Old Babylonian version of this
myth date to around 1700 bce, although passages of the text appear as late
as Assurbanipal’s library.74 In this text, Atrahasis, a citizen of Shuruppak,
saves the world from a flood. Humans are created to do the work for the
gods, but in this case they are created from a slain god mixed with clay,
and they will hear the drumbeat forever after.75 After six hundred years the
humans become too numerous and, like the gods in enuma elish, too loud
(2:1:1). First the gods send sickness and drought, but that does not work so
they come up with a new plan: a flood (2:6:1).76 Enki warns Atrahasis of the
impending flood and tells him to build a boat and save living things, not
possessions (3:1–end of column). he torrent, storm, and flood last seven
days and seven nights. A 58-line gap follows the reference to the flood, but
when the tablets resume, some human “is putting down and providing
food” (3-5-1:1). he gods “gather like flies” over the offering and partake
(5:1:5). Now the gods face a dilemma because they had all agreed to destroy
humans but are pleased humans are cooking for them again. hey decide
there will only be one-third of the previous number of people, and to do so
they create a category of women who will not successfully give birth, and
there will be a demon among the people who will snatch babies from their
mother’s lap, and thus the gods will control childbirth (5:7:1–7).
72
he name means “exceedingly wise.”
73
he translation for this is also from Dalley, Myths, 9.
74
For a treatment of the manuscripts, see Lambert and Millard, Atra-Hasis, 31–9.
75
For more on the meaning of the noise, “the drumbeat,” see Kilmer, “he Mesopotamian Concept of
Overpopulation and Its Solution, 160–77, and Moran, “Atrahasis,” 51–61.
76
he concept of a worldwide flood, like that in the biblical book of Genesis, appears in Mesopotamian
mythological texts and other texts such as the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Sumerian king list. he
flood, in Mesopotamian tradition, is not so much a religious concept as a historical event.
his myth agrees with enuma elish in that humans are created to provide
for the gods, but here the mother is Mami, although Ea is still involved in
their creation. his confirms some of the fundamental concepts about the
role of humans on earth, although the process by which it comes about
is different than in enuma elish. he Atrahasis myth addresses the concept
of why some women do not bear children and some children die in child-
birth or at a young age.
he concept of the netherworld and what happens to humans when
they die is addressed in other mythological texts, although no uniform
view is easily discerned.77 he text that focuses most on these topics is
Ishtar’s descent to the netherworld.78 Two manuscripts of this text were
uncovered from Assurbanipal’s library, and an earlier variant version was
recovered from Assur.79 Ishtar, the goddess often described as a goddess
of love and war but possibly better described as the goddess of adrena-
line,80 decides to go to the netherworld, the land of her sister, Ereshkigal
(1:1).81 he text does not give a reason for her journey. he netherworld
is described as a “dark house,” on the road that is “one-way only,” where
“those who enter are deprived of light,” “dirt is their food, clay their
bread,” they “live in darkness” and are “clothed like birds, with feathers”
(1:5–10). he door to the place is bolted, and dust has settled upon the
bolt (11).
Ishtar demands that the gatekeeper let her in; if he does not, she will
smash the door, shatter the bolt, and “raise up the dead and they shall eat
the living so that the dead shall outnumber the living” (1:19). he gate-
keeper warns Ishtar’s sister, Ereshkigal, who wonders what her sister wants
(25–31). Ereshkigal’s self-described job is to eat clay for bread, drink muddy
water for beer, and weep for young men forced to abandon sweethearts,
girls wrenched from their lovers’ laps, and the infant child expelled before
its time (32–36), a likely reference to miscarriages (see below).
Ereshkigal instructs the gatekeeper to open his gate to her but to treat
her according to the ancient rites (37–38). he ancient rites involve tak-
ing Ishtar through seven different doors, each time stripping her of an
article of jewelry, including the great crown on her head, the rings in her
77
his text is more clearly linked to a Sumerian prototype than many other texts, and the Sumerian
text is fuller and explains the association to Dumuzi/Tammuz in a way the Akkadian version does
not.
78
Translation again will be from Dalley.
79
Foster, Muses, 403.
80
See below for a discussion of some of the different deities.
81
In another text, “How Nergal Became the King of the Netherworld,” Ereshkigal takes a lover who
also becomes king of the netherworld. Foster, From Distant Days, 85–96.
ears, the beads around her neck, the toggle pins at her breast, the girdle of
birth-stones around her waist, the bangles on her wrists and ankles, and
the proud garment on her body (40–62).
he problem with Ishtar’s presence in the netherworld is that while
she is gone, “no bull mounted a cow [no donkey impregnated a jenny],
no young man impregnated a girl.” (86–89). Ishtar’s absence, or pres-
ence, naked, in the netherworld, keeps the other world from creating
new life. his causes dejection among the great gods until Ea creates a
good-looking playboy to cheer up Ereshkigal (91–99). When he asks for
water she becomes angry, but somehow Ishtar is sprinkled with the waters
of life and leaves through each door, receiving all the jewels originally
taken from her (1:100–130). he Akkadian version ends with a reference
to “the day when Dumuzi comes back up” (136). In the Sumerian ver-
sion, food and water are smuggled into Inana, she is told she must be
replaced in the netherworld by someone, and when she finds her hus-
band, Dumuzi/Tammuz, having a party she decides to send him to take
her place. For reasons that appear in a break, Dumuzi’s sister appears to go
to the netherworld for part of the year for him. None of this is provided
in the Akkadian version.
his text describes the netherworld as a place where people go after life.
hough not thoroughly described, it is a concept not challenged by other
texts. Once one enters the netherworld, one cannot, with the exception of
Ishtar and her replacement, return. It is dark, and the food and beer are not
good. he people in the netherworld range from babies who die too young
to lovers separated. Ereshkigal, who controls that realm, claims, as her job,
the task of weeping over them all. hus the reality of death is existence in
some other, unpleasant, state from which there is no return. Ereshkigal
highlights the dark side of the issue and simultaneously expresses a sign of
tenderness and caring for her charges through her weeping. he darkness
of the netherworld emphasizes the good things to be found before death:
good food, beer, love, and light.
the gods
he deities in the Mesopotamian pantheon are depicted with strong,
lively personalities and are quick to take action, sometimes to the detri-
ment of humans. he Mesopotamian pantheon is a complex one, reveal-
ing change and continuity in the identities, functions, and rituals for
the deities. References to the various deities appear in mythological texts
noted earlier, but also in legal, literary, historical, and ritual remains.
Depictions of the gods and their symbols appear on seals, sealings (the
impression made on clay by a cylinder seal), wall carvings, and statuary,
although no ancient Mesopotamian cult statue has yet been discovered
in an archaeological excavation. he data concerning the gods span close
to two thousand years. Not surprisingly, then, notions of these deities
and their representations show certain inconsistencies that challenge
modern, not Mesopotamian, ideas.
he Mesopotamians, from the time of the Sumerians through the first
millennium, kept lists, including lists of gods.82 he Assyrian kings of the
end of the second and beginning of the first millennium wrote “annals,”83
and starting with Tiglath-pileser I (1115–1077 bce) the annals begin with a
list of deities.84 Not all the gods appear at the beginning of these texts, and
different versions of annals within one Assyrian king’s reign list different
deities in, significantly, the same order as those represented in the earliest
god lists.85 hus, although the list of deities may change, their ordering
defies modification.
In Assyria and Babylonia there was a wide range of deities.86 he most
widely recorded were the gods of the central pantheon, to whom all humans
owed some kind of allegiance. Each city was responsible for a deity or,
depending on the city, a few deities. here were also personal deities that
served to help a particular family connect with the larger pantheon and
work on their behalf.87
Many of the deities were connected to elements of nature that trans-
lated into areas of human civilization. For example, Shamash, the sun-god,
was also the god of justice, since the sun eventually sees everything.88 Ea
(Sumerian Enki) was the god of the subterranean freshwater ocean, the
clever god, and by extension, the friend of humans.89 Adad (Sumerian
Ishkur), because he was so similar in many areas adjacent to Assyria and
Babylonia, such as those occupied by the Hurrians and Hittites, was the
god of the wind or storm, but also a foundation for centralized politi-
cal power.90 When the gods are depicted, their attributes flow from their
82
Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia, 244–8. See too Chapter 1.
83
Grayson, “Assyria and Babylonia,” 140–94.
84
Rawlinson, Historical Inscriptions and Grayson, Assyrian Royal Inscriptions Part 2.
85
Schneider, Royal Annals of Shalmaneser III, 44–52.
86
he total number of Mesopotamian deities has been variously figured as 2,400, according to
Tallqvist, Akkadische Gotterepitheta , to as high as 3,300 names, according to Deimel, Pantheon
babylonicum.
87
See below.
88
Black and Green, Gods, Demons and Symbols, 182–4.
89
Ibid., 75.
90
Green, he Storm-God in the Ancient Near East, 281; Frymer-Kensky, In the Wake of the Goddesses.
shoulders; hence rays emanate from Shamash,91 water from Ea,92 and Adad’s
symbol was lightning or sometimes flowing streams.93 here were deities
for other “arts of civilization” with a separate deity for such diverse ele-
ments of the universe as beer and beer-making,94 healing,95 and writing.96
I will focus here on the principal gods in all of the ancient lists of gods,
Ishtar, and the two titular deities of Babylonia and Assyria respectively.
hese five deities are indicative of the issues surrounding the pantheon;
their personas represent the ebb and flow of the history and religious status
of the region.
he God An
he first name on the list from Fara (ancient Shuruppak) and Abu Salabikh
is An. he word “An” is the Sumerian word for “heaven” and the name of
the god labeled the “sky-god.”97 he texts from the Sumerian period delin-
eate three main functions for An: universal god of creation, inhabitant
of heaven, and bestower of the royal insignia (founder of earthly royal
power), but much of that changed by the time Babylon and Assur were
prominent.98 He is considered the prime deity involved in creation and
leader of the gods, but he lost his place of primacy to Marduk, according to
enuma elish. An should be an important deity well involved in the human
world, and yet, “An’s nature is ill-defined and, as he is seldom (if ever)
represented in art, his specific iconography and attributes are obscure.”99
hus, An heads the pantheon, although his actual role is almost nonexis-
tent in the religious life of Mesopotamia.
he God Enlil
Enlil is the second major deity on the list and is considered the king of
the gods. His role stems from being the offspring of An (enuma elish),
although he is also described as a descendant of Enki and Ninki.100 His
91
Black and Green, Gods, Demons and Symbols, 183–4.
92
Ibid., 75.
93
Ibid., 111.
94
Beer following Mesopotamian recipes was made by Anchor Steam Brewing Company. For more
information see www.anchorbrewing.com/beers/ninkasi.htm.
95
Black and Green, “Gula,” in Gods, Demons and Symbols, 101.
96
Black and Green, “Nabu,” in ibid., 133–4.
97
Chicago Assyrian Dictionary A part II, 146.
98
Wohlstein, he Sky-God An-Anu.
99
Black and Green, “An (Anu),” in Gods, Demons and Symbols, 30.
100
Black and Green, “Enlil,” in ibid., 76.
supreme position as ruler of the universe and controller of the affairs of

men and gods was guaranteed through his possession of the tablet of des-
tinies (the mes) and his crown and throne.101
Enlil’s primary city was the ancient Sumerian city of Nippur, and this
origin may account for the trajectory of Enlil’s role in different periods
of Mesopotamian history.102 Nippur became the religious capital of the
alluvial plain by 2700, and as long as Enlil reigned as king of the gods, his
city served as the religious capital, receiving the veneration of the inhabit-
ants.103 By the middle of the twenty-fourth century bce, a king’s control of
Nippur, and therefore claim to Enlil’s call to kingship, provided a divine
basis for his kingship.104 his continued even in the transition from the
period of Sumerian hegemony to the first reign of an Amorite ruler, appar-
ent when Ishbi-Irra proclaimed himself king in Isin saying, “Enlil . . . has
given the kingship to Ishbi-Irra, who is not of the seed of Sumer.”105
Enlil and Nippur’s status declined considerably when Hammurabi and
his successors dominated the region.106 here is a revival of Nippur’s for-
tune during the Kassite period until shortly after 1230 bce when the king
of Elam attacked the city and scattered the people.107 Approximately 100
years after the onset of Nippur’s decline, Enlil handed his kingship over
the gods to Marduk of Babylon.108 Slightly before Enlil’s strength waned
in Babylon, in Assyria there are traces of attempts to identify Assur with
Enlil.109 In this case, the deity Assur assimilated major deities from the
Sumerian and Babylonian pantheon, whereas Marduk replaced them in
Babylon.
he Goddess Ishtar
Inana is considered to be represented in the Akkadian world as Ishtar,
although there are shifts in the personality of this goddess as a result of this
transition. Arriving at an understanding of Ishtar is difficult for it must take
into account a diversity of complicated ancient texts along with notions
101
Black and Green, “Tablets of Destinies,” in ibid., 173. he tablet of destinies invested its holder with
the power to determine the destinies of the world.
102
For a thorough analysis of Nippur, see Cole, Nippur in Late Assyrian Times.
103
Ibid., 5–6.
104
Ibid., 7.
105
Ibid., 9.
106
here is a change in the course of the river, and it is not clear if this happened because of natural
causes or human manipulation. Ibid., 10–11.
107
Ibid., 12. Grayson, Chronicles, 176, tablet iv: 15.
108
Cole, Nippur, 12.
109
Black and Green, “Assur,” in Gods, Demons and Symbols, 38.
of the role of women in society, both ancient and modern. Cuneiform lit-
erature variously describes her as the daughter of An, the moon-god Sin
(Sumerian Nanna), Enlil, or even Enki.110 Her siblings include her brother
the sun-god Shamash (Sumerian Utu) and her sister, queen of the neth-
erworld, Ereshkigal.111 In general, although there was a diminished role
for goddesses from the Sumerian period throughout the Old Babylonian
period, and later there were fewer stories about female deities, Ishtar grew
in importance.112 Ishtar’s personality has three main components: the god-
dess of love and sexual behavior, a warlike goddess who is fond of battle,
and the planet Venus, the morning and evening star.113
Much of the confusion surrounding Ishtar’s role in society concerns the
different types of texts in which she appears. When she goes down to the
netherworld in the “Descent of Ishtar to the Netherworld” (see above),
sexuality on earth ceases. She was married, but in the Epic of Gilgamesh,
Gilgamesh himself refers to her past lovers as a reason not to marry her.114
She has no children, so her importance for repopulation is not in the act of
reproduction but for creating the desire in people and animals to cohabit.
She is well known for her interest in and others’ interest in taking her into
battle.115 In the Sacred Marriage, an event for which there is only literary
evidence dating to the period of the Sumerians, a human priestess repre-
senting Inana marries the king.116 It is not clear if this was an actual event
or a ritual, one but if Inana = Ishtar, this links Ishtar closely with the king’s
legitimacy to rule.117
his marriage may be better understood in terms of sexuality and sex-
ual excitement rather than implying anything about love and marriage.
hese poles are distinct, for example, in stories of rape, an act that is better
understood in terms of aggression and dominance than love.118 In Ishtar’s
case, the connection between aggression, dominance, and sexual arousal
may hold the key to understanding her. Ishtar’s interest is in sexuality,
not marriage, for either herself or others. She arouses and excites people.
his leads to her association with the theater of war, evidenced by some of
110
Black and Green, ibid., 108.
111
Ibid., 108–9.
112
Frymer-Kensky, Goddesses, 71–7.
113
Black and Green, Gods, Demons and Symbols, 109.
114
Epic of Gilgamesh, tablet VI, obv. col. i–iii. Gilgamesh lists lovers she has had, and they all met
unfortunate fates.
115
See her “self-praise” in Foster, Muses, 1:74.
116
117
Frymer-Kensky, Goddesses, 58. For a thorough and detailed analysis of the Sumerian Sacred Marriage
in all of its manifestations, see Lavinkivi, he Sumerian Sacred Marriage.
118
Yee, Poor Banished Children of Eve.
her attributes: she is described as fierce in terror, exalted (in) the awesome
strength of a young bull, a bringer of terror, and able to turn a man into a
woman and a woman into a man.119
he God Marduk
Marduk was the prime deity for the Babylonians, and the differences
between his historical trajectory and that of his rival Assur highlight how
they both are part of the stream of tradition. Marduk and Assur are, like
other Mesopotamian gods, linked specifically to a city, but because of the
power those cities later gain, the role of these deities develops in different
trajectories. Moreover, both deities gain power from other deities and from
each other.
Marduk was the patron deity of Babylon and is known as early as the
Early Dynastic period.120 Marduk’s real power came through the political
and subsequent cultural rise of the city of Babylon following the reign of
Hammurabi. Enuma elish addresses this event on the cosmic level, but
the politics behind the shift to Marduk’s rise are noted in the Code of
Hammurabi, where An and Enlil name the city but give supreme power to
Marduk.121 Because of this close tie between the political and cultural sway
of Babylon and Marduk, Marduk’s absence, usually because of war and the
destruction of Babylon, demanded explanation in both the political and
religious realms. Numerous literary texts depict the disaster that ensues
whenever Marduk left the city,122 usually treated as him abandoning the
city.123 Babylon held such sway in Mesopotamia that its embodiment in a
deity, Marduk, took on more powers than any other deity – and so the city
of Babylon received more status.
he God Assur
Assur was the deity of the Assyrians and probably originated as the
local deity of the city Assur. Beginning around 1300 bce attempts
119
hese are all from “Ishtar, Queen of Heaven,” which Lambert has shown is a conflation and rework-
ing of various texts about Ishtar. he last attribute refers to sexual deviation, one of her domains.
Translation in Foster, Muses, 2:501–7.
120
Black and Green, “Marduk,” in Gods, Demons and Symbols, 128.
121
Laws of Hammurabi, Prologue, line 7.
122
here are numerous texts poetically recounting events concerning Marduk’s departure and return,
such as “Agum-kakrime and the Return of Marduk,” Foster, Muses, 1:274–7; “he War with Elam,”
in Muses, 294–5; “he Return of Marduk from Elam,” in Muses, 299–300; “Nebuchadnezzar and
Marduk,” in Muses, 301; “Nebuchadnezzar to the Babylonians,” in Muses, 302; and “Marduk
Prophecy,” in Muses, 304–7.
123
Van de Mieroop, he Ancient Mesopotamian City, 48.
began to identify him with Sumerian Enlil, chief of the gods.124 When
Tukulti-Ninurta I defeated the Babylonian Kassite king Kashtiliash IV,
he brought back the statue of Marduk. Although the Assyrians assumed
responsibility to maintain the cult of the captured Marduk, the back-
ground for the event was altered, and Assur replaced Marduk as the
chief deity honored during the festival, including the trial of Marduk to
avenge the historical wrongs.125 As Assyria grew in military and political
power, so too did its deity. When the Assyrian kings moved their capital
to Calah (Nimrud) and Nineveh, the deity Assur maintained his status
as deity of the expanded state.126 he conflict between Babylonia and
Assyria, and Babylon’s cultural dominance, is reflected in the depiction
of each region’s titular deity.
his brief overview of some of the major deities of the Assyrian and
Babylonian pantheon highlights the connection between the role of a
deity and its titular city. Did the kings, priests, or scribes intentionally
develop texts to emphasize their deity so the people would follow, or did
they believe their deity achieved prominence allowing for the creation of
new and the modification of old stories of the deities? Did the “common”
people follow these varying traditions, or are the textual references to the
gods and their change of rank solely for the elite? he difficulty of dating
some of the texts or determining their earliest date of composition means
these questions will differ for each deity and text uncovered.
Personal Gods
he bulk of the literary remains from Mesopotamia reflect the attitude
or world of the upper echelon of society, consisting mostly of royalty,
scribes, and priesthood. For the rest of society there were personal gods.
hese deities were, like the person they represented, not components of
the powerful segment of Mesopotamia, earthly or divine. he function
of the personal gods was to see their client’s situation received attention
by taking their case to the greater gods.127 his development was a result
of the second millennium, when the gods became increasingly identified
124
125
126
For a detailed discussion of how the Assyrian kings incorporated religion with their political pow-
ers, see Holloway, Assur is King!
127
Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, 7.
with political ambitions,128 especially as evidenced with the rise of Marduk

and later Assur.
Omens, wisdom literature, and personal prayers provide the evidence
for personal gods: “One who has no god, as he walks along the street,
Headache [a disease demon] envelopes him like a garment.”129 Luck and
good fortune are described as “to acquire a god.”130 In the omen litera-
ture, a favorable portent may indicate “that house will acquire a god,
that house will endure,”131 and the reverse, or a bad portent, indicates
“that house will grow poor, will not acquire a god.”132 he personal drama
placed on the personal god is evident in such texts as A Man and His God,
where a man complains directly to his personal god when he appears to
have no luck.133 Some texts provide instructions of how to address the
personal gods:
Every day worship your god. Sacrifice and benediction are the proper accompa-
niment of incense. Present your free-will offering to your god, for this is proper
toward the gods. Prayer, supplication and prostration offer him daily and you will
get your reward. hen you will have full communion with your god.134
he “Babylonian heodicy,” an acrostic poem in the form of a dialogue
between a sufferer and a friend, sums up the Mesopotamian understanding
of the universe in which they lived based on the nature of the relationship
between humans and the various divinities.135 he sufferer exposes the evils
of current social injustice, while the friend tries to reconcile these facts
with established views of justice and the divine ordering of the universe.136
Both sufferer and friend begin with the premise that the gods are respon-
sible for maintaining justice among men, yet end by admitting these very
gods make men prone to injustice.137
the temples
he Assyrian and Babylonian temples were the homes of the gods. Because
people were on earth to serve the gods, their temples were the ultimate
128
Nemet-Nejat, Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia , 180.
129
Lambert, Wisdom Literature, 7.
130
Jacobsen, Treasures, 155.
131
Ibid.
132
Ibid.
133
Foster, Muses, 2:640–3, and Lambert, “DINGIR SA.DIB2.BA Incantations,” 267–322.
134
Lambert, Wisdom Literature, 105, lines 135–40.
135
Ibid., 65.
136
Ibid.
137
Ibid.
manifestations of human service. hey were not places for the general pop-
ulace to confront the gods. Rather, the temples were intended to be the
public face of the gods’ presence in the city. Viewed as the residences of
the gods, temples were critical to the ancient Assyrians’ and Babylonians’
sense of their role in their cities and of the city’s conceptualization of its
own identity.
Each Mesopotamian city was the home of a deity, and each of the
prominent deities was the patron of a city.138 Indeed, all of the known
temples from Mesopotamia were located in cities.139 Unlike other ancient
Near Eastern religions with urban settings, in Assyria and Babylonia no
references are found to cult activity outside the cities, no sanctuaries or cult
objects outside cities, nor sacred trees, rocks, rivers, lakes, or seas with cul-
tic power.140 Even deities whose origins relate to natural phenomena such
as the sun and planet Venus had cults located in temples inside cities.141
he power of the Mesopotamian city is connected to its specific deities,
whose divine powers are linked to the political status of their city, a con-
cept revealed in the enuma elish, which represents the political and cosmic
rise of Babylon.
Mesopotamian religious architecture reflects continuity and change in
Mesopotamian religious practices. Despite numerous excavated examples
of temples and ziggurats uncovered from ancient Assyria and Babylonia,
no standing buildings remain from before the Parthian period (247 bce–
224 ce), and no ziggurat remains to its full original height. he Temple at
Eridu, whose first levels date to the Ubaid period, continued to be rebuilt
until the first millennium bce despite the abandonment of the city, and
the Kassites rebuilt the Lower Temple at Nippur following exactly the plan
of the Isin-Larsa temple, which dates to three hundred years earlier.142 he
Assyrian and Babylonian kings refer to rebuilding dilapidated temples in
their annals and year dates and followed the practice of depositing in the
foundations or walls of buildings descriptions of their activities, including
the information found in the foundation of the building and rebuilding of
their predecessors.143 Because the Mesopotamian kings viewed themselves
138
Van De Mieroop, City, 46.
139
Ibid., 215.
140
he only rivers deified were used in the river ordeal, a method used to determine the innocence of a
person in certain legal situations; the river remained nameless in the texts and was associated in the
people’s minds with the waters of the underworld. Ibid. and Black and Green, Gods, Demons and
Symbols, 155–6.
141
Van De Mieroop, City, 216.
142
Roaf, “Palaces and Temples in Ancient Mesopotamia,” 427–9.
143
Ellis, Foundation Deposits in Ancient Mesopotamia.
as the gods’ representatives on earth, keeping their homes in order was a

primary concern.144
All important temples were located within the walled inner city, with
the temple of the most ancient patron deity situated in or near the center
of town and occupying the highest elevation, although there may have
been shrines located in the suburbs.145 hrough numerous rebuilding of
the temples, the ground of the oldest tended to be the highest. his may
lay behind the concept of the ziggurat, an architectural form developed
in the late third millennium. Ziggurats were situated near the temple and
connected by courtyards. Although they were built of solid brick and did
not house the statue of the deity,146 their sheer height dominated not only
the temple precinct but the city in general.147
he temple was literally the “house” of the god that housed the cult
image, and where the god lived with his family and servants; it was
believed that the god ate, drank, slept, and was entertained in the temple.
To thoroughly serve the gods, the temple was equipped like a household
containing essential provisions for the gods’ meals (kitchens and vessels for
making, storing, and serving), sleeping rooms with beds, side rooms for his
family, a courtyard with a basin and water for cleansing visitors, and stables
for the gods’ chariot and draft animals.148
Much work has been done in recent years to understand how the ancient
Mesopotamians understood the relationship between the anthropomor-
phized cult statue and the deity the image represented.149 Ancient texts rec-
ord that special rituals were carried out to animate the statue of the deity.
hese indicate the deity had to accept the image for them to take it as their
own.150 Once this was done, the statue served as the god in the context of
the temple’s rituals. he statue was what the temple housed, and all the
temple rituals were anthropomorphized to serve the god/cult statue. he
connection between the deity and the deity’s cult statue explains why, when
temples were destroyed and the image was carried off, usually in times of
war, the people viewed it as the deity abandoning them and the city.151
144
Cole and Machinist, Letters from Priests. he letters edited in this volume reveal the interest the
kings Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal took in the construction and renovation of temple edifices in
the major cities of the Assyrian empire, in both the heartland and provinces, even down to minor
details of temple and cult.
145
Van de Mieroop, City, 77.
146
Lloyd, Archaeology, 39, 229–30.
147
Ibid., 180–2.
148
Wiggermann, “heologies, Priests.”
149
Winter, “Opening the Eyes,” 129–62.
150
Walker and Dick, Mis Pi, 7.
151
Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia, 184.
religious personnel
here is no native word for “priest.” Everyone who served or serviced the
gods in the temple setting was considered part of the religious personnel.
hese included chief attendants, lamentation priests who chanted in the
temples, and musicians to sing songs properly, as well as individuals to
sweep the floors.152 Many temple offices were inherited by the eldest son
upon division of the estate.153
he office of the diviner was important because it was his duty to learn
what the gods wanted. he ancient Assyrians and Babylonians believed the
gods disclosed their intentions through signs in natural phenomena and
world events. However, these needed to be interpreted by those who had
devoted prolonged observation and study to these signs, or omens as they
were believed to be. he study of omens became a science in Mesopotamia,
attested as such by omen treatises.154 Omens can be divided into two cat-
egories, solicited or unsolicited.155 Diviners were specialists who solicited
omens from the gods and then interpreted the signs they received.156
hey could communicate with the divine through extispicy, hepatoscopy,
leconomancy, and libanomancy.
here were other avenues for those intent on trying to understand the
future and manipulating it. he goal of the magician and sorcerer was
to influence man’s success on earth. Numerous incantations were used
by a range of personnel.157 Shurpu was a collection of spells and rituals
for all types of misbehavior: cultic negligence, domestic trouble, unchar-
itable conduct, cruelty to animals, and unintentional contact with ritu-
ally unclean people or places.158 Astronomy in Mesopotamia associated a
sign in the sky with a terrestrial event, usually concerning the king or the
country.159
Most religious personnel were connected to the state cult and part
of a hierarchical organization, although other categories of individuals
expressed devotion or connection to gods by what modern people might
152
See list in Postgate, Early Mesopotamia, 127.
153
Nemet-Nejat, Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia , 192.
154
For a wonderful introduction to the whole field of extispicy in Babylonia, see Koch-Westenholz,
Babylonian Liver Omens.
155
Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia, 206–27.
156
Note their importance to the ruling kings; Star, Queries to the Sun God.
157
Foster, Muses, 1:113–45 and 2:840–98.
158
Nemet-Nejat, Daily Life, 197.
159
Rochberg, “Astronomy and Calendars,” 1925–40.
categorize as personal piety. Nadītu women apparently chose their form

of service, although the regulations concerning these women changed
with time and place. In general, nadītu were women dedicated to a god,
usually unmarried and not allowed to have children.160 Other examples
of nadītu women, such as in Babylon, could marry but could not bear
children.161
Prophetic texts have recently appeared providing new information about
an area of Assyrian and Babylonian religion previously unknown and caus-
ing Biblicists to rethink the originality of prophecy in Israelite religion.162
hese prophetic texts reveal there was “inspired” prophecy in the ancient
Near East, particularly at Mari and Assyria. In the Assyrian context, the
prophecies are closely linked to the cult of Ishtar and to Assyrian royal ide-
ology, mythology, and iconography.163
ritual
Assyrian and Babylonian ritual is where all the categories covered thus
far come together: myth, gods, temples, and religious personnel. he
Mesopotamian cultic calendar exemplifies the issues addressed repeat-
edly throughout this survey: continuity and change throughout time
and space. Although there was a Mesopotamian calendar with stan-
dardized month names, “the almost total lack of writing of the standard
Mesopotamian month names impeded determining precisely when this
calendar was first introduced into Mesopotamia.”164 he standardization
of months was not accompanied by a standardization of religious festi-
vals. Similar types of festivals were observed, although precisely which
deity was celebrated, in which month, and in what manner was not
standardized.
he akītu or New Year’s festival was one of the more important and
oldest festivals recorded in Mesopotamia, dating as far back as the middle
of the third millennium.165 In Babylon the akītu festival was celebrated
160
Chicago Assyrian Dictionary N Part 1, 63; Stone, “he Social Role of the Naditu Woman,” 50–70.
161
Code of Hammurabi, paragraph 178–80.
162
Now that all the Mesopotamian prophetic texts have been published there is a great interest in it in
the Society of Biblical Literature. For example, see Prophecy in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context.
163
Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies, xv.
164
Cohen, he Cultic Calendars, 299–301. Tiglath-pileser I (1114–1076) adopted the standard
Mesopotamian calendar. Tiglath-pileser uses double-dating in one historical inscription, and those
who follow him use only the standard Mesopotamian calendar.
165
in the first and seventh months with detailed descriptions of what events
should take place during the eleven days.166 Prayers were offered,167 meals
were eaten, processions took place, accoutrements of kingship were placed
before Marduk, the high priest struck the king’s cheek (to instill penitence)
and was dragged by his ear before Marduk, the king was struck again to
elicit tears so that Marduk accepted him, a white ox and bundled reeds
were burned in the courtyard, and gifts were given. On the fourth day,
after the second meal, the high priest recited from beginning to end enuma
elish.168
he New Year’s festival visually and publicly connected the mythology
with the physical image of the god and the king in a powerful social and
religious event. In the evening, the king participated in a ceremony where
a white bull was sacrificed. he rest of the text is lost, but at some point in
the parade the king took the hand of Marduk. he importance of this cer-
emony is highlighted by the years in which it could not take place. When
Nabonidus was in Teima, the king was not there to partake in the festival,
no one took Marduk’s hand, and the cosmic and earthly world were not
united.
Although the New Year’s festival was likely the central one of the year,
especially as celebrated in Babylon, many akītu festivals were carried out
more than once a year; moreover, in what city and in which month these
were celebrated depended on time and place.169 Because it was believed
that each city originated on behalf of and was devoted to different deities,
and the power and place of the deity in the area was connected to the status
of the city and its political prominence in any particular period, this is to
be expected.
conclusions
Assyrian and Babylonian religions are tied to Mesopotamian religion of the
third millennium through the pantheon of gods, mythology, temple archi-
tecture, and ritual, yet differ from earlier religions and from one another
for several reasons; new groups of peoples entering the region, different cit-
ies gaining either political or cultural dominance, or both, and the power
and charisma of different rulers are key factors. Each deity and component
166
Ibid., 437.
167
Ibid., 438–40.
168
Ibid., 444.
169
Ibid., 389–481.
of religious cult followed its own trajectory and yet was still part of the
stream of Mesopotamian tradition.
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3
HITTITE RELIGION
gary beckman
he term “religion” is employed here in reference to the complex of con-

ceptions concerning the character of parahuman elements in the cosmos
and the relationship of men and women to these beings and forces, as
well as to the practices by which humans interact with them. Because the
Hittites of second-millennium-bce Anatolia, like all the peoples of the
ancient Near East, perceived deities, demons, and the spirits of the dead
to be involved in the most mundane aspects of existence, religion was for
them an integral part of daily life.
As something so imbricated in the quotidian and self-evident to societal
contemporaries, religion was seldom the subject of self-conscious reflec-
tion or examination in Hatti (as the Hittites referred to their nation and its
territory; see Map 2). Accordingly, the Hittites bequeathed to posterity no
theological treatises or surveys of their beliefs, and it is therefore necessary
for the modern student to reconstruct their religious life from scattered
evidence of the most diverse nature.
materials
First of all, cuneiform tablets from the Hittite metropolis Boğazköy/
Hattuša1 (located about a three hour’s drive from Turkey’s present capital,
Ankara) and to a lesser extent from provincial centers such as Maşat
Höyük/Tapikka and Kuşaklı/Šarišša elsewhere in central Anatolia include
hymns and prayers,2 detailed programs for ceremonies of the state cult,
1
For a convenient introduction to the current state of the excavations, see Seeher, Hattusha Guide.
2
Singer, Hittite Prayers ; Lebrun, Hymnes et prières ; Güterbock, “Some Aspects of Hittite Prayers,”
125–39.
84
Hittite Religion 85
Map 2. Anatolia and Syria.
magical rituals, mythological narratives,3 records of divinatory procedures,

and inventories of the contents of shrines.
he excavated remains of more than thirty temples (each called literally
šiunaš per, “house of the god[s]”) in the capital4 and several more in lesser
cities, some with extensive office precincts and food-storage facilities, dem-
onstrate the important role of religious institutions in Hittite society and
administration as well as in the spiritual life of Hatti.5 he temples were the
proprietors of large estates, whose produce, along with additional taxation
in kind extracted from other landholders, sustained a substantial redistrib-
utive component of the Hittite economy.6
Artistic evidence for Hittite religion7 is provided by images of gods and
goddesses in metal, ivory, and other valuable materials;8 by cylinder and
3
Hoffner, Hittite Myths ; Beckman, “Mythologie,” 564–72.
4
See Neve, Hattuša.
5
Neve, “Der Große Tempel,” 73–79; Güterbock, “he Hittite Temple,” 125–32.
6
Klengel, “Zur ökonomischen Funktion,” 181–200.
7
See in general Bittel, Die Hethiter ; van Loon, Anatolia; Beckman, “Visual Representation,” 610–12.
8
Güterbock, “Hethitische Götterbilder,” 203–17.
86 Gary Beckman
stamp seals and their impressions on clay tablets, vessels, and bullae;9 by
sculpture in low relief on rock faces and free-standing stones;10 and by
ceramics featuring scenes of worship in relief.11
problems of research
Several difficulties bedevil the student of Hittite religion: First, it must be
recognized that almost all of the available written sources pertain to the
state cult or to the spiritual needs of the royal family. We have very little
information concerning the religious beliefs and activities of the ordinary
Hittite man or woman in the street. Second, Hittite religion was an amal-
gam of elements drawn from various cultural strata: that of the indigenous
Hattic people12 as well as the cultures of the several groups speaking an
Anatolian Indo-European language13 (Hittite, Palaic, or Luwian).14 To this
mix were added influences from Mesopotamia (Babylonia and Assyria)
and from the Semitic15 and Hurrian16 populations of northern Syria. But it
is hazardous to assume, as some commentators have done,17 that particular
spiritual features of these donor cultures documented only elsewhere were
equally valid at Hattuša. Finally, the continuous development of central
Anatolian civilization throughout the Bronze Ages makes it impossible to
present in a short essay a picture accurate in all details across the 500-year
history of Hatti. Here I will utilize primarily material from the final cen-
tury and a half of Hittite history, circa 1350–1180 bce.
deities
In their cuneiform texts, Hittite scribes placed the divine determinative
(DINGIR) not only before the names of proper gods and goddesses, but
also before those of demons,18 topographical features such as springs or
mountains,19 and even parts of temples (for example, the hearth or the
9
Beran, Die hethitische Glyptik ; Herbordt, Die Prinzen- und Beamtensiegel.
10
Kohlmeyer, “Felsbilder der hethitischen Großreichszeit,” 7–154; Ehringhaus, Götter, Herrscher,
Inschriften.
11
Boehmer, Die Reliefkeramik.
12
Klinger, Untersuchungen.
13
On the question of Indo-European relics in Hittite mythology, see Watkins, How to Kill a Dragon.
14
Hutter, “Aspects of Luwian Religion,” 211–80.
15
Hoffner, “Syrian Cultural Influence,” 89–106.
16
Hoffner, “Hurrian Civilization,” 167–200; Trémouille, “La religion des Hourrites,” 277–91.
17
As does Haas, Geschichte der hethitischen Religion.
18
Carruba, Das Beschwörungsritual .
19
Lombardi, “Il culto delle montagne,” 83–8.
Hittite Religion 87
pillars).20 hat is, this diacritic could be employed to mark any parahuman
and immortal force with the power and inclination to intervene in the
affairs of humankind.
For the most part, Hittite deities were conceived as human in form, as
evidenced by the gods and goddesses sculpted in the relief processions at
the shrine of Yazılıkaya21 (just outside the walls of the capital), but some
might also on occasion be depicted theriomorphically. An anthropomor-
phic divinity is sometimes accompanied by his or her animal manifesta-
tion serving as a means of transportation or merely as a mascot. hus the
storm-god might ride in a chariot drawn by bulls, or the goddess of love
and war Šaušga stand awkwardly upon the back of her lion-griffon.
For purposes of receiving worship, a god’s ultimately ineffable essence
could be located in an anthropomorphic or theriomorphic image, in a
worked stele or a stone left in its natural state (both called huwaši),22 or in
a manufactured symbol such as a disk of gold, and so on. An idea of the
sumptuous character of a full-sized cult-image, none of which have yet been
physically recovered,23 may be gleaned from the following introduction to
a ritual for establishing the worship of a goddess in a new location:
hus says the priest of the Deity of the Night: When a person for whom (the mat-
ter) of the temple of the Deity of the Night, that is, (the matter) of the Deity of
the Night (herself ), has become (incumbent) – When it comes about that (s)he24
builds another temple of the Deity of the Night from (the base of ) this temple of
the Deity of the Night, and then establishes the deity independently, while (s)he is
completing the construction fully, the smiths fashion the deity in gold. hey also
set about decking her out with the accoutrements appropriate to her. Stuck on
her back like beads are sun-disks of silver, gold, lapis-lazuli, carnelian, “Babylon
stone,” chalcedony (?), quartz, and alabaster, as well as life-symbol(s) and morning
stars (?) of silver and gold. hey set about fashioning them in that manner. (KUB
29.4 i 1–12)
Perhaps more typical was the smaller image included among the inventory
of a shrine in an outlying village:25
he town Lapana, (chief deity the goddess) Iyaya: he divine image is a female
statuette of wood, seated and veiled, one cubit (in height). Her head is plated
with gold, but the body and throne are plated with tin. Two wooden mountain
20
Popko, Kultobjekte in der hethitischen Religion.
21
Bittel, Das hethitische Felsheiligtum; Alexander, Sculpture and Sculptors.
22
Hutter, “Kultstelen und Baityloi,” 87–108.
23
Given the inherent value of the materials from which such statues were constructed, it is extremely
unlikely that any will in fact have survived the ravages of conquest and time.
24
he Hittite language does not differentiate between masculine and feminine gender.
25
For a collection of such texts, see Hazenbos, he Organization of the Anatolian Local Cults.
88 Gary Beckman
sheep, plated with tin, sit beneath the deity to the right and left. One eagle plated
with tin, two copper staves and two bronze goblets are on hand as the deity’s cul-
tic implements. She has a new temple. Her priest, a male, is a holdover. (KUB
38.1 iv 1–7)
he small metal figurines of deities, recognizable as such by their horned
headgear, found throughout central Anatolia are probably examples of
such local divinities.
In any event, the Hittites were well aware that the divine image, what-
ever its form, did not constitute or contain the god or goddess. As in
Babylonia and Assyria, special ritual was necessary to render a man-made
or -selected object a suitable focus for the divine presence. his presence
had its true home in that aspect of the cosmos in which it was immanent.
(See further below.)
the pantheon
As polytheists,26 the Hittites could comfortably honor an unlimited num-
ber of deities. Indeed, in the course of their imperial expansion, they availed
themselves of this flexibility by accepting into their pantheon the gods
and goddesses of many conquered areas. his process commenced as early
as the Old Kingdom (sixteenth century bce) with the welcoming of the
Storm-god of the Syrian city of Aleppo into Hatti27 and gained momen-
tum in the fifteenth century with the incorporation of numerous Hurrian
deities encountered in southern Anatolia and northern Syria (most impor-
tantly the storm-god Teššub and his spouse Hebat, the latter originally the
eponymous deity of Aleppo). he community of deities worshiped among
the Hittites ultimately grew so large that it came to be referred to as the
“housand Gods of Hatti.”28
Most prominent among this myriad of gods29 were those immanent
in the natural phenomena upon which human survival most closely
depended: storm-gods, who delivered the rains crucial to the dry-farming
economy of central Anatolia and in addition ensured the flow of rivers
and springs; sun-deities, whose light was recognized as the basis of all
life; and goddesses of the fertile earth. Other deities presided over war-
fare, sexuality, and reproduction, the world of the dead, particular towns
or locations, and so forth. Individual human beings, as well as many
26
For more detail, see Beckman, “Pantheon,” 308–16.
27
Klengel, “Der Wettergott von Halab,” 87–93.
28
Karasu, “Why Did the Hittites Have a housand Deities?” 221–35.
29
For a full listing, see van Gessel, Onomasticon.
Hittite Religion 89
significant places, objects, and social phenomena, were each watched over
by a patron deity (dLAMMA).30 hus we meet with the Protective Deity
of the King, the Protective Deity of (the town of ) Karahna, the Protective
Deity of the Army, the Protective Deity of the Quiver, the Protective
Deity of the (Palace) Bedroom, the Protective Deity of the Countryside,
and many more.
Divinities of similar type often shared a common generic designa-
tion; accordingly we find “the Storm-god (dIŠKUR / dU) of (the town
of ) Pittiyarik” and “the Storm-god of (the town of ) Šapinuwa,” or “the
War-god (dZABABA) of (the town of ) Arziya” and “the War-god of (the
town of ) Illaya.” he extent to which such gods were considered “avatars”
of a single deity is uncertain: In some cultic texts we find offerings or invo-
cations of, for example, “all the storm-gods of Hatti,” whereas in others
worship is directed to each individual member of the class.
he explicit identification of Anatolian with Hurrian deities is attested
only in the Empire period (mid-fourteenth to early twelfth centuries).31
he most striking example is provided by an excerpt from a prayer of
Queen Puduhepa (mid-thirteenth century): “Sun-goddess of (the town of )
Arinna, my lady, you are the queen of all lands! In the land of Hatti you
have assumed the name Sun-goddess of Arinna, but in respect to the land
that you have made (the land) of cedars (that is, Syria), you have assumed
the name Hebat” (KUB 21.27 i 3–6). It is significant in this regard that
the carved labels accompanying the figures of the gods in the temple of
Yazılıkaya present their names in the Hurrian language, not Hittite, thus
confirming that this assimilation of pantheons was carried out at the high-
est level of the state cult.
In certain key respects, the divine world mirrored human societal
structure. he pantheon was hierarchical and was ruled by a king, the
Storm-god of Hatti (or of the Heavens) – later Teššub – alongside his
queen, the Sun-goddess of Arinna – later Hebat. Along with their son (the
Storm-god of [the town of ] Zippalanda – later Šarrumma) and grandchil-
dren (Mezzula and Zintuhi), these monarchs constituted a family, as did
other groups of deities at home in various Hittite towns, for instance, the
deities Zašhapuna, Zaliyanu, and Tazzuwašši in Tanipiya.
When warranted by common concerns, such as the witnessing of trea-
ties or the rendering of judgment, all the gods of Hatti met in an assem-
bly whose structure and deliberations undoubtedly mirrored those of the
30
McMahon, he Hittite State Cult.
31
Wilhelm, “‘Gleichsetzungstheologie,’” 53–70.
90 Gary Beckman
gathering of Hittite human dignitaries with which it shared the designa-

tion tuliya.32 For example, when the Hittite king Tudhaliya IV (late thir-
teenth century) concluded an agreement with his vassal Kurunta of (the
town of ) Tarhuntašša, he invoked all the gods as follows: “And in regard
to the fact that I have made this treaty for you, the housand Gods are
now summoned to assembly in this matter. hey shall observe and listen
and be witnesses!” (An inclusive list of deities follows.)33 Any violation of
the provisions of a treaty thus concluded in the presence of the pantheon
would be severely punished by the gods themselves, on occasion even with
the death of the culprit.
the universe
We know little concerning how the Hittites conceived the origins or the des-
tiny of their cosmos. However, a ritual passage does relate that in primeval
times the celestial and chthonic deities took possession of their respective
realms, and that human beings were created by mother-goddesses, pre-
sumably from the clay of a riverbank.34 If we may for once allow ourselves
to extrapolate from Mesopotamian evidence, we may speculate that men
and women were brought into existence precisely to perform the labor that
sustained the leisurely lives of the gods.35 Such an etiology would certainly
be in harmony with the role actually played by humans in the world as
illustrated immediately below.
he universe of the Hittites was an integrated system, with no clear-cut
boundaries among its levels. Under the right circumstances, gods might
mingle with humans, as reported in certain mythological stories.36 And
the euphemism employed for the death of a king or a member of the royal
family, “to become a god” (šiunaš kiš ), shows that a man of sufficient social
prominence might attain the status of a minor deity.
As in Mesopotamia, the role of humans was clearly to serve the gods,
providing for their sustenance, pleasure, and entertainment.37 hat the
gods were actually dependent upon this attention is evident from a passage
in a prayer of Muršili II (late fourteenth century), who reminds them of
the consequences of a severe outbreak of plague:
32
Beckman, “he Hittite Assembly,” 435–42.
33
Otten, Bronzetafel , iii 78–iv 15.
34
Otten and Siegelová, “Die hethitischen Gul š -Gottheiten,” 32–8.
35
See the discussion of Assyrian and Babylonian religion by Schneider in Chapter 2.
36
Beckman, “he Anatolian Myth of Illuyanka,” 11–25.
37
Again, see the discussion of Assyrian and Babylonian religion by Schneider.
Hittite Religion 91
All of the land of Hatti is dying, so that no one prepares the sacrificial loaf and
libation for you. he plowmen who used to work the fields of the gods have died,
so that no one works or reaps the fields of the gods any longer. he miller-women
who used to prepare the sacrificial loaves of the gods have died, so that they no
longer make the sacrificial loaves. As for the corral and sheepfold from which one
used to cull the offerings of sheep and cattle – the cowherds and shepherds have
died, and the corral and sheepfold are empty. So it has come about that the sacrifi-
cial loaves, libations, and animal sacrifices are cut off. Yet you come to us, O gods,
and hold us responsible in this matter! (KUB 24.3 ii 4d–17d)
In return for the necessary maintenance, the satisfied deities would cause
crops to thrive, domestic animals to multiply, human society to prosper,
and Hittite armies to prevail in battle. his conception is reflected in a
prayer in which a god is enjoined:
Give life, health, strength, long years, and joy in the future to the king, queen,
princes, and to (all) the land of Hatti! And give to them future thriving of grain,
vines, fruit, cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, mules (sic! ), asses – together with wild ani-
mals – and of human beings! (KUB 24.2 rev. 12d–16d)
Conversely, a neglected or offended god or goddess could wreak havoc
on an individual, a household, or all of Hatti. Attested manifestations of
divine displeasure include epidemic, military defeat, and the illness of the
king. When confronted with misfortune, it was necessary that the individ-
ual sufferer – or the royal establishment on behalf of the community as a
whole – determine which deity was angry, the cause(s) of his or her rage,
and the appropriate ameliorative measures.
he power of deities to determine human affairs was known as parā
hand(and)atar, literally “prior arrangement,” but often best rendered as
“providence.” For example, in his “Apology,”38 Hattušili III attributes the
successful course of his career to the intervention of his patron goddess,
Šaušga of (the town of ) Šamuha. When he had risen in revolt against his
nephew, King Urhi-Teššub, “Šaušga, my lady, supported me, and things
turned out as she had promised me. Šaušga, my lady, on that very occasion
revealed her divine providence (parā handandatar) in great measure (by
bringing about the defeat of my rival)” (CTH 81 iv 16–19).
the king
he human monarch39 stood at the intersection of the divine sphere with
that of humans, constituting the linchpin of the entire structure. He had
38
Otten, Die Apologie Hattusilis III.
39
Beckman, “Royal Ideology,” 529–43.
92 Gary Beckman
been allotted his paramount position in society by the leading deities them-
selves: “he gods, the Sun-goddess and the Storm-god, have entrusted to
me, the king, my land and my household, so that I, the king, should pro-
tect my land and my household on my own behalf ” (KUB 29.1 i 17–19). In
this role he was responsible for ensuring that the people of Hatti properly
performed their obligations to their divine masters. In principle, the king
directed all communal religious activities, serving as the high priest of all
the gods, most importantly that of the Sun-goddess of Arinna, from earli-
est days the protector and proprietor of the Hittite state.
Although it was necessary for the king to delegate most of his religious
duties, twice yearly, in spring and autumn, he made a progress through the
towns of the Hittite heartland, officiating in the sanctuaries of the local
divinities. hese onerous journeys allowed the monarch to “keep his hand
in” the cult of each and every deity worshiped in Hatti. Furthermore, in
times of crisis such as the plague addressed above by Muršili II, the ruler
appeared in person before the gods to present Hatti’s arkuwar, “plaidoyer.”
he parade example of such a brief delivered to a divine authority is that
very prayer of Muršili.
communication
As mentioned earlier, it was of the greatest importance that the monarch
and the gods maintain a regular exchange of information so that difficulties
in the functioning of the cosmos might be rectified to their mutual bene-
fit. he king reported directly to his divine lords through his prayers, but
traffic in the other direction was necessarily more complex. Accordingly,
Muršili II demanded of the gods concerning the cause of an epidemic:
“Either let me see it in a dream, or let it be established through an oracle,
or let a prophet (šiunaš antuhšaš, lit. ‘man of god’) speak of it. Or all the
priests shall perform an incubation rite (lit. ‘sleep purely’) concerning that
which I have instructed them” (KUB 14.10 iv 9–13 and dupls.). We may
observe that the communication media employed by the gods were of two
types: those of which the divinities availed themselves on their own initia-
tive (omens), and those whose use was solicited by humans (oracles).
A god might contact a person directly by appearing in a dream,40 cause
a third party to utter a prophecy, or send a portent in the form of unusual
human or animal behavior.41 he sign might also be an astronomical
40
Mouton, “L’importance des rêves,” 9–16.
41
Hoffner, “Akkadian šumma immeru Texts,” 116–19.
Hittite Religion 93
occurrence (a solar or lunar eclipse, shooting star, and so forth), a mete-

orological phenomenon (for example, a lightning strike), or any abnormal
terrestrial event.
Alternatively, through various procedures, a specialist serving in the
Hittite religious bureaucracy could pose a question to a deity and receive
a reply.42 Divinatory techniques utilized included the examination of the
entrails of a sacrificed animal (extispicy),43 the observation of the flight and
other behavior of birds (augury),44 incubation,45 and the still mysterious
“lot” (KIN) oracle.46 hese various methods were often employed in series
as checks upon the results obtained by one another. An excerpt from a
lengthy series of such questions is the following:
In regard to the fact that you, O deity of Arušna, were ascertained to be angry
with His Majesty (the King), is this because the Queen cursed (the palace woman)
Ammattalla before the deity of Arušna? Because Ammattalla began to concern
herself with the deity, yet did not go back and forth (in service to the deity)?
Because the son of Ammattalla has dressed himself in garments entrusted to his
mother and was summoned to the palace? If you, O god, are angry about this, let
the extispicy be unfavorable. . . . (Here the technical details of the observation are
reported.) (Result:) Unfavorable.47 If you, O god, are angry only about this, let the
duck oracle be favorable. . . . (Result:) Unfavorable. (KUB 22.70 i 7–11)
the state cult

he programs of the state cult, probably the most numerous type of text
among the surviving Hittite records, prescribe the course of worship in
great detail. hese religious ceremonies were conducted at regular inter-
vals – daily, monthly, yearly, or at some point in the agricultural cycle
(harvest, trimming of the vines, opening of the grain-storage vessels, and
so forth) – and are designated by the Sumerogram EZEN, “festival.”48
During these observances, gods and goddesses were lavished with atten-
tions that were likely similar to those customarily enjoyed by the king
and his courtiers. he divinities were praised through the recitation of
42
Kammenhuber, Orakelpraxis, Träume und Vorzeichenschau.
43
Schuol, “Die Terminologie des hethitischen SU-Orakels,” 73–124.
44
Archi, “L’ornitomanzia ittita,” 119–80.
45
Mouton, “Use of Private Incubations,” 293–300.
46
Orlamünde, “Überlegungen zum hethitischen KIN-Orakel,” 295–311; Beal, “Hittite Oracles,”
57–81.
47
Since the diviner had stipulated that an “unfavorable” response would constitute a “yes” to his query,
his supposition as to the cause of the deity’s displeasure is thus confirmed. But is there anything else
on the god’s mind?
48
Güterbock, “Some Aspects of Hittite Festivals,” 175–80.
94 Gary Beckman
hymns and provided with much food and drink.49 hey were entertained
by singers and dancers50 and amused by jesters,51 and they observed the
best efforts of athletes in various competitions,52 including foot races, the
shot put, and even mock battles. Strict standards of purity were enforced
for officiants,53 and foreigners were customarily barred from the temple
precincts. Celebrations might also include a communal meal54 for a wider
circle of human participants, undoubtedly made up of individuals from
the higher ranks of society.
We may gain an idea of the character of regular divine service from the
following passage:
he king and queen, while seated, toast the War-god. he halliyari-men (play) the
large stringed instruments and sing. he clapper-priest claps. he cupbearer brings
one snack loaf from outside and gives (it) to the king. he king breaks (it) and
takes a bite. he palace functionaries take the napkins from the king and queen.
he crouching (cupbearer) enters. he king and queen, while standing, toast the
(divinized) Day. he jester speaks; the clapper claps; the kita-man cries “aha!”
(KUB 25.6 iv 5–24)
Note that in the rite described in this passage, which is quite typical for the
festivals, the duties of the royal couple are rather simple. he more techni-
cal aspects of worship were the preserve of religious professionals.
magical rituals
he Hittite scribes employed the Sumerogram SISKUR/SÍSKUR, “rit-
ual,” as a label for rites de passage, including those concerned with birth,55
puberty,56 and death,57 as well as for ceremonies that were performed only
as the need arose – for exigencies such as illness, impotence, miscarriage,
or familial strife. hese lamentable conditions were held to result from the
influence of sorcery or black magic (alwanzatar) and/or from infection
with papratar, “impurity.” he immediate goal of treatment was to remove
49
Beckman, “Opfer nach schriftlichen Quellen,” 106–11; idem, “Sacrifice, Offerings, and Votives,”
336–9.
50
de Martino, “Music, Dance, and Processions,” 2661–9.
51
de Martino, “Il LÚ.ALAN.ZÚ,” 131–48.
52
Carter, “Athletic Contests,” 185–7.
53
Moyer, “he Concept of Ritual Purity”; de Martino, “Purità dei sacerdoti,” 348–62.
54
Archi, “Das Kultmahl bei den Hethitern,” 197–213; Collins, “Ritual Meals,” 77–92.
55
Beckman, Hittite Birth Rituals.
56
Güterbock, “An Initiation Rite,” 99–103.
57
Otten, Hethitische Totenrituale ; Kassian et al., Hittite Funerary Ritual.
Hittite Religion 95
these malign influences, a task to be accomplished largely through the use

of analogic magic, which almost always featured a spoken incantation.58
Typical in structure, if unusually colorful in its imagery, is this magi-
cal speech from a ritual addressed to deities of the underworld: “As a ram
mounts a ewe and she becomes pregnant, so let this city and house become
a ram, and let it mount the Dark Earth in the steppe! And let the Dark
Earth become pregnant with the blood, impurity (papratar), and sin!”
(KUB 41.8 iv 29–32).
It is interesting to observe that women were particularly prominent
among magicians,59 despite their subordinate role among the college of
cultic experts in the temples. his is probably because of the special occult
knowledge that, as in many other cultures, from classical Greece to early
modern France, females were thought to acquire in the process of giving
and assisting at birth. Note that one of the most common titles borne by
these female practitioners was “the one of birth” (hašauwaš ), often repre-
sented by the Sumerogram MUNUSŠU.GI, “old woman.”
Many of the descriptions of magical rituals found at Hattuša had
been collected from practitioners resident in various towns throughout
the Hittite realm, seemingly in order to make knowledge of their recom-
mended procedures available to magical specialists attending the royal
family, should one of its members suffer from any of the relevant prob-
lems. his body of folk remedies gathered from all over Hatti affords a rare
window onto the beliefs and practices of the common people of Anatolia.
the individual
he birth of each person was overseen by a group of mother-goddesses
(DINGIR.MAHMEŠ/HI.A) and fate deities (Gulšeš ), one of whom seemingly
accompanied the individual throughout life as a kind of “guardian angel.”
he relationship of this protector to a man or woman’s Protective Deity
(dLAMMA) is obscure.
he existence of a son of Hatti did not end with death. Rather, he or
she passed to an underworld, about which we are regrettably very poorly
informed. We do learn, however, that in this Anatolian Sheol even close
relatives failed to recognize one another, and that their daily fare was mud
and dirty water.60 Despite their pitiful lot, the spirits of the dead (akkant-,
58
Beckman, “‘he Tongue Is a Bridge,’” 519–34.
59
Beckman, “From Cradle to Grave,” 25–39.
60
Hoffner, “A Scene in the Realm of the Dead,” 191–9.
96 Gary Beckman
GIDIM; sometimes personalized as the deity Zawalli)61 could nonetheless

intervene for good – but more frequently for ill – in the business of their
living descendants.
However, as indicated by the euphemism “to become a god,” the king
and his closest relatives were thought to enjoy a more pleasant afterlife.
A passage from a royal funerary ritual in fact indicates that the deceased
monarch became the owner of a herd of livestock grazing in a kind of
Elysian Fields, perhaps a fond reminiscence of a simpler lifestyle practiced
by his forebears prior to the entrance of the Indo-European groups into the
orbit of the civilizations of the ancient Near East. Furthermore, it appears
that a change in the ideology of kingship occurred during the final decades
of the existence of the Hittite state, and that the ruler came to enjoy a cer-
tain divine status even during his lifetime.62
conclusion
his survey has revealed that Hittite religious ideology was primarily con-
cerned with the lives of people. Able with their limited technology to inter-
vene only marginally in the basic processes on which their lives depended,
the Hittites attributed to their gods power over – and responsibility for –
their own survival as individuals and as a group. Positive or negative events
were due not to impersonal forces and conditions following their natural
development, but were rather the direct expression of divine displeasure
with an individual man or woman, or with the king as the embodiment of
Hatti.63 It was all about them, and in practice the gods received attention
only because of their putative potential influence upon the human level of
the cosmos.
With its emphasis on hierarchy, according to which every personage
in the universe ideally remained in his or her proper place and fulfilled
an allotted role,64 Hittite religion was also a force for the maintenance
of stability within society. In all documented societies of ancient western
Asia and northeast Africa the king stood atop both the social and cultic
pyramids. he primary distinction between the role of the monarch in
Egypt, on the one hand, and in Mesopotamia (Assyria and Babylonia) and
Hatti, on the other, is that in the former culture the ruler was himself one
61
Archi, “Il dio Zawalli,” 81–94.
62
van den Hout, “Tuthaliya IV,” 545–73.
63
Compare Hoffner, “heodicy in Hittite Texts,” 90–107.
64
Note the “moral of the stories” comprising the cult myths of the purulli-festival; see Beckman, “he
Anatolian Myth,” 11–25.
Hittite Religion 97
of the gods, whereas in the latter civilizations he was (merely) first among
humans. In either instance resisting his will was ideologically illegitimate.
he king had been selected by the gods to be their vicar among humans.
Any challenge to the king’s paramountcy from below was illegitimate from
the outset.65
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4
ZOROASTRIANISM
prods oktor skjærvø
introduction
Zoroastrianism (also called Mazdaism) was the religion of peoples speaking
Iranian languages who, coming from Central Asia circa 1000 bce, settled
on the Iranian Plateau.1 Iranian languages are related to the Indo-Aryan
languages (Sanskrit, etc.), and the common proto-Indo-Iranian language
may have been spoken by peoples inhabiting the area south and southeast
of the Aral Sea, who split into Iranians and Indo-Aryans around 2000 bce.
Archaeology has revealed dense settlements in this area of Central Asia,
but attempts to correlate them, especially the so-called Bactrian-Margiana
Archeological Complex circa 2200–1700 bce, with the people among
whom Zoroastrianism originated remain inconclusive because of the lack
of written testimonies.
he Zoroastrian sacred texts collected in the Avesta were composed
orally between circa 1500 and 500 bce, but they contain no historical
information about the Iranian people who created them. he geograph-
ical horizon of the composers of the Avesta spans the area from the mod-
ern Central Asian republics, through what is modern Afghanistan, to the
Helmand River basin, reflecting their southward migration. Since the
Iranians did not use writing, the archaeological records from the areas they
may have occupied can be only tentatively correlated with them. hus,
the historical-cultural settings of the various stages of the religion of the
Iranians before the Achaemenids (550–331 bce) cannot be determined.
Among the Iranian tribes who migrated onto the Iranian Plateau around
the turn of the millennium were the Medes, whose religious practices as
described by the early Greek historians were Zoroastrian or variants thereof,
1
For the sites relevant to Zoroastrianism, see Map 1 in Chapter 2.
102
Zoroastrianism 103
and the Persians, who formed the Achaemenid dynasty and practiced
Zoroastrianism as known from the Avesta. he term Parswa, “Persian,” is
found in Assyrian documents from the ninth century on and indicates that
the Persians had migrated southward along the Zagros Mountains before
they became settled in what was to become their homeland by the seventh–
sixth centuries bce. According to Herodotus’s Histories, Persian hegemony
began when the Persian Cyrus the Great overthrew the last Median king
(550 bce). When Cyrus’s son Cambyses died in an accident on his way
from Egypt to Persia, Darius made himself king, claiming descent from
Achaemenes, a common ancestor with Cyrus. He and his son Xerxes cre-
ated the Achaemenid empire (550–331 bce), which reached from Ethiopia
and Libya to the Indus valley, but fell to Alexander in 331/330 bce. When
Alexander died in 323, it was divided among his successors, Iran falling
to Seleucus, who founded the Seleucid dynasty, which was followed by
the indigenous Parthian Arsacid (247 bce?–224 ce) and Persian Sasanian
dynasties (224–636 ce).
the AVESTA
Like the Old Indic Rigveda, but different from much of the Judeo-Christian
and Mesopotamian religious traditions, the Avesta is a repository of oral
texts, transmitted orally in fixed linguistic form until it was written down
circa 600 ce.2 Judging from the language, the older part (Old Avesta) was
composed between 1500 and 1000 bce and the later parts (Young Avesta)
between 1000 and 500 bce.
he Old Avesta contains the five Gāthā s, “songs,” and the Yasna
Haptanghāiti, “the yasna (or sacrifice in seven sections) (hāitis).” he prin-
cipal Young Avestan texts are the Yasna (Yasna 1–72), the text accompa-
nying the yasna ritual (still performed daily), of which the Old Avesta is the
central part (Y. 28–41, 43–51, 53); the yasht s, hymns to individual deities; the
Khorda Avesta, “little Avesta,” a miscellany of short hymns and other ritual
texts; and the Videvdad (also Vendidad ), Avestan Vi-daēwa-dāta, literally,
“the established rules (dāta) (serving to keep) the evil gods (daēwa) away
(vi-),” a collection of texts concerned with purification rituals, including
some mythological material. he Hērbedestān and Nīrangestān are manu-
als dealing with issues connected with priestly schooling and the perfor-
mance of rituals.
2
References to the Avesta follow K. F. Geldner’s edition: Avesta. he Sacred Book of the Parsis I–III
(Stuttgart, 1896).
104 Prods Oktor Skjærvø
he Gāthā s are composed in a highly elliptic and allusive style, which,

together with our incomplete knowledge of the language, makes interpre-
tation difficult. he Young Avesta includes no didactic texts explaining the
religion in a systematic fashion, and, although the language of the Young
Avestan texts is better understood, these too merely allude to myths that
are difficult to reconstruct. he Achaemenid inscriptions add little to a
detailed understanding of the religious system. Only in the Middle Persian
(Pahlavi) texts from Sasanian times, the Zoroastrian oral traditions written
down in the ninth century and later, do we find complete narratives that
illuminate the older texts.
he “Author” of the Old Avesta

Because the Avesta consists of ancient oral compositions, its authors are
not known. his is also the case of the Gāthā s, although, in the West,
Zarathustra has been assumed to be their author. he anonymous reciter,
himself presumably a poet and the performer of the ritual (sacrificer),
introduces himself in Yasna 28, where he announces his intent to emulate
Zarathustra and other famous poets and sacrificers of the past; in Yasna 29,
the mythical installation of Zarathustra as Ahura Mazdā’ s human counter-
part, who will perform again his cosmic sacrifice in this world, is described;
and in Yasna 43, the poet identifies himself with Zarathustra and from
then on assumes his role.
he Religion of the Old Avesta

he Old Avesta is a ritual text, which must have accompanied a cosmic
renewal ritual (morning or New Year), although the details of the ancient
ritual are unknown. he principal verb is yaza-, “to sacrifice (to), offer
up in sacrifice” (noun yasna), and the direct objects either the deities for
whom the sacrifice is performed or the consecrated objects offered to them.
he Gāthā s are addressed to Ahura Mazdā, the deity whom the text praises
together with his creation and whose opponents he blames or scorns, while
the poet of the Yasna Haptanghāiti presents himself and his audience as
“praisers, not blamers.” In the Young Avesta, Zarathustra, who first recited
the Gāthā s, is described as the first to praise Order and blame the daēwas
(Yasht 13.89).
he Gāthā s are associated with “four holy prayers”: he Ahuna Vairiya
or Yathā ahū vairiyō, “as (the new existence) is a worthy (reward [for our
sacrifice]) by (the example of ) the (first) existence” (first strophe of the first
Zoroastrianism 105
Gāthā), announces the purpose of the ritual, namely, the renewal of the
world under Ahura Mazdā’s command; the Ashem Vohū, “Order is the best
good (reward)” (based on the first strophe of the second Gāthā), promises
rewards to those who contribute to upholding the cosmic order by their
ritual order; the Yenghyē Hātām, “He to whom among those that are”
(based on the last strophe of the fourth Gāthā), promises the sacrificer’s
praise for all deities in return for his reward; and the Airyaman Ishiya, “Let
speedy Airyaman (come here)” (last strophe of the last Gāthā), sums up
the desired results of the ritual. hese four texts are recited repeatedly, with
varying frequency, throughout all Zoroastrian rituals.
he Old Avestan Ritual

he Old Avestan ritual was performed to regenerate the existence (ahu)
according to the models (ratu) contained in Ahura Mazdā’s first ordered
existence and to put him back in command (khshathra) of the universe as
protector of the poor (Ahuna Vairiya, Y. 53.9). he forces of Order (asha;
light, health, life) must overcome those of the Lie, the principle of chaos
(darkness, sickness, death), for the ordered cosmos to be reborn in the form
of the sunlit new day. his was achieved by strengthening the forces of
Order through sacrificial offerings, including hymns of praise, which con-
fer fame and authority, while weakening those of chaos through depriving
them of sacrifices and praise and ridiculing and scorning them (Y. 53).
he relationship between the poet-sacrificer, performer of the sacrifice,
and Ahura Mazdā, its recipient, was that of guest-friends, based on mutual
obligations and the giving of gifts (Y. 43.14, etc.). he obligations were
determined by rules that regulate behavior and relationships, among them
the mutual agreements between gods and men (urwatas). When the rules
were observed, man was rewarded with “brilliant gifts” (Y. 33.7): he sun
would rise once more, and the human settlements would have peace and
prosperity through abundant pasture (Y. 29.10, etc.). When the rules were
broken, darkness and evil would reign (Y. 31). Among the sacrificers’ gifts
were the sacrificial offerings and their words and actions, but also their
bones and life-breath and their “pre-souls” (frawashis; Y. 37.3, see below),
needed to give solidity and life to the new existence for it to be reborn as a
living being (Y. 33.14, 43.16). Most of their gifts were themselves gifts from
Ahura Mazdā (Y. 31.11, etc.).
he sacrificial gifts were sent up to heaven in a race between rival sacri-
ficers, some of them evil (the kawis and karpans). he sacrificer described
in the Gāthā s took on the role of Zarathustra and was confident that he
would be the winner (e.g., Y. 46). On the way, the competitors passed the
“Ford of the Accountant” (cinwatō pertu), the function of which is not
specified in the Gāthā s, but, according to the Pahlavi texts, was where the
soul’s good and bad thoughts, words, and deeds were weighed on a scale,
the balance determining whether they would go to heaven or hell. hose
who passed the ford were admitted to a heavenly “audition” (ya’ah), during
which their performances were judged by the heavenly “arbiters” (ardra),
comprising the famous poet-sacrificers and heroes of the past, who dwelt
in Ahura Mazdā’s house (Y. 46.14, 50.4). Once the winner was chosen,
they proceeded to an exchange of gifts (maga, whence magu, the priest
performing this ritual?), Ahura Mazdā came forward with the prize (Y.
51.15), and the winner’s hymns were added to those accumulated in Ahura
Mazdā’s abode (Y. 45.8). he successful sacrificer became Ahura Mazdā’s
guest (Y. 31.22), whereas the losers became guests in the house of the Lie
(Y. 46.11). In return for the gifts presented to him, Ahura Mazdā was asked
for a counter-gift of the same (or greater) exchange value (vasna), namely,
the return of dawn, when the guiding thoughts (khratu) of the successful
sacrificers (saoshyant), as the oxen who pull the new day across the sky,
moved forth to uphold the existence of Order (Y. 46.3).
he existences, or “worlds” (ahu), that are reborn, live, sicken, and die
daily (and annually) were two: “the existence that has bones,” the world
of living beings, and “the existence which is that of thought,” the world
of (= reached by) thought (Y. 28.2). hey were regenerated by the com-
bined efforts of Ahura Mazdā and his daughter and spouse, (Life-giving)
Humility, the Earth (see below), who contributed to the “thickening” of
Order (Y. 44.6). With the new day, she would be under Ahura Mazdā’s
command and protection, “where she sees the sun” and can produce her
“works” (Y. 43.16).
he principal terms characterizing the good existence are derived from
a verb (spā-/sao-), which implies “swelling,” that is, with vital juices. he
good deities in the world of thought, first of all Ahura Mazdā, were all
spenta, “endowed with swelling (power),” that is, “life-giving, (re)vitaliz-
ing,” and able to maintain the universe in its pristine state. he daily regen-
eration of the ordered world is described as a physical birth (Y. 43.5, 48.6),
implying conception, growth, and birth, while the relapse into chaos is
described as an illness (Y. 30.6). he regenerated existences are based on
the model of the first existence and its elements, which serve as “models”
(ratu) for every new one (Ahuna Vairiya, Y. 31.2), models announced by
Life-giving Humility (Y. 43.6; similarly in Rigveda 2.38.4), which suggests
that Order is the web of ordered relations in the universe.
Zoroastrianism 107
Humans contributed to the maintenance of the ordered universe by

their rituals and their behavior; if a ritual was successful, the performer
became a saoshyant, a “revitalizer.” By their efforts, the sacrificers and
Ahura Mazdā remade the ordered existence, making it frasha, that is, filled
with vital juices permitting growth and procreation (Y. 30.9, etc.). he last
strophe of the last Gāthā (Y. 53.9) states that Ahura Mazdā has replaced
the evil rulers, and the Airyaman Ishiya (Y. 54.1), the strophe that con-
cludes the Gāthā collection, is an invitation to Airyaman, god of peace
and healing, to come and heal the ailing existence and support the poet’s
community. For his contributions, the sacrificer expected a handsome fee
(mizhda) paid in cows, horses, or camels (Y. 44.18, 46.19).
he Old Avestan Divine Beings

Benign beings in the world of thought were those “deserving of sacrifices”
(yazata), a term found once in the Old Avesta referring to Ahura Mazdā
(Yasna Haptanghāiti, Y. 41.3). Ahura Mazdā’s name probably means the
All-knowing (mazdā) Lord/Ruler (ahura), which was still understood in
its literal meaning in the Old Avesta. Young Avestan Ahura Mazdā and Old
Persian Ahuramazdā, however, are simply names.3
Divine beings other than Ahura Mazdā include other ahuras (Y. 30.9,
31.4), perhaps a reference to the male deities featured in the Young Avesta,
and male and female beings referred to as Life-giving Immortals (amesha
spenta). hese last may be the same as those referred to by this term in the
Young Avesta, namely, a series of what we would term “abstract” concepts,
although they also had “concrete” references: vohu/vahishta manah, “good/
best thought,” was also the sun-lit sky, and asha (vahishta), “(best) Order,”
was also the sunlit heavenly spaces with the sun (Y. 32.2), and both were
Ahura Mazdā’s children (Y. 44.3, 45.4); the khshathra, “(royal) command,”
was generated for Ahura Mazdā in the sacrifice (connected with metal in
the Young Avesta); (spentā) ārmaiti, “(life-giving) Humility,”4 was Ahura
Mazdā’s daughter (Y. 45.4) and the Earth (already in Indo-Iranian), who
patiently supports all that happens on her and by her “works” produces
everything needed for life (Y. 43.16); and the couple haurwatāt, “whole-
ness,” and amertatāt, “non-dyingness” (not dying before one’s time), were
closely connected with water and plants. heir connection with the sacrifice
3
It is therefore misleading to render the name consistently as “Wise Lord” or similar, irrespective of
the date of the texts, especially the Old Persian inscriptions and the later texts.
4
Translation chosen to express her patience with her burden and her status as daughter and wife;
similarly, humility is from Latin humus, “earth.”
is obvious, and they probably came into existence as the constituents and
results of Ahura Mazdā’s primordial sacrifice.
Other divine beings are the Fashioner of the Cow, sraosha, “(mutual)
readiness to listen” of gods and men, ashi, “reward?”, Airyaman (Indic
Aryaman), the heavenly fire, Ahura Mazdā’s son (identical with the ritual
fire, Y. 36.6), and the heavenly waters, which, together with other nouns
of feminine gender, were Ahura Mazdā’s “women” (gnāh, Y. 38.1). he
“women” were also “well deserved” (vairiya), which suggests Ahura Mazdā
won them as rewards for his successful fight against the powers of evil.
he Old Avestan Ordered Cosmos

he ordered cosmos, “the first existence” (Y. 33.1), came about when Ahura
Mazdā, like how a poet thinks his poem, thought (forth) Order and healed
the existence (Y. 31.19) and when he first “thought the free spaces suffused
by lights” and “by his guiding thought (khratu) spread out the fabric of
Order by which he upheld Good hought (the covering of the sun-lit
sky)” (Y. 31.7). he sunlit heavenly spaces are the form (kerp) of Ahura
Mazdā (Y. 36.6).
Ahura Mazdā’s Order governed the cosmic processes and the ritual
and social behavior of men. Everyone and everything that conformed
to this principle was said to be a “sustainer of Order” (asha-wan, Old
Persian artā-wan); what opposed it was “filled with/possessed by the Lie”
(drug-want). he principal agents of chaos were the Lie (drug, female),
the cosmic deception; Wrath (male), the embodiment of the dark night
sky; and the evil gods (daēwas). For the (woven) covering (vyā) of Good
hought to spread out, (the dark covering of ) Wrath needed to be tied
down (Y. 48.7).
Creatures in the world of living beings were “fashioned” (tash-), like
the work of a master carpenter (Y. 37.2, 38.3), including man, the cow, the
waters, and the plants (Y. 29.6, 31.11, 44.6, 51.7). Similarly, the poets “fash-
ioned” their thoughts into poems (manthra), the first of the poems being
“fashioned” by Ahura Mazdā himself, who prepared the ingredients of the
ritual (Y. 29.7). All that was fashioned was then set in place (dā-) by Ahura
Mazdā (Y. 37.1–2, 44.3–5).
In this ordered cosmos, everyone and everything must choose whether
to belong to one or the other side; on one side were those who sustain
order, on the other those possessed by the Lie. he primordial choices were
made by two manyus, “(cosmic) spirit” and “(poetic) inspiration.” In Yasna
30, they are described as twin “sleeps,” which presumably refers to them
Zoroastrianism 109
as “sleeping” fetuses not yet born. he text seems to imply that, when the
two spirits “came together (in strife),” “life” and “non-living” were con-
ceived, and the nature of the new existence was determined as good or bad
(Y. 30.4). Of the two spirits, the Life-giving one chose to produce order,
whereas the one possessed by the Lie chose to produce the “worst things”
(Y. 30.5). he evil gods, confused by the Lie, made the wrong choices,
choosing the “worst thought,” and allied themselves with Wrath (Y. 30.6).
Humans, too, both in the general context of coming of age and in the
ritual context, must repeat the primordial choices, and, for their choices,
those possessed by the Lie would obtain the “worst existence,” to which
their “vision-soul” (daēnā) would lead them (Y. 31.20), whereas the sus-
tainers of order would have “best thought” (Y. 30.4).
he Old Avestan Notion of Man

he basic constituents of man were thought (manah), breath-soul (urwan),
vision-soul (dayanā, later daēnā), guiding thought or “wisdom” (khratu),
and the “pre-(existing) soul” (frawashi, Y. 37.3) and utterances, announce-
ments (sangha), statements of choice, and actions (Y. 31.11, 45.2). he body
contained life-breath (ushtāna) and bones (ast). Its form (kerp) was pro-
vided by the bodily tissues (uta-yuiti) and breathing (anman) by Humility
(Y. 30.7). he breath-soul was both the breath of the poet, which carried
his songs up to heaven (Y. 28.4), and the soul that left the body at death
and traveled into the beyond to be judged and go on to heaven or hell. he
vision-soul was what enabled man to “see” (day-) in the other world and
hence guided the breath-soul in the other world while successfully fighting
off the forces of darkness (Y. 39.1–2). In the Young Avesta, its appearance is
determined by the balance of people’s thoughts, words, and actions.
In the exclusively oral Iranian society, thought and speech played cru-
cial roles in the way the poets conceived of the world and their part in it.
hought was essential, because it contained all the memories and knowledge
of the professional poet and sacrificer (zaotar). Modern Zoroastrians often
define their religion as being based on “good thought, good speech, and
good action,” a formula found for the first time in the Yasna Haptanghāiti
and frequent in the Young Avesta. In the Gāthā s, the individual terms are
omnipresent and basically imply thinking “straight,” or true, thoughts
and speaking true words about reality as the ordered cosmos established
by Ahura Mazdā and performing the actions required to maintain this
ordered cosmos. “Sin” is thinking and saying things that disagree with this
reality and so are untrue.
Good speech and actions, dependent upon good thought, also refer to
ritual activities that can be heard and seen and imply correct performance,
crucial for success. he poet-sacrificer’s function is to “weave” (ufya-) his
thought, along with Ahura Mazdā and the other deities, into an orderly
poem (vahma) to serve as a blueprint for the new existence (Y. 28.3).
he Old Avestan Eschatology

Although the references to the (breath-) soul and daēnā (vision soul) at a
place called the Ford of the Accountant (Y. 46.10, 51.13), to the last turn
of the existence (Y. 43.5, 51.6), and to the fate of the sustainers of order
and those possessed by the Lie are primarily referring to a mythical-ritual
context, the general nature of the ritual suggests that they also refer to
the expectations about what happens to individuals after death, as in the
Young Avesta. “he last turn” refers to the last turn in the ritual race up
to heaven, but perhaps also to the last turn of the heavenly bodies, which
measure out time until everything has run its course (Yt. 13.58). he Old
Avestan saoshyant s, “revitalizers,” too, refer to the performers of the cur-
rent rituals, although it is possible they also allude to the final saoshyant
(see below).
he Poet-Sacrificer and Zarathustra in the Old Avesta

he poet-sacrificer, as the human counterpart of Ahura Mazdā, re-performed
on earth the primordial sacrifice by which chaos was overcome and cosmos
established. To be successful, he needed the flawless knowledge received
from Ahura Mazdā about creation and how man can assist in destroy-
ing evil, along with knowledge about rituals and social relationships (e.g.,
Y. 30–33, 44–45). his made him “the knowing one of Ahura Mazdā”
(Y. 28.4), like a god, a “life-giving man” (nar spenta, Y. 34.2, etc.).
he prototype of the human sacrificer was Zarathustra, whose instal-
lation is described in Yasna 29. Here the cow’s breath-soul and that of
the poet ascend to the assembly of gods to complain about the world,
which has reverted to chaos, in which the cow has no protector, and the
Fashioner of the Cow asks Order what model (ratu) had been foreseen for
the cow (Y. 29.1–2). Ahura Mazdā says that although there was none in
the first existence (Y. 29.6), he has already fashioned the components of
the sacrifice, and now someone is needed to take them down to mortals.
Someone announces that one has already been found, namely, Zarathustra
(Y. 29.7–8).
Zoroastrianism 111
In the rest of the Gāthā s, the sacrificer identifies himself as Zarathustra

and imitates his sacrifice (e.g., Y. 43.7–8). In the last Gāthā (Y. 53), it
is revealed that Zarathustra’s sacrifice, as reputed, was the best. hen,
presumably, Zarathustra and his daughter perform a xwaētuwadatha,
“next-of-kin marriage,” matching the union between Ahura Mazdā and
Humility (the Iranian form of hierogamia),5 after which Airyaman arrives
to heal the world and re-establish peace for the communities of the sus-
tainers of Order (Y. 53.8, Y. 54.1)
he Religion of the Young Avesta

he Young Avesta contains more details about cosmogony and eschatology
(Yt. 13 and 19), the fate of the soul after death (Hādōkht nask, Aogemadaēca,
Videvdad 19), and how to deal with the influence of evil (Videvdad ). hese
elements of Young Avestan religion are important, as they supplement and
amplify the religion described in the Old Avesta.
Young Avestan Cosmogony

Ahura Mazdā, the “establisher” (dātar, dadwāh), assisted by “the pre-existing
souls (frawashis) of the sustainers of Order,” fashioned and set everything
in place (dā-). Predating the creation were the “lights without beginning
(an-agra)” and the matching “darknesses without beginning” (Hādōkht
nask 2.33), “the temporal existence (sti) of the sustainer of order,” and the
“firmament” (thvāsha). “Time” (zurwan) before and after the creation was
“unlimited” (a-karana), while the duration of the world, which Ahura
Mazdā “cut out,” was “time long set in place by itself (dargō-khwa-dāta).
he duration is not specified in the Avesta, but an Avestan fragment in
the Pahlavi, or Middle Persian, commentary on Videvdad 2.20 asks “for
how long was the temporal existence (sti) in the world of thought estab-
lished?” which shows that the duration probably was set. In the Pahlavi
texts we have four periods of three thousand years: the period of the world
of thought, the period from the conception of the world of the living (in
the world of thought) to its birth when the Evil One attacks, the period of
the world of the living down to the time of Zarathustra and his encounters
with Ahura Mazdā, and the three millennia of Zarathustra’s three eschato-
logical sons (see below).
5
See Skjærvø, “Marriage: Next-of-Kin Marriage in Zoroastrianism,” in Encyclopædia Iranica (at
http://www.iranica.com).
he elements of the world, in which we live and in which good and

evil vie for supremacy (later called the Mixture), were set in place by the
Life-giving and Evil Spirits (Yt. 13.76). In the Videvdad, the Evil Spirit’s
counter-creations to Ahura Mazdā’s good creations are described.
he Young Avestan Pantheon

In addition to the divine beings described above, Ahura Mazdā is sur-
rounded by male and female beings, the generic term for whom is yazata
“deserving of sacrifices” (only masculine). Several of their names are also
found in Vedic religion, but functional similarities are limited, probably
because of the long period of independent developments on either side
since the two groups parted. hus, neither pantheon can be considered
more original than the other, and both contain archaisms and innova-
tions. Some of the divine beings are explicitly identified with stars (e.g.,
Tishtriya, the Dog Star).
In the hymns (yasht s) to these deities, sacrifices are promised to
give them the strength to fulfill their cosmic functions and, in return,
make them share their wealth with the Aryan (=Iranian) communities.
Ahura Mazdā established precedents for Zarathustra and his successors
in the world of the living by sacrificing to various deities, including
such important ones as the Heavenly River to make Zarathustra support
his daēnā , to Tishtriya and Mithra to invigorate them and make them
benevolent toward men, and to Vāyu to gain the ability to overcome
the Evil Spirit and his creations. Ahura Mazdā also sacrificed livestock
to the Life-giving Poetic hought (manthra spenta) and to Airyaman
in order to allow these to heal him and the world sickened by the Evil
Spirit (Videvdad 22).
he Heavenly River (Yt. 5) is referred to in the Avesta as Ardwī Sūrā
Anāhitā, “the unattached lofty (water), full of life-giving strength.”6 She
came down from the stars at Ahura Mazdā’s request and is described as a
richly dressed woman. She purifies the semen of males and the wombs of
females for conception, and nubile young women pray to her for good hus-
bands. Her sacrifice, from which persons with bodily defects are excluded,
should be performed “from sun-rise till sunset,” but the libations poured
for her at night are rejected and go to the evil gods (daēwas).
6
Her name may refer to the fact that objects in the heavens do not need support to stay aloft. Other
translations include “the moist, unblemished one.”
Zoroastrianism 113
Mithra (Yt. 10; Indic Mitra), established by Ahura Mazdā to be as

worthy of worship as himself, is the personified contract and the guardian
of agreements concluded in homes and families, tribes and countries. He
is the friend of the truthful and the enemy of the untruthful who break
the contract, even when concluded with someone possessed by the Lie (Yt.
10.2). He punishes infringements, and even the daēwas and the Evil Spirit
fear him. He precedes the sun at dawn, removing all obstacles from its
path. When the sun rises, Mithra drives forth over Mount Harā, survey-
ing the Aryan lands and the seven “continents” in a chariot drawn by four
white horses and accompanied by other deities.
he god Vāyu (Yt. 15; = Indic), originally the wind that blows through
the intermediate space between heaven and earth, is described as the space
surrounding the spherical earth inside the spherical sky and has an upper,
good side and a lower, bad side. he souls of the dead must pass through
Vāyu on their way to Heaven or Hell, and he is therefore associated with
inflexible destiny.
Communication between humans and gods was crucial for the suc-
cess of the ritual, and a special deity provided a means of communication
between them (Y. 28.5). his was Sraosha (Y. 56–57), whose name probably
meant literally “readiness to listen,” that is, the worshipper to the god and
the god to the worshipper. As such, this deity was the first to sacrifice to
Ahura Mazdā and the Life-giving Immortals by spreading the ritual grass
(barsman) in correct fashion and causing the Gāthā s to be heard. Sleepless,
he fights daēwas and other evil beings, especially at night. Wrath, who, at
sunset, smites Ahura Mazdā’s creation with his “bloody club” and bathes
it in blood, is himself struck down and bled at sunrise by Sraosha with his
“fearless club.” he rooster is his bird, who crows at dawn telling people to
“get up, praise Order, and scorn the evil gods” (V. 18.16).
Haoma (Indic Soma) was the divine haoma plant, which was crushed
and its juice made into a drink consumed in the yasna ritual (as was the
soma in the Indic rituals). Haoma bestowed longevity, bodily strength, and
victory, effects also produced by the soma. he hymn to Haoma (Y. 9–11)
opens with a description of Zarathustra preparing a sacrifice, building a
fire, and reciting the Gāthā s. Haoma approaches Zarathustra and exhorts
him to press him, drink him, and praise him to make him (Haoma) stron-
ger, so as to provide a precedent for future successful sacrificers (saosh-
yant s). Zarathustra asks him about past precedents and what they gained
from the pressing, and Haoma names four, whose rewards were famous
sons, the last of them Zarathustra’s father. Haoma is also called a sacrificer,
installed by Ahura Mazdā (Yt. 10.88–89) and so, as his son (Y. 11.4), is him-
self sacrificed to his father.
Airyaman (Indic Aryaman) is a healer and the protector of harmonious
relationships, including marriage. He is invoked at the end of the Gāthā s
and the Videvdad, presumably as the healer of the ailing world and as the
protector of the marriage of Heaven and Earth.
Other deities of note included in the Young Avesta are Ashi (Yt. 17), god-
dess of the rewards (?) and protector of marriage; Tishtriya (Yt. 8), the Dog
Star, who periodically battles Apaosha, the demon of drought; the war-
rior-god Verthraghna, the “obstruction-smashing force”; Nairyasangha,
the divine messenger; and Apām Napāt (= Indic), “Scion of the Waters,”
perhaps a manifestation of the heavenly fire born from the heavenly
waters, who also fashioned and set men in their places (Yt. 19.52). hese
deities coexisted alongside the six “Life-giving Immortals.” Headed by
their father Ahura Mazdā, these became the Seven Life-giving Immortals
(Yt. 13.83 = 19.16).
he Young Avestan Evil Beings

he agents of the dark existence are still the Evil Spirit, the Lie, Wrath, and
the old, evil, gods (daēwas). Among the daēwas are Indara, Saurwa, and
Nānghaithya, originally identical with Old Indic Indra, Sharva (Rudra),
and the Nāsatyā twins. Nothing further is said about these three in the
Avesta, but in the Pahlavi texts they are the opponents of Best Order,
Well-deserved Command, and Life-giving Humility. he demon Nasu,
“carrion,” is the main cause of pollution, and countless other evil beings
cause all kinds of illnesses and natural calamities. Numerous harmful beings
(khrafstras) belong to the evil existence, among them insects, snakes, and
wolves.
he Young Avestan Notion of Man

he Young Avesta contains no explicit statement about the origin of man-
kind, but it is clear that the prototypes of living beings were Gaya Martān
and the Cow (later Bull) “established alone” (gau aēwō-dātā). In the later
tradition, when killed by the Evil Spirit, these two released their semen
into the earth, from which men and animals were born. he exact mean-
ing of Gaya Martān is not known, but gaya is “life” and martān apparently
“that which contains something dead.” hus, Gaya Martān may originally
be a concept based on the natural birth of the living child and the dead
Zoroastrianism 115
after-birth, and the two may have been thought of as a pair of twins (as
these two are called, e.g., in Persian), perhaps the human counterpart to
the Gathic twins.
Man is made up of the “(breath-)soul” (urwan), the “vision-soul” (daēnā),
which sees and is seen in the beyond, the “pre-soul” (frawashi), bones (ast),
which give the body solidity, and the life-breath (ushtāna), which gives it
life. At death, man’s consciousness (baodah) is wrenched from his bones
by the “Bone-untier” (Astō-widātu), and the soul (urwan) leaves the body
and wanders into the beyond. Here it is met by its daēnā, which guides it
to the Ford of the Accountant and whose appearance matches the balance
of the person’s thoughts, words, and deeds. he soul of the sustainer of
Order, whose balance is positive, passes the ford (bridge) and continues on
to Ahura Mazdā’s dwelling, his House of Songs (garō.nmāna), where it is
treated as a welcome guest and dwells happily (shyāta). he soul of the one
possessed by the Lie, whose balance is negative, falls into Hell.
he frawashis in the Young Avesta

All good things born have a frawashi, “pre(-existing)-soul,” which was fash-
ioned by Ahura Mazdā and used by him in their formation, but returns
to him at death. he first was that of Ahura Mazdā, who therefore appears
to have generated himself. he multitude of frawashis preexistent in the
world of thought assisted (upastām bara-) Ahura Mazdā when the world
of the living was made by helping him “stretch and hold out” (wi-dāraya-)
both the macrocosmic components of the creation – the sky, the Heavenly
River, and the earth – and the microcosmic ones, the sons in the wombs,
gathering their body parts in the “coverings” (vyā) (Yt. 13.2–11). he verb “I
weave” (ufya-), applied exclusively to the frawashis (Y. 17.18, Yt. 13.21), sug-
gests their function was to help weave the cosmic “tissues,”7 and the action
expressed by wi-dāraya- may have been that of stretching out and attach-
ing these tissues. hey then conducted the heavenly (amniotic) waters
through them for the rebirth of the ordered cosmos.
Together with Good hought and the Fire, the frawashis thwarted the
schemes of the Evil Spirit (Yt. 13.2–13), allowing waters to flow, plants to
grow, and winds to blow, sons to be born, and all things to move along
their proper paths (Yt. 13.14–16). hey were thus also closely connected with
7
As the Rigvedic dawn and night weave the day and night skies (RV. 2.3.6), the basic concept is
Indo-Iranian.
the rain and irrigation, channeling the water to their respective families
(Yt. 13.68).
Mythical History and the Zarathustra Myth in the Young Avesta

Several of the hymns to individual gods (yasht s) contain lists of heroes who
sacrificed to obtain specific rewards, most of them granted. In the later tra-
dition, these mytho-epic characters, whose stories are merely alluded to in
the hymns, became dynasties of early rulers of Iran, who, still later, made it
into Islamic and European world histories. here are three distinct groups:
he first contains the narratives of Yima and the dragon-slayers; the second
the story of the kawis; and the third characters and events connected with
Zarathustra. In the later Sasanian and Persian tradition, the three groups
are identified with three historical periods, of which the third leads into
the Achaemenids and provides the setting for “the historical Zarathustra.”
Yima (Indic Yama) was the ruler of the golden age, when living beings
were immortal. his resulted in overpopulation, and Yima three times
expanded the earth to double its size. Ahura Mazdā then warned Yima
that the earth would be decimated by floods caused by harsh winters and
told him to build a bunker (vara) in which he should admit physically
perfect specimen couples of all living beings (including fires) to perpetuate
the race (V. 2). In the sequel to this story, alluded to in the Old Avesta (Y.
32.8), Yima was caused to roam the earth for having uttered a falsehood
(probably out of hubris, Yt. 19.33–34).
here are two dragon-slayers in the Young Avesta. he older, hraētaona,
smote the Giant Dragon (Azhi Dahāka), fashioned forth inexpertly by
the Evil Spirit to depopulate the earth, and released Yima’s two sisters,
whom the dragon had abducted (Yt. 5.30–34). he younger is the young
and curly-haired Kersāspa, slayer of the three-headed dragon, who cooked
his noon meal on its back, mistaking it for a hill (Y. 9.11). In the later tra-
dition, Azhi Dahāka is not killed, but chained to a mountain, from which
it escapes at the end of time and is killed by Kersāspa.
he second period is that of the kawis, probably “poet-sacrificers”
(Old Indic kavi “poet, seer”), and their war against Frangrasyan and the
Turanians, archenemies of the Aryans. his war, in some respects, corre-
sponds to the great war in the Indic Mahābhārata. At the end of the war,
Haoma seizes Frangrasyan and leads him bound to Kawi Haosrawah, ruler
of the Iranians, to be slain by him (Yt. 9.18). In the later tradition, the sto-
ries of the kawis are quite elaborate, but the Avestan allusions are too brief
to decide how much of the later epic material goes back to Avestan times.
Zoroastrianism 117
he third period is that of a second war, fought over the daēnā by Kawi
Wishtāspa and other Aryan heroes against Arjad-aspa and his Khiyonians.
he narrative features Zarathustra, who asks the deities if he may persuade
Kawi Wishtāspa to accompany and support his vision soul (daēnā). In the
later tradition, this became a story of a historical battle over “religion,” but
its origin is no doubt the ritual chariot race, as also suggested by the hymn
to the Heavenly River, in which the sacrificer asks the goddess that his
horses may win the race like those of Kawi Wishtāspa (Yt. 5.132). Several of
the names in this story are also found in the Gāthā s, but without details.
For instance, Wishtāspa and Frasha-ushtra are said to follow the straight
paths of the gift along which the daēnā of the successful sacrificer proceeds
(Y. 53.2).
he Zarathustra myth must be pieced together with the help of later
texts. In the Pahlavi texts, Zarathustra’s preexisting soul (frawashi) enters
a haoma plant, which is gathered by Zarathustra’s father, mixed with
milk and drunk by him and his wife, after which she conceives and bears
Zarathustra. he connection between Zarathustra, his frawashi, and the
haoma is also found in the Young Avesta, which suggests that the later myth
is related to that of the first haoma pressers. Ahura Mazdā’s purpose for
Zarathustra was “to help His vision soul (daēnā) along in thoughts, words,
and actions” (Yt. 5.18). Zarathustra is said to have been the first to “think
good thoughts,” etc. (Yt. 13.88). He was also the prototype of three social
classes: first sacrificer, first charioteer, and first husbandman (Yt. 13.88–89).
In other texts and in Pahlavi, the artisans (hu-uti “weaver”) are added. To
what extent this division, which goes back to Indo-European times, cor-
responded to contemporary Iranian society is not known.
With the birth of Zarathustra, hope that evil will be overcome in the
world of the living is rekindled (Yt. 13.93–94). He is the first in the Aryan
Territory (airyana vaējah) to recite the Ahuna Vairiya, which made the evil
gods (daēwas) hide in the ground; before this time, these evil gods went
about in the shape of men, abducting women (Y. 9.14–15, Yt. 19.80–81). As
the “first guide of the lands,” Zarathustra then declared that sacrifices were
not to be made to the daēwas (Yt. 13.90).
Zarathustra’s encounters with the Evil Spirit are described in epic style.
In the hymn to Ashi, Zarathustra wields the Ahuna Vairiya like an enor-
mous stone with which to smash the Evil Spirit, and he uses the Ashem
Vohū as a hot iron with which to burn him, finally forcing him to flee
from the earth (Yt. 17.19–20). In Videvdad chapter 19, the Evil Spirit tries
to tempt him with great fortunes if only he will “back-praise” the daēnā
of those who sacrifice to Ahura Mazdā. Zarathustra refuses and performs a
purification ritual, by which the Evil Spirit and the daēwas are chased back
to hell and darkness.
Eschatology in the Young Avesta

he return to the origins begins when Zarathustra chases the daēwas and
the Evil Spirit from the world of the living. Later, three sons will be born
from his seed, preserved in the Kansaoya Sea (Yt. 13.62), each of whom will
bring the cycle of existences closer to the end. he last is the final saosh-
yant, Astwad-arta “he who shall make order have bones (permanently)”
(Yt. 13.142, Yt. 19.92). When he comes with his companions, the dead will
rise; he will see “with the eyes of the guiding thought (khratu)” and “with
the eyes of the milk-libation (īzhā)”; and he will make the world of the
living permanently full of the juices of life, bringing about frashō-kerti,
the “Renovation.” Good hought will overcome Evil hought, Wholeness
and Undyingness will overcome Hunger and hirst, and the Evil Spirit will
flee, forever deprived of power (Yt. 19.11–12, 89–96, V. 19.5).
In the later eschatological myth, Zarathustra’s son Isad-wāstar will call
an assembly, in which the good will be separated from the bad; the Fire
and Airyaman will melt the metal in the mountains into a river, through
which all must pass to be cleansed of their sins; and, finally, Ahura Mazdā
goes down into the world of the living and, together with Sraosha as his
assistant, performs the very last sacrifice, by which evil will be banned from
the creation forever.
he Rituals in the Young Avesta

he morning ritual, the yasna, originally began before sunrise to coin-
cide with the recital of Yasna 62, the hymn to the Fire. Patterned on the
myth of the primordial creation of the world, the yasna aims at placing
Ahura Mazdā back in command (Y. 8.5–6). It begins by reordering all
the elements in the worlds of thought and of living beings by announc-
ing and consecrating their models (ratu). Omitting and angering one of
them would spell failure, and the sacrificer repeatedly asks for forgiveness
for this eventuality (Y. 1.21–22). he story of Zarathustra’s birth from the
haoma ritual follows, and the yasna ritual culminates in the preparation
and offering of the haoma drink (Y. 27), at which point Zarathustra is pre-
sumably “reborn” in the persona of the sacrificer and proceeds to recite his
Gāthā s (Y. 28–53). he Yasna continues with the hymn to Sraosha, who
battles and overcomes the powers of darkness (Y. 56–57), hymns to the Fire
Zoroastrianism 119
(Y. 62.1–10) and the heavenly waters (Y. 65), and praise of the creations, to
produce the rebirth of the sun and the new day. he ritual was performed
in the presence of a fire and an area covered with sacrificial grass or twigs
(barsman, later barsom).
he videvdad sade, a purification ritual, begins at midnight. It is accom-
panied by a modified Yasna, in which the chapters of the Videvdad enfold
the Old Avesta. According to the Videvdad, its purpose is to heal Ahura
Mazdā and his creation from the 99,999 illnesses made by the Evil Spirit
(V. 22.2).
Rituals to individual deities described in the Avesta include that to
Mithra: Libations to him should be consumed after two days of wash-
ing the entire body and undergoing rigorous austerities including twenty
whiplashes daily (Yt. 10.121–122). Some of these deities were the object of
animal sacrifices, although these are mentioned only occasionally. Haoma
complains about the sacrificers who do not give him his allotted portion
of the victim, a cheek with the tongue and the left eye (Y. 11.4–6), and,
according to the yasht s, mythical sacrificers killed hundreds of stallions,
thousands of bulls, and ten thousand sheep to strengthen the deities.
Numerous rituals had to do with human life, among them the coming-
of-age ceremony, in which the fifteen-year-old for the first time tied on the
girdle (aiviyānghana; Yt. 8.14), woven in a particularly complex manner,
and donned a white shirt (vastra, “garment”) made out of one large piece
of woven fabric. Before this age, the person’s good and bad deeds would
accrue to the parent’s “account,” but from then on they are the young per-
son’s responsibility. he shirt symbolizes Good hought and its weaving the
“weaving” of the sunlit sky, which is the visible aspect of Good hought. It
covers the upper part of the body, which is governed by good impulses and
is separated by the girdle from the lower part, which is governed by evil
impulses. he girdle itself represents the Mazdayasnian daēnā.
Pollution and Purification in the Young Avesta

he Videvdad provides a glimpse into the concerns of the Young Avestan
society, listing in detail things that are counter to Ahura Mazdā’s crea-
tion, their degree of sinfulness, and how one can cleanse what is polluted
and atone for crimes. he most serious contaminants were “dead matter”
(nasu), dead bodies and what has been secreted from bodies and is no
longer alive, including blood, hair, and nails, all of which need to be dis-
posed of appropriately (V. 17). Exposure to blood from birth, spontaneous
abortion, and menstruation through external contact or intercourse posed
a particular risk to male believers, and menstruating women were seques-

tered until the bleeding stopped, after which they had to undergo severe
cleansing rituals, washing with animal urine and water. Human urine
was not used, except that of men and women in “next-of-kin marriages”
(xwaētuwadatha). Accidental pollution in nature (contact with unnotice-
able feces from evil animals, etc.) constituted no crime, because, if it did,
it would have made the whole world “guilty” (V. 5.3–4).
Crimes included harm to living beings (especially dogs and the otter)
and activities considered to strengthen the powers of evil, among them
prostitution, which creates the risk of mixing the semen of the good and
the evil (V. 18.62), and abortion (V. 15.12–14). Among inexpiable crimes
were interring dead bodies, a crime against the Earth (V. 3.38–39), and
intercourse between men, which is counter to the nature and purpose of
Ahura Mazdā’s creation and turns men into daēwas (V. 8.26–32).
he most common penalty was whipping, but some crimes were atoned
for by killing harmful animals and/or giving firewood to the fire (V. 14.1–6,
for killing an otter). Both of these were supremely good actions, which
contributed to the defeat of the forces of evil and the final victory of the
forces of goodness.
achaemenid religion
he royal inscriptions, the Elamite tablets (reigns of Darius and Xerxes,
ca.522–465 bce) recording goods expended for religious services, and the
theophoric proper names preserved in Babylonian, in the Aramaic letters
from Elephantine (mostly fifth century bce), and in Greek documents show
that the main elements of Achaemenid religion were those of the Avesta.
he Achaemenid kings sacrificed (yada- = Avestan yaza-) to Ahuramazdā
(as he is now called), fought against the Lie (drauga, masculine) and its
machinations, and repudiated the evil gods (daivas) and decreed that they
not receive sacrifices. hey followed the straight path, exercised impartial
justice, and believed the good would be “happy” (shyāta) in life and “one
with order” (artā-van) after death. he later kings, Artaxerxes II and his
son Artaxerxes III, also name Mithra and Anāhitā as their protectors.
he basic religious terminology is that of the Avesta: Ahuramazdā is
“the greatest of the gods” (cf. Yt. 17.16), although Old Persian has baga,
“god” (originally “the one who distributes things”), differing from Avestan
yazata. Ahuramazdā was the one who set in place (dā-) the earth and
heaven, who made “happiness” (shyāti) for men, made the king king, and
Zoroastrianism 121
supported (upastām bara-) him in all his undertakings. he king, chosen

by Ahuramazdā and his representative, maintained His order on earth, and
those ruled by him must conform to the king’s law (dāta).
Certain key terms were interpreted to reflect current realities: he dai-
vas were the gods of the non-Iranians, the Elamites and the Babylonians;
the Lie was the force that made men oppose the king and his law; and the
old Old Avestan term frasha, which denoted the state of the reborn cos-
mos, was used by the Achaemenid kings of their building activities, imply-
ing that the building of palaces reflected the rebuilding of the cosmos. he
royal gardens (Greek paradeison) represented paradise on earth.
he Elamite texts mention offerings made to Ahuramazdā, Ashi,
Nairyasangha, Spentā Ārmaiti, the “preexisting souls” (frawashis) of the
sustainers of Order, as well as to “all the gods.” In addition, there is men-
tion of a goddess “who grants rewards” (Mizhdushī); divinities of rivers,
mountains, places, and cities; the Elamite deity named Humban; “the Great
God”; the Babylonian weather god, Adad; and KI, the Earth. Numerous
personal names in the Elamite and Aramaic texts from Persepolis and
in the Aramaic letters contain names of Zoroastrian deities and other
Zoroastrian terms; these include Baga-pāna, “whose protection is from
the gods”; Baga-zushta, “favored by god/the gods”; Mithra-pāta, “pro-
tected by Mithra”; Mithra-dāta, “(child) given by Mithra”; Hauma-dāta,
“(child) given by Hauma”; Spanta-dāta and Ārmati-dāta, “(child) given
by Life-giving Ārmaiti”; Mazda-yazna, “who sacrifices to (Ahura) Mazdā”;
and Mithra-yazna, “who sacrifices to Mithra.”
he principal ritual was the (Elamite) lan, celebrated in honor of var-
ious deities, but, presumably, mainly Ahuramazdā, whose name is rarely
mentioned, however. Other rituals were the dauça, “libation service” (Av.
zaothra), or dauçiya, and baga-dauçiya, “libation ritual for the god(s).” he
main priest was the (Elamite) shaten, while the others, the magush, were
chiefly involved with the lan ritual. We also hear of the yashtā “sacrificer”
(Av. yashtā), and the ātru-wakhsha (Av. āter-wakhsh), the priest in charge
of the fire. Among offerings were grain (barley) for cakes (Av. draonah) and
wine for libations.
he Achaemenid kings had themselves buried in rock-cut tombs at
Naqsh-e Rostam, except for Cyrus the Great, who was buried in a stone
monument at Pasargadae. Presumably, this represents a compromise
with the practice of exposure: In the rock and stones the possibility of
contaminating the earth is minimized. he kings also left reliefs in the
rock and on buildings representing their roles as protectors against evil
and as worshippers of Ahuramazdā. In reliefs accompanying their tombs

at Naqsh-e Rostam, we see the king with the sacred bow in his hand
approaching a fire altar, above which there hovers a winged disk represent-
ing the sun and the cosmic order, and a deity, who is most likely to be
Ahuramazdā, the kings’ protector. his is matched by Xerxes’ statement
that he “sacrificed to Ahuramazdā, according to Order, in the height.” he
New Year’s ceremony is depicted along the great staircase at Persepolis,
where representatives from all the provinces of the empire are shown bear-
ing gifts to the king.
Archaeological remains provide some additional information about the
rituals practiced by the Achaemenids. At Persepolis, for example, mor-
tars and pestles were found that were used in the ritual for pounding the
haoma, and, at Naqsh-e Rostam, two structures thought to be outdoor fire
altars remain.
he Greek writers provide additional information. Herodotus (Histories,
ca.425 bce) mentions that sacrifices were made on high mountains to
heaven, which they called Zeus (1.131), bodies of dead males were buried
after being torn by dogs or birds of prey, and priests would kill animals,
especially ants, snakes, and other flying or creeping things (1.140). Ctesias
of Cnidus, a hostage and physician at the court of Artaxerxes II (404–359
bce), in his History of the Persians, mentions the story of Queen Semiramis
of Babylon and Bactria, which, from around 100 ce on, also involved
Zarathustra as a Bactrian king. Xenophon (ca.430–354 bce), who wrote
about the upbringing of Cyrus, mentions animal sacrifices to Zeus, the sun
god, and the Earth (8.3.24).
hese three do not mention Zarathustra, but Xanthus of Lydia, who
lived slightly before Herodotus, allegedly reported that the Persians claimed
it was Zoroaster who had made the rule against burning dead bodies or
otherwise defiling the fire, that the magoi cohabited with their close female
relatives, that Zoroaster lived six thousand years before Xerxes’ Greek expe-
dition, and that “Zoroaster the Persian” ruled five thousand years before
the capture of Troy. In the chronology of the Sasanian sources, Alexander
arrived 258 years after Zarathustra’s revelation.
Still missing in the archaeological and literary records, which focus on
royalty and aristocracy, is information about popular religion. If the reli-
gion of Persia was that of the Avesta, it is likely that they observed the same
kind of private rituals as modern Zoroastrians. Hopefully new excavations,
especially in the workers’ quarters around the major sites, may provide this
information in the future.
Zoroastrianism 123
the study of zarathustra and zoroastrianism

in the west
By the first century bce, Zoroaster was associated with the “Chaldean”
astrologers, to which we may owe the deformation of his name (Greek astēr,
“star”). On the basis of the Classical sources, throughout the Middle Ages,
Zoroaster was viewed as the prince of the magi; and, by the seventeenth
century, he was commonly presented as a philosopher and law-giver, as
well as a religious reformer and the founder of the Persian religion. All the
available information was incorporated by homas Hyde in his book (in
Latin) on the religion of the Persians and Medes (Oxford, 1700), in which
Hyde subscribed to the view that Zarathustra was a prophet, reformer,
theologian, and philosopher.
In 1755–58, a young Orientalist, Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-
Duperron, traveled to Surat, India, where he studied the religion and
(imperfectly) the languages of the local Zoroastrians (Parsis). His
translations, published in 1771, disappointed those who expected the
sublime revelations of the great law-giver of the Orient, and they con-
cluded that either the texts were not by Zarathustra or Zarathustra was
not who he was thought to be. Anquetil’s translations were inexact by
modern standards, but the judgment of his contemporaries was based
mainly on the litanies of the Yasna and repetitive purification rules of
the Videvdad. In 1843 the Reverend John Wilson published a lengthy
study of Zoroastrianism in which he demonstrated the inferiority of
Zoroastrianism to Christianity.
In the nineteenth century, it was proved that Avestan was related to Old
Indic and that the Avesta was a genuine text. he first complete editions
of the Avesta and its Pahlavi translation and the first grammars appeared
between 1852 (N. L. Westergaard, F. Spiegel) and 1867 (F. Justi, Spiegel). he
German scholar Martin Haug was the first to suggest that only the Gāthā s
were by Zarathustra, which led him to distinguish between a monotheistic
speculative philosophy of the prophet and a later dualist teaching reflected
in other texts, which relieved the prophet of ritualistic narrow-mindedness
(1862). Spiegel, however, doubted the historicity of Zarathustra, arguing
that it was impossible to determine whether the Gāthā s were by one or
more authors and that the mythical Zarathustra figure in the Gāthā s was
the same as in the Young Avesta.8
8
F. Spiegel, 1867, 340–1.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, scholars argued for the his-
toricity of Zarathustra by what they perceived as the realistic Zarathustra
image seen in the Gāthā s, which, to them, proved he was a real person. he
obviously mythical Zarathustra figure and polytheism in the Young Avesta,
it was assumed, reflected post-Zarathustrian developments or a return to
pre-Zarathustrian beliefs kept intact outside of the church of the prophet.
his argument became standard in descriptions of Zoroastrianism through-
out the twentieth century and was adduced by A. V. W. Jackson, who, in
his Zoroaster the Prophet of Ancient Iran (1899), based his reconstruction
of the life of Zarathustra and his interpretation of the Gāthā s on the tra-
ditional sources.9
About the end of the nineteenth century, western scholars began using
the term gāthā for each of the sections (hāitis, altogether seventeen) into
which the Gāthā s are subdivided, a practice that provided the basis for
attempts to arrange the “Gāthā s” in chronological order and to correlate
them with events in what was thought to be the prophet’s real life, but was
reconstructed from the later hagiography.
he focus at the end of the nineteenth century on Zarathustra’s original
teachings and the construction of an “orthodox” Zoroastrianism led to the
labeling of elements that were not felt to be worthy of Zarathustra as “pagan”
and “pre-Zoroastrian” or as “unorthodox” or “heretical.” Among the most
studied of such heresies is “Zurvanism,” according to which Ahura Mazdā
and the Evil Spirit were twin brothers engendered by Zurwān, (male) god
of time. he labeling of this belief as part of a heretical movement is found
in the Christian and Muslim writers on heresies, but scholars cannot verify
whether this was an organized religion or not or if it existed as such before
the end of the Achaemenids.
C. Bartholomae’s Avestan dictionary (1904) and translation of the
Gāthā s (1905) became the basis for work on Zoroastrianism for most of
the twentieth century. His ideas about Zarathustra, based on his “realistic
image,” cemented the image of the historical prophet Zarathustra and his
“sermons,” the Gāthā s. Bartholomae’s grammatical and lexical analysis,
however, was still based on an imperfect understanding of the language
and was subordinated to his views of Zarathustra and his teachings.
As similarities between the Avesta and the Old Indic texts were increas-
ingly studied, it became clear that they shared many religious terms and
9
He was criticized for not distinguishing clearly between what can be historical and what must be
historical. It has been pointed out that his book appeared at the acme of the Leben-Jesu-Forschung,
and his reconstruction was based on Jewish, Christian, and Islamic models (Stausberg, Die Religion
Zarathustras, vol. 1, 47).
Zoroastrianism 125
literary formulas. To reconcile this with the notion of Zarathustra, the

reformer who rejected the pagan religion, it was suggested that he used
ancient formulas, but imbued them with higher, ethical, meaning, a notion
developed especially by H. Lommel. he apparent Christian-type ethics
of the Gāthā s, however, as well as their historical interpretation, resulted
from the translations of key terms: asha, “righteousness”; asha-wan,
“righteous”; spenta, “holy”; spenta manyu, “holy spirit”; yazata, “angel”;
amesha spenta, “archangel”; saoshyant, “savior”; frawashi, “guardian spirit”
or “guardian angel”; manah, “intent” (for “thought”); sraosha, “obedi-
ence”; the two rānas, “religious factions” (for “thighs, legs,” part of the
chariot race imagery); ahu, “lord”; ratu, “master”; etc. he translations of
kawi as “prince, ruler” and daēnā as “religion” supported the interpretation
of Kawi Wishtāspa as the enlightened ruler who fought for Zarathustra’s
new religion and the other kawis as kings of eastern Iran, for whom there
is no other evidence, however. he common translation of the verb yaza-
as “worship” made everything in the world the object of “worship” and
exposed the Zoroastrians to the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century criti-
cism of being the ultimate polytheists.
Beginning in the 1950s, the focus returned to the texts and their lan-
guage. H. Humbach explored the ritual terminology of the Gāthā s and the
role of the guest-friendship and gift-exchange. He emphasized the need
to take grammatical forms at face value and to adhere to the meanings
won from philological analysis, rather than from the presumed contents.
For instance, K. Hoffmann had shown that the verbal form “injunctive”
expresses timelessness rather than future, which eliminated numerous
apparent references to eschatology. To Humbach, the Gāthā s were not ser-
mons, but hymns in praise of God and his work, and their literary heri-
tage was Indo-Iranian. At the same time, M. Molé maintained the Gāthā s
were ritual texts with a religious function that needed to be analyzed. He
suggested that, already in the Gāthā s, the historical Zarathustra had been
transformed into a mythical-ritual prototype, whose sacrifice was aimed
at the renovation of the cosmos and with whom every sacrificer identified
himself. Molé emphasized the improbability of the traditional construct
of Zarathustra philosopher and reformer preaching a largely mental wor-
ship in the first, let alone the second, millennium bce. After his premature
death, Molé’s opinions were widely disregarded and refuted by reference to
the traditional arguments and the common opinion.10
10
E.g., Boyce, Zoroastrianism, 1:182 n. 4.
he first modern English translation of the Gāthā s was that of Stanley

Insler and therefore gained wide distribution. Insler, too, took for granted
the existence of Zarathustra, author of the Gāthā s, and his higher, ethical
teachings, as well as the traditions about his princely patron Wishtāspa.
Quite differently, Jean Kellens and Eric Pirart based their interpretation of
the poems on the assumption that most of the text referred to the rituals.
Mary Boyce was the most prolific writer on Zoroastrianism from
the 1970s to her death in 2006. She was the first in recent times to date
Zarathustra to the second millennium bce, and she was the only western
Zoroastrian scholar to have studied Iranian Zoroastrians up close for any
length of time. Her descriptions were flawed, however, by her failure to dis-
tinguish clearly between what she learned from modern Zoroastrians and
her own ideas about ancient Zoroastrianism. Criticism has been leveled
at her tendency to assign to Zarathustra and his religious reform elements
from the later tradition, thereby creating the continuity and conservatism
she claimed were the religion’s characteristic features. She used existing
translations of the Gāthā s eclectically, favoring those of Bartholomae and
Lommel, and basically accepted the traditional Zarathustra vita.
zarathustra’s teaching and reform

Twentieth-century scholars agreed that the Gāthā s are extremely obscure,
yet argued that they are didactic texts, whose message can be well under-
stood. We know nothing about earlier Iranian religion, yet the Gāthā s
were assumed to express a religious reform, the nature of which was
disputed. To Bartholomae it had been monotheism; to W. B. Henning
(Boyce’s teacher), dualism; to Humbach, Zarathustra’s vision of the immi-
nent beginning of the end of the world; to Boyce, reinterpreting beliefs at a
nobler and subtler level and the system of the seven Life-giving Immortals
as divine aspects of Ahura Mazdā, representing exalted ethical concepts;
and to J. Kellens and E. Pirart, a modified ritual.
On the implicit assumption that the Gāthā s contain all of Zarathustra’s
teaching, it was argued that the absence from the Old Avesta of Mithra
and haoma and apparent disparaging references to the haoma and the
bloody sacrifice expressed the prophet’s disapproval. he condemnation of
the haoma sacrifice was deduced from Yasna 32.14 and 48.10, which both
contain serious grammatical and lexical problems, but clearly refer to the
misuse of the haoma. he abolition of the bloody sacrifice was deduced
from Yasna 29 (see above); from Yasna 32.14, which refers to the prac-
tices of evil people; and from Yasna 32.8, a passage featuring Yima that
Zoroastrianism 127
Bartholomae, following the Pahlavi tradition, thought referred to Yima’s

sinful behavior in teaching people to eat meat, but this text is now con-
sidered incomprehensible. he demotion of the Indo-Iranian daiwas,
which is particularly hard to explain historically, was simply ascribed to
Zarathustra’s reform.11
Faced with such fundamental disagreements, historians of religions have
tended to shy away from Zoroastrianism or simply refer to one or another
existing description. What is needed at this juncture is the application to
this religion of the same methodologies as are applied to other ancient
religions. On the one hand, it needs to be studied as an archaic religion
descended from Indo-Iranian and Indo-European traditions. On the other
hand, it needs to be defined what the beliefs were at various times. For
instance, the Gāthā s obviously did not “mean” the same in Achaemenid
times as they did when they were composed.
bibliography
Boyce, M. Zoroastrianism I–II, in Handbuch der Orientalistik, I, viii: Religion 1, 2, 2A
(Leiden, 1975–82).
Forrest, S. K. M. Witches, Whores, and Sorcerers: he Concept of Evil in Early Iran (Austin,
2011).
Humbach, H. Die Gathas des Zarathustra, 2 vols. (Heidelberg, 1959).
Insler, S. he Gāthās of Zarathustra (Tehran, 1975).
Kellens, J. Essays on Zarathustra and Zoroastrianism, trans. and ed. P. O. Skjærvø (Costa
Mesa, Calif., 2000).
Kellens, J., and E. Pirart. Les textes vieil-avestiques, 3 vols. (Wiesbaden, 1988, 1990, 1991).
Lamberg-Karlovsky, C. C. “Archaeology and Language. he Case of the Bronze-Age
Indo-Iranians.” In he Indo-Aryan Controversy. Evidence and Inference in Indian
History, ed. E. F. Bryant and L. L. Patton (London, 2005): 142–77.
Malandra, W. W. An Introduction to Ancient Iranian Religion. Readings from the Avesta and
the Achaemenid Inscriptions (Minneapolis, 1983).
Molé, M. Culte, mythe et cosmologie dans l’Iran ancien. Le problème zoroastrien et la tradi-
tion mazdéenne (Paris, 1963; posthumously).
Rose, J. Zoroastrianism: An Introduction (London, 2011).
Skjærvø, P. O. “Smashing Urine: on Yasna 48.10.” In Zoroastrian Rituals in Context, ed. M.
Stausberg (Leiden, 2004): 253–81.
“he Achaemenids and the Avesta.” In Birth of the Persian Empire, ed. V. S. Curtis and
S. Stewart (London, 2005): 52–84.
“Poetic and Cosmic Weaving in Ancient Iran. Reflections on Avestan vahma and Yasna
34.2.” In Haptačahaptāitiš. Festschrift for Fridrik hordarson, ed. D. Haug and E.
Welo (Oslo, 2005): 267–79.
11
E.g., ibid., 1:251. Old Indic deva (related to Latin deus) is a term applied to several benevolent
deities.
“Gifts and Counter-Gifts in the Ancient Zoroastrian Ritual.” In Classical Arabic

Humanities in heir Own Terms: Festschrift for Wolfhart Heinrichs on His 65th
Birthday from His Students and Colleagues, ed. M. Cooperson and B. Gruendler
(Leiden, 2007): 87–114.
“Zarathustra: A Revolutionary Monotheist?” In Reconsidering the Concept of Revolu-
tionary Monotheism, ed. B. Pongratz-Leisten (Winona Lake, Ind., 2011): 325–58.
“Zoroastrian Dualism.” In Light against Darkness: Dualism in Ancient Mediterranean
Religion and the Contemporary World, ed. E. M. Meyers et al. (Göttingen, 2011):
55–91.
he Spirit of Zoroastrianism (New Haven, 2011).
Spiegel, F. Grammatik der altbaktrischen Sprache, nebst einem Anhange über den
Gâthâdialekt (Leipzig, 1867).
Stausberg, M. Faszination Zarathushtra. Zoroaster und die Europäische Religionsgeschichte
der Frühen Neuzeit (Berlin, 1998).
Die Religion Zarathustras. Geschichte – Gegenwart – Rituale, 3 vols. (Stuttgart,
2002–4).
Zarathustra and Zoroastrianism: A Short Introduction, trans. M. Preisler-Weller with a
postscript by A. Hultgård (London, 2008).
5
SYRO CANAANITE RELIGIONS
david p. wright
Religion is a constructed reality.1 As C. Geertz has observed, it is “a system

of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting
moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general
order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of
factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.”2 One
of the ways that religion’s symbolic system is constituted is through the
operation of conceptual analogy or metaphor (for our purposes the terms
are interchangeable).3 his is where what is unknown, mysterious, hoped
for, or threatening is described in terms of the known. he use of anal-
ogy for the production of knowledge is basic to human conceptualization
generally and part of the language instinct. Even modern science employs
analogy to explain new discoveries on the basis of the known. In religion,
where conceptual creativity is presumably more prevalent, metaphorical
conceptualization is fundamental. It not only concretizes elements of reli-
gious belief and practice, but also provides the psychological motivation,
energy, and rationale for continued belief. herefore religious beliefs and
customs informed by analogy are not merely matters of tradition, but have
a life and logic for their current practitioners. It is through the theoretical
framework of the analogical construction of religious ideas that we will
here explore the history of the religious traditions of ancient Syria and
Canaan of approximately the first three millennia bce. his will help in the
observation of a creative continuity and development over time.
1
For the sites relevant to Syro-Canaanite religions, see Map 2 in Chapter 3 and Map 3 in this
chapter.
2
Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures, 90 (his enumeration is omitted). For a critique of Geertz’s dichot-
omy implied here, see Bell, Ritual heory, 25–9.
3
See Wright, “Analogy,” and Brettler, “Metaphorical Mapping,” for theoretical considerations.
129
130 David P. Wright
Map 3. Egypt and Canaan.
historical overview
Evidence does not allow the writing of a detailed and continuous history
of the religions of ancient Syria and Canaan across the first three millen-
nia bce. he textual record, the best evidence for reconstructing the his-
tory of religion, is extremely meager and spotty. Relevant material finds,
while evocative, are even less consistently evidenced and hard to interpret.
he uneven historical record leads most scholars to base their studies and
descriptions on the texts from Ugarit (see below), the most extensively
attested corpus. he body of this chapter will follow this custom and will
bring in textual and material perspectives from the other traditions when
applicable. An outline of the documentary evidence here will provide a
chronological backdrop for the discussion that follows.
he earliest relevant texts come from excavations conducted at Tell
Mardikh, Syria (ancient Ebla), between the westernmost corner of the
Euphrates and the Mediterranean. hese include nearly two thousand rather
complete tablets (plus many more fragments), dating to the twenty-fourth
century bce. he majority are administrative texts and do not record data
Syro-Canaanite Religions 131
pertaining to religion in a primary way. Lists of offerings, however, do pro-

vide some help in reconstructing the pantheon, which included primary
Syro-Canaanite gods, including Hadda (=Baal), El, and Dagan. Some
incantation texts have been found, but these are of Mesopotamian origin.
After the time of Ebla, from the end of the third millennium and
the beginning of the second millennium, Amorite personal names hint
at the basic inventory of Syro-Canaanite gods. he Amorite homeland
was located on the eastern borders of the Syro-Canaanite world along the
middle Euphrates and lower Khabur rivers and surrounding steppe areas.
Amorite names include gods such as Hadda, Dagan, and El.
Principal textual data begin around 1500 bce, including individual
texts, such as the inscription of Idrimi of Alalakh (on the north bend of
the Orontes River, from just after 1500), which contain incidental refer-
ence to religious customs. A more substantial body of texts comes from
Emar, located at the large bend of the Euphrates in Syria. hese date to
the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries and include numerous important
festival texts written in Akkadian but reflecting Syro-Canaanite customs
to some extent.
Most important and substantial are the tablets discovered at and near
Ras Shamra (ancient Ugarit) in Syria, just off the Mediterranean coast.
hese texts, dating to around 1275 bce, include documents written in var-
ious international languages, such as Akkadian, Hurrian, and Hittite. he
most significant for the reconstruction of Syrian-Canaanite religion are
those written in Ugaritic, the regional dialect. hese documents number
more than thirteen hundred, and the longer texts pertain to religious issues.
hey include myths, legends, incantations, prayers, hymns, votive texts,
god lists, festival catalogs, sacrificial lists, ritual prescriptions or descrip-
tions, liturgies, and omen texts.
Several distinct branches of Syro-Canaanite religion are documented
in the first millennium. One is the Israelite/Judean religious tradition as
attested primarily in the Hebrew Bible. Because this is the focus of another
chapter, it will be noted only incidentally and comparatively here. Two
other branches are the Aramean and Phoenician traditions. he former,
more amorphous and of broader geographical scope than the latter,
is attested in various Aramaic texts. hese are generally dedicatory and
building inscriptions, although some amulet texts exist. hey encode reli-
gious ideas in an incidental but sometimes notable manner. Some of the
Aramaic texts important in the review below include the Zakir Inscription
(KAI 202; ca.775 bce), the Sefire Inscriptions (KAI 222–224; before 740),
the Panammu I Inscription (KAI 214; mid-eighth century), and the
132 David P. Wright
Akkadian-Aramaic bilingual inscription on a statue from Tell Fekherye

(ninth century, on the upper west branch of the Khabur River). Phoenician
texts from the area of what is now Lebanon, along with later Punic texts
(i.e., texts in the Phoenician dialect of the western Mediterranean starting
in the fifth century bce), are rather plentiful but of limited use because of
genre. Many of these are dedicatory or building inscriptions. Some Punic
lists of offering materials (tariffs) exist, which cast light on the scope of
sacrificial practice. Some of the Phoenician and Punic texts of importance
in this chapter include the inscriptions of Yahimilk (KAI 4; middle of
tenth century bce), Azatiwada (KAI 26; ca.720), Yehawmilk (KAI 10; ca.
fifth–fourth centuries), and the Marseilles and Carthage Tariffs (KAI 69
and 74; ca.200 bce). Some late sources throw light on both Syrian and
Phoenician religion but must be critically used. hese include the History
of the Phoenicians by Philo of Byblos (ca.100 ce; preserved mainly by
Eusebius) and he Syrian Goddess purportedly by Lucian of Samosata (sec-
ond century ce). he Hebrew Bible also contains information on Aramean
and Phoenician religions.
Other texts attest first-millennium traditions in a limited way. he
Mesha Inscription (ca.850 bce) may be noted. his is the major source of
information about the religion of the Moabites, one of the Canaanite eth-
nic subgroups and neighbor of ancient Israel. his includes information
about the Moabite chief god Kemosh (attested much earlier as Kamish
at Ebla). Another key text is the fragmentary inscription dealing with the
prophet Balaam from Deir ‘Allah (ca.700 bce, on the east side of the mid-
dle course of the Jordan River), written in a unique Northwest Semitic
dialect with similarities to Aramaic.
natural phenomena
Analogy is visible in the association of deities with natural phenomena.
his involves the perception that just as notable effects in the observable
world are produced by sentient agencies – primarily by humans (such as
making tools, providing shelter, controlling fire, dominating animals) – so
inexplicable events and phenomena of nature (such as the regular rising
and setting of the sun, the cycle of the seasons, calamitous droughts or
floods, death and birth) must be produced by sentient agencies that are
not entirely different from humans, only more powerful. he analogical
association of deities with natural phenomena in Syro-Canaanite religion
lies in prehistory, inasmuch as such deities appear fully established already
at Ebla (for example, Hadda, the storm-god; Suinu, the moon-god; dUTU,
the sun-god; Kabkab, an astral deity) and are part of ancient Semitic reli-
gion more broadly.
he storm-god was primary in Syro-Canaanite religious tradition. His
name is Hadda/Hadad, “he hunderer,” and is often called simply Baal,
“Lord.” His preeminence had to do in part with the dependence of Syria
and Canaan on rain for fertility. he Baal Cycle from Ugarit tells of this
god’s rise to power over other gods. It includes an account of his death and
consequent restoration as an effectual power. A sign of his revitalization is
the appearance of rain and fecundity, such as described in the predictive
dream that the high god El had of Baal’s resuscitation. In this “the sky
rained oil and the wadis flowed with honey” (CAT 1.6 iii 14–21). he Aqhat
story tells about a famine caused after the murder of the boy Aqhat. His
father, Daniel, exclaims:
May the clouds bring precipitation on the summer-fruit, let dew distill on the
grapes! Baal could be missing for seven years, eight, the cloud-rider – without dew,
without rain, without the surge of the deep waters, without the sweetness of Baal’s
voice! (CAT 1.19 i 40–46)
he sea and death were associated with supernatural powers. he Baal

Cycle describes battles that Baal fought with each of these gods. El origi-
nally ordained the royal status of Yam (“Sea”). Baal protests this and even-
tually overcomes Yam to rule in his place (CAT 1.1–1.2). he battle with
the sea is known in the Hebrew Bible in poetic passages and in some pas-
sages reapplied to the crossing of the Red Sea (Exod 15:8–10; Isa 27:1; Hab
3:8; Ps 74:12–17, 77:16–20, 114:2–6). he battle with Mot (“Death”) in
the Ugaritic Baal Cycle provides a structural parallel with the Yam battle
(CAT 1.5–1.6). After a palace is built for Baal, Mot complains about not
being invited to the dedication feast. For reasons not entirely clear, Baal
submits to Mot’s power and enters into Mot’s gullet and the underworld.
After being rescued by Anat, Baal’s vicious ally, and by the sun-goddess
Shapsh, Baal wins a battle with Mot by decision from Shapash. An echo
of the battle with Mot is found in the Bible in the statement that Yahweh
“victoriously swallows Death” (Isa 25:8) – an inversion of what Mot did
to Baal. Some have argued that Baal’s rise to power in the Baal Cycle is
evidence of the late addition of the storm-god to the pantheon. his is
unlikely given that the storm-god is evidenced a millennium earlier at
Ebla. he Baal Cycle may seek to single Baal out for praise or celebrate
the building and dedication of his temple. Phenomenologically it seeks
to describe the empirical importance of fructifying rain over threatening
phenomena.
134 David P. Wright
Well-being was not exclusively Baal’s province. he high god El pro-

vided blessing in general. In the Ugaritic texts El is called the “creator of
creatures” (bny bnwt ; cf. CAT 1.4 ii 11, iii 32). El’s creative power, coupled
with his interest in providing healing, is found in the Kirta story, where he
creates the female healing being Shataqat to heal Kirta, who is deathly ill
(CAT 1.16 v 24–vi 9). Shataqat’s activity involves a small-scale battle with
Mot, a structural echo of the Baal Cycle in which female deities help rescue
an ailing male. El’s role as lord of creation is found in his title *qny ’rs “cre-
ator/possessor of the earth” (for example, KAI 26 A iii 18; cf. Gen 14:19).
his title is found permutated to Elkurnisa in a myth about the god pre-
served among the Hittite texts (COS 1.55) and that is contemporary with
the Ugaritic texts. In this text El seeks to punish Baal for consorting with
his wife Ashertu (=Ugaritic Athirat and biblical Asherah). he goddess
Anat-Astarte warns Baal, but he is injured and requires healing. he ten-
sion between El and Baal in this text is comparable to the tension between
the gods found in the Ugaritic Baal Cycle, although in the latter the ten-
sion never develops into outright theomachy, and El eventually supports
the advancement of Baal.
Although El, Baal, and other gods provide blessing (for example,
Phoenician Eshmun in KAI 66), various other deities were connected with
the suffering of evil. he god Resheph was a god of plague and illness.
Anat, a west Semitic goddess known from at least the beginning of the sec-
ond millennium through the first, was a goddess of violence. Some of the
high gods could show a demonic side. Athirat, for example, makes Kirta
ill, apparently for not bringing to her his promised vow offering (CAT 1.15
iii 25–30).
Astronomical phenomena, such as the sun, were associated with deities.
In Ugaritic literature the sun-god (Shapsh) is female, although elsewhere
it is generally male. At Ebla, the sun-god was prominent in having one of
the gates of the city named after him (dUTU). In the Ugaritic texts and
especially the Baal Myths the sun-goddess was a benevolent figure. She
also had some association with the underworld, through which she made
her nightly journey. he moon (Yarih at Ugarit) and stars or visible planets
(such as Kabkab at Ebla) were also considered deities. A Canaanite astral
myth was taken up in Isaiah 14 to figuratively describe the rise and fall
of the king of Babylon. He is compared to the “shining one, son of the
dawn,” who was brought down to the underworld after seeking supremacy
over the “stars of El.”
he association of deities with natural phenomena was not a simple
personification of those phenomena. Although in some cases, the gods are
described as if they were the phenomena, such as astronomical bodies, the

gods more often stand behind the phenomena, such as storms, the sea,
death, disease, and well-being. As we will see, when the gods are described
bodily it is often in human form. his is explainable in terms of the ana-
logical production of the conceptions: he natural phenomena are eff ects
that the gods direct. A final consideration should be observed. Although
the association of deities with natural phenomena is characteristic of the
pantheon, other factors created the religious traditions whose complexity
goes beyond being mere nature religions.
anthropomorphism
Syro-Canaanite gods were generally conceived of in the physical, emo-
tional, and social image of human beings. his becomes significant in the
larger context of analogical construction of the religious ideas and cus-
toms. Believing that natural phenomena result from the willful agency of
unseen beings is one aspect of the anthropopathic imagining of deity.
he human form of the deities is found in both visual representations
and textual descriptions. Perhaps the most famous representation is the
stela from Ugarit, dating to around 1500 bce, that portrays the storm-god
Baal as a man who stands with a weapon in his raised right hand and a
stylized shaft of lightning in his left.4 He has long hair and beard, and
wears a kilt, belt and dagger, and pointed or conical hat, with two horns
protruding to mark his divinity. Numerous other representations from the
second and first millennia portray deities with weapons or in a threatening
pose.5 Forms of female deities often emphasize sexual organs, perhaps to
indicate their ability to provide for reproductive success and fertility.6 A
fourteenth-century ivory carving from Minet el-Beida near Ugarit shows
a very attractively carved topless goddess, with necklace and flowing full
skirt. She holds stalks of grain and is surrounded by two goats standing on
their hind legs.7 he goddess identified as Qadesh-Astarte-Anat is found
in multiple representations from Egypt or in local art following Egyptian
models and in human shape.8
he human form of the gods allowed humans to interact with them
in artistic representations.9 For example, the Phoenician king Yehawmilk
4
ANEP 490; cf. 489. For representations of Baal, see Cornelius, Iconography.
5
Cornelius, Iconography (cf. ANEP 468, 476, 481, 486, 491, 494, 496, 499, 500, 501, 827).
6
Cornelius, Many Faces (cf. ANEP 465, 467, 469, 829).
7
Ibid., no. 2.7 (ANEP 464).
8
Cornelius, Many Faces (cf. ANEP 471, 472, 473, 474, 830).
9
E.g., ibid., 5.14, 5.15 (ANEP 472, 485, 487).
136 David P. Wright
stands before and makes an offering to the Lady of Byblos.10 In an engrav-

ing from Ras Shamra from the thirteenth century a person stands before
a figure, perhaps El, seated on a throne with footstool. He wears a conical
crown with horns protruding from both sides. One hand is raised in what
seems to be a welcoming salute while the other holds an object, perhaps
a cup.11 his motif may be coordinated with the description of blessing in
the Kirta and Aqhat texts (CAT 1.15 ii 16–20; 1.17 i 34–43).
Human emotions and behaviors along with human form are attributed
to the gods in the Ugaritic myths. Baal wields weapons in his hands as he
angrily and forcefully battles Yam (CAT 1.2 iv). he goddess Anat shows
rage when she threatens El in the Baal Cycle and in the Aqhat story (CAT
1.3 v 19–25; 1.18 i 6–14). In the former, when she makes a request of El
that he create a palace for Baal, she preempts his refusal by saying: “[In
the building of ] your mansion, O El, . . . do not rejoice. . . . [I] will smite
your head, I will make your white hair flow [with blood], your white
beard with gore” (CAT 1.3 v 19–25). El himself acts as a human when he
learns that Mot had vanquished Baal. He “descended from his throne, he
sat on the footstool. . . . He sat on the ground. He poured straw of mourn-
ing on his head. . . . He covered himself with a waistcloth. He scraped his
skin with a stone. . . . He cut his cheek and chin” (CAT 1.5 vi 12–19). El
shows another side of his human disposition when he celebrates a feast
and urges the other gods who were invited: “Eat, gods, and drink, drink
wine to the full, new wine to inebriation!” El himself goes home drunk, at
which point the text says that “he had fallen in his excrement and urine;
El was like a dead person; El was like those that descend to the under-
world” (CAT 1.114).
he human appetite for sex is also attributed to the gods. In one miscella-
neous mythic text, El has sex with two goddesses: “he ‘hand’ of El became
long like the sea, the ‘hand’ of El like the flood. He took the two hot ones
(the goddesses). . . . He took (them) and put (them) in his house. El lowered
his staff” (CAT 1.23: 34–37). In the Baal Cycle, El welcomes Athirat with
food and an offer of sex: “Does the ‘hand’ of king El excite you? Does the
love of the Bull (i.e., El) stimulate you?” (CAT 1.4 iv 38–39). When Baal
is told to descend to the netherworld, “he makes love to a heifer in the
steppe. . . . He lies with her seventy-seven times, mounts (her) eighty-eight
10
ANEP 477 (for the accompanying text, see KAI 10).
11
Caquot and Sznycer, Ugaritic Religion, plate 7 (ANEP 493); compare the figurine in a similar ges-
ture in plates 8 (ANEP 826), 22, and 23.
times” (CAT 1.5 vi 18–22). A similar story appears to be told in a separate

mythic text (CAT 1.10; here the cow is not to be identified as the goddess
Anat). Although figurines of female deities with exaggerated sexual organs
may indicate use as fertility symbols, the sexual activity of deities in narra-
tive is not necessarily a sign that they are specifically fertility gods.
As in iconography, so in story the human form of the gods allows
humans to interact with them. El can approach and bless Kirta and Daniel,
as noted above. In the Aqhat story, the goddess Anat attends a feast cele-
brating Aqhat’s maturity. She enters into dialogue with him and asks him
to give her the bow and arrows that he had been given on the occasion. She
offers him riches, which he refuses. He tells her to have Kothar-wa-Hasis,
the craftsman-god, make a weapon for her. She then offers Aqhat eternal
life, which he rejects because he realizes that death is inescapable. He then
adds that, as a woman, she does not need a weapon (CAT 1.17 vi). Angered,
Anat eventually kills Aqhat, although she transforms herself into a vulture
to furtively carry out the act (CAT 1.18 iv).
Because humans were believed to be higher than the animals (cf. Ps
8:4–9), the gods were constructed primarily as humans. But aspects of
the animal world could be brought in to aggrandize the description of a
god’s power or to populate the divine world, as seen in a few cases above.
A notable case is the description of Yam as “Litan, the elusive serpent . . .
the twisting serpent, the savage with seven heads” (CAT 1.5 i 1–3). he
multi-headed sea monster Litan appears as Yahweh’s enemy Leviathan in
the Bible (Isa 27:1; Ps 74:14; Job 41:1). In these descriptions, Sea is not a
normal sea creature, but has an exaggerated form. his accords with the
embellishment of the gods in other respects. For example, Mot is gigantic;
his opened mouth extends from the ground to the stars (CAT 1.5 ii 2–4).
Divine animals also exist as subordinate beings in the divine world, to be
used by the gods for work or transportation (or sex).12 A few engravings or
figurines portray deities riding animals (lions). he bulls or calves in the
Hebrew Bible that are considered as idolatrous are probably to be con-
nected associatively with Yahweh in a similar way (Exod 32; 1 Kings 12:25–
33). Gods could also be stylized as natural phenomena, such as the sun-disk
(with wings, hence partial animal form) that hovers over Yehawmilk even
as he reverences the human form Lady of Byblos. Such stylizations are
symbolic representations of the gods that could still be conceived of in
human form.
12
See Cornelius, Many Faces, 4.1–26 (ANEP 470–474, 479, 486; 500, 501, 835).
138 David P. Wright
social organization of the gods

he human social categories applied to the divine world included familial
relationships. he gods bore children. El was the father, of particular deities
(CAT 1.14 ii 24–25) and a father in general (CAT 1.1 iii 24; 1.2 1 10). Athirat
had children (CAT 1.6 i 40). Anat is described as the sister of Baal (CAT 1.6
ii 13). he genealogy of the gods was not fully or systematically worked out,
at least according to what the texts choose to tell us, although the History
of Philo of Byblos comes closest to providing a theogony. Family relations
are seen in the theology of the Phoenician cities; each had at the head of
the pantheon a male-female pair: at Byblos, Baal-Shamem (=earlier Baal/
Hadda) and Baalat (the “Lady” of Byblos, perhaps identifiable with Anat;
KAI 4, 5, 6, 7, 10); at Sidon, Eshmun and Astarte (biblical Ashtoreth; KAI
13, 14); and at Tyre, Melqart (the Tyrian form of Baal) and Astarte.13 Family
conceptualization allowed power relationships between various cities and
kingdoms to be articulated symbolically on the religious level. It also
allowed for systematic correlations to be established among religious cults
that mainly developed locally with their own particular characteristics.
he notion of the divine council, a basic theological motif within
Syro-Canaanite religion, also grew out of an analogy from human social
organization, particularly the dynamics of the royal court and to some
extent the judicial court. his developed out of an urban context and
imposed on a presumed pre-urban or non-urban religion primarily con-
nected with natural phenomena. he operation of the divine council is
found in the Kirta story. El assembles the gods to determine how to cure
Kirta. He asks, seven times, “Who among the gods can cast out sick-
ness, dispel disease?” No one responds, in contrast to the similar scenes of
Yahweh’s council in Isa 6:8–10 or 1 Kings 22:19–23. El himself, therefore,
has to take on the requested task. Phoenician tradition also continued the
notion of a divine council as “the assembly of the holy gods of Byblos”
(KAI 4:1–4; cf. 26 A iii 19).
In addition to the specific notion of a divine council, the larger hier-
archical and even bureaucratic relationship of the gods reflected human
administrative institutions.14 A concrete manifestation of this analogical
construction is the description of various high-level gods as kings. he
power of the analogical construction in religion is such that the analogical
may be perceived as primary with the original phenomenon or description
in the human world viewed as derivative from the divine model. Hence,
royal power, for example, is seen as coming from the gods. he Lady of
13
See Esarhaddon’s treaty with Tyre, ANET, 533–4.
14
Handy, Host.
Byblos made Yehawmilk king (KAI 10:2), and Baal-Shamayn appointed

Zakir of Hamath (KAI 202:3–4). he familial and royal models were com-
bined in the view that the king was a son of the gods, as found of Kirta or
biblical kings (CAT 1.16 i 20–23; 2 Sam 7:14).
the cult
he cult – the temple and ritual practices associated with it – was primarily
fashioned after the protocol followed in engaging a king or other leaders
in order to maintain their favor. his conceptualization is inextricably tied
to the anthropomorphic conceptualization of the deity as discussed above.
Sacrifice, the central activity of the cult, was conceived of as a meal given
to the deity. In the Aqhat story, the pious patriarch Daniel provides several
such meals for the gods. he text specifically says he feeds them and gives
them drink (1.17 i 2–15; ii 26–42; v 3–33). he gods thus feasted include Baal,
El, the Kotharat (birth-goddesses; cf. CAT 1.24), and Kothar-wa-Hasis. he
narrative context allows these sacrifices to be described clearly as meals,
similar to the hospitality meals of Genesis 18 or Judges 13, at which super-
natural beings are hosted. he Baal Cycle, in which the characters are solely
deities, features feasts that are similar in nature to the repasts that humans
might offer to the gods. Baal holds an elaborate feast when his palace is
completed. Numerous deities are present and enjoy slaughtered oxen and
flock animals and an abundance of wine (CAT 1.4 vi 40–59; cf. 1.3 i 2–17).
his is apparently what sacrifice looks like from the perspective of the gods
in their temples.
he analogy involved in sacrifice is made clear in a text from the Hittites,
neighbors and even overlords of Ugarit, who shared a similar view of sac-
rifice. heir “Instructions to Temple Officials” (KUB 13 i 21–26; cf. ANET
207b) asks, “Are the minds of man and the gods somehow different?” It
answers “No! . . . When a servant stands up before his master he is washed
and wears clean (clothing). He gives him (the master) (something) to eat
and to drink.” hus the master “is relieved in his mind.” his same per-
spective is found in the book of Malachi (1:8): “When you offer a blind
animal for sacrifice, is there nothing wrong? Present it to your governor –
will he accept you or show you favor?” In both of these texts, making an
offering to the gods is like presenting a feast to a human leader.
he Bible elsewhere reflects the notion that sacrifice is the deity’s food,
although it resists taking this idea literally (cf. Psalm 50).15 It is likely that
Israel’s neighbors would have also seen sacrifice as figurative, despite the
15
Wright, Ritual , 32–6.
140 David P. Wright
polemic in the apocryphal Bel and the Dragon (Greek Daniel Chapter
14). Analogical conceptualization allows but does not require literal under-
standing of the metaphors employed. he analogical notion of sacrifice
is attested more broadly in the Syro-Canaanite world. he Panammu I
Inscription (KAI 214) expresses the hope: “May [the gho]st of Panammu
[eat] with you (Hadad), and may the [gh]ost of Panammu dri[nk] with
you.” In the Ebla texts, animals as well as bread, beer, wine, and oil were
offered to the gods. A menu of this sort continues into the first millen-
nium. he Punic tariffs from Marseilles (KAI 69) and Carthage (KAI 74),
reflecting traditions of the Phoenician homeland, list animals and other
food items that are to be presented to the gods. he Syro-Canaanite menu
may be augmented with incense, which gratifies the gods’ sense of smell
(CAT 1.19 iv 24–25).
Different modalities lie behind sacrifices. hey may be brought in posi-
tive spirit to praise the gods, thank them, and seek future blessing. Daniel’s
sacrifices, mentioned above, have these goals. In other cases offerings may
be brought to appease an offended deity. A ritual text from Ugarit (CAT
1.40) describes the offering of a ram and donkey (or bull?) in the case of sin.
he animal is borne aloft to the gods by means of the sacrificial process.
his achieves a purpose described by the noun npy, sometimes translated
“atonement” or “well-being.” In cases of sacrifice for positive and negative
circumstances the same basic psychology applies: he stylized meals curry
the favor of the gods. his effect assumes that the gods have emotions and
rational powers similar to those possessed by humans.
Other gifts were given to the gods. he texts from Ebla list objects
of precious materials given as offerings. Phoenician and Aramaic texts
refer to statues of the giver (KAI 5, 6, 43; 201; Tell Fekherye Inscription),
ornaments (KAI 25), weapons (KAI 38), altars (KAI 43), thrones (KAI
17), and various building structures (KAI 7; KAI 17). Stone anchors, per-
haps votive offerings, were found at the Baal temple of Ugarit. he Kirta
story tells of that patriarch’s promise to give to Athirat gold and silver
several times the weight of his bride-to-be (CAT 1.14 iv 34–43). Although
all gifts to the gods operate in a similar symbolic fashion, food offerings
stand apart as distinct by reason of the operative metaphor. Food is a
daily requirement of humans; the other gifts are not. As such, the offer-
ing of food gifts developed a regularity and a context not associated with
non-food gifts.
A unique gift to the deity was the sacrifice of a child, found in Phoenician
religion, particularly in the Punic tradition at Carthage. Early documen-
tation for the practice is found in two stelae from Malta from the sixth
century (KAI 61 A, B). hese were erected to Baal-Hammon, who was

native to Phoenicia but who became the chief god at Carthage and the
god associated there with child sacrifice. Child sacrifice, as a deviant or
foreign practice, is also documented in the Hebrew Bible (cf. Lev 20:5; Isa
30:33; Jer 19:5). A chief example is the offering made by the Moabite king
(2 Kings 3:26–27). Child sacrifice should be considered an intensified form
of animal sacrifice and gift-giving to the gods rather than the original form
of sacrifice, which was later replaced by animal sacrifice.
Sacrifices as food gifts to the deities were primarily offered at temple
structures, considered the permanent or temporary dwelling places of the
deities. Syrian-Canaanite temples generally consisted of a large hall with
one or two ante-chambers. Ugarit had at least two main temples, perhaps
for the veneration of Baal (the image of Baal holding the thunderbolt,
described above, was found there) and Dagan, built on the acropolis of
the city. hese temples perhaps had a tower-like appearance, visible from
a distance. he royal complex contained a palatial temple, and numerous
minor shrines dotted the city. In the latter incense stands, vessels for liba-
tions, and small images were found.
he Baal Cycle shows a concern about providing the deities with tem-
ples. Although in these myths the gods could be described quite visually
as taking up residence and feasting, in real life the gods were unseen. To
complete the cultic analogy, the gods’ presence was therefore made con-
crete in their images or cult symbols. hese images or symbols were prob-
ably not conceived of as the gods themselves, but a representation of their
being and power. he presence of the deity in the temple may seem to be
contradicted by the description of the gods as being or living in the sky,
on Mount Sapanu/Saphon (the Mount Olympus of the Syro-Canaanite
world), or remote locales in the world. Such tension was tolerated, perhaps
because of the discrete contexts and functions of the descriptions and the
cogency of the individual analogical constructs.
Festivals were held in connection with temples and based on the lunar
calendar, adjusted to fit the seasons of the year. he subdivisions of the
approximately 28-day-long lunar month into halves and quarters is per-
haps what led to the importance of the seven-day unit in ritual through-
out the Syro-Canaanite and Semitic worlds and eventually the notion of
the week. his division of the month is particularly visible in the Ugaritic
texts that describe the course of festivals over various months (e.g., CAT
1.41/87; 1.106; 1.112; 1.119; 1.126).16 Emar also had celebrations in certain
16
Olmo-Lete, Canaanite Religion, 24–7.
142 David P. Wright
months.17 he seven-day zukru rite took place on the year’s first new moon
for Emar’s chief deity Dagan, whose main center of worship was originally
in the area of the middle Euphrates. Other festivals include a nine-day rite
for the installation of a NIN.DINGIR, a priestess of the storm-god and an
eight-day rite for the installation of the maš ‘artu (another type of priest-
ess) of Aštart of Battle. Ebla had special feasts for different gods distributed
over the months of the year. In the Phoenician and Punic texts, new and
full moons are important ritual occasions (cf. KAI 37; 43).
A ritual feast known as the marzeah is widely attested geographically
and chronologically. It is known from the third to the first millennium and
is apparently mentioned in Ebla tablets and clearly featured in Phoenician
texts (KAI 6916, 60:1), an Elephantine ostracon, Nabatean inscriptions,
Palmyrene inscriptions, as well as the Bible.18 A month at Emar takes its
name from the institution. An Akkadian economic text documenting the
acquisition of a vineyard for a marzeah shows that wine was a key element
in the group’s activities (RS 18.01 = PRU 4, 230, pl. 77). he nature of these
feasts is not well known. It is unclear if they are connected with veneration
for the dead. he various marzeah “clubs” had buildings and/or rooms
dedicated to them, and they were supported by the city and state officials.
hus gatherings may have been frequent, if not regular. A prescription to
cure a hangover (CAT 1.114) shows that the deities were imagined to enjoy
this very human social institution, even to inebriation.
Various functionaries performed the rites of the temples. Kings served
as priests in various locales (KAI 13; 14). heir participation is particularly
visible in the practical ritual texts from Ugarit, that is, texts that prescribe
or describe actual ritual practice, as opposed to narratives where ritual is
ideally depicted. Kings were also responsible for building or rebuilding
temples (KAI 14). A professional class officiated under the direction of
the kings in the day-to-day operation of the temples. Ugarit had a class of
khnm, “priests,” with a rb khnm, “chief priest,” although this class of offi-
ciant does not appear in the prescriptive or descriptive ritual texts. Other
personnel included, for example, ‘rbm, “those who enter (the temple),”
and tnnm, “guards” (?) (CAT 1.23:7). Most of the Emar texts were found
in a temple supervised by a diviner (lúḪ AL), who was apparently an over-
seer of cultic activities in the larger region. All of the temple functionaries
operated on the analogy of servants attending to the needs of the king and
his palace.
17
Fleming, Time.
18
Wright, Ritual , 62–5.
he notions of holiness and purity were companion concepts and oper-

ated primarily in connection with temple phenomenology. Holiness was
the quality that prevailed by virtue of the presence of the deity in the
temple. Purity was necessary to sustain holiness. Purity was mainly a mat-
ter of housekeeping and personal decorum in the divine master’s court.
his notion is manifested in the Hittite temple official instructions, noted
above. In Ugaritic narrative, Kirta needs to purify in order to make an
offering (CAT 1.14 iii 52–54). In practical ritual texts from Ugarit the king
alternates between states of purity (ritual preparedness) and profaneness
(off-duty, normal status). While pure he can makes sacrifices.19 Ritual
washing in and of itself entails analogy. It is based on washing from physi-
cal, mundane dirt. Stylized for ritual contexts, it becomes effective against
unseen supernatural filth.
prayer, prophecy, and divination

Various means of communication bridged the unseen and visible worlds.
Humans spoke to the gods through prayer, and the gods communicated
to humans by means of visions, dreams, prophecy, and omens. he liturgy
for the month of Iba’ lt at Ugarit in addition to offerings prescribes the
following prayer: “O, Baal, drive away the strong one from our gates. . . .
O Baal, we shall consecrate a bull (to you), we shall fulfill a vow. . . . We
shall ascend to Baal’s sanctuary, we shall walk the paths of Baal’s temple”
(CAT 1.119). Hymns of praise may also be recited. One from Ugarit extols
Baal who “sits like a mountain foundation, Hadad . . . like the flood. In
the midst of his mount, Saphon, in the mount of conquest. . . . His head is
awe-inspiring, dew drips down between his eyes” (CAT 1.101 rev. 1–6). he
text may represent Anat as singing this song, to the accompaniment of a
lyre. In another prayer, Baal with the title “Healer, Eternal King” is called
upon for help (CAT 1.108). he prayer urges him to drink wine and speaks
of his being honored with music. Music thus complements the larger cul-
tic analogy of feasting by providing entertainment for the god. he prayer
ends with the words: “Let your might, grace, power, guidance, and glory
be in the midst of Ugarit, for days, months, and favorable years of El.”
Some hymn-related texts include the recitation of mythological episodes
(CAT 1.23; 1.24). Apart from Ugarit, some Phoenician or Aramaic votive
inscriptions embed requests for long life for their sponsors (KAI 26 iii 2–6;
Tell Fekherye Inscription).
19
CAT 1.42//1.87; 1.46:9–10; 1.105:10; 1.106:23–27, 32; 1.108:9–11, 15–17; 1.109:2; 1.119:1–8.
144 David P. Wright
he gods may answer prayer through prophets. he Zakir Inscription

describes how the king received Baal-shamayn’s help against attacking
enemies:
I lifted my hands to Baal-sha[may]n; Baal-shamay[n] answered me; Baal-shamayn

[spoke] to me by means of seers and prophets; Baal-shamayn [said to me]: “Don’t
fear, for I have made you [king, and I will stan]d with you, and I will deliver you.”
(KAI 202:11–14)
In the Egyptian Report of Wen-Amon, which tells of the author’s jour-

ney to Phoenicia, we read about a youth who was seized with ecstasy and
made a divine pronouncement (cf. COS 1.41, p. 90). he Deir ‘Allah text
tells of a vision of Balaam son of Beor, who was “seer of the gods” (cf.
Numbers 22–24). he gods visit Balaam at night in council, whose chief is
El. he gods tell Balaam, and he tells the people, that the gods will punish
the land with darkness for the socially inverted behavior of people and ani-
mals. he ninth-century-bce Amman Citadel Inscription announces its
contents as the “[words of Mi]lcom,” the chief Ammonite god, implying
prophetic revelation (COS 2.24, p. 139). Similarly the Mesha Inscription
has Kemosh speaking to the Moabite king Mesha (KAI 181:14).
In addition to prophecy, the supernatural world communicated to
humans through omens, visible in animal entrails and behavior, birth
abnormalities, and astrological phenomena. he Idrimi stela refers to
omens by birds and entrails (ANET 557). he Ugaritic corpus contains a
few short texts of dream omens (CAT 1.86), lunar omens (CAT 1.63), an
astronomical report (CAT 1.78), omens of abnormal births of animals and
humans (CAT 1.103; 1.140), and clay models of livers and lungs on which
omens were written (CAT 1.127; 1.141–144, 1.155). hese were influenced
by the Mesopotamian tradition of divination, but have been taken over
and integrated into the native religious practice. Divination was attractive
because of its seeming empiricism supported by the assumption of super-
natural control of natural phenomena.
healing and curse

Various rituals sought to alleviate evils such as sickness, natural catastro-
phe, witchcraft, and sorcery. At Ebla numerous incantations sought to
“bind” demonic evil and to oppose serpents and scorpions. A ritual from
Ugarit provides a remedy for sorcery (CAT 1.169). his text uses explicit
analogical formulation (lines 1–4): “You (the evil) shall depart at the voice
of the t’y-priest, like smoke through a hatch-hole, like a snake from a wall,
like mountain goats to the summit, like lions to the lair.” he similes here
may be viewed analytically as compressed analogy. In this case, the analogy
operates on a case-specific level to characterize an otherwise indescribable
desired result, which can consequently be manipulated conceptually. In
the Aqhat text, Daniel recites prayers in which he embraces and kisses
plants calling upon them to grow, to remedy the drought in his land (CAT
1.19 ii 21–25). he embrace gesture is analogical, transferring notions of
human attachment to the plant. Two Ugaritic texts deal with healing from
snakebite (CAT 1.100, 1.107). In the first, a dozen gods are called upon for
a cure, with Horon finally being able to perform the task. his is similar
to the scene in the Kirta text where El successively calls upon gods to heal
the sick father.
Two amulets from Arslan Tash seek to avert evil. heir authenticity has
been questioned, but there is reason to believe that they are legitimate.
One has an illustration showing a demonic animal eating a child, repre-
senting the evil that is to be averted. he reverse of the amulet has a deity
carrying an axe, apparently symbolizing power over the evil. A Ugaritic
text for healing a child appears to require giving myrrh to Horon and Baal
and perhaps also placing a figurine in a temple (CAT 1.124). Analogical
play may exist here: Something evil (mr, “sickness, bitterness”) is to be
replaced by something positive (mr, “myrrh”).
Curses, which seek to bring evil upon another, are found in treaty
texts. he Sefire inscriptions (KAI 222–224), partly dependent upon
Mesopotamian treaty forms, list hyperbolic descriptive curses to befall one
who breaks the treaty stipulations. Part of the texts includes analogical
curses, some of which were likely performed by the participants as illus-
trations. One clause says, “Just as this wax is burned with fire, so shall
M[ati’el] be burned [with fi]re” (202 A:37–38). When Daniel buries his
son, he curses vultures who might disturb the grave: “May Baal break the
wings of the vultures, may Baal break their pinions, if they fly over my
son’s grave, and disturb him in his sleep” (CAT 1.19 iii 42–45). his is sim-
ilar to curses against disturbing graves, found in Phoenician inscriptions
(KAI 14; KAI 225), or altering the Tell Fekherye Inscription.
the afterlife
Another factor in constructing a view of the supernatural world was the
hope for some sort of continued existence beyond death. his led to
146 David P. Wright
the belief in the human ghost. For the common person, this afterlife
apparently was of little consequence and substance. he Hebrew Bible,
which reflects aspects of the larger Syro-Canaanite view of the afterlife,
describes the world of the dead as dark and underground. Its inhabitants,
called “the dead” and “the shades” (rěpā’îm; v. 11), do not praise deity,
and deity pays no heed to them (Psalm 89). hus when Aqhat exclaims
to Anat that the fate of humans is not to live forever, he does not mean
that human identity ceases altogether but only that one does not obtain
a life like the gods’.
he ghosts of kings, however, were viewed differently. At Ugarit, they
were thought to live on as the rapa’ūma, a term cognate with Hebrew
rěpā’îm. he notion of royal divinity is found in the Kirta story when his
family bewails his impending death: “Kirta is a son of El, the offspring of
the Gracious One (epithet of El). . . . Do gods die?” (CAT 1.16 i 20–23).
In some practical ritual texts, the dead kings were called upon together
with the chief gods, and offerings were made to them to secure their bless-
ing (cf. CAT 1.39; 1.48; 1.105; 1.106). An apparent funeral liturgy speaks
of the descent of the recently deceased king Niqmaddu to the nether-
world (CAT 1.161). he rapa’ūma are invoked, offerings are made, and
well-being is proclaimed for the new king and the kingdom. Another rit-
ual text (CAT 1.108) appears to celebrate the deification of the dead king.
It begins “Lo! the rap’u, the eternal king, has been established,” referring
to the dead king.
he Panammu I text (KAI 214) says that a person who sacrifices at
the statue of Hadad is to “remember the ghost of Panammu with (the
storm-god) [Ha]dad” and that the ghost of Panammu is to share food with
Hadad. he feasting of a dead individual and the enduring life of his soul
in a monument is a theme of the recently discovered Kuttamuwa inscrip-
tion from Zincirli.20 Phoenician inscriptions set out curses against one who
would disturb the sarcophagi of dead kings or alter their inscriptions (cf.
KAI 1, 10, 13, 14, 30). his may imply their special status in the hereafter.
Offerings may have been given to the dead at Emar, as indicated by some
legal documents and a liturgy for the month of Abu, but these kings are
not necessarily considered deified. Veneration of the dead has a long pre-
history in Syro-Canaan, indicated by the plastered and decorated skulls
found at Jericho from around 7000–5500 bce.21
20
Pardee, “Inscription,” 51–71.
21
See ANEP 801; Wright, Ritual , 147–53.
myth and ritual

A continuing debate in the study of Syro-Canaanite religion is the con-
nection of the Ugaritic myths and legends with ritual practice. Mythic
episodes are clearly used in practical rituals, such as instructions for recit-
ing a myth about the “Gracious Gods” (CAT 1.23), snakebite cures (1.100
and 1.107), the cure for a hangover with a marzeah feast myth (1.114), and
perhaps a cure for a child (1.124). In these cases the mythic episodes appear
to illustrate what is hoped for on the practical level. his raises the ques-
tion whether the longer myths and legends, particularly the Baal Cycle
and Kirta and Aqhat stories, have a ritual context. Some influential earlier
scholarship argued that one or more of these texts were part of the annual
liturgy because they appear to reflect the annual seasonal cycle. his, how-
ever, is doubtful, even for the Baal Cycle, which most overtly exhibits a
concern with natural phenomena, because of ultimate imprecision in cor-
relations. Other interpretations for the Baal Cycle, which may be situated
in a ritual context, include seeing it as a cosmogonic myth (explaining
fertility and the hierarchy of the gods), a myth that analogically defines a
new political order in the human world (e.g., it was written in support of
a new dynasty at Ugarit), or a myth that describes the limited exaltation
of Baal precisely because this deity symbolizes and mediates the blessings
of the natural order important to society.22
An interpretation of the Baal Cycle, Kirta, and Aqhat texts may con-
sider their common themes, and not just the unique features of each. hese
common themes suggest that the stories were, as a group, of interest to the
ruling class. he three stories center on an individual, god or human, who
is a king, potentially a king, or at least king-like. his individual lacks
something crucial to his kingship or line (a temple, a wife and children,
a male heir). he chief god El is instrumental, in different ways, in recti-
fying this deficiency and moving the fate of the lead character along. he
stories’ plots for the most part devolve around challenges to royal or family
succession, where rebellion or impiety leads to the death or sickness of the
king/father or his heir, and where alternative successors are considered and
rejected. El’s plan or will is challenged by female deities (Anat or Athirat).
At the same time, subordinate female characters (divine or human) help
restore the balance of power. hese stories also manifest a thick weave of
ritual scenes and motifs, which are often used to help characterize the piety
or impiety of particular characters.23 he main characters in particular seek
22
Smith, Ugaritic Baal Cycle 1, 58–114.
23
Wright, Ritual , esp. 223–9.
148 David P. Wright
to maintain proper ritual practice (despite some failures or interruptions),

which is crucial to the maintenance of order among the gods or between
the gods and humans. hese commonalities provide hints that the stories
may have been used in connection with the installation of a king or more
generally in royal celebrations. It may be wondered if Baal’s victory feast
described in the Baal Cycle itself (CAT 1.3 i 2–27) points to the type of rit-
ual setting where these stories were used, where meat and wine are enjoyed
and Baal is celebrated in song.
conclusion
he power of the Syro-Canaanite religious traditions lay in the intercon-
nection of analogical constructs operative in different phenomenological
facets, which fit together like puzzle pieces to form a larger coherent pic-
ture. he form and mind of the gods were suited to the method of their
worship and how humans communicated with them. Upon death humans
might even join the realm of gods in some degree or manner, and elite
humans might even be worshipped as gods. he primary power in such a
construct was its ability to make the gods real despite their invisibility and
to enable them to provide benefit to humans. As Syro-Canaanite religious
tradition developed further in the hands of Jewish and Christian tradents,
with the dawn of Hellenistic rationalism to the Age of Enlightenment and
beyond, the analogical content of the tradition was constrained. he orig-
inal personality of the divine, when preserved, ended up in the truncated
and philosophically purified figure of a prime mover or designing intelli-
gence. Deity’s body, including his politically incorrect gender, was shed
and only a mind remained, a mind that remains nonetheless remarkably
human.
bibliography
A. Primary Texts in Translation (Some with Commentary)
Attridge, H. W., and R. A. Oden. he Syrian Goddess (De Dea Syria) (Missoula, Mont.,
1976).
Philo of Byblos: he Phoenician History (Washington, D.C., 1981).
Dearman, A., ed. Studies in the Mesha Inscription and Moab (Atlanta, 1989).
Donner, H., and W. Röllig. Kanaänaische und aramäische Inschriften (Wiesbaden,
1971–1976).
Greenfield, J. C., and A. Shaffer. “Notes on the Akkadian-Aramaic Bilingual Statue from
Tell Fekherye.” Iraq 45 (1983): 109–16.
Hallo, W. W., and K. L. Younger, eds. he Context of Scripture (Leiden, 2003).

Levine, B. “he Balaam Inscriptions from Deir ‘Alla.” Numbers 21–36 (New York, 2000):
241–75.
Pardee, D. Ritual and Cult at Ugarit (Atlanta, 2002).
“A New Aramaic Inscription from Zincirli.” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental
Research 356 (2009): 51–71.
Parker, S. B., ed. Ugaritic Narrative Poetry (Atlanta, 1997).
Pritchard, J. B., ed. Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton,
1969).
Smith, M. S. he Ugaritic Baal Cycle, vol. 1 (Leiden, 1994).
he Rituals and Myths of the Feast of the Goodly Gods of KTU/CAT 1.23 (Atlanta,
2006).
Wyatt, N. Religious Texts from Ugarit (Sheffield, U.K., 1998).
B. Material Finds
Caquot, A., and M. Sznycer. Ugaritic Religion (Leiden, 1980).

Cornelius, I. he Iconography of the Canaanite Gods Reshef and Baal: he Late Bronze and
Iron Age I Periods (c. 1500–1000 BC) (Fribourg, 1994).
he Many Faces of the Goddess: he Iconography of the Syro-Palestinian Goddesses Anat,
Astarte, Qedeshet, and Asherah c. 1500–1000 BCE (Fribourg, 2004).
Pritchard, J. B. he Ancient Near East in Pictures (Princeton, 1969).
Yon, M. he City of Ugarit at Tell Ras Shamra (Winona Lake, Ind., 2006).
C. Other Bibliography
Bell, Catherine. Ritual heory, Ritual Practice (New York, 1992).

Brettler, M. Z. “he Metaphorical Mapping of God in the Hebrew Bible.” In Metaphor,
Canon and Community, ed. R. Bisschops and J. Francis (Bern, 1999): 219–32.
Chavalas, M. W., ed. Emar: he History, Religion, and Culture of a Syrian Town in the Late
Bronze Age (Bethesda, Md., 1996).
Clifford, Richard. “Phoenician Religion.” BASOR 279 (1990): 55–64.
Conklin, Blane W. “Arslan Tash I and Other Vestiges of a Particular Syrian Incantatory
hread.” Biblica 84 (2003): 89–101.
Fleming, D. E. Time at Emar: he Cultic Calendar and the Rituals from the Diviner’s House
Geertz, C. he Interpretation of Cultures (New York, 1973).
Greenfield, J. C. “Aspects of Aramean Religion.” In Ancient Israelite Religion, ed. P. D.
Miller (Philadelphia, 1987): 67–78.
Handy, L. K. Among the Host of Heaven (Winona Lake, Ind., 1994).
Mullen, T. he Divine Council in Canaanite and Early Hebrew Literature (Chico, Calif.,
1980).
Olmo Lete, G. del. Canaanite Religion According to the Liturgical Texts of Ugarit (Bethesda,
Md., 1999).
Stieglitz, R. R. “Ebla and the Gods of Canaan.” In Eblaitica: Essays on the Ebla Archives and
the Eblaite Language, vol. 2, ed. C. H. Gordon (Winona Lake, Ind., 1990): 79–89.
Walls, N. H. he Goddess Anat in Ugaritic Myth (Atlanta, 1992).
150 David P. Wright
Watson, W. G. E., and N. Wyatt. Handbook of Ugaritic Studies (Leiden, 1999).

Wright, D. P. “Analogy in Biblical and Hittite Ritual.” In Internationales Symposion:
Religionsgeschichtliche Beziehungen zwischen Kleinasien, Nord-syrien und dem Alten
Testament im 2. und 1. vorchristlichen Jahrtausend, ed. K. Koch, B. Janowski, and G.
Wilhelm (Freiburg, 1993): 473–506.
Ritual in Narrative: he Dynamics of Feasting, Mourning, and Retaliation Rites in the
Ugaritic Tale of ‘Aqhat (Winona Lake, Ind., 2001).
6
ISRAELITE AND JUDEAN RELIGIONS
marvin a. sweeney
he religions of ancient Israel and Judah constitute the primary religious

foundation for the development of the western monotheistic traditions,
including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Ancient Israelite and Judean
religions emerge in the land of Canaan during the late-second millennium
bce. hey are known primarily through the writings of the Hebrew Bible,
which form the Tanakh, the foundational sacred scriptures of Judaism, and
the Old Testament, the first portion of the sacred scriptures of Christianity.1
Archaeological remains and texts from ancient Israel and Judah and the
surrounding cultures also supply considerable information.2
Israelite and Judean religious traditions focus on the worship of the
deity, YHWH, and function especially as national or state religious
traditions from the formation of the Israelite monarchy during the
twelfth–tenth centuries bce through the subsequent history of the sep-
arate kingdoms of Israel and Judah (see Map 4). Although Israel and
Judah share the same basic religious tradition based in the worship of
YHWH, each appears to have distinctive conceptualizations of YHWH
and the means by which YHWH should be represented and worshiped.
Unfortunately, literary evidence concerning religion in northern Israel
is limited, because most of the Hebrew Bible was written and transmit-
ted by Judean writers and reflects distinctive Judean viewpoints. But the
destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel by the Assyrian Empire
in 722/1 bce, the destruction of the southern kingdom of Judah by the
1
For a critical edition of the Hebrew text of the Bible, see Elliger and Rudolph, eds., Biblia Hebraica
Stuttgartensia. For standard English translations and study notes, see Berlin and Brettler, he Jewish
Study Bible, and Meeks et al., he HarperCollins Study Bible. For a critical, historical introduction
to the Hebrew Bible, see Collins, An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible.
2
For archaeological surveys of the land of Israel during the Bronze, Iron, and Persian periods, see
Mazar, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible ; Stern, Archaeology II.
151
Map 4. Israel and Judah.
Babylonian Empire in 587/6 bce, and the reconstitution of Judah as a

Persian province in the late-sixth through the late-fourth centuries bce
prompted the development of Judaism as a monotheistic religion prac-
ticed by Jews in the land of Israel itself and throughout the Persian and
Greco-Roman world.
Israelite and Judean Religions 153
the origins of yhwh: creator and guarantor

of fertility and order
YHWH is the ineffable name of the deity worshiped in ancient Israel and
Judah. he correct pronunciation of the divine name is uncertain since
the holy character of the name proscribed its pronunciation in liturgical
and common practice. he only exception to this proscription was the
annual observance of Yom Kippur, “the Day of Atonement,” when the
high priest would enter the Holy of Holies of the Jerusalem Temple to
invoke YHWH’s name as part of the annual liturgy to atone for the sins
of the nation. he modern scholarly reconstruction, Y-hw-h (spelled with
a and e), is based on Greek transcriptions by early Church Fathers: Ιαουε3
and Ιαβε or Ιαβαι.4 To avoid pronunciation of the holy name, Jewish tra-
dition calls for the use of terms such as ’ădōnāy, “my Lord,” haššēm, “the
Name,” in Hebrew, or se5 m 5 ā’, “the Name,” in Aramaic, as substitutes. he
widely known term Jehovah is not the divine name. It is based on a com-
bination of the four Hebrew consonants for the divine name combined
with the vowel pointing for the term ’ădōnāy, “my Lord.” Abbreviated
forms of the divine name appear as Yhw, “Yahu,” in northern Israel and
southern Judah, Yw, “Yau,” in texts associated with northern Israel, and
Yh, “Yah,” in texts associated with southern Judah. Abbreviated forms of
the divine name frequently appear as an element of theophoric Hebrew
personal names, for example, hhizqîyāhû, hhizqîyâ, and yeh5 hizqîyāhû, all
forms of the name Hezekiah, which mean “YHWH has strengthened” in
the first two examples or “may YHWH strengthen” in the third.
he name YHWH appears to be based on a finite third masculine sin-
gular Hebrew verbal form with a preformative yôd followed by the verb
root hwy/hwh, “to be.” he stem of the verb is uncertain; it could be the
basic Qal form, which would mean “he is,” or the causative Hiphil form,
which would mean, “he causes to be/brings into being.” his interpre-
tation is based in part on the interpretation of the divine name in Exod
3:14, ‘ehyeh ’ăšer ’ehyeh, “I am who/what I am,” when YHWH answers
Moses’ question concerning the divine name in the burning bush episode.
Because this expression is an interpretation of the name rather than a sci-
entific etymological analysis, many scholars look to Arabic roots to explain
the meaning of the name, which first appears in regions associated with
ancient Edom and Midian to the south of the land of Israel. he Arabic
3
Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 5.6.34.5.
4
Epiphanius of Salamis, Adv. haer. 1.3.40.5; heodoret of Cyrus, Quaest. In Ex. XV; Haer.
Fab. 5.3.
verb root hwy can mean “to desire, be passionate,” “to fall,” or “to blow.”
he last two meanings have been especially attractive because they suggest
YHWH’s character as a nature deity of the desert, that is, “he causes (rain)
to fall” or “he causes (wind) to blow.” Nevertheless, the original etymology
of the name remains uncertain.
Although YHWH is best known as the deity of ancient Israel and
Judah, YHWH’s origins lie in the regions of ancient Edom and Midian to
the south and the east of the land of Israel. he earliest attestation of the
name appears as the toponym “Yahu in the land of the Shosu-bedouins” in
Egyptian texts from the reigns of Pharaohs Amenophis III (early-fourteenth
century bce) and Ramesses II (thirteenth century bce). he earliest known
occurrence of the divine name YHWH in a West-Semitic text appears in
the ninth-century-bce Moabite Stone, a stela written by King Mesha of
Moab to celebrate his victory over Israel in the Trans-Jordan.5 he associa-
tion of YHWH with these regions accords well with biblical narratives that
point to YHWH’s association with Israel in the Exodus from Egypt and
the wilderness traditions of the Pentateuch (see esp. Exodus, Numbers,
and Deuteronomy) in which Israel journeys through the wilderness along
the southern borders of Canaan and enters the land of Israel from across
the Jordan River to the east. It also accords well with the identification of
YHWH with the Kenites, that is, the descendants of Cain who are asso-
ciated with the early worship of YHWH (see Genesis 4, esp. v. 26), most
notably Jethro the Kenite priest of Midian and father-in-law of Moses
(Exodus 3, 18 and Judg 1:16)6 and the Rechabites, a Kenite Bedouin group
known for its devotion to YHWH (2 Kings 9–10 and Jeremiah 35). he
YHWistic prophet Elijah is likewise associated with the Trans-Jordan and
the wilderness (1 Kings 17 and 19), and his successor Elisha prompts the
revolt of Jehu against the northern Israelite Omride dynasty with the sup-
port of the Rechabite Jehonadab (2 Kings 9–10).
Various hymnic texts from the Bible associate YHWH with Edom
and the Trans-Jordan, viz., “YHWH came from Sinai and shone upon
them from Seir; He appeared from Mount Paran and approached from
Ribbeboth-kodesh” (Deut 33:2); “O YHWH, when you came forth from
Seir” (Judg 5:4); “God comes from Teman and the Holy One from Mount
Paran” (Hab 3:3); and “I have seen the tents of Cushan under guilt; the
curtains of the land of Midian tremble” (Hab 3:7). Although YHWH’s
association with the sun is evident in each of these texts (see also Psalms
5
For discussion of the Mesha inscription, see Dearman, ed., Studies in the Mesha Inscription.
6
N.b., Jethro is also known as Hobab in Num 10:29 and Judg 4:11 or Reuel in Exod 2:18.
68 and 104), lightning flashes and rain also symbolize YHWH’s ability to
sustain and protect Israel in the Song of Moses (Deuteronomy 33), the
Song of Deborah (Judges 5), and the Psalm of Habakkuk (Habakkuk 3).
Israel’s ability to enter the land of Canaan from across the Jordan River
likewise points to associations with the Trans-Jordan and to YHWH’s con-
trol of nature, insofar as the Jordan River parts to allow Israel’s crossing
(Joshua 5). he parting of the Jordan is correlated with the parting of the
Red Sea at the Exodus from Egypt in Exodus 14–15 to bracket the wil-
derness traditions of the Pentateuch. Jacob’s relationship with his brother
Esau, the eponymous ancestor of Edom, likewise points to YHWH’s ori-
gins in Edom and Midian (see Genesis 25–35). Such traditions correlate
with extra-biblical textual evidence, such as the fourteenth-century-bce
Amarna letters, written by the rulers of various Canaanite city-states to
their Egyptian overlords, which report that semi-nomadic tribal groups,
labeled in Akkadian as habiru, “barbarians,” were moving into the land
of Canaan and acting in concert with the city of Shechem, and thereby
presented a threat to other cities such as Megiddo and Jerusalem.7
YHWH may originate in Edom and Midian as a Kenite or Bedouin
nature deity, but YHWH’s role as deity of Israel and Judah indicates a
movement from the wilderness regions of the Trans-Jordan and south-
ern Negev into the land of Canaan itself as Israel emerges in the land
from the twelfth century bce on. he traditions of Israel’s origins relate
how Jacob, the eponymous ancestor of Israel, is able to supplant Esau as
the heir of Isaac by convincing Esau to give up his right as the first-born
(Gen 25:27–34) and by convincing Isaac to grant him the blessing of the
father in place of Esau (Genesis 27). Although Jacob is presented as the
grandson of Abraham, he is especially associated with northern Israelite
and Trans-Jordanian locations, such as Beth El, Shechem, Mahanaim, and
Penuel, whereas Abraham is especially associated with southern Judean
sites, such as Hebron and Jerusalem. Biblical tradition points to YHWH’s
role in the north as well as in the south and to YHWH’s supplanting or
absorbing the Canaanite and Aramean deities, such as the Canaanite cre-
ator deity, El, the Canaanite fertility deity, Baal, or the Aramean storm
deity, Hadad.8 Genesis 14 states that Abram venerated El Elyon (God Most
High) at Salem or Jerusalem, and Exodus states that YHWH was previously
known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai. Both names are rendi-
tions of the Canaanite divine name El. he Elijah and Elisha traditions
7
For an English translation of the Amarna letters, see Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 483–90.
8
For the contention that El is the original God of Israel, see Smith, he Origins, esp. 135–48.
point to the overthrow of the northern Israelite Omride dynasty, which

was allied with the Phoenicians and thereby associated with the fertility
deity Baal. Elijah’s own association with nature, his feeding of the widow
and her son in the Phoenician city of Zarephath, and his contest with the
prophets of Baal and Asherah to see which deity would bring rain to the
land, all point to an effort to demonstrate that YHWH and not Baal (or
El) is the true creator and fertility deity (1 Kings 17–18). Likewise, Elisha’s
role in instigating the revolt of Jehu against the house of Omri ensures the
installation of an Israelite dynasty aligned with YHWH over against Baal
(2 Kings 9–10).
YHWH’s role as creator and fertility deity is expressed throughout the
Hebrew Bible. Gen 1:1–2:3, a later text written by the Jerusalem priest-
hood, relates YHWH’s creation of the world in seven days, beginning with
the creation of light on the first and culminating with the Sabbath day of
rest in all creation on the seventh as the fundamental account of the order-
ing of the world. Deuteronomy relates YHWH’s power to bring rain and
fertility as well as YHWH’s ability to protect the people from foreign ene-
mies as a fundamental incentive to ensure observance of the civil and reli-
gious instruction in YHWH’s will that forms the basis for the relationship
between YHWH and Israel (see esp. Deuteronomy 28–30; cf. Leviticus
26). YHWH’s role as creator is evident in the prophets as well, who fre-
quently point to chaos in the natural world to symbolize YHWH’s dissat-
isfaction with the people’s actions (e.g., Isaiah 24, Hosea 4, or Haggai) or
to stability and fertility in the world to symbolize YHWH’s satisfaction or
promises of restoration (e.g., Isaiah 11, Ezekiel 47–48, or Amos 9). Much
like the Mesopotamian and Canaanite traditions, which posit that Marduk
or Baal create order in the world by defeating chaos deities, Psalms 74 and
Job 38 portray YHWH’s taming of various chaos monsters to ensure the
stability and moral order of creation. YHWH’s role as creator also appears
in the wisdom tradition, which maintains that YHWH created the world
with wisdom and that human beings must observe and study that world in
order to understand how to live in it (Proverbs 8 and 30).
yhwh as deity and protector of the israelite

and judean monarchies
YHWH’s role as creator and guarantor of fertility and order in the natural
world coincides with YHWH’s role as deity and protector of the Israelite
and Judean monarchies. Although biblical narrative emphasizes the unity
of the twelve tribes of Israel as descendants of the patriarchs Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, separate kingdoms of Israel in the north and Judah in the
south existed for most of Israel’s history in the land. Both the Israelite and
Judean monarchies play important roles in defining the understanding of
YHWH expressed in the Bible. Northern Israel was the larger and more
powerful kingdom, but its early destruction by the Assyrian Empire in
722/1 bce left Judah as the surviving monarchy until its own destruction
by the Babylonians in 587/6 bce. Judah’s survival into the sixth century
and beyond ensured that the Bible would reflect a predominantly Judean
viewpoint.
Despite the Bible’s projection of a united twelve tribes of Israel, the key
ancestral figures are closely associated with either southern Judah or north-
ern Israel. Abraham is especially associated with Judean areas, particularly
Hebron, the original capital of Judah during King David’s early reign.
Jacob and Joseph are especially associated with northern Israel. Jacob is
renamed Israel in Genesis 32 and 35 and founds the northern Israelite sanc-
tuary at Beth El in Genesis 28. Joseph is the son of Jacob and the father of
Manasseh and Ephraim, the two key tribes that later form the core of the
northern kingdom of Israel. Moses is especially associated with northern
Israelite tradition, particularly because his son Gershom founds a line of
priests at the northern Israelite sanctuary at Dan (Judg 18:30, but note that
the Hebrew text is altered by the addition of a superscript letter nun to the
name Moshe [Moses] to describe him as the son of Menasheh [Manasseh]
rather than as the son of Moses). Joshua is especially associated with Gilgal
and Shechem, key sites in the northern kingdom of Israel (Joshua 4–5 and
24). Although the book of Judges presents Israel as a unity of twelve tribes
throughout the pre-monarchic period, it is noteworthy that with the excep-
tion of the first judge (n.b., the Hebrew term šōpēth, “judge,” also means
“ruler” in biblical Hebrew), Othniel of Judah, all of the judges are local-
ized rulers of various tribal groups in northern Israel. Indeed, the Judges
narrative relates the efforts of the tribe Ephraim to impose its rule over the
other northern tribes during the pre-monarchic period. Several temples
are identified in biblical narrative prior to the monarchic period. In addi-
tion to the temples at Beth El and Dan, which later became the temples
of the northern kingdom of Israel, Judges 21 and 1 Samuel 1–4 identify the
Temple at Shiloh as the central Israelite sanctuary where the Ark of the
Covenant was kept prior to its capture by the Philistines. Temple sites are
found at Gilgal, Arad, Beer Sheba, and elsewhere.9
9
For discussion of the archaeological sites, see the respective entries in Stern, New Encyclopedia.
Saul of the small tribe of Benjamin is presented as the first king of

a unified Israel in 1 Samuel. Nevertheless, his kingdom appears to be a
weak federation of the northern tribes of Israel and the southern tribe
of Judah that was held together by a common interest in resisting the
Philistines, who were based along the Mediterranean coast and attempted
to extend their rule over the Israelite and Judean hill country. Following
Saul’s defeat and death in battle against the Philistines in 1 Samuel 31, 2
Samuel relates how Saul’s protégé and rival, David of the tribe of Judah,
was able to unite Judah and Israel, defeat the Philistines, and extend his
rule over other neighboring nations, such as Edom, Moab, Ammon, and
Aram. he Davidic dynasty would rule for some four hundred years, first
over a united kingdom of Israel and Judah and later over Judah alone,
from circa 1000 bce until 587/6 bce. As founders of the Davidic dynasty,
David and his son Solomon play key roles in establishing the foundations
of ancient Judean religion.
David’s choice of the city of Jerusalem, a Jebusite or Canaanite city located
along the borders of Judah and Israel in the tribal territory of Benjamin, was
an important factor in uniting his kingdom and establishing its religious
institutions. Because Jerusalem was Jebusite and seized without bloodshed
by David’s own mercenaries, neither Judah nor Israel could claim the city
as its own, which helped to alleviate tensions between the two major com-
ponents of David’s kingdom. Because kings in the ancient world ruled on
behalf of their respective patron deities, Jerusalem had to become the reli-
gious capital of Israel as well as its political capital. 2 Samuel 6 therefore
relates how David brought the Ark of the Covenant, a wooden chest over-
laid with gold that symbolized YHWH’s presence among the people from
the Mosaic period, into Jerusalem where it would be housed in a tent shrine
until a permanent temple could be constructed. 2 Samuel 7 then relates
YHWH’s covenant with David in which YHWH promises that David’s
sons will rule over Israel “forever,” although individual monarchs may suffer
punishment when they do wrong. King David thereby establishes the cultic
center for the veneration of YHWH as the national deity of Israel/Judah,
and YHWH in turn guarantees the rule of the house of David and the secu-
rity of the city of Jerusalem and the nation Israel/Judah. Such a relationship
is typical of the monarchies of the ancient Near East.
the jerusalem temple

he Jerusalem Temple, built by King Solomon, is the central religious
institution of ancient Israel/Judah (1 Kings 5–8; 2 Chronicles 2–7). he
Temple is located at the threshing floor of Araunah (2 Samuel 24), a small

hill located at the highest point on the northern edge of ancient Jerusalem.
Such a location enables the Temple to overlook the city and thereby high-
lights YHWH’s role as sovereign national deity, and it facilitates the pro-
cessing of grain brought to the Temple as offerings since high locations
are ideal for catching the wind that separates grain from chaff during the
threshing process. Although the narratives reflect the embellishment of
later writers who would have idealized the portrayal of the Temple and
its dedication, the basic structure and features of the Temple reflect the
structure and imagery of temples in the ancient Syro-Palestinian world.10
Solomon’s Temple, built with the assistance of Hiram (Ahiram), King of
Tyre, is a typical three-room temple structure that reflects the patterns
of Syro-Palestinian royal palaces. Such a correlation between temples and
royal palaces in the ancient world emphasizes the role of deities as national
gods, viz., since the monarch rules on behalf of the national deity, the deity
is the ultimate sovereign of the nation, and the temple therefore serves as
the deity’s royal palace. Insofar as national deities are generally conceived
as creator gods, ancient temples also symbolize the center of creation.
Solomon’s Temple is no exception, insofar as it reflects YHWH’s role as
sovereign ruler of Israel/Judah and of all creation.11
Solomon’s Temple measured sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and
thirty cubits high. Because the ancient royal cubit is approximately 20.9
inches, this results in dimensions of approximately one hundred five feet
long, thirty-five feet wide, and fifty-two feet high. he building was con-
structed of undressed stone to symbolize the pristine purity of YHWH’s
creation. he interior of the Temple was overlaid with cedar, cypress, and
olivewood inlaid with gold images of cherubs, palm trees, plants, and the
like, to symbolize creation in the Garden of Eden. he Temple faced to the
east, which enables the rising sun to illuminate the interior of the Temple
during the morning liturgy and thereby symbolizes creation each morning
insofar as light was the first creation in Genesis 1. he ’ûlām, “portico,”
which served as the entry way to the structure, measured ten cubits long
and twenty cubits wide. Its entrance was flanked by bronze pillars, named
Jachin and Boaz, to symbolize the pillars or foundations of the earth and
thus the role of the Temple as the center of creation. he hêkal, “palace” or
“great hall” of the Temple, measured forty cubits long and twenty cubits
wide. In addition to the table for the bread of the presence, it contained the
10
Meyers, “Temple, Jerusalem,” 6:350–69.
11
See Levenson, “he Temple and the World,” 275–98.
ten bronze incense burners and the ten bronze candelabra that together fill
the hêkal with smoke and flashing lights in keeping with the theophanic
imagery of cloud, smoke, fire, and lightning associated with YHWH’s
presence (see Exodus 19 and 40). he de 5bîr or “inner sanctum” (also called
the “holy of holies”), which housed the Ark of the Covenant to represent
the throne of YHWH, measured twenty cubits wide and twenty cubits
long. Built with two cherubim or composite animal figures (in addition
to the two cherubim built onto the Ark), it was enclosed with olivewood
doors, incised with gold images of cherubim, palms, and so on, to sym-
bolize the sacred character of the deb5 îr as the throne room of YHWH and
entrance to the Garden of Eden. Cherubim or composite animal figures
are frequently built beside royal thrones and city gates in the ancient Near
East to symbolize divine power and protection, and images of gods and
goddesses are frequently depicted as mounted or enthroned upon animal
figures that symbolize divine qualities (cf. Psalms 18 and 68 and Ezekiel 1).
Because the term deb5 îr is related to the Hebrew term for speech, the deb5 îr
functions as the place where YHWH’s presence and will are manifested,
particularly to the high priest who enters the deb5 îr to experience the pres-
ence of YHWH on Yom Kippur (Leviticus 16). he Temple structure was
enclosed on three sides (north, west, and south) by a three-story structure
containing storerooms.
he courtyard of the Temple contained several major installations that
served the liturgical purposes of the Temple and symbolized YHWH’s
relationship with the nation and creation. he Temple altar, constructed
of uncut stones (Exod 20:19–23) to symbolize the purity of creation, was
located before the entrance to the Temple structure. It was employed for
the presentation and burning of sacrifices offered to YHWH as part of the
tribute due to YHWH as sovereign of creation and the nation. Ezekiel 43:14
designates the altar as hhêq hā’āresh, “the bosom of the earth,” to symbol-
ize its role at the center of creation. he “molten sea,” a cast bronze tank
of water set atop twelve cast-metal bulls, was also located in the Temple
courtyard. he twelve bulls, with three facing in each of the four direc-
tions of the compass, symbolize fertility and divine strength. he water
tank enabled the priests to immerse themselves in water in preparation for
their service at the altar, and it symbolizes YHWH’s creation of the world
out of the sea as well as Israel’s crossing of the Red Sea at the exodus from
Egypt. he Temple courtyard serves as the place of assembly for the people
during the sacrifices and singing of the Temple liturgy, and it is the loca-
tion where festival meals were prepared and eaten following the offering of
festival sacrifices.
Although Solomon’s Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587/6

bce, the Second Temple was built at the outset of Persian rule during the
years 520–515 bce under the supervision of Joshua ben Jehozadak, the high
priest, and Zerubbabel ben Shealtiel, the Persian-appointed governor of
Judah and the grandson of the last reigning monarch of the house of David
(Ezra 3–6). Very few details concerning the structure of this Temple are
preserved in biblical literature, although it follows the general three-room
pattern of Solomon’s Temple. Because the Ark of the Covenant was lost,
likely taken away as booty by the Babylonians, the deb5 îr remained empty
throughout the Second Temple period.
the priests of ancient israel and judah

he priests of ancient Israel and Judah were fundamentally responsible
for overseeing the sanctity of the people and the temples. hey served
as intermediaries between YHWH and the people, conducted the tem-
ple liturgies and sacrifices, and instructed the people in YHWH’s Torah
(Hebrew, tôrâ), “instruction,” concerning what was holy or pure and pro-
fane or unclean (Lev 10:10–11). he Hebrew Bible emphasizes that the tribe
of Levi serves as the priests of Israel and Judah and therefore will have no
tribal inheritance of land like the other tribes (Numbers 3–8 and 17–18; cf.
Exodus 32). hey are supported instead by the offerings of the people.
he priestly role of the Levites was likely a later development insofar
as Israelite tradition notes that the first-born sons of the people served as
priests until the tribe of Levi was designated for the priestly role (see Num
3:40–51).12 Aaron, the brother of Moses and son of Amran and his wife
Jochebed of the tribe of Levi (Num 26:59), was designated by YHWH as
the first chief priest of Israel. His sons Nadab and Abihu died when they
made inappropriate incense offerings to YHWH, leaving his sons Eleazer
and Ithamar and their descendants to continue the priestly line (Leviticus
10). his tradition conveys the seriousness with which YHWH’s and the
priesthood’s holiness are considered, and many interpreters believe it may
represent conflict or displacement in the priestly lines of Israel and Judah.
Eleazer emerges as the ancestor of the Zadokite line of priests that served
in the Jerusalem Temple. He is given charge of the Levitical family of the
Kohathites, who carry the Ark of the Covenant and serve as the primary
12
N.b., to the mother; see Exod 22:28 and 34:19–20; Samuel, the first-born son of Hannah, the wife
of Elkanah of the tribe of Ephraim, was placed in the sanctuary at Shiloh to be trained as a priest in
1 Samuel 1.
priests who officiate in YHWH’s central sanctuary (Numbers 4). Ithamar

becomes the ancestor of the subsidiary priestly line of Abiathar, who was
expelled from the Jerusalem Temple by Solomon (1 Kings 2). He is given
charge of the Levitical families of the Gershonites and Merarites, who
were assigned secondary tasks and ultimately developed into a secondary
priestly line known as the Levites, who likely served in sanctuaries out-
side of Jerusalem and later performed secondary duties in the Jerusalem
Temple, such as preparing sacrificial animals for the altar, cooking food,
and gate supervision. Priests serve in the sanctuary from the age of thirty
(but Num 8:23–26 specifies twenty-five) through the age of fifty (Numbers
4). hey are ordained for service during a seven-day ceremony in which
they are isolated, cleansed with water, dressed in pure priestly garments,
and consecrated by sacrifice (Exodus 28–29, Leviticus 8, and Numbers 8).
worship of yhwh at israelite and judean temples

and the festival calendar
Worship of YHWH at Israelite and Judean temples was centered on
the offering of incense and animal sacrifices at specified times to honor
YHWH and to provide support to the sanctuary; the singing of psalms
that would praise YHWH, recount YHWH’s deeds and expectations, and
enable the people to petition YHWH; the recital of prayers that would
enable the priests and the people to address YHWH; and festival danc-
ing, meals, and the like that would facilitate the celebration of appointed
times and festivals that marked the sacred calendar. he Bible contains
some descriptions of worship, such as Abram’s offering of his tithe to
El Elyon at Salem or Jerusalem (Genesis 14); the appearance of God to
Jacob at Beth El (Genesis 28, 35); Hannah’s prayer during worship at the
Shiloh sanctuary (1 Samuel 1); the dancing and hymns that marked the
parting of the Red Sea (Exodus 14–15); Joshua’s celebration of Passover at
Gilgal (Joshua 5); the celebration of Sukkot at Shiloh (Judges 21); David’s
bringing of the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6 and 1
Chronicles 16); Solomon’s dedication of the Jerusalem Temple (1 Kings
8 and 2 Chronicles 5–7); Jeroboam’s offering of incense at the northern
Israelite sanctuary at Beth El (1 Kings 13); Elijah’s sacrifice to YHWH
at Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18); the celebration of Passover during the
reign of kings Hezekiah and Josiah (2 Chronicles 30 and 35); the dedi-
cation of the altar and later the Second Temple by the priest Joshua ben
Jehozadak (Ezra 3 and 6); and Ezra’s reading of the Torah to the people at
Sukkot (Nehemiah 8–10). he variety of liturgical practices found in these
narratives indicates the differing liturgical practices that might be found

at individual sanctuaries as well as the historical development of Israelite
and Judean liturgies.
he Israelite and Judean festival calendar includes a number of obser-
vances that emphasize YHWH’s roles as sovereign of both the nation
and creation (see Exodus 23 and 34, Leviticus 23, Numbers 28–29, and
Deuteronomy 16). Although the 354-day lunar calendar was adapted from
the Babylonians at some point during the Second Temple period, a 364-day
solar calendar was apparently employed throughout the monarchic period.
he three major festivals of the liturgical year emphasize YHWH’s role as
creator by sanctifying the key times of the agricultural season together with
key elements of Israel’s and Judah’s sacred history. he people are expected
to appear at the Temple for each of these festivals to bring offerings or
tithes of one-tenth of their flocks and harvests to honor YHWH and to
support the Temple and the state. he first festival, pesahh, “Passover,” cel-
ebrated for a total of eight days beginning on the fourteenth day of the
first month in the spring, marks the beginning of the grain harvest as well
as the Exodus from Egyptian slavery. he festival combines the one-day
observance of Passover, which marks the beginning of the birth season for
livestock, and the seven-day observance of Matzot, “Unleavened Bread,”
which marks the beginning of the grain harvest. he second major festival,
šābû‛ôt, “Weeks (Pentecost),” is celebrated fifty days after Passover to mark
the conclusion of the grain harvest in the late spring. Shavuot later came
to commemorate the revelation of the Torah at Mount Sinai as well. he
third major festival, sukkôt, “Booths” or “Tabernacles,” is celebrated for a
total of eight days beginning on the fifteenth day of the seventh month in
the fall to mark the conclusion of the fruit harvest and the beginning of the
rainy season in the land of Israel. he name Sukkot is drawn from the tem-
porary shelters or booths in which the people lived while out in the fields
and orchards bringing in the harvest. his image also associates the festival
with the forty years of wilderness wandering as the people traveled through
the Sinai wilderness from Egypt to the Promised Land. Other observances
are also included in the liturgical calendar. Daily worship includes morn-
ing, afternoon, and evening sacrifices that commemorate YHWH’s act of
creation each day. Weekly celebration of the šabbāt, “Sabbath,” marks the
seventh day of the week, Saturday, as the day that YHWH rested following
the six days of creation. he New Moon marks the beginning of the month
in keeping with the thirty-day lunar cycle. he New Year, rō’š haššanâ,
marks the beginning of the liturgical year on the first day of the seventh
month with celebration of the day on which YHWH created the world.
he Day of Atonement, yôm kippûr, is an annual fast day observed on the

tenth day of the seventh month to atone for the sins of the nation.
he Israelite and Judean sacrificial system calls for only a limited num-
ber of animals considered fit for sacrifice to YHWH and for human con-
sumption (Leviticus 16 and Deuteronomy 14), apparently as a reminder of
the limitations imposed by YHWH on the human capacity for violence
and bloodshed (Genesis 9). he hind portions of the animal are to be
offered only to YHWH (Genesis 32), perhaps because they are associated
with life or reproduction, and the rib cage and shoulder portions of the
animal may be eaten by humans after all blood has been drained from the
animal and returned to the ground. he ‛ôlâ, “whole burnt offering,” is the
most common type of animal sacrifice offered every day and on all festi-
val occasions (Leviticus 1). It is accompanied by a minhhâ, “gift” or “grain
offering” of unleavened bread (Leviticus 2) and by libation offerings. he
zebahh šel5 āmîm, “Sacrifice of Well-being,” is an animal sacrifice that is
offered on occasions of special gratitude or celebration (Leviticus 3). he
hhathhtā’t, “Sin Offering,” is offered as a means of purification when one
has become impure through the commission of a cultic or moral wrong,
and the ’āšām, “Guilt Offering,” is offered as a means of reparation in such
circumstances (Leviticus 4–5).
he hymns sung as part of the Temple liturgy appear primarily in the
book of Psalms, although selected examples appear in narrative or pro-
phetic literature (e.g., Exodus 15, Judges 5, Isaiah 12, and Habakkuk 3).
hey include a variety of different types. he songs of praise recount
YHWH’s qualities and actions on behalf of the nation (Psalms 8, 105,
and 106). Songs of lament or complaint petition YHWH to act in times
of crisis on behalf of both individuals and the nation (Psalms 6 and 7).
Songs of thanksgiving are sung at times of individual or national deliver-
ance from some danger or calamity (Psalms 30, 34, and 118). Royal psalms
recall YHWH’s sovereignty and relationship with the royal house of David
(Psalms 2, 89, 96–99, and 110). Songs of Zion celebrate YHWH’s rela-
tionship with Zion or Jerusalem (Psalms 46, 48, and 76) and the Songs
of Ascent (to Zion) were likely sung at major festivals at the Jerusalem
Temple (Psalms 120–134).
yhwh’s expectations of teaching ( T Ō R Â )

Israelite and Judean religion viewed YHWH as the source for holiness and
moral order in the world. he temples and priesthood therefore played
important roles in promulgating YHWH’s expectations or teaching (tōrâ)
among the people in the form of collections of law that would govern
Israelite worship and sanctity and provide the basis for a viable and stable
social and economic life for the nation. In keeping with typical patterns
throughout the ancient Near East, the Jerusalem Temple (and presum-
ably other Israelite and Judean temples) serves as the center of creation.
he construction of the wilderness tabernacle, a precursor to Solomon’s
Temple in biblical narrative, appears as the culmination of creation in
the pentateuchal narrative concerning the origins of Israel and creation
in general. Following the ancestral or patriarchal period in Genesis, the
pentateuchal narrative in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy
relates the Exodus from Egyptian bondage, the revelation of divine Torah
at Mount Sinai including instructions for the construction of the Ark of
the Covenant, and the final journey to the Promised Land. Indeed, the
narratives concerning the revelation of divine Torah at Mount Sinai por-
tray the mountain as a holy temple-like site, insofar as YHWH is revealed
there and the people must purify themselves and avoid contact with the
mountain. Moses, the Levitical priest, then mediates the revelation of
Torah to the people. In later times, the Temple would continue to serve
as the source for divine instruction, including the development, regula-
tion, interpretation, and implementation of the Israelite and Judean legal
system. Although judges were selected from the common people and the
priests, the priesthood served as the final court of appeal in the Israelite
and Judean judicial system (Deuteronomy 16–17; cf. Exodus 18). Kings
sometimes exercised judicial authority (see 2 Samuel 12 and 1 Kings 3), but
the narratives view such power critically, and pentateuchal tradition calls
for the Levitical priests to oversee royal authority (Deut 17:14–20).
he pentateuchal narratives concerning the revelation of divine Torah
include two basic accounts, viz., the initial revelation at Mount Sinai and
later in the wilderness in Exodus 19–40, Leviticus, and Numbers, and
Moses’ repetition of YHWH’s Torah in the land of Moab east of the Jordan
River in Deuteronomy immediately prior to Israel’s taking possession of
the Promised Land. Although both narratives are presented synchronically
as coherent accounts of the origins of Israel’s and Judah’s legal systems,
interpreters recognize that the various law codes embedded in the narrative
presuppose a number of distinct historical and cultural settings.
Following the portrayal of YHWH’s presence at Mount Sinai in Exodus
19, the first collections of Israelite law appear in the Ten Commandments and
the so-called Covenant Code of Exodus 20–24. he Ten Commandments
are not law per se, but a form of legal instruction that articulates the basic
principles of piety and justice that underlie Israel’s and Judah’s world
views as, for example, recognition of YHWH alone as God; observance of

YHWH’s religious requirements, such as the sanctity of YHWH’s name
and the Sabbath; and observance of YHWH’s social requirements con-
cerning respect for parents and forbidding murder, theft, adultery, and
so on. he Covenant Code may constitute Israel’s earliest law code from
the tenth-eighth centuries bce. Many of its provisions find parallels in
the major Mesopotamian law codes, such as the Code of Hammurabi
(eighteenth century bce), which points to the antiquity of the Covenant
Code and to the possibility of Mesopotamian legal influence in Israel and
Judah. he Covenant Code includes a wide array of civil law concerning
debt-slavery, manslaughter, assault, property matters, personal liability,
financial regulations, cursing God and king, treatment of the poor, and
observance of religious festivals including the obligation to bring offerings
to the Temple. Exodus 25–30 contains instructions for constructing the
Tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant, and various items associated with the
Temple and priesthood.
Following a narrative concerning cultic apostasy with the Golden Calf, a
revised law code in Exodus 34, perhaps from a later period in Israel or Judah,
addresses problems of religious observance. Exodus 35–40 relates the con-
struction of the Tabernacle and the Ark, which then serve as YHWH’s de
facto Temple until the construction of the Jerusalem Temple by Solomon.
Leviticus 1–16 includes regulations concerning Temple sacrifices and cultic
matters, generally dated to priestly circles from the exilic or early Second
Temple period. he Holiness Code of Leviticus 17–26 likewise considers
cultic matters, such as the treatment of blood, marriage relations, social
behavior, conduct of the priesthood, the festival calendar, property mat-
ters, and obligations to the Temple. Some interpreters date this material to
the reign of the eighth-century Judean monarch Hezekiah (715–687/6 bce)
although many consider it to be exilic or post-exilic. Numbers contains a
mixture of narrative concerning the wilderness wanderings and regulations
concerning the role and authority of the Levitical priesthood, the orga-
nization of the community, cultic matters, and civil matters such as the
inheritance of property by women. Interpreters are divided concerning the
setting of this material. Although much is priestly, it appears to presuppose
periods earlier than the exile.
Deuteronomy presents Moses’ repetition of YHWH’s Torah in the form
of a Levitical sermon prior to Israel’s movement into the land of Canaan.
his account also begins with a version of the Ten Commandments in
Deuteronomy 5 that reiterates the basic principles of Israel’s world
view. Close analysis of the laws of Deuteronomy indicates that they are
frequently revisions of earlier laws that give greater rights to various dis-
advantaged groups, particularly the Levites, resident aliens, women, and
the poor of the land in general. Deuteronomy emphasizes that worship
of YHWH should be concentrated in only one central sanctuary in the
land (Deuteronomy 12 and other passages). Although some interpret-
ers argue that Deuteronomy’s origins lie in northern Israel, the northern
kingdom maintained sanctuaries in Dan and Beth El. he requirement
for a central sanctuary fits with Judean practice, insofar as Judean kings
such as Hezekiah (715–687/6 bce) and Josiah (640–609 bce) attempted
to centralize Judean worship in Jerusalem. Most interpreters maintain
that Deuteronomy represents a law code employed in King Josiah’s pro-
gram of religious reform and national restoration following the collapse of
Assyrian power over Judah and western Asia in the mid-seventh century
bce. Although Deuteronomy gives greater rights to the people of the land,
the very group that put Josiah into power following the assassination of his
father King Amon (642–640 bce), it is ascribed originally – like the other
law codes – to YHWH and Moses.
he pentateuchal law codes played important roles in governing both
religious and civil life in ancient Israel and Judah during the monarchic
period. Following the Babylonian exile, when Judah was reconstituted as
a province of the Persian Empire, the Pentateuch provided the means for
Jews to govern themselves according to their own laws in keeping with
Persian imperial practice (see Nehemiah 8–10). Later periods saw the
Pentateuch or Torah emerge as the basis for Jewish life outside of the land
as well during the Greco-Roman period and beyond.
alternatives to the jerusaelem temple: other forms

of religious practice and viewpoints
he Jerusalem Temple played a constitutive role in defining ancient Judean
religious tradition, but the Hebrew Bible and archaeological evidence point
to other forms of religious practice and viewpoint as well. Some may be
characteristic of the northern kingdom of Israel, which is frequently pre-
sented in polemical terms in the largely Judean Hebrew Bible. Others may
be characteristic of popular religion practiced among the people outside
of the Jerusalem Temple or syncretistic practices that combine elements
of Judean and Israelite religious practice with those of the surrounding
cultures.
Although Judean reform movements frequently emphasize the Jerusalem
Temple as the central and exclusive sanctuary for the worship of YHWH,
Israelite and Judean religions generally presuppose multiple sanctuaries.

Early practice would call for sacrifice to be made to YHWH or other gods
by family representatives at high places throughout the land (see, e.g.,
Elijah’s sacrifice at Mount Carmel). Worship of family gods was known
at the popular level,13 and burials indicate offerings on behalf of the dead.
Established sanctuaries appear in the north at Gilgal, Shiloh, Beth El, Dan,
Shechem, Megiddo, and elsewhere, and southern sanctuaries appear at
Jerusalem, Gibeon, Beer Sheba, Arad, and other locations. Archaeological
excavation indicates that many of these sites were founded in the Bronze
Age long before the emergence of Israel beginning in the twelfth century
bce and may therefore have served as Canaanite sanctuary sites that later
were identified with YHWH.
he northern kingdom of Israel maintained two national temple sites
at Beth El and Dan, probably because the greater size of the kingdom
required two sites to ensure that the people could reach a sanctuary in
order to make their offerings at the festivals. Because the Hebrew Bible is
largely a Judean work, it tends to portray northern worship sites and prac-
tices polemically as apostate or as deviations from YHWH’s will. Although
northern Israelite practice displays some Canaanite features, the same may
be said for Judah. It is doubtful that northern Israel deliberately set out to
engage in sinful religious practice, and it is therefore necessary to set aside
some of the religious polemics when reading narratives about the northern
kingdom. Jeroboam’s establishment of the sanctuaries at Beth El and Dan,
for example, include the installation of golden calf images, which 1 Kings
12 depicts as idolatrous. he golden calves, however, were not gods per se.
Such images are typical mounts for deities in the ancient Near Eastern
world, and it is likely that they functioned as mounts for YHWH much as
the Ark of the Covenant functioned as YHWH’s throne in the Jerusalem
Temple. he charge that Jeroboam appointed non-Levitical priests is likely
true, although it would presuppose the practice noted above of designat-
ing first-born sons as priests prior to the designation of the tribe of Levi
as priests. he celebration of the festival of Sukkot on the fifteenth day of
the eighth month, rather than on the fifteenth day of the seventh month,
likely presupposes a somewhat different festival calendar in the north. he
circumstances under which Passover may be celebrated on the fourteenth
day of the second month, rather than the fourteenth day of the first month,
may also presuppose a different northern calendar (Numbers 9).
13
See the reference to the household idols (te5rāpîm) of Laban in Genesis 31 and 35.
he installation of uninscribed cultic pillars or mashshēbôt likely rep-

resents a male fertility symbol associated with the Canaanite god Baal,
but they come to represent YHWH in Israelite sanctuaries, such as Beth
El (Genesis 28), or the excavated Judean sanctuary at Arad. Likewise, the
planting of a cultic tree (’ăšērâ) by Ahab (1 Kings 16), Manasseh (2 Kings
21), and others originally represents the Canaanite fertility goddess Asherah,
but such imagery is incorporated into the Jerusalem Temple insofar as the
seven-branched candelabra or men5 ōrôt represents the tree associated with
Eve in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3). he charges that various kings sac-
rificed children or caused their sons to pass through the fire may represent
Canaanite or Moabite forms of child sacrifice (see, e.g., Mesha’s sacrifice of
his son in 2 Kings 3). By contrast, Israelite and Judean practice maintains
that the first-born belong to YHWH (Exod 34:19–20), but rejects human
sacrifice and instead calls for the first-born sons to be redeemed to serve as
priests (see Genesis 21 and 1 Samuel 1), a role later taken in Judah by the
tribe of Levi (Numbers 3–4 and 8).
It is also possible that women played liturgical roles in the north. Exodus
15 portrays Miriam, a prophet and Levitical sister of Moses and Aaron, lead-
ing the women of Israel in worship, dance, and liturgical song at the parting
of the Red Sea. Judges 4–5 depicts Deborah, a prophet and judge, singing
a liturgical psalm together with the warrior Barak upon their victory over
Sisera. he mourning of Jephthah’s daughter prior to her sacrifice in Judges
11 may reflect mourning rituals conducted in Canaanite, Mesopotamian,
Israelite, and Judean traditions during the late-summer dry season prior
to the onset of the rainy season in the fall (see also Ezekiel 8, which notes
the women mourning for Tammuz, the Mesopotamian fertility god who
must be brought back from the underworld by Ishtar to inaugurate the
rainy season). 1 Samuel 1–2 portrays Hannah praying at the Shiloh temple
during the festival celebrated there, and it notes how Hophni and Phineas,
sons of the high priest Eli, lay with the women who were congregating
at the Tent of Meeting or sanctuary. Inscriptional evidence also points to
potential cultic roles for women. he Khirbet el-Kom tomb inscriptions,
a site located in Judah west of Hebron dated from the eighth through
the sixth centuries bce, refer to both YHWH and the goddess Asherata
or Asherah.14 he Kuntillet ‛Ajrud inscriptions, discovered at the site of
a ninth-eighth-century-bce northern Israelite trading station located in
the eastern Sinai, refer to “YHWH of Samaria,” “YHWH of Teman,” and
YHWH’s “Asherah.” Drawings associated with the inscriptions also depict
14
See Zevit, he Religions, 359–70.
a woman playing an instrument while two male figures dance.15 he pro-

liferation of mother or mother-goddess figurines in Israel and Judah may
represent vestiges of popular religion, Canaanite practice, or even earlier
Israelite and Judean religious practice.16 Consulting the spirits of the dead
may reflect Canaanite or popular practice, but it was forbidden in Israel
(see Exod 22:17 and 1 Samuel 28). he marzēahh, a funerary observance
that calls for copious drinking (Isaiah 28), was a Canaanite practice known
from Ugarit that found its way into Israel and Judah.17
Finally, prophets play an important role in both northern Israel and
southern Judah as figures who communicate oracles from YHWH to the
people. Prophets are known throughout the ancient Near Eastern world
as oracle diviners, poets and singers, and cultic functionaries who advise
monarchs, priests, and other figures concerning the will of the gods. An
example of an oracle diviner in the Bible is the Mesopotamian baru-priest
Balaam, a figure known from an eighth-century-bce Trans-Jordanian wall
inscription from Deir ‛Allah,18 who unsuccessfully attempts to curse the
Israelites prior to their entry into the promised land (Numbers 22–24).
Moses also functions in this role, insofar as he communicated directly
with YHWH throughout the pentateuchal narratives and veiled his face
as a result of that experience (see esp. Exodus 33–34). Prophets could also
serve as the singers of psalms in the Temple liturgy (see 2 Chron 29:25
and 35:15; cf. 2 Kings 3, which portrays Elijah delivering an oracle to
music). Although priests could serve as prophets (e.g., Jeremiah, Ezekiel,
or Zechariah), non-priestly figures could also serve (e.g., Amos, Isaiah, or
Micah). Women could serve as prophets in northern Israel (e.g., Deborah,
Judges 4–5) and in southern Judah (e.g., Huldah, 2 Kings 22).
he prophets are key figures in interpreting events in relation to their
understandings of YHWH’s will. Insofar as they argue that catastrophe
takes place as a result of human – and not divine – failings, the prophets
engage in theodicy or the defense of divine power and righteousness.19
Amos, a Judean agriculturalist who brought Judean tribute to the north-
ern Israelite sanctuary at Beth El, argued that northern Israel was unjust
in its treatment of its vassal Judah and that YHWH would destroy the
Beth El temple and restore Davidic rule over the north. Isaiah advised
15
See ibid., 370–406.
16
See ibid., 267–74.
17
See Lewis, Cults of the Dead , 80–94.
18
For discussion of the Deir ‛Allah inscription, see Dijkstra, “Is Balaam,” 43–64.
19
Such assertions may also be challenged. See, e.g., Job, which raises questions about YHWH, and
Esther, in which YHWH does not appear at a time of threat.
King Ahaz against turning to the Assyrians when Judah was attacked by
the allied forces of Aram and Israel based on the Davidic-Zion tradition
that YHWH would defend Jerusalem and the Davidic king. Jeremiah, a
Levitical priest charged with teaching divine Torah, argued that Judah
must ally with Babylon rather than with Egypt, Israel’s oppressor in the
Torah, or suffer destruction as a punishment from YHWH. Ezekiel, a
Zadokite priest exiled to Babylonia, saw visions of YHWH based on the
imagery of the Ark of the Covenant from the Jerusalem Temple, as part
of his efforts to argue that destruction of the Temple entailed YHWH’s
attempt to purify the defiled Temple and all creation. An anonymous
prophet from the exile known only as Second Isaiah argued that the fall
of the Babylonian Empire to Persia was an act of YHWH and that the
Persian king Cyrus was YHWH’s anointed who would see to the resto-
ration of the exiles to Jerusalem. Zechariah, a Temple priest returned to
Jerusalem from Babylonian exile, portrayed the rebuilding of the Temple
as a signal of YHWH’s recognition as sovereign by the nations of the
world.
conclusion
In sum, the religions of ancient Israel and Judah provided the basis for
national and social self-identity and religious practice from the time of the
formation of an independent monarchy during the early tenth century
bce until the respective destructions of the northern kingdom of Israel by
the Assyrian Empire in 722/1 bce and the southern kingdom of Judah by
the Babylonian Empire in 587/6 bce. Both appear to have grown out of
pre-Israelite Canaanite religious practice, and both were heavily influenced
by other religious traditions, such as those of Egypt, Aram, Phoenicia,
and Mesopotamia. Nevertheless, both Israelite and Judean religions repre-
sent distinctive approaches to the worship of the deity, YHWH, as cre-
ator of heaven and earth and the patron deity of the kingdoms of Israel
and Judah. hroughout the period of the Israelite and Judean monarchies,
temples at Shiloh and later at Beth El and Dan in northern Israel and
Jerusalem in southern Judah constituted the focal points for religious ide-
ology, liturgy, and observance in each kingdom. With the return of exiled
Judeans to Jerusalem in 539 bce and the reconstruction of the Jerusalem
Temple in the early years of the Achaemenid Persian Empire (520–515 bce),
Judean religion began to develop into the religious tradition of Judaism
that would be practiced not only in the land of Israel but throughout the
ancient Mediterranean world and beyond.
bibliography
Ackerman, Susan. Under Every Green Tree: Popular Religion in Ancient Judah. Harvard
Semitic Monographs 46 (Atlanta, 1992).
Albertz, Rainer. A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period. 2 vols., trans.
John Bowden (Louisville, 1994).
Anderson, Gary A. Sacrifices and Off erings in Ancient Israel: Studies in their Social and
Political Importance. Harvard Semitic Monographs 41 (Atlanta, 1987).
Berlin, Adele, and Marc Brettler. he Jewish Study Bible (Oxford, 2003).
Bloch-Smith, Elizabeth. Judahite Burial Practices and Beliefs about the Dead. Journal for
the Study of the Old Testament Supplements 123 (Sheffield, U.K., 1992).
Boecker, Hans Jochen. Law and the Administration of Justice in the Old Testament and
Ancient East, trans. Jeremy Moiser (Minneapolis, 1980).
Busink, T. Der Tempel von Jerusalem. Von Salomo bis Herodes. 2 vols. (Leiden,
1970–1980).
Collins, John J. An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis, 2004).
Cryer, Frederick H. Divination in Ancient Israel And Its Near Eastern Environment: A Socio-
Historical Investigation. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplements 142
(Sheffield, U.K., 1993).
Dearman, Andrew, ed. Studies in the Mesha Inscription and Moab. Society of Biblical
Literature Archeology and Biblical Studies 2 (Atlanta, 1989).
Dijkstra, Meindert. “Is Balaam Also among the Prophets?” Journal of Biblical Literature
114 (1995): 43–64.
Elliger, Karl, and Wilhelm Rudolph, eds. Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 3rd ed. (Stuttgart,
1987).
Gerstenberger, Erhard S. Psalms, Part 1, with an Introduction to Cultic Poetry. he Forms
of the Old Testament Literature 14 (Grand Rapids, 1988).
Klawans, Jonathan. Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism (Oxford, 2000).
Knohl, Israel. he Sanctuary of Silence: he Priestly Torah and the Holiness School
(Minneapolis, 1995).
Levenson, Jon D. “he Temple and the World.” Journal of Religion 64 (1984): 275–98.
Sinai and Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible (Minneapolis, 1985).
Lewis, heodore J. Cults of the Dead in Ancient Israel and Ugarit. Harvard Semitic
Monographs 39 (Atlanta, 1989).
Mazar, Amihai. Archaeology of the Land of the Bible 10,000–586 B.C.E . (New York, 1990).
Meeks, Wayne A., et al., eds. he HarperCollins Study Bible (San Francisco, 2006).
Meyers, Carol. “Temple, Jerusalem,” in he Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. D. N. Freedman
et al. (Garden City, N.Y., 1992), 6:350–69.
Milgrom, Jacob. Cult and Conscience (Leiden, 1976).
Pritchard, James B. Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton,
1969).
Rehm, Merlin D. “Levites and Priests.” ABD 4: 297–310.
Rooke, Deborah W. Zadok’s Heirs: he Role and Development of the High Priesthood in
Ancient Israel. Oxford heological Monographs (Oxford, 2000).
Smith, Mark S. he Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the
Ugaritic Texts (Oxford, 2001).
Stern, Ephraim, ed. he New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land.
4 vols. ( Jerusalem, 1993).
Archaeology of the Land of the Bible. Volume II: he Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian
Periods (732–332 B.C.E.) (New York, 2001).
Sweeney, Marvin A. he Prophetic Literature. Interpreting Biblical Texts (Nashville, 2005).
Van der Toorn, Karel. “Y-hw-h,” DDD2, 910–19.
Family Religion in Babylonia, Syria, and Israel. Studies in the History and Cultures of
the Ancient Near East 7 (Leiden, 1996).
Weinfeld, Moshe. Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford, 1972).
Zevit, Ziony. he Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches (London,
2001).
 
EGYPT AND NORTH AFRICA

7
EGYPTIAN RELIGION
denise m. doxey
Along with its great antiquity,1 ancient Egyptian religion presents unique
obstacles to interpretation.2 he absence of a coherent written doctrine
has required scholars to rely on a variety of disparate sources, including
funerary spells, literary works, instructional treatises, biographical inscrip-
tions, artistic representations, and archaeological evidence to attempt to
understand the ancient Egyptians’ relationship to the divine. Fortunately,
Egypt’s climate and the Egyptians’ own practices have left an unusually
rich corpus of textual and archaeological evidence.
he study of Egyptian religion is also complicated by the seemingly
alien nature of Egyptian deities and beliefs when viewed from the per-
spective of cultures accustomed to an anthropomorphic deity or deities.
From Greco-Roman times, representations of gods and goddesses with
combined human and animal characteristics aroused confusion and suspi-
cion. he esoteric nature of surviving funerary texts, with their enigmatic
denizens of the afterlife, only increased the sense of alienation. In addi-
tion, the Egyptians’ understanding of their pantheon was subject to review
and alteration over its three-thousand-year history. Towns and districts
each worshipped their own deities and even held different beliefs regard-
ing creation and the nature of the cosmos. In Lower Egypt the principal
creator-god was Atum, the patron god of Heliopolis. At Memphis, the
Memphite god Ptah was seen as a manifestation of Atum. Meanwhile in
southernmost Egypt, Khnum, a god associated with the source of the Nile,
was the primary creator. he Egyptians apparently saw no contradiction in
the presence of multiple gods of creation. Deities therefore shared overlap-
ping functions and characteristics, and two or more could share attributes.
1
For the sites relevant to Egyptian religion, see Map 3 in Chapter 5.
2
Quirke, Religion, 7–19.
177
178 Denise M. Doxey
For example, Amen-Ra, the supreme state god of Egypt during the New
Kingdom, arose from the combination of the traditional solar god Ra with
the local god of hebes, Amen, after hebes became Egypt’s capital.
he study of Egyptian religion has also suffered from attempts to view
ancient beliefs and practices through the lens of contemporary religious
teaching. One of the foremost questions having engaged scholars is the
extent to which Egyptian religion was monotheistic. Many early interpre-
tations were guided by the preconception that monotheistic religions were
more “advanced” than animist or polytheistic religions and that Egyptian
religion should somehow “progress” from polytheism to monotheism. he
history of scholarly thought about Egyptian religion is well covered by
Hornung in his Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt.3 Many nineteenth-
century Egyptologists, either consciously or not, sought to establish an
underlying monotheism behind the apparent multiplicity of Egyptian dei-
ties. It was once believed that monotheism preceded polytheism in the
development of Egyptian religion. Near the end of the century Maspero
first argued the opposite – monotheism had developed out of polythe-
ism. he discovery of the first Predynastic and Early Dynastic cultures
supported his theory by demonstrating that the earliest Egyptians wor-
shipped multiple deities. Later, the early twentieth century saw the search
for monotheism give way to a widespread belief that the Egyptians were
henotheistic, worshipping different deities, but only one at any given time.
Yet by mid-century, scholars, following Drioton, adopted what Hornung
terms “neomonotheism,” a belief that the Egyptians worshipped numer-
ous manifestations of a single, hidden deity. Hornung’s study led him to
support the notion of a multiplicity of deities. Still more recently Assmann
has argued in Solar Religion in the New Kingdom for belief in a transcen-
dent solar deity, at least during the eighteenth dynasty. New evidence
and new approaches will undoubtedly continue to bring new and revised
interpretations.
the egyptian concept of god and gods

Although the Egyptians did not have a word for “religion,” they had a
word for “god,” translated today as netjer and rendered noute in Coptic,
theos in Greek, and Eloha in Aramaic.4 he hieroglyph for netjer, an out-
stretched banner attached to a pole wrapped in bandages, appears among
3
Hornung, Conceptions, 15–32.
4
Dunand and Zivie-Coche, Gods and Men, 7–13; Hornung, Conceptions, 33–65.
Egyptian Religion 179
the earliest preserved hieroglyphs, around 3100 bce, indicating that its sym-
bolism dates to prehistory. he interpretation of this emblem is unclear,
but flagpoles were standard features of temple façades, and evidence for
them occurs even in the remains of predynastic temples (3650–3300 bce).
Other hieroglyphs for “god” include a falcon perched on a standard and
a seated, cloaked human. he fact that the word “gods” frequently occurs
in the plural demonstrates that it cannot refer to a single “God,” although
certain types of texts, particularly autobiographies and instructions, use
netjer to designate an unspecified deity. It was this usage that led scholars
to see it as a word for an overarching, monotheistic, god.
Although Egyptian deities were believed to be incorporeal, they required
a physical form to interact with humans. A statue, for example, could serve
as the temporary “body” of a deity, enabling it to receive offerings of food
and incense. his transformation required the performance of rituals to
animate the statue. he best known is the Opening of the Mouth cere-
mony, believed to enable a cult statue to eat and breathe. he situation is
thus directly opposite to that of Judaism and Islam, which expressly forbid
the creation of idols.
In giving a physical structure to natural forces, Egyptian gods took
both anthropomorphic and zoomorphic forms, as well as combinations
of the two. Animals later identified with gods and goddesses appeared in
Predynastic amulets and other representations, but it is uncertain whether
they were already at that point believed to be divine. Certain anthropomor-
phic figures of the same period, including females with upraised arms and
males with distinct, pointed beards have been interpreted as deities, but
the identification is not universally accepted. By the Early Dynastic Period,
both zoomorphic and anthropomorphic deities are clearly identifiable.
A deity could have a single or multiple manifestations, both human and
animal, based on its function. Despite the interpretations of early writers
such as Herodotus, the Egyptians did not worship animals per se. Animal
cults are documented during the later parts of Egyptian history, but in
these cases only a single animal, not an entire species, was believed to serve
as the god’s representative. he best known of these cults is the Apis bull
of Memphis. Some deities, such as Amun, Ptah, and Osiris, appeared
solely in human form. Several funerary gods, notably Anubis but also
Khentiamentiu, Wepwawet, and Duamutef, took the form of a jackal, a
creature regularly seen in cemeteries. he multifaceted hoth could appear
as a baboon, an ibis, or an ibis-headed human. Amen-Ra, the preeminent
deity of the New Kingdom and later, was represented as a human, as a
falcon or falcon-headed man, and as a ram or ram-headed man. Several
180 Denise M. Doxey
Fig. 2. Representation of Ra from the temple of Ramesses III, Medinet Habu, dynasty
20. Photo by Denise M. Doxey.
gods associated with virility appeared as bulls, and maternal goddesses as

cows or cow-headed women. A ram could symbolize one of several gods,
including Ra, Khnum, or Harsaphes. In these cases, barring an identify-
ing inscription, the gods’ headdresses are the best means of distinguishing
them, because they often incorporate identifying symbols of a particular
deity. For example, a falcon wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower
Egypt can be understood as Horus, the patron of kingship, and a falcon
wearing a solar disk represents the sun-god Ra (Fig. 2).
cosmogony and cosmology

Evidence for ancient Egyptian cosmology and cosmogony derives from
an array of texts and scenes from tombs, royal mortuary complexes, and
temples. he texts are complex and at times contradictory, and ancient

glosses indicate that even the Egyptians themselves had difficulty under-
standing them.5 Information can nevertheless be gleaned from a careful
study of inscriptions from the late fifth dynasty Pyramid Texts of Unas
(ca.2353–2323 bce), through the Middle Kingdom (ca.2140–1640 bce)
Coffin Texts and the New Kingdom (ca.1550–1070 bce) Books of the
Afterlife and Book of the Dead.6
he Egyptians had no single version of cosmogony, the creation of the
universe, but rather several accounts that varied over time and location.
One of the most important is known today as the Heliopolitan Cosmogony
because it derives from Heliopolis, the center of solar cult near the ancient
capital, Memphis.7 Features of this version first appeared in the Pyramid
Texts, but they surely existed in oral form earlier and continued with some
variations throughout Egyptian history. In this cosmogony, the creator-god
Atum is said to have ejaculated to beget the air and moisture, personified,
respectively, by the god Shu and goddess Tefnut. hey in turn gave birth
to the earth, Geb, and the sky, Nut, who then became the parents of the
next generation of gods, Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, and Seth, whose story is
discussed below. his group of nine primeval deities is known today as the
Heliopolitan Ennead.
he influence of Egypt’s location and environment on its concept of
the universe, or cosmology, can hardly be overstated.8 he Nile, running
through virtually rainless northern Africa, created a fertile strip of land
through an otherwise inhospitable climate. Annual floods provided layers
of fertile silt on which the Egyptians depended for their agriculture. he
valley was thus perceived as the hospitable “black land” while the deserts
to either side were the “red land,” inhabited by chaotic and threatening ele-
ments such as wild animals, foreign enemies, and a relentlessly unfriendly
climate. he regularity of the floods and resulting harvests infused Egyptian
belief with a strong sense of repetition and rebirth. he daily cycle of the
rising and setting sun and nightly movements of stars and other heavenly
bodies reinforced this view. Hence, to the Egyptians, the functioning of
the world and the entire cosmos depended upon a constant cycle of birth,
death, and rebirth. To maintain this cycle, it was necessary to remain vigi-
lant against forces continuously threatening to disrupt it.
5
Shafer, ed., Religion, 89–90; Simpson, ed., Religion and Philosophy, 29–54.
6
Allen, Genesis, 1–7; idem, Pyramid Texts ; Hornung, Afterlife.
7
Shafer, ed., Religion, 91–4.
8
Ibid., 117–22.
182 Denise M. Doxey
Fig. 3. Osiris and king Amenhotep II from the tomb of Amenhotep II, hebes,
dynasty 18. Photo by Denise M. Doxey.
he story of Osiris and Seth, a cornerstone of Egyptian belief, is best

understood in this context.9 According to the myth, Osiris, the prototyp-
ical king of Egypt, presided over the fertile valley in the company of his
sister and wife, Isis, the embodiment of marital fidelity and motherhood.
His brother, the storm-god Seth, occupied the inhospitable desert beyond.
Envious of Osiris, Seth murdered and dismembered him, scattering his
body parts throughout Egypt. Isis, a powerful magician, retrieved and reas-
sembled the remains, reviving Osiris successfully enough to conceive by
him his son, Horus, who would go on to defeat Seth and avenge his father.
Horus thereby became the personification of divine kingship, while Osiris
became the ruler of the underworld, or Duat (Fig. 3).
Among the best illustrations of the Egyptians’ perceived cosmos are
New Kingdom scenes such as those on the ceilings of the cenotaph of Seti
I (ca.1290–1279 bce) at Abydos and the tomb of Ramesses VI (ca.1143–1136
9
Ibid., 92–3.
bce) in the Valley of the Kings at hebes.10 hese and similar scenes on
funerary papyri depict the sky as the goddess Nut, whose star-covered
body stretches over the earth, supported by the atmosphere in the form
of the god Shu. Geb, usually shown in human form, personifies the earth.
Nut gives birth to the sun at dawn and devours it again at dusk. he
Duat, the world of the gods and the deceased, is sometimes said to lie
within the body of Nut, although other sources place it below the earth.11
Surrounding both worlds was a limitless expanse of impenetrably dark
water known as Nun. he daily cycle of the sun took place at the point of
intersection between the known world and what lay beyond.
solar religion
he sun-god Ra and his travels through the heavens played a highly signifi-
cant role in Egyptian religion, and many other deities were at times under-
stood as manifestations of the sun-god. From the dawn of their history,
the Egyptians had a deep appreciation of the sun’s importance, and just as
early they identified it with a falcon, initially the sky-god Horus, who later
was associated with the rising and setting sun in the form of Ra-Horakhty
(meaning “Horus of the horizon”). From the time of the Pyramid Texts,
Ra was treated as a manifestation of the creator-god, Atum. As such, he
was believed to have created himself spontaneously.
During the New Kingdom, both texts and tomb scenes emphasize the
all-encompassing significance of the sun-god in his many forms. he royal
tombs of the Valley of the Kings featured a scene and accompanying text
known as the “Litany of Ra,” which appeared later in non-royal funerary
papyri as well.12 Here the sun-god was named and portrayed in seventy-five
different forms, including those of other major deities. Contemporary
non-royal monuments also demonstrate the increased prominence of solar
religion. For example, the stele of the twin brothers Suti and Hor, from
the reign of Amenhotep III (ca.1390–1352 bce) and now in the British
Museum (BM 826), bore a pair of hymns and prayers to the sun-god,13
referring to him as “the creator, uncreated, the sole one, the unique one,”
and assert that when the sun sets the earth’s creatures “sleep as in a state of
death.” he primacy of the sun-god soon thereafter reached an unprece-
dented level during the reign of Akhenaten (ca.1352–1336 bce).
10
Allen, Genesis, 1–7; Hornung, Afterlife, 115, fig. 64.
11
Allen, Genesis, 6–7.
12
Hornung, Afterlife, 141–7.
13
Lichtheim, Literature, 2:86–9.
184 Denise M. Doxey
In both art and hieroglyphic texts, the solar god took a number of forms
in addition to that of the falcon. To symbolize the self-creative process,
the Egyptians drew an analogy to the scarab, or dung beetle, which laid
eggs in a ball of dung and rolled it across the sand, after which the new
generation of scarabs hatched and emerged from the ball as if self-engen-
dered (Fig. 4). he moving ball was likened to the solar disk and the newly
hatched beetles to the emergence of the sun at dawn. Hence, from the late
Old Kingdom onward the scarab, known to the Egyptians as Khepri, “one
who comes into being,” became one of the most ubiquitous symbols of
rebirth in Egyptian religion. Another solar symbol derived from the natu-
ral world was that of the first mound of earth to emerge from the primeval
waters at creation, on which the sun-god appeared in the form of a heron,
the benu, which later inspired the Greek concept of the phoenix. A third
solar emblem is the blue lotus blossom, which closed at night to reopen
again at dawn. From the New Kingdom onward the infant sun-god, as
well as the king as the sun-god, could be represented emerging from an
open lotus at the start of the solar cycle.
he journey of the sun-god through the heavens by day and the after-
life by night became the principal subject of royal tomb decoration in the
New Kingdom, appearing in burial chambers, shrines, and mummy wrap-
pings.14 Like the Litany of Ra, the journey later became a feature of non-
royal funerary papyri as well. Beginning in the early part of the eighteenth
dynasty, when only the nocturnal journey was represented, the portrayal of
the sun’s travels appeared in several different versions, known collectively
today as the Books of the Afterlife or Books of the Underworld. Certain
fundamental aspects of the journey occur in all versions. Ra travels in a
boat accompanied by other deities imbued with powers to guide and pro-
tect him. In the course of his journey, he faces numerous challenges, most
notably the serpent Apophis, who attempts to ground the vessel as if on a
sandbank. hus, the sun-god, and by association the king, was required to
defeat dangerous forces to ensure the continuation of life. At the depths of
the underworld and in the middle of the night, the most important part
of the nocturnal cycle occurred when the ba, or mobile spirit, of the sun-
god became one with Osiris, the deceased king and ruler of the afterlife,
in order to be reborn.
14
Hornung, Afterlife, 27–112.
Fig. 4. he sun-god in the form of the beetle, Khepri, from the White Chapel of
Senwosret I, hebes, dynasty 12. Photo by Denise M. Doxey.
186 Denise M. Doxey
the ideology of kingship

he ideology of kingship and social order was inextricably linked to cos-
mology and solar religion.15 On the one hand, the king was believed to
be the living embodiment of Horus, the son of Osiris, and therefore the
direct descendant of the Heliopolitan Ennead and the creator-god.16 In
this capacity he was responsible for protecting Egypt against the forces
of chaos represented by Seth. hus, the Horus falcon was linked to royal
iconography throughout Egyptian history. At the time of Egypt’s earliest
kings, about 3100 bce, the king’s name was written in a stylized palace
façade, known as a serekh, atop which sat a falcon. By the Old Kingdom,
the first of the king’s five formal titles was “the Horus.” he king was also
associated from the earliest times with Ra and was known from the late
Old Kingdom onward as the “son of Ra,” a phrase of such significance
that it immediately preceded the king’s personal name in the royal titu-
lary.17 Inscriptions on monuments of the New Kingdom (ca.1550–1070
bce) and later liken the king so closely to the sun-god that the two can
be seen as separate manifestations of the same entity, with the king tak-
ing corporeal form on earth for a limited time before returning to the
heavens.
he divine ancestry of the king was documented in art and writing
throughout Egyptian history. In the New Kingdom, the female pharaoh
Hatshepsut (ca.1473–1458 bce) justified her right to the throne with a
cycle of images in her mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri, in which the
god Amen-Ra takes the form of Hatshepsut’s father, the king, engender-
ing Hatshepsut as his divine heiress, whose birth he then oversees. he
sequence suggested that the king was not a mere mortal, but rather the
offspring of the sun-god. A literary work of the early Middle Kingdom
(ca.2061–1780 bce) preserved in the “Westcar Papyrus” made this point
even more strongly.18 In this text, a prophet foretells the end of the fourth
dynasty with a tale of the divine conception and birth of the first kings of
the fifth. he sun-god in this case was said to select a non-royal woman,
the wife of a solar priest, to be the mother of the next dynasty. he story
is set at precisely the time that the title “son of Ra” became a standard part
of the kings’ titles, perhaps reflecting a historical reality in the growing
importance of the solar cult.
15
Frankfort, Kingship; Quirke, Cult of Re, 7–8; Shafer, ed., Religion, 91.
16
Assman, Search, 119–23; Quirke, Cult of Re, 7–8; Shafer, ed., Religion, 93.
17
Assman, Search, 118–19; Quirke, Religion, 21.
18
Berlin Papyrus, 3033.
he semi-divine position of the king formed the basis of Egypt’s social

hierarchy. In Egyptian thought, the king functioned as the direct and only
intermediary between humankind and the gods. In this capacity, he sus-
tained and appeased the gods with offerings, in exchange for which they
made it possible for him to maintain world order.19 In temple decoration,
the king appeared as the quintessential high priest. He was the ultimate
judge, responsible for maintaining order, or maat, throughout the realm.
Activities such as dedicating temples, waging wars, and organizing trading
missions all were perceived as acts of devotion to the gods. Foreigners were
included among the potentially chaotic forces that needed to be subdued
to maintain order and divine good will. A series of songs in honor of king
Senwosret III (ca.1878–1841 bce), preserved on papyri from the town of
Illahun, exemplify these principles.20 he first hymn recalls Senwosret’s
military prowess, crediting him with “overwhelming the foreign lands with
your crown.” he next is more all-encompassing, describing Senwosret’s
deeds in satisfying the gods, the Egyptian people, deceased ancestors, the
young, the elderly, and the land of Egypt itself. Another hymn likens him
to Ra, calling him a dam against floods, a bastion against enemies, shade
in summer, warmth in winter, and protection against storms. Some of the
phrasing evokes later Jewish and Christian tradition, such as the reference
to the king as the shepherd of his people, a metaphor also found in other
Egyptian hymns in praise of the king.
For the rest of the Egyptian population, access to the divine world and
to eternal salvation came only through service to the king or his representa-
tives. Where the king could be said to appease the gods directly, his imme-
diate subordinates claimed to have pleased the king, while receiving the
love and beneficence of the gods only indirectly through royal favor.21 In
turn, local governors and other senior officials depicted themselves in their
tombs as intermediaries between the king and the lower ranks of society,
dispensing justice and collecting offerings for the royal coffers, while car-
ing for their constituents and ensuring their survival in times of trouble.
sanctuaries and festivals

he earliest identifiable remains of an Egyptian temple were discovered at
Hieraconpolis, ancient Nekhen and modern Kom el-Ahmar, in southern
19
Quirke, Cult of Re, 17–22.
20
Simpson, ed., Literature, 301–6.
21
Doxey, Epithets, 80–151.
188 Denise M. Doxey
Egypt, already an important center of worship some four centuries before

Egypt’s first king.22 he complex consisted of a large parabolic-shaped
court surrounded by a wattle-and-daub wall with the main temple on the
south side and the entrance, along with a series of subsidiary buildings, on
the north. At the center of the apse was a large pole, possibly bearing a cult
statue of the local falcon-god. he temple was faced with a series of massive
posts, which the excavators identified as likely precursors of the flagpoles
that later stood before the pylons of Egyptian temples.
Most surviving Egyptian temples date to the later years of ancient
Egyptian history, the New Kingdom through the Greco-Roman period
(ca.1550 bce –364 ce). Although it is somewhat hazardous to extrapo-
late backward to earlier periods, the archaeological evidence suggests a
degree of continuity. he ancient Egyptian term for a temple, hut-netjer,
translates literally as “god’s house,” and the name conveys accurately how
the temples functioned. hey were not places of public worship, and the
majority of the population was restricted from entering most areas of the
temple. Rather, they functioned as estates for deities or deceased kings, in
which their cult statues were clothed, fed, and cared for by an entourage
of priests. he most common priestly title, hem-netjer, translates liter-
ally as “god’s servant.” In addition to the temple, cult property included
wharfs, agricultural land, industrial workshops, bakeries, slaughterhouses,
storehouses, offices, treasuries, libraries, and other facilities that made the
temples a vital component of the Egyptian economy. Massive walls pro-
tected these complexes, creating what were essentially fortified palaces for
their divine inhabitants.
he preserved temples adhere to a relatively standard plan. Moving
from the exterior of the temple through to the sanctuary, a visitor would
proceed through a series of courtyards and rooms that rose gradually in ele-
vation, had increasingly low ceilings, and received a decreasing amount of
light as they became smaller and more contained. he innermost and least
accessible part of the temple was the sanctuary. here, the god’s cult statue
was housed within a sealed shrine, accessible only to select priests. For
the general public, access to the sacred statues took the form of frequent
festivals and processions, during which the cult images were carried out-
side in boats, symbolically “sailing” as Ra did through the heavens (Fig. 5).
Processional ways lined with sphinxes and shrines for the divine barque
connected the temples to the world of the living.
22
Wilkinson, Temples, 17–18; Friedman, “Ceremonial Centre,” 16–35.
Fig. 5. Procession of the solar barque, from the temple of Ramesses III, Medinet
Habu, dynasty 20. Photo by Denise M. Doxey.
he temples’ decoration was intimately connected to the function of

its various parts. he entrance was through a pylon shaped like the hiero-
glyph for the horizon, or akhet, over which the sun-god entered the world
of the living on its daily course. In front of the pylon was a pair of massive
flagpoles. he decoration of the pylon often incorporated the motif of the
king holding Egypt’s traditional enemies by the hair, his raised arm hold-
ing a mace and poised to strike them (Fig. 6). It has been suggested that
this violent image was intended magically to ward off potential threats
to the temple.23 From at least the New Kingdom obelisks and colossal
royal statues stood before the pylons, commemorating important events in
the kings’ reigns. Immediately within the pylon was a colonnaded court-
yard, probably the only area of the temple accessible to the general public.
he decoration of the court often incorporated the hieroglyph for “com-
mon person,” a lapwing bird with human arms raised in supplication.24
Statues of kings and non-royal officials crowded the outer courtyards and
were believed to function as intermediaries between the living and divine
23
Derchain, “Réflexions,” 18.
24
Wilkinson, Temples, 62–3.
190 Denise M. Doxey
Fig. 6. Pylon of the temple of Ramesses III, Medinet Habu, dynasty 20, showing the
king smiting foreign enemies. Photo by Denise M. Doxey.
realms. In exchange for prayers and offerings to the statues, worshippers

could hope for intervention with the temples’ resident god or goddess.
Beyond the courtyard was a roofed hypostyle hall featuring closely spaced
columns around a central processional way. he floral motifs of the capitals
and bases of the columns evoked the fertile vegetation of the primordial
marshes of creation.
A series of doorways varying in number depending on the size of the
temple led through the central axis of the temple to the sanctuary that
housed the cult image. he door lintels were decorated with the motif of
a winged solar disk, and ceilings often bore patterns of stars to evoke the
heavens. he walls of these rooms, as well as the preceding courtyards,
showed the king making offerings to the resident deity in his role as high
priest. Such scenes have enabled scholars to re-create the daily cult rit-
ual that formed the basis of temple activity. he most complete pictorial
account of temple ritual survives in the temple of Seti I (ca.1294–1279 bce)
at Abydos.25 In the morning and again in the evening, a priest would enter
the sanctuary, open the shrine, purify the air with incense, recite prayers
25
David, Ritual, 289; Sauneron, Priests, 75–109; Shafer, ed., Temples, 18–27.
and present offerings. He would then remove the cult statue from the
shrine and wash, anoint, and dress it. When the statue was suitably attired,
he offered a specifically prepared meal of food and beer. Once the god was
perceived as satisfied, the meal was removed and distributed among the
temple personnel. he statue was resealed in its shrine and the footsteps
of the priests swept away. he elite priests who performed these ceremo-
nies were considered highly privileged, boasting in their autobiographies
to have seen the face of the god.26
Before the New Kingdom, Egypt lacked a dedicated, full-time priest-
hood, with otherwise secular officials serving as priests on a rotating basis.
Only from the eighteenth dynasty was there a priestly class made up of men
whose roles were in part hereditary. At all periods, priests were required
during their active service to observe strict standards of purity, including
bathing twice daily, shaving off their hair, being anointed with sacred oils,
abstaining from sex, eating prescribed food, and washing their mouths with
natron.27 Although important changes occurred over time, several priestly
roles and titles can be identified.28 In general the term hem-netjer, or “god’s
servant,” designated an upper category of priests allowed to enter the sanc-
tuary and perform the daily ritual. A lower rank known as wab priests, or
“pure priests,” carried out lesser temple duties and did not enter the sanc-
tuary itself. Specialists also existed. he kheri-hebet, or lector priests, for
example, were literate and trained in sacred texts, making them among the
most elite of practitioners. Once the priesthood became a full-time posi-
tion, high priests were at least nominally appointed by the king and often
wielded considerable political and economic power. he temple personnel
also included women who served as priestesses, musicians, and singers.29
For most of Egyptian history, they played primarily a supportive role.
An exception is the title of “god’s wife,” first held by Ahmose Nefertari,
the wife of king Ahmose, the founder of the eighteenth dynasty (1550–1525
bce), which, based on scenes depicting temple ritual, appears to refer to
actual priestly duties. “God’s Wives of Amun” came to have significant
religious and political importance during the twentieth dynasty (1186–
1070 bce), when centralized royal authority weakened and eventually col-
lapsed, leaving southern Egypt under the control of the High Priests of
Amun at hebes.30 he title was bestowed on the king’s daughter, who
26
Doxey, Epithets, 104–9.
27
Sauneron, Priests, 35–43.
28
Ibid., 51–74; Shafer, Temple s, 9–17; Wilkinson, Temples, 90–4.
29
Robins, Women, 142–9.
30
Ibid., 149–56.
192 Denise M. Doxey
resided at hebes and passed the office through “adoption” to the daugh-
ter of his successor in order to legitimize his claim to the throne. Both the
conquering Kushite rulers of the twenty-fifth dynasty (760–664 bce) and
the native Egyptian kings of the twenty-sixth dynasty (664–525 bce) who
replaced them justified their rule by having their daughters “adopted” by
the presiding God’s Wife. Although male officials actually administered
the heban government, preserved records indicate that the estates and
endowments of the God’s Wives rivaled those of the kings.
Numerous festivals punctuated the Egyptian calendar, including several
extended holidays of national importance. Two of the best-documented
festivals took place at hebes and involved the procession of Amen-Ra’s
cult statue from the great temple at Karnak.31 he “Beautiful Festival of the
Valley” took place at the beginning of the summer harvest season, from
at least the early Middle Kingdom (ca.2040 bce). Statues of Amen, his
consort Mut, and their son Khonsu were carried from their temples in the
sprawling complex on the east bank of the Nile, ferried across to the west
bank, the site of the heban cemeteries, and taken to visit royal mortuary
temples and other sacred sites. During the festival, families visited their
dead relatives and held meals in the courtyards of their tombs. During the
Opet festival, which can be securely documented only from the eighteenth
dynasty on, Amen-Ra’s cult image again traveled from the Karnak temple,
this time to the temple of the royal life force, or ka, at Luxor, located on
the east bank south of Karnak.32 Taking place over the course of several
weeks during the inundation season, the Opet was the most important
heban holiday, aimed at re-invigorating both Amen-Ra and the king.
Festival processions in which sacred statues traveled from one temple to
another are also attested at other sites, including the sanctuaries of Horus
at Edfu and Hathor at Dendera.
Among Egypt’s most important cult centers was Abydos, the burial
place of Egypt’s earliest kings and the location of important early dynas-
tic temples. By the time of the Old Kingdom it was the site of a temple
to the canine funerary god Khentiamentiu, “Foremost of the Westerners,”
who was later assimilated with Egypt’s principal funerary god, Osiris. he
early Middle Kingdom (ca.2060–1926 bce) witnessed a major renovation
of the sanctuary, after which it took on nationwide importance. he tomb
of the first dynasty king Djer was identified as the burial place of Osiris and
became the focal point of festivals that continued for the rest of ancient
31
Wilkinson, Temples, 95–8.
32
Shafer, Temples, 157–79.
Egyptian history. he festival of Osiris, culminating in a procession from

the temple of Osiris Khentiamentiu to the “tomb of Osiris,” drew pilgrims
from throughout Egypt. he vast cemeteries west of the city became popu-
lar burial places not only for the local population but also for officials and
dignitaries from other cities. Wealthy visitors who came to Abydos on busi-
ness or as pilgrims commissioned small shrines and stelae along the proces-
sional way. Kings built temples along a stretch of desert between the city
and its vast cemetery fields. At least two of them, Senwosret III of the late
twelfth dynasty (ca.1878–1841 bce) and Ahmose, founder of the eighteenth
dynasty (ca.1550–1525 bce), built mortuary complexes in southern Abydos.
he temples of nineteenth-dynasty kings Seti I (ca.1294–1279 bce) and
Ramesses II (ca.1279–1213 bce), along with Seti’s Osireion, or ceremonial
tomb of Osiris, are among the best-preserved monuments at the site.
A stela dedicated at Abydos by the late Middle Kingdom official
Ikhernofret contains one of the few preserved contemporary accounts of
an ancient Egyptian festival.33 Sent by Senwosret III to refurbish Osiris’s
cult statue, Ikhernofret participated in the ceremony, leading the proces-
sion. According to his description, the day’s activities included, in addi-
tion to visiting the site believed to be Osiris’s burial place, a mock battle
between Osiris and Seth. Centuries later, a similar reenactment, featuring
Horus and Seth, appeared in the Ptolemaic temple of Horus at Edfu.
the amarna period

Solar religion increased in significance throughout the eighteenth dynasty,
but during the reign of Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten (ca.1352–1336 bce) both
it and the cult of divine kingship were advanced to unprecedented levels.
Acceding to the throne as Amenhotep IV, the king initially emphasized tra-
ditional manifestations of the sun. Shortly thereafter, however, he changed
his name to Akhenaten (“One who is effective for the Aten”), rejecting
anthropomorphic and zoomorphic representations of deities and allow-
ing only images of the solar disk, or Aten. His sole concession to anthro-
pomorphism was in relief representation, where the Aten’s rays ended in
hands, enabling it to bestow benefits on the king and his queen, Nefertiti.
Like the king and unlike Egypt’s traditional gods, the Aten had multiple
names written in cartouches, signifying his close association with kingship.
he fact that the Aten was a visible, functioning part of the world of the
living, rather than an abstract, invisible deity, makes Akhenaten’s version
33
Lichtheim, Literature, 1:123–5.
194 Denise M. Doxey
of monotheism significantly different from that of modern religions such

as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.34
Akenaten’s zealotry for his new religion led him to build a new cap-
ital on a previously unoccupied site in Middle Egypt, which he named
Akhetaten, “Horizon of the Aten.” Its modern name, Amarna, has become
the moniker of Akhenaten’s era and its revolutionary beliefs. he boundary
stelae surrounding the site assert that it was chosen specifically because no
other cult could lay claim to it. Elsewhere, the traditional gods, in par-
ticular the state god Amen of hebes, were abandoned and their images
and monuments destroyed. Egypt’s great sanctuaries fell into disrepair, and
their associated festivals were abruptly halted.
Evidence for Akhenaten’s beliefs derives mainly from the tombs of his
officials in the cliffs near Akhetaten. Here traditional tomb decoration was
replaced by scenes of the royal family traveling around the capital, worship-
ping in the city’s temples, celebrating feasts, and bestowing honors on their
supporters, all under the protective watch of the Aten. It is as though the
king himself replaced the sun-god as the center of funerary iconography.
Several tombs also included versions of the superbly poetic “Great Hymns
to the Aten,” among the most important works of Egyptian literature and
our best source for understanding Akhenaten’s new religion.35 Certain
aspects of the hymns, like earlier hymns to the king, bear comparison to
the Judeo-Christian Psalms. he poems focus on joy at the Aten’s crea-
tion of the world and its human and animal inhabitants. At sunrise the
creatures awaken and give praise, while the sun’s resurrection parallels the
animals’ procreation of young. he hymns also describe the Aten’s salient
characteristics, calling him the sole deity and creator, without whom the
world could not exist. He was a universal god, caring for foreigners as well
as Egyptians and providing solace and happiness to all. He was a father
figure, but Akhenaten was his only son. he rest of humanity continued to
rely on the king for access to the divine world.
Akhenaten’s religion did not long survive the king. Even during his
reign, there is evidence that common people continued to worship the
traditional gods, in particular household deities, to the extent possible.
Figurines, amulets, and votive offerings to the apotropaic god Bes and the
fertility goddess Taweret, as well as hoth and even Amen, have been found
in the workmen’s village at Amarna. he failure of Atenism may have more
to do with what was missing from its beliefs and practices than what was
34
Dunand and Zivie-Coche, Gods and Men, 35.
35
Freed et al., Pharaohs of the Sun, 99–105.
expressed. Although the king had always held a central place in Egyptians’
interaction with their gods, the significance of Akhenaten’s own personal-
ity to the religion made it almost impossible for a successor to fill his role.
Amarna religion also failed to address the everyday dangers against which
traditional religion offered protection in the form of spells and amulets.
Finally, and most significantly, Atenism completely failed to address the
afterlife. Life after death was said to be eternal, but neither the decoration
of tombs nor the accompanying hymns offered an adequate explanation of
the form it would take, focusing instead on earthly existence.
personal religion and domestic cults

As with all pre-industrial societies, life in pharaonic Egypt was precarious
and often short. To combat life’s many dangers the Egyptians relied on
what was known to them as heka, and would today be considered magic.
Heka had no inherent negative connotations and could be used for both
good and evil, depending upon the user. From the dawn of Egyptian his-
tory, amulets and other implements were called upon to facilitate prowess
in hunting, to ward off enemies, and to promote strength, fertility, and
even love. Eventually, they would assist in guiding the deceased to the
afterlife.
he ancient Egyptians perceived each person as composed of a number
of parts, including the body itself, the heart, the name, the shadow, the
ka, and the ba.36 he heart was the center of intellect and personality. he
name was an essential component of survival both in life and after death,
and its destruction meant the destruction of the individual. he ka, pre-
sent in texts from the Old Kingdom onward, was a potent life force present
at birth and after death, which needed continual sustenance in the form of
food and offerings. In art, the ka was shown as a sort of twin (Fig. 7). he
ba, also attested from the Old Kingdom on, embodied the ability to move
around and manifest oneself in the world. By the New Kingdom, it was
portrayed as a human-headed bird that moved back and forth between the
tomb and the world of the living. he bas of the deceased were believed
to be capable of affecting the living. It was therefore necessary to appease
them on an ongoing basis. A significant part of Egyptian funerary cult
involved nurturing the ba and ka.
Pregnancy, childbirth, and infancy were especially dangerous, and the
Egyptians elicited the aid of various deities during these times. Foremost
36
Quirke, Religion, 105–12.
196 Denise M. Doxey
Fig. 7. Senwosret I and his ka, from the White Chapel of Senwosret I, hebes, dynasty
12. Photo by Denise M. Doxey.
among them were the goddess Taweret and the god Bes. Both of these
composite creatures – Taweret had the body of a pregnant hippopotamus
and the tail of a crocodile, and Bes was a dwarf with a lion’s mane and ser-
pentine tongue – were fearsome in appearance but benevolent in averting
dangers to mothers and babies. In the Middle Kingdom, they appeared
among other apotropaic creatures on ivory wands used to draw protec-
tive boundaries around the beds of expectant mothers. Later their images
adorned beds and headrests. Other deities associated with childbirth
included the god Khnum, who formed individuals on his potter’s wheel,
the frog-goddess of fertility Heqet, the personified birth brick Meskhenet,

and the serpent-goddess Renenutet. Many of these gods and goddesses
would also be called upon again to assist with rebirth in the afterlife.
he treatment of injuries and illnesses involved what would today
be considered a combination of medicine and magic.37 Medico-magical
papyri describe three categories of care. he term shesau included diagno-
sis and prognosis. Prescriptions and recipes for medications were known as
pekheret. Finally and of equal importance were the ruu, spells and incanta-
tions that accompanied the pekheret. Magical and medical practitioners
were one and the same, being equipped with wands, amulets, and spells as
well as medicinal plants and surgical tools. During the Late Period (760–
332 bce) the infant god Horus, with or without his mother Isis, was partic-
ularly associated with healing.
funerary beliefs and practices

Due to the nature of Egyptian burial practices and the relatively good
state of cemetery preservation, funerary religion is among the best-studied
aspects of Egyptian religion. he earliest known burials already demon-
strated a belief in an afterlife. Predynastic (3950–2960 bce) bodies were
placed in pit graves, in a fetal position and wrapped in animal skins or mat-
ting, where the dry sand naturally mummified them. he accompanying
grave goods were small and portable, including pottery, figurines, jewelry,
amulets, and cosmetic equipment. Without texts, their underlying signif-
icance remains uncertain, but some of Egypt’s later beliefs appear already
to have been forming. Figurines, notably ivory tags in the form of bearded
men and bird-faced pottery figurines with upraised arms, have been inter-
preted as gods and goddesses.38 Amulets of cattle, falcons, and other ani-
mals may already have been linked to specific deities. Scenes reminiscent
of later tomb decoration, such as ships and hippopotamus hunts, deco-
rated pottery made specifically for burials, and early boat models hinted at
the later significance of ships as transportation to the afterlife. he earliest
decorated tomb, of the Naqada II period (ca.3650–3300 bce), was discov-
ered at Hieraconpolis.39 Tomb 100 was a rectangular mud-brick structure,
one wall of which bore a scene of boats sailing through a desert landscape,
surrounded by humans and animals engaged in activities suggesting both
37
Ibid., 111–12.
38
Wilkinson, Gods and Goddesses, 15.
39
Quibell and Green, Hieracopolis, pls. 75–9; Hoffman, Egypt, 132–3.
198 Denise M. Doxey
ritual and warfare. One group included the earliest known depiction of the
king smiting foreigners, later one of Egypt’s most ubiquitous portrayals of
royal authority. Another figure, the “Master of Animals,” may reflect con-
tact with western Asia.
Early Dynastic kings built the first monumental royal tombs (ca.2960–
2649 bce), multi-chambered subterranean structures of mud brick topped
by increasingly large superstructures.40 Enormous mud-brick enclosures,
evidently destroyed shortly after the burial, stood closer to the cultivated
land and must have served the royal cults.41 Grave goods became far more
numerous and varied, and courtiers, servants, and animals were interred
by the hundreds around the tombs and mortuary structures, a practice that
did not outlast the second dynasty. A fleet of full-sized boats buried along-
side the mortuary enclosure of the second dynasty king Khasekhemwy
(ca.2676–2649 bce) but now believed to belong with an earlier, dynasty 1
enclosure were evidently intended to ferry the king to the afterlife.
Although the architecture of tombs changed over time, the fundamen-
tal elements would remain in place for much of Egypt’s history: a subter-
ranean or otherwise hidden burial place and a memorial temple. Still, the
transition from the Early Dynastic Period to the Old Kingdom brought
changes in funerary practices reflecting what must have been substantial
underlying developments in religious beliefs. With the advent of wooden
coffins, the need to preserve the body led to the practice of mummification.
Beginning with the third dynasty tomb of Djoser at Saqqara (ca.2630–2611
bce), stone pyramids became the norm for royal tombs (Fig. 8). Typical
mortuary complexes consisted of a temple at the base of the pyramid and
another close to the edge of the cultivated and inhabited land, connected
by a causeway. Although the temples were decorated and housed statu-
ary to support the memorial cults, the hidden burial chambers remained
unadorned until the reign of the fifth dynasty king Unas (ca.2353–2323
bce), when the world’s oldest preserved religious texts, the Pyramid Texts,
were introduced. he texts contained a combination of spells against
earthly dangers such as snakebites, and guides for navigating the route to
the afterlife. he deceased king was for the first time identified with Osiris,
while also being said to become one with Ra in the heavens.
he tombs of officials and royal family members typically clustered
around the royal pyramids, although by the late Old Kingdom provincial
governors were usually buried in their home cemeteries. Non-royal, elite
40
Wilkinson, Early Dynastic Egypt, 230–42.
41
O’Connor, “Boat Graves,” 5–17.
Fig. 8. Step pyramid complex of Djoser at Saqqara, dynasty 3. Photo by Denise M.

Doxey.
tombs took two basic forms. Cemeteries in the low desert had subterra-
nean burial shafts, with bench-shaped mud-brick or stone superstructures
known today as mastabas (Fig. 9). Although their decoration was initially
limited to a single stele, the chapels became increasingly complex and elab-
orately decorated. Where the valley was narrower, the chapels were cut
into cliffs, with chapels above ground and descending burial shafts below.
Until the late New Kingdom, most of their decoration – scenes of agricul-
ture, crafts, and hunting – was devoted to furnishing provisions for the
ka and the burial. he accompanying texts consisted of offering formulas
and biographical texts justifying the maintenance of the cult. he focal
point of worship was the “false door,” through which the ka was believed
to pass to and from the afterlife. In front of this nonfunctional represen-
tation of a doorway, survivors left not only offerings but also messages for
the dead requesting assistance with problems or intercession with the gods
in the afterlife. Statues served as temporary repositories for the ka and
intermediaries between earth and the afterlife.
he tombs’ essential features continued into the Middle Kingdom, but
burial furnishings reveal significant changes in funerary beliefs. Most notable
200 Denise M. Doxey
Fig. 9. Mastaba complex of the Senedjemib family, Giza, dynasty 5. Photo by Denise
M. Doxey.
was a marked increase in the importance of Osiris, who replaced Anubis as

Egypt’s principal funerary deity, a development also reflected in the rise of
Abydos as a cult center. For the first time, non-royal people were designated
“the Osiris,” demonstrating their potential to become one with the god
after death. he interiors of certain elite, but non-royal coffins now bore
inscriptions, known today as Coffin Texts, derived from the Pyramid Texts
and providing the spells necessary for reaching the afterlife. Accompanying
them on some coffins was the Book of Two Ways, a schematic map illu-
minating the routes to the Duat. Other burial goods paralleled features of
the offering chapel, including wooden models depicting houses, boats, ani-
mal husbandry, and other activities related to equipping the tomb. Magical
implements such as figurines of hippopotami and ivory wands illustrated
with apotropaic creatures suggest a new interest in warding off dangerous
beings or harnessing their powers for self-protection. In the late Middle
Kingdom came the first of the funerary “servants” known as ushabtis, figu-
rines intended to labor on behalf of the deceased in the afterlife.
Although non-royal tombs remained largely unchanged into the early

New Kingdom, royal tombs were now constructed in the Valley of the
Kings west of hebes, with mortuary temples located alongside the culti-
vated land. Royal tomb decoration featured new funerary texts and scenes,
in which Osiris featured most prominently, but Ra continued to play a
prominent role as well. he Litany of Ra appeared for the first time, and
early-eighteenth-dynasty burial chambers featured scenes from the Amduat,
literally “what is in the afterlife,” which traced the nightly journey of the
sun-god, during which he ultimately united with Osiris prior to being
reborn in the morning. he Amduat derived from the Middle Kingdom
Book of Two Ways. Probably because the Amduat was copied from an
original text on papyrus, the figures and their accompanying texts are exe-
cuted schematically in black and red outline, as if an enormous scroll were
spread around the walls of the burial chamber. he Coffin Texts at this
time developed into the Book of Going Forth by Day in the Afterlife, bet-
ter known today as the Book of the Dead, which culminated in the scene
of judgment, in which the deceased were required to defend their actions
in life while their hearts were weighed against a feather symbolizing maat.
Now written on papyrus or burial shrouds, the texts gradually became
available to an increasingly wide segment of the population.
he Amarna interlude brought about a transformation in Egyptian
funerary religion. Following the return to the traditional religion, non-royal
tomb decoration focused on the funeral and afterlife and for the first time
showed the deceased interacting directly with gods. Royal tombs intro-
duced variants on the Amduat, including the Book of Gates and Books
of Heaven and Earth, which included not only the solar journey but also
scenes of retribution against the damned. he images no longer copied
papyrus, but were now vividly colored. he solar aspects of funerary reli-
gion manifested themselves on the ceilings of burial chambers with elabo-
rate renderings of the sky.
he later years of ancient Egyptian history witnessed an increased blur-
ring of the distinction between royal and non-royal funerary practices.
Elaborately decorated anthropoid coffins bore imagery associated with divine
judgment, the protective goddesses Isis and Nephthys, the myth of Osiris,
winged scarabs, and scenes of resurrection. Books of the afterlife remained
popular on both papyrus and burial wrappings. Traditional Egyptian burial
practices continued alongside their Greco-Roman counterparts, and mum-
mification survived even into the early days of Christianity.42
42
Dunand and Lichtenberg, Mummies, 123–8.
202 Denise M. Doxey
morality in ancient egypt

Like most cultures, the Egyptians believed that entrance to an eternal
afterlife required moral behavior while alive. Evidence for Egyptian
moral values derives from biographical texts, instructional literature, and,
to a lesser degree, the “negative confessions” included in funerary texts.
he behavior of literary characters offers further insight. Instructions
for living, which have been closely linked to texts such as the biblical
Proverbs, began to be written down in the Old Kingdom and continued
throughout Egyptian history. Phrased as rules from fathers to sons or
teachers to students, “wisdom literature” encouraged readers to behave
in the interest of public good, to respect parents and the elderly, honor
the king, care for the poor, and display modesty, humility, and gener-
osity.43 Autobiographies in tombs and on votive stelae claim that offi-
cials appeased the gods, pleased the king, and saw to the welfare of their
families and communities.44 hey applauded careful speech, obedience,
knowledge of one’s responsibilities and, increasingly, personal piety. he
judgment scenes in the Book of the Dead included a series of “negative
confessions,” in which the deceased argued that they have done noth-
ing contrary to maat, including both committing what would today be
considered sinful acts and engaging in unnatural actions such as eating
excrement and walking upside down.
summary
Egyptian religion reflected a close connection to the natural world,
knowledge of the needs of the community, and an adherence to one’s
place in a hierarchy including the gods, the king, the family, peers, and
dependents. he landscape of Egypt was a critical influence, centering
on the Nile with its regular, replenishing floods, the daily rising and set-
ting of the sun, moon, and stars, and the potentially threatening desert
beyond. Maintenance of a balanced world order required constant vigi-
lance, especially on the part of the king. For most of its history, Egypt’s
great gods remained distant from most of the population, but both house-
hold deities and the spirits of the deceased were invoked for assistance
and protection. Festivals brought the human and divine worlds together
at regular intervals. Surviving the transition to the afterlife involved the
preservation of the body and the sustenance of the many aspects of the
43
Lichtheim, Moral Values, 77–89.
44
Lichtheim, Autobiographies, 129–35; Doxey, Epithets, 224–9.
spirit, as well as moral behavior toward the living and piety toward the
gods. he tomb served as an interface between the worlds of the living
and dead, who ideally would continue to interact to their mutual benefit
in perpetuity.
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Hornung, Erik. Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt. he One and the Many (Ithaca,
1982).
he Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife (Ithaca, 1999).
Lichtheim, Miriam. Ancient Egyptian Literature, vols. 1–3 (Los Angeles, 1975–1980).
Ancient Egyptian Autobiographies chiefly of the Middle Kingdom (Göttingen, 1988).
Moral Values in Ancient Egypt (Göttingen, 1997).
O’Connor, David. “Boat Graves and Pyramid Origins.” Expedition 33 (1991): 5–17.
Quibel, J. E., and F. W. Green. Hieraconpolis II (London, 1902).
Quirke, Stephen. Ancient Egyptian Religion (London, 1992).
he Cult of Re: Sun-Worship in Ancient Egypt (New York, 2001).
Robins, Gay. Women in Ancient Egypt (Cambridge, 1993).
Sauneron, Serge. he Priests of Ancient Egypt, trans. David Lorton (Ithaca, 2000).
Shafer, Byron, ed. Religion in Ancient Egypt: Gods, Myths and Personal Practice (Ithaca,
1991).
Temples of Ancient Egypt (Ithaca, 1997).
Simpson, William K., ed. Religion and Philosophy in Ancient Egypt (New Haven, 1989).
204 Denise M. Doxey
he Literature of Ancient Egypt (New Haven, 2003).

Spencer, A. J., ed. Aspects of Early Egypt (London, 1996).
Wilkinson, Richard H. he Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt (New York, 2000).
he Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt (London, 2003).
Wilkinson, Toby A. H. Early Dynastic Egypt (London, 1999).
Winlock, Herbert E. he Temple at Deir el-Bahri (London, 1894–1908).
8
PHOENICIANPUNIC RELIGION
philip c. schmitz
he term “religion” is oversupplied with meaning.1 here is no correspond-

ing universal cultural taxon. he inefficiency of cultural recurrence is prob-
lematic for meme theories of cultural and religious evolution,2 despite the
notion’s attractive fit with evolutionary biology.3 Reducing religion to
intergroup competition – “a space in which competing sets of social inter-
ests meet”4 – postpones the question of definition indefinitely. A useful
taxonomy of religion may be possible, and seems necessary, but is beyond
the scope of the present undertaking. Rather than delineate a subspecies
“Punic religion,” the following discussion will depend on traditional cate-
gories of religious behaviors: sacrifice, offerings, prayer, purity regulations,
cultic sites, cultic personnel, festivals, and funerary practices.5
he word “Phoenician” derives from phoinīkes, which Homer (Il. 23.744;
Od. 13.272; 14.288; 15.415, 419, 473) and later Greek writers used to desig-
nate foreign traders from the Levant. he Greek word entered Latin as
Poeni, “Punic” being derived from the Latin adjective Punicus. hus both
the Greek and Latin terms label the same group. English uses “Phoenician”
to refer to the East and “Punic” for the West, particularly in reference to
language. he Phoenician language developed new features in the West,
warranting the distinct label Punic. With respect to the practice of religion
there are fewer contrasts between East and West, weakening the rationale
for distinct labels. Religious practice within the Phoenician and Punic city-
states remained largely a matter of local custom.6
1
For the Punic sites, see Map 3 in Chapter 5, Map 4 in Chapter 6, Map 5 in the current chapter, and
Map 6 in Chapter 9.
2
Sperber, “Objection,” 163–73; Atran, In Gods We Trust, 17.
3
Dennet, Breaking the Spell , 379–86.
4
McCutcheon, Religion and the Domestication, 4.
5
Capps, Religious Studies, 1–52; Masuzawa, Invention, 12–13.
6
Bonnet and Xella, “La religion,” 316–17.
205
206 Philip C. Schmitz
Map 5. he western Mediterranean.
history of the phoenicians

Phoenician-Punic presence in the western Mediterranean lasted from the
ninth century bce until the fifth or sixth century ce. From the perspective
of world history, the Phoenicians built a trade diaspora,7 perhaps initi-
ated in response to external stimuli,8 but rapidly taking new form through
state-directed market development.9 Whatever its initial conditions,10 the
Phoenician expansion created settlements in the western Mediterranean
along the North African coast, on the islands of Ischia (Pithecoussai),
Sicily, and Sardinia, and along the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts of
the Iberian peninsula.11 Phoenician and Punic settlements on the Atlantic
coast of Africa ranged from Tingis (Tangier) in the north to Mogador
(founded from Gadir, modern Cadiz) in the south. Over such a broad geo-
graphic expanse, the homogenous elements of Phoenician and later Punic
7
Cohen, Global Diasporas, 83.
8
Frankenstein, “he Phoenicians in the Far West”; idem, Arqueología del colonialismo, 15–64.
9
Aubet, Phoenicians and the West, 142–3.
10
Boardman, “Early Euboean Settlements,” 195–200.
11
Lipiński, Itineraria Phoenicia , 337–434.
Phoenician-Punic Religion 207
settlements maintained a significant degree of linguistic, cultural, and reli-

gious similarity. From the selection of settlement sites to the construction
of walls, in pottery manufacture and metallurgy, in the script styles of
their documents, and in the burial of their dead, Phoenician-Punic civili-
zation replicated and adapted models and life patterns that originated in
the Canaanite coastal region of western Asia.
he period from the beginning of Phoenician colonization to the end of
the Pyrrhic war (275 bce) was the age of the ascent of Carthage. Carthage
flourished in a time of significant change. World population tripled from
1000 to 200 bce, and the geographic extent of political empires grew by
a factor of fifteen; the number of cities with populations greater than
thirty thousand more than doubled. he density of world trade expanded,
not least because of Phoenician efforts. Paradigmatically, while growing
complexity benefited Carthaginian elites, maladaptive forces eventually
checked growth, leading to stasis and decline.12
With an estimated area of 25 to 60 ha,13 and six known cemeteries, in
which (a mere) three thousand burials have been excavated,14 Carthage
was a large city. A conservative estimate of the Carthaginian population in
146 bce, the time of its Roman destruction, would be 200,000.15 Carthage
probably accounted for 30 to 40 percent of the western Phoenician popu-
lation, distributed in about fifty major Phoenician and Punic settlements
in the western Mediterranean islands, Iberia, and North Africa. Individual
settlements varied considerably. Toscanos, a Phoenician settlement on
the Andalusian coast of Spain, had a walled area no greater than 15 ha,
with a population estimated at fifteen hundred.16 Nearby Malaka (mod-
ern Málaga), a Punic foundation of the early sixth century bce, rapidly
became a major port and population center despite its nearly identical
size.17 On the African coast, Tipasa, about 60 km west of Algiers, with
an area less than 10 ha, possessed two large cemeteries and a child ceme-
tery.18 Iberian trade centers on the Atlantic, such as Gadir, Doña Blanca,
and Huelva, and Mediterranean settlements on the Andalusian coast, such
as Trayamar, held affluent nuclei of Phoenician merchants.19 Phoenician
12
Sanderson, Social Transformations, 117–33.
13
Niemeyer, “Early Phoenician City-States,” 104.
14
Benichou-Safar, Les tombes puniques, 13–60.
15
Fantar, Carthage, 1:176–7.
16
Niemeyer, “Phoenicians in the Mediterranean,” 484.
17
Aubet, “From Trading Post to Town,” 58.
18
Lancel, Carthage, 95–9.
19
Aubet, Phoenicians and the West, 336.
settlement began at Lixus on the Atlantic coast of Africa early in the eighth
century bce.20
Moscati21 located the transition from a Phoenician or colonial horizon
to a Punic or Carthaginian horizon in the decade between 545 and 535 bce.
Carthaginian ascendancy fostered growing imperialism enforced by a pow-
erful navy and a mercenary army.22 he defeat of Punic forces at Himera
in Sicily in 480 bce checked the advance for a generation while Carthage
occupied itself with plans and preparation for a second massive assault.23
he Sicilian campaign of 409 bce destroyed Selinunte and Himera, and
in 406 bce the Carthaginian forces successfully sacked Agrigentum after a
siege.24 Soon, however, plague felled the mercenaries and storms wrecked
the fleet. he young general Himilco took his own life.25 By 301, Agathocles
was able to invade Africa and wreak havoc in Carthaginian territory. he
following quarter century brought Carthage into alliance with Rome in
Sicily, then to fatal war with Rome. In other North African sites, Punic
culture would survive, and the Punic language would continue in use,
until the end of the Byzantine period.
sources
here are literary and epigraphic sources about Punic religion. he literary
sources are mostly ancient writings, very few of them from Phoenician
authors, transmitted through a scribal process for centuries. Biblical texts,
for example, provide a foil against which Canaanite religious practices
stand out – although sometimes in a distorted form. Greek and Latin
translations of the Bible provide occasional evidence for germane inter-
pretive practices.
Writings by classical and Hellenistic Greek authors and both pagan and
Christian Latin authors are also highly significant. With respect to the
Phoenicians, Movers’s Die Phönizier (1841–56) is still consulted for its full
treatment of Greek and Latin sources. Bunnens’s L’expansion phénicienne
(1979) is comprehensive, and Gsell’s Histoire ancienne de l’Afrique du Nord
(1920–24) was long a standard reference. Fonti classiche (edited by Mazza,
Ribichini, and Xella) anthologizes nearly every relevant passage in Greek
literature.
20
Aranegui, ed., Lixus, 94.
21
Moscati, “Dall’età fenicia,” 213.
22
Fariselli, I mercenari di Cartagine, 1–400.
23
Diodorus Siculus, 13.79–91; Bondì, “Carthage, Italy,” 39–48.
24
Diodorus Siculus, 13.79–90; Krahmalkov, “Carthaginian Report,” 171–7.
25
Diodorus Siculus, 19.3.1–2.
In Tunisia, excavations at Carthage since 1973 have reached the earliest

occupation levels in the late ninth or early eighth century bce.26 Delattre’s
campaigns in the ancient Carthaginian cemeteries of Douïmès, St Louis
(Byrsa), Junon, and Bordj Djedid whetted the public appetite for antiq-
uities and inscriptions,27 but his destructive methods foreclosed future
excavations.
After finds of stelae there in 1817, the later identification of the so-called
tophet of Carthage attracted attention chiefly because of the site’s macabre
association with infant sacrifice, but also because of the votive stelae and
cippi unearthed there.28 Icard directed the first excavation of the tophet
in 1922,29 and Poinssot and Lantier30 continued the work. In 1925 Kelsey
directed a season of fieldwork supported by the University of Michigan,
but his death the following year led to the suspension of excavation until
1934. Lapeyre conducted two seasons in the Carthaginian tophet with sig-
nificant results.31 Pierre Cintas directed further digging from 1945 to 1950.
A later American excavation refined the pottery chronology of the tophet
and established a continuous stratigraphy.32 he Carthage tophet has
yielded the preponderance of Punic inscriptions (just under six thousand,
or 97 percent of the extant epigraphic corpus of Phoenician and Punic).
Most of the inscribed cippi and votive stelae now find shelter in the Bardo
Museum in Tunis or in the Carthage Museum.
Archival documents that survive only as cited in literary texts are a sig-
nificant category of sources for all aspects of Phoenician and Punic history.
Several Greek histories of the Phoenicians once existed. Josephus cited a
work by the enigmatic Mochus (FGrH, 87 F67; 784 F6), a Phoenician
history by Philostratus ( Josephus A.J. 10.228; C. Ap. 1.143–4; FGrH, 789
F1a–b), and the Tyrian king list compiled by the Hellenistic historian
Menander of Ephesus (C. Ap. 1.116–19, 121–5, 156–8; Josephus A.J. 8.144–9,
324; 9.284–7). Herennius Philo of Byblos (fl. 100 ce) translated into Greek
a much older Phoenician history by Sanchuniathon. Eusebius cited por-
tions of this history in his Praeparatio evangelica.33
During the Second Punic War, Hannibal concluded a treaty with Philip
V of Macedonia (Polybius 7.9). he unusual features of the Greek text of
26
Lancel, Carthage, 38–46; Aubet, Phoenicians and the West, 218–28; Docter et al., “Carthage Bir
Massouda,” 37–89; Niemeyer et al., eds., Karthago.
27
Frend, Archaeology of Early Christianity, 69–72, 123–4, 183–4.
28
Gsell, Histoire ancienne, 2:80–1; 4:416–17.
29
Dussaud, “Trente-huit ex voto,” 243–60.
30
Poinssot and Lantier, “Un sanctuaire de Tanit,” 32–68.
31
Lapeyre, “Fouilles récentes à Carthage” [1935]; idem, “Les fouilles du Musée Lavigerie” [1939].
32
Stager, “he Rite of Child Sacrifice,” 1–11.
33
See Attridge and Oden, Philo of Byblos, 19–21; Baumgarten, Phoenician History, 8–30.
the treaty – especially Semitisms – indicate a Punic original. he treaty

includes lists of divine witnesses:
In the presence of Zeus, Hera, and Apollo; in the presence of the Genius (Gk.
daimonos) of Carthage, of Herakles and Iolaus; in the presence of Ares, Triton,
and Poseidon; in the presence of the gods who battle for us and of the Sun, Moon,
and Earth; in the presence of Rivers, Lakes, and Waters; in the presence of all the
gods who possess Carthage; in the presence of all the gods who possess Macedonia
and the rest of Greece; in the presence of all the gods of the army who preside over
this oath. (Polyb. 7.9.2–3)
he text may witness a sort of Punic pantheon, and several scholars have
attempted to establish equivalencies between Greek and Punic deities. But
even Barré’s equation of the Greek divine name Diòs with Baal Hamon
remains inconclusive.34 he treaty does show that in diplomacy Carthage
recognized foreign pantheons (note the acknowledgment of “all the gods
who occupy Macedonia and the rest of Greece,” Polyb. 7.9.3).
he Roman historian Livy also recorded examples of Hannibal’s reli-
gious behavior and, implicitly, Carthaginian religious attitudes. After the
Punic victory at Cannae, a Punic emissary to Carthage declared it proper
to express and feel gratitude to the immortal gods (Liv. 23.11.7); Hannibal
left Capua with a portion of his troops to visit Lake Avernus, “with the
pretext of sacrificing” (24.12.4); a clearing sky after foul weather that had
prevented Hannibal from attacking Rome became “for the Carthaginians
. . . a solemn warning” (26.11.4); summering near the temple of Juno Lacinia
to avoid a plague, Hannibal erected a Punic-Greek bilingual inscription
(28.46.15–16).35 hese details tell us little about the content, structure, or
organization of Punic religion at the time.
Archaeologically recovered Punic texts have been carefully studied but
not exhausted as historical sources. he following section presents several
examples of close readings that cast light on important cults and rituals
in Punic religion and the problems they present for understanding Punic
religious history.
the cults of adonis and astarte

Two epigraphic sources provide ambiguous evidence that the Adonis myth
was influential and enduring in Phoenician-Punic religious practice. From
late-sixth-century-bce Etruria, the Phoenician-inscribed gold lamina
34
Barré, God-list, 57; Bonnet, Melqart, 179–82.
35
See also Ribichini and Xella, La religione fenicia , 40–2.
discovered at Pyrgi concerns a sacrifice by the Etruscan ruler hefarie Vel(i)unas

in celebration of the Adonis festival: byrh zbh / šmš bmt n’, “in the month
zbh šmš, at the death of (the) Handsome (one)” (KAI 277.4–5).36 he
Phoenician word n’, “Handsome (one),” signifies Adonis, a youth so hand-
some, says Greek myth, that Aphrodite (=Astarte) could not bear to be
parted from him.37 Phoenician n’ is equivalent to Middle Hebrew nā’eh,
“handsome.”
he month krr mentioned in line 4 began with the first new moon after
the summer solstice,38 corresponding to July. he traditional date of the
Adonis festival was at the predawn or heliacal rising of the star Sirius, 19
or 20 July, the beginning of the Egyptian Sothic year. he day of the cere-
mony is ’ym qbr ’ lm, “the god’s burial day” (KAI 277.9).39
Scholars have identified the deity (Punic [Pun.]’ lm) in the Pyrgi inscrip-
tion (KAI 277.9) as either Adonis or Melqart, with the weight of opinion
favoring Melqart.40 It is nearly impossible to establish a clear conceptual
distinction between the two deities. Lines 4–5 of the inscription as inter-
preted here confirm that the Pyrgi ceremony celebrated the burial of the
deity known to the Greeks as Adonis.
he dedicator of the Pyrgi inscriptions, the Etruscan ruler hefarie
Vel(i)unas, also constructed a tw, a ritual enclosure generally translated
“cella.” As a further contribution to the festival, hefarie Vel(i)unas copied
or replaced a deity image: wšnt l m’š ’ lm / bbty, “And I copied / transferred
a statue of the deity in(to) her temple for her” (lines 9b–11).41
he reference to a sculpture of the deity brings to mind Etruscan
artistic representations of Adonis, whose tragic beauty and untimely
death became a significant theme in Etruscan art. Images of the lovers –
Aphrodite and Adonis – decorated Etruscan mirrors. A late-fifth-century
bronze mirror, for example, portrays the nude and winged youth labeled
in Etruscan Atunis (Adonis) with the seated goddess labeled Turan
(Aphrodite-Astarte).42 Sculptures of the dead or dying Atunis were made
in wax or terracotta to be carried in processions, at the conclusion of
36
See Schmitz, “Adonis in the Phoenician Text from Pyrgi?” 9, 13.
37
Ribichini, Adonis, 80–6.
38
Koffmahn, “Sind die altisraelitischen Monatsbezeichnungen,” 217; Stieglitz, “Phoenician-Punic
Calendar,” 695.
39
Krahmalkov, Phoenician-Punic Dictionary, 424.
40
Lipiński, “La fête d’ensevelissement,” 34–46, 47–8; Ribichini, Adonis, 163; Bonnet, Melqart, 287–8;
Amadasi Guzzo, Iscrizioni fenicie, 96; Ribichini and Xella, La religione fenicia , 133–5; Mettinger,
Riddle of Resurrection, 117–37.
41
Translation by Schmitz.
42
Servais-Soyez, “Adonis,” 224, no. 16.
which the images would be thrown into a body of water.43 he deity image
copied or transferred by hefarie Vel(i)unas (KAI 277.9–11) might have
been an image of Atunis (Adonis) and might have been later disposed of
in a similar manner. Ceremonial sculptures certainly inspired the famous
Hellenistic terracotta figure of the dying Atunis supine on a catafalque,
found in 1834 during excavations at Toscanella, one of the masterpieces of
Etruscan plastic arts.44
A Late Punic inscription from Althiburus (modern Henchir Medeine)
in Tunisia may involve the same festival attested in the Pyrgi text. he
Althiburus inscription refers to a celebration to dedicate a new addition
to a temple or sanctuary (Pun. mqdš ) in the city.45 he text provides a rare
glimpse of the social and religious networks in a provincial center. Located
175 km southeast of Carthage, Althiburus constituted, by the mid-second
century bce, the eastern boundary of the Punic ’rst tšk’t (KAI 141.1), Greek
chōra Tuscan (Punica 59), Latin pagus husca, the southeastern administra-
tive district of Carthage.46 Althiburus absorbed considerable Carthaginian
influence despite its distant location and had a tophet.47
he inscription, apparently from the second century ce, is complete in
nine lines of Neo-Punic script (KAI 159).48 he inscription commemorates
a vow to the god Baal Hamon made in honor of eleven men, each of whose
names precedes their father’s name in the text (KAI 159.2–4). Eight of the
honorees have Libyco-Berber names, two have Latin names, and one has a
Punic name. he text mentions as their friends or allies (Pun. hbr) a Roman
cavalry unit or turma (Pun. mzrh [KAI 159.4]). he group responsible for
the inscription, denominated ‘bd mlqrt, “servants of Melqart,” sponsored
the restoration of a meeting place (Pun. kns, line 1), and constructed a cella
or chamber (Pun. tw [KAI 159.5]) adjoined to a local temple or sanctuary
(Pun. mqdš [KAI 159.5, 8]). In the month krr (KAI 159.5; see above), that
is, July, a nocturnal sacrifice (Pun. zbh [KAI 159.5]) took place. he last two
lines of the inscription (KAI 159.8–9) are only partly legible, but appear to
refer to types of sacrifices. here is mention of “holocausts” (Pun. ‘ lt [KAI
159.8])49 and “offerings” (Pun. mnht [KAI 159.8])50 as well as a vow (Pun.
ndr [KAI 159.9]).
43
Vellay, Le culte et les fêtes, 141.
44
Gregorian Etruscan Museum, Vatican, cat. 14147.
45
Schmitz, “Large Neo-Punic Inscription.”
46
Manfredi, La politica amministrativa , 443–7.
47
Lipiński, ed., Dictionnaire, 23; Ben Younès, “Tunisie,” 817–20.
48
Jongeling and Kerr, Late Punic Epigraphy, 39–40; Lidzbarski, Handbuch, 437, hand copy, Taf. XVII;
Bron, “Notes sur les inscriptions néo-puniques de Henchir Medeina,” 147, photograph.
49
Février, “Le vocabulaire sacrificiel,” 50.
50
Février, “Molchomor,” 17; Krahmalkov, Phoenician-Punic Dictionary, 295.
he officiating priest, wrswn, son of ’rš (KAI 159.7), is designated the

khn (cf. Hebrew kôhēn, “priest”) of the god Baal Hamon. Priests (Pun.
khnm) are associated with sacrifice (Pun. zbh) in the Marseilles tariff
(KAI 69.3–15), a Carthaginian inscription from the third century bce (see
Figs. 10 and 11).
Mention of a sacrifice and the construction of a cella (tw) during the
month krr in both the Pyrgi text and the Althiburus inscription invites the
supposition that the “servants of Melqart” in Althiburus were celebrating an
Adonis festival. he construction of sacred buildings, which at Pyrgi in the
sixth century bce is part of the portfolio of the head of state, had become a
matter of public service by a private sodality in Roman Althiburus. Sacrifice
takes place in connection with the celebration at Pyrgi and at Althiburus.
he priest is unmentioned in the Pyrgi inscription but is associated with
Baal Hamon/Saturn in the North African town. At Pyrgi the dedica-
tion is to Astarte, and sacrifice and construction occur at her sanctuary.
At Althiburus, the dedication is to Baal Hamon, but the temples (mqdšm,
KAI 159.5, 8) of the city probably served a number of deities. his late text
provides one source possibly connecting the god Melqart with the Adonis
myth, a link that scholars have suggested or assumed in the past.
he goddess Astarte is more abundantly attested and has received con-
siderable attention from specialists. According to Sanchuniaton, as repre-
sented by Philo of Byblos, “he Phoenicians say that Astarte is Aphrodite.”51
Astarte and her Greek interpretation Aphrodite are sometimes difficult to
distinguish.52 Paphian Aphrodite, for example, the quintessential manifes-
tation of the goddess on Cyprus, had an equivalent, “Astarte of Paphos,”
attested in a Phoenician inscription of the third century bce from Paphos.53
Lucian (De syria dea 6) claimed to have seen the great temple of Aphrodite
at Byblos where secret rites for Adonis were enacted.54 Although we cannot
be certain that the goddess of Byblos was identical to Astarte,55 Lucian’s
comment implies the identification.56
At Delos, Lindos, and other sanctuaries of the Greek goddess Aphrodite,
Phoenician or “orientalizing” influence is sometimes evident. he Egyptian
goddess Isis and the Greek goddess Demeter cohere with Astarte in
inscriptions, and the cults of Aphrodite Pontia and Aphrodite Ourania
bear impressions of the oriental cult of Astarte. he myth of Cythera has
51
Attridge and Oden, Philo of Byblos, 55.
52
Delcor, “Astarte,” 1077; Bonnet and Pirenne-Delforge, “Deux déesses.”
53
Masson and Sznycer, Recherches, 81–2; Bonnet, Astarté, 76.
54
Bonnet, Astarté, 28.
55
Ibid., 19–30.
56
Oden, Studies, 78.
Fig. 10. Punic priest officiating at altar. Photo by Philip C. Schmitz.

Fig. 11. Plaque inscribed with eleven lines in Punic (CIS 5510). Photo by Philip
C. Schmitz.
many elements undoubtedly arising from contacts with Phoenician and

other ancient Near Eastern deity cults. he reciprocal syncretisms between
Astarte and Aphrodite profoundly influenced Mediterranean religions.57
Many associations link Astarte to Adonis, especially at Pyrgi. he Pyrgi
inscription provides important evidence that the Adonis festival took place
at a temple of Astarte. At Pyrgi the myth of Adonis appears still to have
been vital, whereas in the context of Roman North Africa the myth had
probably become latent. No document links Astarte to Baal Hamon in the
Adonis celebration at Pyrgi in the sixth or fifth century bce, and although
Baal Hamon appears to be somehow associated with Melqart at late-
Roman Althiburus, Astarte is absent from the textual source. he implicit
association among these three deities may have a basis in history or may be
a mirage induced by the insufficiency of sources.
sacrificial practices
Temple sacrifice is an area in which inscriptional evidence is crucial.
Carthaginian temples regulated the procedures of and payments for
57
Bonnet, Astarté, 87–96.
sacrifices by khn-priests according to public standards. We have as an

example a sacrificial tariff inscribed on a plaque that once hung in the
temple of Baal Saphon in Carthage (CIS I 165; KAI 69). Found in 1844 or
1845 near the old harbor of Marseilles, France, the inscription dates paleo-
graphically to the third century bce. (he inscription probably arrived at
Marseilles from Carthage as part of a ship’s ballast.) he Marseilles tariff
(KAI 69) concerns (by line): (1–2) administrative authorities, namely, the
“thirty men in charge of payments,” probably municipal officials; (3–12)
payments to officiating priests and the distribution of portions of sac-
rificial victims according to type of victim, type of sacrifice, and type
of recipient; (13) summary of procedures for sacrifices of the type sw’t
(meaning uncertain), in which a portion of the victim is retained by the
sacrificer; (14) procedures for inanimate sacrificial materials; (15) exemp-
tion for additional simultaneous sacrifices; (16–17) liability for group sac-
rifices; (18–19) payments for sacrifices not stipulated in the inscription
(the reader is referred to another document); and (20–21) fines for receipt
by priests of illicit payments and failure of sacrificers to pay (see also Fig.
10 and Table 1).
A fragment found at Carthage in 1858 holds seven partial lines of a simi-
lar tariff (CIS I 167; KAI 74). Chabot later collated CIS I 167, 168, and 170
with three pieces found by Lapeyre at Carthage (CIS I 3915–3917), establish-
ing a more or less common text, labeled by Février 167C (for “complete”).
he reconstructed tariff witnesses to a text that follows the same topical
order as the Marseilles tariff (except for the placement of the exemption
for additional simultaneous sacrifices [KAI 74.6]; see Fig. 11 and Table 2),
but involves a different number of sacrifices. he Marseilles tariff and 167C
constitute our chief source of information about Phoenician-Punic temple
sacrifice.
he tone of the documents is strikingly bureaucratic. At least in the
portion of the text that survives, there is no hint of enforcement by a deity.
he tariff anticipates malfeasance and assesses fines, but no malediction
threatens divine retribution. Nor are blessings apportioned for compli-
ance. From our limited viewpoint, Phoenician-Punic sacrificial legislation
appears not to have acknowledged a divine law or a single human lawgiver.
Religious practices were customary, regulated at the level of the city-state.
his is comparable to the situation in Greek religion (see Chapter 11 by
Kearns).
he similarity of the temple tariffs to non-cultic documents becomes
clearer by comparison with a fourth-century-bce Punic inscription
available at http:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CHO9781139600507.012
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Table 1. Analysis of Marseilles Tariff
Lines Topic Sacrifice Victim Payment Recipient

1–2 Administrative 30 men in charge of payments
authorities
3–4 Blood sacrifices kll, sw‖t, šlm kll ∼lp (bull) 10 pieces silver each khnm
Large quadripeds
5–6 Large quadripeds kll ‖gl (calf ); ∼yl 5 pieces silver each; 150 shekels meat khnm
swʿt (hind) 5 pieces silver each, additional portions of victim khnm; meat to sacrificer
šlm kll 5 pieces silver each khnm
7–8 Medium kll ybl (ram); ‖z 1 shekel, 2 zr each khnm
quadripeds swʿt (she-goat) 1 shekel, 2 zr each; additional portions of victim khnm; meat to sacrificer
šlm kll 1 shekel, 2 zr each khnm
217
9–10 Small quadripeds kll ∼mr (lamb); gd∼ ¾ shekel, 2 zr each khnm
swʿt (kid); shrb ∼yl ¾ shekel, 2 zr each; additional portions of victim khnm; meat to sacrificer
šlm kll (young ram) ¾ shekel, 2 zr each khnm
11–12 Birds kll, sw‖t, subtypes šsp, hzt ∼gnn, ss ¾ shekel, 2 zr each khnm; meat to sacrificer
13 Summary sw‖t [text broken] Additional portions of victim khnm
14 Inanimate bll , hhlb, zbh, mnh[t] Additional portions of material khnm
sacrifices
15 Exemption Additional simultaneous mqn∼, spr None khnm
sacrifice
16–17 Distributed By family or sodality Payment according to text of [this inscription?] Referred to a separate
liability document
18–19 Additional Not written in this Payment according to text of [?]
payments inscription
20 Fines Accepting illicit Not according to text of this inscription Against priests
payments
21 Fines Failure to pay Against sacrificers
Table 2. Analysis of CIS I 167C (KAI 74) + (KAI 75)
Lines Topic Sacrifice Victim Payment Recipient

KAI 75.1 Administrative 30 men in charge of
authorities payments
2 Blood sacrifices kllm, sw‖t [∼lp] (bull) Skin to priests khnm
Large quadripeds tbrt to sacrificer
3 Large quadripeds kllm, sw‖t [‖gl (calf ); ∼yl (hind)] Skin to priests khnm
tbrt to sacrificer
4 Medium quadripeds kllm, sw‖t ybl (ram); ‘z Skin to priests khnm
(she-goat) ‘šl[bm] to sacrifice
5 Small quadripeds kllm, sw‖t ∼mr (lamb); gd∼ (kid); Skin to priests Khnm
srb ∼yl (young
218
ram)
6 Exemption Additional simultaneous sacrifice mqn∼, spr None Khnm
7 Birds (bipeds) ∼gnn, ss 2 zr each [khnm]
8 Summary sw‖t [text broken] Additional portions of victim Khnm
9 First fruits [qdmt] qdš, shd (game), šmn (oil)
10 = KAI 75.1 Inanimate sacrifices bll , hhlb, zbh mnht Additional portions of khnm
material
11 = KAI 75.2 Additional payments Not written in this inscription Payment according to text
of [?]
3 Fines Accepting illicit payments Not according to text of this Against priests
inscription
4 Fines Failure to pay Selling Against sacrificers
5
6 [Fines?] Defacing inscription
7 Colophon [Artisan] pds bn ‘šmnhl [sh]
unearthed at Carthage in 1966.58 he inscription acknowledges adminis-

trative, financial, and material support for construction work near one of
the city gates and is one of the few Carthaginian Punic inscriptions not
dedicated to a deity. It stipulates a fine of one thousand (pieces) of silver for
some offense – probably defacement of the inscription itself – mentioned
in a now-broken portion of the stone plaque. he fine is levied by hmhšbm
’š ln, “our comptrollers” (KAI, 5th ed., 303.7). In both cases – sacrifice
and public works – the governance structures of municipal administration
provide the regulatory mechanisms.
At the linguistic level, the Phoenician-Punic vocabulary of sacrifice
draws on an archaic common Semitic lexical stock: words for sacrificial
actions, such as zbh (< δbih-), “slaughter, sacrifice” (n.), šlm (< šalim-),
“intact” (adj.), and names of domestic animals and products from them,
such as ‘gl (<‘ igl-), “calf ” (n.), and hlb (< halab-), “fat” (n.).59
As a cultural practice, the zbh is an institution and a ritual that repre-
sents political affiliation and social order. When the eighth-century-bce
Anatolian ruler Azatiwada had established a city, subdued its opponents,
fortified its dependencies, and strengthened its military forces, then regu-
lar sacrifice (zbh) began to be offered to Baal krntryš, a Syro-Anatolian
deity: wylk zbh l kl hmskt, “and all the river-lands (?) brought sacrifice to
him” (KAI 26 Aii19–iii1). he text is bilingual (hieroglyphic Luwian and
Phoenician), the practice multicultural, the god regional, the Phoenician
word zbh ubiquitous. We can envision historical levels or “shells” of relat-
edness between sacrificial language and sacrificial practice. Reading in a
biblical text, for example, that Phoenician priests performed ze5bahîm,
“sacrifices,” in a temple of Baal in Samaria (2 Kgs 10:24) occasions no sur-
prise. Seeing ‘ ôlôt, “holocausts,” as the next word in the sentence (2 Kgs
10:25) piques curiosity – why is this sacrificial category absent from the
Punic tariffs? In the Late Punic text from Althiburus, particular mention
is made of the exemplary worshipper, ’š h’ l’ [k]’ ‘ lt ’w m[n]ht bmqdš, “he
man that brings up there his holocausts or offerings in the temple” (KAI
159.8). If the practice was typical, why single it out in this way? If it was
unusual, why was it so?
he sacrificial practice represented in the tariffs has clear similarities
with the system of sacrifices found in the Hebrew Scriptures. For exam-
ple, the Phoenician and Punic sacrificial term written mnht, “offerings,”
58
Mahjoubi and Fantar, “Une nouvelle inscription carthaginoise,” 201, 209.
59
Fronzaroli, “Studi sul lessico commune semitico IV,” 264; idem, “Studi sul lessico commune semit-
ico VI,” 314.
has a Hebrew cognate, minhōt. In the Pentateuch, Hebrew minhōt (always

written without vowel letters)60 is found in non-Priestly legislation.61 he
pairing and order of “holocausts” (Pun. ‘ lt) and “offerings” (Pun. mnht)
in the Althiburus inscription (KAI 159.8) is replicated in biblical Hebrew
(e.g., Lev 23:37; Josh 22:23; Jer 14:12; Ezek 45:25).
Besides the linguistic similarity of the names of Phoenician sacrifices
to those in the pentateuchal legislation,62 there are structural similarities.
In the Marseilles tariff, cases not explicitly covered by the inscription are
referred to a separate document (KAI 69.17). Similarly, in Lev 5:10, the
procedure for offering the second of two birds in a sin offering is referred
outside the immediate context (i.e., to be done “lawfully” [Hebrew
kammišpāt).63 he procedure is legislated in Lev 1:14–17. Both the biblical
legislation and the Punic tariff illustrate the thoroughly textual character
of ancient Near Eastern law and cultic regulations.
the punic pantheon and the significance

of the rites of the tophet
With a basic grasp of the significance of sacrifice in Punic religion, we can
turn now to the major deities of the Punic culture area before considering
the rites of the tophet. One of the earliest inscriptions from Carthage is the
inscribed gold pendant discovered in a tomb of the Douïmès necropolis
(KAI 73).64 Peckham dated the inscription no earlier than the mid-eighth
century,65 partly because the shape of the letter kap was unattested before
the late seventh century.66 Recent epigraphic finds create a window between
800 bce and about 720 bce in which the kap of the Carthage pendant
fits.67 he text is a dedication to Astarte and Pygmalion68 by yd‘mlk, a son
of pdy (KAI 73.3–4). he paleographic date of the pendant inscription
leaves no further grounds to reject an interpretation of this text as referring
to the historical king of Tyre known from Menander’s list of Tyrian rulers.69
60
See Anderson and Forbes, Spelling, 11–14.
61
Anderson, “Sacrifices,” 873.
62
Février, “Le vocabulaire sacrificiel,” 49–63; idem, “Remarques,” 35–43; idem, “L’évolution des rites
sacrificiels,” 22–7; Levine, In the Presence, 118–22; Amadasi Guzzo, “Sacrifici e banchetti,” 115.
63
See Baker, “Leviticus 1–7,” 194.
64
Peckham, Development, 119–24.
65
Ibid., 124.
66
Ibid., 152.
67
Schmitz, “Deity and Royalty.”
68
Bonnet, Astarté, 101.
69
On Pygmalion, see Aubet, Phoenicians and the West, 51, 215; on the pendant inscription, see
Krahmalkov, “Foundation of Carthage,”186–8.
As Krahmalkov argues, the name of the donor’s father, pdy, could be the
name known as Bitias, commander of the Tyrian fleet according to Virgil
(Aen. 1.738). In this context the final clause, ’š hls pgmlyn, “who Pygmalion
equipped,” makes sense, for hls, “to equip, arm for war,” is the sort of
action a military commander would have the resources to undertake. he
dedication to Astarte is consistent with the legend associating the expedi-
tion of Elissa with the priesthood of Astarte.70 In later periods Astarte is
less in evidence as a major deity of Carthage or other Punic sites. Personal
names, however, attest to a vigorous domestic cult of the goddess Astarte.
he goddess whose name is written tnt, conventionally read as Tanit
but possibly to be vocalized tinnit or tinneit, remains mysterious. Studies
of this goddess rapidly mire themselves in etymologies of her name and
debates about her place of origin. A good deal can be known about her role
and function in religious practice quite apart from the genealogical quest.
Once again, Punic texts provide the source. his section presents a current
consensus, but also moves past it.
he earliest occurrences of the divine name tnt appear on funerary
stelae of the late seventh or early sixth century from the Tyre necrop-
olis71 and somewhat later at Carthage.72 he ivory plaque from Sarepta
dedicated to Tinnit-Ashtarte (tnt ‘štrt) is of about the same date (KAI,
5th ed., 285.3–4). Personal names compounded with the theophoric ele-
ment tnt occur in two fifth-century ink-written ostraca from the temple
of Eshmun at Sidon (KAI, 5th ed., 283.13; 284b, e). Lipínski73 observes
that the names would have been given by parents who lived in the late
sixth century. here are several other attestations of tnt from Lebanon
and the eastern Mediterranean.74 Regarding the emergence of the ubiq-
uitous “sign of Tanit,” Sader75 elaborates Garbini’s view76 that the sign
involves a combination of the Egyptian ankh (life) with the isosceles tri-
angle (perhaps representing fertility). In particular, the ankh was adapted
to represent the sacred betyl on a stool, a symbol found in Phoenician
iconography.77
70
Aubet, Phoenicians and the West, 216.
71
Sader, Iron Age Funerary Stelae, 26–7, 1.4.d; 38–9, stela 13.1.
72
Hvidberg-Hansen in Niemeyer, Docter, “Grabung unter dem Decumanus Maximus von Karthago:
Vorbericht,” 241–3; idem in Niemeyer, Docter, “Grabung unter dem Decumanus Maximus von
Karthago: Zweiter Vorbericht,” 491–4.
73
Lipínski, “Tannit et Ba’al Hhammon,” 218.
74
Ibid., 218–20.
75
Sader, Iron Age Funerary Stelae, 130–1.
76
Garbini, I fenici, 179.
77
Sader, Iron Age Funerary Stelae, 131.
In the western Mediterranean, tnt is attested in inscriptions from Sicily,78

Sardinia,79 Malta,80 and Spain.81 he name tnt does not appear in the votive
inscriptions from Motya, an island adjoining western Sicily.
In North Africa, Carthage was her main seat. A large room or house
excavated in early-fifth-century levels at Carthage has a paved floor inlaid
with the “sign of Tanit” and outfitted with a drainage installation, possi-
bly to facilitate libations.82 he religious significance of this locus remains
controversial.83 Outside Carthage, the name tnt appears in Punic votive
stelae from Sousse (ancient Hadrumetum, in modern Tunisia), Bir Bou
Rekba (Tunisia), and Constantine (in modern Algeria), and in Late-Punic
inscriptions from Constantine and Tirekbine (Algeria). he element tnt
may also appear in two personal names inscribed in Neo-Punic script on
ostraca from Mogador.84
he goddess is linked to the tophet area in Carthage, where votive stelae
and cippi from the fifth century onward place her name in initial posi-
tion, before the name of the god Baal Hhamon. he implications of this
textual feature for the pantheon and cult are not clear. Almost invariably
she is addressed as rbtn, “our Lady;” her name is frozen in the phrase tnt
pn b‘ l, spelled in Greek thinith phane bal (KAI 175.2) and thenneith phenē
bal (KAI 176.1–2). A coin minted at Ascalon during Hadrian’s reign car-
ries the “sign of Tanit” and the Greek legend phanēbalos.85 he widespread
translation of pn b‘ l as “face of Baal” is supported by a Tannaitic text from
the Cairo Genizah that records a dysphemic midrash on the injunction
in Deut 12:3, we5’ibbadtem ‘et-še m 5 ām, “and you shall abolish their names”:
šm’t šmm pny b‘ l qr’ šmm pny klb,”When you hear their names ‘face-of-
Baal,’ say their names ‘face-of-a-dog.’”86
In the earliest votive inscriptions from Carthage, from the late seventh
or early sixth century, tnt pn b‘ l does not appear. By the fifth century, how-
ever, she figures in a variety of texts and contexts. he epigraphic witnesses
are eloquent, but ambiguous. Lapeyre excavated more than a thousand
inscribed votive objects (published as CIS I 3922–5275) in the tophet area
of Carthage. Among these is a plaque inscribed with eleven lines in Punic
78
Ribichini, Xella, La religione fenicia , 50.
79
Ibid., 96.
80
Guzzo Amadasi, Le iscrizioni fenicie e puniche delle colonie in occidente, Malta 10, 11.
81
Ibid., Spa. 10 B3.
82
Groenewoud, “Use of Water in Phoenician Sanctuaries,” 139–59.
83
Müller, “Religionsgeschichtliche Aspekte,” 230–1.
84
Février, “Inscriptions puniques et néopuniques,” pl. VI.52, 53.
85
Hill, Catalogue, pl. XIII, 18.
86
Flusser, CRINT 1 (1976) 1075 n. 2.
(KAI, 5th ed., 302; see Fig. 11). A similar fragment has seven incomplete
lines of text inscribed in a very similar script (CIS I 5511). hese texts, com-
posed in 406–405 bce, are of considerable historical importance.87 he
first nine lines allow us to glimpse Carthaginian religious beliefs up close.
he text of KAI 302 includes powerful maledictions, directed proba-
bly against persons who dishonor or damage the votive installation that
the plaque once marked. Below are two key sentences from the text (line
numbers in parentheses):
(1) . . . k bd h’ dmm hmt rbtn [tnt pn b‘ l w’ dn b’ l hmn yš(2)ptbr]ht h’ dmm
hmt wbrht ’zrtnm w’p . . .
“. . . by those persons, our Lady [Tinnit Phane Baal and Lord Baal
Hamon will punish the s]ouls of those persons and the souls of their fam-
ilies and . . .”
he formula špt brh is restored on the basis of its occurrences in KAI
79.10–11; CIS I 4937.3–5 (subject Tinnit), as well as in 5632.6–7 (subject
Baal Hamon). A cognate construction in biblical Hebrew, tišpot bām,
“punish them” (2 Chron 20:12), is part of Jehoshaphat’s prayer for protec-
tion against military attack. he Punic construction has the same meaning,
“punish.” Punishment of the soul (Pun. rh) takes place after death. We can
deduce this because Punic religious belief also anticipated a state of rejoic-
ing after death.
he third-century-bce Punic epitaph of Milkpilles refers to the blessed
state of the deceased: msbt l‛zr yšr ’nk ’šsp[y bn] lskr ‛l m’spt ‛smy tn’t k rh
dl qdšm rn, “A stela for a just minister (have) I, ’šspy, his son, erected as
a memorial over his gathered bones, for his soul is rejoicing with (the)
holy ones” (CIS I 6000bis.3b–4). Tinnit Phane Baal does not appear in
this text, which mentions a sacrifice at the temple of Isis (line 8). he son
singles out his father’s pious devotion toward the holy deities as praise-
worthy (line 5).
For the Punic believer, the future life could offer bliss or terror. In the
maledictions of KAI 302, Tinnit Phane Baal is a terrifying judge. But her
power is not limited to the afterlife, as the next passage, KAI 302.4–5,
demonstrates:
(4) [wkl’ ]dm ’š ’ybl mšrt wkpt rbtn tnt pn b‘ l w’ (5)dn b[‘ l ] hmn ’yt ’ dmm
hmt bhym ‘ l pn šmš dl ’zr(6)tm w’ [. . .] nm
“And as for any person who does not serve, our Lady Tinnit Phane Baal
and the Lord Baal Hamon will bind those persons in life before the sun,
with their families and their. . . .”
87
Krahmalkov, “Carthaginian Report,” 171–7; Schmitz, “he Name ‘Agrigentum,’” 1–13.
he Punic word mšrt, translated “serve,” refers to religious or cultic ser-

vice. A religious boundary is set, and transgression anticipated. his bind-
ing will not be mystical or secret, but will take place in broad daylight (cf.
2 Sam 12:12).
he so-called tophet is the resting place of infants – in their thousands –
and must be sanctified. Any violation of its sanctity, by commission or
omission, invites punishment in this life and in the next. KAI 302 intro-
duces the deities who protect the sacred space. Its maledictions set the tone
of awe infusing all transactions there.
Was the tophet a place of ritual infanticide?88 Two lines of evidence bear
on this question. Recent research on the contents of cinerary urns from
the Carthage tophet excavations leads in several directions. Generally, the
remains of one individual are represented in an urn.89 As many as seven
different sets of remains may, however, be combined in a single urn. Sexing
indicates 41 percent male, 59 percent female, between two and twelve
post-natal months of age, with circa 40 percent of the sample definitely
perinatal and 20 percent prenatal. he authors consider these distributions
consistent with normal infant mortality.90 he prenatal remains rule out
the possibility that all tophet interments represent sacrificed infants.
Another study of remains from 459 urns from the Carthage tophet
reports 95 percent of the sample aged between one and twelve months,
with 51 percent dying between birth and one month; prenatal remains are
not reported.91 he authors conclude that the age distribution detected
in the sample differs from anticipated patterns of infant mortality and
“strengthens the claim that infants at Carthage were indeed sacrificed.”92
he better controlled excavation of the tophet of harros in western
Sardinia provided an important comparative sample. he analysis of
remains from the cinerary urns reveals a pattern of coordination of animal
and human remains: Overall, for each set of human remains there is a set
of remains of a lamb, one human plus one animal accounting for 52 per-
cent of the sample.93 he lambs ranged in age from seven to twenty-seven
days. Because lambs are born during a period of about fifty days centered
on 1 March, the authors concluded that the lambs died on the same day
or on a small number of separate days.94 he same point arises in a recent
88
Ribichini, “La questione del tofet punico,” 293–304.
89
Schwartz, What the Bones, 51–2.
90
Schwartz et al., “Human Sacrifice,” 138; Schwartz et al., “Skeletal Remains from Punic Carthage.”
91
Avishai, Smith, “Cremated Infant Remains,” 39.
92
Ibid.
93
Fedele, Foster, “harros,” 43.
94
Ibid., 41.
study of remains from six Carthage urns in the Allard Pierson Museum,
Amsterdam.95 he forensic evidence leaves little doubt that lambs were
routinely killed and burned in the tophets of Carthage and harros on one
or more days between late February and early April.96 he timing suggests
a coordinated ritual.
he admixture of human and animal incinerations is difficult to explain
unless it was intentional. But how does this fit with the evidence that 60
percent of the infants were newborn or stillborn? Can it be possible that
Punic society engaged in ritually controlled fertility?97
To sketch a possible response to this question we return to the Adonis
celebration discussed above. Was the Adonis festival part of a larger cycle?
A perplexing element of the Adonis cult is the ritualized sexual license
associated with it.98 If a woman engaged in ritualized sex and conceived
between the new moons before and after the Sothic new year (20 July),
the resulting birth would be likely to occur in the month after the vernal
equinox. In other words, these (illegitimate?) infants would be neonatal
during the time when lambs lost their lives in the tophets. he cui bono test
must be applied to this hypothesis, but it gives us a possible framework in
which to reconsider this portion of Punic religion with regard to the lived
experience of women.
To establish the cycle of Phoenician-Punic festivals, we must know the
months of the annual calendar sequentially, but the order of most of the
Phoenician months must be determined by comparison with better-known
calendars and is thus hypothetical throughout the first millennium BCE .
We can be fairly certain that the heliacal rising of the Egyptian constella-
tion S3h- Orion, associated with Osiris, would occur during the second half
of the month – probably zbh šmš – that precedes the Phoenician month
krr, in the second week of the waning phase of the moon. he heliacal ris-
ing of the Dog Star Sirius-Sothis, associated with Isis-Hathor-Astarte and
the occasion of the Egyptian new year’s day, would take place during the
second week of the waxing phase of the moon in the month krr. Building
on this assumption, and comparing the dates of a number of Phoenician
votive inscriptions, particularly from Cyprus, we can detect what may be
a seasonal pattern in the cults of Melqart and Osiris: Offerings are made
to Melqart during the occultation of the constellation S3h-Orion (April
95
Docter et al., “Interdisciplinary Research,” 424.
96
Cf. Bernardini, “Leggere il tofet,” 21 n. 15.
97
Stager, “he Rite of Child Sacrifice,” 1–11.
98
Vellay, Le culte et les fêtes, 169–73; Ribichini, Adonis, 161–4; Lipiński, ed., Dictionnaire, 7; Bonnet,
Astarté, 28.
to June) and during the preceding waning period (January to March);

offerings to Osiris are made during the waxing period of the constella-
tion S3h-Orion (July–December), although we have evidence only from
the first month of that period. We can conjecture that offerings to Osiris
would have begun after the heliacal rising of the constellation S3h-Orion
and continued at least until the heliacal rising of the star Sirius-Sothis (cor-
responding to the Egyptian new year celebration).
If one accepts the chronological deduction made above from the evidence
of lamb remains mixed with human remains from the tophets of harros
and Carthage, then we might associate the interments in the tophet with
the occultation of the constellation S3h-Orion and inferentially with the
cult of Melqart. his calendrical inference would then associate the ym qbr
‘ lm, “god’s burial day” (KAI 277.9), with the appearance of constellation
S3h-Orion and the heliacal rising of Sirius, which perhaps inaugurated the
annual veneration of Osiris. Precisely how the cult of Melqart-Adonis fits
in this calendrical pattern remains speculative.
About inter-cult conflict and its toleration in Phoenician religion we
are poorly informed. Apparently the cult of Melqart was a matter of con-
troversy in Punic Carthage, because the Punic inscription KAI 302.6–7
stipulates its toleration: qr’ lmlqrt ysp ‘ lty lšlm wlyrhy / bmqm [z], “As for
one who worships Melqart(-Adonis?) they shall continue to greet him and
make him welcome in this city.”99 What scenarios of competition would
have made this injunction necessary? Was the god under symbolic rehabili-
tation as part of “a major reorganization of the entire Carthaginian colonial
network” during the fifth century?100 Did Melqart-Heracles offer a model
of successful endogamy, addressing colonial anxieties?101 Should we see the
divine pair implied by Melqart’s presence?102 Or was the tide of imperial-
ism at Carthage buffeting older loyalties to the metropolis? At this stage of
our knowledge of Punic religion, silence is the appropriate answer.
mortuary rites
he discovery of cremation burials and funerary stelae from the ninth to
the sixth century bce in the al-Bass necropolis of Tyre103 has allowed schol-
ars to place older discoveries of tomb assemblages at Phoenician-Punic
99
Krahmalkov, Phoenician-Punic Dictionary, 462, s.v. Š-L-M I.
100
Van Dommelen, “Ambiguous Matters,” 130.
101
Bonnet, “Melqart in Occidente,” 21.
102
“Non c’è Melqart senza Astarte”; Bonnet, “Melqart in Occidente,” 21.
103
Aubet, Phoenician Cemetery of Tyre al-Bass, 465.
sites in the West, particularly at Cádiz104 and Carthage,105 in a firmer con-

text of interpretation. Simultaneously, the discovery of new Phoenician
and Aramaic texts, and the reinterpretation of the Pyrgi text and some
Punic texts from Carthage (illustrative examples of which appear above),
have permitted a clearer view of Phoenician-Punic beliefs about the spirit
and its possible experiences in the afterlife.
One of the distinctive features of Phoenician-Punic mortuary rites now
identifiable at all known Phoenician and Punic burial sites is a ritual involv-
ing the breaking of ceramic ware, particularly plates, cups, and jugs.106 he
cremation burials in the Tyre al-Bass cemetery reveal a consistent pattern:
After the two urns containing the cremated remains of a single individual
were placed in an excavated space and a few simple offerings stacked atop
them, the urns and their associated grave goods were covered with reeds,
branches and leaves from white poplar, fig, and olive trees, and vine stems,
and set alight. As the fire burned down, plates, cups, and jugs that proba-
bly had been used in a funerary meal were deliberately broken and thrown
into the fire (indicated by surface scorching).
his practice has similarities with the much older Egyptian funerary
ritual sd; dšrwt, “smashing the redware,” and could possibly derive from
Egyptian influence. A related but distinct practice of Egyptian funerary
rituals involves “killing” pots by perforating or smashing them.107 Breaking
containers at the conclusion of a ritual would prevent their subsequent
profane use. Ritual breaking as a constituent of a ritual, on the other hand,
might eliminate unwholesome powers believed to have accumulated in
ritual objects during the course of their ritual use. he former case implies
a purificatory purpose for the breaking, the latter an apotropaic purpose.
If, as seems likely, the fire into which shattered pottery was thrown during
burials at the Tyre al-Bass cemetery had a purificatory purpose, then the
ritual itself probably implied purification, although protection is not ruled
out. he ceramic evidence for this pottery-smashing ritual implies that
Phoenicians throughout their western Mediterranean settlements prac-
ticed similar funerary rites and mortuary cult banquets. he ritual is asso-
ciated with both inhumation and cremation burials.
he funerary stelae discovered in excavations at the Tyre al-Bass cem-
etery cannot be confidently associated with individual interments. he
104
Niveau de Villedary y Mariñas, “Banquetes rituales en la necropolis púnica de Gadir,” 35–64.
105
Benichou-Safar, Les tombes puniques, 278–82.
106
Aubet, “Phoenician Cemetery of Tyre,” 40.
107
Budka, Bestattungsbrauchtum und Friedhofsstruktur im Asasif, 405–10.
paleography of the inscribed stelae indicates a range of time from the ninth
to the fifth century bce. he inscriptions on stelae from the Tyre al-Bass
cemetery are brief, the longest being five words.108 he texts are entirely
labels: the name of the deceased, in a few cases with the father’s name added
(and in one case [no. 31] the grandfather’s also). hus the Phoenician stelae
discovered in the Tyre al-Bass cemetery originally preserved the essential
details necessary for mortuary commemoration: the name of the deceased
and the location of the interment.
conclusion
Punic religion enjoyed about five centuries of practice as a relatively coher-
ent tradition. Although never entirely free from external influence, the
Canaanite elements inherited from the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age
remained recognizable until the Roman period. Egyptian religious imag-
ery and magical practice infused Punic piety throughout its history. One
thinks, for example, of Herodotus’s logos (3.37.2) concerning the image of
Hephaistos (Ptah) in his temple at Memphis and its similarity to the patai-
koi (Ptah-images) of the Phoenicians. he Egyptian goddess Isis had a tem-
ple in Hellenistic Carthage as well (CIS I 6000bis.8). Evidence of Persian
religious influence is slight. Phoenicia was in long and sustained contact
with the Greek world109 and exerted considerable influence on Greek reli-
gion.110 As the earlier discussion of the Adonis cult indicates, Phoenician-
Punic religion was receptive to Greek religious influence also. For example,
Carthage adopted the Hellenistic cult of Demeter and Persephone.111 he
relatively weak textual base on which the present reconstruction rests char-
acterizes the difficulties awaiting future attempts to understand the reli-
gion of Phoenician settlers in the western Mediterranean world.
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 
GREECE AND THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

9
MINOAN RELIGION
nanno marinatos
history of scholarship
he bases of Minoan religion were set by the excavator of Knossos, Sir
Arthur Evans (1851–1941). Evans realized at once that he was unearthing
a magnificent civilization that, although under the strong influence of
Egypt, had never become enslaved to it and had thus managed to maintain
its own cultural identity (see Map 6). It was a highly literate culture with
two different hieroglyphic and two Linear scripts (Hieroglyphic A and B,
Linear A and B). he fact that all but Linear B remain undeciphered is an
accident of history due to the dearth of preserved materials. here may be
little doubt, however, that Minoan culture had myths and ritual texts of
which we are unfortunately ignorant due to the perishable nature of the
material on which they were written. Such texts would have helped better
to elucidate Minoan religion.
As a consequence of this lack of evidence, Evans had to create his own
narrative about Minoan mythology based partly on intuition, partly on
observance, partly on projection of Greek myth backward, and partly on
his solid knowledge of Egypt and the Near East. His basic assumptions as
regards Minoan religion were three: (1) Early Crete had aniconic cults. (2)
he aniconic objects as well as trees were possessed by the spirits of the
divinity. For this idea he was indebted to Edward B. Tylor’s theory of ani-
mism.1 (3) he principal goddess of the Minoans was a Great Mother, as he
called her. He detected her on the images on seals and wall paintings. Next
to her often stood a youthful god, which he sometimes called the goddess’s
consort, but most times he identified him as her son. A most important
observation of Evans is that Minoan religion may be elucidated through
1
Tylor, he Origins of Culture.
237
238 Nanno Marinatos
Map 6. he Aegean.
comparisons with Egypt and the Near East. he Minoan Goddess was
similar to Hathor. She was the dominant deity in the pantheon, and thus
Minoan religion was virtually monotheistic. Moreover it was a palatial reli-
gion; the Great Goddess was also the protectress of the king.
Martin Persson Nilsson subsequently synthesized the study of Minoan
and Mycenaean religion in a book that he wrote while Evans was still
alive.2 Nilsson, however, was not as systematic as it might at first seem, and
the picture of Minoan religion that he adumbrates is not a coherent one;
rather, it is a collection of archaeological data, which he assembled with
great meticulousness. His main interest in this religion was the detection of
the origins of Greek myth in Minoan times. He lacked Evans’s intuitions
concerning the meaning of Minoan images and, most importantly, the lat-
ter’s intensive engagement with the Minoan world. On several occasions
Nilsson was critical of Evans, such as Evans’s interpretation of Minoan
monotheism centering on the Great Goddess. Nilsson in some ways
2
1st edition, 1927; 2nd revised edition, 1950.
Minoan Religion 239
undermined the coherence of Evans’s narrative without really replacing it.

he accomplishment of Nilsson must, however, not be underestimated.
Evans’s view of Minoan religion is still with us today, although its basis
has often been distorted. Popular scholarship and the feminist movement
adopted the idea of the Mother Nature Goddess as a primeval deity going
back to the Neolithic and Paleolithic eras.3 In the imagination of moderns,
Crete became a utopian paradise, a cradle for peaceful men who seldom
fought wars, who worshipped trees and assigned their male gods to a lower
order. But such a Mother Nature Goddess is nowhere testified in the sec-
ond millennium bce.
his misunderstanding and popularization of Evans’s ideas led some
scholars to skepticism about our ability to read any narratives into Minoan
religion. he deconstruction movement of Jacques Derrida reached the
Minoan field as well. Method was emphasized over interpretation, and
accuracy of description was favored over meaning. A substantial contri-
bution has been made by Colin Renfrew in his Archaeology of Cult.4 He
introduced criteria about how to distinguish the object of worship from
the means of worship, how to detect the focal point, how to distinguish
the cult room from the storage area. Following this line of reasoning,
Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood’s analysis of the images on gold rings pro-
vides an exemplary model for reading images without presumptions.5
a brief history of minoan culture and its religion

Crete was an independent island culture, which turned into a palatial soci-
ety in the beginning of the second millennium bce. From that time on,
the kings of the island became partners with other kings across the Aegean.
Letters found in the archives of king Zimri-Lim at Mari in the eighteenth
century speak about objects of the Keftiu (this is what Cretans were called
by their neighbors). Ugaritic texts mention the island of Kaphtor. he
Keftiu are depicted in Egyptian tombs during the eighteenth dynasty.6
he historical periods of Crete were divided into three main phases by
Evans: Early Minoan, Middle Minoan, and Late Minoan. hese phases are
based on correlations with the Egyptian Old, Middle, and New Kingdom.
New methods of dating, based on natural science, are currently also used
3
Gimbutas, he Language of the Goddess.
4
Renfrew, he Archaeology of Cult: he Sanctuary at Phylakopi.
5
Sourvinou-Inwood, “On the Lost ‘Boat’ Ring from Mochlos,” 60–9; Sourvinou-Inwood, “Space in
Late Minoan Religious Scenes in Glyptik.”
6
Evans, Palace of Minos II (1928), 658ff.
240 Nanno Marinatos
by archaeologists, but they have proved to be anything but reliable. A more

historically oriented division of Minoan chronology was proposed by the
Greek scholar Nikolaos Platon, who suggested First Palace (ca.1990–1650)
and Second Palace Period (ca.1650–1375 bce) instead of Middle and Late
Minoan. In about 1375 bce, the palace of Knossos was destroyed by earth-
quakes. From then onward Crete seems to have played a secondary role in
the Aegean, being supplanted by the kingdom of Mycenae on the main-
land of Greece. Why the palace of Knossos fell is a highly debated ques-
tion;7 at any rate, its fall did not signify change in the religious tradition.
Post-palatial Crete has the same religious symbols as the preceding era,
but it is clear that the fall of kingship necessitated a major social reform as
regards the priesthood. Although the king was high priest during the pala-
tial period,8 after the fall of Knossos this could no longer be the case. Also,
the palaces could no longer function as cult centers. Yet, the deities and
their symbols were preserved.
sources and method

One of the early scripts used in Crete, Linear A, remains undeciphered,
and consequently no myths are preserved of the second millennium. We
must therefore rely on archaeology and especially images to reconstruct
religion. Imagery has the advantage that it has vocabulary and syntax, as
language does. Yet, pictures too have limitations: How do we read them
without knowledge of the visual conventions of a culture and, most impor-
tantly, the mental apparatus of this culture? And how can we appreciate
meaning if we do not know who commissioned the representation? hese
are real difficulties, but they need not be exaggerated. Evans’s decision was
to study Minoan religion as part of an interconnected East Mediterranean
world with emphasis on parallels from Egypt and Anatolia. hese were
fruitful paths.
he method adopted here pursues the same approach and will consider
Minoan religion in a Near Eastern perspective, contextualizing it in its
Eastern Mediterranean second millennium setting, and connecting it with
other theocratic religions of the Ancient Near East and Egypt. Given these
links, we should expect a king who was also high priest and a close con-
nection between sanctuary and palace. his is the case in all Near Eastern
7
See, for example, Hood, he Arts in Prehistoric Greece.
8
For analogies with the Hittite kingdom see Beckman’s discussion of Hittite religion in Chapter 3.
Minoan Religion 241
kingdoms. Parallels from the Hittite and Egyptian empires strengthen this
hypothesis greatly.9
here remains, still, the question of whether or not it is legitimate
to assume continuity of tradition between Minoan Crete and Classical/
Hellenistic/Roman Greece. Is it possible that Minoan cults, gods, and
their myths survived? he answer to this complex question is that yes, there
is a possibility of continuity, but it must be proven rather than assumed.
here are circumstances that make survival of myths and cults possible
within the same region. One such factor is the continuity of language and
written tradition. In the case of Crete, however, it must be noted that
Minoan is not Greek, and, if one is to posit continuity between the two
cultures, regions, and eras, one must also posit that myths were translated
into Mycenaean, and that they were somehow inherited by later Greeks
after a thousand years. Further it must be assumed that the preservation
was deliberate, as happened with Jewish literature. hese are possibilities,
but, to this author, they seem rather implausible ones. he once widely
held view that Greek myths reflect Minoan precursors cannot be taken
for granted; such a view must be demonstrated rather than stated as axi-
omatic truth.10
On the positive side, Minoan and Greek myths were both part of a
larger religious pool, a koine, that lasted over three millennia in the Eastern
Mediterranean. For this reason, common elements between Greek and
Minoan probably do exist, but contemporary Near Eastern cultures may
furnish closer models than Greek myth.
the king
No account of Minoan religion is possible without taking into account the
role of the king because he was the high priest of the gods and the main
legitimate intermediary between the human community and the divine
world. Evans’s vision of a Priest King, whom he detected in the famous
relief painting from Knossos, is doubted by several scholars today, but it is
certainly entirely consistent with the traditions of the Ancient Near East.11
he king presided in all major state festivals.12 It would be unthinkable for
9
See ibid.
10
See also Rutherford’s discussion of Mycenaean religion in Chapter 10.
11
Van de Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East ; Marinatos, Minoan Kingship and the Solar
Goddess.
12
Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods.
242 Nanno Marinatos
Near Eastern specialists to write an account of rituals without references

to the king.13
In the heart of the palace of Knossos and west of the central court, Evans
found the oldest stone throne of the Aegean world. From the beginning he
identified it as the seat of King Minos in an attempt to associate a figure
and a name with the throne. But if this is accepted, we must wonder how
this modest area could be the audience hall of a king. he problem may
be solved if the throne room is interpreted as a sanctuary (a house of god;
see below) situated within the palace.14 he throne of the deity is also the
throne of the king; the king thus becomes a partner with the god or god-
dess and sits on the throne. he benches accompanying the throne were
designed for a restricted elite who could witness the king’s intimacy with
his patron deity. he German scholar Helga Reusch made another sugges-
tion: he throne was designed for a female divinity. Hittite texts provide
us with a scenario that supports this hypothesis of the partnership between
king and goddess. During the festival of the storm-god, the Hittite king
and the queen entered the sanctuary and sat on the throne of the deity.
here they performed various rituals of libation and handled the sacred
objects of the god. he ritual was witnessed by the master of ceremonies
and other officials, but most people stayed outside. hey knew what hap-
pened but did not witness it directly.15 Another parallel comes from Egypt.
he pharaoh sat on the throne of Isis, who was his mother and protector.
Note also that the name “Hathor,” the mythical mother of the pharaoh,
means in Egyptian “house of Horus,” that is, his palace.16 he function of
the Knossos throne room may thus be deduced from unexpected sources:
texts of the Hittite and Egyptian kingdoms.
he role of the king at Knossos required both administration and reli-
gious performance, especially participation in public sacrifices. King and
queen had to demonstrate that they were closer to the gods than ordinary
people, and this could be achieved only by processions in which the royal
couple, dressed in magnificent paraphernalia and carrying the emblems
of the gods, displayed their special status. his may be the reason why, in
the iconography of Minoan Crete, it is difficult to distinguish king from
god: he two look exactly the same, and the ambiguity was no doubt
intentional. In one case a king is accompanied by a griffin (see Fig. 12). We
also understand why the palaces of Crete had large courts. he latter were
13
See Beckman in Chapter 3, who says that the king served as a high priest in every major festival. For
Egyptian religion, see Doxey’s contribution to this volume, Chapter 7.
14
On the designation house of god in Hittite documents, see Chapter 3.
15
See ibid. for this rite.
16
See Chapter 7 for these deities.
Minoan Religion 243
Fig. 12. King accompanied by griffin. Source: CMS I, 223.
designed to accommodate large crowds to witness the performances of the

royal couple in their priestly capacities. Lavish banquets must have taken
place following sacrifices. he queen mother and the royal children as well
as other relatives of the king undoubtedly took part. his scenario matches
what we know about Hittite festivals rather well.17
house of god
Minoan Crete presents us with a seeming paradox. Temples, which typify
most palatial societies in Egypt and the Near East, seem to be missing.
House-shrines are detectable, and so are nature sanctuaries in caves or on
17
See Chapter 3.
244 Nanno Marinatos
mountains tops. What are missing are independent monumental buildings

with a cela and a base for a cult image. his paradox may be easily solved
when we realize that the term “temple” is a conceptual term and not an
architectural category, and that our notion of temple is colored by notions
of Greco-Roman temples. Even in the Near East temples do not conform
to a strict typology: Hittite temples are huge buildings with many rooms
and storage areas.18 Canaanite shrines, on the other hand, are far more
modest, and there is great variation between them. Egyptian temples con-
tain inner shrines with cult images but also a host of ceremonial halls and
storage areas.19 A notorious case is the interpretation of the biblical bamah
(Ezek 20:29). Is it an altar, a “high place,” or any open air shrine?20
A first step toward clarity is that we replace “temple” with the term
“house of god” (Hebrew, bêt elohim). Such a term defines the edifice as a
dwelling place of the deity without specifying its size or design, whether
it has a roof or it is just an enclosure. A second step is to define how the
“house of god” was conceptualized by the Minoans themselves, and this
may be accomplished only by the investigation of imagery.
Such a house of god is represented on a gold ring recently found in a
tomb at Poros, near Herakleion (see Fig. 13). his building is located on a
mountain top and is surmounted by a horn-like object. Evans originally
interpreted such M-objects as horns of bulls but, as many scholars increas-
ingly have come to realize, the object is a symbol of a a cosmic mountain
(axis mundi) with twin peaks. Below it is an incurved design. In front of
the building is a woman who makes a gesture of greeting or adoration; this
shows that the edifice is a house of god. he woman may be the queen,
who at the same time is high-priestess.
hese two examples suffice to demonstrate the existence of a codified
visual vocabulary for the representation of the house of god. he house
of god has the same form as the palace of the king. his means that no
distinction was made between divine palace, royal palace, and temples:
he deities were imagined as living in the palace along with the king and
queen.
A second type of house of god is an open air sanctuary with a tree as
its focus of worship (see Fig. 14). Such types are attested in other cultures
of the East Mediterranean and fit the description of holy places in biblical
texts: “You shall not plant for yourself any tree, as a wooden image, near
the altar which you build for yourself to the Lord your God” (Deut 16:21).
18
See ibid.
19
Wilkinson, he Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt.
20
Biran, Temples and High Places in Biblical Times.
Minoan Religion 245
Fig. 13. Divine palace. Ring from Poros, Crete. Source: Archäologischer Anzeiger 2005,
Fig. 1.
Fig. 14. Man shaking tree and woman dancing; scene of ecstatic divination. Ring from
Vapheio, Peloponnese. Source: CMS I, 126.
246 Nanno Marinatos
hus, the house of god is a conceptual category that includes palace as well
as open air shrine.
house cult
Domestic cults in Minoan households were detected already by Evans, but
it was Nilsson who systematically investigated the subject, devoting one
chapter to “House Sanctuaries” in his Minoan Mycenaean Religion. In 1985
Geraldine Gesell made a thorough and updated study in which she intro-
duced the important distinction between town, house, and palace cult.21
In the house shrines we may envisage a smaller clientele with the master of
the house officiating and members of his household, servants and depen-
dents, taking part. he size of the house and its storage capacity approxi-
mately indicate the scale of the sacrificial banquets. It must be stressed that
a religious feast is primarily a banquet, of which only a part is dedicated to
the gods; the rest is consumed by the community. For this reason, we must
always expect storage jars, cups, and pots to accompany religious parapher-
nalia, such as portable altars or incense burners.
At Akrotiri at hera (Santorini), each house had its own cult rooms,
most of them decorated with murals.22 From Cretan sites we have no
painted house shrines because murals are seldom preserved. But they have
distinctive architectural features, such as benches on which idols or ani-
conic emblems of the deity stood. In front of these benches offering tables
and jars with liquids were placed. he type of shrine with benches and cult
images is evident also on the Mycenaean mainland, as well as in Syria and
Palestine.23 he shrines with benches and idols may thus be viewed as part
of a Near Eastern and Aegean religious koine.
rituals
In most ancient religions the act of worship involves sacrifice of animals or
bloodless offerings to the gods. Scenes of animal sacrifice are attested on
seals. On the painted sarcophagus from Hagia Triada, a woman prays in
front of a sacrificed bull or cow. She is most likely the queen acting in her
role as high priestess.
Processions and festivals are depicted on the murals of the palace of
Knossos. he splendid life-size mural from the West Entrance stands
21
Gesell, Town, Palace, and House Cult in Minoan Crete.
22
Marinatos, Art and Religion in hera.
23
Keel and Uehlinger, Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God in Ancient Israel .
Minoan Religion 247
out as one of the best examples of one such procession. It consists of

tribute bearers who bring vessels and other luxury objects to the palace.
he focal point is unfortunately not preserved, but we may assume that
the objects were delivered to the king and queen and/or their patron
goddess.
Recently scholars have laid emphasis on rites of passage. For example,
it has been noted that many of the participants on the murals from the
Minoan-influenced island of hera (Santorini) are youths. he ages of
the participants may be inferred from their shaved heads, a feature that
characterizes only children and adolescents in Minoan and Egyptian art.
he youths are shown in various activities: he girls gather crocus flowers
whereas the boys wrestle, fish, or hunt. One scene is fraught with drama.
It concerns a girl seated on a rock who has suffered a wound to her foot.
A fallen crocus next to her suggests that the wounding occurred while
she was collecting flowers. his may be a reference to a myth that we
have no way of reconstructing. he flowing of blood, however, cannot be
fortuitous and most likely marks her symbolic status as a woman; it may
thus well be a myth alluding to the entry of the girl into womanhood
(see Fig. 15).24
A group of gold rings from Crete and the mainland show another pecu-
liar rite that, however, is not a puberty rite because adults are involved. A
man or a woman shake a tree or lean passively over a rounded rock. As
Evans was the first to realize, these rites are of an ecstatic nature. But what
was the purpose of the ecstasy? A reasonable explanation is this: When a tree
is shaken, the rustling of its leaves makes sounds, which may be interpreted
as the “word of the tree.” Exactly such a phrase occurs in Ugaritic texts: a
word of tree and whisper of stone.25 On certain seals and ring impressions, a
female ecstatic rests on a rock and seems to see a vision consisting of a pair
of enormous butterflies (see Fig. 16). his activity is best interpreted as an
ecstatic rite of prophecy similar to those practiced in the Near East.
he Minoans certainly practiced aniconic worship, as may be inferred
from the presence of votives among stalagmites in the Cretan caves,
Psychro, Amnissos, Skoteino, and others. he former included altars as
well. he cult of the Cretan caves must have been related to deities of the
Underworld, and a plausible case was made by Evans that the goddess
of the Underworld and the goddess of earth and sky was the same. Her
symbol was the double axe.
24
Marinatos, Art and Religion in hera , 43–72.
25
KTU 1.3. iii 21 ff; N. Wyatt, Religious Texts from Ugarit, 78.
248 Nanno Marinatos
Fig. 15. Wounded girl. Mural from hera (Santorini). Source: Marinatos Art and
Religion in hera, 74.
Finally, a few words must be said about the most spectacular public fes-
tival of Minoan Crete, acrobatics and bull games. he palace of Knossos
seems to have been behind the organization because it used the theme as
a subject on its murals. Also, Knossos had a large west court to host such
festivals. In this way it provided entertainment to the people, enhanced
its glory, and showed its reverence for the Great Goddess, to whom the
games were dedicated. Evans comprehended all this but committed one
Minoan Religion 249
Fig. 16. Woman leaning over a stone; scene of ecstatic divination. Ring impression
from Hagia Triada, Crete. Source: CMS II, 6, 4.
mistake. He thought that women performed the bull-leaping sport along

with men. He was wrong about that because all the participants (white or
red in color) have male anatomy: hey wear male costumes with phallus
sheaths and have no breasts.
the great goddess and the double axe

Evans was quite right that the dominant goddess of the Minoan pantheon
was a female one, and that her symbol was the double axe. Representations
of this goddess abound in murals, rings, and seals even on objects found on
the mainland of Greece. A few statuettes representing her as a snake han-
dler were found in the palace of Knossos itself. After the fall of the palace
of Knossos in 1400, many more were found in chapels of private houses
and towns which means that this type of worship survived the demise of
the palaces and was spread from the center to the periphery.
Evans also perceived, correctly in the view of this author, that the Minoan
Great Goddess was the mother of the major male god. here are paral-
lels in Near Eastern mythologies for such a pair. he mother of the chief
250 Nanno Marinatos
warrior god (the storm-god, for example) has an exalted role. he mythical
paradigm reflects social reality, namely, that the goddess is the patroness of
both the queen or queen mother and her son. For mythical examples see
Ninsun, the cow-goddess in Gilgamesh. She is the mother of the king of
Uruk and intervenes on his behalf with the sun-god.26 he dowager queen
is a very important figure in royal households of the Near East and Egypt
because she controls lineage. Of some interest in this context is the impor-
tant role of Bathsheba, mistress of King David, for the selection of her son
Solomon as king.27 In Mesopotamia this goddess may be identified with
Ishtar or Ningirsu, or Mami. In Egypt she is Hathor and Isis.28 Among the
Hittites she is Hepat, the sun-goddess of Arinna, whereas her son Sharuma
is an embodiment of the king.29 Note that the Hittite queen receives the
title tawananna and is priestess of the sun-goddess of Arinna.30 In Ugarit
she is Athirat. hese goddesses often receive the appellation “great” or
“mistress.” In Mycenaean Linear B, she is named po-tni-ja.31
he Minoan goddess was similar to these other queen goddesses of the
Near East and Egypt, a type of Egyptian Hathor or Isis. Like them, she
was most likely a solar deity. On a ring found at hebes she is shown with
the sun above her (see Fig. 17). On a gold ring from Tiryns (see Fig. 18),
the goddess is seated on a throne receiving libations from demons with a
leonine form, reminiscent of the Egyptian goddess Taweret. Here again we
see the enthroned goddess associated with luminaries of heaven, the sun
and moon.
he Great Goddess is thus a celestial and chthonic goddess at the same
time, a deity who controls the entire universe. She is also the patroness and
mother of the young god and the king alike.
Regarding the name of the Solar Goddess, we must note that Linear A
has not been deciphered. Nevertheless, we can perhaps associate her name
with an inscription that occurs many times on stone libation vessels and
other votives. he inscriptions read A-sa-sa-ra. he phonetics of the syl-
lables cannot be equated with any name in Greek mythology. However,
the name may be the equivalent of Ugaritic Athirat or biblical A-she-rah.
he Asherah is both a goddess and a palm tree in Israelite cult, and this
constitutes a further connection between the Minoan goddess, who is
26
Gilgamesh iii, ii; Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia , 65.
27
1 Kings 17–22.
28
Troy, Patterns of Queenship in Ancient Egyptian Myth and History.
29
See Chapter 3.
30
Bin-Nun, he Tawannana in the Hittite Kingdom.
31
See Chapter 10 for further discussion of the deities in the Linear B tablets.
Minoan Religion 251
Fig. 17. Goddess and young god or king greeting each other under a solar sign. Ring
from hebes. Source: CMS V, 199.
Fig. 18. Seated goddess receiving offerings from lion-creatures under sun and moon.
Gold ring from Tiryns. Source: CMS I, 179.
252 Nanno Marinatos
closely associated with the palm tree, and her counterparts in Syria and
early Israelite cult.32
the great storm-god

Evans perhaps underestimated the importance of the male god, whom
he thought of as being inferior to the Great Goddess but he discussed
him nevertheless. He called him sometimes a boy-god and other times
a youthful divinity, martially arrayed. his god supposedly died and was
reborn; he was a type of Tammuz or Greek Adonis who was mourned by
the mother goddess.33
he Swedish scholar Nilsson followed the basic outline drawn by Evans,
and so did his compatriot Axel W. Persson: hey both viewed the male
deity as a hunting-god, “a relic of a nature demon,” a god of yearly death
who would be mourned by his consort. he myth of the tomb of Zeus, as
presented in Hellenistic poetry, was invoked as evidence of the survival of
this dying god into Greek myth. he mythical persona of the dying god
thus became fixed in Minoan studies, and it has rarely been systematically
challenged. But there is no visual evidence that points to such a dying
god. he youthful male divinity is always depicted as a lord and master
of his domain, as facing the seated solar goddess, as dominating over wild
animals or as a warrior smiting enemies.34 All these characteristics suggest
a very powerful warrior deity and not a god of vegetation. He is equivalent
to the storm-/warrior-gods of the Near East: Baal, Hadad, Marduk, Seth,
and Horus, all of which combat enemies and establish order over chaos.
Sometimes they also kill the monsters that threaten the cosmic harmony of
the universe. hat such a god existed is not only evident in the iconogra-
phy, but is also historically plausible. If we press the social analogy between
gods and royalty, the Minoan god embodies the ideal king.35
Deeds and accomplishments of such a god would lend themselves to
mythological narratives. he following example, a ring impression from
Knossos, may be such a mythological narrative. We see here a youthful
male combating a monster, the head of which emerges from the waters
(see Fig. 19). he youthful man stands in a boat, and although his weapons
32
Discussion of the connections and further references in Marinatos, Art and Religion in h era,
63–4, 95–6.
33
Evans, he Palace of Minos, 3:464–5; cf. Frazer, he Golden Bough, 327–9. For criticism see Wyatt,
“Religion at Ugarit”; idem, “here’s Such Divinity.” For a recent revival of the year god see Otto,
“Der Altkretische Jahresgott und seine Feste,” 27–48.
34
For all these images see Marinatos, Art and Religion in hera, 167–85.
35
Marinatos, Minoan Kingship.
Minoan Religion 253
Fig. 19. God (?) in a boat attacking Leviathan-type sea monster. Ring impression from
Knossos. Source: CMS II. 8. 234 (slightly restored).
are not preserved, it is clear from the position of his hands that he held
two weapons, a spear and perhaps also a sword. he male is most likely
the god combating a sea-dragon such as the Ugaritic Litanu, the biblical
Leviathan, or the Egyptian Apophis, all of which monsters threaten the
universe and are defeated by the storm-gods Baal, Jahweh, and Seth. If this
pattern is applied to the ring impression from Knossos, we may indeed get
a glimpse of a genuine Minoan mythological narrative akin to that of the
Near East.
Was there polytheism in Crete? Certainly this was the case. Yet, only the
Solar Goddess and the storm-god have recognizable iconographical fea-
tures because they were the chief deities with a clear mythological profile.
conclusion
his account of Minoan religion has been dominated by two assumptions.
he first is that kingship is essential for the appreciation of the social as well
254 Nanno Marinatos
as the mythical aspect of Minoan religion. he second is that Near Eastern

texts and representations offer an invaluable guide for the “reading” of
Minoan images and religion. his comparative approach to Minoan reli-
gion was fruitfully applied by Sir Arthur Evans first, and it remains still the
best approach, although now the social and economic realities of cult can
also be taken into consideration.
However, a problem still remains. What were the connections between
Minoan and Mycenaean religions? hat there was a connection cannot be
doubted. he images yielded by the finds of Mycenaean Greece are similar
to those of Crete; we see in both cases a female deity and a warrior-god.
On the other hand, the decipherment of Linear B as Greek has introduced
a different paradigm (or “assumption” as I called it above) in the study of
Mycenaean religion. Instead of reading it through its extant iconography,
specialists interpret it through the prism of Linear B and, because the lat-
ter is Greek, through Greek myth. he results are puzzling since the Greek
gods attested in the tablets – Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Athena, Dionysus –
cannot be detected as distinct personalities in the images of deities found
on the Mycenaean mainland. On the other hand, the enthroned Great
Goddess is attested in paintings and rings in all the major Mycenaean sites.
Perhaps, then, the Minoan model of mother and son fits the Mycenaean
evidence best. More finds may shed further light on Mycenaean religious
identity in the near future.36
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Wyatt, N. Religious Texts from Ugarit: he Words of Ilimilku and His Colleagues. he
Biblical Seminar 33, 2nd ed. (Sheffield, 2002).
Wyatt, Nicolas. “here’s Such Divinity Doth Hedge a King.” In Selected Essays of Nicolas
Wyatt on Royal Ideology in Ugaritic and Old Testament Literature. Society for Old
Testament Study Monographs (Ashgate, 2005).
10
MYCENAEAN RELIGION
ian rutherford
Mycenaean religion means the religion of mainland Greece in the Late

Helladic (LH) period, when we know from the evidence of Linear B that
the language of administration was Greek.1 he principal centers in this
period are Mycenae and Pylos in the Peloponnese, hebes in Boeotia, and
Knossos in Crete, which Greeks must have taken over sometime around
1400 bce. Our picture of Greek civilization in this period is still incomplete;
above all, we do not know whether there was a single center of power, or
if so, where it was (Mycenae and hebes are the likely contenders). Hittite
records from the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries refer to Ahhiyawa,
which is now generally identified with Mycenaean Greece.2
Research on Mycenaean religion can be divided into two phases, before
and after the decipherment of Linear B in 1952. he most comprehensive
survey of the archaeological and iconographical sources was by Martin
Nilsson,3 who argued for a unified Mycenaean/Minoan religion, which
was a distant ancestor of the Greek religion of the alphabetic period. he
decipherment of Linear B as Greek enabled scholars to explore in a more
focused way the relationship of Mycenaean religion to the religion of the
Minoans (whose language was not Greek; see discussion of Mycenaean reli-
gion and Minoan religion) and to Greek religion of the alphabetic period
(see discussion of Mycenae and Greek religion of the alphabetic period).
Archaeological excavations in the last fifty years have also been important,
for example, at the Cult-Center at Mycenae (see discussion of cult places)
and at Phylakopi on the Aegean island of Melos, and new archaeological
discoveries continue to be made, as at Kalapodi in Phokis, where a major
1
For the Mycenaean sites, see Map 6 in Chapter 9.
2
See Hawkins, “Tarkasnawa,” 1–31.
3
Nilsson, he Minoan-Mycenaean Religion.
256
Mycenaean Religion 257
temple of the classical period seems to have been built on the foundations
of a Mycenaean structure.4 Problems of interpretation remain, however,
as can be seen from the recent controversy surrounding newly published
Mycenaean tablets from hebes; the editors claimed these showed evidence
for religious festivals, but those claims were later disputed.5
Two recent trends in the research can be mentioned. First, ritual practice
in the Mycenaean palace is now understood better due to recent work on
feasting, drawing on both texts and material culture (including zooarchae-
ology) to build up a comprehensive picture.6 Second, since the decipher-
ment of Linear B, scholars have been interested in understanding the place
of religion within the general economic structures of Mycenaean society,
and in particular whether Mycenaean Greece had centralized temple-states
of the sort known from the Ancient Near East. Lisa Bendall’s recent study
of the subject7 suggests that this was not the case, and that the religious and
political spheres were distinct.
textual evidence
Linear B tablets are attested from Pylos, hebes, Knossos, Mycenae, and,
to a lesser extent, Tiryns and Khania. hose from the mainland are dated
to the end of LHIIIB (around 1200 bce), whereas those from Knossos have
generally been placed around 1400 bce, although they too may be from
the thirteenth century.8 Linear B is still imperfectly understood: the sylla-
bary is ambiguous because it does not usually write the final consonant of
syllables, or introductory “s” before consonants, and not all the values of
the signs are certain (uncertain signs are transcribed * + a number). he
most reliable guide to the vocabulary is Aura Jorro, DMic, and the most
convenient commentary on religious texts is still Gerard-Rousseau.9
Typically, a name or word attested in Linear B can be represented either
(a) as an alphabetic transcription of the syllables, for example, pa-ki-ja-ne
(the name of the main sanctuary at Pylos),10 or (b) as many scholars believe
it would have been written in an alphabetic script: Sphagianes. In addition,
(c) when a word or name indisputably continues in alphabetic Greek, it is
common to use this form (hereafter cited as AG).
4
See Jacob-Felsch, “Die Spätmykenische,” 102–5.
5
See Palaima, Review of Aravantinos (2001).
6
See Wright, Mycenaean Feast.
7
Bendall, Economics of Religion, esp. 290–2.
8
Ibid., 10–14.
9
Gerard-Rousseau, Les mentions.
10
NB: the letter “j” is conventionally written for the “y,” i.e., a glide between vowels.
258 Ian Rutherford
All surviving texts are administrative records, dealing with personnel,

livestock, metals, vessels, cloth, or weapons. Each published tablet has an
inventory number of the form Fr 1219, where the first letter encodes the
class of tablet (e.g., F is conventionally used for offerings tablets with the
ideogram for oil). Inventory numbers are usually preceded by a two-letter
prefix indicating the provenance (PY for Pylos, KN for Knossos, etc.). he
most important class of tablets for the study of Mycenaean religion are
records of offerings or contributions, which survive from Pylos (Fr: olive
oil), from Knossos (Fp, Fh: oil; Gg: honey), and now from hebes in the
form of seals (the Wu series). Records of personnel are also important (e.g.,
some of the PY A class) and inventories of utensils (PY Ta, Tn). hese
documents are usually extremely simple, for example, KN Gg 702: pa-si-
te-o-i/me-ri AMPHORA 1 /da-pu 2-ri-ti-jo/po-ti-ni-ja meri AMPHORA I
(One jar of honey to all the gods / One jar of honey to the Mistress of the
Labyrinth). At the other extreme, the most illuminating of all tablets for
the study of Mycenaean religion is PY Tn 316, which records gift-giving of
vessels to deities during a specific month of the sacred calendar. Another
text from Knossos (KN V 280) could be part of a sacred calendar, specify-
ing that certain activities are inappropriate on certain days, but the inter-
pretation is uncertain (see discussion of ritual and sacrifice). hus, the
most the texts tell us is the names of deities, other official offerings made,
and the occasions of the offerings, but nothing about how the deities were
perceived, or about popular, sub-official religion.
How problematic interpretation is can be illustrated with a few exam-
ples. First, the Fp offering tablets from Knossos preserve a name qe-ra-si-ja,
which has been interpreted in three ways: (a) as a theonym, “the goddess of
hera”; (b) as a theonym, “the goddess of the beasts” (AG ther ; cf. Homer,
Il. 21.470: potnia theron); or (c) as title of a religious official connected with
omens (cf. AG teras, Tiresias). A second example comes from Pylos. In the
Fr tablets, the word di-pi-si-jo-i has been interpreted as “the thirsty ones,”
either a theonym or a euphemism for the dead (cf. below), but it could
also mean “at the dipsia-festival.”11 he Fr series also has the word wa-na-
so-i, which has been often interpreted as “wanassoiïn,” that is, “to the two
ladies,” but other interpretations are possible as well.
Among the numerous obscurities in the Pylos material, PY Tn 316, we
may single out the deity pe-re-*82, who has been interpreted as Peleiwa
(Dove) but in several other ways as well. Similarly, the new tablets from
hebes contain many disputed words. For example, the sequence ma-ka
11
Cf. Trümpy, “Nochmals,” 191–234.
(Fq series) suggested to the original editors the expression Ma Ga, used
by the fifth-century-bce Greek poet Aeschylus apparently in the sense
of “Mother Earth” (Suppliants 890), but other interpretations of ma-ka
may be preferable, for example, the unpretentious noun maga (AG mage),
“kneading.”12
archaeology and material culture

Archaeologists recognize three types of Mycenaean sites as showing signs of
religious activity: the megaron (ceremonial hall) of the royal palace, where
the wanax (king) no doubt presided over state rituals; specialized cult cen-
ters attached to palaces, the best preserved of which is the one at Mycenae;
and shrines not apparently attached to palaces, of which a few are known.
Religious activity probably also took place in open-air sites that lacked
architectural structures (see discussion of cult places).13
Rings and gems found in Mycenaean sites seem to depict aspects of
cult activity and religious experience. Because these are Minoan in design
and may be primarily artistic objects, they do not necessarily reflect the
religious beliefs of their owners. Careful work is necessary to distinguish
Mycenaean features. One example of a ring with a religious symbol that
is likely Mycenaean is the ring from the Acropolis Treasure at Mycenae
depicting a figure-of-eight shield, directly comparable to the “Palladion”
from Tsountas’ House (CMS 1, n.17; see discussion of the pantheon).14
Clay figurines are one of the characteristic features of Mycenaean religion.
Most of them are small female figurines, called phi, psi, or tau depending
on the posture.15 A few larger statues have been found, at Asine, Mycenae
(from the “House of the Idols”), and Phylakopi, and some of these could
be cult icons. he larger figurines also tend to be female, although male
ones were found at Phylakopi. here are indications that figurines were
used in ritual: One thinks of the term te-o-po-ri-a (=theophoria, “carrying
the god”), and such usage seems to be illustrated in some frescoes: K-P71
from Mycenae and K-P106–7 from Tiryns.16 An ivory trio of a boy and two
adult female figures survives from Mycenae17 and has been linked to later
Greek ideas about the Eleusinian triad.18 Mycenaean frescoes are strikingly
12
Aravantinos et al., hèbes, 190; for criticism, Palaima, review in Minos (2001).
13
Wright, Spatial Configuration.
14
See Niemeier, “Cult Scenes,” 165–70.
15
French, “he Development,” 101–87.
16
With Boulotis, “Zur Deutung,” 59–67.
17
Wace, he Ivory Trio; Poursat, Catalogue, 20–1.
18
Vermeule, Greece in the Bronze Age, 292.
260 Ian Rutherford
Minoan in style and technique, and, as in the case of seals, it is hard to

know whether they reflect indigenous religious practice. One way out of
this difficulty is to concentrate on features that are different from Minoan
art. Kontorli-Papadopoulou19 concludes that the following features are dis-
tinctive of the mainland: the warrior-goddess, symbolized by figure-of-
eight shields and a helmeted figure carrying a griffin; female processions,
which probably represent votaries; material offerings; and lions accompa-
nied by griffins. For frescoes, see the next section.
the pantheon
he polytheistic nature of Mycenaean religion is established by Linear B
texts, principally from Knossos and Pylos, which contain many words that
can safely be identified as theonyms due to parallels with AG. he word
for god is te-o (AG theos), and we find the phrase pa-si-te-o-i (“to all the
gods”) at Knossos; a common title for goddesses is po-ti-ni-ja (AG pot-
nia), often in combinations (see below). In some cases a theonym is not
attested directly but can be inferred on the basis of an anthroponym: For
example, a-pa-i-ti-jo/Haphaistios implies the theonym Haphaistos (later
Hephaistos); s-mi-te-u may imply Smintheus, a name of Apollo.
he only deities attested at both Knossos and Pylos are po-si-da-o (AG
Poseidon), di-we (AG Zeus),20 and possibly di-u-ja (i.e., Diwia). di-wo-
nu-so (Dionysus) is attested in Pylos and Khania.21 Otherwise we find
different gods in Crete and the mainland: in Knossos A-re (=AG Ares),
da-pu2-ri-to-jo po-ti-ni-ja (“lady of the Labyrinth”), pa-ja-wo-ne (AG Paian,
Paiaon), a-ta-na-po-ti-ni-ja, e-re-u-ti-ja (= AG Eleithia, Eleithuia), e-ri-nu
(AG Erinus, “Fury”), qe-ra-si-a (see discussion above), a-ne-mo (“winds”),22
e-nu-wa-ri-jo (AG Enualios), perhaps e-ne-si-da-o-ne (=AG Ennosidas),
da-nwa (AG Danae?), me-na (the moon?), pi-pi-tu-na (wholly obscure);
pe-ro2- at KN E842.3 may be Apellon, an early form of Apollon; in Pylos,
various forms of Potnia, as well as e-ra (Hera, also attested in hebes),
po-si-da-e-ja (Posidaheia), a-ti-mi-ti (AG Artemis), ma-te-re te-i-ja (Mater
hehia: Divine Mother), i-pe-me-de-ja (cf. AG Iphimedeia), e-ma-a2 (AG
Hermes), di-ri-mi-o (a son of Zeus); qo-wi-ja (Gwowia, a cow-goddess
19
Kontorli-Papadopoulou, Aegean Frescoes, 161–2.
20
Di-we, i.e., diwei is the dative; the nominative in MycG is not attested, but it could have been
*diweus.
21
For the Khania tablet see Hallager et al., “New Linear B Tablets,” 61–87; for Dionysus, Antonelli,
“Dionisio,” 169–76; Palaima, “Die Linear B Texte,” 205–24.
22
On the cult of the wind, cf. Hampe, Kult der Winde, esp. 24.
[cf. AG bous]?); ko-ma-we-te-ja (“she of the hairy one”?);23 ma-na-sa, ti-ri-

se-ro-e (“hrice-hero”; see discussion below), do-po-ta (“lord of the house”).
he difference between Pylos and Knossos is likely to be partly a matter
of chance, since the number of texts surviving is comparatively small, but
some of it may be due to local variation: At Pylos, Poseidon is important
(as Homer still remembers: see Od.4.43, for example), whereas some of the
deities attested at Knossos may be indigenous to Crete.
A striking feature of the Mycenaean pantheon are theonyms formed
with the title po-ti-ni-ja, usually preceded by another word in the genitive
case. he simplex po-ti-ni-ja is also attested.24 he compound forms are
indicated by find site.
A) From Knossos:
da-pu2-ri-to-jo po-ti-ni-ja (KN Gg 702), lady of the “Labyrinth,” presumably a
sacred structure of some sort.
A-ta-na po-ti-ni-ja (KN V 52), possibly Athanas potnia, “mistress of
Athens” (?),25 suggests the Homeric Greek potni’ Athenaia (Od.6.305),
“lady Athene.”
B) From Pylos:
i-qe-ja po-ti-ni-ja: the first element means “horsey” (AG hippeia), possibly to be
associated with a Mycenaean statue of a goddess on a horse.26
u-po-jo po-ti-ni-ja: the first element is obscure; Sucharski and Witczak27 suggest it
means “baetyl” or “sacrificial post,” comparing Sanskrit yupah.
po-ti-ni-ja A-si-wi-ja: “mistress of Asia” (?) (potnia Aswias) (see discussion
below).
C) From Mycenae:
Si-to-po-ti-ni-ja (MY Oi 701): possibly “lady of the grain,” which suggests the later
Greek goddess Demeter.28
Excavations at Mycenae have revealed fragments of frescoes with
representations of female figures who could be goddesses. he Room
of the Frescoes has a goddess with sheaves of grain (K-P74a), and in
23
Cf. del Freo, “Osservazioni,” 145–68; DMic suggests that this could be the name of a ritual.
24
Finkelberg, “Ino-Leukothea between East and West” has claimed to identify the theonym potnia in
a Semitic inscription in the Levant.
25
Cf. Gulizio et al., “Religion,” 452–61.
26
Levi, “La dea,” 109–25; see EIEC, 279–80.
27
Sucharski and Witczak, “U-po-jo,” 5–12.
28
he recent attempt to interpret Ma-ka and Ko-wa in the hebes tablets as Ma Ga (“mother earth,”
i.e., Demeter) and Korwa is too speculative; see Palaima’s review of Aravantinos in Minos 35–6
(2000–2001), 481–2.
262 Ian Rutherford
the panel above the lower part of two goddesses, with between them
a down-pointed sword and figures floating (K-P74b). In the Tsountas’
House Shrine was found the so-called Palladion, a stucco panel showing
a figure-of-eight shield, perhaps representing a goddess, with two vota-
ries on either side (K-P78).29 Similar shield-frescoes have been found
in the Megaron in the Cult Center (K-P80), at Tiryns (K-P 88), and at
hebes (K-P108). And compare K-P73, a helmeted female figure appar-
ently carrying a griffin, found outside Tsountas’ House. It is natural to
try to link these with known theonyms: K-P74a suggests Sitopotnia; the
shield-goddess could be a war-goddess;30 in K-P74b the goddess with the
sword could be either a war-goddess, that is, Athanaspotnia,31 or a god-
dess of death both because the small figures floating between could be
chthonic, and because of the sword, which it is thought to have a parallel
in the funerary symbolism of Hittite Yazılıkaya, where he represents the
deity Ugur or Nergal.32
Some of the texts give clues about the organization of deities in cult.
In PY Tn 316, rites at four shrines are described, each in honor of several
deities:
A) At pa-ki-ja-ne, for Potnia, Manasa, Posidaeia, Triseros, Dopotas.
B) At the sanctuary of Poseidon, for Gwowia, Komawenteia.
C) At the sanctuary of Pere*82, Iphimedeia and Diwia, for Pere*82,
Iphimedeia, Diwia, and Hermes.
D) At the sanctuary of Zeus, for Zeus, Hera, and Drimios, son of Zeus.
he last of these resembles a classical triad with mother, father, and son.33 In
Khania, Zeus and his son Dionysus were worshipped together. One might
have expected that Diwia would be worshipped with Zeus and Posidaeia
with Poseidon, but these pairings are not attested.
It is sometimes claimed that the Mycenaean pantheon included zoo-
morphic deities, but the evidence is at best inconclusive: he tablets have
the “horsey” mistress from Pylos, who need not have been represented
as a horse; a horse-god has also been alleged (PY Ea 59); from Pylos also
comes the goddesses qo-wi-ja (“Bovine”) and pe-re-*82, which might mean
29
he term “Palladion” is a misnomer: see Marinatos, “he Palladion,” 107–14.
30
See Rehak, “he Mycenaean ‘Warrior Goddess,’” 232–6.
31
Rehak, “New Observations,” 535–45; idem, “he Mycenaean ‘Warrior Goddess,’” 227–39.
32
Marinatos, “he Fresco,” 245–8; Morgan, “he Cult Centre,” 159–71; Haas, Geschichte, 366–7;
Gallou, he Mycenaean Cult of the Dead , 37.
33
his point first made in Gallavotti, “La triada lesbia,” 225–36; cf. Tarditi, “Dionisio Kemelios,”
107–12.
“dove” (cf. the famous fresco of the singer). Other animal-deities have been
alleged in the new hebes tablets.34
Considering that Greek is an Indo-European language, surprisingly
little of the religion is demonstrably Indo-European in origins, with the
exception of the name Diweus/Zeus and the title potnia (cf. Sanskrit patni:
mistress). Nor is there any trace of the Dumezilian “trifunctionality” often
associated with Indo-European culture.35 It is unfortunate that our only
certain source for Mycenaean religion from outside Greece is a Hittite
oracular text from the thirteenth century bce, which attests cult honors
paid to a “deity of Ahhiyawa” and a “deity of Lazpa” (Lesbos), apparently
in the Hittite court, which had imported these deities for some reason. We
do not know the MycG name for either deity.36
cult places
Linear B tablets have several terms for sanctuaries of the gods. General
words used are i-je-ro = sanctuary (AG hieron); na-wi-jo, an adjective
occurring only on one tablet (PY Jn 829), which may imply the word naos:
temple; wo-ko = alphabetic Greek oikos, dwelling place; and do = house.
Specific places include in Pylos pa-ki-ja-ne; sa-ra-pe-da in PY Un 718; and
several other places mentioned in Tn 316, including po-si-da-i-jo (sanctu-
ary of Poseidon), pe-re-*82-jo (sanctuary of Pere-*82), and di-u-jo (sanc-
tuary of Zeus); and a series of places in the area of Knossos including the
da-da-re-jo/daidaleon and perhaps the da-pu2-ri-to/labyrinthos, terms that
foreshadow Greek traditions about Crete in the alphabetic period.37
To turn to the archaeology, the most significant types of structure are
the following:
A) he megaron (ceremonial hall) of the palace, which seems likely to
have been the locus for rituals performed by, on behalf of, and in the
presence of the wanax (king); a focal point in the megaron was the
hearth, which may have had religious significance.38
B) Independent cult centers within the citadel.39 he best preserved is the
one on the SW side of the Citadel at Mycenae, excavated from 1959
34
See Rousioti, “Did the Mycenaeans Believe?” 305–14.
35
See Palaima, “he Nature of the Mycenaean Wanax,” 121–3.
36
KUB5.6; Sommer, Die Ahhijava Urkunden, n.10; on the deity of Lazpa, see Singer, “Purple-Dyers
in Lazpa,” 32.
37
On the da-pu2-ri-to see Hiller, “Amnisos,” 63–72. For cult places near Knossos, see DMG 304–5.
38
Wright, Spatial Configuration, 55–7.
39
See Albers, Spätmykenische Stadtheiligtümer ; Wright, Spatial Configuration, 61–4.
264 Ian Rutherford
to 1969, apparently connected to the palace via a processional way.40 It

comprised the following rooms:
• he “Temple Complex” (Rooms XI, 18, and 19), also known as
“House of Idols,” which yielded a number of clay figurines that
could be gods or worshippers, as well as an anthropomorphic vase
and terracotta snake figures.
• he “House of the Frescoes” (Room 31), laid out with a bench along
one side, and a “low rectangular stone base or table” in the middle.
K-P74a and 74b were found there. In front of the House of Idols
and the House of Frescoes was a circular altar with a fresco fragment
representing dancing asses (K-P76).
• he “Tsountas House Shrine,” source for the Palladion-panel (K-P79
above). he floor of one room has a horse-shoe shaped hearth, which
may have been used for libations, with a stone block that could have
been used for sacrifice.
• he so-called Megaron, to the East of the House of Idols and to the
North of Tsountas’ House, which has yielded important fragments
of frescoes, e.g., the Mykenaia (K-P70), and the shield (K-P 80)
from LHIIIB and the lady with lily (K-P72 from LHIIIC).
Other citadel cult centers are found at Phylakopi on the island
of Melos, where there were two buildings with religious function
(“West Shrine” and “East Shrine”), and a possible baetyl,41 and at
Asine, where Room XXXII, of house G, is the source of a clay figu-
rine, the “Lord of Asine.”
C) Open-air sanctuaries. Unlike in Minoan Crete, caves are not major
centers of religious activity,42 and evidence for ritual activity on peaks
is also rare, although there are exceptions, including Mount Oros on
the island of Aegina (the later seat of Zeus Hellanios), and the site at
Mount Kynortion near Epidauros (later Apollo Maleatas).43
Several sites known to have been cultic centers in the alphabetic period
were built on Mycenaean sites, such as Eleusis.44 Some of these sites seem
to have had a religious function already in the Mycenaean period, such as
Kalapodi, Mount Kynortion, and the sanctuary at Ayia Irini on the island
of Ceos.
40
See Moore and Taylour, Temple Complex, whose system of enumeration I follow.
41
Renfrew, he Archaeology of Cult, esp. 361–91.
42
However, see Hägg, “Mykenische Kultstätten,” 49–52.
43
See Wright, Spatial Configuration, 68–70.
44
See Darcque, “Les vestiges,” 593–605.
ritual and sacrifice

he Linear B evidence demonstrates the practice of sending offerings to
sanctuaries, sometimes specifying that they are “qe-te-jo” (“payment” or
even “fine”).45 Offerings sent are primarily oil, honey, grain, and wool, less
often animals and even human beings. he practice of sending offerings
can be compared with frescoes from hebes and from Pylos that illustrate
processions and sometimes allow us to identify the thing being offered
to the deity, for example, a pyxis, flowers, and a jar on the procession of
women from the Kadmeia in hebes (K-P106).
Animal sacrifice is a significant ritual in all ancient Mediterranean and
Near Eastern cultures. Frescoes illustrate sacrifice occasionally (e.g., K-P96
from Pylos), and archaeology confirms that animal sacrifice took place. It
used to be believed on archaeological grounds that sacrifice in Mycenaean
Greece did not involve burning of parts of the animal reserved for the
god, but that view has now been challenged.46 he tablets mention con-
tributions of animals, but make no reference to sacrifice itself (although
the word sa-pa-ka-te-ri-ja in KN C 941.B has been interpreted as sphak-
teria, animals to be sacrificed). he usual AG word for sacrifice, “thu-,”
is used only for incense in Linear B. he verbal form “i-je-to” (hiyetoi)
in PY Tn 316 may be related to i-je-ro (AG hieros, “sacred”), and i-je-re-u
(= hiereus) “priest,” and mean “sacred action takes place, there is a sac-
rifice.” Archaeology also suggests that libation was an important part of
ritual,47 and the oil and honey offerings that the tablets mention may well
have been used for this purpose.
Several names of rituals and/or festivals are known from the texts, includ-
ing the following: te-o-po-r-i-a from Knossos, “carrying the god” (AG theo-
phoria, a ritual where the statue of a deity is carried around, a practice
that seems to be confirmed from rituals; po-re-no-zo-te-ri-ja from Pylos,
festival of girdling of porenas (see below), to be compared with a reference
in a hebes tablet to offerings of wool for porenas (TH Of 26.3); similarly
po-re-no-tu-te-ri-a: festival of the sacrifice of victims (?); me-tu-wo ne-wo
from Pylos: festival of new wine (or is it the name of a month?); to-no-e-ke-
ter-i-jo from Pylos: often interpreted as “thorno-helkterion,” that is, “draw-
ing the throne,” but there are a number of other possibilities as well (see
45
See Hutton, “he Meaning,” 105–32.
46
he earlier view appears in Bergquist, “he Archaeology,” 21–34; idem, “Bronze Age,” 11–43; for the
new view see Isaakidou et al., “Burnt Animal Sacrifice,” 76; Hamilakis and Konsolaki, “Pigs for the
Gods,” 135–51.
47
Hägg, “he Role of Libations,” 177–84; Konsolaki-Yannopoulou, “New Evidence,” 213–20.
266 Ian Rutherford
DMic); re-ke-e-to-ro-te-ri-jo from Pylos: interpreted as lekhe-stro-terion,

that is, “spreading the couches.” here is no alphabetic Greek equivalent,
although one can consider the Latin lectisternium, the term indicating the
ritual for “spreading the couches” for the gods.48
At least some of these rituals or festivals are likely to have coincided
with major feasts, and the Linear B texts seem to provide evidence for
the provisioning of festivals or feasts. his practice was first inferred on
the basis of clay nodules from hebes bearing the imprint of seals (the
Wu-series), which revealed the sending of payments from numerous places
in the region.49 Similar patterns have been detected in tablets from Pylos50
and in other archaeological remains from Pylos.51
hat the Mycenaeans practiced human sacrifice has been argued for on
the basis of (a) archaeological evidence, which is at best uncertain,52 and
(b) textual evidence, specifically PY Tn 316, where the offerings to various
gods include the ideogram for man and woman; it has even been suggested
that the term poren, pl. porenes, in this tablet and elsewhere might refer to
sacrificial victims.53 On balance, the case is not strong.
Offering tablets from Pylos and Knossos suggest that offerings were
organized on a monthly basis. For Knossos it is possible to reconstruct
a system of offerings over several months to different sanctuaries (DMG,
304–5). One tablet from Knossos (KN V280) has been interpreted as a sort
of religious calendar, where unknown activities are designated “o-te-mi,”
which could be AG “ou themis,” “not religiously correct.”54
Offerings were sometimes sent a considerable distance and may have
been an expression of long-distance relations between states. A collection
of seals published in 1990 seemed to indicate that contributions were
sent to hebes from various towns including Karystos and Amarynthos
on the island of Euboea, suggesting that the palace at hebes controlled
a large region and used the institution of religious festivals to impose
its authority. Knossos sent offerings to Amnisos,55 possibly Kydonia/
Khania in western Crete, and Nauplion on the mainland. Konsolaki
suggests that the presence of a Mycenaean cult in Methana overlooking
48
Milani, “Osservazioni,” 231–42.
49
Pitiros et al., “Les inscriptions,” 103–84; Killen, “hebes Sealings,” 67–84.
50
Killen, “hebes Sealings”; Bendall, “A Time for Offerings,” 1–9.
51
Stocker and Davis, “Animal Sacrifice,” 59–76.
52
See Gallou, he Mycenaean Cult of the Dead , 110–12.
53
See Buck, “Mycenaean Human Sacrifice”; on h316, Palaima, “PO-RE-NA”; idem,
“KnO2-Tn316.”
54
So DMG but DMic disagrees.
55
Taillardat, “Une panégyre,” 365–73.
the Saronic Gulf points forward to the later “Calaurian Amphictiony”

in the region.56 Godart and Sacconi argued that the new hebes tablets
showed evidence of offerings being sent as far as the Ptoion and Mount
Kithairon (TH Av 106 [+] 91), but this claim has not found general
acceptance,57 nor has the hypothesis that one of the hebes seals refers
to Aphaia in Aegina.58
religious personnel
he word for priest is “hiereus,” as in AG; priestess is “hiereia,” best attested
in Pylos-texts. A priestess of the winds is attested for Knossos (KN Fp 1,
13). One tablet (PY Ep74) seems to record, inter alia, a conflicting claim
about a god’s ownership of land between the priestess Eritha and the peo-
ple (da-mo): “Eritha the priestess holds and claims that the god holds an
e-to-ni-jo; but the local community says that he holds an interest consist-
ing in ko-to-na ke-ke-me-na.”59
Many other religious officials have been identified in the tablets, but
often we do not know whether we are dealing with religious officials or
some other sort of official. Examples are the following:
ka-ra-wi-po-ro = klawiphoros: “key-bearer” (cf. AG kleidoukhos).
ka-ru-ke, to be analyzed as karux, “herald” (AG kerux); the herald had a
religious role in Greek religion during the alphabetic period.
i-je-ro-wo-ko = iyeroworgos (AG hierourgos): doer of ritual.
ki-ri-te-wi-ja = krithewia: perhaps “barley-scatterer,” a class of female
ritual specialist.
pu-ko-wo = purkowos: “fire-priest,” to be identified with the AG
purkoos.
wo-ro-ki-jo-ne-jo in PY Un718.11 has been related to AG (w)orgeones (“rit-
ual initiators”), but there are other possibilities also (DMic.2.446).
ke-re-ta in PY Cn 1287.6 could be an early form of AG khrestes “prophet”
(cf. DMic.1.348).
di-pte-ra-po-ro: possibly someone who wears the skin of an animal. In
contemporary Hittite texts, there were cultic officials called “wolf-
men” and “bear-men”;60 were the di-pte-ra-po-ro analogous?
56
Konsolaki, “A Mycenaean Sanctuary,” 25–36.
57
Godart and Sacconi, “Les dieux thébains,” 99–113.
58
Hiller, “TH Wu 94.”
59
See Hooker, “Cult Personnel,” 174.
60
Cf. Pecchali-Daddi, Mestieri, 233–4, 473–5.
268 Ian Rutherford
he tablets attest hierodules, that is, slaves (do-e-ra female, do-e-ro male,
corresponding to AG doule, doulos) of the god. At least some of these may
have been honorific positions, not implying low social status, because they
own land. In addition, some individuals (smiths, women, a perfumer) are
specified as po-ti-ni-ja-we-jo = potniaweios, “belonging to potnia” or “pot-
nian,” a usage that suggests that religious institutions played a significant
social and economic role within the state (see the next section).
religion and the state

A rough idea of the Mycenaean state has emerged over the last fifty years.
he basic structure of society is likely to have been quasi-feudal, with the
wanax or king in charge of the palace, and various levels of landowners
and officials under him. he palace kept records of people and livestock
in the territory it controled and oversaw the gathering and distribution of
materials through a system of bureaucratic mechanisms.
A significant, but not preponderant, part of the palace economy was devoted
to making contributions to cult.61 One tablet from Pylos (PY Un718) seems to
register contributions by different members of society to a cult of Poseidon: by
an individual named e-ke-ra2-wo (Egkhes-lawon?), generally thought to be the
wanax, by the damos (people, AG demos), by the lawagetas, another official,
and by the obscure wo-ro-ki-jo-ne-jo ka-ma. he wanax gives by far the most,
followed by the damos. For the contribution of the damos here, compare PY
Tn 316 V1, where the wa-tu (wastu, town) may be involved.
Comparison with other Bronze Age cultures suggests that the wanax is
likely to have had religious authority as well as political authority.62 his
may be indicated by the apparent ritual function of the megaron in the
palace. One Pylos-text (PY Un2) seems to refer to rituals on the occasion
of his initiation.63
Within this system, it is possible that some religious institutions may
have enjoyed a level of economic autonomy. Attention has focused par-
ticularly on persons as “potnian”; in particular the “potnian” smiths,
whose existence suggests that temples served as manufacturing centers.64
However, the surviving textual evidence is heavily weighted in the direc-
tion of elite- or palace-sponsored cult. his does not preclude the likeli-
hood that religion worked at a popular level as well, possibly focusing on
61
See Bendall, Economics of Religion, esp. 290–2.
62
Palaima, “Nature,” 119–42; Kilian, “Wanax Ideology,” 291–302.
63
Palaima, “Nature,” 131; Bendall, Economics of Religion, 27.
64
See most recently Lupack, Role of the Religious Sector, esp. 114–18.
different shrines, and some archaeological evidence has been claimed for
this area of religious life as well.65
cult of the dead?

In view of the extensive evidence for Mycenaean mortuary practice,66 it
might be expected that it would be possible to make inferences about those
parts of religion that have to do with death, specifically about people’s
beliefs about the afterlife and the realm of the dead, and about the cult of
the dead, if there was any. Both issues are very hard to address.
As for the ideology of death, several of the painted larnakes from Tanagra
in Boeotia depict winged female creatures, which could be either the soul
of the deceased or a deity;67 one of the frescoes from the cult center at
Mycenae (K-P74a) depicts floating figures, and the goddess with the sword
has been interpreted as a symbol of death (see discussion above). he Pylos
tablet Tn 316 mentions offerings to a figure called ti-ri-se-ro-e, which has
generally been interpreted as “tris-heros,” “thrice hero,” perhaps meaning
an ancestor (cf. AG tritopatores), and another called do-po-ta, which might
mean “lord of the house,” another type of ancestor. On the di-pi-si-jo-i
(“the thirsty ones?”; see discussion above).
As for the cult of the dead, a key focus for discussion here has been
the fact that at Mycenae the LHI burials in “Grave Circle A” were later
enclosed within the city wall and separated off in a monumental temenos
or sacred precinct, where they may have become a focus for some form of
cult. Some scholars have suggested that the nearby cult center may have
been used for activities connected with the veneration of the dead.68
mycenean religion and minoan religion

he relation between the two religions is likely to be complex. he stan-
dard view is that Greek religion was influenced by the religion of Minoan
Crete in the sixteenth century bce but that subsequently Minoan influ-
ence waned.69 It follows that “Mycenaean religion” as we find it in the
65
See Hägg, “Official and Popular Cults,” 35–9; Killen, “Religion at Pylos,” 435–43.
66
Cavanagh and Mee, A Private Place, 103–20.
67
Vermeule, “Painted Mycenaean Larnakes,” 123–48; Gallou, he Mycenaean Cult of the Dead , 35–6.
68
Van Leuven, “he Religion of the Shaft Grave Folk;” Gallou, he Mycenaean Cult of the Dead ,
16–30.
69
Renfrew, “Questions,” 31–2; Hägg, Mycenaean Religion,” 213. For Minoan religion, see Chapter 9
by Marinatos.
270 Ian Rutherford
LH period is a blend of Minoan and mainland elements. Which ele-

ments of the resulting amalgam are originally Minoan and which not
Minoan is a very difficult issue: he only controls are the few demonstra-
bly Indo-European elements that cannot be Minoan (see above), and ele-
ments of material culture that seem non-Minoan, such as figurines, and
certain elements of frescoes (see discussion of archaeology and material
culture above).
he case of Mycenaean administration in Crete is likely to have been a spe-
cial case. hus, the name Di-wi Di-ka-ta-i-o (AG Zeus Diktaios), attested in
Knossos tablets, may be either an interpretatio Graeca (Greek interpretation)
of a Cretan deity worshipped on Mount Dikte (whose name may already
be represented in Linear A tablets), or a syncretic deity, combining Greek
and Minoan elements.70 Other theonyms in the Knossos tablets could also
be originally Minoan gods, or Minoan gods translated into Greek religious
idiom. So, for one, Pajawon is attested only in KN V 52, whom later Greek
tradition remembered as specially associated with Crete.71
relations with cultures of the near east and anatolia

he main period of oriental influence on Greece is the eighth century
bce,72 but there must have been influence in the Late Bronze Age as well.
We know that there were diplomatic contacts between Greece/Ahhiyawa
and other Late Bronze Age states (cf. the deity of Ahhiyawa at the Hittite
court; see discussion of the pantheon). In addition, although Mycenaean
Greece was not a “temple economy,”73 its palace-centered organization
still had similarities to the social-political structures of the Late Bronze
Age Near East.74 Some correspondences in the organization of religion
are to be expected on that basis. he institution of hierodules might, for
example, be considered a Near Eastern feature,75 as might the focus on the
ruler; so, for example, with the “initiation of the wanax ” ritual (Un 2), we
might compare a Hittite text that describes a ritual for the initiation of a
prince.76 he administrative technique of listing offerings by month found
in Mycenaean documents has parallels in the Near East, for example, at
70
For syncretism in this context, see Lévêque, “Le syncrétisme,” 19–73; Hägg, “Religious Syncretism,”
163–8.
71
Huxley, “Cretan Paiawones,” 119–24.
72
Burkert, he Orientalizing Revolution, 6.
73
Hiller, “Tempelwirtschaft,” 94–104; Bendall, Economics of Religion, 4–9.
74
de Fidio, “Mycènes,” 173–96.
75
Already in Palmer, New Religious Texts, 26–7.
76
See Güterbock, “An Initiation Rite,” 111–14.
Alalakh.77 Similarities between Hittite and Mycenaean administrative texts

have been investigated by Uchitel, and this reinforces the ties between
these two cultures.78
Parallels with Late Bronze Age Anatolia are particularly likely, because
the Mycenaean Greeks are known to have been active on the West Coast
of Asia Minor. he key pieces of evidence are the theonym po-ti-ni-ja A-si-
wi-ja (PY Fr 1206), if it is rightly analyzed as “mistress of Asia”;79 the prob-
able attestation of the theonym Apollo in a treaty between the Hittites and
the Luvian king Alaksandus of Wilusa, a city that was likely in contact
with the Mycenaeans;80 and the parallel between the down-pointed sword
in the Room of the Frescoes at Mycenae and the iconography of Yazılıkaya,
Chamber B.
mycenae and greek religion of the alphabetic

period (first millennium bce )
We use Greek religion of the alphabetic period as a tool to help us recon-
struct Mycenaean religion. he problem then arises of how the Mycenaean
religious system, so reconstructed, looks in comparison to Greek religion
of the alphabetic period, and how the former might have evolved into the
latter. he limitations of Mycenaean Greek sources are a problem here, for
we face not just the paucity of documentary material, but the lack of nar-
rative texts as well.
Some continuities are attested. We find many theonyms: Zeus, Poseidon,
Dionysus, Paion, Hermes, Ares, Enualios, possibly Apollo, Hera, Artemis,
Eileithuia, and Athene in the form “mistress of Athana,” as well as the title
potnia. In this regard, we can note here that some Mycenaean Greek theo-
nyms appear as divine epithets in alphabetic Greek, such as Paion of Apollo
and Enualios of Ares. We also find a limited number of other religious
terms that continue in use: theos (god), naos (temple), hieros (sacred, etc.).
On the other hand, some ritual terms have no parallel, such as po-re-na.
All things considered, the Mycenaean Greek pantheon looks very different
from AG. Many Mycenaean Greek deities have no later attestation, and
several important deities of AG period are absent, for example, Aphrodite
and Demeter (although cf. on Si-to-po-ti-ni-ja above). Moreover, the
77
DMG 305, with Wiseman, he Alalakh Tablets, 93; cf. Pardee, Ritual and Cult, 26–40, for monthly
offerings at Ugarit.
78
Uchitel, “Assignment of Personnel,” 51–9.
79
See Morris, “Potniya Aswiya,” 423–34.
80
CTH 76; translated in Beckman, Hittite Diplomatic Texts, 82–8.
272 Ian Rutherford
presence in some cases of pairs of male and female theonyms from the
same root (Diwia versus Diweus and Poseidaja versus Poseidaon) suggests
that the structure of the pantheon was radically different from the later one
(although a theonym Diwia is attested from Hellenistic Pamphylia).81
conclusion
In the ancient world religion cannot be distinguished from the political struc-
tures of the societies in which it is found. A necessary condition for continuity
of religious practice is that there is continuity in respect of political organiza-
tion. But most scholars would see the political structures of archaic Greece as
both discontinuous with and radically different from those of the Late Bronze
Age. It follows that the religious system of the Mycenaean palaces and that of
the classical Greek city-states is not likely to have been very close.
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11
ARCHAIC AND CLASSICAL GREEK RELIGION
emily kearns
What do we mean by “Greek religion”?1 First and foremost, the limits of

time need some definition. It is traditional in accounts of the ancient Greek
world to begin as a sort of preface with a brief treatment of the Bronze Age
Aegean (“Minoan-Mycenaean religion”), to proceed to a somewhat agnos-
tic version of the relationship between Homer and the “Dark Ages,” and
to take “archaic and classical” and “Hellenistic” as significant dividers in
what follows. his may not be the only set of categories we can apply to a
diachronic treatment of the subject, but it has two advantages: At least at
the upper end, it fits the nature of the evidence as it shifts in the different
periods, and it corresponds roughly to far-reaching changes in social and
political organization, with which religious expression is intimately con-
nected. hus it is possible to view the religion of the archaic and classical
period as mediated to us to a great extent through contemporary literature
and epigraphy, unlike that of earlier periods, and, as we shall see, we can
also characterize it as “polis-religion,” corresponding as it does (and not
merely chronologically) to the heyday of the polis between the eighth or
seventh century and the world of Alexander and his successors. Other ways
of dividing up the extent of pre-Christian Greek religion may reveal other
characteristics, and it is undeniable that much in Hellenistic religion is
continuous or even identical with earlier periods, but it is certainly con-
venient and frequently helpful to take the archaic and classical period as
a unit.
here is no sudden break between “Minoan-Mycenaean” and “Greek”
religion, although tracking the continuities through the so-called Dark
Ages is an extraordinarily difficult task. And certain things present con-
trasts: he political structure of the societies is obviously different (no
1
For the sites relevant to Greek religion, see Map 6 in Chapter 9.
280
Archaic and Classical Greek Religion 281
palaces in later Greece), and so is the predominant form of sanctuary (the

monumental temple that dominates the physical appearance of most larger
Greek sanctuaries develops from the eighth century onward and owes
something to Egyptian models). Continuity is seen most obviously in the
names of the deities worshipped. Alongside some unfamiliar cult recipi-
ents, Linear B texts have shown versions of Zeus, Hera, Athena, almost
certainly Dionysos, and many others. In fact, most of the divine names
that have emerged from the Mycenaean palace sites are remarkably similar
to those of the main deities known to all later Greeks through the epic and
early hexameter – Homer and Hesiod, whom Herodotus (2.53.2) perceived
to be crucial in crystallizing the forms of the gods of the Greeks. Whatever
the ultimate origins of the names – and the majority defy a certain expla-
nation in Greek or proto-Indo-European – they were at least well estab-
lished by the end of the first millennium bce.
the gods: local and panhellenic, old and new

Whether the later gods themselves, as well as their names, were “the same”
as the Mycenaean deities is perhaps a philosophical rather than a histor-
ical question, but it may serve to introduce some more tangible issues
surrounding the identity of the gods. he panhellenic pantheon2 famil-
iar from the poets is only one of many. Every city, every locality, had its
own group of deities familiar not from texts such as those of Homer and
Hesiod, but from ritual. Of course, each local pantheon had a degree of
overlap with the panhellenic, literary equivalent, and it is reasonable to
suppose that both the local cult group and the shared literary depictions of
the gods will have been influential in forming conceptions of divinity. But
discrepancies there were, apparent at various levels.
Simplest of all, the names most conspicuous in the texts were not always
those actually accorded worship in any given locality. Hephaistos, for
instance, is an important character in the Iliad, but outside it he was wor-
shipped in few places other than Lemnos and Athens. he Peloponnesians,
northern Greeks, and most islanders, who knew about Hephaistos from
Homer and were familiar with his name as equivalent in poetic language
to fire, had no direct religious experience onto which to map this literary
version of divinity. Again, Hesiod’s heogony, which as the name implies
deals with the gods through the medium of their births and origins, tells
largely of very early times and includes many divine figures who, it claims,
2
On “pantheons” see the discussion of trends in interpretation.
282 Emily Kearns
flourished before the reign of Zeus and the Olympians. he coup mas-
terminded by Zeus might explain why no one worshipped Ouranos and
Kronos and Koios and Phoibe (or not much), but we are still left with
the curious phenomenon of a whole set of “deities” essentially without
cult. he tradition of a war between two groups of superhuman beings –
Gods and Titans, devas and asuras, and so on – presumably goes back to
proto-Indo-European times, and the Greek version was evidently refreshed
by later contact with West Asian myths, but the elaborate individuation
of the losing side, the creation of a sort of alternative pantheon, is dis-
tinctively Greek, although one struggles to see what purpose it serves.3
he literary tradition, then, knew more deities than were worshipped in
any one place, and some who were hardly worshipped at all. Conversely,
the local pantheons included some deities with little or no part in the pan-
hellenic group. Who, for instance, were Kourotrophos “nurturer of chil-
dren” or Daeira in Attica, Despoina or Areion in Arcadia, the Tritopatores
in many parts of the Greek world?4 Writers sometimes conjecturally iden-
tified these locally important figures with names familiar from universal
mythology, but there was no consensus on such matters, and their true
contexts are those of cult and local tradition rather than the world of epic
or theogony. Comparably, Hestia, the hearth – the name is a simple Greek
word, unlike the names of most Greek divinities – was often a prominent
figure in cult, as she typically received the first offering in a religious cere-
mony, and yet she has been only half-mythologized in the poetic tradition;
she is the virgin daughter of Kronos and Rhea, sister of Zeus, but beyond
this she has no mythical personality.5
he gods of panhellenic myth are single individuals in just the same
way as the humans who worship them and with whom, in myth, they
interact. In cult things are much less clear-cut, and each apparently uni-
tary deity may become many. In a common perception, a different deity
inhabits each different sanctuary: hus, for instance, in Athens, Athena
Polias (“of the city”) on the Acropolis is different from Athena Ergane in
the agora or Athena Soteira (“savior”) in Peiraieus. his is nicely illustrated
3
See, however, Faraone, “Kronos and the Titans,” esp. 398–9, citing Iliad 14.273–9 and Homeric
Hymn to Apollo 331–42, depicting the collectivity of Titans as underworld entities and witnesses and
enforcers of oaths, though in both passages it is a goddess, Hera, who thus invokes them.
4
Kourotrophos: Hadzisteliou Price, Kourotrophos. Daeira: Nilsson, Opuscula selecta, vol. 2, 545–7;
Despoina, Areion: Jost, Sanctuaires et cultes d’Arcadie ; Tritopatores: Jameson et al., Lex Sacra,
107–14.
5
In company with Hermes, Hestia is the subject of a famous essay by Vernant, Myth and hought
among the Greeks.
in Menander’s comedy Dyskolos, set near a cave of Pan and the Nymphs:
Hearing that the hero’s mother has had a dream of Pan, the cook Sikon
asks, “his one here, you mean?”6 Where the epic-mythological view
focuses on the gods as characters in a narrative, this conception is wor-
shipper based: It relies on the fact that the deities in different sanctuaries
look different, that different cult actions may be appropriate for them, and
possibly different benefits may be expected. Nonetheless, there is a sort of
intermediate position between the two: In one sense, each “epic” divinity
(Zeus, Apollo, Athena, and so on) can be divided into several types, recog-
nizable in different places of worship. hus cults of Apollo Agyieus (“of the
streets”), Zeus Meilichios (understood as “the kindly one”), and Aphrodite
Ourania (“heavenly”), to name but a few, are known with essentially the
same characteristics in most parts of the Greek world, and they are quite
different from other types of Apollo, Zeus, or Aphrodite.
Finally, in some cities or regions the predominant form of a deity might
be of a type different from that universally acknowledged. In Crete, for
instance, Zeus was sometimes a young god, rather than the mature and
majestic “father of gods and men.”7 In Lokroi Epizephyrioi (southern Italy),
Persephone is primarily concerned with marriage, rather than appearing as
the dread queen of the Underworld, her usual form.8 Arcadian deities are
especially idiosyncratic: here, Artemis is seldom associated with Apollo,
whereas Demeter is linked with Poseidon and has as much to do with
animals as with crops.9
Local religious practice also included quasi-divine figures such as
nymphs, heroes, and heroines; a glance at any one of the sacrificial calendars
that have in part survived from the fifth and fourth centuries confirms that
offerings to these figures were not just an add-on, but a conspicuous part
of the religious observance of both the city and its subgroups.10 Nymphs
were known everywhere, but generally each local set had a different name
and was considered distinct from others. Some heroes, such as Herakles
or Agamemnon, for example, were names familiar to all Greeks through
6
Menander, Dyskolos 412.
7
See Verbruggen, Le Zeus crétois, who, however, counsels caution in differentiating the Cretan Zeus
too completely from the “normal” version.
8
Sourvinou-Inwood, “Persephone and Aphrodite at Locri,” 13–37.
9
On Arcadian deities, see Jost, Sanctuaires et cultes d’Arcadie.
10
On heroes, see most recently Boehringer, Heroenkulte in Griechenland, and Ekroth, Sacrificial
Rituals, each with further bibliography. Nymphs: Larson, Greek Nymphs. On sacrifice calendars, see
below and inscriptions collected in Sokolowski, Lois sacrées de l’Asie mineure, Lois sacrées: supplé-
ment, and Lois sacrées des cités grecques (LSAM, LSS, LSCG, respectively) and Lupu, Greek Sacred
Law (NGSL).
284 Emily Kearns
panhellenic mythology, but many were obscure characters of interest only

to their local worshippers, and because the worship of heroes took place
typically at what was considered to be the hero’s tomb, there were obvious
limits to the spread of any individual hero’s cult.
But none of these differences and divergences was mutually exclu-
sive. No pantheon, no way of looking at the gods or a god, was the only
approach that an individual knew, however logically incompatible the
different possibilities might be. To put it at its most basic, every Greek
was familiar with both the epic-mythological pantheon and with the
group of deities and quasi-deities worshipped locally. Concomitantly,
Greek religion as a whole displays both centripetal and centrifugal ele-
ments. Centripetal, because obviously mobility created mutual influ-
ences, not least in the great panhellenic festivals, the games of Olympia,
Delphi, Nemea, and the Isthmus, and also because of the canonical sta-
tus of Homer, Hesiod, and other early hexameter poetry, a phenomenon
that comes to be matched in the second half of the fifth century by a
canonical visual style of representing the gods. Centrifugal, because of
the major local differences mentioned above; because participation in the
cults of another city was often limited; and because beside the creations
of Pheidias and Praxiteles, there were older and often more venerable cult
statues depicting and embodying deities in ways specific to the locality
and the particular cult. hese two tendencies held each other in check,
so that views of the gods and religious practice had always a local and a
panhellenic dimension.
he multiplicity of possibilities in conceptualizing and naming divin-
ity indicates a degree of flexibility and open-endedness that is constantly
open to change. Although doing things “according to ancestral custom”
(kata ta patria) carried a powerful charge for the Greeks, and was fre-
quently backed up by the responses of oracles, in practice the list of the
gods changed and developed over time. Contact with others – Greeks or
non-Greeks – brought about many modifications to the pantheon, either
as additions of new deities or as identifications of a deity with a more
familiar one. hese changes came about in different ways, sometimes grad-
ually and “organically,” sometimes as the result of a deliberate decision,
and the new deities occupied all points on a spectrum varying from utmost
respectability to a very dubious reputation. But however much the gods
of foreigners might be mocked in comedy (in which god-mockery is fre-
quent), or indeed in certain kinds of oratory, there was no sense that they
were objectively less real than the gods of the Greeks, nor were the catego-
ries of Greek and foreign gods watertight.
religion and the POLIS
Variability is then a prime characteristic of Greek pantheons, but the most

important of all variables is locality. Yet so far we have only touched on
political structures in this regard. What we have chiefly seen is that local-
ity, in a weak sense, determines the gods one worships, but there is also a
strong sense for the statement, in which the local political structure deter-
mines and deliberately lays down the basis of religious practice. he role
of the polis is indeed one of the defining features of Greek religion, and
one that has been much emphasized in recent years.11 “he polis anchored,
legitimated, and mediated all religious activity” is the epigrammatic for-
mulation of one scholar in the field,12 and although this may be overstated,
it at least draws attention to the intimate relationship between religion and
the state – and also expresses what many Greeks, including Plato,13 felt was
the ideal. But how more precisely, and why, was the relationship thus?
In a nutshell, the polis fulfilled many of the functions that in other soci-
eties were the preserve of religious experts. Structures of overall religious
authority were notably lacking in the Greek world. Priests were neither
born into a caste nor formed collegia with quasi-political power as they
did at Rome. A priest or priestess (they appear in similar numbers) had
an air of grandeur when engaged in his or her office14 and was worthy
of respect; he or she, if adult, was probably an expert on the particular
cult and deity served, but the priestly office by itself conveyed no other
religious expertise or authority. Seers (manteis) were usually practitioners
of a craft, men who had learned a particular skill; they seldom claimed
any direct insight into the ways of the gods, and more extravagant claims
on their part risked seeming merely eccentric. here were also, at least in
fourth-century Athens, officials called exēgētai, “explicators,” whose job
it was to advise on appropriate ritual action across the board. hese men
must have had considerable knowledge and expertise, but they were not
essential to the operation of the religious system, and they were not figures
of power.15
Authority might be held to derive directly from the gods in the form
of responses from the great oracular shrines – Delphi, Dodona, Didyma,
or Branchidai near Miletos, and others. Such pronouncements were
11
See Section, Trends in Interpretation this chapter.
12
Sourvinou-Inwood, “What Is Polis Religion?” 15.
13
For instance, Laws 10 909d–910d.
14
hus Plato, Politicus 290c.
15
On priests, seers, and exegetes, see Garland, “Religious Authority,” 75–123, and “Priests and Power,”
73–91, and Parker, Polytheism and Society, 89–99, 116–20.
286 Emily Kearns
frequently made on religious and ritual matters at the request of official

polis delegations, and their authority was incontrovertible. But most cities
were at some distance from the major, most prestigious oracles, and con-
sultation was not an everyday affair. Practices they recommended might
fall into disuse – they did not issue reminders, but only responded when
asked a question. Again, there was often doubt about their accuracy. When
the Lydian Croesus tested the oracles, according to Herodotus (1.46–9),
only Delphi and perhaps the Amphiareion at Oropos got the right answer.
Further, the human mediators of the god’s word were fallible and perhaps
corruptible: Herodotus again records, and seems to endorse, suspicions
that the Pythia at Delphi had been manipulated by a particular interest
group (5.90).
It was left therefore to the polis structure itself to regulate the manage-
ment of religion within its boundaries – although which is cause and which
effect in this equation may be debated. Did the rise of the polis effectively
quash other potential control, or did the polis move into a gap waiting to be
filled? What is clear is that during our period religious activity took place
not merely in the polis, but to a great extent within a framework laid down
by the polis. his is perhaps most obviously and tangibly demonstrated
by the system of publicly funded sacrifices that we can observe in Attica.
Almost all of the most important and prestigious rituals regularly observed
in Athens, and some in other parts of Attica, were under the financial
control of the dēmos (people), and a good deal of the income necessary
to perform the correct sacrifices and other rites was generated not directly
from the sanctuaries themselves, but from central polis funds, supported by
taxation. he finances of the deities involved were in the charge of treasur-
ers, who were appointed annually by lot in accordance with the norms of
the democracy, and were responsible to the state. Athens also appointed
officials called hieropoioi (“sacred/ritual doers”), whose business concerned
sacrifices in general; this name and those of hieromnēmones16 and hierophy-
lakes (“rememberers” and “guardians” of sacred rites) are found in many
other cities, all referring to religious administrators, although the precise
duty and the importance of the office varied from place to place. Other
Athenian magistrates, including the holders of the three chief offices – the
(eponymous) archon, the basileus, and the polemarchos – were responsible
for the proper performance of many specific festivals and presided over
some sacrifices in the place of a priest – although the significance of this is
16
But hieromnēmones may also be attached to particular sanctuaries, and there are other uses of the
word that do not concern us here.
somewhat lessened when we recall that a priest was by no means a formal

or theological necessity for a sacrifice (see below).17
It was very similar with smaller groups within the city, and here again it
is Athens and Attica that give us our clearest evidence. Most, although not
quite all, of the smaller groups that met for worship were clearly integrated
as units into the polis structure. he most obvious example is the deme, the
basis of Attic local government. Large chunks of the inscribed sacrificial
calendars of several demes survive and show that at this level too it was the
“people” (what we call “deme” is simply dēmos, “people” in Greek) who
were responsible for the financing and conduct of sacrifices; the calendars
were public documents issued by the deme assemblies. Other divisions of
the population such as “tribe” (phylē) and “phratry” (phratria) were very
clearly integrated into the Athenian system of government, and in many
ways their cults, although limited in scope, were managed similarly. hey
too issued public notices in the form of inscriptions recording and regulat-
ing their religious activity, on the model of the polis itself, and their meet-
ings for sacrifice – and the associated meal – served to integrate the group
and highlight its role within the city, as also to confirm the civic identity of
those participating. Even the household (oikos), another unit of cult, can
be viewed as a subset of the polis. Before taking office, the archons had to
show that they had a “Zeus of the enclosure” (Zeus Herkeios, the Zeus of
their household) alongside an Apollo Patroös who guaranteed their phra-
try membership.18 In both cases the unit is an exclusive one – you can wor-
ship only one Apollo Patroös and one Zeus Herkeios – but each household
and each phratry performs similar worship, and this acts as a guarantee of
citizen status.
What we see, then, is a system in which religion is “embedded,” to use
the favored terminology, in the socio-political structure – or perhaps the
other way ‘round – and also a system in which the ultimate authority on
most religious matters was the state itself.19 A glance at the so-called sacred
laws – inscriptions regulating ritual conduct – emanating from all over the
Greek world is enough to show that in very many cases the issuing author-
ity is either one of the deliberative bodies of the state – assembly, council,
or similar – or officials directly appointed or elected by such bodies or
allotted from them.20 Many fewer can be shown to emanate directly from
17
he system as it worked in the later fourth century is set out in Aristotle, Constitution of the
Athenians 42–69.
18
Ibid., 55.
19
Which is not to say that a good deal of “unofficial” religious activity did not take place.
20
hese inscriptions are collected in Sokolowski, LSAM, LSS, LSCG, and Lupu, NGSL .
288 Emily Kearns
priests, although their expert knowledge of a particular cult makes them

quite a likely source for some of those that are unattributed. Priesthoods
were sometimes allotted from all eligible citizens, sometimes (at least from
the beginning of the fourth century) available for purchase, and sometimes
confined to a particular kin group, including many of a city’s “well-born”
families, but however a priesthood was acquired, a priest’s essential job was
the same: to perform the appropriate rites in order to maintain a good rela-
tionship between the community (including its constituent individuals)
and the deity. In this sense, as Plato argues in the Statesman,21 the priest is
a public servant.
As for the worshipping community itself, much admirable work has
been done that shows the crucial significance (in Greece as elsewhere) of
common worship in constituting group identity, whether that group be
the city, or one of its subdivisions large or small, or some entity beyond
the city, such as an amphictiony (a regional grouping of cities that are felt
to have some common traditions), an ethnic group (such as Dorians or
Ionians), or even the Greeks in general.22 Given the pivotal position of the
polis among these groups, the phenomenon is another major way in which
the term “polis-religion” can be understood. It is important also to note
that the role of cult in constituting the group did not operate entirely on
an unconscious level: he idea of “common sacrifices” was always a potent
one for the Greeks, evoking ties that must be respected. Nonetheless, the
point has sometimes been emphasized to the detriment of equally or more
important rationales for worship. he Greeks were aware that common
cult fostered a sense of belonging and appreciated the value of festivals
as recreation and refreshment, “respites from toil” as hucydides makes
Pericles say;23 but neither of these human-centered aims was the main rea-
son for worshipping the gods. he gods were worshipped, as Aristotle’s
pupil heophrastos put it, “to give them honor, or to render thanks, or to
ask for something that we need.”24
relations with the gods

As a preliminary to discussing the nature of that worship, let us now
consider the conceptions of the gods and of their relations with human
beings that accompany worship. Some theorists have argued that ritual,
21
Plato, Politicus 290c.
22
See Section, Trends in Interpretation.
23
hucydides 2.38.
24
Fr 12 Pötscher, from On Piety.
including religious ritual, is per se meaningless.25 It is true that ritual is

to an extent self-propelling and self-perpetuating (within the grammar of
the specific ritual system, one action suggests another, and the completed
ritual demands to be performed again), but even if not all the details are
understood, ritual is normally very far from meaningless to those who
participate in it. he concept of “orthopraxy” (meaning that doing, rather
than believing, the right thing is what counts) explains a great deal about
Greek religion,26 but it should not be taken to mean that beliefs and view-
points are unimportant, or that they have no connection with the cult that
is offered to the gods.
heophrastos’s dictum, quoted above, seems to describe Greek practice
well. Setting aside literary testimonia, we can deduce much from excava-
tions of sanctuaries throughout the Greek world, which have produced
countless offerings both of individuals and of groups. hese are not only
the remains of animals offered in sacrifice, usually seen as the central act in
Greek religious practice (see below), but also and more conspicuously and
often more revealingly, the more durable offerings instantiated or com-
memorated on stone. Statues, tablets or pictures (pinakes), and reliefs were
commonly dedicated, as were other objects often itemized in sanctuary
inventories even where the originals have not survived, and the Greek “epi-
graphic habit” often shows us what the dedicator wanted to commemorate
about the dedication and the reason for it. he votive offering was extremely
common; the dedicator made an offering that was given to the sanctuary
and perhaps exhibited there, in thanks for a benefit attributed to the deity
in question, very often in fulfillment of a vow. “Do such-and-such, and I
will give you this-and-that” was a common prayer, and seldom was any
need felt to soften this do ut des formula. Indeed, after thanks were given,
a common request was to make another dedication possible. he majority
of such requests and thanks were made on an individual level.27
he first of heophrastos’s motives for worship, “to give honor,” needs
a bit more explication. Some element of giving honor is always present
in worshipping a deity, even when it is not the primary motive; in fact,
a very common Greek word expressing what we call cult is simply timai,
honors. But sometimes to honor the deity can be seen as the main purpose
of the cult action; this is the case with the regularly recurring sacrifices and
25
Notably Staal, Rituals without Meaning.
26
On orthopraxy, see, for instance, Bell, Ritual, 191–7.
27
On dedications and votive offerings, see hesCRA I.269–450, van Straten, Gifts for the Gods, and
Bartoloni et al., Anathema. On prayer, see Versnel, Religious Mentality, and Pulleyn, Prayer in Greek
Religion.
290 Emily Kearns
festivals offered by the city and its subdivisions, and those that occur in
a set pattern in different sanctuaries. Of course, here too there are other
reasons for the action: For instance, there is the importance of doing things
according to ancestral custom, mentioned above. And the giving of honor
itself is not without self-interest. Even where no immediate favor is at issue,
there is an idea of reciprocity inherent in worship. here is an expecta-
tion that worship properly and generously carried out – according to one’s
means – will be pleasing to the gods, and therefore that it is likely to dis-
pose them more certainly in one’s favor. here is a ready model for this in
the human world, where – as the Greeks were quick to see – the exchange
of gifts and good offices is intrinsic to relationships of fondness (philia). It
is too simplistic to reduce this complex system to “currying favor with the
gods”; rather the operation of reciprocity or charis is like a thread running
through relations between gods and humans, sometimes remarked on,
sometimes less emphasized, but in no way incompatible with an affective
relationship. hat the gods are concerned for human beings (and therefore
that there is a relationship to cultivate) is one of the three tenets men-
tioned in Plato’s Laws as essential for the citizens of the fictional Magnesia
to accept; Yunis has shown that it was also a baseline for normal Greek
belief.28 Certain mythological and literary contexts, notably tragedy, show
a developed awareness that the ways of the gods actually appear a great deal
more complicated than a simple understanding of charis would suggest.
But in Greece as elsewhere, it would have taken a great deal more than this
negative evidence to destroy such an appealing assumption.
here is only very limited and partial evidence for a more intense, more
god-centered sense of a relationship comparable to what many modern
traditions call devotion (or similar names). We find no explicit statements
that a normal cult action is carried out without the wish for any benefits,
but for sheer love of the deity. he nearest approach is in the words of two
characters from tragedy – Hippolytos and Ion, in Euripides’ plays of those
names. Both are young, both cultivate purity of life and have a special devo-
tion to one deity, and both, crucially, wish to spend their lives performing
actions that are felt to be particularly pleasing to that deity. Neither is
an ordinary character, even within the larger-than-life framework of trag-
edy, and their sentiments are clearly not usual, either. Yet they must have
had some distant analogue in contemporary experience, or their feelings
would have made no sense to the audience. Although it was always proper
28
Plato, Laws 10 885b; Yunis, A New Creed, 38–44. Plato’s third tenet shows that he is very far from
accepting some of the ways in which the charis relationship was supposed to operate.
to worship all the gods (here is where Hippolytos goes wrong), a special
enthusiasm for one deity seems not to have been anomalous. We find evi-
dence for such enthusiasm in contemporary inscriptions, for instance, in
the testimony of Archedamos of hera, a resident of Attica whose pride
and joy was the cave of the nymphs at Vari, and who describes himself
as nympholēptos – “possessed by the nymphs.”29 Although worshippers of
this stamp will naturally tend to attribute any good fortune to their divine
favorite, their relationship will also tend to diminish the more formulaic
do ut des elements of the charis complex and emphasize the more affective
side. It is nonetheless significant that relations of this sort are scarcely dis-
cussed by Greek writers tackling the subject of religion.
TA NOMIZOMENA – “things customarily done”

We must now discuss the means by which the Greeks were able to express
the various sentiments they felt toward the Gods and the ways in which
their religious system worked in practice. It is probably fair to say that the
central action in Greek worship was animal sacrifice, although it was not
necessarily the action most frequently performed.30 It was central in that it
was the normative action of a group gathered together for worship, it was
a part of almost every religious celebration beyond the smallest in scale,
and it was assumed, with a few exceptions, to be what every deity wanted.
Modern writers have made much to hang on the ritualized killing of ani-
mals,31 and indeed the fact that slaughter is involved is by no means played
down in the sacrificial process; but still more apparent perhaps is the sense
that the deity is being pleased by the worshippers’ action. A sacrifice was
usually (not always) a happy and positive occasion, as well as one that
increased the solidarity of the group. here were different roles to play in
the action: Women, for instance, were required to ululate at the moment
of the kill, while only a man would normally wield the knife (he was often
a specialist, a butcher-cook or mageiros).32 If the sacrifice was of a reason-
able size, the practical need to get the animal to the altar would result in
a procession, with participants leading the animal and carrying the sacri-
ficial accoutrements and other offerings such as incense and sweetmeats
29
IG I3 980; discussed (together with 974–9, 981–2) notably by Connor, “Seized by the Nymphs,”
155–89, and Purvis, Singular Dedications.
30
he centrality of animal sacrifice is however challenged from various perspectives in the collection
of Faraone and Naiden, Greek and Roman Animal Sacrifice.
31
See Section, Trends in Interpretation.
32
Berthiaume, Les rôles du mageiros; also Osborne, “Women and Sacrifice,” 293–405.
292 Emily Kearns
Fig. 20. hesCRA I, plate 5 no (Athens, National Museum, 16464). Wooden votive
tablet (pinax) dedicated to the Nymphs by Euthydika and Eucholis. A sacrificial pro-
cession leads a sheep to the altar. From Pitsa, near ancient Sikyon, ca.540–530 bce.
(see Fig. 20). Hymns were sung during the procession and on arrival at
the altar – again, something in which the deity might take pleasure. One
person normally presided over the sacrifice by making the appropriate
prayers over the victim. Often, of course, this was the priest or priestess,
whose central role was precisely this, but it was by no means necessary to
have a priest in order to perform a sacrifice. Indeed, the Homeric poems,
although they are well aware of priests and priestesses, seldom show them
performing sacrifice but instead have sacrificial scenes where the senior
male present presides over the ceremony. In later times, this continued as
the pattern in household cult and on occasions such as the sacrifices before
a meeting of the Athenian assembly.33 But priestless sacrifices were also
conducted in regular sanctuaries when the priest was absent, for it was only
the very largest sanctuaries that were constantly attended – being a priest
was seldom a full-time job. A fourth-century inscription from a sanctu-
ary in Chios instructs visitors to call three times for the priest, and then
if he does not appear to perform the sacrifice themselves.34 Again, at the
Amphiareion at Oropos on the Attic-Boeotian border – a healing sanctu-
ary, where many individuals would have a motive for their own particular
worship – the regulations state that the priest will perform the sacrifice
when he is present, and at the main festival he will pray over the publicly
33
Household cult: e.g., Isaeus 8.16. Sacrifice before the assembly: Parker, Polytheism and Society, 404;
Meritt and Traill, he Athenian Agora (= Agora XV), 4–5.
34
LSS, 129.
offered victims, while each individual prays over the victim he himself has
provided.35
Sacrifice was a messy business. he altar was splashed or at least drib-
bled with the animal’s blood, although paradoxically in most contexts
blood was considered impure, and the animal was then butchered.36 he
god’s portions – somewhat less appetizing than those destined for human
consumption, a fact that clearly bothered the Greeks – were burned on the
altar, while the rest was cooked and served to the participants, the priest or
priestess usually being allocated an honorific portion. It is easy to imagine
the scene as something like that at a Greek village paniyiri today. However,
every community knew sacrifices that diverged from this norm. Most of
them were marked out as different because the victim was burned entire,
or the meat was given to only a small group, or no wine was used – all
variations likely to lessen the merriment of the occasion. We even hear of
a sacrifice that was supposed to be performed in a gloomy and apprehen-
sive mood, contrasting with the good cheer normally prevalent.37 In fact, it
seems that there was a whole grammar of sacrifice, only part of which we
can recover, by which, consciously or unconsciously, different approaches
to the divine could be expressed.
What of the physical setting? A prerequisite for sacrifice is an altar or
similar construction at which the animal is killed and on which, usually,
the god’s portion is burned. Typically this was a square or rectangular block
of stone of medium size, but some altars in larger sanctuaries were huge,
stepped constructions designed for the simultaneous sacrifice of many ani-
mals, whereas others, often associated with heroes and Underworld powers,
were simple hearths on the ground. Most altars were in the open air; they
may be thought of as the primary element in a sanctuary. he area around
an altar was naturally felt to belong to the god and acquired sacred status.
In practical terms, this meant that certain purity regulations, varying to
some extent from place to place, had to be observed within the boundaries,
and that anything produced within the area was the property of the god.
he third element, at least chronologically, was the temple, whose name
in Greek, naos, suggests its function as the deity’s dwelling place. It was
in essence a grand shelter for the cult statue and was usually positioned
so that the deity in the form of the statue could view the altar through
the open doors. Of course, temples often became elaborate and beautiful
35
LSCG, 69.
36
On the practicalities of sacrifice, Van Straten, Hiera Kala is an excellent general conspectus, with an
emphasis on visual evidence.
37
he Diasia at Athens, for which see Lalonde, Horos Dios, 58–61, 107–10.
294 Emily Kearns
constructions, ornamented with friezes and pedimental sculptures. hey

further became places where objects dedicated to the deity could be affixed
and displayed and also often stored when no longer on display, but this
is secondary to the feeling that the deity somehow lives in the temple.
he statue was often the focus for prayer and attention, particularly of a
more individual sort, and offerings of a more durable kind were usually
made to the deity in statue form, as, for instance, a peplos (woman’s dress)
was offered to Athena both in Athens, at the Panathenaia festival, and at
Troy in the Iliad (6.302–3). he philosopher Heraclitus speaks scornfully
of those who pray to statues, as though they were to address houses.38 Cult
statues were variable in form, from the admired creations of great sculp-
tors such as Pheidias (whose Zeus at Olympia was particularly famous),
often on a huge scale and made of precious materials, to simple, barely
iconic wooden constructions that were thought to be of great antiquity
(sometimes attributed to the mythical sculptor Daidalos) and were usually
regarded as particularly venerable.
Many sanctuaries show features other than the basic altar and sacred
area (temenos, though this word can also apply to sanctuary-owned estates)
and the usual temple (see Fig. 21).39 A spring or fountain was common,
since water was required both for purification and for worship. here were
also often dining rooms (hestiatoria) in which worshippers could enjoy
the sacrificial meal – more necessary during the winter months. he larger
sanctuaries sometimes developed special buildings in which to house the
more precious and durable dedications. Sanctuaries such as Olympia or
Delphi, which people visited from all over Greece, or their regional equiva-
lents, had associated buildings, usually outside the sacred area proper, for
the holding of contests – athletic and poetic – which was such a conspicu-
ous feature of large-scale, particularly supra-polis, religious festivities, and
for the accommodation of worshippers. In addition to this, a large sanctu-
ary might contain many subordinate shrines or at least altars belonging to
gods or heroes other than the main deity. Within the sanctuary of Apollo at
Delphi, for instance, was the tomb and cult place of the hero Neoptolemos
and an altar of Poseidon, and just outside was another sanctuary, that of
Athena Pronaia (“in front of the temple”).40
Sanctuaries often clustered together, particularly in the middle of cities.
he Athenian acropolis is an obvious example of what may almost be called
38
Fragment 5, Diels-Kranz.
39
he most recent treatment of sanctuaries in their religious context is Pedley, Sanctuaries and the
Sacred .
40
See ibid., 135–53.
Fig. 21. Line drawing. N. D. Papahatzis, Παυσανίου Ελλάδος Περιήγησις (Athens,

1976), vol. 2, 144, fig. 141. Plan (and reconstruction) of the Argive Heraion, a major
extra-urban sanctuary built on a terraced slope. Ancillary buildings were added over
a period of several centuries; no. 12 dates from the Roman period. No. 1 is the earliest
temple (burned down in 423 bce), no. 7 the later one, with its altar, no. 8.
a cult complex, containing not only the Erechtheion, the Parthenon, and
the temple of Athena Nike, which remain obvious, but other sanctuaries
such as those of Hermes and the Charites, Artemis Brauronia, Artemis or
Hekate Epipyrgidia, Zeus Polieus, and many others.41 All were inevitably
linked by proximity, some by more. Intricate strands of cult and myth
connected Athena, Poseidon, the heroes Erechtheus and Erichthonios, and
the heroines Aglauros and Pandrosos, among others, and none of these can
properly be considered in isolation from the others. At the other extreme,
we find the isolated extra-urban sanctuary, of which the finest surviving
41
Ibid., 186–204.
296 Emily Kearns
example is the sanctuary of Apollo Epikourios at Bassai near – but not that
near – Phigaleia in Arcadia. Some deities had a penchant for such rural
locations: Artemis, for instance, not infrequently had her sanctuaries in
marshy or mountainous areas. Sometimes the extra-urban sanctuary actu-
ally honored the chief protecting deity of the city, as with the Heraia of
Argos and of Samos. In this case, the sanctuary was usually important in
expressing a link between the city and its territory.
With an extra-urban sanctuary, the sacrificial procession was of neces-
sity emphatic, but in other cases too processions at different festivals had
different traditions, and these were often marked out as special characteris-
tics of the festival. Indeed, most festivals and celebrations contained some
special ingredient that marked them out from others, so much so that
ancient scholars wrote books on the subject, giving us a fair amount of
information, particularly about the festivals of Attica.42 hus we know, for
instance, that at the Oschophoria, a ritual connected with Dionysos and
Athena Skiras in Phaleron, vine branches with grapes were carried by two
young men dressed as women, the sacred herald garlanded his staff rather
than his own head, and a strange and apparently contradictory shout
of acclamation was made after the pouring of the libations. Athenians
explained these peculiar features by referring to myths of heseus, their
national hero, who was supposed to have returned from Crete on that day;
modern scholars analyze this and similar observances on a different level,
referring in this case to the remnants of a rite of passage for young males.
Neither type of explanation tells us exactly what the participants thought
they were doing. At the Pyanopsia, perhaps celebrated on the same day,
larger numbers took part by boiling up grains and pulses (the name means
“bean-boiling”), while children took a decorated branch from house to
house, singing a special song and begging. In this case, it may seem easier
to gain an idea of the “feel” of the occasion, as the actions seem closer to
our category of folk custom than to worship; but we really cannot know
how close a connection they were felt to have with Apollo, the deity con-
nected with the festival in our sources.
What is abundantly clear is the immense diversity of practice in the
annual round of the city’s religious celebrations, and although no individ-
ual would have taken part in all the festivals (some were open to only a few
participants, and a significant number confined to women),43 when we add
42
On Attic festivals, see Deubner, Attische Feste; Simon, Festivals of Attica; and most recently Parker,
Polytheism and Society, esp. 155–383.
43
For “women’s festivals” see, for instance, Dillon, Girls and Women in Classical Greek Religion, and
Goff, Citizen Bacchae.
the observances of local and kin groups, we can see that the sheer quan-
tity of celebrations was also very considerable. But not all religious activity
took place on a regularly recurring basis. We have seen that individuals
and small groups might offer sacrifice in accordance with specific needs
or as a thanksgiving, and there were also cults and sanctuaries of a special-
ized nature that offered divine help in more particular ways. Perhaps the
most characteristic of these was the oracle.44 Although the art of prophecy
(mantikē technē)45 was well established in the hands of professionals and
deeply embedded in Greek practice (for instance, it was essential to take
note of the sacrificial omens before a battle), the oracular sanctuary is a
different phenomenon: here, the answer came not from a learnable tech-
nique but from the god himself, through a priest or other consecrated per-
son (often, as at Delphi, a woman). Oracles of a small sort may have been
dotted around the Greek world, but they were not everywhere: Clearly
there was none of much repute in Attica in the classical period, for instance.
hus the consultation of an oracle was often a major event, involving a fair
amount of traveling, and much of the business of the best-reputed oracles
was with state inquiries rather than with individuals. hus it has been pos-
sible to speak of Delphi in particular as almost a political player, encour-
aging the sending out of colonies and later perhaps counseling submission
to the Persian invasion. Foul play was sometimes suspected, but the oracle
maintained its prestige in a way that would not have been possible if such
human contamination had been obvious and consistent.
Even apart from the journey that was usually involved, the process
of oracular consultation was often a difficult and awe-inspiring one. At
Delphi, the oracle was open for the full form of consultation, with the
Pythia giving responses from her tripod in the inmost part of the tem-
ple, on one day a month, probably nine months of the year. his must
have severely limited the numbers able to benefit from the procedure.
Various sacrifices were necessary beforehand, and only those actually mak-
ing a consultation were allowed into the temple. Consulting the oracle
of Trophonios at Lebadeia in Boeotia was well known to be a terrifying
experience, involving an underground descent and supposed to leave the
enquirer unable to laugh.46 Fortunately, there were easier alternatives. he
oracles of Delphi and Dodona (in northern Greece) both had a much more
widely available procedure involving the use of the lot or a similar method.
44
A great deal has been written on oracles: Convenient starting places are Parker, “Greek States,”
Bowden, Classical Athens, and Stoneman, he Ancient Oracles.
45
On which see Flower, Seer.
46
Aristophanes, Clouds 506–8; Semos of Delos, FGrH 396 F 10.
298 Emily Kearns
At Dodona questions were written on thin metal plaques, many of which

have survived. he questions pose alternatives and speak eloquently of the
concerns of ordinary people: “Is the child mine?” “Shall I get my free-
dom?”47 he lot was often held to be a way of determining divine choice,
and so even in this less prestigious form of consultation the inquirer was in
communication with the god and soliciting a direct response.
Comparable in some ways to oracles were healing shrines, in which the
deity was asked to cure the ailments of individuals. Although any deity
might receive prayers and sacrifices for this purpose, in some sanctuaries
it was customary for the worshipper to “consult” the god by making offer-
ings and then sleeping in a special building in the complex in the hope
of meeting the deity in a dream and being healed by him (less often her).
he similarity with the oracle is not far to seek, and indeed the sanctuary
of Amphiaraos at Oropos began life as a general oracle and later (by the
early fourth century) became a healing sanctuary where incubation was
practiced. Again, dreams were a common medium in which gods might
communicate with humans – dedications were often made in response to
a command in a dream, or more rarely a waking vision – but to solicit the
dream is something different. his type of sanctuary, and especially the
cult of its most famous subject, Asklepios, can be observed spreading geo-
graphically and growing in popularity during the last quarter of the fifth
and first half of the fourth centuries.48
A different form of contact with the divine is to be found in the realm of
Mysteries (mystēria) and initiations (teletai, although the word has a slightly
wider application).49 Here we are dealing with a very diverse body of ritual.
Many belong in the category of official, regularly recurring ceremonies,
whereas others seem to have been performed in accordance with demand.
What they all have in common is that the participants went through an
experience in conditions of secrecy; this related to the deities of the ritual
and was felt to convey special benefits, often of an eschatological nature.
he experience was often intense and might generate a strong affective
bond between worshipper and divinity. Nevertheless it is not correct to
47
Preparation of the corpus of these inscriptions, which was to have been published by A.-F. Christidis
before his untimely death, is currently in progress. Meanwhile, Lhôte, Les lamelles oraculaires, has
the fullest collection and analysis, and Eidinow, Oracles, Curses, and Risk, an important book in its
own right, contains additional examples.
48
here is no up-to-date comprehensive treatment of healing sanctuaries in general, but Edelstein,
Asclepius, remains a wonderful compendium on the cult of Asklepios. For Amphiaraos and other
Attic figures, see Verbanck-Piérard, “Les héros guérisseurs.”
49
A good general treatment is Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults.
think of Mysteries, still less “mystery religions,” as offering the individ-

ual an alternative to “state religion.” he most reputed and venerable of
all Mysteries, those of Eleusis, were firmly integrated into the Athenian
system of state finance and control – and national pride – and there is no
reason to suppose the same was not true of similar celebrations in other
localities.50 On the other hand, the elements of secrecy and soteriology
that we find at Eleusis are also common to much of what Parker has called
“unlicensed religion.”51 Plato speaks disapprovingly of itinerant initiators;
Demosthenes, attacking his enemy Aeschines, depicts him as assisting his
mother in initiations, holding books and instructing the initiate to declare,
“I have escaped the bad, I have found the better.”52 However distorted this
might be as an account of Aeschines’ activities, the law-court jurors were
clearly expected to recognize the sort of rite referred to and to despise it,
or at least those who were “professionally” involved in it. “Unlicensed”
religion may sometimes involve its practitioners in more than just one-off
rituals, as we see with (often rather amorphous) groups labeled as “Orphic”
or less often “Pythagorean,” who had their own sacred discourse and vari-
ants on mythology, and who practiced an austere lifestyle aimed at a more
than usual purity, sometimes including practices like vegetarianism that
ran counter to accepted religious mores. Such groups tended to be treated
as marginal at Athens, although they appear to have been more respectable
in the cities of southern Italy.
Of course, there were also more conformist ways in which religious
activity took place away from the festival calendar and outside the sanctu-
ary. Dreams of the gods appear to have been rather common, suggesting
their importance in most people’s lives. Prayer and small offerings were
frequent, and not only in moments of crisis: “Sacrifice to the immortal
gods . . . and at other times propitiate them with libations and offerings,
both when you go to bed and when the holy light appears, so that they
may have a favorable heart and mind towards you,” says Hesiod (Works
and Days 334–40). Libations indeed were a very common offering, being
poured regularly at meals and drinking parties as well as at sacrifice (see
Fig. 22), and there were countless such occasions where the Greeks regu-
larly acknowledged the presence of the gods, hoping to retain a good rela-
tionship with them.
50
We can see this in great detail for Andania in Messenia (Syll.3 736 = IG V.1 1390) at a rather later
date.
51
Parker, Polytheism and Society, 116 (chapter heading).
52
Plato, Republic 364b–65a; Demosthenes, 18.258–260.
300 Emily Kearns
Fig. 22. hesCRA IV, plate 52, no 74e (= ARV2 1635). Basel, Antikenmuseum Kä 423.
Attic red-figure oinochoe (wine jug), ca.480 bce, showing a man pouring a libation
onto the flames lit on an altar.
trends in interpretation
It is impossible in such a short compass to deal even briefly with every
item of importance in Greek religion. In particular, I am aware that I have
scarcely touched on the importance of gender roles, and I have not tried to
give an account of the role of mythology, or of controversial or apparently
negative opinions of the gods. Works cited in the notes, along with the
separate bibliography at the end of the volume, may help to fill the gaps. It
may also be helpful in conclusion to give a very brief sketch of the trends
of the last century in scholarship on Greek religion. Where not noted,
references to representative works are to be found in the volume-end
bibliography.
he “Cambridge ritualists” (Murray, Cornford, A. B. Cook, and above
all, Jane Harrison),53 flourishing in the 1920s, in some ways set the tone for
much of the work of the succeeding eighty years, in which the study of
ritual has been dominant. he group’s views on the relationship between
ritual and myth and their indulgence in reconstructions of a supposed
ritual system in prehistoric Greece did not find lasting favor, but an under-
lying belief in the primacy of ritual has aged better and forms the basis for
a great deal of important work by many distinguished scholars, ranging
from studies of individual festivals through works on the cults of a partic-
ular place or deity to ambitious general theories. Noteworthy among the
last, and particularly admired in the 1970s and 1980s, has been the work
of Walter Burkert linking Greek ritual practice with evolutionary biology.
Building on the work of Karl Meuli, Burkert worked out in Homo necans
(1972), a hugely influential theory of sacrifice that explains the action in
terms of the containment of violence and the unease supposedly felt by
primitive hunters at the kill. In later works he has taken sociobiological
approaches further, explaining aspects of religious activity with reference
to the behavior of primates and other nonhuman species, although his
writing spans a much wider range than this, and his Greek Religion (1977
and revisions) is still the standard general work.
A quite different approach has been taken by the “Paris school” (notably
Vidal-Naquet, Vernant, Detienne, and Loraux), whose innovation was the
application of structuralist techniques to Greek religious material, above
all to mythology, resulting in some classic studies of the meanings of reli-
gion and mythology within society and an emphasis on the inner work-
ings of “the pantheon.” Greek myth has also been studied from diverse
53
See Calder, Cambridge Ritualists.
302 Emily Kearns
comparativist and historical perspectives, for instance, by Geoffrey Kirk

and Martin West.
he study of Greek religion in its socio-political context goes back at
least to Fustel de Coulanges in the nineteenth century and was the subject
of important work by Louis Gernet, who combined it with anthropologi-
cal theory, from the 1930s onward. But the “polis-religion” approach really
became popular in the last quarter of the century, and in Anglophone
scholarship began to loom large only in the mid-1980s, coinciding with a
greater willingness on the part of more traditional Greek historians to take
religion seriously.54 Parallel with this development, and sometimes express-
ing itself as a reaction to it, has been a smaller stream of work stressing cog-
nitive approaches and investigating the religious mentalities of the Greeks,
as they can be recovered both from traditional texts and from archaeolog-
ical data.55
Archaeology and epigraphy, although they cannot in themselves be clas-
sified as “approaches” to the study of religion, have in fact contributed
immensely to the subject over the course of the late nineteenth and twen-
tieth centuries. he layout of sanctuaries, the analysis of faunal remains
(from sacrifice), and the recovery of works of art have all had a part to play,
but it is perhaps the yield of new and different types of text that has been
most important. It would be hard to exaggerate the importance that the
study of inscriptions has for the subject, although we must recognize that
(as with literary texts) there are generic constraints that limit the type of
information they can give. Beyond monumental inscriptions, other forms
of text have emerged: Notably, a number of texts incised on small metal
plaques (the so-called Orphic gold leaves or lamellae)56 and some on bone
have added considerably to our knowledge of Orphism and related phe-
nomena, an area illuminated also by one of the few papyri found outside
Egypt, the Derveni papyrus.57
bibliography
Bartoloni G., G. Colonna, and C. Grottanelli, eds. Anathema: Atti del convegno internazi-
onale, Scienze dell’Antichità 3–4 (1989/90).
54
Notable exponents of this approach are Sourvinou-Inwood, e.g., “Persephone and Aphrodite” and
“What Is Polis Religion?” and Parker, e.g., “Greek States and Greek Oracles” and Polytheism and
Society.
55
his last trend, prominent in the work of Rudhardt, Notions fondamentales, is also seen, for
instance, in Gladigow, “Der Sinner der Götter,” Kearns, “Order, Interaction, Authority,” Lowe,
“hesmophoria and Haloa,” and Harrison, Divinity and History.
56
See Pugliese Carratelli, Le lamine d’oro orfiche; Graf and Johnston, Ritual Texts; Tzifopoulos,
Paradise Earned .
57
he long-awaited official publication of this enigmatic text is Kouremenos et al., Derveni Papyrus.
Bell, C. Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions (Oxford, 1997).

Berthiaume, G. Les rôles du mageiros: Étude sur la boucherie, la cuisine et le sacrifice dans la
Grèce ancienne. Mnemosyne suppl. 70 (Leiden, 1982).
Boehringer, D. Heroenkulte in Griechenland von der geometrischen bis zur klassischen Zeit:
Attika, Argolis, Messenien (Berlin, 2001).
Bowden, H. Classical Athens and the Delphic Oracle (Cambridge, 2005).
Burkert, W. Homo Necans: he Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth
(Berkeley, 1983; German original, 1972).
Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical (Oxford, 1985; German original 1977).
Ancient Mystery Cults (Cambridge, Mass., 1987).
Calder, W. M., III, ed. he Cambridge Ritualists Reconsidered. Illinois Classical Studies
suppl. 2 (Atlanta, 1991).
Connor, W. R. “Seized by the Nymphs: Nympholepsy and Symbolic Expression in Classical
Greece.” Classical Antiquity 7.2 (1988): 155–89.
Deubner, L. Attische Feste (Berlin, 1932)
Dillon, M. Girls and Women in Classical Greek Religion (London, 2002).
Edelstein, E. J., and L. Edelstein. Asclepius: Collection and Interpretation of the Testimonia.
2 vols. (Baltimore, 1945; repr. in one volume, 1998).
Eidinow, E. Oracles, Curses, and Risk among the Ancient Greeks (Oxford, 2007).
Ekroth, G. he Sacrificial Rituals of Greek Hero-Cults in the Archaic to the Early Hellenistic
Periods. Kernos supplement 12 (Liège, 2002).
Faraone, C. “Kronos and the Titans as Powerful Ancestors: A Case Study of the Greek Gods
in Later Magical Spells.” In he Gods of Ancient Greece: Identities and Transformations,
ed. J. N. Bremmer and A. Erskine (Edinburgh, 2010).
Faraone, C., and F. Naiden, eds. Greek and Roman Animal Sacrifice: Ancient Victims,
Modern Observers (Cambridge, 2012).
Flower, M. A. he Seer in Ancient Greece (Berkeley, 2009).
Garland, R. “Religious Authority in Archaic and Classical Athens.” BSA 79 (1984):
75–123.
“Priests and Power in Classical Athens.” In Pagan Priests: Religion and Power in the
Ancient World, ed. M. Beard and J. North (London, 1990; rev. but abbrev. version of
above): 73–91.
Gladigow, B. “Der Sinner der Götter: zum kognitiven Potential der persönlichen
Gottesvorstellung. “ In Gottesvorstellung und Gesellschaftentwicklung, ed. P. Eicher
(Munich, 1979): 41–62.
Goff, B. Citizen Bacchae: Women’s Ritual Practice in Ancient Greece (Berkeley, 2004).
Graf, F., and S. I. Johnston. Ritual Texts for the Afterlife: Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold
Tablets (London, 2007).
Hadzisteliou Price, T. Kourotrophos: Cults and Representations of the Greek Nursing Deities
(Leiden, 1978).
Harrison, T. Divinity and History: he Religion of Herodotus (Oxford, 2000).
Hitch, S., and I. Rutherford, eds. Animal Sacrifice in the Ancient Greek World (Cambridge,
forthcoming).
Jameson, M. H., D. R. Jordan, and R. D. Kotansky. A Lex Sacra from Selinous. GRBS
monographs 11 (Durham, 1993).
Jost, M. Sanctuaires et cultes d’Arcadie. Études Peloponnésiennes IX (Paris, 1985).
Kearns, E. “Order, Interaction, Authority: Ways of Looking at Greek Religion.” In he
Greek World, ed. A. Powell (London, 1995).
304 Emily Kearns
Kouremenos, T., G. M. Parassoglou, and K. Tsantsanoglou. he Derveni Papyrus, Edited

with a Translation and Commentary (Florence, 2006).
Lalonde, G. V. Horos Dios: An Athenian Shrine and Cult of Zeus (Leiden, 2006).
Larson, J. Greek Nymphs: Myth, Cult, Lore (Oxford, 2001).
Ancient Greek Cults: A Guide (New York, 2007).
Lhôte, E. Les lamelles oraculaires de Dodone (Geneva, 2006).
Lowe, N. J. “hesmophoria and Haloa: Myth, Physics and Mysteries.” In he Sacred and
the Feminine in Ancient Greece, ed. S. Blundell and M. Williamson (London, 1998):
149–73.
Lupu, E. Greek Sacred Law. A Collection of New Documents (NGSL). Religions in the
Graeco-Roman World 152 (Leiden, 2005).
Meritt, B., and J. S. Traill. he Athenian Agora: Results of the Excavations Conducted by the
American School of Classical Studies in Athens, volume XV, Inscriptions: he Athenian
Councillors (Princeton, 1974).
Nilsson, M. P. Opuscula selecta, vol. 2 (Lund, 1952).
Ogden, D., ed. A Companion to Greek Religion (Malden, Mass., 2007).
Osborne, R. “Women and Sacrifice in Classical Greece.” Classical Quarterly 43:2 (1993):
392–405.
Parker, R. “Greek States and Greek Oracles.” In Oxford Readings in Greek Religion, ed. R.
G. A. Buxton (Oxford, 2000; original publication, 1985): 76–108.
Polytheism and Society at Athens (Oxford, 2005).
Pedley, J. Sanctuaries and the Sacred in the Ancient Greek World (Cambridge, 2005).
Pugliese Carratelli, G. Le lamine d’oro orfiche (Milan, 2001).
Pulleyn, S. Prayer in Greek Religion (Oxford, 1997).
Purvis, A. Singular Dedications: Founders and Innovators of Private Cults in Classical Greece
(New York, 2003).
Rudhardt, J. Notions fondamentales de la pensée religieuse et actes constitutifs du culte dans
la Grèce classique, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1992; 1st ed., 1958).
Simon, E. Festivals of Attica: An Archaeological Commentary (Madison, Wis., 1983).
Sokolowski, F. Lois sacrées de l’Asie mineure (Paris, 1955 = LSAM ).
Lois sacrées: supplément (Paris, 1962 = LSS ).
Lois sacrées des cités grecques (Paris, 1969 = LSCG ).
Sourvinou-Inwood, C. “Persephone and Aphrodite at Locri: A Model for Personality
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1989).
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Drama. Hypomnemata Heft 91 (Göttingen, 1988).
 
THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN AND EUROPE

12
ETRUSCAN RELIGION
nancy t. de grummond
framework
he evidence for the study of Etruscan religion is fragmentary, much
more than it is for Greek or Roman religion. Very little survives of origi-
nal Etruscan writings on this subject. he most authoritative primary evi-
dence comes from archaeological excavations in Etruscan sacred places,
representations in art, and a few surviving texts in the Etruscan language
ranging from circa fifty to thirteen hundred words, as well as some eleven
thousand short inscriptions. After that come the numerous references in
Greek and Latin authors, always to be read with appropriate caution as
to time and place, and a few documents purporting to be translated from
Etruscan into Latin or Greek. All of these sources must then be interpreted
to seek a coherent picture.
Given these severe restrictions, it is still possible to use these sources to
argue that the religion of the Etruscans should be studied as a system that
had a profound connection with what they regarded as their sacred history.
Key pieces of evidence indicate that both spoken and written words were
controlling factors in formulating communication with the gods, and the
result was that the Etruscans had a collection of books with an authority
for them comparable to that of the Bible or the Q’uran, encompassing the
origins of their religious practices, the pronouncements of their prophets,
and a particular view of history as a record of the destiny of individuals,
cities, and the Etruscan people as a whole.
Etruscan ritual thus was informed by a constant preoccupation with
fate and destiny, and centered on attempts to learn the will of the gods
and somehow to affect their decisions and thus the outcome of human
affairs. he well-known Etruscan science of haruspication, involving the
309
310 Nancy T. de Grummond
scrutiny and interpretation of the entrails of a sacrificial animal, epito-

mizes Etruscan praxis, but there is evidence of various other techniques
of divination, such as reading the flight and activity of birds, interpreting
the significance of lightning and thunder, drawing lots in a sacred setting,
and recognizing and accounting for abnormalities in nature.1 hese persist-
ing practices have been characterized as “archaic” and “magico-religious,”2
and emphasis has been given rightly to the superstitious nature of official
rituals that evidently had to be performed with scrupulous attention to
minutiae. Arnobius, writing around 300 ce, made reference to “Etruria,
the begetter and mother of superstition” (Adversus Nationes 7.26).3 Still,
Etruscan religion should not be thought of as crudely primitive, given
its dependency on sacred writings and the degree of sophisticated study
and training that Etruscan priests must have undertaken. It is possible to
note certain characteristics of religion in the Archaic period (ca.600–450
bce) and continuity as well as change at a later date, it would be rash to
attempt a developmental history of Etruscan religion on the basis of the
little knowledge we have of Etruscan history as a whole. his problem will
be reviewed at the end of the chapter. Rather, the method adopted here,
as noted above, will focus on Etruscan religion as part of a communicative
system between humans and gods.
the sources
he most consistent and reliable picture of the practice of Etruscan religion
may be obtained by studying the evidence from archaeology. Excavations
have revealed altars, temples, boundary markers, and sanctuaries, as well as
abundant votive deposits documenting rituals that existed from the earli-
est periods, the Villanovan (ninth–eighth century bce) and Orientalizing
(750–600 bce), down to the final centuries of Etruscan civilization in
the second and first centuries bce. Funerary remains, the most ubiqui-
tous of Etruscan material culture, provide a record showing the similari-
ties and differences of ancestor cult through the centuries and across the
map of Etruria proper (largely modern Latium, Tuscany, and Umbria)
and in Etruscan-controlled or -influenced territories of northern Italy and
Campania in the south (see Maps 7 and 8).4
1
Maggiani, “La divinazione in Etruria,” 52–78.
2
Torelli, “La religione,” 162–3.
3
See de Grummond, “Selected Latin and Greek Sources,” 191 and throughout for texts and transla-
tions of literary sources cited in this article.
4
For Roman religious, see Chapter 13.
Etruscan Religion 311
Map 7. Etruscan Italy.
Particular objects from controlled excavations and chance finds illumi-

nate Etruscan religion. Most famous is the bronze model of a sheep’s liver
that was found at Piacenza (see Fig. 23; third-second century bce; Rix,
ET Pa 4.2), evidently a priest’s guide to interpreting the actual liver of a
sacrificed animal;5 Etruscan mirrors (see Fig. 24) and gems show a number
of images of the priest holding the liver and showing the conditions under
which the liver was interpreted. Many thousands of individual votive
offerings display a rich spectrum of concerns of devotees, from uteri and
5
Van der Meer, Bronze Liver; Maggiani, “Qualche osservazione,” 53–88.
Map 8. Central Italy.
Fig. 23. Bronze model of a sheep’s liver found near Piacenza. hird-second century
bce. Piacenza, Museo Civico.
Fig. 24. Bronze Etruscan mirror from Tuscania, with scene of Pava Tarchies read-
ing a liver in the presence of Avl Tarchunus; third century bce. Florence, Museo
Archeologico Nazionale. Source: Mario Torelli, “Etruria principes disciplinam doceto,”
Studia Tarquiniensia (Archeologia Perusina 9), 110, Fig. 1. © Giorgio Bretschneider
Editore, Rome.
swaddled babies to weavers’ implements, ceramic and metal vessels, luxury

goods, and statuettes of the worshippers or the gods.6 Representations in
art convey information, depicting priests in full regalia, altars, processions,
games, prophetic scenes, and instruments of cult. Temple decorations of
terracotta often feature images of the gods, sometimes as part of a narrative
that conveys a message to worshippers.
Much attention has been given to writings in Etruscan7 and other lan-
guages. he best known of all Etruscan inscriptions are found on a group of
metal tablets from Pyrgi, the port city of Cerveteri and site of the greatest
Etruscan international sanctuary (ca.500 bce; Rix ET Cr 4.3–4.5). hree
are in gold, and a fourth fragmentary one is of bronze; one of the gold ones
is a paraphrase in Phoenician/Punic, conveying a message similar to that
in the other two gold tablets, in Etruscan. All refer to the worship of Uni,
equated in the tablets with Astarte.
he highest importance is attached to the amazing Etruscan linen book,
found cut into strips wrapped around an Egyptian mummy, now in the
National Museum of Zagreb (second century bce; length, twelve to thirteen
hundred words; probably from the area of Perugia-Cortona; Rix ET LL).
Unfortunately, only parts of it can be translated or interpreted with confi-
dence, but enough can be read to say that it is a liturgical book, contain-
ing texts and prescriptions for ritual acts set out in the form of a calendar,
with instructions for each particular day.8 It seems to be the only surviving
example from the ancient world of what the Romans called a liber linteus, a
sacred linen book. his type of book is represented in Etruscan art as early
as circa 500 bce, in the Etruscan Archaic period. Another calendrical text,
the Capua Tile, was found inscribed on a terracotta tile discovered at Santa
Maria di Capua (ca. three hundred words surviving; now Berlin, Staatliche
Museen; ca.500 bce; Rix ET TC).9 here is little in common between the
items in the two calendars, a fact that is not surprising given that in the
ancient world local religion quite commonly conditioned the entries on
the calendar of a place.
Yet another Etruscan calendar is known, this time in Greek transla-
tion, based on a Latin version in turn perhaps translated and edited from
the Etruscan in the first century bce. his is the Brontoscopic (hunder)
Calendar preserved by Nigidius Figulus, an erudite contemporary of
6
Turfa, “Votive Offerings,” 90–115.
7
Bonfante, “Etruscan Inscriptions,” 9–26.
8
Roncalli, Scrivere etrusco, 52.
9
Cristofani, Tabula Capuana; Edlund-Berry, “Etruscans at Work and Play,” 330–7.
Cicero, transmitted in Greek by Johannes Lydus, a Byzantine cleric and

scholar of the sixth century ce.10 In spite of its late date and remote geo-
graphical connection, it remains a most valuable source for revealing the
type of predictions that were made on the basis of thunder on a particular
day, concerning agriculture, politics, health, and natural phenomena.
Much antiquarian literary evidence for Etruscan religion has been
preserved by Roman and occasionally Greek writers of the late Roman
Republic and early empire.11 Livy (5.1.6) declared that the Etruscans were “a
people more than any other dedicated to religion, the more as they excelled
in the practice of it.”12 he Roman polymath Varro frequently made refer-
ences to Etruscan practices and teaching, such as how the Etruscans ritu-
ally founded a town by plowing around its boundaries (De lingua latina
5.143). Aulus Caecina, from an Etruscan family of Volterra and another
contemporary of Cicero, wrote a Latin treatise, De etrusca disciplina, “On
the Etruscan Discipline,” that was much studied and quoted. he phrase
etrusca disciplina is probably the Latin translation of some Etruscan expres-
sion that described the compilation of precepts and practices in their reli-
gious literature.
sacred time: prophecy and calendars

A remnant of Etruscan prophecy describing the origin of the universe sur-
vives in a Roman treatise on measuring land.13 Vegoia, Vecuvia in Etruscan,
declares that after the sea was separated from the sky, the original division
of the lands of Etruria was carried out by “Jupiter,” that is, the chief deity
of the Etruscan pantheon, Tinia. With a fervor worthy of some of the
fiercest prophets of the Old Testament, Vegoia warns that violation of the
boundaries will lead to dire consequences.
he origin of the Etrusca disciplina, taught by the prophet called Tages
in Latin, belongs to an early period in Etruscan sacred history, although
the evidence concerning this is quite late. According to Johannes Lydus,
Cicero, and others, Tages suddenly popped out of the ground as it was
being plowed by a farmer at Tarquinia. he prophet – a baby, but with the
features of a wise old man – began to sing out the principles of the disci-
plina. According to one version, the noble Tarchon, founder of Tarquinia,
took down his words and conveyed all his teachings to the twelve major
10
Turfa, “Etruscan Brontoscopic Calendar,” 173–90.
11
De Grummond, “Introduction: History of the Study,” 2–4.
12
Eadem, “Latin and Greek Sources,” 191.
13
Ibid., 191–2.
peoples of Etruria. Much of the content of the prophecy related to the arts
of soothsaying, with special attention to haruspication. A possible rep-
resentation of this fundamental Etruscan myth appears on an engraved
mirror from Tuscania, near Tarquinia (Fig. 24; third century bce),14 where
a youth (not a baby), holds and interprets a liver, while a bearded man
labeled Avl Tarchunus (possibly = Tarchon) listens intently, as if learning
from the boy. he name inscribed next to the haruspicator, Pava Tarchies,
has been argued to be the equivalent of Latin puer Tages, that is, “child
Tages.”
he Etruscan view of their sacred history included a chronology based
on the generic time designator of the saeculum (“age,” “generation,” “life-
time”). hey believed that their people had a destiny, and that the end
of their name would come after ten saecula (Censorinus, De die natali
17.5–6). Various authors give bits of information on the doctrine of the
saecula, revealing how the calculations were made and the number of years
in each saeculum. At the time of the founding of the Etruscan nation, the
first saeculum began from the time of the birth of the first child and lasted
until the time of his death. An omen would be sent from the gods to
announce the end of each age, for example, a trumpet blast from the sky
(Plutarch, Life of Sulla, 7.3–6). he lengths of the saecula are quite peculiar,
for they scarcely match with the lifetime of a man. As far as the evidence
we have, the first four saecula were each of one hundred years; the follow-
ing ones were of 123, 119, and 119 years, and one late one seems to have been
of forty-four years.
Given the importance of the calendar to Etruscan religion, it is no
accident that two of the longest Etruscan texts surviving are calendrical.
Unfortunately we know very little about the feasts, sacrifices, and celebra-
tions recorded in the calendar of the Etruscan year. As in early Rome, the
year started in March, and the Romans and Etruscans evidently counted
their months in the same way, starting with the new moon, and using divi-
sions of the month to identify the days. In fact, the Latin calendrical word
Ides, a lunar term, is believed to be derived from Etruscan itus.
It is certain that at least some of the months were named after important
deities: July, called Traneus in its Latin form (TLE 854), is surely the month
of Turan, the Etruscan goddess of love and sex, and September, Celius
(TLE 824), was sacred to Cel Ati, mother earth. he Zagreb mummy wrap-
pings give quite particular instructions for sacrifices to certain deities on
individual days of the months of June, August, and September, but often
14
Eadem, Etruscan Myth, 23–7, Fig. II.2. Pallottino, “Uno specchio,” 679–709.
the specific meaning of the terms used for ritual details is not known. he
passages for which the translations can be agreed upon are nevertheless not
rich in detail: “In the month of Cel, on the twenty-sixth day, the offerings
to Nethuns (=Neptune) must be made and immolated.”15
the pantheon
Several sources, notably Martianus Capella (fifth century ce) and the
Piacenza Liver, give evidence that the Etruscans regarded the heavens as
divided into sixteen major parts, and that each of these segments pro-
vided abodes for the gods.16 Some gods had more than one habitation;
Tinia, the head of the Etruscan pantheon, had multiple houses in the sky
on the north and east, as well as on the liver, and in addition had a con-
nection with the Underworld. His consort Uni (called Juno in Latin) also
had more than one celestial house, including one on the darker, western
side of the sky. In short, there was no Olympus for the Etruscan gods, and
although we may make up tidy-looking charts of their Greek and Roman
counterparts, it is certain that they had their own powers and places in the
Etruscan cosmos.
Of the first importance was the authority the Etruscans attributed to
lightning and thunder. Nine gods were recognized as having the power
and the right to throw the thunderbolt, including – to use the names pro-
vided by Roman writers – Jupiter, Juno, Minerva (=Etr. Menrva), Vulcan
(=Sethlans), Mars (=Laran), and Saturn (=Satre).17 he unusual signifi-
cance of lightning for the Etruscans is made clear by the passage in Seneca,
who noted, “his is the difference between us and the Etruscans, who have
consummate skill in interpreting lightning. We think that because clouds
collide, lightning is emitted. hey believe that clouds collide in order that
lightning may be emitted” (Quaestiones naturales 2.32.2).18 he doctrine of
lightning was exquisitely detailed, with several different systems of clas-
sification on record. It was important for a priest to know which deity
15
Bonfante and Bonfante, he Etruscan Language, 183.
16
Weinstock, “Martianus Capella.” he text of Martianus is conventionally referred to as De nup-
tiis Mercurii et Philologiae (relevant passage: I.45–61; for text and translation, see de Grummond,
“Selected Latin and Greek Sources,” 2006, 199–200). For a concise review of the most important
Etruscan gods, see Simon, “Gods in Harmony.” For more extensive treatment, see de Grummond,
Etruscan Myth, especially chapter III.
17
Pfiffig, Religio etrusca, 130. he names of the other three are not certain, but Hercules was described
by Seneca as a lightning god, and the Roman deity Summanus who could throw the thunderbolt is
probably Etruscan in origin.
18
Trans. T. H. Corcoran, Seneca, Quaestiones naturales (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), 151; de Grummond,
“Latin and Greek Sources,” 213–14.
had sent forth the lightning or thunder; in order to interpret the omen,
he had to have a knowledge of the sixteen parts of the sky and the sphere
of influence that was affected. No doubt the reading of livers had a similar
system: he haruspex had to know which gods controlled each section or
cell of the liver.
Major deities and many minor ones19 were at work transmitting mes-
sages from the macrocosm of the sky as well as from the microcosm of the
liver. Martianus Capella provided names of deities practically unknown
outside of his survey of the heavens – Neverita, Lynsa Silvestris, Janitores
Terrestres – whose function can only sometimes be conjectured, while the
liver mentions, in addition to Tinia and Uni and recognizable deities such
as Nethuns, Fufluns (=Bacchus), and Selvans (=Silvanus, more or less),
problematic names such as huflthas, Tec, and Letham. Hercle (Hercules)
is also present on the liver, worshipped as a god of cult in Etruria.
Still other deities are known mainly from dedicatory inscriptions. Śuri,
the principal deity of the south sanctuary at Pyrgi, has been equated with
Soranus, an epiclesis of Apollo worshipped in Latin territory, who seems
to have both solar and Underworld connections.20 he sphere of Śuri’s
consort, Catha (variously spelled), may be similar, but given the fluidity of
the Etruscan pantheon, she (if Catha is indeed female) could have other
duties. Lur and Leinth in the Etruscan artisans’ sanctuary at Cetamura del
Chianti (near Siena) are evidently deities of fate and fortune.21
Myths and legends told in Rome mention Etruscan deities, such as
Vertumnus, described by Varro as the “chief god of Etruria” (De lingua
latina 5.46). It is almost certain that this was a variant name for Tinia,
occurring in several forms in Rome, and probably also on the Pava Tarchies
mirror as Veltune (Fig. 24; a Tinia-like figure on the far right). Vertumnus
appears in descriptions by Propertius (4.2) and Ovid (Metamorphoses,
14.623–771), which have a ring of truth in that the god is able to change
sex and demonstrates a flexibility in identity and spheres of influence.
Representations of themes of myth and legend in Etruscan art, begin-
ning in the seventh century bce, help to define Etruscan deities, but even
so, much remains unclear. As Pallottino put it, “he Etruscan concept
of supernatural beings was permeated by a certain vagueness as to num-
bers, sex, attributes, and appearance.”22 hus in art some deities may be
19
Simon, “Gods in Harmony,” 45–65.
20
Colonna, “L’ Apollo di Pyrgi,” 345–75.
21
De Grummond, “Sanctuary of the Etruscan Artisans,” 115–17.
22
Pallottino, he Etruscans, 140.
represented as double and some deities change gender, but the significance
of these variations is seldom clear. Menrva and Turms (=Mercury) each
appear as twins on mirrors, where the theme of doubling makes reference,
perhaps, to two different divisions of the cosmos, inside the mirror and out.
he cult of the twin Dioskouroi may have been popular precisely because
of the dualism inherent in their nature. An infant named Mariś (not identi-
fiable with Mars, but perhaps rather a parallel to Genius) appears as triplets,
each time with an additional byname of as yet little understood purpose.
Martianus refers to vague, elusive gods in groups, such as the Janitores
Terrestris, “Doorkeepers of the Earth,” and the Favores Opertanei, “Secret
Gods of Favor,” while Seneca (Quaest nat. 2.41) records the dark, myste-
rious Dii Involuti (“Shrouded Gods”), who advised Jupiter when to hurl
thunderbolts. he Etruscans had four types of Penates, who served the
spheres of Jupiter and Neptune (i.e., the heavens and the waters), as well as
the Underworld and the domain of men (Arnobius 3.40); these and other
group gods recognized by the Romans, such as the Lares and the Manes,
may well be Etruscan in origin.23
he change of sex is particularly typical of personification deities, who
probably were not normally thought of as having a specific gender, nor
did the Etruscan language assign a gender to their abstract nouns, as hap-
pened in Greek and Latin. hus Alpan, a deity of good will and gladness,
appears as either male or female, and halna, a popular spirit who attends
scenes of birth, childhood, romance, revelry, and prophecy, may appear as
a robust youth or a lovely goddess. Other gods who appear as both male
and female are Leinth, Achvizr, and Evan, and in addition the ubiquitous
flying spirit Lasa, whose name may mean something like “nymph,” except
that such a comparison does not fit in the one inscribed instance where
Lasa is clearly male.24
Foreign gods were adopted in Etruria. Hercle, who has a rich myth-
ological life in early Italy, was chief of these. Apollo was worshipped as
Apulu or Aplu, and his sister Artemis is named as Artumes or Aritimi.
Fufluns evidently took such a firm hold in Etruria that his cult got out of
hand, provoking the famous Roman senatorial decree de Bacchanalibus
(186 bce). he presence of the name Astarte (=Uni) in the harbor at
Pyrgi provides a rare instance of a Punic cult at an Etruscan site.25
23
Ibid., 142–3.
24
Rallo, Lasa , 23–4.
25
Colonna, “Il santuario di Pyrgi,” 209–17. For the Etruscan-Punic relations and the differences in
their cult practices, see Turfa, “International Contacts,” 77–8. On Punic religion see Schmitz’s dis-
cussion in Chapter 8.
the role of myth

Representations of myths played an important part in ritual and surely
also in instruction. here are many representations in art that show activ-
ity at an altar, although the import of the scenes is not always clear, espe-
cially when the story depicted is a myth imported from Greece.26 Stories of
Troy and hebes, with heroic characters based on the Greek myths, were
common, sometimes mainly for entertainment or sensual pleasure, but at
other times because of their echoes of serious concerns in Etruscan reli-
gion. Cinerary urns from Volterra and sarcophagi from Tarquinia (third–
second centuries bce), from a time and place in which the conflict was
between Etruscan identity and Roman power, portray various themes of
bloodshed at an altar or tomb, seemingly making reference to human sac-
rifice, although by this period, the actual practice would have been rare.
Strangely popular in the fourth century was the theme of Achilles sacrific-
ing Trojan prisoners at the tomb of Patroclus, a motif that received very lit-
tle attention in Greece. Perhaps the best explanation for the choice of this
theme and various battle scenes is the desire to refer symbolically to the
shedding of blood, a substance needed by the ancestral dead in the tomb
in order to revivify. As Arnobius notes (Adv. nat. 2.62), “hey promise this
in the Acherontic Books in Etruria, that when the blood of certain animals
is given to certain numinous spirits the souls become divine and they are
led away from the laws of mortality.”27
Other ritual motifs crop up in representations of Etruscanized Greek
myths. hemes with lightning are frequent, with the thunderbolts often
represented with particular care or emphasis. he hammer and nail, both
instruments associated with ceremonial actions, are depicted in several
contexts. A surprising representation of the fate-goddess Atropos, called
Athrpa in Etruscan, shows her without spinning attribute and working
alone without her sisters Clotho and Lechesis, as she hammers a nail into
the wall to affix a boar’s head (mirror in Berlin). On either side of her are
pairs of lovers who experienced a sad destiny because of a boar: Turan
and Atunis (=Aphrodite and Adonis) and Atlenta and Meliacr (Atalanta
and Meleager). he reference is patent, for the nail played a sacred role
in Etruscan religion. It symbolized the inexorable passage of time, as, for
26
Ambrosini, “Le raffigurazioni,” 197–233; Steuernagel, Menschenopfer.
27
Arnobius, Adv. nat. 2.62: Quod Etruria libris in Acheronticis pollicentur, certorum animalium
sanguine numinibus certis dato divinas animas fieri et ab legibus mortalitatis educi. See too de
Grummond, “Selected Latin and Greek Sources,” 217, for my earlier translation, superseded by the
present rendering.
example, when a nail was hammered each year into the wall of the temple
of the goddess Nortia, a custom imitated by the Romans in the Capitoline
temple.28 Nails are sometimes found as offerings in sanctuaries (e.g.,
Cetamura del Chianti),29 a usage that may relate to fortune and fate. he
hammer may also have a fatal import, appearing as it does as the attribute
of the death-demon Charu(n), who escorted the dead into the afterlife.30
priests, priestesses, and politics

Representations of Etruscan priests are numerous, providing abundant evi-
dence for the dress of these officiants, as well as clues about their posture,
gestures, and attributes.31 he characteristic tall hat with pointed or slightly
flattened top is found widely, for example, on the Pava Tarchies mirror
and on a series of bronze statuettes now in Göttingen. Much of the evi-
dence belongs to the fourth or third century bce, but at least one image
comes from the sixth century, and it is generally agreed that the strange
archaic hat originated in Villanovan times, perhaps having a connection
with the Villanovan helmet topped by a flame-like crest. Often the apex
(as it was called by the Romans, whose flamines and Salian priests wore a
similar hat) was affixed to an animal-skin cap, the galerus (again, a Latin
term), tied beneath the chin in a complex loop. All of these priests are
clean shaven and the feet are always bare, but the garment varies. Typical
is the fringed mantle, probably originating as an animal skin (perhaps one
sacrificed by the priest), fastened by a large archaic fibula as it hangs down
in front rather like a coat, but there are other ways of draping the mantle.
he Göttingen bronzes include a figure with the mantle hanging in a low
loop across the front, resembling the laena of the Roman flamines and the
chasuble of the Catholic priest.
he haruspex has a characteristic pose, best demonstrated by Pava
Tarchies, who props his left leg up on a mound of earth, and holds out the
liver in his left hand so that he may manipulate it with his right. Sometimes
the haruspex is bearded and wears a mantle draped to expose the shoulder.
Other figures who seem to have served a sacred function may have a bare
chest, for example, a bronze statuette of an augur (Paris, Louvre; sixth cen-
tury bce), which shows the priest with head twisted to look up at the sky,
28
Aigner-Foresti, “Zur Zeremonie der Nagelschlagung,” 144–6.
29
De Grummond, “Sanctuary of the Etruscan Artisans,” 41–3.
30
Mavleev and Krauskopf, “Charu(n),” 235.
31
Maggiani, “Immagini,” 1557–63; Torelli, Gli etruschi, 278–80, 455, 591–3; de Grummond, “Prophets
and Priests,” 35–8; Roncalli, “Haruspex.”
perhaps to discern the flight of birds or study some celestial phenomenon.

Occasionally the priestly figure carries a staff, most prominent of which is
the wand curved in a shape rather like a question mark, known in Latin as
the lituus. It was adopted in Roman religion as the tool of the augur that
marks out the area for observation of omens.
here is limited evidence for the terminology of priests in Etruria. By a
fortunate stroke, a bilingual inscription from Pesaro (Rix ET Um 1.7; first
century bce), gives the Latin titles of one Larth Cafates as haruspex ful-
guriator, “reader of entrails, reader of lightning,” and provides the Etruscan
version of these titles: netśvis trutnvt frontac. It is agreed that netśvis is the
equivalent of haruspex, but fulguriator seems to relate to two Etruscan
words, and so there is uncertainty about their precise equivalency. Yet
another word for an Etruscan priest, cepen (variant spellings occur), seems
to be generic. Cepen occurs four times with another word, maru, which
seems to refer to the activities of a magistrate who may also have priestly
duties.32 he latter term also is found with a collective ending, in the word
maruχva (Rix ET, AT 1.96, 1.161), interpreted as referring to an associa-
tion or collegium of priest-magistrates. Very rare is the word eisnev, which
is nevertheless suggestive in that it is etymologically related to Etruscan
words referring to a god (ais-) or something divine (aisna/eisna).
Images survive showing female religious functionaries performing ani-
mal sacrifice,33 and there are several representations of women in what
seems to be ritual dress, all coming from a funerary context as images on
sarcophagi from the Tarquinia area.34 hey wear tall hats as well as grand,
conspicuous necklaces of possibly ceremonial import and a coiffure with
the hair divided into six major locks on each side of the head (cf. the seni
crines of the Roman Vestal Virgins). Some carry attributes that are sug-
gestive – a patera, a kantharos, a bird – and one seems to offer a drink to
a deer. here may be an Etruscan word for priestess, hatrencu, but for it,
too, the evidence is only funerary, and the term is found only at Vulci.35 In
the Hellenistic Tomb of the Inscriptions were found five instances of the
word hatrencu, used in juxtaposition with women’s names as if in a title. It
has been argued that they were members of a collegium that had a right to
burial in a special place.
It is likely that authority in controlling religious activity and therefore
political life among the Etruscans was in the hands of the nobility, as it was
32
De Grummond, “Prophets and Priests,” 34 and 42 (note 19).
33
Donati, “Sacrifici,” 155–7 (nos. 160, 162, 176).
34
De Grummond, “Prophets and Priests,” 38–9.
35
Nielsen, “Sacerdotesse,” 45–67.
in Rome. Some inscriptions use the term zilc (alternate spellings occur),
generally agreed to be a magistracy roughly equivalent to the praetor at
Rome, in combination with cepen or some form of maru. he epitaph
of Arnth Churcles from Norchia describes his offices with the words zilc
and cepen, as well as marunuχ in combination with spurana, “pertaining
to the city” (Rix ET AT 1.171; third century bce). Specific information
comes from the famous inscription on a scroll held by L(a)ris Pulenas of
Tarquinia. His grand sarcophagus from the tomb of the prominent Pulenas
family (250–200 bce) shows the deceased holding a document that traces
his lineage through four generations; the curriculum vitae notes that he
wrote a book on haruspication, and that he served the cults of Catha and
Pacha.
An important tomb painting from Vulci (François Tomb, ca.350–325
bce) depicts Vel Saties, principal figure of a distinguished family.36 He is
depicted gazing upward, as an assistant controls a woodpecker on a string,
ready for release so that the magistrate may take auspices. Vel Saties wears
a laurel wreath and a fine mantle, purple with rich embroidered or painted
decoration, featuring three shield-bearing naked dancing males. It is clear
that he exercised both military and augural power, appearing here as a
victorious general. he image of dancing soldiers is not the only one in
Etruria, and it may be that there was an Etruscan priesthood such as the
Salians at Rome. An urn from Bisenzio depicts naked shield-bearing sol-
diers dancing in a circle around a wolf-like monster, clearly a ritual act.37
sacred space: sanctuaries, temples, altars

To a certain extent it is possible to describe the historical development
of Etruscan sanctuaries. Stunning discoveries on the Pian di Civita of
Tarquinia in the “Sacral-Institutional Complex”38 have revealed a quite early
rectangular cult building (Bldg. Beta; early seventh century bce) adjoining
a natural cavity in the earth. Within Beta was a stone platform – an altar –
from which a channel would conduct liquid offerings into the cavity. At
the entrance to a rectangular precinct surrounding Beta was a remarkable
votive pit with a bronze shield and a bronze lituus-shaped trumpet, both
folded, and a bronze axe head. he close connection between the offering
of the paraphernalia of a magistrate and the sacrifices at the altar is patent.
36
Roncalli, “La decorazione pittorica,” 99–100.
37
Torelli, Gli etruschi, 541 (no. 15); Camporeale, “Purification,” 59–60.
38
Bonghi Jovino, “Area Sacra,” 21–2.
he overall picture becomes quite breath-taking when we consider that

near the altar and the cavity were found a burial of a child, about nine
years old, judged to have had epilepsy, and scattered bones of other infant
burials. Further, burials of adults, clearly human sacrifices, also occur in
the Sacral-Institutional Complex.
Although highly unusual (evidence for Etruscan human sacrifice is oth-
erwise very rare), the Pian di Civita site is in some ways typical of Etruscan
sanctuaries, with its altar, rectangular temple-like building and precinct
with votive pits. here is also evidence of water being channeled and
stored in the precinct, probably also for ritual purposes, as found at many
Etruscan sacred sites. Other early temple-like buildings have been exca-
vated at Piazza d’Armi, Veii (late seventh–early sixth century bce), where
the roof was already being decorated with the characteristic Etruscan ter-
racotta antefixes and plaques, and at Rusellae (also late seventh–early sixth
century),39 which featured a rectangular precinct with a circular building
inside and abundant weaving implements probably intended as offerings.
he simple rectangular type of precinct, with rectangular shrine, is also
documented as late as the third century bce (Grasceta dei Cavallari and
Poggio Casetta at Bolsena).40
Around 580 bce there occurs a change in sacred architecture, in which
the simple rectangle begins to have a deep front porch with antae (pro-
jecting walls) and/or columns, as well as a podium to raise the temple up
higher, occasioning a need for a frontal staircase. he monumentalizing of
the building seems to have a parallel development in the introduction of
true cult statues into Etruria.41 Within a short while, these features were
associated with a building type known as the Tuscanic (i.e., Etruscan) plan,
described in precise terms, although at a much later date, by the Roman
architect Vitruvius (De architectura IV.7; second half of the first century
bce).42 he Vitruvian plan was a nearly square building, divided into a front
part (pars antica) with a deep front porch and a rear part (pars postica) fea-
turing three cellas or a central cella and two wings (alae). he front porch
typically had two rows of four columns. No Etruscan temple fits perfectly
the description given by Vitruvius, but there are many variations on the
Tuscanic plan that generally are consistent with the Vitruvian parameters,
and it is also possible to find hints of the plan in a few Etruscan houses, as
39
Colonna, Santuari, 53–9; Comella, “Aedes,” 140.
40
Colonna, Santuari, 155–6; Comella, “Aedes,” 140–1.
41
Colonna, Santuari, 23–4. But cf. the critique of the tenuous evidence for cult statuary by Rask,
“New Approaches,” 89–112.
42
Colonna, “Sacred Architecture,” 152–5.
well as in several tombs at Cerveteri that seem to imitate the architecture

of grand houses. hus there is good reason to believe that in this period
the temple became for the Etruscans a house of the god, as it was for the
Greeks, whereas earlier it may have had more of a function for ritual.43 Still,
the deep front porch, taking up the front half of the building, would have
served well for ritual activities, especially of divination, perhaps previously
practiced outdoors. he word templum itself, used in Latin in contexts
that show strong Etruscan influence and connotations, originally referred
to a designated area of sky or earth within which the priest would look
for omens. he functionary normally took his stance facing south, with
the east on his left – lucky – side, and thus it is not surprising that many
Etruscan ritual sites face the south or southeast.44
he temple at the Portonaccio sanctuary at Veii, dated to the end of the
sixth or beginning of the fifth century bce, featured a square plan divided
in half, with a triple cella in back, oriented toward the east/southeast. A
large cistern-like pool flanked the temple and provided water for rituals,
and a rectangular altar was placed well in front of the temple, turned to
the east at an angle from the orientation of the building. Associated with
this mature Etruscan temple structure are rich polychrome terracotta
decorations, including the famed statue of the Apulu of Veii and ante-
fixes with the head of Medusa. hey typify the decoration of Etruscan
sacred architecture, which unlike Greek and Roman temples did not show
a development in the usage of stone sculpture. Greek influence is evident,
though, in the mythological subjects chosen to decorate the buildings as
well as in the idea of having an anthropomorphic image of the chief deity
set inside the building. here is relatively little evidence for the appear-
ance of Etruscan cult statues, hypothesized to have appeared around 580
bce, replacing aniconic images.45 An intriguing painted terracotta plaque
from Cerveteri (ca.540 bce) shows a statue of a goddess standing upon an
altar-like base, and representations on Etruscan mirrors also suggest that
the Etruscans may have thought of the gods as present on the flat surface
of an altar.
Great temples were built at Cerveteri and its port Pyrgi, as well as at
Tarquinia, Vulci, Marzabotto, and Orvieto in the period from the sixth
to the fourth century bce.46 A newly discovered temple within the city at
43
Cf. the discussion of cult statuary below.
44
Torelli, “Templum,” 340–7; Prayon, “Sur l’orientation,” 357–71.
45
Colonna, Santuari, 23–4; Rask, “New Approaches,” 89–112.
46
Colonna, Santuari, 60–6, 70–83, 88–92; Colonna, “Sacred Architecture,” 152–62; Comella, “Aedes,”
139–42.
Marzabotto, dating to the fifth century bce, shows a unique plan, with a
rectangular single cella, and a colonnade going all around the temple. here
were four columns in front, five in back, and six along each side. Smaller
temples of the latest period (third-first century bce) occur at Fiesole and
Volterra, with a ground plan of a single cella or a single cella with wings on
the side. here is some evidence for the continued construction of grand
temple structures.47
Historically speaking, altars provided the focus for worship considerably
before temple architecture appeared.48 hey show remarkable diversity, and
it is evident that even relatively rudimentary forms known in Archaic times
survived into the late years of Etruscan civilization. Altars of rubble occur
at the south sanctuary at Pyrgi (sixth–fourth century bce) and appear also
at Cetamura del Chianti in the late second century bce.49 Larger, monu-
mental altars have received more attention. At Pieva a Socana (Arezzo) is
the famous rectangular sandstone platform with handsome moldings (4.99
× 3.75 m.; fifth century bce), its blocks held together by lead clamps.50 On
the heights above the city at Marzabotto, two monumental altar podiums
were found in a sequence of religious edifices all in a row, facing south.51
Numerous examples of stone altars of smaller size are known, varying in
shape, and altars are frequently represented in art, on reliefs from Chiusi
of the Archaic period, on Etruscan mirrors, and on reliefs of the latest
period from Volterra (third–first century bce).52 he most common type is
roughly like an hour glass, with a broad base and a broad altar table, often
enriched with moldings, and concave or narrowed sides, as seen, for exam-
ple, on a well-preserved sandstone altar from Fiesole.53
gifts to the gods

Among the animals54 sacrificed at the altars were those commonly offered
in Greek and Roman rites: hoofed creatures, bulls, pigs, sheep, horse, and
deer. Dogs seem to have been a frequent offering, and there is also sur-
prising evidence of the sacrifice of foxes (unknown in Greece or Rome) at
47
Sassatelli and Govi, “Cults of Marzabotto”; Colonna, “Sacred Architecture,” 163.
48
Comella, “Altare,” 165–71; Colonna, “Sacred Architecture,” 132–43.
49
De Grummond, “Sanctuary of the Etruscan Artisans,” 40, 67.
50
huillier, “Autels,” 244; Comella, “Altare,” 168 (no. 4).
51
Santuari, 88–92.
52
huillier, “Autels,” 247; Ambrosini, “Le raffigurazioni,” 199–201, 204–5; Steuernagel,
Menschenopfer.
53
Santuari, 45 (interpreted as a base for a donation) and Comella, “Altare,” 168 (no.8).
54
Donati, “Sacrifici,” 139–57.
Pyrgi and Pian di Civita of Tarquinia. Tortoise, hare, fish, chicken, dove,
and other birds are all recorded. Bloodless offerings at the altar of grain,
fruits, and the like were probably more frequent than appears from the
examples actually identified in excavation. At Pian di Civita, spectacular
results in analysis of vegetal remains showed that a votive pit of the sev-
enth century bce contained fig, poppy, mulberry, hazel nuts, peas, lentils,
parsley, celery, barley, and several other cereals.55 At Cetamura, the gods
received a pot of cooked chickpeas.56
Material offerings to the Etruscan gods show a wide spectrum of dedi-
cations made by individuals of varying status. he gold plaques of Pyrgi
relate that hefarie Velianas, king of Caere, made a dedication to Uni of
something very imposing, possibly a temple or even a whole sanctuary,
in the third year of his reign, because the goddess supported him. he
names of other prominent political figures such as Tulumnes and Avile
Vipiiennas (Vipenas) occur incised on pottery dedications at Veii.57 he
former, a royal family name, occurs in both Etruscan and Latin, including
one dedication to Menerva. he latter is identical with the name of a gen-
eral active in Vulci, Rome, and elsewhere who achieved legendary status
and was even represented in art. At the other end of the social spectrum
were the humble artisans and workers of Cetamura and other sites, who
appear to have made dedications relating to their production, such as loom
weights, spools and spindle whorls (weavers), miniature bricks (kiln work-
men), and iron objects such as nails (iron workers). A weight of bronze
and lead from Cerveteri (third century bce), perhaps used by a merchant
in commercial transactions, was inscribed to Turms.58
Among the most common offerings were clay vases,59 often in miniature
so that it was clear that the vessel was for the usage of the gods only. he
forms of the vessels show that most often they were the kind of vessels used
for preparation and serving of food as well as actual eating and drinking.
Many different fabrics were utilized, from bucchero and impasto in the
earlier centuries, to Greek imports in the sixth and fifth centuries, and
the ubiquitous Etrusco-Campanian black gloss in the latest period. All
through these periods there occurs a great variety of local uncolored wares
of coarse or fine paste. It is clear that in some cases the pottery was ritually
55
Bagnasco Gianni, “Il deposito reiterato,” 197–219.
56
De Grummond, “Sanctuary of the Etruscan Artisans,” 89–90, 189–90.
57
Turfa, “Votive Offerings,” 98–9, 101, 104.
58
Edlund-Berry, “Italien. Dedications,” 379 (no. 470).
59
Ibid., 371, 373, 377; Turfa, “Votive Offerings,” 103.
broken and/or burned before being deposited, and only part of it was left
for the deity.
Weapons, incense burners, fish hooks, coins, rings, and other metal
objects were among the more expensive offerings. here were, of course,
metal statues and statuettes, some of them quite ambitious.60 Hollow cast
bronzes such as the putto Graziani, dating to the third century bce, and
the life-size “Orator” in Florence, as well as numerous small bronze statu-
ettes, have inscriptions. he bronze putto depicts a baby wearing an amu-
letic bulla, playing with a bird and a ball. Dedicated to the little-known
god Tec Sans, he is one of a number of examples of babies, children, or
heads of babies, actually more often made of terracotta, that have been
found in Etruscan votive contexts, and that suggest the parent’s wish for
fertility or for the birth or health of a child. Of the smaller bronzes, two
splendid images of gods – Culsans and Selvans – were found beside one of
the gates of the city of Cortona, revealing a liminal ritual seeking the favor
of these gods and perhaps purification.61 Other gods to whom inscribed
dedications were made, besides ones already mentioned above, include
Tinia, Turan, Vei, Catha, Cel Ati, Artumes, and Hercle.
One of the most remarkable phenomena of Etruscan votive ritual relates
to the thousands of “anatomical” terracottas, offered to various deities at
sites in Etruria itself, but also in non-Etruscan Latium as well as north of
Etruria proper.62 hese belong to the period of the fourth to first centuries
bce and are so common as to lead to the conclusion that a wide range of
deities might be operative in the vows made and the results desired. hey
relate directly to concerns of fertility, birth, and healing, and practically any
part of the body might be offered: hands, feet, legs, torsos, heads, hearts,
uteri, breasts, penises, and viscera in general. he anatomical votives are
almost never inscribed, an exception being the uteri inscribed to Vei, a fer-
tility deity who has been compared to the Greek Demeter.63
How were the votives deposited or distributed in the sanctuaries? A
revealing case is found in the sanctuary of Fontanile di Legnisina outside
a city gate of Vulci,64 where a temple was flanked by an altar made of the
local fine tufa, adjoining a grotto and a spring. Dating from the fourth and
third centuries, the votives were distributed somewhat according to type
60
Simon, “Italien. Dedications,” 349–59.
61
Ibid., 355 (no. 224), 356 (no. 236).
62
Turfa, “Votive Offerings,” 96–8, 101–2, 104–5; Turfa, “Italien. Dedications,” 359–68.
63
Found at the Fontanile di Legnisina, for which see the next footnote.
64
Turfa, “Votive Offerings,” 101–2; Colonna, “Sacred Architecture,” 143; Ricciardi, “Il santuario
etrusco.”
with terracotta models of uteri at the entrance to the grotto while terra-
cotta statuettes of babies were deposited northeast of the grotto and the
uteri. Still farther north was found the majority of the ceramic material.
Bronze statuettes of offerants were wedged in between the cliff and the
back wall of the altar precinct. A similar phenomenon of placing particu-
lar types of offerings in a special area may be observed at the sanctuary at
Graviscae (the port city of Tarquinia), where in Room G the terracottas
were placed parallel to the walls, uteri on the north, and heads, statues, and
figurines on the south and west.65
cult of the dead

here is an enormous variety in burial customs and tomb construction in
Etruria and the Etruscan-influenced areas to the north and south, but at
the same time it is evident that there was a rather consistent belief in the
nature of the afterlife and in the immortality of the deceased.66 Hence, the
Etruscans prepared the dead for burial by laying out the corpse on a couch
in a shroud, with the face exposed, as if sleeping. Women served as func-
tionaries, in some cases plying alabastra filled with unguents for anointing
the deceased.67 he unguents may have served as purificatory, or possibly
to help make the deceased immortal. Etruscan tombs frequently featured
deposits of alabastra to accompany the dead so that they could continue to
enjoy the usage of the unguents in the afterlife. he deceased made a jour-
ney to the beyond, on foot, on horseback, in a wagon, or over water (or in
a combination of these means). He or she then passed through a gate into
another world where life continued as above ground, particularly the more
pleasant aspects of eating, drinking, dancing, sporting, and making love.
he survivors accordingly made elaborate preparations for the deceased
in the afterlife. he Etruscans attempted to reproduce in the tombs the
conditions in which they were comfortable while alive. he necropoleis
were sometimes laid out along a grid pattern, for example, at Cerveteri
and Orvieto, as if to indicate that the city of the dead should follow the
rules of the Etrusca disciplina for laying out a city of the living. he houses
constructed for the dead varied considerably. At Cerveteri, rooms carved
out of the tufa bedrock featured doors, windows, columns, grand chairs,
tables, beds, and benches to make the dead feel at home. he Tomb of the
65
Turfa, “Votive Offerings,” 97.
66
Krauskopf, “he Grave and Beyond,” 66–89; Torelli, “La religione,” 222, 231–4.
67
Camporeale, “Purification, Etr,” 49.
Reliefs takes the concept to the ultimate, with its sculptured representa-
tions of all manner of equipment and household goods depicted as if hung
on the walls. At Tarquinia and elsewhere the walls of the tombs of the elite
were covered with paintings showing a celebratory banquet with musicians
and dancing, perhaps a commemoration of the actual funeral feast but also
intended to transport the festivities magically to an eternal venue.68
Games in honor of the dead were a common and widespread feature of
Etruscan funerary ritual, as in early Greece and Republican Rome.69 here
were contests of wrestling and races, as known in Greece, but the Etruscan
games were quite particular, including masked performances and a blood-
shed ritual that constituted a prototype for gladiatorial combat in a funeral
context.70 In the Tomb of the Augurs at Tarquinia (sixth century bce), a
masked man, labeled Phersu, wearing a tall headdress and a bizarre mot-
tled shirt, directs a dog on a leash to bite an adversary with a bag over his
head. he latter, deprived of sight and with legs bleeding, defends himself
by swinging a club toward the dog.
he history of Etruscan burials is throughout concerned with grave fur-
nishings. hese might be spectacularly elaborate, as in some of the great
inhumation burials of the Orientalizing period (ca.750–600 bce; e.g.,
the Regolini-Galassi tomb at Cerveteri) or modest, including only an ash
urn, and one or two grave gifts, as in cremation burials of the Villanovan
period, and freedmen’s burials of the latest period. Most burials had an
offering of food and drink, as may be deduced from the numerous vessels
found in tombs, and occasionally from the actual foodstuffs, while the
tombs of nobles often included items demonstrating status. Fine ladies
needed grooming equipment (hence the abundance of surviving Etruscan
mirrors), and gentlemen required allusions to their military prowess, polit-
ical offices, and priesthoods.
Altars have been found in Etruscan cemeteries, in some cases quite
monumental, as in the staircase and platform attached to the tomb Melone
del Sodo II at Cortona, and in the round stone altar at Grotta Porcina
(sixth century bce), decorated with pacing animals and surrounded by a
rectangular precinct, on three sides of which step-like benches are cut out
of the bedrock, presumably to seat spectators at the funeral sacrifice or
performance. At the necropolis of Cannicella at Orvieto, a terrace sanctu-
ary featured a cylindrical altar, basins for water, and a remarkable marble
68
Steingraber, Etruscan Painting.
69
huillier, Les jeux athlétiques.
70
Jannot, “Phersu,” 281–320.
statue of a nude goddess, one-half life size (late sixth century bce), provid-
ing rare evidence for the appearance of cult statues. Altars could be inside
the tomb as well, as in a noted example from Cerveteri, where the altar
takes the form of a throne.
In the latest period in Etruria, there is a dramatic change in the view of
the afterlife, evidenced in the depictions of the journey to the Underworld
and the banquet of eternity, perhaps related to important changes in the
political and daily life of the Etruscans. Aita and Phersipnei (Hades and
Persephone) make their first appearances at the banquet, and the sunny
atmosphere of the Elysian-style parties turns gloomy and dark. Frightening
demons first occur around 400 bce, in the Tomb of the Blue Demons at
Tarquinia, where they escort the deceased on the journey. hroughout the
Hellenistic period, in the paintings of chamber tombs at Tarquinia and
the reliefs on ash urns from Volterra, appear the leading demonic figures,
the winged goddess Vanth and the hammer-god Charu.71 Unlike the Greek
Charon, the Etruscan demon does not have a boat, but instead normally
wields his hammer, which he may swing toward the deceased, as if to final-
ize death, or possibly to bang on the gates of the Underworld. Charu is
often represented with discolored or diseased skin, serpents in his hair, and
anger upon his ugly face. His counterpart Vanth, often shown as beautiful,
has generally a more kindly aspect, carrying a torch that will light up the
dark Underworld for the traveler.
etruscan religion – historical considerations

It is not possible now and likely never will be to give a coherent historical
and developmental account of Etruscan religion. When, for example, did
the Etruscans begin to practice haruspication, or divination from birds
and other phenomena in the sky? And when were the paradigmatic myths
of the prophecies of Tages and Vecuvia first told? We might argue that the
usage of augury is closely related to the temple with the deep front porch,
which manifests itself in the Archaic period, and is certainly documented
by the statue of an augur turning his head sharply to look up at the sky
dated circa 500 bce. he earliest representation of the act of haruspica-
tion in art may be dated around 450–400 bce, and the possible images
of the famous Etruscan prophets date between 350 and 300 bce. In fact,
there is a concentration of representations and realia (e.g., liver models,
71
De Grummond, Etruscan Myth, 213–35.
objects for drawing lots [sortes]) related to divination in the late period of
the third and second centuries bce. So it is probably fair to say that some
of these quintessential Etruscan religious practices already existed in the
Archaic period, but divination and prophecy attracted more attention in
later Etruscan times.
he temples themselves certainly show an evolution from early
hut-like structures to the grand structures of the sixth–fourth centuries
bce. It has been argued that there is little change in temple development
after that period, and that the impetus for monumentality and afflu-
ent display decreases.72 At the same time the cults of healing spread far
and wide, as indicated by the proliferation of anatomical votives. he
changed view of the Underworld as a frightening place populated by
demons is precisely contemporary with this phenomenon and also with
the popularity of divination. he alteration of mood and customs has
often been associated with the conquest of the Etruscan cities by Rome
that took place especially in the fourth and third centuries.73 hus con-
cerns about production, reproduction, and health and the perception of
the afterlife as grim were an extension of the prevailing view of daily life,
in which the individual had to cope with radical changes in society and
the economy.
he final phase of Etruscan religion relates to its transference to
Rome, as a subject of fascination to priests and antiquarians such as the
Romanized Etruscans Caecina and Nigidius Figulus and intellectuals such
as Cicero. Etruscan influences had been present since the Archaic period,
when Etruscan kings ruled Rome, but in the late Republic Etruscan reli-
gion became a subject for scholars, who recorded practices of the past in
the light of their own times. he absorption of Etruscan culture by the
Romans makes it difficult for scholars today to sort out what was long
established and what was truly Etruscan as opposed to adaptations made
in a Roman context. At any rate, haruspices were evidently fully integrated
into Roman state cultic practice, although carrying out rites that were
foreign in origin. hey continued to exert influence into Late Antiquity,
though periodic imperial edicts against their activity in the fourth century
ce show how they, along with other components of public cult, were no
longer authorized by the state.
72
Turfa, “Watershed,” esp. 62, 64.
73
For a concise review of the events of the crises and decline in Etruria in later centuries, see Haynes,
Etruscan Civilization, especially 261–4, 327–30. For the pessimistic atmosphere and change in the
concept of the afterlife, see de Grummond, Etruscan Myth, 9 and 212–28.
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13
ROMAN RELIGION THROUGH

THE EARLY REPUBLIC
jörg rüpke
If Greek culture is late compared to the city-states and empires of the

Ancient Near East, Roman culture is late and peripheral to Greek culture.
It entered the international stage by the very end of the sixth century bce,
but contemporary literary sources or reliable later accounts are not avail-
able before the second half of the third or fourth century bce. By this time,
the Romans and their allies’ armies started to build an empire that com-
prised the whole of the Mediterranean and much of its hinterland, that is,
the whole of western Europe including Britain and much of southeastern
Europe, including modern Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania, and
Asia Minor as far as Armenia by the beginning of the second century ce.
Rome defended a hostile borderline against the Sassanian Persian empire
and influenced political and cultural patterns throughout its realm with
lasting effects for two millennia. It is this later history that accounts for an
interest in Rome’s origins. But such an interest must be disappointed here.
Nothing supports the assumption that any of the religious elements from
the period before the fourth century bce should be part of a causal expla-
nation of the later expansion of the city-state into a world empire.
the site of rome and archaic religion

Most of the discussion of and evidence for archaic Roman religion of
necessity focuses on the city of Rome. Situated on or near a crossing of
the Tiber, a distance of some twenty-five kilometers from the open sea,
the Palatine Hill in Rome attracted settlements already as early as in the
Paleolithic Age.1 Any notion of continuity, however, could not be enter-
tained before the turn of the first millennium bce. Now, in the incipient
1
Anzidei and Gioia, “Rinvenimenti,” 29–32.
336
Roman Religion through the Early Republic 337
Map 9. Rome.
Iron Age, the ethnogenesis of the Latins, distinguished from the Osco-
Umbrians to the west and south and the Villanovan culture to the north,
led to a distinguishable culture.2 Given the small range of comparable evi-
dence, the hut-urns – small round urns with a roof and a little modeled
door – were the most important feature. Judging by later inscriptional
evidence, the Latin language, a variant of the older Italian branch of the
Indo-European dialect as were the Venetian and the Osco-Umbrian (or
“Sabellian”) dialects, was restricted to the small area between the Tiber in
the north and the Liris in the south.3 If continuous settlement in the area
of the later city of Rome started in the tenth century, one has to keep in
mind that the Tiber, even if a large river compared to other Italian streams,
was but one of the relatively short west-flowing rivers that structured the
western slopes of the central Italian Appenine chain (see Map 9; see also
Maps 7 and 8 in Chapter 12).
2
Smith, Early Rome and Latium, 24–43 for the Latins; for Italy in general, see Moscati, Così nacque
d’Italia; Pallottino, Dinamiche.
3
To the north, the Faliscan dialect should be added.
338 Jörg Rüpke
Fig. 25. Model of the city of Rome displayed in the Museo della Civiltà Romana
(Rome). It recalls the topographic characteristics of the City on the Seven Hills situ-
ated at the Tiber. he photo views the model from the north, as an observer from the
Quirinal would have seen the city. To the right, overlooking the river, the two summits
of the Capitoline Hill can be discerned, the rear one (Capitolium) dominated by the
late regal temple of Iuppiter Capitolinus. One can also see how the Palatine (cen-
ter) overlooks the Forum (left center), whose most imposing buildings are the early
republican temple of the Castores (Castor and Pollux) and, to the right of it, the tem-
ple of Saturn, situated directly below the slope of the Arx (the nearer summit of the
Capitoline). he Campus Martius to the right and the Isola Tiberina are outside the
urbanized region. Moving left along from the Tiber bridge (presumably representing
a wooden predecessor of the Pons Aemilius), one can pick out the valley of the Circus
immediately behind and below the Palatine; beyond it is the Aventine, as yet barely
inhabited. Photo by Ulrike Egelhaaf-Gaiser.
Of necessity, and for methodological reasons, this chapter restricts the

first part of this introductory account to what can be gathered about early
Rome and its religion from the archaeological evidence; this coincides with
the major architectural achievements in the city of Rome (see Fig. 25).
According to the archaeological finds from the end of the nineteenth
century ce, the topographical center of the city, what would later be
the Roman Forum, was still used as a cemetery down through the early
eighth century when, however, the settlements on the Palatine and on
the Quirinal were joined together. But urbanization proper begins at
Rome only at the beginning of the so-called late Orientalizing period
(ca.650/640 bce), indicated by three interconnected processes. he Roman

Forum was paved in tamped earth, even if some huts had to be removed
for this purpose; a stone pavement followed around 625. Second, by the
sixth century bce, the cloaca maxima, a monumental tunnel, was created
to drain the area. Already before and increasingly after this date, houses of
stone and tiled, not thatched, roofs, indicating the later atrium type with
a number of rooms around a courtyard, were built on the slopes of the
Palatine and on the Velia and occupied for many centuries.4 he Forum
was built up relatively quickly. An assembly area of circular shape, com-
parable to Greek places for political assemblies, was created, called the
Comitium.5 North of this, a building that can be interpreted as the first
curia, called “Hostilia” (Varro, ling. 5.155), identified as a roofed meeting
structure for the Senate, would have been part of this earliest monumen-
talization of the political center.
It is from this area, beginning around 580 bce, that we find several of
the earliest and most intriguing “religious” monuments (see Map 9). he
first stone-built shrine that was built in the Comitium dates to this period.
Here an inscribed five-sided block (cippus) has been found offering one
of the earliest Latin texts, a regulation pertaining to a king (recei [sacro-
rum?] ) (ILLRP 3). he foundation-deposit beneath this stone includes a
fragment of an Attic black-figure vase, dated to circa 575–550 bce, showing
Hephaestus, the Greek smith-god, riding a mule. his might point to the
identification of the structure as a shrine for the god Vulcan, a Volcanal, an
impressive indicator of the material and conceptual presence of Greek cul-
ture and religion in the very beginning of Roman religion. Another early
building marks the southern boundary of the Forum area; the name later
applied to this building, the Regia, “Royal Palace,” might point to the ear-
liest usage of this cult-center reserved to the rex sacrorum and the pontifex
maximus.6 Nearby, in the Forum, the (later) “House of the Vestals” (atrium
Vestae) was among the first stone buildings.
Around the same time, 580 bce, the earliest full-fledged podium temple
was built on the northern edge of the Forum Boarium or Cattle Market
near the banks of the Tiber and the pons sublicium (see Fig. 25, covered by
the Capitoline hill). his is identified as the nucleus of the later double
sanctuary of Fortuna and Mater Matuta (see Fig. 26). By the mid-sixth
century, this temple was decorated with terracottas of the Greek gods
4
Carandini, “Palatium e sacra via,” in Carandini, ed., Palatium e Sacra Via I, 31–33.
5
Kolb, Agora und heater ; Coarelli, Il Foro Romano I, 1–19.
6
Coarelli, Il Foro Romano I, 56–79.
340 Jörg Rüpke
Fig. 26. Terracotta figures of Herakles (Hercules) and Athena from the Temple of
Mater Matuta in the Forum Boarium; second half of the sixth century bce. Location:
Capitoline Museum, Rome. Photo by Jörg Rüpke.
Hercules and Minerva.7 Clearly, Greek influence in terms of the media

and narratives present at Rome is visible at a very early date.
he building of religious monuments in the city of Rome reached its
first climax with the construction of the temple on the Capitol (see Fig. 25).
Completed at the end of the sixth century, it had a base measuring 61 by
55 meters and must have been one of the largest temples of its time in the
7
Short critical account: Smith, Early Rome and Latium, 161–3.
entire Mediterranean area. Because of its size, visibility, and the choice of
deities, the sanctuary was indicative of the influence of the Greek culture
dominating the eastern Mediterranean, present also in Italy in places like
Gravisca or Pyrgi. he temple was dedicated to Jupiter Optimus Maximus
(Jove the Best and Greatest), Juno, and Minerva, and competed with the
largest Greek sanctuaries in places like Athens, Corinth, and Olympia to
the deities Athena, Hera, and Zeus, respectively. he investment in the
quality of the terracotta statuary (see Varro in Plin. NH 35.157) points to
the same Greek influence. One other indication of this emulation is the
temple of the Dioscuri, dedicated in the Forum at the beginning of the
fifth century. Although smaller than the Temple of Jupiter, this temple’s
foundations still reached a breadth of circa 29 and a depth of circa 39
meters.8 But a new wave of monumental additions to the city center had
to wait for the new political formation in Rome at the end of the fourth
century bce.
he extraordinary size of the city by the end of the sixth century bce,
forming a capital of perhaps thirty thousand inhabitants, presupposes eco-
nomic success and regional military expansion. he former is attested by
the traces of Etruscan and Greek presence in the Forum Boarium, men-
tioned above in connection with the terracotta decorations of the Temple
of the Mater Matuta and Fortuna (see Fig. 26). he latter is attested by the
text of a treaty, preserved by the Greek historian Polybius, who explains
the rise of Rome in his History composed in the middle of the second cen-
tury bce. he treaty was arranged between Rome, the regional power, and
the Carthaginians, at the end of the sixth century. he latter, descendants
of the Phoenicians, who had been sailing the Mediterranean Sea since
the late second millennium, not only dominated Sicily and the western
Mediterranean, but were extensively present along the coasts of central
Italy as well. he Punic and Etruscan texts on the gold tablets from Pyrgi
reveal that they maintained a cult of Astarte in that town, which is a mere
fifty kilometers from Rome.9
he broad outlines derived from the archaeological record are at odds
with the detailed image depicted by historians of the late second century
bce. Modern interpreters are justifiably skeptical concerning the reliabil-
ity of supposedly oral or written traditions that could have been attached
to and supported by institutional patterns, temples, laws, and genealogi-
cal narratives. Only a rough sketch of the relevant political institutional
8
Hesberg, Römsche Baukunst, 80–4.
9
Pyrgi (AA.VV.).
342 Jörg Rüpke
developments of the sixth to fourth centuries is possible here. he period

of kingship (partly of Etruscan origins) ended by circa 509 bce, and it was
replaced by a system of aristocratic government that allotted to assem-
blies of Roman citizens the right to choose between different candidates,
especially for the highest office of two annual consuls, and to give con-
sent to “laws.” Politically, a conflict between a “patrician” nobility (that
might have taken shape only in the transition from monarchy) and a new
“plebeian” elite led to specific institutions (tribunal of the people, binding
resolutions of the plebeian assemblies, etc.) and was much elaborated in
later narratives. A codification of laws (“Twelve Tables,” the text of which
was only stabilized by the commentators of the second century bce) by the
mid-fifth century, experiments in multiple rulership (consular tribunes),
and a full plebeian participation in the office of consuls from the mid-
fourth century onward, mark a process closed only around the turn of
the third century by laws on the opening of priesthoods (lex Ogulnia) and
the acceptance of the binding force of plebiscites (lex Hortensia; dated 287
bce). Regionally, the capture of the Etruscan town of Veii (a mere fifteen
kilometers from Rome) at the beginning of the fourth century and the
sack of Rome by the Gauls shortly afterward indicate military vicissitudes.
he decisive defeat of the Latin League in the “Latin Wars” of 340–338 bce
marks the beginning of Rome’s hegemony over central Italy, a dominance
that the Romans extended over the whole of Italy in the century to come.
interest in early roman religion

Interest in early Rome and its religion was old. Probably, the massive
changes of the third, and especially late third century, triggered such
an interest, which is visible in texts of Greek observers like Timaeus of
Tauromenion already by the start of the century. Romans developed aetio-
logical myths as well as narratives about formative norms and values that
took the form of “history.” he universalizing – temporally and geograph-
ically – grid of Greek and Hellenistic mythology and history was known,
but it was embraced as a framework for the Romans to locate themselves
in the Mediterranean only from the end of the third century bce onward.10
hese efforts occurred in the Greek form of “historiography,” making use
of Latin only from the second century bce on. he modern, and indeed
the Roman imperial, view of early Roman history, is dominated by writ-
ers from the end of the Republic (Cicero, Varro) and the Augustan age
10
Rüpke, “Kulturtransfer,” 42–64.
(Livy, Vergil, the Greek Dionysius of Halicarnassus), who engaged in

establishing a canonical version as well as in criticizing what they consid-
ered party narratives of Roman history. hese authors acknowledged that
the founding fathers, that is, the first kings of Rome (Romulus, Numa),
planted the seeds of civil war (the killing of Romulus’s brother Remus) at
the same time as they laid the groundwork for empire (through ecumeni-
cal recruitment and early expansion).
Given the enormous prominence of religion and the degree of its
change, interest in religion on the part of the authors named above is
understandable. Polybius, the Greek statesman and historian who tried to
explain the Roman dominance to his Greek contemporaries, had recently
witnessed the enormous expansion of Roman power in the Hellenistic East
during the first half of the second century bce. Beginning with his works,
Roman piety (which Polybius considered as superstition) was addressed as
a central factor for Rome’s military success. Because much of our knowl-
edge about earlier Roman religion rests on these texts – or, to put it in the
words of Christopher Smith, “the evidence we have for Roman religion is
often ancient interpretation”11 – it is important to grasp the concept of reli-
gion these authors entertained.
Republican and imperial writers, like Romans and Greeks in general,
did not have a coherent concept of “religion.” he existence of the gods
and their character, that is, their stance toward humans, was a matter of
philosophy, or “philosophy of religion” as we would say. If the existence of
the gods was taken for granted, “piety” (pietas) was a natural consequence
and resulted in what could be termed religio: a sense of obligation, the
concept that honors should be paid to an immortal god or gods (Cic. Nat.
deor. 1.3; 1.117; 3.5). hese honors would find the form of temples, rituals
(sacra), and specialists (sacerdotes), obliged to care for these places and ritu-
als. Cultus might occasionally be used as an umbrella term for all the above.
Hence, epiphanies (critically reviewed) and divination, the foundations of
temples, public rituals, and changes in the public priesthoods gained the
interest of writers who gave special emphasis to exceptional rites in times
of crisis; these gave them the opportunity to comment on participation
(and even individual ritual activities), an aspect invisible elsewhere.
Details of cult, theological speculation, routine rituals, or the daily
running of sanctuaries do not figure in the literary tradition. Conversely,
votive deposits or burial practices, so prominent in the archaeological rec-
ord, do not enter into the textual one. More is learned about the financing
11
Smith, “Worshipping Mater Matuta,” 136.
344 Jörg Rüpke
of cults than about the reflections on divinity, more about institutional-

ized than embedded or diffused religion. Usually, it is on the building or
restoration of temples that archaeological records and literary references
concur – inviting quick identifications. To give just one example, the loca-
tion and description of the pair of temples of Mater Matuta and Fortuna
in Livy 33.27.4 (in foro Boario) have led to the identification of the archaic
double temple in the area of San Omobono,12 now considered as one of the
most important archaic sanctuaries.
For the modern interpreter, the evidence suggests a concept of religion
that is not too far removed from the concept underlying this evidence. A
relational definition of “religion,” tying its usage to cultural practices and
signs that refer to “gods,” itself a class of religious signs (names, images),
seems most fruitful. “Religion” as used here refers to an ensemble of prac-
tices, institutions, habits, and beliefs, even if incoherent at times. It is the
place of religious communication within the spectrum of social interac-
tions and institutions that form a society that I will be attempting to bring
into relief for purposes of cross-cultural comparison. Before I start to sug-
gest new perspectives to study archaic Roman religion, I will briefly review
earlier approaches. To orient the reader and researcher it is helpful to take
a look at the most important etic models applied by people to those who
were not members of the culture in question.
interpretive models and approaches

Due to the successful application of comparison in nineteenth-century
linguistics and its reconstruction of a genealogical tree of Indo-European
languages, Roman religion has been seen as a variant of an original
Indo-European religion and compared to other such traditions, from Celtic
myths to Vedic rituals. Drawing on the addressees of a highly prestigious
and probably archaic group of three “major flamens” (flamines maiores were
the priests of Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus), Georg Wissowa, in his still fun-
damental handbook, had identified a triadic structure of deities that seem
to antedate the Capitoline triad mentioned above.13 Contested by some
as an irrelevant and late grouping, the French scholar Georges Dumézil
nonetheless saw the earlier triad as modeled on an Indo-European system
of social ordering, including the three functions of priest/king, warrior,
and agriculture, corresponding to the major orders of the Hindu caste
12
See Ziolkowski, Temples of Mid-Republican Rome, 105.
13
Wissowa, Religion und Kultus, 23.
system. his “trifunctionalism” instigated attempts to detect other com-

mon inheritances, such as the connection of Latin flamen with Sanskrit
Brahman or ritus with ŗta. For Dumézil, it served as a hermeneutical key
for many a Roman narrative and his reconstruction of archaic Roman
religion.14 Dumézil’s system, not his often astute observations, has been
severely (and rightly) criticized.15
On balance, one cannot deny the Indo-European roots of certain terms,
names, and even constellations of deities. But, for the reconstruction of
complex rituals and their conceptualization by the Romans, the compari-
son with Vedic terms and rituals has not proven heuristically fruitful. he
same holds true for other less far-fetched etymological approaches to reli-
gious institutions. Typically, phonetics, the sound of words, proved more
stable than semantics, meanings, and pragmatics, that is, the institutional
contexts of the usage, of words, thus rendering etymological approaches
futile.
Primitivism is another approach (rather than model) toward archaic
(and, indeed, later) Roman religion. It comes in two forms. One, inspired
by evolutionary theories of religion, applies supposedly primitive con-
cepts. Aniconic forms of worship are a favorite one (conforming to ancient
notions about the purity of a religion without images). Without doubt,
the production of statuary had a history in Italy, detectable in both votive
deposits and ancient historical accounts. Without doubt, Greek statuary
(that itself could draw on Near Eastern models) was highly attractive and –
first in terracotta, then in bronze – sought after or copied from the sixth
century onward. Yet, aniconic worship existed side by side with iconic ones
in many Mediterranean societies and did not betray a historical stratifica-
tion. Compared to Greek narratives and genealogies, Roman gods occa-
sionally appear to be lacking in personality, family, and adventures. his
is, however, no sufficient reason to postulate pre-personal conceptions of
deity, where metaphorical usage could explain certain materials in ritual
sequences. A stone need not be a Iuppiter Lapis (“Jupiter the Stone”).16 In
the 1940s, Hendrik Wagenvoort’s “dynamism” – the title of his book pub-
lished in 1947 that concerned itself with impersonal conceptions of divine
power – was one of the last exponents of a whole generation of scholars,
whose interpretations linger on in isolated forms and beyond the validity
14
Dumézil, Jupiter, Mars, Quirinus 1–2; idem. Archaic Roman Religion.
15
For criticism, see Momigliano, “Premesse,” 245–61, and “Georges Dumézil,” 135–59; Belier, Decayed
Gods.
16
Shown by Rüpke, Domi militiae, 112–14.
346 Jörg Rüpke
of, again, many new observations, such as the lack of addressees of gods in
fetial rites.17
Primitivism occurs in another form, less easily associated with this
term. Here Roman society is modeled on contemporary face-to-face soci-
eties known in detail by the classics of twentieth-century anthropologists.
It is seen as constituted by age groups, all individuals of which are sub-
jected to initiation rituals, as a community whose economic and social
activities are dictated by a common and detailed calendar.18 Again, this
is not to deny the notion of “initiation” altogether, but its application is
in analogy, only, if applied to (self-appointed or aristocratically defined)
representatives of an age group in a city of some twenty or forty thou-
sand inhabitants. An important variant of this approach could be termed
a household approach toward state religion. he Roman polity is inter-
preted as the king’s household writ large. As a family’s cult is focused on
the hearth (among other things), the king’s daughters (i.e., the priesthood
of the Vestal virgins) care for the city’s hearth (i.e., the fire in the “House
of Vesta,” aedes Vestae).19 Ritual tasks, which might have been the duty
of the king (evidence is lacking), were performed by the supreme pontiff
(pontifex maximus) and the “King of the sacrifices” (rex sacrorum). No
conclusion has been reached so far, as to whether the rex sacrorum was
heir to the sacral duties of the king,20 later to be overshadowed by the
pontifex maximus, or whether a rex sacrorum existed already in regal times
to (at least partly) fulfill the religious duties of the king, whose legal com-
petences later fell to the pontiffs (who might have antedated the Republic,
too). he Romans’ own view (the emic perspective) clearly followed the
first route, regarding the “sacrificial king” as a successor to the king proper
(Livy 2.2.1; Dion. Hal. 4.74.4).
Emic models for Roman religion abound, fueled by a comparative inter-
est as well. “What are Romans that the others are not?” and “Why are the
Romans as Greek as the Greeks?” were the main questions to be answered
by late Republican or early imperial writers. he direct or indirect address-
ees could vary. he questions could even take the form “Why are some
Romans superior (or: equal) to others?” For reasons that might relate to
Rome’s small hinterland and the dramatic process of Romanization in the
17
Wagenvoort, Roman Dynamism; many studies by H. J. Rose; even in Robert Muth, “Vom Wesen
römischer ‘religio,’” ANRW II.16,1 (1978), 290–354.
18
E.g., Ulf, Das römischer Lupercalienfest ; Torelli, Lavinio e Roma.
19
For criticism see Beard et al., Religions of Rome, 52; for an alternative model, see Wildfang, Vestal
Virgins.
20
hus Wissowa, Religion und Kultus, 504–5 with the ancient evidence. For criticism and the alterna-
tive model, see Beard et al., Religions of Rome, 54–8.
wake of the “Civil War” with its own Italian allies (91–89 bce),21 Roman
authors of the first century bce were fond of narrating Rome’s early history
and its religion as a process of accretion from other middle-Italian cul-
tures, Etruscan, Sabine, Oscan. he rape of the Sabine women, abducted
in order to supply the male founders with the possibility of procreation,
is the most drastic example of this type of story, as is the association of a
central Roman god, Quirinus, with the Sabine municipality of Curiae.22
he stories of synoicisms and immigrating groups need not be taken at
face value. hey demonstrate that political and military hegemony could
be balanced in the cultural and religious realm and offer models for the
integration of an empire. At the same time they point to historical adap-
tations and common features among the peoples of central Italy, as will
be shown below. hey need not, however, be read as direct evidence of
Roman religiosity.
Not surprisingly, Greek attempts to integrate the ascending city of Rome
into their mythological network were not easily readily received either. he
ancestry from Troy, advocated already by the Greek historian Timaios of
Sicilian Tauromenion at the beginning of the third century bce, was not
enthusiastically embraced before the first century bce. hen, however, the
story of the fugitive Trojan prince Aeneas moved into the heart of Roman
self-conceptualization. Given the massive impact of Greek culture in all
areas connected with writing, Roman authors tend to minimize this factor
and stress the differences despite common ancestry. Rome’s massive share
in Greek culture and religion (directly received from “Greater Greece,”
Greek settlements in southern Italy or Sicily, or indirectly via Etruscans
or Campanians) is not adequately represented in the literary tradition.
Archaeology demonstrates the Greek presence in the temples of the sixth
century (as shown above) or, for example, the presence of Dionysian imag-
ery in fourth- and third-century Rome.23
Emic (and following etic) perspectives on religious competences are
informed by gender and social order. herefore, the Romans’ histori-
cal image of female religious competence was distorted. he major roles
enjoyed by Roman women, matrons in particular, in the late Republic,24
were not systematically retrojected into the earlier period. Female religious
activities were thought to be concentrated on the Vestals. It was the con-
trast between patricians and plebeians that dominated the reconstruction
21
Mouritsen, Italian Unification.
22
For the latter, see Smith, Early Rome and Latium, 201.
23
Wiseman, “Liber”; earlier Altheim, Griechische Götter.
24
Schultz, Women’s Religious Activity ; Šterbenc-Erker, Religiöse Rollen.
348 Jörg Rüpke
of early Roman religion (Livy 6.41). he right to divination in the form

of auspices (observing of birds, lightning, and more) as well as to mem-
bership in the priestly colleges and their communicating with the gods
lay exclusively with the patricians. It must be stressed that the Ogulnian
Law of 300 bce that opened up religious offices to non-patricians did not
diminish the number of patrician priests, but simply added plebeian pon-
tiffs and augurs.25
archaic roman religion in a regional perspective

he teleological perspective displayed by Roman (and modern) authors
tends to identify uniqueness in Roman religion as well as in the acquisi-
tion of an empire. his is perhaps unavoidable, given the exceptional (if
late) evidence for this city. By the end of the third century, Romanization
(in a vague socio-political as well as cultural sense) appears as an irresist-
ible force. Yet inscriptional evidence tells us not only about the flower-
ing of other Italian languages by the first century bce, but of complex
and diverging ritual systems. he Roman solar calendar, in use at Rome
since the late fourth century, was neither used by neighboring Latin town-
ships nor by the Etruscan sacrificial calendar of the liber linteus (“Agramer
Mumienbinden”).26 By the end of the second century bce, Latin cities like
Praeneste or Tibur could still engage in architectural rivalry with Roman
temple sites. Some decades later, the allies of the Marsian war imagined
an Italian future without Roman hegemony. he fact that the direction
of cultural transfer is often far from clear could be taken as an indicator
of a region characterized by intense cultural exchange. In the following
paragraphs some ritual and organizational features of early Roman religion
are reviewed within their regional context with the aim of recovering this
interchange between Roman and Italic religions analyzed within a com-
municative model of religion.
Burial
Burial is an archaeologically well-documented complex ritual and mecha-
nism to preserve material culture for later inquiry. Its religious importance
(in the substantialist sense as defined above) is more difficult to assess.
25
Rüpke, Fasti sacerdotum, 1621–3.
26
Rüpke, Zeit und Fest, 45–9; for the dating of the Roman calendar; see Rüpke, Kalender und
Öff entlichkeit, 170–2, for diverging Italian calendars.
Although rituals addressed to deities might accompany burials, there is

hardly any evidence to support the view that burial was considered part
of Roman religious practice; this contrasts to its role in a number of
contemporary religions and a topos of religious ethnography, a view in
large part due to its religious significance in (early) modern Christianity.
Archaeologically speaking, burial is often taken as providing evidence for
individual religious affiliation, but this is probably not an important factor
in comparison to larger group or local traditions. For instance, at Rome,
inhumation and cremation coexisted for centuries, preferences changing
again and again without any accompanying evidence indicating religious
changes. he concept of the Di Manes, the “good gods,” that embody
the dead, did not appear regularly on tombstones before imperial times.
he collective plural seems to accompany tendencies of individualization,
the stress on the divine status of the dead seemingly implied in the word-
ing was not as strongly felt as to hinder Christians to employ the formula.
Yet, for the badly attested society that forms the object of this chapter, such
burial practices provide some sorts of evidence for questions of cultural
exchange.
Most significant is the change in burial practice throughout Latium
and Etruria during the sixth and fifth centuries bce as it points to a shift
in the social outlook of elites. he Orientalizing period (ca.730–630 bce)
had produced numerous luxury tombs, princely burials with highly valu-
able and prestigious objects in sites around Rome (Praeneste, Ficana,
Castel di Decima), although (so far) not in Rome itself.27 Social power
had offered the possibility of acquiring wealth and long-distance contacts;
such contacts and goods served to further prestige. he following period,
characterized at Rome by urbanization and monumentalization (processes,
however, that happened earlier in some Etruscan places), witnessed a sub-
stantial decline in number and quality of grave goods. Probably, funerary
expenditure during this period was lavished on “prospective” public dis-
play, that is, on aristocratic competition in the form of banquets and enter-
tainments or the building of palace-like houses in stone-masonry, rather
than on “retrospective” treasure assigned privately to the dead.28 In the
long run this would help to create urban centers and public space, and to
invest in the latter. here is no indication that such a decline was due to
changing conceptions of the fate of the dead.
27
Cornell, he Beginnings of Rome, 81–92; in greater detail: Meyer, Pre-Republican Rome.
28
Cornell, he Beginnings of Rome, 105–8.
350 Jörg Rüpke
Sanctuaries
Cult sites have already been mentioned for the city of Rome. A sanctuary
need not contain a temple building. Open spaces could focus on an altar
that need not be constructed in stone. A number of votive deposits indicate
such places. Such a pit – directly used to deposit votive offerings or occa-
sionally filled when a larger number of offerings had to be removed from
the premises29 – allows archaeological identification of a sanctuary. In the
city of Rome, such deposits preceded the oldest temple at San Omobono
in the Cattle Market.30 Such deposits were widespread in Italy and beyond,
and also frequent in Rome and its surrounding territory. Characteristic
of Rome and Latium are human (often female) terracotta statuettes (and
sometimes statues approaching life size as in Lavinium from the early fifth
century onward), heads and busts from the sixth century onward, and ana-
tomical votives from the fourth century onward. Even if reinforced by ana-
tomical votives associated with the Greek cult of Asklepios, the frequency
of such representations of parts of the body remained characteristic down
to the first century bce.31
he building of temples from the second half of the sixth century bce
onward was shared by Rome and other Etruscan places. A high podium
gave access on one side only, the other sides having neither steps nor wall
openings. his foundation was completed by a building dominated by
wooden columns and roof constructions decorated with colorful terracotta
reliefs. Such a construction clearly marked boundaries of everyday life and
marked off sacred space.32 Yet its usage was not restricted to the housing of
a cult statue (besides the statues decorating the tympanon and the roof ).
A threefold cella at the back of the building offered at least two rooms for
different types of activities (and does not indicate the veneration of a triad
of deities); the rooms of the high podium could likewise be put to different
uses. Storage and shop functions of the basement would be completed by
storage functions, political assemblies, and banquets and ritual activities
above – as architectural forms and later practice suggest.33 “Religion,” here,
offered a defined and public space for different forms of communication.
29
See Glinister, “Reconsidering ‘Religious Romanization,’” 11.
30
Smith, Early Rome and Latium, 159–60.
31
Baggieri, Speranza; de Cazanove, “Some houghts,” 71–6; Simon et al., “Weihgeschenke,” 332–40,
359–68; Schultz, Women’s Religious Activity, 95–120. For cult places, see Edlund, he Gods and the
Place.
32
Izzet, “Tuscan Order,” 34–53.
33
Hesberg, Römische Baukunst, 84–6.
Our knowledge about cult-places and temples at Rome is limited;

chance finds supplement a literary tradition that might be reliable in the
sanctuaries named but is hardly complete. Urban (not necessarily public)
sanctuaries of the period down to the Latin Wars ending in 340/338 bce
include Jupiter Optimus Maximus (with Juno and Minerva) and Jupiter
Feretrius; Juno Moneta on the Capitol Hill (resp. in the Arx), Vulcan,
Vesta, Saturn, and Castor in the Roman Forum; the Lupercal and altars for
the Carmentae on the slopes of the Palatine; Fortuna and Mater Matuta
in the Forum Boarium (San Omobono), the altar to Hercules nearby;
Mercury, Consus (altar), and the “plebeian triad” Ceres, Liber, Libera in or
above the circus valley; Diana, Minerva, and Juno Regina on the Aventine;
Quirinus, Dius Fidius (Semo Sancus), and unidentified votive deposits at
Sta Maria della Vittoria and S Vitale on the Quirinal; Juno Lucina (first a
lucus) and Minerva Medica on the Esquiline Hill, and again a cult-place
characterized by a votive-deposit close to the later Colosseum.34 Mars had
an altar in the Campus Martius and later a temple directly outside the
Porta Capena (388 bce), Fors Fortuna in Trastevere.
When in the century following the Latin Wars nearly fifty new temples
were founded,35 the difference in the religious and social implications of the
act of temple-building and the communicative functions of these temples
is obvious. Individuals, mostly victorious generals, were able to implement
their own choice of cult into public religion. he resulting list comprises
a heterogeneous ensemble with regard to gods and venerators addressed.
Cult-places dominated by votive-deposits and healing cults (Carmentae,
Minerva Medica) mix with cults organized on the principle of exclusion of
the other sex (Mater Matuta, Vesta, Hercules) or for special groups (ple-
beians, Vesta, Fors Fortuna?). Special spatial arrangements, a grotto (?) at
the Lupercal, a well (?) for Anna Perenna36 and the Carmentae, do with-
out temple buildings. Some cults clearly reflect import (the Capitoline
triad, Vulcan, Castor, Fortuna, Hercules, Diana, Juno Regina). Such deci-
sions need not be due to immigrant groups, but might reflect decisions
of the political elite. “Greek” cults and prominent cults of neighboring
towns dominate in this group. Apart from a dominant strand of caring
for personal needs, such religious practices reflect an elite’s trans-local
34
I follow Ziolkowski, he Temples of Mid-Republican Rome, in referring to the temples (and attested
cult-places) of the Penates and Vica Pota on the Velia to the third century bce. Dating the shrine
of Minerva Medica before the late fourth century is not certain, nor is it certain for that of the
Carmentae.
35
Ziolkowski, he Temples, 187–9.
36
he early identification (Piranomonte, Il santuario) is not tenable.
352 Jörg Rüpke
communication: Imported statues of gods or ritual practices into Rome

signaled acknowledgement of equality toward the regions of origin.
Ritual
Communication is not restricted to contacts between humans. Ritual
communication between humans and deities that are not as present, visi-
ble, and touchable as human participants in face-to-face communication
needs reinforcements to ensure a successful transmission of messages and
to make a positive outcome of the communicative effort more probable.
Hence the communicative model is fruitful for analyzing forms of repre-
sentation of the divine.
Archaeological finds and later literary description suggest that rituals at
Rome share the spectrum of ritual forms present in Mediterranean socie-
ties: vegetable and animal sacrifice, libations, votives (with the many varia-
tions according to material resources), economy, diets, and artisanship. As
mentioned before, representation of the human supplicant was important.
We do not know to what degree mass production was individualized by the
addition of painting. Differentiation was made in terms of sex and (at least
roughly) life-phase (infant, youth, adult). Using a model of communica-
tion, one may tend to interpret this primarily in terms of the perpetuation
of communication: he temporary, difficult, and uncertain communica-
tion with the divine is made to transgress the limit of the time (defined
by the visiting of a shrine) by permanently representing the human actor
in a place closer or more visible to the deity. he subterranean deposit of
the votives might be made directly into a trench or pit. However, archaeo-
logically identified deposits might be of secondary origin, too – the results
of a periodical removal of votives from visible spaces, thus leading to new
ensembles in the deposit space.37 he many findings in the Tiber close to
the sanctuary of Asklepios probably originated from such cleanings.
Apart from the representation of a deity’s presence and power, the stat-
uary representation of the deity is another (and not mutually exclusive)
strategy to improve ritual communication. Such a strategy – not supplant-
ing, but supplementing the representation of the humans – was present
at Rome at least from the late sixth century bce onward. Life-sized or
nearly life-sized painted terracotta statues dominated the period analyzed
here (e.g., Dion. Hal. 1.68.2) and were more and more rivaled by metal
and marble statues later on. Occasionally wooden statues are found. Such
37
See Bouma, Religio votiva , for examples.
permanent epiphanies38 tended to be housed in temple buildings, marking

their presence (see above) as well as restricting access. Precise identifica-
tion by attributes and imagery from narratives on the architecture poses
the problem of trans-local identity and encourages narratives of transfer
or spontaneous movement. At least potentially, the users and spectators
are engaged with such rivalries and trans-local relationships. Of course,
the same holds true – in an even more emphatic sense – for the producers,
the initiator and the actual builders, in a number of cases probably drawn
from other towns. Yet for literary texts as for temples, reconstruction of
potential “meanings” cannot be restricted to the moment of creation, but
has to cover the long period of usage (and maybe different usages, too).39
In the case of early Rome, references would have included Greek and
Carthaginian/Punic culture as well as Etruscan and Latin culture and local-
ities. In many a Latin town, as mentioned before on the so-called princely
tombs, artistic techniques were at least as developed as in Rome. Apart
from the terracotta fragments from the San Omobono finds, the terracotta
acroterion statue of Apollo from the Portonaccio temple at Veii, figures
from the larger temple of Pyrgi (both in the Museum of the Villa Giulia,
Rome), or the statue of Juno Sospita from Lanuvium give an impression of
what the statues in the Capitoline temple might have looked like.
Without a reliable textual tradition – the nonfictitious sources of the late
Republican and Augustan authors that are the basis for our reconstruction
hardly antedate the second or third centuries bce – ritual action is even
more difficult to reconstruct than its material ingredients. First-century
narratives about the institution of cults by Romulus and Numa are as unre-
liable as twentieth-century projections of the calendar (fasti) into the regal
period. In fact, the list of festivals was codified in the late fourth-century-bce
calendar and is known from first-century copies.40
Evidence from Etruscan tombs, for instance, the Tomba delle Bighe
at Tarquinia or the Tomba della Scimmia at Chiusi, suggests the exis-
tence of athletic competitions and processional rites in (at least some)
Etruscan towns from the sixth or even seventh centuries bce onward.41
Reliefs and vase paintings from the sixth and fifth centuries, for example,
an amphora from Ponte di Micali, dated 520–510 bce,42 confirm games
that include different types of competitions and, by the end of the sixth
38
Gladigow, Religionswissenschaft, 62–84.
39
Cf. Smith, “Worshipping Mater Matuta,” 142 and 152.
40
Rüpke, Kalender und Öff entlichkeit, 261–6.
41
Bernstein, Ludi publici, 25–30.
42
Bruni, “Le processioni,” no. 29; photo: hesCRA 2, tab. 93, no. 15.
354 Jörg Rüpke
century, processions. hus, the later Roman narratives about the intro-
duction of circus games by the Tarquins (Livy 1.35.7–9), that is, Etruscan
kings of Rome, and scenic games in the middle of the fourth century bce
from Etruria (Livy 7.2.1–12) seem to offer a convincing reconstruction of
these rituals.43 he Greek Dionysius of Halicarnassus’s image of the insti-
tution of a circus procession at Rome in the beginning of the fifth cen-
tury agrees (7.72–3). And it is of some interest that the neighboring town
of Veii is credited for comparable competitions in the sixth century bce
(Plin. NH 8.65; Fest. p. 340–2 L). Yet, there can be no doubt about the
“international” character of such games, mirroring the Greek institution
and involving members of middle Italian elites. It should be added that
gladiatorial games, probably known in Etruria for centuries, were attested
for Roman funeral cult practices only in 264 bce (Val. Max. 2.4.7). If such
practices were a necessary ritual element of Etruscan burials of nobles, at
Rome they are discussed only for their demonstration of the economic
status of the dead (and his heirs). Ritual semantics might shift due to
cultural transfer.
Religious Specialists
Roman tradition attributed the institutionalization of several priesthoods
to the first kings. here is no reliable evidence for Roman priests before the
fifth and especially the fourth centuries bce.44 Here Italian evidence is not
helpful, either. Evidence for the divinatory specialists called haruspices in
Latin sources and netśvis in Etruscan texts (Rix, ET Um 1.7; Cl 1.1036) does
not antedate the fifth century, neither does the evidence for the priestly
role of cipen or cepen, assumed by magistrates.45 Priesthoods from Italian
townships, offering striking similarities to Roman institutions, belong to
late Republican and imperial times; they might have been the result of
early exchange processes, in which Rome could have been giving as well as
receiving. he evidence, however, does not offer any clues to the chronol-
ogy of such exchanges. Since a differentiated Roman priesthood of the late
Republic need not be postulated for Archaic Rome, the question of how
to imagine priests in the regal period could be broken down to a limited
set of problems.
43
Bernstein, “Complex Rituals,” 222–34.
44
Rüpke, Fasti sacerdotum, 24–38.
45
Estienne, “Personnel de culte,” 67.
Specialists for divination (“seers” with a number of different techniques)

are attested in numerous Mediterranean societies; Latin literary tradition
develops the figure of the charismatic seer, such as the augur Attus Navius,46
in opposition to such figures as the mythical king Numa. Such specialists
were at times attacked (see, for example, the Marcius or Marcii of the third
century) or derided (the harioli, “charlatans” of the first century bce), but
they probably existed throughout Roman history. he high prestige of the
college of the augurs in the early Republic marks an institutionalization
of some of them during the regal period and their ascent to positions that
made their belonging to the “patricians” by the end of the monarchy prob-
able, as the right to the auspices seems to have been a kernel of patrician
self-definition.47
he existence of an unknown number of religious specialists (not nec-
essarily all male) caring for individual cults (and probably cult-places)
can be reasonably assumed; their name flamen points to a much older
institutional pattern, as shown above. In contrast to the augurs or pon-
tiffs, flamines tended to be appointed at a very young age, if third- and
second-century-bce evidence can be trusted. Groups of aristocratic youths
(that is, an elite close to the king) might hold the duty to care for some
very important cults. he Vestal Virgins would fit into such a pattern, as
would the Salii and the badly attested Salian virgins in the cults of Vesta
and Mars (Fest. 439.18–22 L). If the invitation to banqueting, as offered
by the Salian priests,48 is given to an organized “public” group, that might
well have been related to “the disappearance at the end of the sixth cen-
tury of terracotta friezes depicting banqueting scenes” that has been sug-
gested to reflect “the disappearance of the private banquet as well, as part
of the realignment of social affairs consequent on the fall of the last king.”49
Associations caring for other cults probably sprang up and died; we have
no idea of the origins of such religious groups as the Mercuriales, the Arval
brethren or the sodales Titii.50 It cannot be ruled out that the latter went
back to the regal period, as was thought in Augustan times (Tac. Ann. 1.54;
Hist. 2.95). Some of these groups probably came to be regarded as “pub-
lic priests” (sacerdotes publici) by the late Republic. Before the Augustan
revival, most of these were socially and politically without importance.
46
Beard et al., Religions of Rome, 23–4.
47
Smith, Early Rome and Latium, 263–8; his projection of the later priestly system into the regal
period (260–2) is problematic.
48
Rüpke, “Collegia sacerdotum,” 41–67.
49
Smith, Early Rome and Latium, 316, referring to Zaccaria Ruggiu, More regio vivere, 361–401.
50
Varro, De lingua latina 5.85. See Rüpke, Fasti sacerdotum, for prosopographical details.
356 Jörg Rüpke
Salii and Vestales, more prominent in our record, were out of the political
realm proper by reasons of sex or age.
Much prestige was given to the Roman pontiffs, for whom we have
evidence of interaction between different priesthoods. his includes not
only appointing or punishing flamines or Vestals by the supreme pon-
tiff, but also ritual interactions with the Salii (Fast. Praen.) and with the
Luperci (Ov. Fast. 2.21–2). here were many occasions where they acted
together with flamines or Vestals.51 he pontiffs, represented by the pon-
tifex maximus,52 presided over an ancient assembly of the curiae (comitia
calata) that was charged with the continuation of families and their cults
(Cic. Leg. 2.48). In his important role as regulator of the calendar, the rex
sacrorum is paired with a “minor” pontiff on the Kalends, the first of each
month (Macr. Sat. 1.15.9–12) or with the pontiffs on the Tubilustrium, a
March festival to Mars.53 he pontiffs as a prominent public priesthood
were the result of a conscious effort at religious centralization, based on
the presupposition of the existence of the comitia centuriata (in order to
free the comitia [curiata] calata for their presidency) and of a rex sacro-
rum, which could have been a position already during the late monarchy.
Attributing centralization to a major restructuring of society as might be
supposed for the termination of the monarchy seems the easiest hypoth-
esis.54 If there had been people called “pontiffs” before, there is no need
to believe that their role had been comparable. It should be stressed that
all the other colleges were modeled on the form of the pontifical college;
the augural college (with its eldest member serving as augur maximus but
without specific authority) was far less important compared to the indi-
vidual augur’s power.55
Calendar
Calendars provide an apt conclusion to a regional consideration of Roman
religion. hey can shed light on economic, political, and ritual activities
in specific areas. Here the Etruscan Tabula Capuana from the beginning
of the fifth century bce, a text of some four thousand letters, offers com-
parative material.56 his fragmentary list of rituals, summarily described,
51
Wissowa, Religion und Kultus, 516–8.
52
Ibid., 509, points to the easy substitution of the pontifex maximus by his colleagues.
53
Aul. Gell., Noct. att. 15.27.1–3; Rüpke, Kalender und Öff entlichkeit, 214–21.
54
he latter is stressed by Smith, Early Rome and Latium, 307. Linke, Von der Verwandtschaft, 149–51,
too, relates this process to the (early) Republic.
55
See Linderski, “Augural Law,” 2146–2312, for individual and collective duties and powers.
56
Cristofani, Tabula Capuana; Woudhuizen, Etruscan Liturgical Calendar ; Rüpke, “Review,
Cristofani, Tabula Capuana ,” 272–4.
corroborates the Roman antiquarian claim that the structuring of the

months by the Ides was Etruscan; it shows a system of week-like periods
(although not necessarily of constant length) from full moon to full moon:
iśveita – celuta – tiniana – aperta (institutionally corresponding to Latin
Idus – Tubilustrium – Kalendae – Nonae). At Rome, these days concentrate
routine cultic activities of the rex and regina sacrorum, the Flamen Dialis
(priest of Jupiter), the pontiffs and Tubicines (trumpeters), engaging in
rituals addressed to Jupiter, Juno, and the moon, and monthly adapting
this civic rhythm to the lunar cycles, as is typical for a lunar calendar. It was
only with the reforms of Appius Claudius Caecus and Gnaeus Flavius in
the final years of the fourth century bce that calendar months were of fixed
length and no longer correspond to the lunar phases, resulting in a pure
solar calendar that is the basis of today’s Julio-Gregorian calendar.57
republican political developments and roman religion

he early Republic was characterized by internal social and political con-
flicts. Later Roman tradition shaped the complexity of the processes into
the dichotomy of patricians and plebeians, thus summarizing processes
that comprised the institutionalization and codification (the “Twelve
Tables,” ca.450 bce), of growing social distinction, and the establishment
of the gentes as structures to ensure inheritance within long-lived social
institutions larger than families, and as structures to distribute political
and priestly positions more evenly, thus reducing strife and frustration.58
By the second half of the fourth century, a unified elite had evolved that
did not remove the distinction of patricians and plebeians, but gave equal
access to offices. he passing of the lex Ogulnia in the year 300 bce opened
even the priestly colleges of the augurs and pontiffs to plebeians. Under the
pressure of a citizenship that was necessary for successful warfare and had
powers of decisions in popular assemblies, an ethos had been developed
that oriented the drive for distinction toward “publicly” useful activities
and thus opened the way toward external military success.59
Social developments would have affected public ritual, too.
Hypothetically, an important change in the Roman ludi (“games”) could
thus be explained. If aristocratic competition was restricted to publicly
57
Rüpke, Kalender und Öff entlichkeit ; the codification is redated from the period of the decemviri
(“ten men”), i.e., mid-fifth century bce, to the end of the fourth century in Rüpke, Zeit und Fest.
On Claudius see Humm, Appius Claudius Caecus.
58
Smith, Early Rome and Latium; for the sources of the “conflict of orders,” see Eder, Staat und
Staatlichkeit, 92–217.
59
Hölkeskamp, Die Entstehung ; Rüpke, Domi militiae.
358 Jörg Rüpke
useful fields as warfare, the fight for distinction by athletic victories might
have been scorned. First, the organization was monopolized by patrician
priests, organizing chariot races in March (Equirria), August (Consualia),
or October (Equus October, “October horse”), the outcome of which did
not earn prestige to the winners. he “Roman” and the “Plebeian Games”
in September and November, respectively, were probably exempted, as were
games organized by returning victors. Second, participation shifted from
aristocratic youths to professional or local amusement (ludi Capitolini in
October). Only later did the organization of the games come to be con-
nected with different stages of the magistrates’ careers and developed into a
field of rivalry and distinction in itself. Games came to be concentrated at
Rome, offering financial opportunities for foreign professionals and spec-
tators from the large hinterland of Rome,60 but restricting the field of elite
competition to the splendors of organization.
he situation should not be regarded as stable, but as an ever-shifting
equilibrium. If prestigious display and consumption in the form of grave
goods had been widely eliminated by the fifth century, gentilician and
family power had been publicly stressed by the building of monumen-
tal houses from the same time onward. By the end of the fourth century,
temple-building by victorious generals turned into a highly competitive
field, even if many of them opted for the prestigious consumption in the
form of victory games (ludi votivi).61 Such activities – and probably likewise
the return of a victor into a city and his attempts at the display of statues
of himself62 – were subjected to public control by ritualization and sena-
torial decisions. In the face of military expansion and direct contact with
the cultural and political sophistication of the Hellenistic world, Romans
continued to reshape and expand their religion for centuries to come.63
Could findings at Rome be generalized for a comparative study of
ancient Mediterranean religions? A few remarks might be in order. First,
no religious traditions developed isolated from one another. Long-distance
contacts are proven already for the prehistoric periods; Phoenician and
Greek and Babylonian and Hittite expansion as well as Egyptian cul-
tural export established routes that provided easy traveling for technical
experts, warriors, and elite members interested in luxury goods and alli-
ances. Religion could be part and parcel of such transferences of media,
60
See Cancik, “Auswärtige Teihlnehmer.”
61
Orlin, Temples, Religion, and Politics ; Ziolkowski, he Temples.
62
his hypothesis is argued in Rüpke, Zeit und Fest.
63
See Rüpke, Religions of the Romans, 24–38, 54–61.
political institutions, and concepts. hus “Greek” images and architecture

are among the earliest traces of “Roman” religion and continue to influence
local practices down to late Antiquity and Greek-speaking Christianity.
Second, even archaic religion was a complex religion. Religious practices
reflected interests and potentials of different social groups, even individu-
als. For a city of some ten thousand inhabitants, the resulting topography
of temples, cults, and practitioners was far from conceptually unified. As a
result, any attempts to parallel social and religious elements must be partial
and demand careful handling.
Finally, “religion” was no clearly separated and unified realm in archaic
and early Republican Rome. To analyze “religion” necessitates a clear
explanation of the researcher’s interest and his or her definition of religion.
In this chapter, communication has been used as a way to contextualize
evidence within social and regional human interaction, and to interpret
religious practices and artifacts with regard to the presupposed interests of
the humans in order to get in touch with and grasp the divine.
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14
CELTIC RELIGION IN WESTERN

AND CENTRAL EUROPE
dorothy watts
An account of the religion of the Celts of Western and Central Europe is

beset with many difficulties, the most significant being a debate over the
existence of “the Celts” as a definable people with a common religious tra-
dition. It is true that modern concepts of the Celts are only perhaps two
hundred years old at most; but that a people known as Celts or Keltoi
did exist in the ancient world, and that even beyond these tribes were
others who had similar language, religion, and art, cannot be disputed.1
his commonality of culture is the determining factor for scholars in iden-
tifying the Celts, whose material remains may be traced from Ireland in
the west to Romania and even Turkey in the east, to the north as far as
southern Germany, and south to parts of the Iberian Peninsula and to Italy
north of the Po River (see Map 10).2
Granted this commonality of culture, scholars in search of creat-
ing as comprehensive a picture as possible of Celtic religious systems
have heavily drawn on archaeological evidence from these regions to
supplement the ancient written sources. Apart from the First Botorrita
Inscription found in Spain, the Coligny Calendar, and the Chamalières
and Larzac Tablets from France (Roman Gaul), some bilingual texts
such as the Vercelli Inscription from Italy, and an occasional dedica-
tion, there is virtually nothing written by the Celts themselves relating
to their religion.3 Writing had little or no part in their culture, and such
1
his view is taken by many scholars, European and British (see bibliography). Most of the opposing
views come from British scholars, especially Collis, Celts, and James, Atlantic Celts. See also Carr and
Stoddart, Celts.
2
Haywood, Atlas.
3
Maier, Dictionary, 41–2, 70, 77, 166; Birkhan, Celts, 81–2.
364
Celtic Religion in Western and Central Europe 365
Map 10. Celtic Europe.
inscriptions mostly used the Greek or Latin alphabets.4 Our main writ-
ten sources, texts by Greek or Roman authors of the fifth century bce
on, were not interested in giving a point of view that might reflect that
of those whom they were describing. At best they portray the Celts with
a certain sympathy; at worst the emphasis is on their barbarity and their
“otherness,” and the ancient exaggerations and fabrications are repeated
uncritically by successive writers. For example, the first-century-bce
Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (5.32) writes of cannibalism in Ireland,
and this is repeated half a century later by Strabo (Geog. 4.5.4) who adds
incest to the crimes, although he concedes that he does not have “trust-
worthy witnesses” for his information. he Irish and Welsh myths come
closest to the actual Celtic world, although their stage is populated by
supernatural heroes, warriors, and devotees of cults from the upper classes.
Because these tales were recorded sometimes centuries after composition,
4
Known “Celtic” scripts include the Cisalpine-Gaulish, Leopontine, and Iberian (this last borrowed
from Phoenician); as Birkhan points out (Celts, 81–2 and fig. 331), none of these was particularly
suited to the recording of a Celtic language.
366 Dorothy Watts
and by Christian monks often using them to spread their proselytizing

message, they present additional problems of interpretation.
origins of celtic religion

here have been few modern discussions on the origins and interpretation
of Celtic religion, doubtless because there has been such little evidence to
dispute. A succinct summary by Cunliffe5 is that, as Celtic society pro-
gressed, the emphasis on solar and lunar cycles gave way to matters con-
cerning things on and in the earth. A more detailed view was advanced by
one of the earliest twentieth-century writers on the subject, MacCulloch,6
who saw its development reflecting the evolution of the Celts from prim-
itive hunters to tillers of the soil. Nature spirits evolved into vegetation
(trees/groves), earth, and fertility deities. Animals that had been hunted
for human survival were given a cult, their hunters in effect “apologizing”
for the slaughter. With settlement and the domestication of animals, war
became an intrinsic part of Celtic life; war-gods emerged, and deities came
to be recognizable by gender: Earth was the fruitful mother, vegetation
and corn spirits were female, while the Celtic migration and expansion in
Europe contributed to the evolution of war-gods. his definition of deities
by gender was fluid, however, and an earth-god might replace the earth
mother, or stand as her consort, while female war divinities also emerged
with Celtic tribal expansion. Contact with Rome meant the develop-
ment of a hierarchy, but, according to MacCulloch, Celtic religion never
completely lost its primitive associations with the earth spirits.7
A similar view of the evolution of Celtic religion as tied to socio-cultural
change has been presented by the present writer: Primitive chthonic and
weather-gods, as also found in ancient civilizations such as the Egyptians,
Mesopotamians, Hittites, and Persians, gave up preeminence to deities
of nature, war, fertility, and then healing.8 A growing sophistication and
contact with the cultures of the Mediterranean – notably the Greeks,
Etruscans, and Romans – led to anthropomorphism to some extent, which
reached its full form only with the Roman conquest of Gaul by Caesar in
the first century bce. Although some aspects remained the same, others
changed with the times: Nature spirits still existed in the air, the earth, in
watery contexts, and as animals or birds, whereas the intensification of the
5
Cunliffe, Ancient Celts, 184; see also Green, Celts, 39, for a similar view.
6
MacCulloch, Religion, 3–4.
7
Ibid.
8
Watts, Religion, 59–60, 116–17.
healing attributes of deities such as Sulis and Belisama may have reflected
the conflating by the Romans of these goddesses with the Roman Minerva
(Medica). By themselves the Celts did not take the further step of creating
salvation cults; these were to come later from the East, Greece and Rome,
the most influential being Christianity. Life was controlled by the gods,
and propitiation was necessary to ensure favorable outcomes: Rituals, sac-
rifice, and offerings provided the means.
Given the differing views of the evolution of Celtic religion, it is not
surprising that so too do historians adduce different explanations for the
origins of Celtic cultic practices, although these are not known. So, for
one, Green9 has proposed that water cults in Central Europe came to
prominence around 1200–1100 bce with wetter conditions as a result of
climate change. On another aspect, Ross10 has written extensively on a
“Cult of the Head.” She sees evidence for it from France in the stone pil-
lar decorated with human heads at a shrine at Entremont and another
with actual skulls at a sanctuary at Roquepertuse. hese finds support the
view of several classical writers that the Celts saw the head as the loca-
tion of the soul.11 From these texts as well as material evidence of “skull”
and “decapitated” burials in Britain and Ireland, other interpretations have
been advanced,12 the most detailed being that the practice of decapitated
burial, with the relocation of the skull away from its anatomically correct
position, represented a Celtic belief in the transmigration of souls; at death
the spirit moves on to another person, so death itself is not the end of life,
but merely a stage in it.13
historical context
Identifiable Celtic religious practices, sacred places, and burials began to
appear in the Middle to Late Bronze Age. In Central Europe, around 1200
bce, a refinement of the existing Urnfields culture emerged. his culture
was given the name Hallstatt from the location of the original discov-
ery in Austria. It was a hierarchical society of small chiefdoms comprising
hill forts, hamlets, and isolated farms. Considerable wealth came from the
mining of salt, which was widely traded. Iron objects were increasingly
brought in during this time, and with them knowledge of iron working;
9
Green, Gods, 3.
10
Ross, Pagan Britain, 94–171.
11
Diodorus Siculus 5.29; Livy 10.26, 23.24; Strabo 4.4.5 (quoting Posidonius).
12
Summarized in Watts, Religion¸82–3.
13
Ibid., 74–89. See Strabo 4.4.4; Caesar B.G. 6.14; Pomponius Mela 3.2.19; Lucan 1.455–8.
368 Dorothy Watts
by the beginning of the period known as Hallstatt C (around 800/700–

600 bce), a fully developed Iron Age civilization was flourishing. Little is
known about the religion of early Hallstatt culture, but the discovery in
1846 of around a thousand graves dating from circa 700 bce gives some
insight into burial practices and beliefs of the later Hallstatt period.
It is fairly certain that Celtic languages dominated Central Europe by
this time, but Hallstatt cultural influence was much more widespread,
extending to Britain, northern Germany, Spain, and northern Italy.14 By
circa 600 bce the economic and political focus had shifted westward to the
region of the upper Rhine, upper Danube, and eastern France. his change
was undoubtedly related to the establishment of a Greek settlement at
Massilia (Marseille) and the resultant increase in trade in the Rhône valley.
Rich barrow burials attest to a wealthy elite, now with trade links to the
Mediterranean cultures and an acquired taste for luxuries like wine.
Ritual sites are rare for this time, the best known being a large open
air sanctuary at Libenice in the Czech Republic, where the focus was
apparently on a standing stone and posts. Further cult practices from the
Hallstatt period are difficult to determine, mainly because the distinction
between sacred and secular is not clear cut, but the deposition of an every-
day object such as a sickle in what might be seen as a sacred place (for
example, a swamp, rocky crag, or cave) points to the belief in a connec-
tion between the place and a fruitful harvest.15 he most extensive find
of this type is from the Býčí-Skála cave at Blansko, north of Brno. Items
included weapons, bronze and pottery vessels, jewelry, tools and imple-
ments, and horse and wagon trappings; there were also the remains of
at least forty humans and five wagons. While the human remains allow
a funerary interpretation for the cave, the wagons and the discovery of
burnt grain and a cup made from a human skull suggest cultic practices.16
It is thought that the cave had been in continuous use as a cult site since
the Neolithic.17 Sacrificial burnt offerings have also been interpreted for
remains at Farchant near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Osterstein in Bavaria,
and Dellingen in the Black Forest.18 At the same time, metalwork as offer-
ings in watery places became more common. Undoubtedly less durable
offerings were also made in such locations.
14
See Menghin, Hallstattzeit ; Haywood, Atlas, 32–3.
15
Weiss, “Hallstattzeit,” 20.
16
Pare, Wagons, 319–21.
17
Birkhan, Celts, 95.
18
Weiss, “Hallstattzeit,” 21.
Other cults may be suggested, besides those of fertility and water. It is

likely that there was a solar cult at least as early as the Urnfields period,
and probably much earlier. Solar symbols such as circles and swastikas are
found on Hallstatt artifacts; these and representations of the bull are seen
by Potrebica19 as indicating a connection with Greek civilization, and in
particular the worship of Apollo, the Greek sun-god. Potrebica also identi-
fies a “cult of heroes” manifested in pairs of burials of warriors with the
same status, in which he sees a further link between the Hallstatt and
Greek cultures.
he Hallstatt itself was to be subsumed by a still more developed cul-
ture, and a more warlike society, as hill-forts became fewer but larger, and
warrior kingdoms replaced petty chiefdoms. he influence of the La Tène
culture (ca.475–450 bce), named after a settlement and ritual site on Lake
Neuchâtel in Switzerland, was even more widespread than Hallstatt; its
features are better known because the region and its inhabitants now came
into direct contact with those of the Mediterranean. Celtic mercenaries
fought in Hellenistic and Roman armies (e.g., Xen. Hell. 7.1.20; Justin
25.2.9), Roman traders were active in Celtic territory (e.g., Cic. Font. 33;
Caes. B. Gall. 7.55), and by the end of the second century bce proto-towns
or oppida appeared in the landscape. Classical writers began to be inter-
ested in the peoples to the north of the Po, especially as they came to pose
a political threat. here was considerable emphasis on their “barbarian”
nature, their conflict with the civilizations of Greece and Rome, includ-
ing the invasion of Rome by the Gauls in 387/386 bce (Livy 5.35–49),
the attack on Delphi in 279/278 (Justin 24.4–8), and the effects of their
migration across Europe. Livy (5.33–35) and Caesar (B. Gall.1.2-5), both
describe the movement of tribes. Caesar is also one of the main sources for
information on Celtic religion and religious practices, information that he
supposedly gleaned during his campaigns to Britain (55 and 54 bce) and
his conquest of Gaul (58–51 bce).20 he religion of the Celts did not disap-
pear with the coming of the Romans into Celtic regions. Because Roman
religion was polytheistic, it was well suited to the absorption of further
deities, and, apart from the banning of Druidic practices from the time of
Augustus and attacks on the Druids themselves in the reign of Nero, Rome
did not interfere.
19
Potrebica, “Greek Elements,” 29–35.
20
he value of Caesar as a source on Celtic religion and indeed on Celtic society is much debated.
Some of his material, at least, can be contradicted by archaeology; for other information, he is the
main or only source.
370 Dorothy Watts
celtic deities
From the early La Tène period (fifth century bce), and as a result of con-
tact with the cultures of the Mediterranean, Celtic religion had become
more visible as deities were increasingly depicted in three-dimensional
anthropomorphic form, although their identification as deities in the ear-
liest finds has relied on archaeological context. he native names of some
deities came to be known to the Romans and were recorded on Roman
inscriptions. his wealth of information demonstrates the diversity and
complexity of Celtic religion. here are over three hundred different names
recorded only once in about five hundred inscriptions.21 Some deities were
found in several parts of the Celtic world. For example, a Mother god-
dess was worshipped from Galatia in Anatolia to the British Isles. Lugh
(“shining light”) was found from Ireland to Spain and France and may
have been a fertility god. Epona, a Gallic goddess, patron of horses and
having some connection with death and fertility, was found in inscriptions
from France to Hungary; she was probably also worshipped in Britain,
and had an equivalent in Wales and Ireland. Taranis, the god of thunder,
was found in varying forms from Britain to the Balkans. Cernunnus, a
horned hunter deity usually associated with a stag and snake or snakes and
depicted on the well-known Gundestrup cauldron found in Denmark, was
also known in Britain and France. he Deae Matres or triple Mother god-
desses who were connected to fertility and childbirth were found at least
in Italy, Germany, France, and Britain (RIB 88) and in Slovenia. Deities
whose names incorporated the Celtic nemeto (“sacred grove”) or its deriva-
tives were also widely distributed in Britain and France, with outliers in the
Iberian peninsula and in Galatia.22
In addition to such widespread deities, there were others that were
restricted to their particular geographical locations. Sequana was a goddess
at the source of the Seine, Clota the goddess of the Clyde, Sinann linked
to the Shannon, and Sulis the divinity of the hot springs at Bath. Danuvius
was either the god of the Danube, or the river itself. As these rivers played
a vital role in the sustaining of life, it is likely that they were revered from
very early times.
Although some were undoubtedly older than others,23 there does not
appear to have been a hierarchy of Celtic gods. Nor did the Romans attempt
21
MacCulloch, Religion, 24.
22
Haywood, Atlas, 64–5.
23
It has been proposed by Ross, Pagan Britain, 80, that the popularity of gods such as Cernunnus,
Lugh, Taranus, Teutates, and Esus may represent a deliberate policy by the Druids to create
“national” gods.
to create such a hierarchy, although they did in many instances equate and
pair Celtic deities with their own – the interpretatio romana described by
Caesar (B. Gall. 6.17) and Tacitus (Germ. 43). One of the most primitive
deities, the sky- or thunder-god Taranis, was seen as equivalent to Jupiter,
chief of the Roman pantheon. He appears in Romano-Celtic art holding
not only a thunderbolt, Roman style, but also a wheel or solar disc; he is
recorded by the first-century-ce Roman poet Lucan (Phars. 1.444–446)
among the deities worshipped in Gaul.
Caesar (B. Gall. 6.17) claims that Mercury was the god most revered,
and although this is not necessarily borne out by epigraphy and archaeol-
ogy for the Celtic world as a whole, it may be true for Gaul. Many temples
to Mercury have been found in the tribal area of the Allobrogi and also
numerous bronze statues. Caesar says Mercury’s preeminence was due to
his being the god of travelers, trade, and money. On the other hand, it
could have been Mercury’s much more ancient association with agricul-
ture, and thus with fertility, that made him so popular. In continental
inscriptions, the god was paired with at least nine other Celtic deities.24 In
Britain almost all known dedications are to Mercury alone, although one
inscription includes the emperor’s numen and the otherwise unrecorded
god Andescociuoucus (RIB 193).
Other gods that Caesar says the Gauls worshipped included Mars,
Apollo, and Minerva. He also says that the Gauls believed that these gods
descended from Dis Pater, god of the Underworld and death, probably
associated also with regeneration. It is certain that a Mars-type war-god
had an important place in the Celtic pantheon, given the early evidence of
weapon deposition in what were presumably sacred places. Mention has
already been made of such finds in the Late Hallstatt period, and the prac-
tice continued. In Switzerland, the great deposit of weapons and shields at
La Tène, by Lake Neuchâtel, signaled a new, more warlike Celtic culture
in the fifth century bce; at Llyn Cerrig Bach, in Wales, there was a similar
accumulation of metalwork, including weapons and chariot fittings, dated
from about 500 bce to after 120 ce; in England, two fine La Tène bronze
shields were recovered, one from the River Witham dated to the second
century bce, the other from the hames attributed to the first century ce.
It has been observed that, at least in Switzerland in the La Tène period,
votive offerings from or relating to females are virtually nonexistent.25 hat
seems also to be the case in the many later Romano-Celtic inscriptions that
24
Maier, Dictionary, 193.
25
Müller, Lüscher, Kelten, 146.
372 Dorothy Watts
link Mars with war deities. In Britain, for example, of eighty-eight known
dedications to Mars or to Mars paired with one of over a dozen Celtic
gods, one only (RIB 213) is by a woman.
In contrast Apollo, in the Greco-Roman pantheon, was associated with
a sun cult, as well as being a god of flocks, of the arts, and of medicine and
healing (the father of Aesculapius and grandfather of Hygieia). he Celts
also had gods of health and healing, and it was this attribute of Apollo
that apparently led to the pairing with at least ten different Celtic dei-
ties. In France evidence for the god is often found at healing springs. In
Britain there are inscriptions to Apollo-Maponus, Apollo-Grannus, and
Apollo-Cunomaglos. A further Celtic healing-god, Nodens, is attested in
Ireland and Britain and another, Lenus, in Britain and France. Curiously,
they are both equated with Mars, but it has been shown that, in the Roman
period (after 50 bce), Mars came to lose his martial attributes, and he too
became a healer, especially in Gaul: here was a major healing cult of
Lenus-Mars at Trier.26
Caesar’s inclusion of Minerva among the gods most worshipped by
the Celts (B. Gall. 6.17) is somewhat surprising, as there is little obvi-
ous archaeological evidence for her cult. A patron of crafts and industry,
Minerva or a Minerva-type deity may have been the focus of devotion by
Celtic women occupied in spinning and weaving. As Minerva Medica she
was also associated by the Romans with the art of healing, which would
explain her being linked with the Celtic goddess at Bath, and also explain
the depositions of votive items associated with women in the hot springs.27
At St Lizier, in Gaul, Minerva was linked to the Celtic Belisama, and
the name of this goddess has echoes in various place names in modern
France.28 Belisama may have been the same as the Irish Brigit, herself a
goddess of knowledge.29 A recent inscription from Baldock, in England,
has revealed a hitherto unknown deity, Senua, also believed to be equated
with Minerva.30
Other Celtic deities, known by name but not linked with those of
Rome, abound, and the names of still others are unknown. Some were
seen as anthropomorphic, others were revered in animal form as the Celts
believed that gods could change their shape. Not all creatures may have
26
Green, Gods, 158.
27
Objects such as hair- and dress-pins, items of jewelry and, significantly, a pair of miniature carved
ivory breasts – a reminder that women’s complaints such as cancer of the breast and mastitis had a
long history.
28
Maier, Dictionary, 35.
29
MacCulloch, Religion, 68.
30
Kennedy, “Senua.”
been deities, but rather were attributes of a deity, or tribal totems. here
are few, if any, certain examples of animals as gods. In Irish myth, the
sacred salmon in the Finn saga may have been a manifestation of Nodens.
At Langres in France, a Celtic boar-god, possibly Moccus (“swine”),
is thought to be associated with a fertility cult as there was an ancient
European rite of mixing the flesh of these animals with grain and then
burying it to ensure a successful harvest; and a stylized boar is depicted
on the bronze shield found in the River Witham in Essex. he bull was
revered in the religions of many ancient civilizations, from the cultures
of the Indus Valley, Middle East, Crete, and Mycenaean Greece. It rep-
resented strength, virility, and fertility. From France there are two depic-
tions linking a bull with three birds: Tarvos Trigaranus (“bull with three
cranes”) is found on a relief from Paris31 and another from Trier. Such trip-
lism is a feature of Celtic religion, for example, triple Genii loci, Matres,
and human heads, and many bronze figurines of bulls with three horns
have come from France. However, the significance of the Gallic bull with
three cranes and their association with a known god, Esus, is unknown.
It seems to be part of a long tradition. Bulls and marsh birds appeared
on zoomorphic wagon fittings, probably attached to cult objects, from as
early as the Urnfields period.32
Julius Caesar’s conquest of Gaul meant the effective end of the Celtic
religion as a force in itself in the West. he interpretatio romana was a one-
sided affair, as Celtic deities were seen as equating to Roman ones, and
given Roman names and attributes, with few escaping this Romanizing
tendency. Even that most Celtic of gods, the torque-wearing, stag-horned
Cernunnus, was transformed into a Roman deity by the first century ce. It
is likely that the bronze deity found in Bouray-sur-Juine, a truncated figure
with Roman hair style and eye of glass, is a Romano-Celtic representation
of the god: he torque, the cross-legged pose, and the cloven hoofs are all
that remain of a once fantastic hybrid creature. By the reign of the emperor
Tiberius, Cernunnus and two other Celtic deities, Esus and Smer[trius],
sit in the company of the classical Castor and Pollux on the Pilier des
Nautes (Nautae Parisiaci), a monument found under Nôtre Dame in Paris
and recently restored.33 Only in the outposts of Empire, such as in Britain,
does it seem that devotion to the native gods survived and held greater
importance for the native population. At the classical temple of Minerva-
31
Le Pilier des Nautes : see below.
32
Pare, Wagons, 28, 42.
33
Saragoza, “Pilier,” 15–27.
374 Dorothy Watts
Sulis in Bath, for instance, most of the defixiones or curse tablets dedicated
to the goddess are to Sulis, and others to Sulis-Minerva or Minerva-Sulis.
here are none to Minerva alone.34 he inscriptions date from the late-
second to the fourth century ce, an indication that even after centuries
of Romanization the Celtic deities in Britain retained some hold over the
native population.
druids
Loss of knowledge of the ancient native cults was the result not only of
the dominance by the Romans, but also of their breaking down, if not
eliminating, the aristocratic priestly group who held such knowledge, the
Druids. According to Pliny (HN 16.95) the term “Druid” had connections
with the Greek δρυ=ς (“oak”), while some modern scholars see the word as
having a Celtic root dru meaning “wise man.”35 Either interpretation would
be acceptable, as the oak was regarded by the Celts as the most sacred of
all trees, and the Druids were the repositories of all tribal knowledge. hey
were often close relatives of the tribal chieftains, but, more significantly, it
was they who had the knowledge of tribal history, law and lore (including
the Celtic calendar), religion and ritual, all of which they had committed
to memory. Caesar (B. Gall. 6.13–16) tells us much of what we know of
them, and this is supplemented by other Greek or Roman authors, espe-
cially those quoting the lost account of Posidonius.36 Virtually nothing can
be gleaned from archaeology, and what is known from the classical sources
relates to Gaul and Britain only. he Irish legends provide fairly similar
information.
Caesar says it was thought that the Druids came to Gaul from Britain,
although the Elder Pliny (HN 30.4) thinks the reverse was true. Whatever
their origins, every year they held an assembly at a sacred site in the tribal
territory of the Canutes in Gaul. Here they settled disputes and elected their
leader, the archdruid who had himself gone through the long twenty-year
process of training from Bard to Seer to Priest. hey prophesied, acted as
overseers of religious observances and sacrifices, and carried out augury
and divination; they were teachers of the aristocratic youths of the tribe,
instructing them in astronomy, science (including medicine), and religion.
34
Tomlin, Tabellae Sulis.
35
See Chadwick, Druids, 12–13.
36
See Tierney, “Posidonius,” 189–275.
hey were also said to be advisors to the kings and, in Ireland at least,
accompanied them on campaign.
Such men37 had immense power within the tribe and were rightly seen
by the Romans as a rallying point for anti-Roman sentiment. Caesar would
have been well aware of Druidic power during his long campaign in Gaul.
It was probably this political motive, as well as the “horrible and savage
cults of the Druids” (Suet. Claud. 25), which led the emperor Augustus
to prohibit any Roman citizen from taking part in Druidic cults – a move
that suggests that some Roman citizens had, indeed, been attracted to
them. Augustus’s successor, Tiberius, supposedly banned the Druids them-
selves (Pliny HN 30.4), but this ban seems to have been ineffective because
they were still there when Claudius became emperor in 41 ce. Claudius
legislated to ban Druidic practices. It is quite clear from events that soon
followed that banning human blood sacrifices could not be done with-
out bloodshed: In the reign of Nero, the governor of Britain, Suetonius
Paulinus, declared war on the Druids and drove many of them onto the
island of Anglesey, where they were massacred (Tac. Ann. 14.29–30).
Roman law and Roman legions did not, however, cause the disappear-
ance of the Druids in either Britain or Gaul, although the most abhorrent
of their practices would eventually have ceased. Pliny, who died in 79 ce,
says that in his time Druids were numerous in Britain and that they still
practiced human sacrifice (HN 30.3). It is very likely that they ultimately
became respected members of society, acting as priests for the Romano-
Celtic cults and temples that sprang up under Roman rule. hey were
probably still called Druids. Certainly some of the ancient writers thought
so. Sources from the second, third, and fourth centuries ce mention them
in Gaul as prophets and magicians, and as associated with temples.38
rituals
While evidence for Druidic rituals is confined mainly to the literary
sources, it is almost certain that, as the guardians and leaders of the Celtic
religion, the Druids had a role in those rituals that have been revealed by
archaeology: for example, at Ribemont-sur-Ancre where, along with the
remains of animals apparently sacrificed, were those of at least a thou-
sand humans aged from fifteen to forty years old. heir bodies had been
37
Druidesses are also mentioned by the ancient sources, but their training and roles are unknown. See
Chadwick, Druids, 78–83; Ross, Druids, 17, believes that they had the same training as men.
38
Clem. Al. Strom. 1.15.17; Hippolytus Phil. 1.25; Lampridus Alex. Sev. 59.5; Vopiscus Numer. 14;
Auson. Prof. Burd. 4.7–10, 10.20–30.
376 Dorothy Watts
decapitated or dismembered, and carefully stacked. Lindow Man, the “bog

man” found in Cheshire, had been the victim of a “triple death” by being
bludgeoned and garrotted, and then having his throat cut. he victim has
been thought to be from the upper classes of Celtic society, and his mur-
der may have been ordered by the Druids to appease the gods, or to pre-
vent an imminent catastrophe. Two further “bog men” recently found in
Ireland have been thought to be offerings to the gods for fertility or good
harvest.39 Caesar tells us that the Druids presided over human sacrifice
(B. Gall. 6.16).
he ritual dress and paraphernalia found in various parts also give a
little insight into priestly activities. he headdresses and scepters from
Hockwold and Wanborough were found at the site of Romano-British
temples; and similar objects as well as crowns and rattles have been found
elsewhere in Britain.40 hey were probably part of priestly accoutrements
during rites held on important festivals in the Celtic and later Roman
calendars. Ross describes a Druid in Ireland wearing a bull’s hide and the
headdress of a white speckled bird with fluttering wings.41 Some sympa-
thetic magic may have been involved here.
What the actual rituals were, and their relationship to the conceptu-
alizing of deity, is somewhat difficult to determine. he sacrifice of ani-
mals and humans was a custom from distant prehistoric times, its purpose
seemingly to achieve favorable outcome in respect to weather or harvest or
fertility, to prevent a calamity, to ensure survival, to appease the gods for
perceived wrongdoing, or to allow the examination of the entrails of the
victim in order to prophesize future events. Examples of many of these
are known from literary works: Agamemnon’s sacrifice of his daughter
Iphigenia to obtain propitious winds for his journey to Troy is one of the
most dramatic events of the Trojan War. Here the offering of a virgin is
to the virgin goddess Artemis (Aesch. Ag. 198–217). In Livy (8.6), animal
sacrifices during the war with the Latins in the fourth century bce were
to the gods of the Underworld and to Mother Earth – such sacrifices were
to ensure military victory. hat these gods were also associated with regen-
eration and fertility attests to the antiquity of live sacrifice – human or
animal.
Even from Rome as late as the year 216 bce, there was a report of the
suicide of one Vestal Virgin and the burial alive of another, supposedly for
39
Owen, “Bog Man.”
40
Green, World of the Druids, 60–3.
41
Ross, Pagan Britain, 83.
unchastity (Plut. Fab. Max. 18). his kind of propitiation was most likely
directed to Vesta, goddess of the hearth, to whom the lives of Vestals were
dedicated. Livy (22.57) tells the same story, and also that two Greeks and
two Gauls were buried alive in the Forum Boarium after the defeat of the
legions in the battle at Cannae in the same year. At the time, this was the
greatest defeat that Rome had ever suffered, and it is probably significant
that Gauls and Greeks had fought with Hannibal in the struggle with
Rome. In both these cases there is an element of punishment along with
appeasement of the gods.42
his same concept was found among the Celts. Caesar (B. Gall. 6.16),
in his discussion on the practice of human sacrifice, relates that the Druids
offer one human, usually a criminal, to save another, in order to “propitiate
the god’s wrath.” he punishment motive is again obvious; but Caesar goes
on to say that if there are no criminals available, an innocent man will do.
he discovery in Linz, Austria, of a large pit with evidence of human sac-
rifice by immolation has given scholars cause to believe this represents the
type of mass human sacrifice described by both Caesar (ibid.) and Strabo
(4.4.5),43 where a huge wicker figure was stuffed with victims and burnt. It
was observed that most of the victims appear to have had physical deformi-
ties. his would appear to confirm that sacrifice of the weak or wounded
was an acceptable practice in times of stress.44 A similar account of a sacrifi-
cial pyre is given by Diodorus Siculus (5.32), who says that the victims were
offered to honor the gods. Neither source says which gods are to be honored,
but the Berne scholia of the fourth and eighth/ninth century on the work
of Lucan, a poet of the first century ce, say that these types of sacrifices
were to Taranis. Lucan (Phars. 1.444–446) does write of human sacrifice to
Taranis, and also to Teutates and Esus. Taranis has been mentioned earlier
as an ancient thunder- or sky-god; and Teutates was probably equated with
Mars and thus a war- or even a fertility-god – there is a Mars-Toutatis in
Britain (RIB 219); of Esus little is known, except that he is depicted on the
Pilier des Nautes and the relief from Trier as a woodman pruning or cutting
down a tree, and that the Romans may have seen him as Mercury or Mars.
he connection between human sacrifice and these deities is not immedi-
ately clear, although fertility may be the common thread; and in both cases
Esus is associated with the Tarvos Trigaranus, the “bull with three cranes.”
42
Pliny, HN 30.3, says that the Roman Senate banned the practice of human sacrifice in 97 bce and
that it ceased in public, and for some time altogether.
43
Both probably drawing on Posidonius.
44
Birkhan, Celts, 96. See also Diodorus 22.9. he assumption here is that people who were physically
less than perfect were also appropriate sacrificial victims.
378 Dorothy Watts
Live offerings were not the only type made to the gods. Much more
common were offerings found in the ground, or in shafts or underground
caves. hese can readily be identified as offerings to fertility deities, espe-
cially the Earth Mother, and also the gods of the Underworld, as a pit or
shaft was seen as the entrance to the Underworld. Among the most spec-
tacular ritual shafts excavated thus far were those from the Vendée region
in France. More than thirty were found in an area of about four square
kilometers, dating to the first century bce. One of these was more than
twelve meters deep, and divided by stone layers into four compartments,
each with distinctive deposits such as animal bones, charcoal, and pottery.
he lowest level contained antlers and, at the very bottom, a statuette of a
seated female figure. Another pit held a four-meter-high cypress tree. hree
similar shafts were discovered at Holzhausen in Bavaria, one almost forty
meters deep, and one holding a wooden pole. Shafts such as these have a
history going back to the Bronze Age, one example from Hampshire in
Britain containing a post dated to circa 1000 bce.45
he practice continued into the Roman period, at least in the west-
ern provinces. At Newstead, in southern Scotland, a series of pits, wells,
and shafts from early Roman date and excavated almost a century ago
contained material that is believed to have ritual significance.46 More cer-
tainly so was another group of nine pits from Cambridge dating to the late
third and early fourth century ce, each holding the articulated remains of
a dog, and either one or two wickerwork baskets containing an infant; in
several of the shafts there was also a pair of shoes, quite obviously too large
for the child. he shafts were aligned with what has been identified as an
earlier first-century shrine with deposits such as a dog and a bull’s head.47
Given the ritual nature of the site, a dedication to a fertility deity is hard
to dismiss.
But not all offerings were so directed. Health and healing were as impor-
tant in Celtic religion as they were in other religions in the Mediterranean
and the Near East, and numerous shrines to healing deities are found
across the Celtic lands. Watery sites seemed to be especially associated
with such deities, particularly when curative springs were involved – one
of the best known being that at Bath, at the temple of Sulis-Minerva. he
source of rivers was important to the ancients: he Younger Pliny (Ep.
8.8) writes with gentle irony of the reverence afforded the source of the
45
Cunliffe, Celtic World , 92–4.
46
Ross and Feacham, “Ritual Rubbish,” 229–37.
47
Anon., “Cambridge Shrine.”
Clitumnus in Italy, and the shrine at the source of the Seine near Dijon is
still a place of peace and reflection for visitors. Many ex-votos, especially
in oak wood, have been found at such sites, perhaps representing the god-
dess herself (for these deities were mainly female). Other items might be
identified with the donor, such as hair or dress pins; and still others from
the Romano-Celtic period represented the part of the body which required
healing (Greg. Tours Vita Patr. c.6). Model legs, arms, eyes, genitalia, and
even model breasts attest the types of treatments sought. At Lydney, in
Gloucestershire, a water shrine dedicated to Nodens yielded a model hand
with concave fingernails, a condition known as koilonychia, the result of
iron deficiency. Close by was an iron-rich spring, and it has been proposed
that drinking the water in small quantities would have improved the red
blood cell count.48
Offerings to deities might be made at other places that are not now
immediately recognizable as sacred. For example, a huge Late Iron
Age hoard, mainly of coins of the Corieltauvi tribe, has recently been
reported from Market Harborough in Britain. It included not only over
three thousand gold and silver coins but also a silver-gilt clad iron cav-
alry helmet and was found in fifteen separate caches buried near the
entrance of what has been interpreted as a sacred enclosure on a hill-
top.49 he entrance was of great importance in a Celtic shrine.50 his
site is similar to the Viereckschanzen often found in Germany and parts
of France, rectangular enclosures that sometimes included votive shafts.
However, treasure could also be hidden in water. In Gaul, the Roman
general Caepio is said to have looted 15,000 talents of gold51 from sacred
enclosures and lakes at Toulouse. When the Romans completed the con-
quest of Gaul, such lakes and their contents were sold off to the highest
bidder (Strab. 4.1.13).
shrines and temples

Buildings specifically constructed as temples or shrines were often simi-
larly used as repositories of great wealth. Diodorus Siculus (5.27) says, “In
temples and sanctuaries throughout the country (Gaul), large amounts
of gold are openly displayed as dedications to the gods. No one dares to
touch these sacred depositions.” hey were also where the spoils of war
48
Wells, “Human Burials,” 135–202.
49
Priest et al., “Gold,” 358–60.
50
Brunaux, Celtic Gauls, 27.
51
he figure varies in the ancient sources, but that of Posidonius is probably closest to reality.
380 Dorothy Watts
were displayed as offerings to the gods (Livy 23.24). But sometimes the
“treasure” had little intrinsic worth: At Witham, in Essex, a Late Iron Age
ritual site with a modest deposit of Palaeolithic hand axes was probably
dedicated to the Celtic sky/thunder deity of a Taranis type.52
here were both elaborate and simple shrines and sanctuaries through-
out the Celtic world. Close to the Mediterranean, shrines were built with
stone columns and adorned with sculptured cult figures. In Central Europe
and in Britain, most were fairly basic rectangular timber structures. With
the Roman conquest, they lost their wholly native identity, as Romans saw
the gods to be similar or identical to their own. here was a change in the
type of shrine built as the Romano-Celtic temple emerged; the greatest
concentration of these was in Britain, France, around the Moselle, and in
Switzerland.53 he adoption of stone foundations, then stone structures,
for the most common “square-within-a-square” buildings was confir-
mation of Roman influence; in France particularly large temples of this
style are known – impressive remains still stand at Autun and Périgueux.54
However, by the third century ce there was a decline in these structures, as
Roman culture came to dominate Gaul.55 In Britain, the decline was not as
great; even in the Christian fourth century, temples continued to be used
and others to be refurbished.56
Variations on the concentric squares plan occurred, especially as
round or polygonal temples, and there were many more simple single-
celled buildings, some of which will not have been recognized as hav-
ing a religious function. A notable feature was that temples were often
erected over earlier sacred buildings or sites. In France, a sanctuary near
a spring at Gournay-sur-Aronde saw cult buildings built and rebuilt over
a period of eight centuries.57 In Britain, the circular Romano-Celtic tem-
ple at Hayling Island was erected over the remains of a circular Iron Age
shrine, and the temple at Maiden Castle directly over a site that had not
had obvious cult activity for two to three hundred years.58 he focus at
Uley may have been a sacred tree, a standing stone, or post in the shrine
that preceded a Romano-Celtic building. Uley also appears to have had
a Christian phase from the fifth to the seventh century ce.59 hus the
52
Green, “Religion,” 255–57.
53
Lewis, Temples, 9.
54
King, “Romano-Celtic Religion,” 220–41.
55
Horne, “Temples,” 1–6.
56
Watts, Religion, fig. 4.
57
Brunaux, Celtic Gauls, 13–16.
58
Drury, “Religious Buildings,” 48, 64, 68.
59
Woodward and Leach, Uley.
“tradition of sanctity”60 lived on – of twelve Romano-British temples that

had Iron Age origins, religious activity in at least ten continued beyond
the Roman occupation.61
burials
A similar continuity did not apply to burials through the period of iden-
tifiable Celtic culture. Funerary practices changed according to fashion
and outside influences, and frequently no one method was preferred to
the exclusion of others. In fact, Pausanias (10.21) says that the Gauls did
not care whether their warriors killed in battle were buried or not, because
they had “no natural pity for the dead.” his may have been a general atti-
tude and would fit well with a belief in the indestructibility of the soul. It
is unfortunate that a comparative study of burials across the Celtic world
is not possible, owing to deficiencies in archaeological records at present.
here are several reasons for this. he first is that burial in the Iron Age
in Europe was not necessarily organized on a community basis, and thus
cemeteries or designated burial grounds were not the norm. he alterna-
tive to a communal burying place was discrete single burials in caves, pits,
rivers, or convenient hollows in the ground. If the remains of a person
were not placed in some kind of container such as a coffin or, in the case of
cremation, a vessel, they would in time become archaeologically invisible.
Moreover, those spectacular but statistically few burials involving mounds,
wagons, chariots, and treasure that are mentioned by most modern writers
on the Celts have tended to reduce interest in the graves of the majority,
which, because of an absence of wealthy grave goods, have received scant
attention in any publications.
Methods of disposal of the dead could be by inhumation, cremation,
or excarnation. If cremation or excarnation was practiced, it depended on
the customs of a community whether the remains were then gathered up
and given some formal burial. However, it is difficult to determine, even
when burial does take place, whether any beliefs in an afterlife are present
in the minds of those interring the remains. It is only with the addition of
grave goods/furniture that such beliefs can be presumed. Even then there
can be traps for the anthropologist or social historian: Ucko62 warns of
the dangers of such an assumption among, for instance, certain tribes in
60
Lewis, Temples, 50.
61
Watts, Religion, fig. 6.
62
Ucko, “Ethnography,” 262–77.
382 Dorothy Watts
Africa, where a buried object representing a living person’s soul was kept in
the grave to prevent that person from dying (the Nankanse of Ghana), or
where the object merely indicated the status or occupation of the deceased
(the Lugbara of Uganda). It is with such problems in mind that Celtic
burial practices should be approached.
he burial material from the Late Hallstatt period (ca.650–450 bce)
does not present a coherent picture. In the major cemetery at Hallstatt
itself, about 55 percent were inhumations, and the remainder cremations.
Inhumations were accorded careful burial in stone-lined graves. Grave
furnishings including food suggest a belief in an afterlife where material
possessions and sustenance were important. In Switzerland, the Helveti
people of the Late Hallstatt period were also well organized, with regular
cemeteries. Inhumation was practiced, and burial mounds were part of
the landscape. here is some evidence that women had social status: At
Subingen the burial mounds of women were exceptionally high; and at Ins
there was an elite cemetery with two wagon burials, both male, and females
with gold jewelry. Changes occurred in the La Tène period. Mounds were
rare, and grave goods tended to decrease in number and quality, although
the occasional rich burial – weapons for males, jewelry for women – was
still found. here was a move from inhumation to cremation, undoubtedly
owing to Roman influence.63 Evidence from a group of burials in central
Belgium differs yet again. In these cemeteries there was a long-standing
practice of cremation, from Hallstatt B to La Tène (ca.700–400 bce), but
the grave furniture was poor in comparison with other parts of Europe.64
Some very wealthy burials have come from Late Hallstatt Europe,
particularly barrows containing four-wheeled vehicles. Two of the best
known examples are the tomb at the hill fort of Mont Lassois in France
of a woman known as “the Lady of Vix,” whose grave furniture included a
dismantled four-wheeled vehicle and a 1.64 meter bronze krater decorated
in archaic Greek style, and a similarly rich male burial at Hochdorf (“the
Hochdorf Prince”) about ten kilometers from the Hohenasperg hillfort,
near Stuttgart. Wagon burials, which had begun in the Urnfields period,
are a feature of the Late Hallstatt, and almost 250 have been found in
Central Europe extending from the Loire Valley to Hungary.65
hey were replaced by two-wheeled “chariot” or “cart” burials as soci-
ety became more warlike. Introduced in Europe in the Late Hallstatt, the
63
Müller and Lüscher, Kelten.
64
Guillaume, “Nécropoles.”
65
Pare, Wagons, 1, 7–11, 231–3, 247–9.
practice seems to have arrived in La Tène Britain a century later. Around

twenty chariot burials have been discovered, mostly in Yorkshire near the
village of Arras, but one or possibly two in Scotland.66 East Yorkshire was
the location of the Parisi tribe, and it is supposed that these were descen-
dants of members of the Gallic tribe who had migrated to Britain, bring-
ing with them burial customs from the continent. hree of the chariot
burials were known to be of women, indicating the status of at least some
Iron Age women in Britain. Occasional prestige grave goods and weapons
were found, and frequently a joint of a pig was placed on the body. Other
“warrior”-type burials in the same general area yielded just one or two
items of military equipment, but some were found with several weapons
apparently thrust into the grave after the bodies had been interred. hese
“speared corpse” burials were in other respects similar to the rest of the cem-
etery population; the strange ritual cannot be satisfactorily explained.67
Most of the “Arras” chariot burials are from the Middle La Tène period.
he one from Ferrybridge in West Yorkshire may be earlier and is thought
to be similar in many respects to La Tène chariot burials in northeastern
France, or even to some Late Hallstatt examples in Switzerland. It differed
from those of East Yorkshire in that the chariot had not been dismantled
and that, some five hundred years after the original burial, the bones of
about three hundred cattle were piled into the ditch around the mound,
apparently the remains of commemorative feasting.68 he find gives a rare
insight into burial practices of the Celtic elite for the period in Britain, and
the spread of La Tène culture.
Grave goods of such elites have been mentioned in general terms. hey
might include furniture, weapons, large vessels for holding wine, cups for
drinking wine, pottery dishes and platters, and items of personal adorn-
ment and toilet equipment, as found in many archaeological contexts.
Such wealth must have been needed in an afterlife. Caesar (B. Gall. 6.19)
says that the Celts so believed in a material Otherworld that they had all
their possessions thrown into the funerary fire, in order to have the use of
them in the afterlife; and Diodorus Siculus (5.28) embellishes this story
by saying that some cast letters into the fire for the dead to read them –
an unlikely tale as the Celts were mostly illiterate. here was, however, a
widespread view among the ancient writers that the Celts believed in the
immortality of the soul and its metempsychosis.
66
A possible chariot burial in Moray, noted but dismissed as unlikely by Greenwell, “Iron Age,” 290–1,
might be added to the discovery at Newbridge.
67
Stead, Cemeteries, 29–122.
68
Boyle, “Riding.”
384 Dorothy Watts
Such belief must have transferred to the ordinary folk, about whom
generally very little is known. However, an analysis of the grave goods in
pre-Roman Britain shows that, as contact with Rome increased, imported
items like pottery were the prestige pieces. Apart from the dress brooch or
pin that presumably held the burial clothes together, the most common
grave goods were cooking pots and animal bones, especially pig, and sheep
or goat.69 It seems that these burials of the lower class reflected in their
own way the practices of their social superiors and, presumably, also their
beliefs.
With the coming of Rome, Celtic burial changed as did all aspects of
Celtic religion. Cremation became the usual form of disposal of the dead
in dedicated cemeteries outside of town limits and flanking main roads
into the towns. Grave goods, particularly imported items, had less status
and declined in number and value; and prestige burials in cemeteries were
marked by Roman-style mausolea. Ireland alone avoided direct influence;
once again geography had an effect on Celtic religious practice. Any exotic
grave goods there are seen to be indicative of the burials of foreigners.70
conclusion
he transformation of Celtic to Roman religion was thus almost complete
by the end of the first century ce. Druids lost their exalted status; rituals
involving human sacrifice and head-hunting gradually disappeared; gods
were given a Roman identity and form; emperors were worshipped instead
of trees; new hybrid temples marked old sacred places; and the Celtic dead
shared their final resting place with legionaries, magistrates, and other
Roman citizens. Pockets of resistance to Roman religious dominance
remained only in the more distant areas where Celtic peoples retained
remnants of their old culture and religion, such as the Cisalpine region
of northern Italy in the Val de Non, and in Normandy and the Loire
and Seine valleys in northern Gaul. But these Celts, like those in Ireland,
would find that remote geographic location, up till now sufficient to resist
the force of Rome, could not isolate them from the spread of Christianity
and the conversion of Europe.
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386 Dorothy Watts
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Raftery, Barry. Pagan Celtic Ireland: he Enigma of the Irish Iron Age (London, 1994).
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West Hill, Uley, Gloucestershire: 1977–9 (London, 1993).
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING
chapter 1: sumerian religion

he Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/).
he Diachronic Corpus of Sumerian Literature (http://dcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/).
chapter 2: assyrian and babylonian religions

Black, J., and A. Green. Gods, Demons, and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated
Dictionary (Austin, 1992).
Bottero, J. Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods (Chicago, 1992; originally pub-
lished 1987).
Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia , trans. T. L. Fagan (Chicago, 2001).
Jacobsen, T. he Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion (New Haven,
1976).
Nijhowne, J. Politics, Religion, and Cylinder Seals: A Study of Mesopotamian Symbolism in
the Second Millennium B.C. (Oxford, 1999).
Wiggerman, F. A. M. Mesopotamian Protective Spirits: he Ritual Texts (Groningen,
1992).
chapter 3: hittite religion

Beckman, G. “Temple Building among the Hittites.” In From the Foundations to the
Crenelations: Essays on Temple Building in the Ancient Near East and Hebrew Bible,
ed. M. J. Boda and J. Novotny (Münster, 2010): 71–89.
Collins, B. J. “Hittite Religion and the West.” In Pax Hethitica: Studies on the Hittites and
heir Neighbours in Honour of Itamar Singer, ed. Y. Cohen, A. Gilan, and J. Miller
(Wiesbaden, 2010): 54–66.
Haas, V. Materia Magica et Medica Hethitica (Berlin, 2003).
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Israelite Religion, ed. G. Beckman and T. J. Lewis (Providence, 2006): 132–51.
Strauss, R. Reinigungsrituale aus Kizzuwatna (Berlin, 2006).
387
388 Suggestions for Further Reading
Taggar-Cohen, A. Hittite Priesthood (Heidelberg, 2006).

Taracha, P. Religions of Second Millennium Anatolia (Wiesbaden, 2009).
chapter 4: zoroastrianism
Briant, P. From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire, trans. P. T. Daniels
Kellens, J. Essays on Zarathustra and Zoroastrianism, trans. and ed. Prods Oktor Skjærvø
(Costa Mesa, Calif., 2000).
Kent, R. G. Old Persian Grammar, Texts, Lexicon. 2nd rev. ed. (New Haven, 1953).
Shaked, S., trans. he Wisdom of the Sasanian Sages (Dēnkard VI) (Boulder, 1979).
Wiesehöfer, J. Ancient Persia from 550 BC to 650 AD (London, 1996).
Williams, A. V. he Pahlavi Rivāyat Accompanying the Dādestān ī Dēnīg. 2 vols.
(Copenhagen, 1990).
chapter 5: syro-canaanite religions

Ahituv, S. Echoes from the Past: Hebrew and Cognate Inscriptions from the Biblical Period
( Jerusalem, 2008).
Fleming, D. E. he Installation of Baal’s High Priestess at Emar: A Window on Ancient
Syrian Religion. Harvard Semitic Studies 42 (Cambridge, Mass., 1992).
Lipiński, E. he Aramaeans: heir Ancient History, Culture, Religion. Orientalia Lovaniensia
Analecta 100 (Leuven, 2000).
Smith, M. S., and W. T. Pitard. he Ugaritic Baal Cycle. Volume II: Introduction with Text,
Translation and Commentary of KTU/CAT 1.3–1.4. Vetus Testamentum Supplement
114 (Leiden, 2008).
chapter 6: israelite and judean religions

Alberz, R. A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period. 2 vols. (Louisville,
1994).
Amihai, M. Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, 10,000–586 B.C.E. (New York, 1990).
Miller, P. D. he Religion of Ancient Israel (Louisville, 2000).
Smith, M. S. he Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the
Ugaritic Texts (New York, 2001).
Zevit, Z. he Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches (London,
2001).
chapter 7: egyptian religion

Allen, J. P., et al. Religion and Philosophy in Ancient Egypt (New Haven, 1989).
Englund, G., ed. he Religion of the Ancient Egyptians: Cognitive Structures and Popular
Expressions (Uppsala, 1989).
Forman, W., and S. Quirke. Hieroglyphs and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt (Norman, Okla.,
1996).
Hornung, E. Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: he One and the Many (Ithaca, 1981).
Meeks, D., and C. Favard-Meeks. Daily Life of the Egyptian Gods (Ithaca, 1996).
Tobin, V. A. heological Principles of Egyptian Religion (New York, 1989).
chapter 8: phoenician-punic religion

Aubet, M. E. he Phoenician Cemetery of Tyre al-Bass: Excavations 1997–1999. BAAL Hors
Série 1 (Beirut, 2004).
“he Phoenician Cemetery of Tyre.” Near Eastern Archaeology 73 (2010): 144–55.
Dussaud, R. Carthage: Approche d’un civilisation (Tunis, 1993).
López-Ruiz, C. When the Gods Were Born: Greek Cosmogonies and the Near East
(Cambridge, Mass., 2010).
Markoe, G. E. Phoenicians. Peoples of the Past (Berkeley, 2000).
Schmitz, P. C. “Deity and Royalty in Dedicatory Formulae: he Ekron Store-Jar Inscription
Viewed in the Light of Judg 7:18, 20 and the Inscribed Gold Medallion from the
Douïmès Necropolis at Carthage (KAI 73).” Maarav 15.2 (2008): 165–73.
chapter 9: minoan religion

d’Agata, A. L., and A. van de Moortel. Archaeologies of Cult. Hesperia Suppl. 42. American
School of Classical Studies (Athens, 2009).
Dickinson, O. T. P. K. “Comments on a Popular Model of Minoan Religion.” OJA 13
(1994): 173–84.
Goodison, L., and C. Morris. Ancient Goddesses: he Myths and the Evidence (London,
1998).
Kyriakidis, E. “Unidentified Objects on Minoan Seals.” AJA 109 (2005): 137–54.
Laffineur, R., and R. Hägg. POTNIA. Deities and Religion in the Aegean Bronze Age.
Aegaeum 22 (Liège, 2001).
Marinatos, N. Minoan Kingship and the Solar Goddess (Urbana, 2010).
Nissinen, M., ed. Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East. Writings from the
Ancient World 12 (Atlanta, 2003).
Renfrew, C. he Archaeology of Cult: he Sanctuary at Phylakopi (London, 1985).
chapter 10: mycenaean religion

Chadwick, J. he Mycenaean World (Cambridge, 1976).
Laffineur, R., and R. Hägg, eds. POTNIA. Deities and Religion in the Aegean Bronze Age.
Aegaeum 22 (Liège, 2001).
Palaima, T. G. “Mycenaean Religion.” In he Cambridge Companion to the Aegean Bronze
Age, ed. C. W. Shelmerdine (Cambridge, 2008): 342–61.
chapter 11: archaic and classical greek religion

Bremmer, J. Greek Religion (Oxford, 1999; reissue of 1994 ed. with addenda = G&R, New
Surveys in the Classics 24).
Bremmer, J. N., and A. Erskine, eds. he Gods of Ancient Greece: Identities and
Transformations. Leventis Studies 5 (Edinburgh, 2010).
Bruit Zaidman, L., and P. Schmitt Pantel. Religion in the Ancient Greek City (Cambridge,
1992; French original 1989).
Detienne, M. Dionysos Slain (Baltimore, 1979; French original 1977).
Ferguson, J. Among the Gods: An Archaeological Exploration of Ancient Greek Religion
(London, 1989).
Gernet, L., and A. Boulanger. Le génie grec dans la religion (Paris, 1932).
Graf, F. Greek Mythology: An Introduction (Baltimore, 1993; German original 1991).
Harrison, T. Divinity and History: he Religion of Herodotus (Oxford, 2000).
Kearns, E. “Order, Interaction, Authority: Ways of Looking at Greek Religion.” In he
Greek World, ed. A. Powell (London, 1995).
Ancient Greek Religion: A Sourcebook (Malden, Mass. 2010).
Kirk, G. S. he Nature of Greek Myths (Harmondsworth, 1974).
Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (= LIMC ), 8 vols. (Zurich, 1981–1997).
Lupu, E. Greek Sacred Law. A Collection of New Documents (NGSL). Religions in the
Graeco-Roman World 152 (Leiden, 2005).
Mikalson, J. D. Ancient Greek Religion (Malden, Mass., 2005).
Ogden, D., ed. A Companion to Greek Religion (Malden, Mass. 2007).
Parker, R. Athenian Religion: A History (Oxford, 1996).
Price, S. Religions of the Ancient Greeks (Cambridge, 1999).
Pulleyn, S. Prayer in Greek Religion (Oxford, 1997).
Sourvinou-Inwood, C. “Further Aspects of Polis Religion.” In Annali dell’Istituto
Universitario Orientale di Napoli (Archeologia e Storia Antica) 10 (1988): 259–74
(= Oxford Readings in Greek Religion, ed. R. Buxton [Oxford, 2000]: 38–55).
Versnel, H. S. Coping with the Gods: Wayward Readings in Greek heology (Leiden, 2011).
ed. Faith, Hope, and Worship: Aspects of Religious Mentality in the Ancient World (Leiden,
1981).
Vidal-Naquet, P. he Black Hunter: Forms of hought and Forms of Society in the Ancient
World (Baltimore, 1986; French original 1981).
West, M. L. he East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth
(Oxford, 1999).
chapter 12: etruscan religion

De Grummond, N. T., and I. Edlund-Berry, eds. he Archaeology of Sanctuaries and Ritual
in Etruria. JRA Supplementary Series 81 (2011).
De Grummond, N. T., and E. Simon, eds. he Religion of the Etruscans (Austin, 2006).
Edlund, I. he Gods and the Place: Location and Function of Sanctuaries in the Countryside
of Etruria and Magna Graecia (700–400 B.C.) (Stockholm, 1987).
Jannot, J.-R. Religion in Ancient Etruria (Madison, Wisc., 2005).
Maras, D. Il dono votivo, Gli dei e il sacro nelle iscrizioni etrusche di culto (Pisa, 2009).
Van der Meer, L. Bouke, ed. Material Aspects of Etruscan Religion (Leuven, 2010).
Warden, G. P. “he Tomb: he Etruscan Way of Death.” In From the Temple and the Tomb:
Etruscan Treasures from Tuscany (Dallas, 2008): 95–112.
chapter 13: roman religion through the early republic

Ando, C., ed. Roman Religion. Edinburgh Readings on the Ancient World (Edinburgh,
2004).
Bispham, E., and C. Smith, eds. Religion in Archaic and Republican Rome and Italy:
Evidence and Experience (Edinburgh, 2000).
Orlin, E. Temples, Religion, and Politics in the Roman Republic (Leiden, 1997).
Rüpke, J., ed. A Companion to Roman Religion (Oxford, 2007).

Scheid, J. An Introduction to Roman Religion (Bloomington, 2003).
Schultz, C. Women’s Religious Activity in the Roman Republic (Chapel Hill, 2006).
chapter 14: celtic religion in western and central europe

Kruta, V. Celts: History and Civilization (London, 2004).
Rankin, D. Celts in the Classical World (London, 1996).
Wait, G. A. Ritual and Religion in Iron Age Britain (Oxford, 1986).
GENERAL INDEX
Aaron, brother of Moses, first chief priest, 161 Acherontic Books, Etruscan books on death and
at the parting of the Red Sea, 169 life, 320
see also Israelite and Judean religions Achvizr, male and female Etruscan deity, 319
Abraham, patriarch, 155–7 acrobatics
Abram. See Abraham, 155, 162 in Minoan Crete, 248
Abu, Syro-Canaanite month, 146 Acropolis Treasure at Mycenae, 259
Abu Salabikh, capital of Sumerian city-state, acroterion statue of Apollo, 353
44, 47 Adad, Babylonian weather god, 67–8, 121
deity list from, 44, 46, 68 Adad-guppi, mother of Babylonian king
Abydos, Egyptian cult center, 182, 190, 192–3, Nabonidus
200 tomb inscription of, 59
Achaemenes, Persian ancestor of Darius and Adad-nirari II, Assyrian ruler (921–891 bce), 60
Cyrus, 103 Adad-nirari III, Assyrian ruler, 58
Achaemenid, ’ădōnāy, “my Lord,” 153. See also Israelite and
Empire, 103 Judean religions
religion, Adonis
gods and goddesses cult of, 210–115
Ahura Mazdā, 104–22, 124, 126 festival, 211–13, 215
Ashi, 114, 121 myth, 210
Great God, 121 see also Etruscan Atunis, Melqart-Adonis
Humban, 121 aedes Vestae, “House of Vesta.” See Roman
KI, the Earth, 121 religion
Mizhdushī, 121 Aegean,
Naryasanga, 121 religious koine of, 246
Spentā Ārmaiti, 107, 121. sea, 239–40
See also Humility world, 242
ritual, 104 Aeschylus, Greek playwright (525–456 bce),
baga-dauçiya , “libation ritual for the Agamemnon, 376
god(s),” 121 Suppliants, 259
dauça (dauçiya), “libation service,” Aesculapius, cult of,
121 at Epidaurus, 13
lan, principal ritual, 121 at Pergamun, 13
priests in: ātru-wakhsha , priest in charge see also Asklepios
of fire, 121; magush, 121; shaten, main Afghanistan, 102
priest, 121 afterlife,
see also Zoroastrianism in Assyrian and Babylonian religions, 61
393
394 General Index
afterlife (cont.) akītu, Babylonian New Year’s Festival, 77.

in Celtic religion, 381–4 See also festivals, religious; Assyrian
in Egyptian religion, 177, 184, 195, and Babylonian religions
197–202 Akkad, area in northern Mesopotamia, 36, 38
in Etruscan religion, 321, 329, 331–2 Akkadian. See languages, Semitic. See also Sumer
in Hittite religion, 96 akkant, spirits of the dead, 95
in Mycenaean religion, 269 Akrotiri, site at hera (modern Santorini), 246
in Punic religion, 223, 227 Alaksandus, Luvian king of Wilusa,
in Syro-Canaanite religion, 145–8 treaty with Hittites, 271
Africa, al-Bass, necropolis of Tyre. See Carthage,
Caelestis, deity of, 5 religion of
North, 7, 19, 24, 181, 205–8, 213, 215, 222 Aleppo, Syrian city, 88
Punic, 7, 19, 205–8, 222 Alexander the Great,
Roman, 215 conquest of the Near East by, 23–4, 26
Agade, capital of the Akkadian empire, 38, fall of the Achaemenid empire and, 103
39, 50 Hellenization and, 23
Agamemnon, Greek hero, reign of, 5, 6, 18, 24, 280
sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia, 376 Algiers, modern city in N. Africa, 207
Aglauros, Greek heroine, 295 alieni, as a term applied to Christians, 18
Agramer Mumienbinden (liber linteus), allies,
Etruscan sacrificial calendar, 348 of Rome, 212, 336, 347–8
Agum-kakrime, Kassite ruler, 62 Allobrogi, Gallic tribe, 371
Ahaz, king of Judah, 171 Alpan, Etruscan deity of goodwill and gladness,
Ahhiyawa, 256, 263, 270 319
Ahmose, founder of the Egyptian eighteenth alphabetic period. See Mycenaean/Minoan
dynasty (1550–1525 bce), 191. religion. See also Greek religion
See also mortuary complex altars,
Ahmose Nefertari, “god’s wife,” wife of Ahmose, in Greek religion,
191 at sanctuaries, 292–3
ahu, existences or worlds. See Zoroastrianism burning God’s portions on, 293
Ahuna Vairiya , one of four holy prayers. Poseidon’s, 294
See Zoroastrianism processions and animal sacrifice, 291–3
ahura, Lord/Ruler, 107 in Etruscan religion,
Ahura Mazdā (Ahuramazdā) (All-knowing at the Portonaccio sanctuary, Veii, 325
Lord/Ruler), good Zoroastrian deity, at the “Sacral-Institutional Complex,”
104–22, 124, 126 Pian di Civita, 323–4
Airyaman, “heavenly fire,” Zoroastrian god of human sacrifice at, 320, 324
peace and healing, 105, 107–8, 111–12, in cemeteries, 330
114, 118 representations in art of, 314, 320
Airyaman Ishiya, one of four holy prayers. in Minoan religion,
See Zoroastrianism in Cretan caves, 247
Aita, Etruscan god of the underworld, 331. portable, 246
See also Hades in Mycenaean religion,
aiviyānghana, girdle. See Zoroastrianism circular, at the “House of Frescoes,” 264
coming-of-age ceremonies in ancient Israelite and Judean religions,
Akhenaten (“One who is effective for the dedication of, 162
Aten”), Egyptian king (1352–1336 at the Jerusalem Temple, 160, 162
bce), 183, 193–5. See also in Zoroastrianism,
monotheism fire, 122
Akhetaten (“Horizon of the Aten”), modern see also rituals, sacrifice
Amarna, 194 Althiburus, Punic inscription from, 212, 219–20
General Index 395
Alwanzatar, black magic. See Hittite religion in sacrifice, 139

Amarna, modern name for Akhetaten, to explain association of deities with
letters, by rulers of Canaanite city-states to natural phenomena, 132
their Egyptian overlords, 155 from human social organization, 138
workers’ village, as site of archaeological see also metaphor
evidence, 194 Anat, west Semitic goddess of violence,
see also Egyptian religion in Syro-Canaanite religion,
Amar-Utu (“Calf of Utu”). See Marduk. Baal’s ally and sister, 133
See also Sumerian religion in Aqhat story, 136
Amduat (“what is in the afterlife”). See Egyptian in Baal Cycle, 136. See also Anath
religion Anath,
Amen, god of hebes, 178, 192, 194 in Egyptian texts, 10. See also Anat
Amenhotep III, Egyptian New Kingdom ruler Anatolia, Asia Minor,
(1390–1352 bce), 183 Hittites in, 62, 84, 88
Amenhotep IV. See Akhenaten Hurrian deities in, 88
Amen-Ra, preeminent god of Egypt during the Anatolian. See languages, Indo-European
New Kingdom, 178–9, 186, 192 Andescociuoucus, Celtic god, 371
amertatāt (“non-dyingness”), term connected a-ne-mo (“winds”), Mycenaean god at Knossos,
with sacrifice in Zoroastrianism, 107 260
amesha spenta , Life-giving Immortals, 107, Anglesey, island,
113–14, 126 massacre of Druids by Romans at, 375
see also Zoroastrianism animal worship. See Egyptian religion
Amman Citadel Inscription. See Syro-Canaanite annals, Assyrian, 67, 74
religion Anna Perenna, cult of, 351
Ammattalla, palace woman. See Hittite religion, Ankara, Turkish capital, Asia Minor, 84
divination ankh, Egyptian sign for life,
Amnisos (Amnissos), Cretan cave, adaptation to represent Phoenician betyl, 221
Minoan worship at, 247 Anquetil-Duperron, A. H., Orientalist,
Amon, Judean king (642–640 bce), father of translator of languages of modern
Josiah, Zoroastrians, 123
assassination of, 167 antae, projecting walls,
Amorites, rulers of Sumer in the second in Etruscan sacred architecture, 324
millennium bce, 38, 56 anthropomorphism,
Amos, non-priestly Judean prophet and in Assyrian and Babylonian religions, 75
agriculturalist, 170 in Celtic religion, 366, 370, 372
Amphiaraos, Greek healing sanctuary in Egyptian religion, 179
(Amphiareion) at Oropos, 298. rejection of, by king Akhenaten, 193
See also incubation, sacrifice in Etruscan religion, 325
Amphiareion. See Amphiaraos in Hittite religion, 87
Amran, Levite, father of Aaron, 161 in Sumerian religion, 31, 44
amulets, of Syro-Canaanite gods, 135–7
Egyptian, 179, 194–5, 197 anthroponym,
Etruscan, 328 used to infer a theonym, 260
in Syro-Canaanite religion, 131, 145 anthropopathic imagining,
Amun, Egyptian deity, 179 of Syro-Canaanite gods, 135
An, “he heavens,” Sumerian deity, 34, 52 Anubis, Egyptian funerary god, 179, 200.
analogy, See also jackal
in Egyptian religion, a-pa-i-ti-jo, Mycenaean Haphaistios, 260
of solar god to scarab, 184 Apām Napāt (“Scion of the Waters”),
in Syro-Canaanite religion, Zoroastrian deity, 114
for production of knowledge, 129 Apaosha, Zoroastrian demon of drought, 114
396 General Index
Apellon. See Apollon Aram,

aperta, Etruscan week-like period, attack on Judah, 171
influence on Roman structuring of the influence on Judean religion, 171
months, 357 rule by David, 158
see also iśveita, celuta, tiniana Arameans,
Aphaia, goddess from Aegina, 267 in Babylon, 57–8
Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love and beauty, religion of,
on Etruscan mirrors, 211 storm deity Hadad, 155. See Assyrian religion
of Paphos, 213 Aramaic,
sanctuaries of, 213 language. See languages, Semitic
temples of, letters from Elephantine, 120
at Byblos, 213 texts,
see also Carthage, religion of; Greek religion Tell Fekherye Inscription, 132, 143, 145
Aphrodite Ourania (heavenly Aphrodite), Panammu I Inscription, 131, 146
cult of, 213, 283 Sefire Inscriptions, 131, 145
Phoenician influence, 213 Zakir Inscription, 131, 144
Aphrodite Pontia, see also Zoroastrianism
cult of, 213 Araunah, hill, site of Jerusalem Temple, 159
Phoenician influence, 213 Arcadia, Greece,
Apis, Egyptian deity, deities of, 282–3
cult of, 179 sanctuaries at, 296
Aplu, Apulu, Etruscan deity, 319. See also Apollo Archaic period,
Apollo, Greek sun god, 260, 271, 283, 296, 353, Etruscan (600–450 bce), 310, 314, 326, 331–2
369, 371 Archedamos of hera. See Greek religion
see also Celtic religion, Mycenaean religion, archdruid, leader of druids. See Celtic religion
Roman religion, theonyms archon, Athenian magistrate,
Apollo Agyieus (Apollo “of the streets”), 283 in Greek religion, 286–7
Apollo-Cunomaglos, Ardwī Sūrā Anāhitā, Heavenly River, 112, 115, 117
inscription to, 372 A-re, Mycenaean deity worshipped at Knossos,
Apollo Epikourios, 260
sanctuary of, 296 Areion, Greek deity worshipped in Arcadia, 282
Apollo-Grannus, Arezzo, Etruscan altars at, 326
inscription to, 372 Argos,
Apollo Maleatas. See Mt. Kynortion Greek sanctuaries at, 296
Apollo-Maponus, Arinna, Sun-goddess of. See Hittite religion
inscription to, 372 Aristotle, Greek philosopher (384–322 bce), 287
Apollo Patroös, guarantor of phratry nn 17–18
membership in Athens, 287 as teacher of heophrastos, 288
Apollon. See Apollo Aritimi (Artumes), Etruscan goddess Artemis,
Apophis, serpent. See Egyptian religion 319
appeasement, Arjad-aspa, 117
of Babylon by Assyrians. See Esarhaddon arkuwar, “plaidoyer” in Hittite religion, 92
of gods. See Celtic religion Armenia,
Apsu, male/father waters, Manichaeism and Zoroastrianism in, 8
in Babylonian creation stories, 63 Arnobius, Christian apologist (third-fourth
see also enuma elish centuries ce),
Aqhat, Adversus Nationes (Against the Heathen), 310,
famine caused by murder of, 133 319–20
son of patriarch Daniel, 139 Arras, village in England,
story of. See Syro-Canaanite religion chariot burials at, 383
Baal Cycle Arslan Tash,
Arad, Judean sanctuary at, 157, 168–9 amulets found at. See Syro-Canaanite religion
General Index 397
Artaxerxes II, Achaemenid king, follower of Assur-uballit, Assyrian ruler (1365–1330), first to
Zoroastrianism, 120 use title “king,” 60
Artaxerxes III, Achaemenid king, 120 Assur-uballit II, Assyria’s last ruler (614–609
Artemis, Greek goddess, Apollo’s sister, bce), 61
sanctuaries of, 295–6. See theonyms Assyria,
Artemis Brauronia, army of, 60
sanctuary of, 295 kings of, 57–8, 67
artisan-production, religion of. See Assyrian and Babylonian
in Sumerian religion, religions
as part of temple’s economic role, 37 Assyrian and Babylonian religions,
Artumes. See Aritimi Afterlife, 61
Arušna, Hittite deity of, 93. See also divination “Babylonian heodicy,” acrostic poem, 73
Arval brethren, Roman religious group, 355 cult statues,
Aryans, of Marduk, 62, 72
enemies of Frangrasyan and the Turanians, divination,
116 extispicy, 76
A-sag (“Arm-beating”) demon. See Sumerian hepatoscopy, 76
religion leconomancy, 76
’āšām, “Guilt Offering.” See Israelite and Judean libanomancy, 76
religions Epic of Gilgamesh, 70
A-sa-sa-ra , Minoan Solar goddess, 250 festivals, religious, 59, 62, 72, 77–8
Ashem Vohū, “Order is the best good [reward],” akītu, New Year’s Festival, 77–8
one of four holy prayers. See Gāthā s gods and goddesses,
Asherah. See Ashertu Adad, weather god, 67
Asherata. See Ashertu An, sky god, 63, 68, 71
Ashertu (Asherah, Athirat), Apsu, male/father god, 63
fertility goddess, Baal’s wife, 134 Assur, 64, 71–3
goddess and palm tree in Israelite cult, 250 Damkina, 63
see also Israelite and Judean religions, Dumuzi/Tammuz, 66
Syro-Canaanite religion Ea, god of the subterranean freshwater
Ashi, Zoroastrian goddess, ocean, 63, 66
hymn to, 117 Enlil, king of the gods, 68–9, 71–2
offerings to, 121 Ereshkigal, queen of the netherworld, 65
Ashtoreth. See Astarte Ishtar, goddess of love and war, 65–6,
Ashurnasirpal II, Assyrian ruler, grandson of 68–70
Adad-nirari II, 60 Mami, 65
Asia Minor, Marduk, patron deity of Babylon, 56–8,
religions in, 7–8, 20 62–4, 68–9, 71–3, 78
worship of Roman emperor in, 11 patron deities, 71, 74–5
Asine, personal, 72–3
statues. See Greek religion Qingu, Babylonian god, 63
Asklepios. See Aesculapios Shamash, Assyrian and Babylonian sun
assimilation, god, 67
in ancient religions, 14 Sin, moon god of Haran, 59
Assmann, J., twentieth-century scholar, Tiamat, female/mother goddess, 63
Solar Religion in the New Kingdom, 178 magic and magicians, 76. See also heka , rituals
Assur, marriage,
Assyrian city, sacred, 70
inscriptions from, 59 myths,
Assyrian god, 60, 64, 69, 71–2 Atrahasis, 8, 64–5
Assurbanipal, last major Assyrian ruler, Descent of Ishtar to the Netherworld, 70
library and museum of, 61 creation,
398 General Index
Assyrian and Babylonian religions (cont.) exēgētai, 286

enuma elish, 57, 61–2, 71, 74, 78 hieromnēmones, 286
netherworld, 65–6, 70 hierophylakes, 286
omens, 73, 76 hieropoioi, 286
personnel, sacred, polemarchos, 286
diviners, 76 Athirat. See Ashertu
nadītu, women dedicated to serve a athletes,
god, 77 in Hittite cult, 94
portents, 73 Athrpa, Etruscanized Greek fate goddess
prophecy, prophets, 77 Atropos, 320
seals, a-ti-mi-ti, Mycenaean deity of Pylos,
cylinder and stamp, 67 260
Shurpu, collection of spells and rituals, 76 Atlenta, Etruscanized Greek Atalanta,
temples, 73–5 320
wisdom literature, 73 atonement. See npy
Man and His God, A, 73 Atonement, Day of. See Yom Kippur
Assyro-Babylonian. See languages, Semitic Atrahasis, myth of. See Assyrian and Babylonian
ast, (human) bones. See Zoroastrianism religions
Aštart of Battle. See maš ’artu atrium Vestae, “House of the Vestals,”
Astarte, Syrian goddess, 5, 134–5, 138, 210–11, 339
213, 215, 221, 225, 314, 319, 341. Atropos, Greek fate goddess, sister of Clotho
See also Anat-Astarte, Aphrodite, Uni and Lechesis, 320
Astō-widātu, “Bone-untier,” 115 ātru-wakhsha, priest in charge of fire in Elamite
asuras, superhuman beings in Greek religion, ritual, 121
282 Attica,
Atalanta. See Atlenta cult of Daeira in, 282
A-ta-na po-ti-ni-ja. See Mycenaean religion. festivals of, 296
See also theonyms sacrifices in, 286
Atenism. See Ahkenaten see also Greek religion
āter-wakhsh. See ātru-wakhsha Atum, Lower Egypt’s creator god, 177, 181, 183.
Athanaspotnia, Mycenaean war goddess, See also Ptah, Ra
on frescoes, 262 Atunis. See Adonis
Athena, Greek goddess of wisdom, 281–2, augur, 3, 321–2, 331, 348, 355–7
294–5, 341 augur maximus, eldest member of augural
Athena Ergane, college, 356
sanctuary of, 282 augural college. See augury
Athena Nike, augury, observation of flight and behavior of
temple of, 295 birds. See divination
Athena Polias, Athena “of the city,” Augustine, fourth-fifth century North African
sanctuary of, 282 Christian theologian, 1–2
Athena Pronaia, Athena “in front of the Augustus, Roman emperor (27 bce – 14 bce),
temple,” ban of druidic practices by, 369
sanctuary of, 294 Aura Jorro, F., twentieth-century scholar,
Athena Skiras, DMic = Diccionario micénico, xi, 257,
ritual of, 296 266
Athena Soteira, Athena “savior,” auspices, 3, 323, 348, 355
sanctuary of, 282 autobiographies,
Athene. See Athena sources of Egyptian religion, 179
Athens, Autun,
officials/magistrates in Celtic temples in, 380
archon, 286 Aventine, hill in Rome,
basileus, 286 temples on, 351
General Index 399
Avesta , Zoroastrian sacred texts, 102–3, 120, Kassite rulers of, 57

122–3 Marduk, patron deity of, 56–7, 62–3, 69,
Old Avesta, 103–4, 107, 111, 116, 119, 126 71–2, 78
Gāthās, “songs,” 103–5, 107, 109, 111, sack of, 56–7, 62
113–14, 117–18, 123–7 Babylonia,
Yasna Haptanghāiti, 103–4, 107, 109 conquest by Assyrians, 57
Young Avesta, 1–7, 103–4, 109, 111–12, 114–17, Nebuchadnezzar, 57–8
119, 123–4 see also Hammurabi
Khorda Avesta, 103 Babylonian,
Videvdad (Vi-daēwa-dāta), 103, 111–12, chronicles, 58
114, 117, 119–20, 123 language, 56–7
yashts, “hymns,” 103–4, 111–20 literature, 57–8
Yasna, 103–11, 113–19, 123, 126 “Babylonian heodicy,” acrostic poem, 73
Avile Vipiiennas (Vipenas), Bactria, kingdom of Semiramis, 122
dedication at Veii by, 327 Bactrian-Margiana Archeological Complex,
see also Etruscans, religions of Central Asia, 102
Avl Tarchunus, 316 baga-dauçiya , “libation ritual for the god(s),”
haruspication 121
see also Etruscans, religions of Balaam, “seer of the gods.” See Deir ’Allah text.
Ayia Irini (island of Ceos), See also Syro-Canaanite religion
Mycenaean sanctuary at, 264 Baldock, England, Celtic inscriptions from,
Azatiwada, Anatolian ruler, to Senua, goddess, 372
inscriptions of, 132 bard. See archdruid
see also Syro-Canaanite religion Barré, M. L., twentieth-century scholar,
Azhi Dahāka, giant dragon, 116 210
barsman (barsom), ritual grass.
ba , mobile spirit, See Zoroastrianism
need to appease it, 195 Bartholomae, C., nineteenth-century scholar,
portrayal as human-headed bird, 195 Avestan dictionary, 124, 126
see also Egyptian religion basileus, Athenian magistrate,
Baal (“Lord”), Canaanite storm god, 7, 131, role in Greek religious festivals, 286
133–5, 138–41, 143, 145, 147–8 Bassai, Arcadia,
see also Hadda sanctuary of Apollo Epikourios at, 296
Baalat (“Lady” of Byblos), head of pantheon at Bath, England,
Byblos. See Syro-Canaanite religion hot springs at,
Baal-Hammon (Baal H9amon), chief god at Sulis, Celtic goddess of, 370
Carthage, 222 see also Minerva
association with child sacrifice, 224–5 battle
inscription commemorating vow to, 212 Baal’s,
priests of, 213 with death and sea, 133
Baal krntryš, Syro-Anatolian deity, see also Syro-Canaanite religion
sacrifice to, 219 gods of,
Baal Saphon, Inana, Sumerian goddess, 50–1
temple of, in Carthage, Ishtar, Assyro-Babylonian goddess, 70
sacrificial tariff from, 216 ‘ bd mlqrt, “servants of Melqart,”
Baal-Shamayn. See Zakir Inscription on Althiburus inscription, 212
Baal-Shamem, head of pantheon, with Baalat, at Beautiful Festival of the Valley, 192
Byblos, 138 Beer Sheba, temple at, 157, 168
Baal’s Cycle, myths. See Syro-Canaanite religion Bel and the Dragon (Greek Daniel), 140
Babili. See Babylon Belenus, god of Noricum, 5
Babylon, Belgium,
Amorite rulers of, 62 burial sites in. See Celtic religion
400 General Index
Belisama, Celtic goddess, 367, 372. Cadiz. See Gadir

See also Brigit, Minerva Caecina, Aulus, Roman writer (first century
Bell, C., twentieth-century scholar, 303 bce),
Bendall, L., twentieth-century scholar of the De etrusca disciplina (On the Etruscan
Mycenaeans, 257 discipline), 315, 332
Beor, father of Balaam. See Deir ‘Allah text Caelestis, worship of, 5
Bes, apotropaic god, 194, 196 Caesar, Julius, Roman politician (100–44 bce),
Beth El, de Bello Gallico (Gallic War), 366–7, 369,
appearance of God at, 162 371–2, 374, 376–7, 383
sanctuary at, 7, 157, 162, 167–71 Calah, modern Nimrud, Assyrian capital, 60, 72
see Israelite and Judean religions Calaurian Amphictiony, 267
Bible, Hebrew, 131–3, 137, 141, 146, 151, 156, 161, calendars,
167–8 cultic, 77
Bir Bou Rekba, Tunisia, festival, 163, 192, 225, 299, 353, 376
stelae from, 222 liturgical, 314
birth, lunar, 141, 163, 316, 357
goddesses of, 319, 370 sacrificial, 283, 287, 348
Bisenzio urn. See Etruscan religion solar, 163, 348
bny bnwt (“creator of creatures”), 134 see also fasti, Capua Tile
Boaz, bronze pillar of Solomon’s Temple, 159 Calendar, Brontoscopic. See Etruscans,
Boğazköy/Hattuša, Hittite metropolis, religion of
cuneiform tablets from, 84 Calendar, Coligni. See Celtic religion
bog men, 376. See also Celtic religion, Calf, Golden, 166, 168
offerings Cambridge Ritualists. See Greek religion
Book of the Dead. See Egyptian religion Campus Martius,
Book of Gates. See Egyptian religion altar to Roman god Mars in, 351
Book of Two Ways. See Egyptian religion Canaan,
Books of the Afterlife. See Egyptian religion land of, 151, 155, 166
Books of Heaven and Earth. See Egyptian religion,
religion Israelite and Judean. See Israelite and
Bordj Djedid, Punic excavations at, 209 Judean religions
Boyce, M., twentieth-century scholar of Syro-Canaanite, 9, 132, 139
Zoroastrianism, 126 candelabra, 160
Branchidai, Greek shrine, 285 cannibalism,
Brigit, Irish goddess of knowledge, 372 in Ireland, 365
building of Nin-Girsu’s temple, he, 47 Cannicella,
bullae, Etruscan Necropolis, 330
Etruscan religion, Canutes, Gallic tribe, 374
amuletic, 328 Capitoline,
Hittite religion, hill,
images of gods on, 86 temples on, 321, 353
bull-leaping, in Minoan religious festivals, 249 Triad, 344, 351
Bunnens, G., twentieth-century scholar, see also Roman religion
L’expansion phénicienne en Méditerranée, 208 Capua Tile, calendar. See Etruscans, religion of
burial. See also, cremation, excarnation, Carmentae. See Roman religion
inhumation Carthage,
Burkert, W., twentieth-century scholar, alliance with Rome, 208
Greek Religion, 302 Althiburus inscription from, 212, 219–20
Homo necans, 301 Bir Bou Rekba, Tunisia,
Byblos, Lady of. See Baalat stelae from, 222
Býčí-Skála cave at Blansko, Czech Republic, 368 Bordj Djedid,
Byrsa (St Louis), Carthaginian cemetery, 209 excavations at, 209
General Index 401
Byrsa (St Louis), Yahimilk,

cemetery at, 209 inscriptions, 132
Douïmès, necropolis at, 220 Yehawmilk,
funerary practices at, inscriptions, 132, 135
cremation, 226–7 Carthaginians, Phoenician people, 210, 341
inhumation, 227 cartouches,
Junon, cemetery at, 209 Egyptian writing on, 193
Milkpilles, Castor,
Punic epitaph at, 223 cult of, 351
Pyrgi, sanctuary of, 351
inscriptions from, 215, 227 catastrophe, natural, Syro-Canaanite religious
religion of, rites to alleviate, 144
afterlife, 223, 227 Catha, consort of Śuri, Etruscan deity, 318, 323,
Astarte. See rbtn 328
Baal-Hammon (Baal H9amon), chief god at caves,
Carthage, Blansko, 368
association with child sacrifice, 222–3 burials in, 369, 381
inscription commemorating vow to, 212 Cretan, 247
priests of, 213 Pan’s, 283
Baal Saphon, Nymphs’, 283, 291–2
temple of: sacrificial tariff from, 216 sanctuaries in, 13, 243
festivals, religious, 205, 211–13, 215, 225 see also geography, sacred
khn, khnm, priest, priests, 213, 216 Cel Ati, Etruscan Mother Earth,
’ lm, Punic deity, 211 dedications to, 316, 328
see also Melqart Celius, Etruscan month of September, 316
maledictions, 223–4 cella, chamber or ritual enclosure.
Marseilles, France, See sanctuaries, shrines, temples
Tariff. See sacrifice Celtic. See languages, Indo-European
mnh 9t. See also offerings Celts,
mqdš, Punic temple, 212–13 cannibalism by, in Ireland, 365
rbtn, “our Lady,” 222 Calendar, Coligny, inscription, 364
ritual, defixiones, at the temple of Minerva-Sulis, 374
sacrifice 209, 211, 213, 216, 219–20, 223–4 divination, 374
sîîîw‘t. See ritual sacrifice funerary practices,
Tanit. See tnt chariot burials, 383
tariffs, 213, 216, 219–20 cremation, 381–2, 384
temples, excarnation, 381
of Ba‘al Saphon, 216 Hochdorf Prince, Late Hallstatt Celtic
Tinnit-Ashtarte, Punic deity, 221. See also tnt burial, 382
‘štrt inhumation, 381–2
Tinnit Phane Ba‘al, Punic deity, 223 Ins, cemetery at, 382
tnt, Punic goddess, 221–2. See also Tanit, Lady of Vix, 382
Tinnit Subingen, burials at, 382
tnt ‘štrt. See Tinnit-Ashtarte language of. See Celtic
tophet of Carthage, monuments,
burials at, 224 Pilier des Nautes (Nautae Parisiaci), 373,
excavations at, 209 377
inscriptions, 209, 222 myths,
sacrifice at, 209, 224–5 Finn saga, 373
harros. See tophet religion of,
Tipasa, cemetery at, 207 afterlife, 381–3
urns from, 225 appeasement of gods, 377
402 General Index
Celts (cont.) ban by Tiberius of, 375

augury. See divination rituals of, 374–5
cult, δρυ ~ς, oak. See Druid
of the Head, 367 temples and shrines,
festivals, religious, 376 at Entremont, 367
gods and goddesses, Andescociuoucus, 371 at Hayling Island, 380
Belisama, 367. See also Brigit, Minerva at Hockwold, 376
Brigit, Irish goddess of knowledge, 372 at Libenice, 368
Cernunnus, hunter deity, 370. at Maiden Castle, 380
See also Gundestrup cauldron at Périgueux, 380
Clota, goddess of the Clyde, 370 at Roquepertuse, 367
Danuvius, god of the Danube, 370 at the source of the Seine, 370, 379
Deae Matres, triple mother goddesses, at Uley, 380
370 nemeto, Celtic sacred grove, 370
Dis Pater, 371 underworld. See afterlife
Earth Mother, 366, 378 Viereckschanzen, enclosures, 379
Epona, Gallic goddess, 370 celuta, Etruscan week-like period, 357.
Esus, See also iśveita, tiniana, aperta
sacrifice to, 373 cenotaph,
Genii loci, “spirits of place,” 373 of Seti I, 193
Lenus, healing god, 372. See also Mars Censorinus, Roman writer (fl. third century ce),
Lugh (“shining light”), 370 De die natali (On the Birthday), 316
Minerva Medica, 367, 372, 374. centralization, religious. See Roman religion
See also Sulis Ceos, island, Mycenaean sanctuaries on, 264
Moccus, boar god, 373 cepen, Etruscan priest, 322–3, 354
Nodens, healing god, 372–3, 379 Ceres, Roman deity, part of the “plebeian triad,”
Senua, inscriptions to, 351
from Baldock, England, 372 Cernunnus, Celtic hunter deity, 370
Sequana, goddess at the source of the Cerveteri, city, site of Etruscan sanctuary,
Seine, 370 tombs at, 325, 327, 329–31
Sinann, goddess linked to the Shannon, Cetamura del Chianti, Etruscan sanctuary at,
370 offerings, 318, 321, 326
Smer[trius], 373 Chabot, J. B., early twentieth-century scholar of
Sulis, temple of: at Bath, England, 370, the Carthaginians, 216
374, 378. See also defixiones, Minerva Chaldeans,
Taranis, god of thunder, 370–1, 377, 380 in Babylonia, 58
Tarvos Trigaranus, “bull with three Chamalières and Larzac Tablets. See Celtic
cranes,” 373, 377 religion
Teutates, 377 chaos,
magic and magicians, 375–6. in Egyptian religion, 186
See also defixiones, rituals in Minoan religion, 252
offerings, at Dellingen, 368 in Israelite and Judean religions, 156
at Farchant, 368 in Zoroastrianism, 105–6, 108, 110
at Holzhausen, Bavaria, 378 chapels,
at Market Harborough, 379 Egyptian, 199, 200
at Newstead, Scotland, 378 Minoan, 249
at Osterstein, Bavaria, 368 chariot burials. See Celtic religion
at Witham, 371, 373. See also bog men chariot races,
priests, in Rome,
archdruid, leader of druids, 374 Equirria, Consualia, and Equus October,
bard. See archdruid 358
Druids, priestly group, in Zoroastrianism, 117, 125
General Index 403
charis, reciprocity in relations between Greek Clotho, Greek fate goddess, sister of Atropos
Gods and humans, 290–1 and Lechesis, 320
Charites, Coffin Texts, 181, 200–1
sanctuary of, 295 coins, as offerings to deities, 328, 379
Charu, Etruscan hammer-god, 321, 331 collegia, collegium of priests. See Etruscan
Cheshire, England. See bog men religion
Chios, Greek sanctuary in, 292 combat, gladiatorial,
Chiusi, in Etruria, 330, 354
Etruscan reliefs at, 326 coming-of-age ceremonies. See Zoroastrianism
Etruscan tombs at, 353 comitia calata, Roman assembly of the curiae,
chōra Tuscan, boundary of. See Althiburus. 356
See also pagus husca comitia centuriata, Roman assembly, 356
Christian sects. See heresies see also centralization, religious
Christianity, Comitium, assembly area in Rome
Pauline, 14 shrine in, 339
Roman state’s support of, 19 Consualia. See chariot races
chronicle, Babylonian, 58 Consus, Roman deity,
Cicero, Roman orator (106–43 bce), altar to, 351
de Legibus (On the Laws), 356 Corieltauvi, Celtic tribe, 379
de Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Cortona, Italian city,
Gods), 2–3, 343 Etruscan offerings at, 328
Oratio pro Fonteio (Oration for Marcus Etruscan tomb at, 330
Fonteius), 369 cosmogony,
Cintas, P., excavator of the tophet, 209 in Egyptian religion, 180–1
cinwatō pertu, “Ford of the Accountant,” 106, Heliopolitan, 181
110, 115 in Zoroastrianism, 111
circus, cosmology,
games, 354 in Egyptian religion, 180–1, 186
valley, sanctuaries in, 351 in Sumerian religion, 52
citadel, Mycenae, cosmos,
Phylakopi, 256, 259, 264 in Egyptian religion, 177, 181–2
Cities list. See Sumerian religion in Etruscan religion, 317, 319
city-state, in Hittite religion, 84, 88, 90, 92, 96
Canaanite, 155 in Sumerian religion, 34, 37, 52
gods of, 45–6, 52 in Zoroastrianism, 105, 108–10, 115, 121, 125
Phoenician, 205, 216 Coulanges, F. de, nineteenth-century French
Sumerian, 7, 10, 35, 38, 49 historian, 302. See also Greek religion
see also polis Covenant,
civilization, Ark of the, chest that symbolized YHWH’s
Anatolian, 86 presence, 157–8, 160–2, 165, 168, 171
Etruscan, 310, 326 Code, 165–6
Greek, 256, 369 see also Israelite and Judean religions
Iron-Age, 368 cow goddesses, 180, 250, 260
Minoan, 237 Cow, prototype of human beings, in
Phoenician, 207 Zoroastrianism, 114
Sumerian, 31 Creation,
Claudius, Roman emperor (41–54 ce), gods of, 68, 104, 134, 156, 159, 194
ban of Druidic practices by, 375 myths. See creation narratives
clay tablets, 33 creation narratives, 34. See also enuma elish,
Cleisthenic tribes, En-ki and Nin-mah
cults of, 11 cremation,
Clota, Celtic goddess of the Clyde, 370 Celtic, 381–2, 384
404 General Index
cremation (cont.) damos. See demos

Etruscan, 330 Danae. See da-nwa
Punic, 226–7 Daniel. See Syro-Canaanite religion.
Roman, 349 See also Aqhat
Crete, Danuvius, Celtic god of the Danube, 370
historical periods of, 239 da-nwa , Mycenaean deity, 260
palaces of, 242 da-pu2-ri-to-jo po-ti-ni-ja , “lady of the
scripts of, 240 Labyrinth,” 260–1
see also Minoan religion dātar. See dadwāh
Ctesias of Cnidus, Greek historian, dauça , “libation service.” See Zoroastrianism
History of the Persians, 122 dauçiya. See dauça
Culsans, Etruscan god, 328 David, king of Judah, 158, 250
cult, dayanā. See daēnā
private, 7, 12, 195, 221, 246, 292, 346, 355–6 Deae Matres, triple mother goddesses, 370
public, 2, 10–12, 332, 355 Death of Gilgamesh, he, 49
state, 12–13, 76, 84, 86, 89, 93, 350 debate between hoe and plough, he, 51
statues, 62, 67, 75, 179, 188, 191–3, 284, 293–4, de 5bîr, “inner sanctum.” See Holy of Holies
324–5, 331 Deborah, prophet and judge, 169
Cult of the Head. See Celtic religion defixiones, at the temple of Minerva-Sulis, 374
cultus (“cult”), 343. See also Cult Deir ‘Allah, text from, 132, 144, 170
cuneiform, script, Deir el-Bahri, temple at. See Hatshepsut
Hittite, 84, 86 deity,
Sumerian, 40 lists, 44, 46
see also clay tablets see also deities by name, gods, goddessess,
Cunliffe, B. W., twentieth-century scholar of the goddess, patron
Celts, 366 Delattre, A. L. See Carthage, religion of
Curia “Hostilia,” meeting structure for Roman Dellingen, Germany, Celtic offerings at, 368
senate. See comitia calata Delos, island,
curses, sanctuaries at, 213
in Syro-Canaanite religion, 145–6 Delphi,
see also defixiones games of, 284
Cursing of Agade, he, 39. See also Sumerian oracles at, 286, 297
religion sanctuaries at, 285, 294
Cybele, Phrygian “Mountain Mother,” 14 deme, basis of Attic local government, 287.
Cyprus, island, Phoenician inscriptions at, 213, See also dēmos
225 Demeter, Greek goddess, 213, 228, 261, 271, 283.
Cyrus, Persian king (c 600–529 bce), 59, 103, 121 See also Astarte
Cythera. See syncretism demons, 49, 64, 73, 84, 86, 114, 250, 252, 321,
331–2. See also demons by name
da-da-re-jo/daidaleon, Mycenaean sanctuary in dēmos, people, 268
Knossos, 263 Dendera, sanctuaries at, 192
dadwāh, the “establisher” (Ahura Mazdā), 111. Denmark. See Gundestrup cauldron
See also dātar Derrida, Jacques, twentieth-century
Daeira, Greek Attic goddess, 282 deconstructionist, 239
daēnā, “vision soul,” in Zoroastrianism, 109–10, Descent of Ishtar to the Netherworld, 70
115. See also dayanā Despoina, Greek Arcadian deity, 282
daēwa , evil god in Zoroastrianism, 103, 108, devas, Greek superhuman beings, 282
112–14, 117–18, 120 Diana, Roman goddess of the hunt, 351
Dagan, Syro-Canaanite god, 131, 141–2 Diaspora, 8, 14
daimon, Greek spirit, 210 Dii Involuti, Roman “Shrouded Gods,” 319
Dan, Israelite sanctuary at, 157 Dikte, Mt, Crete. See Mycenaean religion.
daiva. See daēwa See also theonyms
Damkina. See Marduk Di Manes, “good gods,” 349
General Index 405
Diodorus Siculus, Greek writer (first century do-e-ro, male slave of a god. See Mycenaean
bce), religion
Bibliotheca historica (Historical Library), 365, Dog Star,
377, 379, 383 in Punic religion, 225
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Greek writer of in Young Avestan pantheon, 112
the Roman Augustan age, 343, 346, do-po-ta , “lord of the house,” Mycenaean deity,
352, 354 261
Diòs, Greek divine name. See Baal Hammon double axe, symbol of Minoan great goddess,
Dioscuri, temple of, 341. See also Dioskouroi 249
Dioskouroi, Douïmès, Carthaginian necropolis at, 220
cult of, 319. See also Dioscuri doule. See doulos
Dius Fidius (Semo Sancus), Roman sanctuary doulos, slave, 268
of, 351 dragon,
di-pi-si-jo, 258, 269. See also theonym in Minoan religion, 253
dipsia-festival. See di-pi-si-jo in Syro-Canaanite religion, 140
di-pte-ra-po-ro, Mycenaean religious official, in Zoroastrianism, 116
267 drauga , Lie, 108–9
di-ri-mi-o, Mycenaean deity, 260 dreams,
disk, in Greek religion, 283, 298–9
in Egyptian religion, 180, 184, 190, 193 in Hittite religion, 92
in Hittite religion, 87 in Sumerian religion, 47
in Syro-Canaanite religion, 137 in Syro-Canaanite religion, 133, 143–4
in Zoroastrianism, 122 see also divination
Dis Pater, Celtic god of the Underworld and Drimios, Mycenaean deity,
death, 371 sanctuary for, 262
di-u-ja. See Diwia Drioton, E., twentieth-century Egyptologist, 178
di-u-jo, sanctuary of Zeus. See Mycenaean drug. See drauga
religion Druids, Celtic priestly group,
divination, ban by Tiberius of, 375
in Celtic religion, 374 rituals of, 369, 374
in Etruscan religion, 310, 325, 332 δρυ ~ς, oak. See Druid
in Roman religion, 343, 348, 355 Duamutef, Egyptian funerary god, 179
in Syro-Canaanite religion, 143–4 Duat, Egyptian underworld, 183, 201
diviners, Dumézil, Georges, twentieth-century French
in Assyrian and Babylonian religion, 76 scholar of Roman religion, 345
in Israelite and Judean religions, 170 Dumuzi, husband of Ishtar, 66.
in Syro-Canaanite religion, 142. See also Tammuz
See also personnel, sacred Dumu-zid and En-ki-imdu, 51
di-we, Mycenaean Zeus, 260 Dursares, god of Arabia, 5
Diweus, 263, 272. See also di-we
Diwia. See Diweus Ea, Babylonian deity, 63, 66
Di-wi Di-ka-ta-i-o, Mycenaean Zeus Diktaios, Earhart, B., twentieth-century scholar,
270 definition of religion, 5
di-wo-nu-so, Mycenaean Dionysus, 260 Early Dynastic period,
Djer, Egyptian king from the first dynasty, of Egyptian history, 178–9, 192, 198
tomb of, 192 of Mesopotamian history, 38–40, 44–8, 50
Djoser, Egyptian king from the third Early Minoan, historical period of Crete, 239.
dynasty, See also Middle Minoan, Late
tomb of, 198 Minoan
Dodona, oracular shrine in northern Greece, Earth Mother, 366, 378
285, 297–8 Ebla, ancient city,
do-e-ra , female slave of a god. See Mycenaean texts from, 130
religion ecstasy. See ecstatic rites
406 General Index
ecstatic rites, 247 see also texts

Edfu, site of Horus sanctuary, 192 gods and goddesses,
Edom, ancient nation. See Israelite and Judean Amen, god of hebes, consort of Mut, 178,
religions 192, 194
Egypt, Amen-Ra, preeminent god during the New
religion of. See Egyptian religion Kingdom, 178–9, 186, 192
Egyptian religion, Amun, 179
Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV), primacy of Sun Anubis, funerary god, 179, 200
god during reign of, Apis,
rejection of anthropomorphic cult of, 179
representations by, 193 Aten, 193–4
amulets, Atum, Lower Egypt’s creator god, 177, 181,
animals identified with gods, 197 183. See also Ptah, Ra
as grave goods, 197 Bes, apotropaic god, 194, 196
to facilitate prowess in hunting, 195 Duamutef, funerary god, 179
to promote strength, fertility, and love, 195 Geb, earth, 181, 183
to protect against everyday dangers, 195 Harsaphes, 180
to ward off enemies, 195 Hathor, 192
used by magical/medical practitioners, 197 Heliopolitan Ennead, nine primeval
animal cult in, 179 deities, 181, 186
ankh, sign for life, 221 Heqet, frog-goddess of fertility, 196
ba , mobile spirit, 185, 195 Horus, son of Osiris, personification of
concepts, divine kingship, 180, 182–3, 186, 193,
afterlife, 177, 181, 184, 195, 197–201. 197
See also Duat, underworld Isis, sister and wife of Osiris, mother of
Amduat (“what is in the afterlife”), 201 Horus, 181–2, 201
derived from the Book of Two Ways, 201 Khentiamentiu, funerary god, 179
chaos, 186 Khnum, associated with source of the Nile,
Duat, underworld, 182–3, 200 177, 180, 196
ka , life force, 195 Khonsu, son of Amen and Mut, 192
maat, order, 202 Mut, Amen’s consort, 192
Nun, limitless expanse of impenetrably Nephthys, 181, 201
dark water, 183 Nut, sky goddess, 181, 183
rebirth, 181, 183, 197 Osiris, 179, 181–2, 184, 193, 198, 200–1
resurrection, 194, 201 patron deities, 177
cosmogony, Ptah, 177, 179
Heliopolitan, 181 Ra, sun-god, 178, 180, 183, 198, 201
cosmology, 180–1, 186 Ra-Horakhty, “Horus of the horizon,” 183
festivals, religious, Renenutet, serpent goddess, 197
Beautiful Festival of the Valley, 192 Seth, storm god, 182, 186, 193
of Osiris, 193 Shu, 181, 183
Opet, 192 Taweret, fertility goddess, 194, 196
funerary practices, Tefnut, 181
mastabas. See tombs hoth, 179, 194
mortuary complex of Senwosret III, 193 Wepwawet, funerary god, 179
tombs, “Litany of Ra,” 183
at Hieraconpolis, 197 magic and magicians,
of Djoser, third-dynasty king, at heka , “magic,” 195
Saqqara, 198–9 pekheret. See medico-magical papyri
of Ramesses VI, 182 see also incantations and spells, rituals
Osireion, ceremonial tomb of Osiris, 193 noute, “god,” 178
ushabti, Egyptian funerary servant, 200 papyri,
General Index 407
funerary, 183–4 El Shaddai. See YHWH

medico-magical, e-ma-a2, Mycenaean god. See also Hermes
ruu, 197 Emar, texts from. See also Syro-Canaanite
shesau, 197 religion
personnel, sacred, empire,
God’s Wives of Amun, 191 Achaemenid, 103, 122, 171
High Priests of Amun, 191 Assyrian, 58, 151, 157, 171
hem-netjer, “god’s servant,” priestly title, Babylonian, 152, 171
188, 191 Hellenistic, 7
kheri-hebet, lector priests, 191 Hittite, 3, 89, 241
wab (“pure”) priests, 191 Persian, 167, 171, 336
prophecy, prophets, 186 regional, 7, 10–11
rituals and ceremonies, Roman, 11, 18–19, 315
Opening of the Mouth ceremony, 179 Ur, 39
temples and sanctuaries, endogamy, 226
at Deir el-Bahri, 186 e-ne-si-da-o-ne, Mycenaean Ennosidas, 260
at Hieraconpolis, 187 En-hedu-ana,
at Karnak, 192 first accredited author of hymns, 50
hut-netjer, “house of god,” 188 En-ki (Enki), creator god, 32, 34, 37, 44–5, 48–9,
of Hathor, at Dendera, 192 50, 52
of Horus, at Edfu, 192 En-ki and Nin-mah, 34, 49. See also creation
of Ramesses II, 193 narratives
of Seti I, 193 En-ki and the world order, 34, 49
texts, Enlightenment, Age of, 148
Book of the Dead, 181, 201–2 En-lil (Enlil), “Lord Wind,” 34, 43–5, 49, 52
Book of Gates, 201 Entremont, France,
Book of Two Ways, 200–1 Celtic shrine at, 367
Books of the Afterlife, 181, 184 enuma elish, creation narrative, 57, 61–5, 68,
Books of Heaven and Earth, 201 71, 74
Egyptian Report of Wen-Amon. e-nu-wa-ri-jo, Mycenaean Enualios, 260
See Syro-Canaanite religion Ephraim,
Egyptian slavery, 163 son of Joseph, 157
Egyptians, ancient, religion of. See Egyptian tribe, 157
religion see also Israelite and Judean religions
Egyptologist, 177 Epic of Creation, enuma elish, 8, 57, 61–2,
e-ke-ra2-wo, Mycenaean ruler, 268 64–5, 68, 71, 74, 78. See also creation
El, Syro-Canaanite god, 131, 133–4, 136–8, 144–5, narratives, myths
147, 155–6. See also Baal Cycle Epic of Gilgamesh, 70
Elam, ancient Near Eastern state, 69 Epidauros,
Elamites, Aesculapius sanctuary at, 13, 264
deities of the, 121 Epona, Gallic goddess, 370
Eleazer, Levite priest, 161 Equirria , Roman chariot races, 358
El Elyon, “God Most High.” See Israelite and Equus October, “October horse,” Roman chariot
Judean religions. See also Abram races, 358
Elephantine, Egypt, e-ra, Mycenaean Hera, 260
letters from, 120 Erechtheion, Greek sanctuary, 295
ostracon from, 142 Erechtheus, Greek hero, 295
Eleusis, Erichthonios, Greek hero, 295
cultic center at. See Mycenaean religion Ereshkigal, queen of the netherworld, 65
Mysteries of. See Greek religion e-re-u-ti-ja, Mycenaean Eleithia, 260
Elijah, prophet, 154, 170 Eridu, Mesopotamian city,
Elkurnisa, 134 temple at, 74
408 General Index
e-ri-nu, Mycenaean Erinus (“Fury”), 260 Melone del Sodo II, in Cortona, tomb
Eritha, a Mycenaean priestess, 267 at, 330
Esarhaddon, Assyrian king, 58 Regolini-Galassi, tomb, 330
Esau, Jacob’s brother, 155 Tarquinia, tombs at, 330–1
Eshmun, Phoenician god, 134, 138, 221 Tomb of the Augurs, 330. See also ritual
Esquiline, hill, Tomb of the Blue Demons, 331.
Roman sanctuaries on, 351 See also afterlife
Esus, Celtic deity, 373, 377 Tomb of the Reliefs, 329–30
Etruscans, Tomba della Scimmia, 353. See also ritual
religion of, Tomba delle Bighe, 353. See also ritual
Acherontic Books, books on death and life, gods and goddesses,
320. See also afterlife Achvizr, male and female deity, 319
afterlife, 329, 331–2. See also underworld Aita, god of the underworld, 331
altars, Alpan, deity of goodwill and gladness,
at Cortona, 330 319
at Fiesole, 326 Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love and
at the sanctuary of Fontanile di beauty: on Etruscan mirrors, 320
Legnisina, 328 Aplu, Apulu, Etruscan deity, 319, 325.
at the Grotta Porcina, 330 See also Apollo
at Marzabotto, 326 Aritimi (Artumes), Etruscan goddess
at Orvieto, 330 Artemis, 319, 328
at Pieva a Socana, 326 Athrpa, Etruscanized Greek fate goddess
at the Portonaccio sanctuary, Veii, 325 Atropos, 320
at Pyrgi, 326 Atlenta, Etruscanized Greek Atalanta,
at the “Sacral-Institutional Complex,” 320
Pian di Civita, 323–4 Atunis, Etruscanized Adonis, 320
bulla , amuletic, 328 Catha, consort of Śuri, 318, 323, 328
calendar, Cel Ati, Etruscan Mother Earth, 316, 328
Agramer Mumienbinden (liber linteus), Charu(n), 321, 331
314 Culsans, 328
Brontoscopic, 314 Dii Involuti, “Shrouded Gods,” 319
Capua Tile (Tabula Capuana), Dioskouroi, 319
314 Evan, 319
divination, Favores Opertanei, “Secret Gods of
augury, 323, 331 Favor,” 319
auspices, 323 Fufluns, 318–19
haruspication, 309, 316, 331–2. Hercle, 318–19, 328. See also Herakles
See also Avl Tarchunus Janitores Terrestres, “Doorkeepers of the
liver, model of. See Piacenza liver Earth,” 318–19
omens, 318, 322 Laran, god of lightning and thunder,
Piacenza liver, 311–12, 317 317. See also Mars
sortes, lots, 332 Lasa, flying spirit, 319
etrusca disciplina , religious precepts and Leinth, deity of fate and fortune, 318–19
practices, 315, 329 Letham, 318
funerary practices, Lur, deity of fate and fortune, 318
Cerveteri: tombs at, 325, 329–31 Lynsa Silvestris, 318
Chiusi: tombs at, 326, 353 Mariś, Etruscan deity appearing as
combat, gladiatorial, 330 triplets, 319
cremation, 330 Meleager. See Meliacr
François Tomb, tomb of Vel Saties, 323 Meliacr, 320
inhumation, 329 Menrva, 317, 319. See also Minerva
L(a)ris Pulenas: tomb of, 323 Nethuns, 317–18
General Index 409
Neverita, 318 at Pian di Civita, 323–4, 327

Nortia, 321 at Piazza d’Armi, 324
Pacha, 323 at Poggio Casetta, 324
Phersipnei, deity of the underworld, 331. at Pyrgi, 325–7
See also Persephone at Rusellae, 324
Satre, 317 Sacral-Institutional Complex, 323–4.
Selvans, 318, 328. See also Silvanus See also altars
Sethlans, 317. See also Vulcan at Tarquinia, 320, 323, 325
Silvanus. See Selvans at Veii, 325
Soranus, epiclesis of Apollo, 318. at Volterra, 320, 326
See also Śuri at Vulci, 325, 328
Śuri, 318 underworld, 331–2. See also afterlife
Tec Sans, 318 votives,
halna, Etruscan spirit, 319 anatomical, 311, 328, 332
huflthas, 318 see also Etruria
Tinia, chief deity, 315, 317–18, 328 etrusca disciplina , Etruscan religious precepts
Turan, 316, 328. See also Aphrodite and practices, 315, 329. See also Cicero
Turms, 319, 327 Euphrates, river, 36, 46, 57, 130–1, 142
Uni, consort of Tinia, 314, 317–19, 327. Europe,
See also Astarte, Juno Central, 364, 367–8, 380, 382
Vanth, winged goddess, 331 Western, 19, 24, 336, 364
Vecuvia, 315, 331. See also prophecy, Eusebius, Christian writer (263–339 ce),
Vegoia Praeparatio evangelica (Preparation for the
Vei, 328 Gospel), 209
Veltune (Vertumnus), 318 Evan, Etruscan deity, 319
mirrors, Evans, Sir Arthur, excavator of Knossos
from Volterra, 326 (1851–1941), 237–9, 241, 244, 246–9,
of Pava Tarchies (puer Tages), 313, 316, 252, 254
318, 321 Eve, 169
personnel, sacred, evidence,
cepen, Etruscan priest, 322 archaeological, 8, 37, 167, 177, 188, 266,
collegia, collegium of priests, 322 309–10, 338, 364, 372
haruspex, 318, 321 material, 7–8, 367
haruspex fulguriator, “reader of entrails” textual, 3, 6, 33, 35, 39, 44, 155, 180, 202, 257,
or “reader of lightning,” 322 266, 268, 309
hatrencu, priestess, 322 evil in Zoroastrianism, 103, 105, 108–21, 124,
Larth Cafates, priest: inscription of, 127
322 excarnation,
maruχva , association of priests, 322 in Celtic funerary practices, 381
prophecy, prophets, exēgētai, “explicators,” Athenian officials, 285
Tages, 315 exta , entrails. See Syro-Canaanite religion
see also etrusca disciplina ex-voto, offering, 379
ritual, extispicy. See divination
sacrifice, 324, 326–7, 330. Ezekiel, Zadokite priest and prophet, 160, 171
See also Agramer Mumienbinden see also Bible
temples and sanctuaries, Ezra, 162
at Cerveteri, 314, 325, 329
at Cetamura del Chianti, 321, 326–7 façades,
at Fiesole, 326 of palaces, 186
at Graviscae, 329 of temples, 179
at Marzabotto, 325 falcon in Egyptian religion, 179–80, 183–4, 186,
at Orvieto, 325, 329–30 188, 197. See also Ra
410 General Index
Fara, ancient Shuruppak, 68 France, modern, 95, 216, 364, 367–8, 378, 380,
Farchant, Celtic offerings at, 368 382–3. See also Gaul
Fashioner of the Cow, Zoroastrian divine being, François Tomb, Etruscan tomb, 323
108, 110 Frangrasyan, enemy of Aryans, 116
fasti, calendars frawashi, “pre-existing soul.” See Zoroastrianism
Fasti, Praenestini, 356 frescoes, Mycenaean, 259, 261–5, 269–71
Fate, 49, 95, 309, 318, 320–1. See also Fate deities Fufluns, Etruscan deity, 318–19
by name
Favores Opertanei, “Secret Gods of Favor,” 319 Gadir, modern Cadiz,
feasts. See rituals Phoenician and Punic settlements at, 206–7
Ferrybridge, England, Celtic chariot burials Garbini, G., twentieth-century scholar of
at, 383 Phoenician history, 221
Fertility, 135, 137, 155–6, 169, 194, 197, 328, 366. garō.nmāna , Ahura Mazdā’s House of Songs,
See also fertility deities by name 115
festivals, religious, Gaul,
in Assyrian and Babylonian religions, 59, 62, religion in. See Celtic religion
72, 77–8 gaya , “life” in Zoroastrianism, 114
in Celtic religion, 376 Gaya Martān, prototype of living beings, 114
in Egyptian religion, 187–8, 192–4, 202 Geb, earth. See Egyptian religion
in Greek religion, 284, 286, 288–9, 292, 294, Geertz, C., twentieth-century anthropologist,
296, 299, 301 129
in Hittite religion, 93–4 Genii loci, “spirits of a place,” 373
in Israelite and Judean religions, 160, 162–4, gentes, Roman social structures, 357
166, 168–9 geography,
in Minoan religion, 241–2, 246, 248 importance of, for study of ancient religions,
in Mycenaean religion, 257–8, 265–6 13–14, 19
in Punic religion, 205, 211–13, 215, 225 sacred, 13
in Roman religion, 353, 356 Gerard-Rousseau, M., twentieth-century French
in Sumerian religion, 33, 46–7 scholar, 257
in Syro-Canaanite religion 131, 141–2 Gershom, son of Moses, 162
see also calendars Gershonites, Levitical family, 162
Festus, Sextus Pompeius, second-century-ce ghost,
Roman writer, of humans, 146
De verborum significatu (On the Meaning of gifts. See offerings
Words), 354–5 gift-exchange, 105, 125, 290
Février, J. G., twentieth-century French scholar Gilgal,
of the Carthaginians, 216, 230 Passover at, 162
Ficana, Italy, Roman burials at, 349 temples at, 157, 168
Fiesole, Italy, Etruscan temples at, 326 see also Israelite and Judean religions
Figulus, Nigidius, Romanized Etruscan writer Gilgamesh, 49, 70, 250. See also Assyrian
(98–45 bce), 314, 332 and Babylonian religions, Epic of
Finn saga, Celtic myth, 373 Gilgamesh; Sumerian religion
Flamen Dialis, Roman priest of Jupiter, 357 Death of Gilgamesh, the (as a source)
fl amines. See personnel, sacred, priests Girsu,
fl amines maiores, major flamens, priests of Sumerian texts found at, 46–7
Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus, 344 see also Nin-Girsu (patron deity of Girsu)
flood stories, 49, 64 gnāh, Ahura Mazdā’s “women,” 108
Fontanile di Legnisina, Italy, sanctuary at, 328 god, gods. See individual gods by name
Ford of the Accountant., 106, 110, 115 Godart, L. and A. Sacconi, twentieth-century
Fors Fortuna, Roman temple of, 351 French scholars of Mycenaean history,
Forum, Roman, temples in, 338–9, 351 267
Forum Boarium, Cattle Market, temples in, 351 goddess. See individual goddesses by name
General Index 411
God’s Wives of Amun, 191 Artemis, Apollo’s sister, 283, 296

Göttingen bronzes, 321 Artemis Brauronia, 295
Gracious One, epithet of El, 146 Asklepios, Greek god of healing, 298
Grave Circle A, Mycenaean burials, 269 Athena (Athene), Greek goddess of
grave goods, 197–8, 227, 358, 381–4 wisdom, 281, 283, 295
Graviscae, Etruscan sanctuary at, 329 Athena Ergane, 282
Great God, Zoroastrian deity, 121 Athena Nike, 295
Great Goddess, Minoan deity, 238, 248–50, 252 Athena Polias, Athena “of the city,” 282
Greater Greece, Greek settlements in southern Athena Pronaia, Athena “in front of the
Italy or Sicily, 347 temple,” 294
Great Mother, Minoan goddess, 237 Athena Skiras, 296
Greece, Athena Soteira, Athena “savior,” 282
Archaic, 10–11, 272 Daeira, Attic goddess, 282
Mycenaean, 19, 240–1, 256–7, 265, 270, 373 Demeter, 283
religion of. See Greeks, religion of Despoina, Arcadian deity, 282
worship of Roman emperor in, 11 Dionysus, 281, 296
Greeks, religion of, Hephaestus (Hephaistos), smith-god, 281
altars, Hera, 281
burning God’s portions on, 293 Hermes, 295
leading animals to, 291 Hestia, goddess of the hearth, 282
of Poseidon, 294 Koios, 282
divination, Kourotrophos, “nurturer of children,” 282
dreams, 298–9 Kronos, god of time, 282
omens, 297 Olympians, 282
mantikē technē, art of prophecy, 297 Ouranos, 282
seers (manteis), 285 Pan, 283
see also oracles Persephone, 283
festivals, religious, Phoibe, 282
Panathenaia, 294 Poseidon, 283, 295
Pyanopsia, 296 Rhea, ancient mother of Zeus and Hestia,
games, 282
at Delphi, 284 Tritopatores, 282
at Olympia, 284 Zeus, Greek “father of the gods,” 14, 122,
of Isthmus, 284 210, 252, 254, 260, 263, 271, 281–3
of Nemea, 284 Zeus Herkeios, Zeus “of the enclosure” or
in Attica, 296 “of the household,” 287
roles of Athenian magistrates in, Zeus Meilichios, “the kindly one,” 283
archon, 286 Zeus Polieus, 295
basileus, 286 heroes and heroines,
polemarchos, 286 Agamemnon, 283
gods and goddesses, Aglauros, 295
Aesculapius. See Asklepios Erechtheus, 295
Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty, 283 Erichthonios, 295
Aphrodite Ourania (heavenly Aphrodite), Herakles (Heracles, Hercules), 283
283 Neoptolemos, 293
Apollo, sun god, 283, 296. See also Apollon Pandrosos, 295
Apollo Agyieus (Apollo “of the streets”), incubation, 298. See also dreams
283 Mysteries, 298–9
Apollo Epikourios, 296 oracles,
Apollo Patroös, guarantor of phratry Amphiareion at Oropos, 286
membership, 287 at Branchidai, 285
Areion, deity of Arcadia, 282 at Delphi, 285–6, 297. See also Pythia
412 General Index
Greeks, religion of (cont.) underworld, 283, 293

at Didyma, 285 Green, M. J., twentieth-century scholar of
at Dodona, 285, 297–8 Celtic religion, 367
of Trophonios, 297. See also divination Gregory of Tours, Gallo-Roman historian
personnel, sacred, (538–594 ce),
priest, 285–6, 288, 292–3, 297 Vitae Patrum ( Lives of the Fathers), 379
priestess, 285, 292–3 Grotta Porcina, Etruscan altar at, 330
Pythia, 286, 297 Gsell, S., twentieth-century French scholar of
rituals, North Africa, 208
mystēria. See Mysteries Gu-dea, “the chosen one,” Sumerian ruler, 47
Oschophoria, 296 guest-friends, guest-friendship, 105, 125
role of Athenian magistrates in, Gulšeš, Hittite Fate Deities, 95
exēgētai, “explicators,” 285 Gundestrup cauldron, 370
hieromnēmones, “rememberers” of sacred Gwowia, Mycenaean cow-goddess, 260, 262.
rites, 286 See also qo-wi-ja
hierophylakes, “guardians” of sacred
rites, 286 Habakkuk,
hieropoioi, “sacred/ritual doers,” 286 Psalm of, 155
sacrifice, see also Bible
in Attica, 286 Hadad (Hadda). See Baal
mageiros, butcher-cook, 291 Hades. See Aita
roles of Athenian magistrates in, Hadrumetum, modern Sousse, Tunisia, 222
archon, 286 Hagia Triada, Minoan sarcophagus from, 246
superhuman beings and spirits, hāiti, each of the seventeen sections into which
asuras, superhuman beings, 282 the Gāthā s are subdivided, 103
devas, superhuman beings, 282 Hallstatt culture,
nymphs, 283 artifacts, 369, 371
Titans, 282 see also Celtic religion
temples and sanctuaries, Hammurabi,
Amphiaraos, healing sanctuary Code of, 71, 166
(Amphiareion) at Oropos, 292, 298. Dynasty, 56, 59, 69
See also incubation see Assyrian and Babylonian religions
at Chios, 292 Handsome (one). See Adonis
at Olympia, 294 haoma , divine plant. See Zoroastrianism
Erechtheion, 295 Haphaistios, Mycenaean anthroponym.
Heraia, See Hephaestus
of Argos, 296 harioli, “charlatans,” 355
of Samos, 296 Harsaphes, Egyptian god, 180
of Apollo, at Delphi, 294 haruspex, Etruscan priest, 318, 321
of Apollo Epikourios, 296 haruspex fulguriator, “reader of entrails” or
of Artemis Brauronia, 295 “reader of lightning,” 322
of Athena Ergane, 282 haruspication, Etruscan science,
of Athena Nike, 295 practice of, 309, 316, 331–2
of Athena Polias, 282 Hašauwaš, “the one of birth,” Hittite female
of Athena Pronaia, 294 magicians, 95
of Athena Soteira, 282 haššēm, “the Name,” 153
of the Charites, 295 Hathor, Egyptian deity,
of Hekate Epipyrgidia, 295 sanctuary of, 192. See also Isis
of Hermes, 295 hatrencu, Etruscan priestess, 322
of Zeus, 262–3, 341 Hatshepsut, Egyptian New Kingdom female
of Zeus Polieus, 295 pharaoh (1473–1458 bce), 186
Parthenon, on the Athenian Acropolis, 295 Hatti. See Hittite religion
General Index 413
Hattuša. See Boğazköy/Hattuša of Argos, 296

Hattušili III, Hittite ruler, of Samos, 296
“Apology” of, 91 Herakles (Hercules), Greek hero, 210, 283, 318,
Haug, M., nineteenth-century German scholar 340, 351
of Zoroastrianism, 123 Hērbedestān, Zoroastrian manual, 103. See also
Hayling Island, England, Romano-Celtic temple Etruscans, religions of
at, 380 Hercle. See Herakles
Healer. See Baal Hercules. See Herakles
heaven, 10, 34, 39, 48, 50, 68, 105, 109–10, 113– heresies,
14, 120, 122, 171, 201, 250. See also hell Christian, 19
Heavenly River, 112, 115, 117 Zoroastrian,
Hebat, Sun-goddess of Arinna, 88–9. Zurvanism, 124
See also Aleppo Hermes, Greek god, 295. See also e-ma-a2,
Hebrew, theonyms
Bible. See Bible, Hebrew heroes, heroines,
see also languages, Semitic Celtic, 365, 369
Hebron, Judean area, 155, 157, 169 Greek, 7, 283–4, 293–6
hegemony, in Zoroastrianism, 106, 116–17
Assyrian, 58 Herodotus, Greek historian (fifth century
Persian, 103 bce),
Roman, 342, 347–8 Histories, 103, 122, 179, 228, 281, 286
Sumerian, 69 Hesiod, Greek poet (eighth-seventh century
heka , “magic.” See Egyptian religion bce),
hêkal , “palace” or “great hall” of Solomon’s heogony, 281
Temple, 159–60 Works and Days, 299
Hekate Epipyrgidia, sanctuary of, 295 Hestia, Greek goddess of the hearth, 282
Heliopolis, Egypt, center of solar cult, 181 Hezekiah, Judean king, 162, 166–7
Heliopolitan Cosmogony. See Cosmogony, hh 9ath 9h 9tā’t, “Sin Offering” in Israelite and
Heliopolitan Judean religions, 164
Heliopolitan Ennead, nine primeval deities, hh 9êq hā’āresh 9, “the bosom of the earth” in
181, 186 Israelite and Judean religions, 160
hell, 106, 109, 113, 115, 118. See also heaven Hieraconpolis, ancient Nekhen, modern Kom
Hellene, used by Christian apologists and el-Ahmar,
polemicists for non-Christians, 17 Egyptian temple at, 187
Hellenistic, tomb at, 197
age, 11, 18–20, 23, 331 hierarchy,
kingdoms, 18. See also Alexander the Great of gods, 147, 370
Hellenization, 23–4 social, 187
Helveti, people of the late Hallstatt period, 382 hiereus, priest, 267. See also i-je-re-u, and Greek
hem-netjer, “god’s servant,” Egyptian priestly religion, personnel, sacred
title, 188, 191 hierodules, slaves of the god. See Mycenaean
Henchir Medeine. See Althiburus religion. See also slaves
Henning, W. B., twentieth-century scholar of hierogamia , sacred marriage, 111
Iranian religion, 126 hieroglyph, 178, 189
hepatoscopy. See divination Hieroglyphic A and B, Minoan scripts, 237
Hephaestus (Hephaistos), Greek smith-god, 281 hieromnēmones, “rememberers” of sacred rites,
Heqet, personified birth brick, frog-goddess, 196 Athenian officials, 286
Hera, Greek goddess, 210, 254, 260, 262, 271, hieron, sanctuary, 263. See also i-je-ro
281, 341. See also e-ra hierophylakes, “guardians” of sacred rites,
Heraclitus, Greek philosopher (535–475 bce), Athenian officials, 286
294 hieropoioi, “sacred/ritual doers,” Athenian
Heraia, sanctuary, officials, 286
414 General Index
hierourgos, doer of ritual, 267. See also i-je- alwanzatar, black magic, 94
ro-wo-ko, and Etruscans, religions of hašauwaš, “the one of birth,” Hittite
High Priests of Amun, 191 female magicians, 95
Hittites, incantations, 95
Boğazköy/Hattuša, metropolis of, papratar, impurity, 94–5
tablets from, 84. See also Hattuša parã handandatar, “prior arrangement” or
empire of, 89 “providence,” 91
Kuşaklı/Šarišša, Hittite provincial center, 84. prophecy, prophets,
See also tablets šiunaš antuhšaš, “man of god” or
language of, See languages, Indo-European prophet, 92
religion of, sacrifice, 91, 93
afterlife, 96 temples,
akkant, spirits of the dead, 95 šiunaš per, “house of the god,” 85
arkuwar, “plaidoyer,” 92 Yazılıkaya, temple of, 87
bullae, underworld, 95. See also afterlife
images of gods on, 86 seals,
cosmos, 84, 90, 96 cylinder and stamp, 86
cult, athletes in, 94 writing of,
divination, cuneiform, script, 86
augury, 93 hmhh 9šbm’š ln, “our comptrollers,” on Punic
dreams, 92 inscriptions, 219
extispicy, 93 Hochdorf Prince, Late Hallstatt Celtic burial,
incubation, 93 382
omens, 92 Hockwold, Romano-British temple at, 376
oracles, 92–3 Hoffmann, K., twentieth-century German
festivals, religious, 93–4 scholar of Zoroastrianism, 125
gods and goddesses of, holocaust. See offerings, See also sacrifice
Arinna, Sun-goddess of, 89, 92 Holy of Holies, “inner sanctum.” See Jerusalem
Arušna, deity of, 93. See also divination temple. See also dh 9bîr
DINGIR.MAHMEŠ/HI.A, mother Holy One. See YHWH
goddess, 95 Homer, ninth/eighth-century bce Greek epic
Gulšeš, fate deities, 95 poet,
Hebat, Sun-goddess of Arinna, 88–9 Iliad, 205, 258, 294
Iyaya, goddess, 87 Odyssey, 205, 261
patron deities, 89 Horden, P. and N. Purcell, twentieth-century
Protective Deity. See patron deities scholars,
Šapinuwa, Storm god of, 89 he Corrupting Sea, 13–14. See also geography
Šaušga, 87, 91. See also patron deities Horon, Syro-Canaanite deity, 145
Tazzuwašši, 89 Hornung, E., twentieth-century scholar,
Teššub, storm god, 88–9 Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt, 178
housand Gods, 90 Horus, Egyptian god, son of Osiris,
Yazılıkaya, 87 personification of divine kingship,
Zaliyanu, 89 180, 182–3, 186, 192–3, 197.
Zašhapuna, 89 See also falcon
Zawalli, 96 “house of god.” See hut-netjer
Zippalanda, storm god of, 89 House of the Frescoes. See Mycenaean religion
huwaši, god’s ineffable essence located in House of the Idols. See Mycenaean religion
an image, 87 Huldah, female prophet in southern Judah,
impurity. See papratar 170
“Instructions to Temple Officials,” Hittite humans,
text. See sacrifice domain of, 31, 34, 39, 48, 52
magic and magicians, life of, 23, 49, 119, 146
General Index 415
relationships, with other humans or gods, 2, in Syro-Canaanite religion, 131, 144

50, 73, 84, 179, 288, 290, 352, 359 incubation, 93, 298
Humbach, H., twentieth-century German Indara, evil god in Zoroastrianism, 114
scholar of Zoroastrianism, 125–6 Indic. See languages, Indo-European
Humban, Elamite deity, 121 Indo-Aryans,
Humility, 106–7, 109, 111, 114 language of, 102
Hurrians, 60, 67 Indo-European. See languages
hut-netjer, “house of god,” 188 Indo-Iranian. See languages, Indo-European
huwaši. See Hittite gods inner sanctum. See Holy of Holies
worship infanticide. See Carthage, religion of
hybridity, as a term of analysis of religion, 16 inhumation,
Hyde, T., seventeenth-century English Celtic, 381–2
orientalist, 123 Etruscan, 329
Hygieia, Apollo’s granddaughter, 372 Punic, 227
hymns, Roman, 349
in Egyptian religion, 183, 187, 194–5 initiations, 268, 270, 298–9, 346. See also rituals,
in Zoroastrianism, 103, 105–6, 112–13, 116–18, teletai
125 Ins, Celtic cemetery at, 382
see also, En-hedu-ana, Khorda Avesta, yashts inscriptions,
Achaemenid, 104, 120
Iba ’lt, Syro-Cannanite month, 143 Assyrian, 59
ibis. See hoth Celtic, 364–5, 370–2, 374
Icard, F., French excavator of Carthage, 209 Egyptian, 8, 177, 180–1, 186, 200
iconography, Etruscan, 309, 314, 318, 322–3, 328
Assyrian, 61, 68, 77 Greek, 287, 291–2, 302
Egyptian, 186, 194 Judean, 169–70
Minoan, 242, 254 Minoan, 250
Mycenaean, 271 Phoenician and Punic, 209–13, 215–16,
Punic, 221 219–20, 222, 226, 228
Syro-Canaanite, 137 Roman, 337, 370
Ides. See calendars Sumerian, 33, 45–7, 50–1
idols, 179, 246, 259, 264 Syro-Canaanite, 131–2, 140, 142, 144–6.
Idrimi, inscription of, 131, 144 See also individual inscriptions by
i-je-re-u. See hiereus name
i-je-ro. See hieron Insler, S., twentieth-century linguist, 126
i-je-ro-wo-ko. See hierourgos instructions of Shuruppak, he, 49–50
Illahun, Egyptian town, 187 “Instructions to Temple Officials,” Hittite text,
Iluma-ilum, Babylonian ruler, 57 139
images. See statues interpretatio (interpretation),
Immortals, Life-giving. See amesha spenta of other religions, 14
impiety, 147 Iphigenia, Agamemnon’s daughter, 376
Inana, goddess of the Venus star, 34–5, 40–1, i-qe-ja po-ti-ni-ja , Mycenaean deity, 261.
43–5, 49–51, 66, 69–70. See also theonyms
See also Sumerian religion Iran,
Inana and An, 50 religion of. See Zoroastrianism
Inana and En-ki, 35, 49 Iranian. See languages, Indo-Aryan
Inana’s descent to the netherworld , 50 Iranian Plateau, 19, 102
incantations, Ireland, Celtic, 365, 367, 370, 372, 375–6, 384
in Assyrian and Babylonian religions, 76 Isaac, patriarch, 155, 157
in Egyptian religion, 197 Isad-wāstar, Zarathustra’s son, 118
in Hittite religion, 95 Ischia (Pithecoussai), island, Phoenician
in Sumerian religion, 48–9 settlement on, 206
416 General Index
Ishbi-Irra, Amorite ruler, 69 Rechabites, Bedouin group devoted to

Ishkur. See Adad YHWH, 154
Ishtar, goddess of love and war, 65–6, 68–70. offerings,
See also Inana ’āšām, “Guilt Offering,” 164
Isin, Sumerian city, 38–9, 50 hh 9ath 9tā’t, “Sin Offering,” 164
Isis, Egyptian goddess, sister and wife of Osiris, patriarchs,
mother of Horus, 181–2, 197, 201, 213, Abraham, 155–7. See also Abram
223, 225, 228 Isaac, father of Esau and Jacob, 155, 157
see also Astarte, Hathor Jacob, grandson of Abraham, brother of
Israel, Esau, ancestor of Israel, 155, 157, 162
ancient, priestly roles,
destruction of northern kingdom, 151, 157 instruction of the people in the Torah
origins of, 155 (tôrâ), 161
religion of. See Israelite and Judean liturgies, 161
religions sacrifices, 161–2
twelve tribes of, 156–7 priests,
Israelite and Judean religions, Kenites,
Asherah (Asherata), goddess, 134, 156, 169, Jethro, 154
250. See also Syro-Canaanite religion Levites,
El Elyon, “God Most High,” Aaron, brother of Moses, first chief
veneration by Abram, 155, 162 priest of Israel, 161, 169
see also El Eleazer, ancestor of the Zadokites, 161
El Shaddai, YHWH, as known to Abraham, Gershonites, Levitical line founded by
Isaac, and Jacob, 155. See also El Gershom, son of Moses, 162
festivals, Ithamar, ancestor of the subsidiary
pesahh 9, “Passover,” beginning of grain priestly line of Abiathar, 161–2
harvest and Exodus from Egyptian Kohathites, Levitical family, 161
slavery, 163. See also Matzot, “Unleavened Jeremiah, 170–1
Bread” Merarites, Levitical family, 162
šābû‘ ôt (Shavuot), “Weeks (Pentecost),” Moses (Moshe), 153, 157, 161, 165–7,
conclusion of the grain harvest, and 169–70
commemoration of the revelation of Zadokites,
Torah, 163 Ezekiel, 170
Sukkôt (Sukkot), “Booths” or prophets,
“Tabernacles,” conclusion of the fruit Amos, non-priestly Judean prophet, 170
harvest and beginning of the rainy Deborah, 169
season, 163 Elijah, 154, 170
first collections of Israelite law, Ezekiel, 170
Covenant Code, 165–6 Huldah, 170
Ten Commandments, 165–6 Isaiah, non-priestly prophet, 170
Golden Calf, Micah, non-priestly prophet, 170
cultic apostasy with, 166, 168 Miriam, sister of Moses and Aaron, 169
hymns, Second Isaiah, 171
in Book of Psalms, 164 Zechariah, 170
judges, rō’š haššanâ , New Year, beginning of liturgical
Deborah, 169 year, 163
Othniel, first judge of Judah, 157 sacrifices,
šōpēth 9, “judge,” 157 ‘ ôlâ , “whole burnt offering,” 164
Kenites, descendants of Cain, early see also holocaust
worshipers of YHWH, 154 zebahh 9 še 5lāmîm, “Sacrifice of Well-being,”
Jethro, priest of Midian, father-in-law of 164
Moses, 154 Scriptures
General Index 417
Bible, Hebrew, 151, 154, 156–7, 161–2, 153, 155

167–8, 170 see also ’ ădōnāy, “my Lord”; haššēm, “the
Old Testament, 151 Name”; še 5mā’, “the Name”
Tanakh, 151 yôm kippûr (Yom Kippur), Day of
temples, Atonement, annual fast day, 153,
at Arad, 157, 168 164. See also Canaan, religion of,
massetbot (mash 9sh 9ēbôt), uninscribed Israel, religion of; Jews and Judaism;
cultic pillars at, 169 in ancient Israel and Judah; Judah,
at Beer Sheba, 157, 168 religion of; Palestine, Judaism in
at Beth El, 157, 162, 167–8, 170 Isthmus, Greek games of, 184
massetbot at, 7, 169 iśveita, Etruscan week-like period, 357.
at Dan, 157, 167–8 See also aperta, celuta, tiniana
at Gibeon, 168 Italic. See languages, Indo-European
at Gilgal, 157, 168 Italy,
at Megiddo, 168 Christian communities in, 8, 20
at Shechem, 168 Jewish communities in, 8, 20
at Shiloh, 157, 168 Ithamar, son of Aaron, 161–2
Ark of the Covenant at, 157 itus. See Ides
Jerusalem (of Solomon), Iuppiter Lapis, “Jupiter the Stone.” See Roman
altar of, 160, 162 religion
Boaz, bronze pillar of, 159 Iyaya, Hittite goddess, 87
candelabra at, 160 iyeroworgos. See hierourgos
’ ûlām, portico of, 159
de 5bîr, “inner sanctum,” Holy of Holies Jachin, bronze pillar in Solomon’s Temple, 159
at: Ark of the Covenant in, 160–1 Jackson, A. V. W., nineteenth-century scholar,
Jachin, bronze pillar of, 159 Zoroaster the Prophet of Ancient Iran, 124
Joshua ben Jehozadak, high priest of Jacob, patriarch, grandson of Abraham, brother
Second Temple, 161 of Esau, 155, 157, 162
hêkal , “palace” or “great hall” of, 159–60 Janitores Terrestres, “Doorkeepers of the Earth,”
liturgy at, 159–60. See also Yom Kippur Etruscan deities, 318–19
theophoric names, Jehovah, 153
forms of Hezekiah, 153 Jeremiah, Levitical priest, 170–1
hh 9izqîyâ , 153 Jeroboam,
hh 9izqîyāhû, 153 establishment of sanctuaries, 168
yh 9hh 9izqîyāhû, 153 offerings, 162
women, liturgical roles of, see also Israelite and Judean religions
Deborah, 169 Jerusalem,
Miriam, 169 city, 58, 155, 158
worship, Temple, 153, 158–60, 162, 164–9, 171
celebration of Passover (pesahh 9), 162–3 Jethro, Kenite priest, father-in-law of Moses,
celebration of Sukkot, 162, 168 154
prayers, 162 Jews and Judaism,
psalms, 162, 169–70 in ancient Israel and Judea. See Israelite and
sacrifices, 160–4, 166, 168–9 Judean religions
YHWH (Yahweh, Yh, Yhw, Y-hw-h,Yw), Jochebed, Aaron’s mother, 161
ineffable name of the deity Josephus, Titus Flavius, Jewish historian
worshiped in (37–100 ce),
ancient Israel and Judah, 151, 153–71 Against Apion (Contra Apionem), 209
creation of the world by, 156 Antiquities of the Jews (Antiquitates judaicae),
Sabbath (Šabbāt), day of rest, at the end 209
of, 156, 163 Joshua, 157, 162
origins of the name in Edom and Midian, Joshua ben Jehozadak, high priest, 161
418 General Index
Josiah, Judean king, son of Amon, kawi, evil sacrificer, 105

religious reform by, 167 Kawi Wishtāspa, Aryan hero in Zoroastrianism,
Judah, 117
kingdom of, 151, 157–8, 171 Keftiu, Cretans, 239
religion of. See Israelite and Judean religions Kellens, J., and E. Pirart, twentieth-century
tribe, 158 scholars of Zoroastrianism, 126
Judaism, Kelsey, F. W., twentieth-century scholar of the
in diaspora communities, 8, 14 Carthaginians, 209
in Palestine, 8, 20 Keltoi, Celts, 364
see also Israelite and Judean religions Kemosh. See Kamish
Judea, Kenites, descendants of Cain, 154
religion of. See Israelite and Judean ke-re-ta. See khrestes
religions kerp, sunlit heavenly spaces, “form” of Ahura
judges, 157, 169 Mazdā, 108–9
Juno, Roman goddess, wife and sister of Jupiter, Kersāspa, dragon slayer, 116
317, 341, 351, 357 kerux (karux), “herald,” 267. See also ka-ru-ke
see also Capitoline Triad Kesh, city, 43
Juno Lacinia, gods of, 43
temple of, 210 temples at, 43, 48
Juno Lucina, see also Sumerian religion
sanctuary of, 351 Kesh temple hymn, he, 48
Juno Moneta, Khasekhemwy, Egyptian king of the second
sanctuary of, 351 dynasty (2676–2649 bce), 198
Juno Regina, Khentiamentiu, Egyptian funerary god, 179
sanctuary of, 351 see also jackal
Juno Sospita, Khepri (“one who comes into being),” scarab.
statue of, 353 See Egyptian religion
Junon, Carthaginian cemetery at, 209 kheri-hebet, Egyptian lector priests, 191
Jupiter, Roman king of the gods, 315, 317, 319, khn, priest. See khnm
357, 371 khnm, priests,
priests of, 344, 357 of Carthage. See Carthage, religion of
temple of, 341, 351 of Ugarit. See Syro-Canaanite religion
see also Capitoline Triad, Roman religion Khnum, Egyptian god, 177, 180, 196
Jupiter Feretrius, Khonsu, son of Amen and Mut, 192
sanctuary of, 351 see also Egyptian religion
Jupiter Optimus Maximus. See Jupiter khrafstra , harmful being, 114
Justi, F., nineteenth-century scholar of khratu, “guiding thought.” See saoshyant
Zoroastrianism, 123 khrestes, “prophet,” 267
KI, Earth in Achaemenid religion, 121
ka , life force, 195 king list,
Kabkab, Semitic astral deity, 133–4 Assyrian, 59
Kalapodi, temple at. See Mycenaean religion Sumerian, 37, 39, 59
Kalends, first day of Roman month, 356 Tyrian, 209, 220
see also calendars kingship,
Kamish, Moabite chief god, 132 divine, 182, 193
see also Kemosh Egyptian, 182, 186, 193
ka-ra-wi-po-ro. See kleidoukhos Hittite, 96
Karnak, temple at. See Egyptian religion Minoan, 240, 253
karpan, evil sacrificer, 105 Roman, 342
ka-ru-ke. See kerux Sumerian, 10, 39, 69
Kashtiliash IV, Babylonian Kassite king, 72 kings,
Kassites, 57, 62, 69, 72, 74. See also Assyrian and and religious roles,
Babylonian religions Gu-dea (Sumerian kingship), 47
General Index 419
ki-ri-te-wi-ja , Mycenaean female ritual Lagash, Sumerian state, 46–7

specialist, 267. See also krithewia lan, principal Elamite ritual, 121
Kirk, G., twentieth-century scholar of Greek languages,
myth, 302 Babylonian, 57
Kirta, Indo-Aryan,
story, 134, 136, 138, 140, 146–7 Sanskrit, 102
text, 145, 147 Indo-European,
see also Syro-Canaanite religion Anatolian, 10
kleidoukhos, “key-bearer,” 267. See also Celtic, 10, 368
ka-ra-wi-po-ro Indo-Iranian, 10
Knossos, Italic, 10
gods and goddesses of, 247–50, 252–4 Hellenic, 10
kings of, 241–2, 253 Hittite, 86, 131
palace of, 240, 242, 244, 246, 248–9 Latin, 337
tablets, 254 Luwian, 86
see also Mycenaean religion Palaic, 86
Kohathites, Levitical family of priests, 161. Iranian, 102
See also Ark of the Covenant Semitic,
kôhēn, priest, 213 Akkadian, 10, 35–6, 131
koine, Aramaic, 10, 132
religious, 12, 241, 246 Assyro-Babylonian, 10
social, 13 Hebrew, 10, 223
Koios, Greek deity, 282 Palaeo-Syrian, 10
Komawenteia, Mycenaean deity, 262 Phoenician, 10, 132, 205
ko-ma-we-te-ja , Mycenaean deity, 261 Sumerian, 31
Konsolaki-Yannopoulou, E., twentieth-century Lapeyre, G. G., twentieth-century French
scholar of the Aegean Bronze Age, scholar of Carthage, 209, 216, 222
266 Laran, Etruscan god of lightning and thunder,
Kontorli-Papadopoulou, L., twentieth-century 317. See also Mars
scholar of Aegean frescoes, 260 L(a)ris Pulenas,
Kotharat, Syro-Canaanite birth goddesses, 139 tomb of, 323
Kothar-wa-Hasis, Syro-Canaanaite craftsman larnakes, 269
god, 139 Larsa, Sumerian city, 38, 43, 75
Kourotrophos, “nurturer of children,” Greek Larth Cafates, 322
deity, 282 Lasa, Etruscan flying spirit, 319
Krahmalkov, C. R., twentieth-century scholar of Late Helladic period. See Mycenaean religion
the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, Late Minoan, historical period of Crete, 239.
221 See also Early Minoan, Middle
krithewia. See ki-ri-te-wi-ja Minoan
Kronos, Greek god of time, 282 La Tène culture. See Celtic religion
krr, Phoenician month, 225 Late Period (760–332 bce). See Egyptian
Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, YHWH inscriptions at, 169 religion
Kuşakli/Šarišša, Hittite provincial center, 84. Latins, people of Italy, 337, 376
See also tablets, clay Latium, Italy, 349
Kuttamuwa, inscription. See Syro-Canaanite Etruscan, 310
religion non-Etruscan, 328
Kynortion, mountain, Mycenaean sanctuary law,
at, 264 codes of, 165–7, 342
divine, 216
Lactantius, second/third-century-ce Christian of kings, 121
writer, lawagetas, Mycenaean official, 268
Institutiones divinae (divine Institutes), 1 Lazpa, Mycenaean deity of, 263. See also Lesbos
Lady of Vix, 382 Lebadeia. See Trophonios
420 General Index
Lechesis, Greek fate goddess, sister of Clotho Litan. See Leviathan

and Atropos, 320 “Litany of Ra,” 183
leconomancy. See divination,See also Assyrian literature,
and Babylonian religions Babylonian, 57–8
lectisternium. See lekhe-stro-terion biblical, 161
Leinth, Etruscan deity, 318–19 devotional 48–50
lekhe-stro-terion, “spreading the couches,” 266. Egyptian, 194
See also lectisternium, re-ke-e-to- Greek, 208
te-ri-jo omen literature, 73
Lenus, Celtic healing god, 372. See also Mars prophetic, 164
Lesbos. See Lazpa Mesopotamian, 61
Letham, Etruscan deity, 318 Sumerian, 31–2, 39, 47–8
Levi, tribe, 161. See also Israelite and Judean Ugaritic, 134
religions wisdom, 73, 202
Leviathan, Yahweh’s enemy, 137, 253. liturgy,
See also Litan in Israelite and Judean religions, 153,
Levites, priests, 161–2, 169–70 159–60
lex Hortensia, Roman law of 287 bce accepting in Syro-Canaanite religion, 143, 146–7
the binding force of plebiscites, 342 liver, model of, 311–12, 317. See also divination,
lex Ogulnia , third-century-bce Roman law Piacenza liver
opening priesthoods to plebeians, 342, Lixus, Punic city, 208
348, 357 Livy, Titus, Roman historian (59 bce-17
libanomancy. See divination. See also Assyrian ce),
and Babylonian religions Ab Urbe Condita (From the Founding of the
Libenice, Czech Republic, Celtic sanctuary at, City), 210, 315, 343–4, 346, 348, 354,
368 369, 376–7, 380
Liber, Roman deity, part of the “plebeian triad,” ’ lm, Punic deity, 211. See also Melqart
351 Lommel, H., twentieth-century scholar of
Libera, Roman deity, part of the “plebeian Zoroastrianism, 125–6
triad,” 351 Lord. See ’ădōnāy. See also Baal, El
liber linteus, Etruscan sacrificial calendar, 314. ‘ lt, Punic sacrifice. See holocaust
See also Agramer Mumienbinden Lucan, Roman writer (39–65 ce),
Lie, principle of chaos, 108–9 Pharsalia , 371, 377
life, Lucian of Samosata, Greco-Roman writer
eternal, 49, 137 (125–180 ce),
human, 23, 49, 119 De syria dea (he Syrian Goddess), 132, 213
political, 4, 7, 12, 322, 331 ludi, Roman games, 357–8
religious, 12, 24, 54, 68, 84, 269 Capitolini, 358
social, 7, 12 Plebeian Games, 358
Life-Giving Immortals, 107, 113–14, 126. votivi, victory games, 358
See also Zoroastrianism see also chariot races, festivals
lightning, 68, 93, 135, 155, 160, 310, 317–18, 320, Lugal-banda, Sumerian “Junior king,” 50
322, 348 Lugal-banda and Nin-sumuna , Sumerian
Lindos, sanctuary of Aphrodite at, 213 religious literature, 50
Lindow Man. See bog men Lugh (“shining light”), Celtic deity, 370
Linear A, script of ancient Crete, 270 Lupercal, Roman sanctuary on the Palatine,
Linear B, script of ancient Crete, 256–7, 260, 351
263, 265–6, 281 Lur, Etruscan deity, 318
Lipiński, E., twentieth-century scholar of the Luwian. See languages, Indo-European
Phoenicians and Carthaginians, 221 Lydus, Johannes, sixth-century-ce Byantine
lists, writer, 315
deity, 44, 46 Lynsa Silvestris, Etruscan deity, 318
General Index 421
maat, order, 183. See also Egyptian religion next-of-kin, 111, 120
MacCulloch, John A., twentieth-century scholar sacred,
of Celtic religion, 366 in Assyrian and Babylonian religions, 70
Macrobius, fifth-century-ce Roman writer, Mars, Roman deity of war, 317, 344, 351, 355–6,
Saturnalia , 356 371. See also Laran, tubilustrium
maga , exchange of gifts, 106 Marseilles (France),
mageiros, butcher-cook, 291 Tariff. See Carthage, religion of
Magi. See Zoroaster martān, “that which contains something dead,”
magic and magicians, 114
in Assyrian and Babylonian religions, 77 Martianus Capella, fifth-century-ce Roman
in Celtic religion, 375–6 writer,
in Egyptian religion, 182, 195, 197, 200, 228 De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii (On the
in Etruscan religion, 310 marriage of Philology and Mercury),
in Hittite religion, 85, 94–5 317–18
see also heka , rituals maruχva , Etruscan association of priests, 322
magistrates, Marzabotto, Etruscan temple at, 325
religious functions of, marzeah, ritual feast, 142, 147
Athenian, 285–6 maš ‘artu, Syro-Canaanite priestess, 142
Etruscan, 322 Maşat Höyük/Tapikka, Hittite provincial
Magna Mater, Cybele, 14. See also Mountain center, 84
Mother mash 9sh 9ēbôt, cultic pillars, 169. See also massetbot
magoi. See magic and magicians Maspero, G., nineteenth/twentieth-century
magush, Elamite priests, 121 French Egyptologist, 178
Maiden Castle, Celtic temple at, 380 massetbot. See mash 9sh 9ēbôt
Malaka, Spain, Punic settlement, 207 Massilia (modern Marseilles, France), Greek
Málaga. See Malaka settlement at, 368
maledictions. See Carthage, religion of mastabas, tombs. See Egyptian religion
Mami. See Assyrian and Babylonian religions Master of Animals, 198
Atrahasis ma-te-re te-i-ja (Mater hehia), Mycenaean
Man and His God, A, 73 deity, 260
manah, “thought” in Old Avestan Mater Matuta, 339, 341, 344, 351
Zoroastrianism, 109 matrons. See women, roles of
ma-na-sa , Mycenaean deity, 261 Matzot, “Unleavened Bread,” 163.
Manasseh, See also Israelite and Judean religions
son of Jacob, 157 festivals
tribe, 157 mazdā , “all-knowing.” See Ahura Mazdā
see also Menasheh Mazdaism. See Zoroastrianism
Manichaeism, Mazza, F., S. Ribichini, and P. Xella,
in Iran and Armenia, 8 twentieth-century Italian scholars,
manteis, seers, 285 Fonti classiche per la civiltà fenicia e punica ,
manthra , Zoroastrian poems, 108 209
manthra spenta , Life-giving Poetic hought, 112 medicine. See ApolloSee also magic and
mantikē technē, art of prophecy, 297 magicians
Marcii, seers, 355 Mediterranean,
see also divination Sea, 9–11, 14, 30, 206, 221, 336, 341
Marduk, world, 1, 12, 14, 23–4, 26, 171, 228, 240
cult statue of, 62, 72 as the birthplace of Judaism, Christianity,
see also Assyrian and Babylonian religions and Islam, 25
Mariś, Etruscan deity appearing as triplets, 319 megaron, ceremonial hall, 262, 264
Market Harborough, England, Megiddo, Judean temple at, 168
Celtic offerings at, 379 Meleager. See Meliacr
marriage, Meliacr, 320
422 General Index
Melone del Sodo II, Etruscan tomb at, 330 acrobatics, 248
Melqart, Syro-Canaanite deity, 138, 211–13, 215, divination,
225–6. See also Adonis, Baal ecstatic, 245, 249
Memphis, Egypt, Hagia Triada, sarcophagus from, 246
gods of, 177, 179 Hieroglyphic A and B, Minoan hieroglyphic
temple at, 228 scripts, 237
men, kingship, 240, 253
religious roles of, 8 Linear A, script of ancient Crete, 270
me-na , Mycenaean deity, 260 Linear B, script of ancient Crete, 256–7, 260,
Menander, Greek dramatist (342–291 bce), 263, 265–6, 281
Dyskolos (Grouch), 283 murals of, 246, 248–9
Menander of Ephesus, second-century-bce Poros,
Greek writer, 209, 220 ring in a tomb at, 244–5
Menasheh. See Manasseh religion of,
Menrva. See Minerva altars, 244
Merarites, Levitical family, 162. See also Levites in Cretan caves, Amnisos (Amnissos),
mercenaries, worship at, 247
Carthaginian, 208 portable, 246
Celtic, 369 bull-leaping. See festivals
David’s, 158 double axe, symbol of Great Goddess, 249
Mercuriales, Roman religious group, 355 representations on rings and seals, 249
Mercury, Roman god, 319, 371, 377 festivals, religious, 241–3, 246, 248
temples of, 351, 371 gods,
see also Turms A-sa-sa-ra , Solar goddess, 250
Mesha, Canaanite king, Drimios,
inscription of, 132, 144, 154 shrine of, 262
Meskhenet, personified birth brick, 197. Great Goddess, 238, 248–50, 252
See also Egyptian religion Great Mother, 237
Mesopotamia, patron goddess, 247
calendar of, 62, 77 house of god. See sanctuaries and shrines
literature of, 61, 72 mythology, 237
lower, 36–8 offerings, 246–7
upper, 36–7 at Amnissos, 247
metaphor. See analogy at Psychro, 247
me-tu-wo ne-wo, Mycenaean festival, 265 at Skoteino, 247
Meuli, K., twentieth-century Swiss philologist, sanctuaries and shrines, 243–4, 246
301 underworld, 247
Mezzula, grandchild of the Storm-god of Hatti, see also Cretans, Crete, historical periods of,
89 palaces of, scripts of
Middle Kingdom, historical period of Egypt Miriam, prophet, 169
(ca.2140–1640 bce), 181, 186, 192–3, mirrors, Etruscan, 211, 316, 318, 320–2, 326
196, 199–201. See also New Kingdom Mithra, Zoroastrian deity, 112–13, 119–20, 126.
Middle Minoan, historical period of Crete, 239. See also ritual
See also Early Minoan, Late Minoan Mizhdushī, Zoroastrian goddess “who grants
Midian, region, 153–5. See also Israelite and rewards,” 121
Judean religions mnh 9t. See Carthage, religion of
Milkpilles, Punic epitaph at, 223 Moab, ancient nation. See Moabites
Minerva, Roman goddess, 317, 340–1, 351, 371–2, Moabite Stone, stele. See YHWH
374, 378 Moabites, Canaanite ethnic subgroup,
Minerva Medica, 351, 367. See also Sulis gods of, 132
Minoan religion. See Minoans, religion of kings of, 141, 144, 154
Minoans, Moccus, Celtic boar god, 373
General Index 423
Mochus, Phoenician writer, 209 Grave Circle A, 269

Mogador, Punic settlement on, 222 palaces at, 257, 259, 263–4, 266, 268, 272
Molé, M., twentieth-century French scholar of see also Crete
Zoroastrianism, 125 Mycenaean religion,
monarchy, altars,
Israelite, 151 circular, 264
Judean, 157 cult centers, independent,
Roman, 342, 355–6 House of the Frescoes, 264
monotheism, House of the Idols (Temple Complex),
Egyptian, 178, 194 259, 264
monsters, 137, 156, 252, 323 Megaron, 262, 264
monuments, Tsountas’ House, 259, 262, 264
non-royal, 183 divination,
religious, 193–4, 339–40, 373 omens, 258
royal, 121, 186, 198 Eleusis,
moon, cultic center at, 264
god of, festivals, religious, 257, 265–6
in Babylonian religion, 59 dipsia-festival (di-pi-si-jo-i), 258
in Sumerian religion, 39–40, 43, 50, 70 lekhe-stro-terion, Mycenaean lectisternium
in Syro-Canaanite religion, 132, 134 (?) (“spreading the couches”), 266
see also moon deities by name see also re-ke-e-to-te-ri-jo
mortuary complex. See Egyptian religion me-tu-wo ne-wo, 265
Moscati, S., twentieth-century Italian scholar of po-re-no-tu-te-ri-a , 265
the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, po-re-no-zo-te-ri-ja , 265
208 to-no-e-ke-ter-i-jo, 265
Moses, Levitical priest, 153, 157, 161, 165–7, figurines, female (phi, psi, and tau), 259
169–70. See also Moshe gods and goddesses,
Moshe. See Moses a-ne-mo (“winds”), deity worshipped at
Mot, “Death.” See Baal cycle. Knossos, 260
See also Syro-Canaanite religion A-re, deity worshipped at Knossos, 260
Mountain Mother (Meter Oreia), Phrygian A-ta-na po-ti-ni-ja , Mycenaean war
goddess, 14. See also Cybele goddess Athanaspotnia, 261
Movers, F. C., nineteenth-century German a-ti-mi-ti, Mycenaean deity of Pylos, 260
scholar, da-nwa , 260
Die Phönizier, 208 da-pu2-ri-to-jo po-ti-ni-ja , “lady of the
mqdš, Punic temple, 212–13 Labyrinth,” 260–1
mummification, 198, 201 Dionysus, 262
murals, Minoan, 246–9 di-pi-si-jo-i (“thirsty ones”?), 258, 269
Muršili II, Hittite ruler, 91 di-ri-mi-o, 260
museum, di-we (Diweus), Mycenaean Zeus, 260, 272
Allard Pierson, Amsterdam, 225 Diwia, 260, 262, 272
Assurbanipal’s, 61 Di-wi Di-ka-ta-i-o, Mycenaean Zeus
Bardo, Tunis, 209 Diktaios, 270
Berlin di-wo-nu-so, Mycenaean Dionysus, 260
British, 183 Dopotas, 262
Carthage, 209 Drimios, 262
Villa Giulia, Rome, 353 e-ma-a2, (Hermes), 260
Zagreb, 314 e-ne-si-da-o-ne, Mycenaean Ennosidas, 260
music and musicians, 76, 143, 170, 191, 330 e-nu-wa-ri-jo, Mycenaean Enualios, 260
Mut, Amen’s consort, 192 e-ra, Mycenaean Hera, 260
Mycenae, kingdom of, e-ri-nu, Mycenaean Erinus, 260
burials at, Gwowia (qo-wi-ja), cow-goddess, 260, 262
424 General Index
Mycenaean religion (cont.) te-o-po-ri-a, Greek theophoria , 265

Haphaistios, Mycenaean Hephaestus, 260 sacrifice, 264–5
Hera, 262 sa-pa-ka-te-ri-ja (sphakteria or “animals to
Hermes, 262 be sacrificed”?), 265
i-pe-me-de-ja, (Iphimedeia), 260, 262 slaves of a god (hierodules),
i-qe-ja po-ti-ni-ja , 261 do-e-ra , female, 268
Komawenteia, 262 do-e-ro, male, 268
ko-ma-we-te-ja , “she of the hairy one”(?), temples and sanctuaries,
261 at Ayia Irini (Ceos), 264
ma-te-re te-i-ja (Mater hehia), 260 at Kalapodi, 239
me-na , 260 at Mt Kynortion, 264
pa-ja-wo-ne, Mycenaean Paian (Paiaon), at Phylakopi, 239
260 da-da-re-jo/daidaleon, sanctuary in
pe-re-*82, 258, 262 Knossos, 263
pi-pi-tu-na , 260 di-u-jo, sanctuary of Zeus, 263
po-si-da-e-ja , 260 on Mt Oros, 264
po-si-da-o, Mycenaean Poseidon, 260 pa-ki-ja-ne, sanctuary at Pylos, 262
po-ti-ni-ja A-si-wi-ja , “mistress of Asia” po-si-da-i-jo, sanctuary of Posidaon, 262
(?), goddess, 261, 271. See also potnia sa-ra-pe-da , sanctuary in Pylos, 263
Aswias theonyms, 258, 260–2, 270–2
Potnia, 262 Mycenaeans, religion of. See Mycenaean religion
qo-wi-ja , 262 mystēria. See Mysteries
si-to-po-ti-ni-ja , “lady of the grain,” Mysteries, ritual in Greek religion, 298–9.
261 See also mystēria
s-mi-te-u, Mycenaean Apollo Smitheus, mythology,
260 Assyrian and Babylonian, 55, 61, 77–8
ti-ri-se-ro, Mycenaean Triseros Greek, 250, 282, 284, 299, 301, 342
(“hrice-hero”), 261–2, 269
u-po-jo po-ti-ni-ja , 261 Nabonassar, Babylonian king, 58
Zeus, 262–3. See also Greek religion, gods Nabonidus, Babylonian king, 58
ideology of death, Nabopolassar, Babylonian king, 58
larnakes, 269 nadītu, women dedicated to serve a god, 77
offerings, 265–7 Nairyasangha, “divine messenger,” 114
o-te-mi, 266 Namtar (“Fate”) demon, 49
qe-te-jo, “payment” or “fine,” 265 Nānghaithyā, evil being in Zoroastrianism, 114
personnel, sacred Nanna (Nannar), Sumerian moon-god, 39,
di-pte-ra-po-ro, religious official, 267 43–4, 50, 70
i-je-ro-wo-ko, doer of ritual, 267 naos, temple, 263, 271, 293. See also Greek
ka-ra-wi-po-ro, Mycenaean religion, Mycenaean religion
kleidoukhos (“key-bearer”), 267. Naqada II, period in Egyptian history (ca
see also klawiphoros 3650–3300 bce), 197
ka-ru-ke (karux), 267 Naqsh-e Rostam, site of Achaemenid kings’
ke-re-ta , 267 tombs, 121–2
ki-ri-te-wi-ja (krithewia), female ritual nar spenta , “life-giving man” in Zoroastrianism,
specialist, 267 110
pu-ko-wo (purkowos), “fire-priest,” 267 Nāsatyā twins, evil beings in Zoroastrianism, 114
wo-ro-ki-jo-ne-jo, 267 Nasu (“carrion”), demon in Zoroastrianism, 114
po-ti-ni-ja, title for Mycenaean goddesses, Navius, Attus, Roman augur, 355
260. see also potnia, po-tni-ja na-wi-jo. See naos
ritual, Nebuchadnezzar I, Babylonian king, 57
i-je-ro-wo-ko, Mycenaean hierourgos (“doer Nebuchadnezzar, Babylonian king, 58
of ritual”), 267. See also iyeroworgos necropolis,
General Index 425
Etruscan, 330 Nīrangestān, Zoroastrian manual, 103

Punic, 220–1, 226 Nisaba, Sumerian goddess of writing, 47
Nefertiti, Egyptian queen, Akhenaten’s wife, 193 Nodens, Celtic healing god, 372–3, 379
negative confessions, in Egyptian religion, 202 Noricum (in Austria and Slovenia). See
Nemea, games of, 284 Belenus
nemeto, Celtic sacred grove, 370 Nortia, Etruscan goddess, 321
Neoptolemos, Greek hero, 293 noute, “god,” 178
Neo-Punic, Punic script, 212, 222 npy, “atonement” or “well-being,” 140
Nephthys, Egyptian goddess, 181, 201 Numa, legendary king of Rome (753–673 bce),
Neptune. See Nethuns 343, 353, 355
netjer, “god,” 178–9. See also noute Nun, limitless expanse of impenetrably dark
netherworld, water, 183
in Assyrian and Babylonian religions, 65–6, Nut, Egyptian sky goddess, 181, 183
70 nympholēptos, “possessed by the nymphs,”
in Syro-Canaanite religion, 136, 146 291
Nethuns, Etruscan deity, 317–18 nymph, 283, 291. See also Greek religion
netśvis trutnvt frontac. See haruspex fulguriator
Neverita, Etruscan deity, 318 offerings, 37–8, 41, 44–7, 89, 91, 105, 121, 131,
New Kingdom, historical period of Egypt 140, 143, 146, 159, 161, 163–4, 166, 168,
(ca.1550–1070 bce), 178–9, 179, 187, 190–1, 194–5, 199, 205, 212,
181–4, 186, 188–9, 191, 195, 199, 201. 219–20, 225–7, 246, 258, 260, 265–6,
See also Middle Kingdom 268–70, 283, 289, 291, 294, 298–9, 311,
Newstead, Scotland, Celtic offerings at, 378 317, 321, 323–4, 327–9, 350, 367–8, 371,
New Year, 376, 378–80. See also ritual
celebration. See Egyptian religion, ceremony. oikos, Greek household or dwelling place, 263,
See Zoroastrianism, See also akītu, 287. See also wo-ko
rō’š haššanâ oinochoe, wine jug, 300
Nile, river in Egypt, 177, 181, 192, 202 ‘ ôlâ , “whole burnt offering.” See Israelite and
Nilsson, Martin Persson, twentieth-century Judean religions,See also holocaust
Swedish scholar, Old Kingdom, period in Egyptian history (ca.
Minoan Mycenaean Religion, 238–9, 246, 2649–2150 bce), 184, 186, 192, 195,
252, 256 198, 202
Nimrud. See Calah Old Testament, 151
Nin-ana (“Lady of heaven”), 34 Olympia,
NIN.DINGIR, priestess of the Storm god, 142 games of, 284
Nin-dub, “Lord Tablet,” Sumerian deity, 47 sanctuaries at, 294, 341
Nineveh, Assyrian city, 72 see also festivals
Nin-Girsu (Ningirsu), warrior god, patron deity Olympians, Greek gods, 282
of Girsu, 46–7, 250 omens,
Nin-hursaga, “Lady of (the) foothills,” Sumerian in Assyrian and Babylonian religions, 73, 76
mother-goddess, 32, 43, 45, 48–9 in Etruscan religion, 318, 322
Nin-lil, “Lady Wind,” Sumerian goddess, in Greek religion, 297
En-lil’s wife, 44, 49 in Hittite religion, 92
Nin-mah, Sumerian mother-goddess, 34, 49 in Mycenaean religion, 258
Nin-sumuna, “Lady of the wild cows,” Sumerian in Syro-Canaanite religion, 131, 143–4
goddess, 50 see also divination
Ninsun, cow goddess in Gilgamesh, 250 Omri, house of. See Omride
Nin-urta, “Lord of the (arable surface of the) Omride, northern Israelite dynasty, 154, 156.
earth,” Sumerian warrior-god, 44 See also Omri
Nin-urta’s exploits, 49 Opening of the Mouth ceremony in Egyptian
Nippur, city in Sumer, 45, 52 religion, 179
Niqmaddu, king of Ugarit, 146 Opet, Egyptian religious festival, 192
426 General Index
Oppenheim, A. Leo, twentieth-century scholar palaces,

of Mesopotamia, 54 Achaemenid, 121
oracles, Egyptian, 186
in Greek religion, Minoan, 240, 242, 244, 246–9
Amphiareion, 286 Mycenaean, 257, 259, 263–4, 266, 268, 272
at Branchidai, 285 Sumerian, 46
at Delphi, 285–6, 297 Syro-Canaanite, 142
at Didyma, 285 Palaeo-Syrian. See languages, Semitic
at Dodona, 285, 297–8 Palaic. See languages, Indo-European
of Trophonios, 297 Palatine, hill, Roman temples on, 351
in Hittite religion, 92–3 Palestine, Judaism in, 8, 20
in Israelite and Judean religions, 170. Palladion. See Tsountas’ House. See
See also divination also Mycenaean religion
Order, Pallottino, M., twentieth-century Italian scholar
in Egyptian religion, 187. See also maat of the Etruscans, 318
in Sumerian religion, 31. See also En-ki and Panammu I, inscription, 131, 146
the world order Panathenaia, Greek festival, 294
in Zoroastrianism, 104–15, 120–2 Pandrosos, Greek heroine, 295
Orientalizing period of Etruscan history, 330 pantheon, 12, 31, 34, 39, 44, 50, 52, 62, 66–9, 72,
Oros, mountain on Aegina, Mycenaean 78, 88–90, 112, 131, 133, 135, 138, 177,
sanctuary at, 264 210, 220, 222, 238, 249, 260–2, 271–2,
Orphic gold leaves, Greek texts, 302. 281–2, 284–5, 301, 315, 317–18, 371–2
See also Orphism papratar, impurity, 94–5
Orphism, 302. See also Greek religion papyri, Egyptian,
orthopraxy, in ancient religion, 5–6, 289 funerary, 183–4
Orvieto, Italy, medico-magical, 197
Etruscan temples at, 325, 329–30 parã handandatar, “prior arrangement” or
Oschophoria, Greek religious ritual, 296 “providence” in Hittite religion, 91
Osco-Umbrians, people of Italy, 337 Parisi, Celtic tribe, 383
dialect of, 337 Paris school. See Greek religion
Osireion, ceremonial tomb of Osiris, 193 Parker, R., twentieth-century scholar of the
Osiris, Egyptian funerary god, 179, 181–2, 184, Greeks, 299
193, 198, 200–1 Parsis, Zoroastrians, 123
festival of, 193 Parthenon, Greek temple on the Athenian
Osterstein, Germany, Celtic offerings at, 368 Acropolis, 295
ostraca, ostracon, 142, 221–2 Pasargadae, tomb of Cyrus de Great at, 121
o-te-mi. See Mycenaean religion, offerings pa-si-te-o-i, “to all the gods.” See Mycenaean
Othniel, first judge of Judah, 157 religion, theonyms
Ovid, Roman poet (43 bce-18 ce), Passover, 162–3. See also pesahh 9
Fasti (Festivals), 356 pataikoi, Ptah-images of the Phoenicians, 228
Metamorphoses (Transformations), 318 patron deities,
in Assyrian and Babylonian religions, 71, 74–5
Pacha, cult of, 323 in Egyptian religion, 177
pagan, paganism, in Hittite religion, 89, 91
as religious terms, 17–18 in Israelite and Judean religions, 158, 171
see also Hellene, pagani, polytheism in Minoan religion, 242, 247
pagani. See pagan, paganism in Sumerian religion, 35, 39, 41, 43, 46
pagus husca (chōra Tuscan), 212 Pausanias, Greek geographer (second
Pahlavi, Middle Persian, 104 century ce),
Paian (Paiaon). See pa-ja-wo-ne Graeciae description (Description of Greece),
pa-ja-wo-ne, Mycenaean deity, 260 381
pa-ki-ja-ne, sanctuary at Pylos, 262 Pava Tarchies, mirror of, 313, 316, 318, 321
General Index 427
Peckham, J. B., twentieth-century scholar of the Piazza d’Armi, Italy, Etruscan temple at, 324
Phoenicians, 220 pietas, piety in Roman religion, 343
Peiraieus, sanctuary of Athena at, 282 Pieva a Socana, Etruscan altar at, 326
pekheret. See papyri, Egyptian Pilier des Nautes (Nautae Parisiaci), Celtic
Peloponnesians, 281 monument, 373, 377
Pentateuch. See Israelite and Judean religions pillars, cultic. See massetbot
Pentecost. See šābû‘ ôt pi-pi-tu-na , Mycenaean deity, 260
Pergamun, sanctuary of Aesculapius at, 13 plague. See Resheph, Syro-Canaanite god of
Périgueux, Celtic temple at, 380 Plato, Greek philosopher (fifth-fourth centuries
Persephone. See Phersipnei bce),
Persepolis, Achaemenid capital, 121–2 Laws, 290
Persians, Statesman (Politicus), 285, 288
religion of. See Zoroastrianism Republic, 299
personnel, sacred, Platon, N., twentieth-century Greek scholar of
augurs, 3, 321–2, 331, 348, 355–7 the Minoans, 240
diviners, 3, 76, 142, 170 Plebeian Games, 358
priests, 11, 14, 72, 76, 78, 87–8, 92, 94, 106, Pliny the Elder, Roman writer (23–79 ce),
121–2, 142, 145, 153–4, 157, 160–2, 165, Natural History (Naturalis historia), 341, 354,
168–71, 186–8, 190–1, 213, 216, 219, 374–5
240–1, 265, 267, 285–8, 292–3, 297, Pliny the Younger, Roman writer (61–112 ce),
310–11, 314, 317, 321–2, 325, 332, 344, Letters (Epistulae), 378
348, 354–5, 357–8, 374–5 Plutarch, Greco-Roman writer (46–120 ce),
priestesses, 50, 70, 142, 244, 250, 267, 285, Lives, 316, 377
292–3, 321–2 pn b‘ l , “face of Baal,” 222. See also Carthage,
soothsayers, 3 religion of
Persson, A. W., twentieth-century scholar of Poeni, Phoenicians, 205
Greek religion, 252 poets and poetry,
pesahh 9. See Passover Greek, 259, 281–2, 284, 294
Phaleron. See Oschophoria Sumerian, 48
pharaoh, 154, 186 Roman, 371, 377
Pheidias, Greek sculptor, 284 in Zoroastrianism, 104–10, 116
Phersipnei, Etruscan Persephone, deity of the Poggio Casetta, Etruscan sanctuary, 324
underworld, 331 Poinssot, L. and R. Lantier, twentieth-century
phi, female figurine. See Mycenaean religion scholars of the Carthaginians, 209
Philo of Biblos, first/second century ce writer, polemarchos, Athenian magistrate, 286
History of the Phoenicians, 132, 138, 209 Polybius, Greek historian (200–118 ce),
philosophers and philosophy, 2, 17, 123, 125, Histories, 209–10, 341, 343
294, 343 polis, Greek city-state, 6, 10, 280, 285–8
Phoenician. See languages, Semitic polis-religion model of interpretation of ancient
Phoenicians, 19, 156, 206, 208–9, 213, 227, 341 religious traditions, 11–12, 280, 288,
Phoenician-Punic Religion, See Carthage, 302
religion of pollution in Zoroastrianism, 114, 119
phoinīkes, origin of word Phoenicians, 205 polytheism, 17, 19, 31, 88, 124–5, 178, 253,
phratria. See phratry 260, 369. See also pagan, paganism;
phratry, a division of Greek population, 287. polytheist
See also phratria polytheist. See polytheism
Phylakopi, Mycenaean sanctuary at, 239 pontifex maximus (supreme pontiff), 339, 346,
phylē, “tribe,” a division of Greek population, 356
287 porena (porenes), “sacrificial victims”?
Piacenza liver, 311–12, 317 See Mycenaean religion
Pian di Civita, Italy, Etruscan sanctuaries at, po-re-no-tu-te-ri-a , Mycenaean festival, 265
323–4 po-re-no-zo-te-ri-ja , Mycenaean festival, 265
428 General Index
Poros, tomb at, 244 Puduhepa, Hittite queen, 89

portent, puer Tages. See Pava Tarchies
in Assyrian and Babylonian religions, 73 pu-ko-wo (purkowos), “fire-priest” in Mycenaean
in Hittite religion, 92 religion, 267. See also personnel,
in Roman religion, 3 sacred
Portonaccio, Etruscan temple at Veii, 325 Punic,
Poseidon, Greek god, 283, 295 language. See languages, Indo-European
altar of, 294. See also po-si-da-o religion. See Carthage, religion of
Posidaeia (po-si-da-e-ja), Mycenaean deity, 260, settlements, 206–8, 227
262 Punicus. See Poeni
po-si-da-i-jo, sanctuary of Posidaon, 263 purification, 49, 103, 118–19, 123, 164, 227, 294,
po-si-da-o, Mycenaean god, 260, 262–3. 328
See also Poseidon see also rituals
Posidonius, Greek philosopher and historian purity. See purification
(second-first centuries bce), 374 purkoos. See pu-ko-wo
po-ti-ni-ja, title for Mycenaean goddesses, 260. putto Graziani, Etruscan bronze, 328
See also potnia , po-tni-ja , theonyms see also statues
po-ti-ni-ja A-si-wi-ja , Mycenaean goddess, 261, Pyanopsia, Greek festival, 296
271. See also potnia Aswias Pylos,
po-ti-ni-ja-we-jo, “belonging to potnia.” cult places at, 257, 262–3
See Mycenaean religion deities of, 258, 260, 262
potnia. See po-ti-ni-ja festivals at, 265
potnia Aswias. See po-ti-ni-ja A-si-wi-ja offerings from, 258, 266, 269
potniaweios. See po-ti-ni-ja-we-jo sacrifice at, 265
po-tni-ja. See po-ti-ni-ja see also Mycenaean religion
Potrebica, H., twentieth-century scholar of Pyramid Texts, 181, 183, 198, 200
Hallstatt cultures, 369 pyramids, Egyptian, 198
Praeneste, Latin city, burials at, 349 Pyrgi,
Praxiteles, Greek sculptor, 284 Punic inscriptions from, 227
priest. See personnel, sacred Pythia, at Delphi, 286, 297
priestess. See personnel, sacred
primitivism, approach toward Roman religion, Qadesh, Syro-Canaanite goddess, 135.
345–6 See also Astarte
private/domestic religion, 7, 12 qe-ra-si-ja. See Mycenaean religion
processions. See festivals qe-te-jo, “payment” or “fine.” See Mycenaean
prodigies, 3. See also portents religion
Promised Land, of the Hebrews, 163, 165, 170 see also offerings
Propertius, Roman poet (50–15 ce), Qingu, Babylonian god, 63. See also enuma elish
Elegies (Elegiae), 318 *qny’ rs[, “creator/possessor of the earth,” 134.
prophecy, prophets, See also El, Syro-Canaanite religion
in Assyrian and Babylonian religions, 77 qo-wi-ja. See Gwowia
in Celtic religion, 374–5 Quirinal, hill, Roman sanctuaries on, 351
in Egyptian religion, 186 Quirinus, Roman god, 344, 347, 351
in Etruscan religion, 315
in Hittite religion, 92 Ra, Egyptian sun-god, 180, 183, 198, 201
in Israelite and Judean religions, 160, 169–71 Litany of, 183. See also Atum, ram, falcon
in Syro-Canaanite religion, 132, 143–4 Ra-Horakhty, “Horus of the horizon.”
in Zoroastrianism, 124 See Horus
Protective Deity. See patron deities. Ramesses II, Egyptian pharaoh (ca 1279–1213
See also Hittite religion bce),
Psychro, 247 temple of, 180, 193
Ptah, Egyptian deity, 177, 179. See also Atum Ramesses VI,
General Index 429
tomb of, 182 illness, 134

rapa ’ūma, “ghosts of King,” 146 resurrection,
Ras Shamra, ancient Ugarit, 131 in Egyptian religion, 194, 201
ratu, “models,” 106, 110 resuscitation,
rb khnm, chief priest of Ugarit, 142 in Syro-Canaanite religion, 133
rbtn, “our Lady,” Astarate, 222. See also Astarte Reusch, H., twentieth-century German scholar
rebirth, in Egyptian religion, 181, 183, 197 of the Minoans, 242
Rechabites, Kenite Bedoun group, 154 rex sacrorum, 339, 357. See also regina sacrorum,
reciprocity, hierarchical, calendars
in Sumerian religion, 40–1, 52 Rhea, ancient mother of Zeus and Hestia, 282
Red Sea, rings, representations on. See Minoan
crossing of, 133, 160 religionSee also Mycenaean religion
parting of, 155, 162, 169 rites. See ritual
see also Israelite and Judean religions rites de passage, rites of passage, 94, 247.
Regia , “Royal Palace,” 339 See also ritual
regina sacrorum. See rex sacrorum ritual, 1–7, 9–15, 17–18, 31, 34, 37, 46–7, 50–2,
Regolini-Galassi, Etruscan tomb, 330 55, 61–3, 65, 70, 75–8, 85, 87–8, 90,
re-ke-e-to-te-ri-jo. See lekhe-stro-terion 92, 94–6, 103–10, 113, 117–23, 125–6,
reliefs, 121, 289, 326, 330–1, 350, 353 131, 139–44, 146–8, 169, 179, 190–1,
religio. See religion 198, 210–11, 213, 219–20, 224–7, 237,
religion, 242, 246–7, 257, 259, 262–8, 270–1,
as an analytical category, 2, 4 281, 285–9, 296, 298–9, 301, 309–10,
Assyrian and Babylonian. See Assyrian and 314–15, 317, 320, 322–6, 328, 330, 332,
Babylonian religions 343–6, 348–50, 352–4, 356–8, 367, 369,
Celtic. See Celts, religion of 373–6, 378, 380, 383–4
Egyptian. See Egyptian religion Rives, J. B., twentieth-century scholar of Roman
Etruscan. See Etruscans, religion of religion, 3
Greek. See Greeks, religion of Roman religion,
Hittite. See Hittites, religion of altars,
Israelite and Judean. See Israelite and Judean of the Carmentae, 351
religions to Consus, 351
Minoan. See Minoans, religion of to Mars, in the Campus Martius, 351
Mycenaean. See Mycenaean religion atrium Vestae, “House of the Vestals,” 339
Persian. See Zoroastrianism Arval brethren, Roman religious group,
Punic. See Carthage, religion of 355
religio, 1–3 calendars,
Roman. See Roman religion Fasti Praenestini, 356
Sumerian. See Sumerian religion Ides (Idus) on, 357
Syro-Canaanite. See Syro-Canaanite religion Kalends (Kalendae) on, 357
see also Christianity Nones (Nonae) on, 357
religions, ancient, regina sacrorum, 357
analogy, and the study of, 9 rex sacrorum, 357
and geography, the influence of, 13–14 centralization, religious, See comitia
comparative study of, 24, 26 centuriata , Roman assembly
see also assimilation, interpretatio divination,
religious personnel, See personnel, sacred augurs and augury, 348, 356–7
Renenutet, Egyptian serpent goddess, 197 auspices, 3, 348, 355
Renfrew, C., twentieth-century scholar, Navius, Attus, Roman augur, 355
Archaeology of Cult, 239 Numa, legendary king of Rome (753–673
rěpā’ îm, dead or shades in Syro-Canaanite bce), role in augury, 355
religion, 146 festivals,
Resheph, Syro-Canaanite god of plague and Equus October, “October horse,” 358
430 General Index
Roman religion (cont.) augur, 348, 355

Tubilustrium, festival to Mars, 356. See also augur maximus, eldest member of augural
ludi college, 356
funerary practices, Flamen Dialis, priest of Jupiter, 357
cremation, 349 fl amen, fl amines, priest(s), 321, 345, 355–6
inhumation, 349 fl amines maiores, major flamens, priests of
games. See ludi Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus, 344
gods and goddesses, pontifex maximus (supreme pontiff), 339,
Anna Perenna, 351 346, 356
Capitoline Triad, regina sacrorum, 357
Juno, wife and sister of Jupiter, 317, rex sacrorum, 339, 357. See also ritual,
341, 351 calendars
Jupiter, king of the gods, 317, 341, 344, sacerdotes, priests, 343
351, 357 sacerdotes publici, public priests, 355
Minerva, 317, 340–1, 351, 371–2, 374, 378 Salian priests, 321, 355
Diana, goddess of the hunt, 351 pietas, piety, 343
Dii Involuti, Roman “Shrouded Gods,” sacra , rituals,
319 role of Flamen Dialis, 357
Di Manes, “good gods,” 349 role of rex and regina sacrorum, 357
Dius Fidius (Semo Sancus), 351 role of Tubicines, trumpeters, 357
Iuppiter Lapis, “Jupiter the Stone,” 345 sodales Titii, religious group, 355
Juno Lacinia, 210 temples and sanctuaries,
Juno Lucina, 351 aedes Vestae, “House of Vesta,” 346
Juno Moneta, 351 at Fontanile di Legnisina, 328
Juno Regina, 351 Lupercal, on the Palatine, 351
Juno Sospita, of the Capitoline triad, 351
statue of, 353 of Castor, 351
Jupiter Optimus Maximus. See Jupiter of Diana, on the Aventine, 351
Mars, god of war, 317, 344, 351, 355–6, of Dius Fidius, 351
371. See also tubilustrium of Fors Fortuna, in Trastevere, 351
Mater Matuta, 339, 341, 344, 351 of Fortuna and Mater Matuta, 351
Mercury, 351, 371 of Juno Lucina, on the Esquiline, 351
Plebeian triad, of Juno Moneta, on the Arx, 351
Ceres, 351 of Juno Regina, on the Aventine, 351
Liber, 351 of Jupiter Feretrius, 351
Libera, 351 of Mars, 351
Quirinus, 344, 347, 351 of Mercury, 351
Saturn, 317, 351 of Minerva, on the Aventine, 351
Vesta, 351, 355, 377. See also Vestal of Minerva Medica, on the Esquiline, 351
Virgins of the Plebeian triad, 351
Vulcan, 317, 339, 351 of Quirinus, 351
ludi, of Saturn, 351
Capitolini, 358 of Vesta, 351
chariot races, Volcanal, for Vulcan, 339
Consualia , 358 votives, anatomical, 350
Equirria , 358 Romanization, process of acculturation, 346,
Equus October, 358 348, 374
Plebeian Games, 358 Rome,
votivi, victory games, 358 alliance with Carthage, 208, 341
matrons. See women, religious roles of city of, 336, 338, 341, 347, 350
Mercuriales, religious group, 355 kings of, 342–3, 346, 354
personnel, sacred, Orientalizing period of, 338, 349
General Index 431
origins of, 336 Roman, 339, 341, 343–4, 350–2

religion of. See Roman religion Sumerian, 43
rule by Etruscans, 342, 354 Syro-Canaanite, 143
sack of, 342 see also shrines, temples
Romulus Augustulus, last western Roman San Omobono, Roman temple of Fortuna and
emperor in 476 ce, 19 Mater Matuta at, 351
Room of the Frescoes. See Mycenaean religion Sanskrit. See languages, Indo-Aryan
Roquepertuse, Celtic sanctuary at, 367 Santorini, island, 246. See also hera
rō’š haššanâ , New Year. See Israelite and Judean saoshyant, revitalizer, sacrficer in Zoroastrianism,
religions 106, 110, 113, 118, 125
Ross, A., twentieth-century scholar of the Celts, sa-pa-ka-te-ri-ja, animals to be sacrificed in
367, 376 Mycenaean, 265
Rüpke, J., twentieth-century German scholar of Sapanu, mountain, 141
the Romans, 2 Saphon, mountain. See Sapanu, mountain
Rusellae, Etruscan sanctuary at, 324 Šapinuwa, Hittite town,
ruu. See Egyptian papyri Storm god of, 89
Saqqara, tomb of Egyptian ruler Djoser at, 198
Šabbāt (Sabbath), day of rest. See Israelite and sa-ra-pe-da , Mycenaean sanctuary in Pylos, 263
Judean religions sarcophagus, 246, 323
Sabellian. See Osco-Umbrian Sardinia, Phoenician settlements on, 206
Sabines, people of Italy, 347 Sargon. See Sharru-kin
šābû‘ ôt, Pentecost. See Israelite and Judean Šarrumma. See Zippalanda
religions Satre, Etruscan deity, 317. See also Saturn
sacerdotes, priests, 343 Saturn, Roman temple of, 351
sacerdotes publici, public priests, 355 Saul, first king of unified Israel, 158
sacra , rituals. See Roman religion Saurwa, evil god in Zoroastrianism, 114
Sacral-Institutional Complex. See Etruscan Šaušga, Hittite goddess of Šamuha, patron deity
religion of Hattušili III, 91
saeculum, saecula , “age,” “generation,” scarab in Egyptian religion, 184, 201.
“lifetime,” 316 See also Khepri
sacrifice, scribes, 41, 72, 86, 94. See also writing
animal, 91, 119, 122, 141, 162, 164, 219, 246, Sealand Dynasty, Babylonian dynasty, 57
265, 291, 322, 352, 376 seals,
as a central religious rite in antiquity, 9 cylinder and stamp,
Sader, H., twentieth-century scholar, 221 Assyrian and Babylonian, 67
Salian priests, 321, 355 Hittite, 85–6
Samaria, temple of Baal in, 219 Sumerian, 37, 40
Samos, Greek sanctuary at, 296 Minoan, 237, 246–7, 249
Samsu-ilum, Hammurabi’s son, 57 Mycenaean, 258, 260, 266–7
Sanchuniathon, Phoenician writer, 209 Second Isaiah, prophet, 171
sanctity, 45, 161, 165–6, 224, 381 Second Palace Period, in Minoan history, 240
sanctuaries, sanctuary, 12 seers. See manteis
Assyrian and Babylonian, 74 Sefire Inscriptions, 131, 145.
Celtic, 367–8, 379–80 See also Syro-Canaanite religion
Egyptian, 187–8, 190–2, 194 Seine, river, Celtic shrine at the source of, 370,
Etruscan, 310, 314, 318, 321, 323–30 379
Greek, 13, 281–2, 286, 289–90, 292–9, 302 Selvans, Etruscan deity, 318, 328.
Hittite, 92 See also Silvanus
Israelite and Judean, 7, 157, 162–3, 167–9 še 5mā’ , 153
Minoan, 240, 242–4, 246 Semiramis, queen of Babylon and Bactria, 122
Mycenaean, 257, 262–6 Semo Sancus. See Dius Fidius
Phoenician and Punic, 212–13 Senate. See senators
432 General Index
senators, ruler, 49
Roman, 4, 339 see also Assyrian and Babylonian religions,
Seneca, Roman philosopher (4 bce-65 ce), Sumerian religion
Quaestiones Naturales, 317, 319 Sicily, settlements in,
Sennacherib, destroyer of Babylon, 58 Greek, 347
Senua, Celtic deity, 372 Phoenician, 206, 208, 222, 341
Senwosret III, Egyptian king (ca. 1878–1841 sîîîw‘t. See Carthage, religion of, ritual
bce), sacrifice
mortuary complex of, 193 Silvanus. See Selvans
Sequana, Celtic goddess at the source of the Sin, moon god of Haran, 59. See also Assyrian
Seine, 370 and Babylonian religions
Seth, Egyptian storm god, 182, 186, 193 sin,
Sethlans, Etruscan deity, 317. See also Vulcan in Israelite and Judean religions, 153, 164
Seti I, Egyptian king (ca 1294–1279 bce), in Syro-Canaanite religion, 140
temple of, 193 Sinai, mountain, 163, 165
Shalmaneser III, Assyrian king (858–824 bce), Sinann, Celtic goddess linked to the Shannon,
60 370
Shamash, Assyrian and Babylonian sun god, Sirius, 211, 226. See also Dog Star
67–8, 70 si-to-po-ti-ni-ja , “lady of the grain,” Mycenaean
Shamshi-Adad, Assyrian king, 59 goddess, 261. See also theonyms
Shamshi-Adad V, Assyrian king, 60 šiunaš antuhšaš, “man of god” or prophet in
Shapsh (Shapash), Syro-Canaanite sun goddess, Hittite religion, 92
133–4 šiunaš per, “house of the god,” Hittite temple, 85
Sharru-kin, Sumerian king, 38 sky, 40, 68, 107–8, 119, 181, 183, 247, 317–18, 325,
Sharuma, son of Hittite sun goddess Hepat, 250 331, 371, 377, 380. See also sky deities
Sharva. See Saurwa by name
Shataqat, female healing being in slavery and slaves, 163, 166, 268.
Syro-Canaanite religion, 134 See also hierodules
shaten, main Elamite priest, 121 Smer[trius], Celtic deity, 373
Shavuot. See šābû‘ ôt Smintheus. See s-mi-te-u
Shechem, sanctuary at, 168 s-mi-te-u, 260. See also Apollo, Smitheus
shesau. See Egyptian religion, papyri Smith, C., twentieth-century historian of
Shiloh, Israelite temple at, 157, 168. See also Ark Roman religion, 343
of the Covenant sodales Titii, Roman religious group, 355
shrines solar disc,
Assyrian and Babylonian, 75 in Egyptian religion, 180, 184, 190, 193
Celtic, 367, 378–80 see also Aten
Egyptian, 184, 188, 190, 193 Solomon,
Etruscan, 324 Temple of, 159–62
Greek, 285, 294, 298 song of the hoe, he, 49
Hittite, 85, 87 soothsayers, 3
Israelite and Judean, 158 Soranus, epiclesis of Apollo, 318. See also Śuri
Minoan, 243, 246 sortes, lots, 332
Mycenaean, 259, 262, 264, 269 soul, 105–6, 109–11, 113, 115, 117, 121, 146, 223,
Roman, 339, 352 269, 320, 367, 381–3
Sumerian, 43–4 Sourvinou-Inwood, C., twentieth-century
Syro-Canaanite, 141 scholar of ancient religions, 239
see also sanctuaries, temples Sousse, Tunisia, ancient Hadrumetum, 222
Shu, Egyptian god, 181, 183 Sphagianes. See pa-ki-ja-ne
Shurpu, collection of spells and rituals, 76 Spain, Phoenician settlements in, 207, 222
Shuruppak, spells,
place, 44, 46–7, 49, 64, 68 in Assyria and Babylonia, 76
General Index 433
in Egypt, 177, 195, 197–8, 200 Sumerian,

spenta , “holy” or “endowed with swelling language, 32, 35–6, 40, 46
(power).” See Zoroastrianism see also clay tablets
Spentā Ārmaiti, “(life-giving) Humility,” Ahura religion,
Mazdā’s daughter, 106–7, 109, 111, cosmos, 34, 37, 52
114, 121 creation narratives, 34
sphakteria. See sa-pa-ka-te-ri-ja En-ki and Nin-mah, 34, 49
Spiegel, F., nineteenth-century scholar of Iran, Death of Gilgamesh, the (as a source), 49
123 deity lists, 33, 44, 46
spirits, 108, 112, 184, 203, 227, 237, 319–20, 367 demons,
cosmic, 108 A-Sag (“Arm-beating”), 49
evil, 112–19, 124 Namtar (“Fate”), 49
holy, 125 devotional literature, 48–9
of the dead, 84, 95, 170, 202 divination, 47
of nature, 366 festivals,
Sraosha, “readiness to listen,” Zoroastrian divine religious, 33, 46–7
being, 108, 113, 118, 125 gods and goddesses,
statues, 48, 87, 132, 140, 146, 179, 189, 199, 211, An (“he heavens”), 34, 43–4, 52
249, 259, 261, 265, 289, 294, 314, 321, En-ki (Enki) (”Lord of the earth”),
325, 328–9, 331, 350, 352–3, 358, 371, creator god, 32, 34, 37, 44–5, 48–9,
378 50, 52
cult, 56–7, 62, 67, 72, 75, 179, 188, 191–3, 284, En-lil (Enlil) (“Lord wind”), 34, 43–5,
293–4, 324–5, 331, 350 49, 52
see also statuettes Inana, goddess of the Venus star, 34, 41,
statuette. See statues 43–5, 50, 66; as goddess of physical
stela (stelae, stele), love and battle, 51. See also Inana and
Egyptian, 183, 193–4, 199, 202 En-ki, See also Nin-ana
Hittite, 87 Ishkur, 67
Moabite, 154 Marduk, 39
Punic, 209, 221–3, 226–7 Moon-god, 39, 40. See also Nanna,
Syro-Canaanite, 135, 140, 144 Suen
sti, “temporal existence” in Zoroastrianism, Nanna, 39, 43–4, 50
111 Nin-ana, 34
storm, 49, 87–9, 92, 132–3, 135, 142, 146, 155, 182, Nin-dub (“Lord tablet”), 47
242, 250, 252–3. See also storm deities Nin-Girsu (“Lord of Girsu”), warrior
by name god, 46–7
Strabo, Greek geographer (64 bce-24 ce), Nin-hursaga, “Lady of (the) foothills,”
Geography, 365, 379 32, 43, 45, 48–9
Subingen, Celtic burials at, 382 Nin-lil (“Lady wind”), 44, 49
Sucharski, R. and K. Witczak, twentieth-century Nin-mah (“Majestic lady”),
scholars of the Mycenaeans, 261 mother-goddess, 34, 49
Suen, Sumerian moon-god, 40 Nin-urta (“Lord of the [arable surface of
Suetonius, first/second-century-ce Roman the] earth”), 44
historian, Nin-sumuna (“Lady of the wild cows”),
Divus Claudius (Claudius), 375 50
Suinu, Syro-Canaanite moon-god, 132 Nisaba, goddess of writing, 47
Sukkot, festival of, 162–3, 168 offerings to, 41, 44, 46–7
Sulis, Celtic goddess, pantheon of, 31, 44, 50, 52
temple of, 370, 374, 378 patron gods, 35, 41, 43, 52
see also defixiones, Minerva Suen, 40
Sumer, Utu, sun-god, 39, 43–4
religion of. See Sumerian religionSee also Ur hymns of praise (zame), 48, 50
434 General Index
Sumerian (cont.) Baalat (“Lady” of Byblos), head of

he Kesh temple hymn, to Nin-hursaga’s pantheon, with Baal-Shamem, at
temple, 48 Byblos, 136–9
incantations, 48–9 Baal-Shamem, head of pantheon, with
rituals, Baalat, at Byblos, 138
for the beginning of the agricultural Dagan, 131
year, 51 El, 131, 133–4, 136–9, 143–4, 147
see also he debate between hoe and Eshmun, 138
plough Hadda (Hadad) (“he hunderer”),
temples, 31, 37, 40–1, 45–6, 47, 51–2 storm-god, 131–3, 138, 146.
hymns to, 48, 50 See also Baal
ziggurat, 38 Horon, 145
theology, 45, 49 Kabkab, 133–4
Sumerian King List, he, 37, 39 Kotharat, birth goddesses, 139
Sumu-la-el, first Amorite ruler of Babylon Kothar-wa-Hasis, craftsman god, 139
(1936–1901), 62 Melqart, 138
sun, 39, 43, 67, 70, 74, 88–9, 92, 122, 133–4, 137, Mot (“Death”), 133, 136–7
155, 180, 183–4, 186, 189, 194, 198, 250, pantheon of, 131
369. See also sun deities by name Qadesh, 135. See also Anat, Astarte
Śuri. See Soranus Resheph, god of plague and illness, 134
syncretism, term of analysis of ancient religions, Shapsh (Shapash), sun goddess, 133–4
16 Shataqat, female healing being, 134
Syria, Suinu, moon-god, 132
d
deities of. See Syro-Canaanite religion UTU, sun-god, 132, 134
Syro-Cannanite religion, Yam, 136–7
afterlife, 145–6 Yarih, 134
rapa’ūma , 146 incantations, 131, 144–5
altar, 140 myths, 131, 141, 147
amulets, Aqhat story, 133, 136, 147
texts, 145 Baal Cycle, 133–4, 136, 139, 141, 147–8
to avert evil, 145 offerings, 130, 140, 143
curses, 145 personnel, sacred,
deity lists, 131 diviners, 142
divination and diviners, 144 khn, priest. See khnm
dreams, 143–4 khnm, priests of Ugarit, 142
omens, 131, 143–4 maš ‘artu, priestess, 142
lú
Ḫ AL, diviner, 142 NIN.DINGIR, priestess of the Storm
festivals, god, 142
religious, 131, 141–2 rb khnm, chief priest of Ugarit, 142
gods and goddesses, ‘rbm, “those who enter (the temple),”
Anat, west Semitic goddess of violence, 142
Baal’s ally and sister, 133, 136, 138, tnnm “guards”(?), 142
146–7 prophecy, prophets, 132, 143–4
see also Anath Balaam, “seer of the gods,” 132, 144
Ashertu (Asherah, Athirat), fertility rites and rituals, 131, 139, 143, 147
goddess, Baal’s wife, 134, 136–8, 140, marzeah, ritual feast, 142, 147
147 sacrifice, 140–1
Astarte, 134, 138. See also Anat, Ashtoreth to alleviate natural catastrophe, 144
Baal (“Lord”), Canaanite storm god, zukru, seven-day rite for the god Dagan,
brother of Anat, husband of Ashertu, 142
131, 133–6, 138–9, 141, 143, 145, 147–8. see also festivals, religious
See also Hadda temples, 139, 141–2, 145
General Index 435
of Baal, 141 Mycenaean, 257, 263–4, 268, 270–1

of Dagan, 141 Punic, 210–13, 215–6, 219, 221, 223, 228
underworld. See afterlife Roman, 339–41, 343–4, 347–8, 350–1, 353,
see also Canaan, religion of; Ugarit, religion of 358–9
Sumerian, 9, 31, 33–4, 37, 40–1, 43–8, 50–2
Tabernacles. See sukkôt Syro-Canaanite, 133, 139–43, 145, 147
tablets, 33, 40, 62, 64, 84, 86, 120, 130, 314, 341, see also sanctuaries, shrines
364 templum, inaugurated space, 4, 325
administrative, 33, 130, 258 Ten Commandments, 165–6
curse. See defixiones te-o, Mycenaean term for god, 260. See also
religious, 131, 142 theos
school texts, 33 te-o-po-ri-a, Mycenaean religious ritual, 259.
Tabula Capuana , Etruscan calendar, 314 See also theophoria
Tacitus, Roman historian (56–117 ce), Tertullian, Christian writer (160–225 ce),
Annals (Annales), 355, 375 Apologeticus, 5
Germany (Germania), 14, 371 Teššub, Hurrian storm god, 88–9
Histories (Historiae), 355 Teutates, Celtic deity, 377
Tages, Etruscan prophet, 315. See also etrusca texts, 61, 66, 68, 70, 72, 86, 111, 114, 121, 123, 131,
disciplina 134, 136, 138, 145, 147, 151, 153, 156, 179,
Tammuz. See Dumuzi 195, 197, 199, 209, 212, 216, 219, 221,
Tangier (Tingis), Punic settlements at, 206 223, 227, 239, 242, 244, 247, 254, 257,
Tanipiya, Hittite town, 260, 262, 267, 271, 280, 302, 309, 316,
deities of, 89 339, 341, 343, 353, 364, 367
Tanit. See tnt funerary, 177, 183, 201–2
Taranis, Celtic god of thunder, 370–1, 377, 380 prophetic, 77
Tarchon, founder of Tarquinia, 315–16 ritual, 6, 62, 75, 103–4, 106, 125–6, 131, 140,
Tarquinia, 142–3, 146, 237, 314, 356
sanctuaries at, 323, 329 sacred, 3, 102, 191
sarcophagi from, 320, 322–3 see also tablets, clay
tombs from, 330–1, 353 halna, Etruscan spirit, 319
see also etrusca disciplina harros. See tophet
Tarquins, Etruscan kings of Rome, 354 hebes,
Tarvos Trigaranus, “bull with three cranes,” Egyptian, 178, 183, 191–2, 194, 201
Celtic deity, 373, 377 Greek and Mycenaean, 256–7, 260, 262–3,
Taweret, Egyptian fertility goddess, 194, 196 265–7, 320
Tazzuwašši, Hittite deity, 89 hefarie Velianas (hefarie Vel[i]unas), Etruscan
Tec Sans, Etruscan deity, 318 ruler, 327
Tefnut, Egyptian goddess, 181 theology, Sumerian, 45, 49
teletai, initiations. See Greeks religion of theonyms. See Mycenaean religion
Tell Fekherye Inscription, 132, 143, 145 theophoria. See te-o-po-ri-a
Tell Mardikh, excavations at. See Syro-Canaanite heophrastos, Greek philosopher (371–287 bce),
religion 288–9
temenos, sacred precinct. See Mycenaean religion theos, god, 178, 260, 271
temples, 8 hera. See Santorini
Assyrian and Babylonian, 8, 55, 73–8 thorno-helkterion. See to-no-e-ke-ter-i-jo
Celtic, 371, 373, 375–6, 378–81, 384 hoth, Egyptian deity, 179, 194. See also ibis
Egyptian, 179, 181, 186–94, 198, 201 housand Gods, Hittite gods, 90
Etruscan, 310, 314, 321, 323–8, 331–2 hraētaona, dragon slayer, 116
Greek, 281, 293–5, 297 hucydides, Greek historian (460–395 bce),
Hittite, 85–9, 94–5 History of the Peloponnesian War, 288
Israelite and Judean, 153, 157–71 huflthas, Etruscan deity, 318
Minoan, 243–4 thvāsha, firmament in Zoroastrianism, 111
436 General Index
Tiamat, female waters. See enuma elish Tsountas’ House. See Mycenaean religion,
Tiglath-pileser I, Assyrian king (1115–1077 bce), cultcenters
67 tubicines, trumpeters, 357
Tiglath-pileser III, Assyrian king (745–727 Tubilustrium,
bce), 60 festival to the Roman god Mars, 356
Tigris, river, 36 week-like period, 357. See also Etruscan celuta
Timaeus of Tauromenion, Greek writer Tudhaliya IV, Hittite king, 90
(350–260 bce), 342 Tukulti-Ninurta I, Assyrian king, 57, 72
Tingis. See Tangier Tunisia, ancient Carthage, excavations at, 209
Tinia, chief Etruscan deity, 315, 317–18, 328 Turan, Etruscan goddess, 316, 328
tiniana, Etruscan week-like period, 357. Turanians, enemies of the Aryans, 116
See also iśveita, celuta, aperta Turms. See Mercury
Tinnit-Ashtarte, Punic deity, 221. See also tnt Tuscania, Italy, 316
‘štrt Twelve Tables, codification of Roman laws (450
Tinnit Phane Ba‘al, Punic deity, 223 bce), 342, 357
Tipasa, Punic cemetery at, 207 Tylor, E. B., nineteenth/twentieth-century
ti-ri-se-ro-e, “hrice-hero,” Mycenaean deity, English anthropologist, 237
261–2, 269 Tyre, Phoenician city, 138, 159, 220–1, 226–8
Tiryns. See Minoan religion
Tishtriya, Dog-star, Zoroastrian deity, 112, 114 Uchitel, A., twentieth-century scholar, 78
Titans, 282 Ucko, P. J., twentieth-century scholar, 381
Tnnm, 142 Ugarit, modern Ras Shamra, Syria,
tnt, Punic goddess, 221–2. See also Tanit, Baal Cycle from, 133–4
Tinnit myths from, 136, 147
tnt ‘štrt. See Tinnit-Ashtarte religion of. See Syro-Canaanite religion
tombs, 8, 59, 121–2, 169, 180, 182–4, 187, 192–5, temples at, 140–1
197–203, 220, 226, 239, 244, 252, 284, texts from, 130–1, 134, 140–2, 145, 239, 247
294, 320, 322–3, 325, 329–31, 349, Ugaritic, dialect, 131
353, 382 ’ ûlām, portico of Solomon’s Temple, 159
Tomb of the Augurs, 330 Uley, England, Celtic shrines at, 380
Tomb of the Blue Demons, 331 Unas, Egyptian king (ca. 2353–2323 bce), 181,
Tomb of the Reliefs, 329–30 198
Tomba della Scimmia, 353 Uni, Etruscan deity, consort of Tinia, 314,
Tomba delle Bighe, 353 317–19, 327. See also Astarte, Juno
to-no-e-ke-ter-i-jo, Mycenaean festival, 265 underworld,
tophet, Carthaginian, 209 Celtic, 371, 376, 378
burials at, 209, 224, 226 Egyptian, 182, 184. See also Duat
excavations at, 209, 222, 224 Etruscan, 317–19, 331–2
sacrifice, 209, 224–5 Greek, 283, 293
see also Carthage, religion of Hittite, 95
tôrâ. See Torah Minoan, 247
Torah, “instruction,” 161–7. See also tôrâ Sumerian, 50
Toscanos, Phoenician settlement, 207 Syro-Canaanite, 133–4, 136
trade and traders, 14, 41, 46, 205–7, 368–9, 371 see also afterlife
Traneus, Etruscan month, 316 universe, 31, 34–5, 63–4, 68, 69, 73, 90, 96,
Trastevere, 105–7, 181, 250, 252–3, 315
temple of Fors Fortuna in, 351 u-po-jo po-ti-ni-ja , Mycenaean deity, 261.
treaties, treaty, 25, 89–90, 145, 209–10, 271, 341 See also theonyms
tribute, 25, 160, 170, 247 Ur, first city of Sumer, 5, 38–40, 44.
Tritopatores, Greek deities, 282 See also patron gods
Trophonios, Greek oracle of, 297 Ur III period, period of Sumerian history, 39
Troy, ancient city, 122, 294, 320, 347, 376 Urhi-Teššub, Hittite king, 91
General Index 437
urns, 224–5, 227, 320, 323, 330–1, 337 visions, 143–4, 171, 247, 298
Urnfields period of Celtic culture, 367, 369, Vitruvian plan. See Vitruvius. See also temple
373, 382 Vitruvius, first-century-bce Roman architect,
Uruk, city in Sumer, 35, 38–41, 43–4, 50 On Architecture (De Architectura), 324
alabaster vase from, 41–2, 50–1 vohu/vahishta manah, “good/best thought.”
Uruk period, See Zoroastrianism
of the history of Sumer, 38, 40–1, 44 Volcanal, shrine for Roman god Vulcan, 339
Urum, Sumerian city, 40 Volterra, Etruscan city,
urwan, “breath-soul,” 109, 115 mirrors from, 326
ushabti, Egyptian funerary servant, 200. temple at, 326
See also afterlife votives. See offerings
ushtāna , “life-breath.” See Zoroastrianism votives, anatomical. See Etruscan
Utu, Sumerian sun god, 39, 43–4 religionSee also Roman religion
vows,
vahma , “orderly poem,” 110 in Etruscan religion, 328
vairiya , “well-deserved,” 108 in Greek religion, 289
Valerius Maximus, first-century-ce Roman in Punic religion, 212
writer, memorable Doings and Sayings in Syro-Canaanite religion, 134, 143
(Facta et dicta memorabilia), 354 Vulcan. See Volcanal
Valley of the Kings, Egypt, 183, 201 Vulci, Etruscan city, 322
Vanth, Etruscan winged goddess, 331 temple at, 325, 328
Varro, Marcus Terentus, Roman polymath tomb at, 323
(116–27 bce),
On the Latin Language (De lingua latina), wab priests, “pure priests,” 191. See also Egyptian
315, 318, 339 religion
Vāyu, Zoroastrian god, 112–13 Wagenvoort, Hendrik, twentieth-century
Vecuvia, Etruscan deity, 315, 331. scholar, 345–6
See also prophecy, Vegoia wanax, Mycenaean king, 259, 263, 268, 270
Vegoia. See Vecuvia war and warriors, 44, 46, 48–50, 63–5, 70–1, 75,
Vei, Etruscan deity, 328 87–9, 94, 114, 116–17, 187, 198, 207–9,
Veii, Etruscan town, temple at, 325 221, 239, 250, 252, 254, 260, 262,
Vel Saties, tomb of, 323 282, 342–4, 347–8, 351, 357–8, 365–6,
Veltune, Etruscan deity, 318. See also Vertumnus 369, 371–2, 375–7, 379, 381, 383.
Vendidad. See Videvdad See also war-gods by name
Venus, Warka. See Uruk vase
planet, 34, 70, 74 weapons. See offerings
see also Inana Wepwawet, Egyptian funerary god, 179.
Verthraghna, warrior god, 114 See also jackal
Vertumnus. See Veltune West, M., twentieth-century English scholar,
Vesta, Roman goddess, 351, 355, 377 302
Vestal Virgins (Vestals), 322, 346–7, 355–6, 376–7 “Westcar Papyrus, ” 186
Victory, Westergaard, N. L., nineteenth-century scholar
as a goddess, 4 of Zoroastrianism, 123
Videvdad , Young Avestan text, 103, 111–12, 114, wilderness, 154–5, 163, 165–6
117, 119–20, 123. See also Vendidad Wilson, J., nineteenth-century writer, 123
videvdad sade, purification ritual, 119 wisdom literature,
Viereckschanzen, Celtic enclosures, 379 Babylonian, 73
Villanovan period, Egyptian, 202
of Etruscan religion, 310, 321, 330, 337 Wishtāspa, Zarathustra’s patron, 117, 125–6
Virgil, Roman poet (70–19 bce), Wissowa, G., nineteenth/twentieth-century
Aeneid , 221 German philologist, 344
vision-soul. See daēnā Witham, Celtic offerings at, 371, 373
438 General Index
wo-ko, Mycenaean sanctuary, 263. See also oikos religions, Yahweh, Yh, Yhw,
women, Y-hw-h, Yw
religious roles of, Yima, ruler of the golden age, 116, 127
Roman matrons, 347 Yom Kippur, “Day of Atonement,” 153, 164
see also individual religions, prophets; Yunis, H., twentieth-century scholar of the
personnel, sacred; priestesses Greeks, 290
world, Yw. See YHWH
creation of. See creation narratives
wo-ro-ki-jo-ne-jo, “ritual intentors,” 267 Zabala, Sumerian city, shrines at, 43
wo-ro-ki-jo-ne-jo ka-ma , 268 Zadokites, line of priests, 170
worship, 1–2, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 73, 86–7, 89, 93–4, Zagreb mummy, 314
113, 125, 142, 148, 151, 153–4, 162, 165, Zakir, king of Hamath,
167–9, 171, 179, 188, 194, 199, 239, inscription of, 131, 144
244, 246–7, 281–3, 285, 287–9, 291–2, see also Syro-Canaanite religion
294, 296, 314, 326, 345, 369 Zaliyanu, Hittite deity, 89
Wrath, dark night sky, 108–9, 113–14 zame, hymns. See Sumerian religion
writing, zaothra. See dauça
cuneiform script in Sumer, 40 Zarathustra, poet and sacrifice, author of the
see also scribes Gāthā s, 104–5, 110–13, 116–18, 122–7
see also Zoroaster, Zoroastrianism
Xanthus of Lydia, Greek fifth-century-bce Zašhapuna, Hittite deity, 89
historian, 122 Zawalli, Hittite deity, 96
Xenophon, Greek historian (430–354 bce), zebahh 9 še 5lāmîm, “Sacrifice of Well-being,”
Cyropaedia , 122 164
Hellenica , 369 Zechariah, prophet and temple priest, 170
Xerxes, Persian king (519–465 bce), 103, 120, 122 Zeus, Greek “father of the gods,” 14, 122, 210,
xwaētuwadatha , next-of-kin marriage in 252, 254, 260, 263, 271, 281–3
Zoroastrianism, 111 sanctuaries of, 262–3, 341
statue of,
Yahimilk, at Olympia, 294
inscriptions of, 132 see also Greek religion, Mycenaean religion,
Yahweh. See YHWH di-we, theonyms
Yam, “Sea,” 136–7 Zeus Diktaios. See Di-wi Di-ka-ta-i-o
yasht, hymn to an individual deity in Zeus Herkeios, Zeus “of the enclosure” or “of
Zoroastrianism, 103–4, 111–20 the household,” 287
yashtā, sacrificer, 121 Zeus Meilichios, “the kindly one,”
yasna , sacrifice, 103–4, 113, 118 cult of, 382
Yarih, Syro-Canaanite moon, 134 Zeus Polieus,
yazata , “deserving of sacrifices.” sanctuary of, 295
See Zoroastrianism ziggurat, 38
Yazılıkaya, Hittite deity, zilc, Etruscan magistrate, 323
temple of, 87 Zimri-Lim, king of the Sumerian city of Mari,
year, Sothic, 211 239
Yehawmilk, Zintuhi, grandchild of the Storm-god of Hatti,
inscriptions of, 132, 135 89
Yenghyē Hātām, one of four holy prayers in Zippalanda, Hittite town,
Zoroastrianism, 105 storm god of, 89
Yh. See YHWH Zi-ud-sura (“Life of distant days”), ruler of
Yhw. See YHWH Shuruppak, 49
Y-hw-h. See YHWH Zoroastrianism
YHWH, deity of ancient Israel and Judah, 151, altars,
153–71. See also Israelite and Judean fire, 122
General Index 439
Ardwī Sūrā Anāhitā, Heavenly River, 112, Mithra, protector of Artaxerxes II and
115, 117 Artaxerxes III, 120
hymn to, 117 Mizhdushī, Zoroastrian goddess “who
cosmogony, grants rewards,” 121
Young Avestan, 111 Nairyasangha, “divine messenger,”
cosmos, 114
and order, 105 sraosha , “readiness to listen,” 108, 113, 118,
sustainer of, 108 125
chaos, agents of: daēwa s (evil gods), 103, Tishtriya, Dog-star, Zoroastrian deity,
108, 112–14, 117–18, 120; Lie (drug), 112, 114
108–9; Wrath, 108–9, 113–14 Vāyu, 112–13
death, Verthraghna (“obstruction-smashing
Astō-widātu, “Bone-untier,” remover of force”), warrior god, 114.
human consciousness (baodah) at, 115 See also Achaemenid religion, hymns
frawashi “pre(-existing)-soul,” 105, 109, 111, to deities, yashts
115, 117, 121, 125 heresies,
demons, Zurvanism, 124
Apaosha, demon of drought, 114 House of Songs (garō.nmāna), destination of
Nasu (“carrion”), main cause of pollution, the good soul (urwan), 115
114 in Iran and Armenia, 8
Gods, goddesses, and divine beings, Isad-wāstar, son of Zarathustra, 118
Ahura Mazdā or Ahuramazdā (All-knowing manthra spenta , Life-giving Poetic hought,
Lord/Ruler), good deity, dātar 112
(dadwāh), creator or “establisher” of myth of Zarathustra,
ordered cosmos, 104–22, 124, 126 in Young Avesta, 116–18
dwelling of, See House of Songs dragon-slayers, 116
amesha spenta , Life-giving Immortals, 107, Kersāspa, 116
113–14, 126 hraētaona, 116
Anāhitā, protector of Artaxerxes II and dragons,
Artaxerxes III, 120 Azhi Dahāka, 116
Apām Napāt (“Scion of the Waters”), 114 Kawi Wishtāspa’s war,
Ardwī Sūrā Anāhitā, Heavenly River, 112, against Arjad-aspa and his Khiyonians,
115, 117 117
Airyaman, “heavenly fire,” god of peace kawi s’ war,
and healing, 105, 107–8, 111–12, 114, against, Frangrasyan and the Turanians,
118 Aryans’ archenemies, 116
Ashi, 108, 114, 117, 121 Yima (ruler of golden age), 116, 127
daēwa s, evil beings, 103, 108, 112–14, prayers, holy, 104
117–18, 120 Ahuna Vairiya (Yathā ahū vairiyō), 104–6,
Indara, 114 117
Nānghaithyā, 114 Airyaman Ishiya , 105, 107
Nāsatyā twins, 114 Ashem Vohū, 105, 117
Saurwa, 114 Yenghyē Hātām, 105
Sharva, 114 prototypes of living beings,
see also daiva Cow, 114
Fashioner of the Cow, 108, 110 Gaya Martān, 114
Great God, 121 rituals,
Humility, Ahura Mazdā’s daughter and coming-of-age ceremony,
spouse, 106–7, 109, 111, 114 tying on the girdle (aiviyānghana) in,
khrafstra s, harmful beings, 114 119
Life-Giving Immortals (amesha spenta), haoma , divine plant used in, 118
107, 113–14, 126 morning (yasna), 118
440 General Index
Zoroastrianism (cont.) “Ford of the Accountant” (cinwatō pertu),

use of sacrificial grass (barsman, barsom) where soul’s thoughts and deeds were
in, 119 Weighed, 106, 110, 115
to Mithra, 119 khratu (guiding thoughts) of sacrificers,
videvdad sade, purification ritual, 119 106
see also, libations, Achaemenid religion, maga , exchange of gifts, 106
zaothra to Airyaman, 112
sacred texts, to Life-giving Poetic hought (manthra
Avesta , 102–3, 120, 122–3 spenta), 112
Old Avesta, ritual text, 103–4, 107, 111, yashtā, sacrificer, 121
116, 119, 126 becoming saoshyant, “revitalizer,” 107,
Gāthā s, “songs,” 103–5, 107, 109, 111, 110, 113, 118, 125
113–14, 117–18, 123–7 fee of (mizhda), 107
Yasna Haptanghāiti, sacrifice in seven yasna , sacrifice, 103–4, 113, 118
sections, 103–4, 107, 109 theonyms,
Young Avesta , 1–7, 103–4, 109, 111–12, Ārmati-dāta, “(child) given by Life-giving
114–17, 119, 123–4 Ārmaiti,” 121
Khorda Avesta, short hymns and other Hauma-dāta, “(child) given by Hauma,”
ritual texts, 103 121
Videvdad (Vi-daēwa-dāta, Vendidad ), Mazda-yazna, “who sacrifices to (Ahura)
collection of texts Mazdā,” 121
concerned with purification rituals, Mithra-dāta, “(child) given by Mithra,” 121
103, 111–12, 114, 117, 119–20, 123 Mithra-pāta, “protected by Mithra,” 121
yashts, hymn to individual deities, Mithra-yazna, “who sacrifices to Mithra,”
103–4, 111–20 121
Yasna, text accompanying the yasna Spanta-dāta, “(child) given by Life-giving
ritual, 103–11, 113–19, 123, 126 Ārmaiti,” 121
Hērbedestān, manual of priestly schooling Wishtāspa, Zarathustra’s princely patron, 117,
and performance of rituals, 103 125–6
Nīrangestān, manual of priestly xwaētuwadatha , next-of-kin marriage,
schooling and performance of rituals, of Zarathustra and his daughter after
103 sacrifice, 111
sacrifice, Zarathustra, poet and sacrifice, author of the
animal, 119 Old Avesta , 104–5, 110–13, 116–18,
gift-giving, 122–7. See also Persians, religion of;
of “pre-souls” (frawashi s), 105 Zoroaster
evil sacrificers, zukru, seven-day rite for the god Dagan, 142
karpan s, 105 Zurvanism, Zoroastrian heresy, 124
kawi s, 105 zurwan, “time,” in Zoroastrianism, 111
INDEX OF CITATIONS
Textual and Material Sources

Aesch. Ag. Aeschylus, Arn. Adv. nat. Arnobius,
Agamemnon Adversus
198–217 376 Nationes
Aesch. Supp. Aeschylus, 2.62 320
Suppliants 3.40 319
890 259 7.26 310
Agramer Mumienbinden Archedamos of hera
(liber linteus) 348 inscription 291 n 29
Althiburus inscription Aristophanes, Clouds 506–8 297 n 46
(KAI 159) 212 Arnth Churcles epitaph
159.2–4 212 (Rix ET AT 1.171) 323
4 212 Arslan Tash amulets 145
5 212–13 Assyrian king list 59
7 213 Atunis mirror 211
8 212–13, augur statuette (Louvre) 321
219–20 Aug. Civ. 10.1 Augustine,
8–9 212 De civitate
9 212 Dei
Amarna letters 155 2n4
Amman Citadel Inscription Aulus Caecina De etrusca
(COS 2.24) 144 disciplina
Amphiareion regulations 315
(LSCG, 69) 292, 293 n 35 Aul. Gell. Aulus Gellius,
An-Anum text list 62 Noctes
ANET Ancient Near Atticae
Eastern Texts 356 n 53
Relating Avesta 102–3, 120,
to the Old 122–3
Testament Old Avesta, 103–4, 107, 111,
xi 116, 119, 126
App. Pun. Appian, Punica Gāthā s 103–5, 107,
59 212 109, 111, 113–14,
Aristotle, Constitution of 117–18, 123–7
the Athenians 287 nn 17–18 Yasna Haptanghāiti 103–4, 107, 109
441
442 Index of Citations
Avesta (cont.) cenotaph of Seti I 182

Young Avesta, 1–7, 103–4, 109, Censor. D. N. Censorinus, De
111–12, 114–17, die natali
119, 123–4 17.5–6 316
Khorda Avesta, 103 Chamalières and
Videvdad Larzac Tablets 364
(Vi-daēwa-dāta) 103, 111–12, 114, Cic. Font. Oratio pro
117, 119–20, 123 Fonteio
yasht s 103–4, 111–20 33 369
Yasna, 103–11, 113–19, Cic. Leg. Cicero,
123, 126 De legibus
Azatiwada inscription 2.48 356
(KAI 26) 132 Cic. Nat. deor. Cicero, de
Natura
“Babylonian heodicy” 73 Deorum (On
Bisenzio urn 323 the Nature of
BM British Museum the Gods)
Book of the Dead 1.3 343
(Book of Going 1.117 343
forth by Day in the 3.2.4 3
Afterlife) 181, 201–2 3.5 343
Book of Gates 201 cippus (ILLRP 3) 339
Book of Two Ways 200–1 CIS Corpus
Books of the Afterlife, Inscriptionum
(Books of the Semiticarum
Underworld) 181, 184 xi
Books of Heaven and 1 165 216
Earth 201 1 167 216
Brontoscopic calendar 314 1 168 216
bronze and lead weight 327 1 170 216
building of Nin-Girsu’s 1 3915–3917 216
temple, he 1 3922–5275 222
(ETCSL 2.1.7) 47 1 4937.3–5 223
1 5511 223
Caecina 315, 332 1 5632.6–7 223
Caes. B. Gall. Caesar, Bellum cities list, he, 41
Gallicum CMS Corpus der
1.2–5 369 minoischen and
6.13–16 374 mykenischen
6.14 367 n 13 Siegel
6.16 376–7 xi
6.17 371–2 1, n 17 259
6.19 383 Code of Hammurabi 71, 166
7.55 369 Coffin Texts 181, 200–1
Capua Tile (Rix ET TC) 314 Coligny Calendar 364
Carthage Tariff COS he Context of
(KAI 74) 132, 140 Scripture
CAT he Cuneiform xi
Alphabetic Texts 1.55 134
from Ugarit, Covenant Code 165–6
Ras Ibn Hani Ctesias of Cnidus, History
and Other Places of the Persians
xi 122
cursing of Agade, he 32
(ETCSL 2.1.5) 39 Etruscan linen book
(Rix ET LL) 314
DCSL Diachronic Euripides 290
Corpus of Eusebius, Praeparatio
Sumerian evangelica
Literature 8 209
32
death of Gilga-mesh, he Fast. Praen. Fasti Praenestini
(ETCSL 1.8.1.3) 49 356
debate between hoe and Fest. Festus, De
plough, he verborum
(ETCSL 5.3.1–5.3.7) 51 significatu
Deir ‘Allah Inscription 132, 144, 170 340–2 L 354
Demosthenes 439.18–22 L 355
18.258–260 299 n 52 First Botorrita
Descent of Ishtar to the Inscription 364
Netherworld (Epic fl ood story, he (ETCSL
of Gilgamesh, 1.7.4) 49
Tablet VI, obv. François Tomb 323
col. i-iii.) 70
Diodorus Siculus, Göttingen bronzes 321
Bibliotheca “Great Hymns to the
historica Aten” 194
5.27 379 Greg. Tours Vita Patr. Gregory of
5.28 383 Tours, Vitae
5.29 367 n 11 Patrum
5.32 365, 377 c.6 379
Dion. Hal. Dionysius of Gundestrup cauldron 370
Halicarnassus
343 Hattušili III’s
1.68.2 352 “Apology” 91
4.74.4 346 Heraclitus, Fr 5, 294 n 38
7.72–3 354 Hērbedestān 103
Dumu-zid and En-ki-imdu Herodotus, Histories, 103, 179
(ETCSL 4.08.33) 51 1.46–9 286
1.131 122
Egyptian Report of 1.140 122
Wen-Amon 144 2.53.2 281
Elamite tablets 120–1 3.37.2 228
En-ki and Nin-mah Hesiod, heogony, 281
(ETCSL 1.1.2) 34, 49 Hesiod, Works
En-ki and the world order and Days
(ETCSL 1.1.3) 34, 49 334–40 299
enuma elish, 57, 61–5, 68, 71, Hieraconpolis tomb 197
74 Homer, Il. Homer, Iliad
Epic of Gilgamesh, 70 6.302–3 294
Eshmun ostraca (KAI 21.470 258
283.13, 284b e) 221 23.744 205
ETCSL Electronic Text Homer, Od . Homer,
Corpus of Odyssey
Sumerian 4.43 261
Literature 6.305 261
Homer, Od. (cont.) 5 138, 140

13.272 205 6 138, 140
14.288 205 7 138, 140
15.415 205 10 138
15.419 205 10:2 139
15.473 205 13 138, 142
Horace, Ep. Q. Horatius 14 138, 142, 145
Flaccus, 17 140
Epistulae 25 140
2.1.156–7 16 26 A ii 19–iii 1 219
26 A iii 18 134
Idrimi stela (ANET 557) 144 26 iii 2–6 143
Ikhernofret’s stela 193 38 140
ILLRP Inscriptiones 43 140
Latinae Liberae 61 A, B 141
Rei Publicae 66 134
Inana and An (ETCSL 74 216
1.3.5) 50 79.10–11 223
Inana and En-ki (ETCSL 175.2 222
1.3.1) 35, 49 176.1–2 222
Inana’s descent to the 201 140
netherworld 225 145
(ETCSL 1.4.1) 50 277.9 226
instructions of Shuruppak, 303.7 219
he (ETCSL 5.6.1) 49–50 6916, 60:1 142
“Instructions to Temple Kesh temple hymn, he
Officials” (KUB (ETCSL 4.80.2) 48
13 i 21–26) 139 Khirbet el-Kom tomb
Isis temple in Carthage inscriptions 169
(CIS 1 6000bis.8) 228 KUB Keilschrift-
urkunden aus
Johannes Lydus 315 Boghazköi
Josephus, Titus Flavus C . Ap. Against xii
Apion 14.10 iv 9–13, 92
1.116–19 209 21.27 i 3–6, 89
121–25 209 22.70 i 7–11, 93
156–58 209 24.2 rev. 12D-16D 91
AJ Antiquities 24.3 ii 4D-17D 91
of the Jews 25.6 iv 5–24 94
8.144–49 209, 324 29.1 i 17–19 92
9.284–87 209 29.4 i 1–12 87
Justin 38.1 iv 1–7 88
24.4–8 369 41.8 iv 29–32 95
25.2.9 369 Kuntillet ‘Ajrud
inscriptions 169
KAI Kanaanäische Kuttamuwa inscription 146
und aramäische
Inschriften Lactantius, Inst. 4.29 Lactantius,
xi Divinarum
4 138 institutionum
4:1–4 138 1
Larth Cafates inscription 24.12.4 210

(Rix ET Um 1.7) 322 26.11.4 210
Lex Hortensia, 342 28.46.15–16 210
Lex Ogulnia, 342, 348, 357 33.27.4 344
Linear B tablets Lucan. Phars. Lucan, Pharsalia
KN C 941.B 265 1.444–446 371, 377
KN Fp 1 267 1.455–8 367 n 13
KN Gg702 258 Lucian, Syr. d. Lucian, De Syria
KN V 52 270 dea
KN V 280 258, 266 6 132, 213
K-P70 264 Lugal-banda and
K-P72 264 Nin-sumuna
K-P72a 261 (DCSL) 50
K-P74a 262, 264, 269 Lydus, Johannes 315
K-P74b 262, 264
K-P76 264 Macr. Sat. Macrobius,
K-P78 262 Saturnalia
K-P79 264 1.15.9–12 356
K-P80 262, 264 Man and His God, A, 73
K-P88 262 Marseilles Tariff
K-P96 265 (KAI 69) 132, 140, 216–17
K-P106 265 1–2 216
K-P108 262 3–12 216
PY Cn 1287.6 267 3–15 213
PY Ea59 262 13 216
PY Ep74 267 14 216
PY Fr 1206 271 15 216
PY Jn829 263 16–17 216
PY Tn 316 258, 262, 265–6, 17 220
268–9 18–19 216
PY Un2 268 20–21 216
PY Un718 263, 268 Mart. Cap. Nupt. Martianus
PY Un718.11 267 Capella, De
TH Av 106 [+] 91, 267 nuptiis Mercurii
TH Of 26.3 265 et Philologiae
“Litany of Ra” 326 I. 45–61 317–18
Liv. Livy, Ab Urbe Menander, Dyskolos
Condita 412 283 n 6
343 Mesha inscription
1.35.7–9 354 (KAI 181:14) 132, 144, 154
2.2.1 346 Milkpilles epitaph (CIS I
5.1.6 315 6000bis.3b-4)
5.33–35 369 223
5.35–49 369 Mochus FGrH Mochus,
6.41 348 Fragmente der
7.2.1–12 354 griechischen
8.6 376 Historiker
10.26 367 n 11 87 F67 209
22.57 377 784 F6 209
23.11.7 210
23.24 380 Nigidius Figulus 314, 332
Nin-urta’s exploits (ETCSL 364b-65a 299 n 52

1.6.2) 49 Plin. NH Pliny the Elder,
Nīrangestān, 103 Naturalis
historia
“Orator” bronze 8.65 354
(Florence) 328 16.95 374
Ov. Fast. Ovid, Fasti 30.3 375, 377 n 42
2.21–2 356 30.4 374–5
Ovid Metamorphoses 35.157 341
14.623–771 318 Pliny, Ep. Pliny the
Younger,
“Palladion” from Tsountas’ Epistulae
House (CMS 1, 8.8 378
n. 17) Plut. Fab. Max. Plutarch, Fabius
259 262 Maximus
Panammu I Inscription 18 377
(KAI 214) 131, 140, 146 Plutarch, Life of Sulla
Pausanias 7.3–6 316
10.21 381 Polyb. Polybius,
Pava Tarchies mirror 316, 318, 321 Histories
Pesaro inscription 341, 343
(Rix ET Um 1.7) 322 7.9 209
phanēbalos coin 222 7.9.2.-3 210
Philo of Byblos, History of 7.9.3 210
the Phoenicians Pomponius Mela 367 n 13
132, 138, 209 Propertius Propertius,
Philostratus, Ant. Philostratus, Elegiae
Antiquities 4.2 318
of the Jews Punic plaque (KAI 302) 223–4
(Josephus) 1 223
10.228 209 4–5 223
Philostratus, Ag. Ap. Philostratus, 6–7 226
Against Apion putto Graziani 328
(Josephus) Pyramid Texts 181, 183, 198,
1.143–44 209 200
Philostratus, FGrH Philostratus, Pyrgi inscription (KAI
“Fragmente der 277)
griechischen 277.4–5 211
Historiker” 277.9 211
789 F1a-b 209 277.9–11 212
Piacenza Liver (Rix ET 277.9b-11 211
Pa 4.2) 311, 317 Pyrgi tablets (Rix CR
Pilier des Nautes (Nautae 4.3–4.5) 314, 327, 341
Parisiaci)
373, 377 Regulation pertaining to a
Plato, Laws, king (ILLRP 3)
10 885b 290 n 28 339
10 909d-910d 285 n 13 RIB he Roman
Plato, Politicus Inscriptions of
290c 288 n 21 Britain
Plato Republic xii
213 372 terracotta Atunis figure

219 377 (Gregorian Etruscan
Rix ET Helmut Rix, Museum, Vatican
Etruskische 14147) 212
Texte, Editio Tertullian, Apol. Tertullian,
Minor Apologeticus
xii 24.7 5
AT 1.161, 1.96 322 heophrastos, Fr. heophrastos,
Um 1.7 354 Fragmenta
12 288–9
Sarepta ivory plaque hucydides, History of the
(KAI 285.304) 221 Peloponnesian War
Sefire Inscriptions 2.38 288
(KAI 222–224) 131, 145 Timaeus 342
Seneca, Quaest. nat. Seneca, Tomb of the Augurs 330
Quaestiones Tomb of the Blue Demons 331
naturales Tomb of Ramesses VI 182
2.32.2 317 Twelve Tables 342, 357
2.41 319
song of the hoe, he Ugaritic Texts
(ETCSL 5.5.4) 49 CAT 1.1–1.2 133
Strab. Geog. Strabo, CAT 1.1 iii 24 138
Geography CAT 1.2 1 10 138
4.1.13 379 CAT 1.2 iv 136
4.4.4 367 n 13 CAT 1.3 i 2–17 139
4.4.5 367 n 11, 377 CAT 1.3 i 2–27 148
4.5.4 365 CAT 1.3 v 19–25 136
Suet. Claud. Suetonius, CAT 1.4 ii 11 134
Divus CAT 1.4 iii 32 134
Claudius CAT 1.4 iv 38–39 136
25 375 CAT 1.4 vi 40–59 139
Sumerian king list, he CAT 1.5–1.6 133
(ETCSL 2.1.1) 37, 39, 59 CAT 1.5 i 1–3 137
Suti and Hor’s stele CAT 1.5 ii 2–4 137
(BM 826) 183 CAT 1.5 vi 12–19 136
CAT 1.5 vi 18–22 137
Tabula Capuana 356 CAT 1.6 i 40 138
Tac. Ann. Tacitus, CAT 1.6 ii 13 138
Annales CAT 1.6 iii 14–21 133
1.54 355 CAT 1.10 137
14.29–30 375 CAT 1.14 ii 24–25 138
Tac. Germ. Tacitus, CAT 1.14 iii 52–54 143
Germania CAT 1.14 iv 34–43 140
43 371 CAT 1.15 ii 16–20 136
Tac. Hist. Tacitus, CAT 1.15 iii 25–30 134
Historiae CAT 1.16 i 20–23 139, 146
2.95 355 CAT 1.16 v 24-vi 9 134
Tell Fekherye CAT 1.17 i 2–15 139
Inscription 132, 140, 143, 145 CAT 1.17 i 34–43 136
temple hymns, he CAT 1.17 ii 26–42 139
(ETCSL 4.80.1) 50 CAT 1.17 v 3–33 139
Ugaritic Texts (cont.) Val. Max. Valerius

CAT 1.17 vi 137 Maximus,
CAT 1.18 i 6–14 136 Facta et dicta
CAT 1.18 iv 137 memorabilia
CAT 1.19 i 40–46 133 2.4.7 354
CAT 1.19 ii 21–25 145 Varro, ling. Varro, De lingua
CAT 1.19 iii 42–45 145 latina
CAT 1.19 iv 24–25 140 5.143 315
CAT 1.23 143, 147 5.46 318
CAT 1.23:7 142 5.155 339
CAT 1.23: 34–37 136 Vercelli Inscription 364
CAT 1.24 139, 143 Verg. Aen. Vergil, Aeneid
CAT 1.39 146 1.738 221
CAT 1.40 140 Vitruvius, De architectura
CAT 1.41/87 141 IV.7 324
CAT 1.48 146 “Westcar Papyrus” 186
CAT 1.63 144 Xanthus of Lydia 122
CAT 1.78 144 Xenophon, Cyropaedia,
CAT 1.86 144 8.3.24 122
CAT 1.100 145, 147 Xen. Hell. Xenophon,
CAT 1.101 rev. 1–6 143 Hellenica
CAT 1.103 144 7.1.20 369
CAT 1.105 146
CAT 1.106 141, 146 Yahimilk Inscriptions
CAT 1.107 145, 147 (KAI 4) 132
CAT 1.108 143, 146 Yehawmilk Inscriptions
CAT 1.112 141 (KAI 10) 132
CAT 1.114 136 142, 147 yd‘mlk pendant (KAI 73) 220
CAT 1.119 141, 143
CAT 1.124 145, 147 Zakir Inscription
CAT 1.126 141 (KAI 202) 131, 144
CAT 1.127 144 Zoroastrianism’s Four Holy
CAT 1.140 144 Prayers
CAT 1.141–144 144 104
CAT 1.155 144 Ahuna Vairiya 104–6, 117
CAT 1.161 146 Airyaman Ishiya, 105, 107
CAT 1.169 144 Ashem Vohū 105, 117
Uruk (Warka) vase 41–2 Yenghyē Hātām 105
Scriptural Sources
Amos 29:25 170
9 156 30 162
35 162
1 Chronicles 35:15 170
16 162
2 Chronicles Deuteronomy
2:7 158 5 166
5–7 162 12 167
20:12 223 12:3 222
Scriptural Sources 449
14 164 25:27–34 155

16 163 27 155
16–17 165 28 157, 162, 169
17:14–20 165 32 157, 164
28–30 156 35 157, 162
33 (Song of Moses) 155
33:2 154 Habakkuk
3 (Psalm of Habakkuk) 155, 164
Exodus 3:3 154
3 154 3:7 154
3:14 153 3:8 133
14–15 155, 162 Hosea
15 164 4 156
15:8–10 133
18 154 Isaiah
19 160 6:8–10 138
19–40 165 11 156
20–24 165 12 164
20:19–23 160 14 134
22:17 170 24 156
23 163 25:8 133
25–30 166 27:1 133, 137
32 137 28 170
33–34 170
34 163 Jeremiah
28–29 162 35 154
34 166 Job
34:19–20 169 38 156
35–40 166 41:1 137
40 160 Joshua
Ezekiel 4–5 157
1 160 5 155, 162
8 169 22:23 220
20:29 244 24 157
43:14 160 Judges
45:25 220 1:16 154
47–48 156 4–5 169–70
Ezra 5 (Song of Deborah) 155, 164
3 162 5:4 154
3–6 161 11 169
6 162 13 139
18:30 157
Genesis 21 157, 162
1 159 1 Kings
1:1–2:3 156 2 162
3 169 3 165
4 154 5–8 158
9 164 8 162
14 155, 162 12 168
18 139 12:25–33 137
21 169 13 162
25–35 155 16 169
1 Kings (cont.) 17–18 161

17 154 22–24 170
17–18 156 26:59 161
18 162 28–29 163
19 154
22:19–23 138 Proverbs
2 Kings 8 156
3 169–70 30 156
3:26–27 141 Psalms
9–10 154, 156 2 164
10:24 219 6 164
10:25 219 7 164
21 169 8 164
22 170 18 160
24–25 56 30 164
34 164
Leviticus 46 164
1 164 48 164
68 155, 160
1:14–17 220 74 156
1–16 166 74:12–17 133
2 164 74:14 137
3 164 76 164
4–5 164 77:16–20 133
5:10 220 89 146, 164
8 162 96–99 164
10 161 104 155
10:10–11 161 105 164
16 160, 164 106 164
17–26 166 110 164
23 163 114:2–6 133
23:37 220 118 164
120–134 164
Malachi
1:8 139 1 Samuel
1 162, 169
Nehemiah 1–2 169
8–10 162, 167 1–4 157
Numbers 28 170
3–4 169 31 158
3–8 161 2 Samuel
3:40–51 161 6 162
4 162 7 158
8 162, 169 7:14 139
8:23–26 162 12 165
9 168 24 159
THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS
IN THE ANCIENT WORLD
VOLUME II
From the Hellenistic Age to Late Antiquity
he Cambridge History of Religion in the Ancient World provides a com-

prehensive and in-depth analysis of the religions of the ancient Near East
and Mediterranean world. he nineteen essays in this volume begin with
the Hellenistic age and extend to the late Roman period. Its contributors,
all acknowledged experts in their fields, analyze a wide spectrum of textual
and material evidence. An essay by William Adler introduces the chapters of
Volume II. he regional and historical orientations of the essays will enable
readers to see how a religious tradition or movement assumed a distinctive
local identity, and consider its development within a broader regional and
Mediterranean context. Supplemented with maps, illustrations, and detailed
indexes, the volume is an excellent reference tool for scholars of the ancient
Near East and Mediterranean world.
Michele Renee Salzman is University of California Presidential Chair (2009–

2012) and Professor of History at the University of California, Riverside. She is
the author of three books and numerous articles, including On Roman Time:
he Codex-Calender of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in late Antiquity (1990);
he Making of a Christian Aristocracy (2002); and he Letters of Symmachus:
Book 1, translation (with Michael Roberts), Introduction, and Commentary
(2011). She is on the Editorial Board of the American Journal of Archaeology and
has served on the Executive Committee of the American Academy in Rome.
William Adler is Professor of Early Christianity and Judaism in the Department

of Philosophy and Religious Studies at North Carolina State University. He has
authored or coauthored six books dealing with early Christian literature and
historiography and has served as a visiting professor at the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem and as a visiting research scholar at the University of Adelaide, the
Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena, and the University of Basel.
THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY
OF RELIGIONS IN THE
ANCIENT WORLD
VOLUME II
FROM THE HELLENISTIC AGE TO
LATE ANTIQUITY
Michele Renee Salzman

General Editor
University of California, Riverside
Edited by
William Adler
North Carolina State University
cambridge university press
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town,
Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Mexico City
Cambridge University Press

32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, ny 10013-2473, usa
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521858311
© Cambridge University Press 2013
his publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2013
Printed in the United States of America
A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data

he Cambridge history of religions in the ancient world : from the Bronze Age to the
Hellenistic Age / [edited by] Marvin A. Sweeney, Michele Renee Salzman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
isbn 978-1-107-01999-7 (hardback set) – isbn 978-0-521-85830-4
(volume 1) – isbn 978-0-521-85831-1 (volume 2)
1. Religions. 2. Civilization, Ancient. I. Sweeney, Marvin A.
(Marvin Alan), 1953– II. Salzman, Michele Renee.
bl 96.c 363 2012
200.93–dc23 2011049012
isbn 978-0-521-85830-4 Volume I Hardback

isbn 978-0-521-85831-1 Volume II Hardback
isbn 978-1-107-01999-7 Two-volume Hardback Set
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for
external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee
that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
CONTENTS
List of Figures and Maps page vii

List of Contributors ix
List of Abbreviations xi
Introduction to Volume II 1
william adler
Part I Iran and the Near East

 Religion in Iran: he Parthian and Sasanian Periods
(247 bce–654 ce) 23
albert de jong
 Creating Local Religious Identities in the Roman Near East 54
ted kaizer
 Judaism in Palestine in the Hellenistic-Roman Periods 87
esther eshel and michael e. stone
 Post-70 Judaism in Judea and the Near East 116
hayim lapin
 Christianity in Syria 138
sidney h. griffith
Part II Egypt and North Africa

 Traditional Religion in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt 165
françoise dunand
 Judaism in Egypt 189
joseph mélèze modrzejewski
v
vi Contents
 Ancient Egyptian Christianity 211

jacques van der vliet
 Cult and Belief in Punic and Roman Africa 235
brent shaw
 Christianity in Roman Africa 264
robin m. jensen
Part III Greece and Asia Minor

 Religions of Greece and Asia Minor 295
lynn e. roller
 Judaism in Asia Minor 321
pieter w. van der horst
 Christianity in Asia Minor: Observations on the Epigraphy 341
frank r. trombley
Part IV Italy, Roman Gaul, and Spain

 Religion in Rome and Italy from the Late Republic through
Late Antiquity 371
 Judaism in Italy and the West 398
giancarlo lacerenza
 Christianity in Italy 421
dennis trout
 Religions and Cities in Roman Gaul (First to Fourth
Centuries ce) 446
william van andringa
 Christianity in Gaul 484
william klingshirn
 Religions of Roman Spain 510
michael kulikowski

General Index 543
FIGURES AND MAPS
figures
1. “Syncretistic, Syrian military deity” page 55
2. Miniature “shrine” supporting lamp of Malikat 57
3. Dexiōsis relief from Arsameia (Antiochus I and Heracles) 60
4. Relief of four Palmyrene deities 66
5. Temple of Zeus Bōmos 69
6. Mosaic of Cassiopeia from Palmyra 73
7. “Battle relief ” from the temple of Bel at Palmyra 75
8. Drawing of missing part of “battle relief ” 75
9. Relief of Aphlad from Dura-Europos 81
10. Carved relief of the goddess Isis in the temple of Kalabsha at
Aswan 180
11. Detail from a third-century mosaic pavement 271
12. Mosaic tomb cover from Furnos Minos 283
13. Baptismal font from Kélibia, Basilica of Felix 284
14. Epitaph of Claudia Aster from Jerusalem 409
15. Epitaph of the presbyter Secundinus 412
16. Altar of the butchers of Périgueux 450
17. Base of a statue discovered at Rennes-Condate 453
18. Stele from Reims 454
19. Stele of Nuits-Saint-Georges 455
20. Plan of the sanctuary of Nuits-Saint-Georges 457
21. Vase from Sains-du-Nord (city of the Nervii) 459
22. Plan of the forums of Feurs and Nyon 462
23. Plan of Aventicum with the site of the religious quarter of the
Grange-des-Dîmes 464
vii
viii Figures and Maps
24. Plan of Augusta Treverorum with the site of the sanctuaries from
the urban area 466
25. Indigenous sanctuary of Limoges 467
26. Plan of Jublains 470
27. Sanctuary of the Altbachtal at Trier 471
28. Sanctuary of Lenus Mars at Trier 472
29. Cult places of the pagi located on the exterior of the sanctuary of
Lenus Mars at Trier 474
30. Inscription from Wederath 475
31. Plan of the vicus of Vendeuvre of the Pictons 476
32. Sarcophagus of the Spouses 495
33. Christian bulla 499
maps
1. he Parthian Empire 29
2. he Roman Near East 63
3. Syria Palaestina 88
4. Roman Egypt 166
5. Roman North Africa 267
6. Greece and Western Asia Minor 297
7. Asia Minor 322
8. Italy 373
9. he Cities of the hree Gauls and Narbonensis 447
10. Roman Spain 512
CONTRIBUTORS
Albert de Jong is Professor of Comparative Religion at Leiden University,

Leiden, the Netherlands.
Françoise Dunand is Professor Emerita, University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg,
France.
Esther Eshel is Senior Lecturer in the Bible Department and in the Martin
(Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology at Bar Ilan
University.
Sidney H. Griffith is Professor in the Department of Semitic and Egyptian
Languages and Literature and at the Institute of Christian Oriental Research at
the Catholic University of America.
Robin M. Jensen is the Luce Chancellor’s Professor of the History of Christian
Art and Worship at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee.
Ted Kaizer is Senior Lecturer in Roman Culture and History at Durham
University, Durham, United Kingdom.
William Klingshirn is Ordinary Professor of Greek and Latin at the Catholic
University of America.
Michael Kulikowski is Professor in the Department of History at Pennsylvania
State University.
Giancarlo Lacerenza is Lecturer in Biblical and Medieval Hebrew at the
University of Naples L’Orientale.
Hayim Lapin is Professor in the Department of History and in the Joseph and
Rebecca Meyerhoff Program and Center for Jewish Studies at the University of
Maryland.
ix
x Contributors
Joseph Mélèze Modrzejewski is Professor Emeritus of Ancient History at the

University of Paris, Paris, France.
Lynn E. Roller is Professor in the Department of Art and Art History at the
University of California, Davis.
Brent Shaw is Professor of Classics and Andrew Fleming West Professor of
Classics in the Department of Classics at Princeton University.
Michael E. Stone is Professor of Armenian Studies and Gail Levin de Nur
Professor of Religious Studies at he Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
Israel.
Frank R. Trombley is Reader in the School of Religious and heological
Studies at Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales.
Dennis Trout is Associate Professor and Department Chair in the Department
of Classical Studies at the University of Missouri, Columbia.
William van Andringa is Professor of Roman History (History of Ancient
Religions) at the University of Lille 3, Lille, France.
Pieter W. van der Horst is Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of heology of
Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands.
Jacques van der Vliet is Senior Lecturer of Coptic at Leiden University and
Extra-ordinary Professor of Egyptian Religion at Radboud University Nijmegen,
the Netherlands.
ABBREVIATIONS
AAAS Annales archéologiques arabes syriennes

AB Anchor Bible
ABD Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Friedman. 6 vols.
(New York, 1992)
AcOr Acta Orientalia
ADPV Abhandlungen des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins
AE L’Année epigraphique
Aeg Aegyptus. Rivista italiana di egittologia e di papirologia
AJA American Journal of Archaeology
AJSR Association for Jewish Studies Review
AMS Asia Minor Studien
AnBoll Analecta Bollandiana
Anc. Soc. Ancient Society
ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt
AnSt Anatolian Studies
AntAfr Antiquités africaines
AntTard Antiquité tardive
ARG Archiv für Religionsgeschichte
ASNSP Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, classe di lettere
e filosofia
ASPN Archivio Storico per le Provincie Napoletane
BA Biblical Archaeologist
BABesch Bulletin Antieke Beschaving
BABeschSup Bulletin Antieke Beschaving, Supplement
BAH Bibliothèque Archéologique et Historique
BAIAS Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society
BAR Int. Ser. British Archaeological Reports, International Series
xi
xii Abbreviations
BASOR Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research

BCTH Bulletin archéologique du Comité des travaux historiques et
Scientifiques
BGU Aegyptische Urkunden aus den königlichen (staatlichen)
Museen zu Berlin, Griechische Urkunden, I–IV (Berlin,
1895–1912)
BHG Bibliotheca hagiographica orientalis, ed. François Halkin.
Subsidia Hagiographica 47 (Brussels, 1969)
BIDR Bullettino dell’ Istituto di Diritto Romano “Vittorio Scialoja”
BJRL Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester
BKAT Biblischer Kommentar. Altes Testament
BMC Catalogue of Greek Coins in the British Museum, Phoenicia,
ed. G. F. Hill (London, 1910)
BMGS Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies
BO Bibliotheca Orientalis
BSOAS Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
C&M Classica et Mediaevalia
CA Classical Antiquity
CAG Carte archéologique de la Gaule (Paris, 1988–)
CahRB Cahiers de la Revue biblique
CBR Currents in Biblical Research
CCL Corpus Christianorum: Series latina (Turnhout, 1953–)
CdE Chronique d’Egypte
CEFR Collection de l’École Française de Rome
CH Church History
CHJ he Cambridge History of Judaism
CIJ Corpus inscriptionum judaicarum, ed. J.-B. Frey (Vatican,
1936–52)
CIL Corpus inscriptionum latinarum (Berlin, 1863–)
CILA Corpus de inscripciones latinas de Andalucía. 6 vols. (Seville,
1989–96)
CIRG Corpus de inscricións romanas de Galicia, ed. G. Pereira
Menaut. 2 vols. (Santiago [Spain]: Consello da Cultura
Gallega, 1991–94)
CIS Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum
CP Classical Philology
CPJud Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum, ed. Victor Tcherikover,
Alexander Fuks, and Menahem Stern. 3 vols. (Jerusalem and
Cambridge, Mass., 1957–64)
CPR Corpus Papyrorum Raineri
Abbreviations xiii
CRAI Comptes rendus des séances. Académie des Inscriptions et

Belles-lettres
CRAIBL Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et
Belles-lettres
CRINT Compendia rerum iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum
CSCO Corpus scriptorum christianorum orientalium
CSEL Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum
C.S.I.C. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas
CSSH Comparative Studies in Society and History
Ch Codex heodosianus
CTHS Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques
DHA Dialogues d’histoire ancienne
DJD Discoveries in the Judaean Desert
DOP Dumbarton Oaks Papers
DSD Dead Sea Discoveries
EA Epigraphica Anatolica
EncJud Encyclopaedia Judaica
EPRO Études préliminaires aux religions orientales dans l’Empire
romain
FCh Fontes Christiani
FGrH Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, ed. Felix Jacoby
(Leiden, 1940–99)
FIRA Fontes Iuris Romani Anteiustiniani (2nd ed.; Florence,
1940–43)
GCS Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten [drei]
Jahrhunderte
GLAJJ Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism, ed. Menahem
Stern. 3 vols. (Jerusalem, 1974–84)
GOTR Greek Orthodox heological Review
HAW Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft
Hen Henoch
HEp. Hispania Epigraphica
HO Handbuch der Orientalistik
HR History of Religions
HSCP Harvard Studies in Classical Philology
HTR Harvard heological Review
HTS Harvard heological Studies
HUCA Hebrew Union College Annual
HUCM Monographs of the Hebrew Union College
ICI Inscriptiones Christianae Italiae
xiv Abbreviations
ICUR Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romae

IEJ Israel Exploration Journal
IG Inscriptiones Graecae, ed. Johannes Kirchner (2nd ed.; Berlin,
1916)
IGC-As. Min. Recueil des inscriptions Grecques Chretiennes d’Asie Mineure,
ed. Henri Gregoire (Paris, 1922)
IGLBibbia Iscrizioni greche e latine per lo studio della Bibbia, ed. Laura
Boffo (Brescia, 1994)
IGLS Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie. 13 vols. (Paris, 1929–)
IHC Inscriptiones Hispaniae Christianae, ed. Emil Hübner (Berlin,
1871)
IJO Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis, eds. D. Noy et al. 3 vols.
(Tübingen, 2004–)
ILAlg. Inscriptions latines de l’Algerie
ILCV Inscriptiones Latinae Christianae Veteres
ILER Inscripciones latinas de la España romana, ed. José Vives. 2
vols. (Barcelona, 1975)
ILMM Inscripciones latinas del Museo de Málaga, eds. Encarnación
Serrano Ramos and Rafael Atencia Paez (Madrid, 1981)
ILPG Inscripciones latinas de la provincia de Granada, eds.
Mauricio Pastor Muñoz and Angela Mendoza Eguaras
(Granada, 1987)
ILS Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae, ed. H. Dessau. 5 vols. (Berlin,
1892–1916)
IRC Inscriptions romaines de Catalogne. 5 vols. (Paris, 1984–2002)
IRCP Inscrições romanas do conventus Pacensis, ed. José
d’Encarnaçao (Coimbra, 1984)
IRG Inscripciones romanas de Galicia. 4 vols. (Santiago de
Compostela, 1954–68)
IRPL Inscripciones romanas de la provincia de León, ed. Francisco
Diego Santos (León, 1986)
IRPLugo Inscriptions romaines de la province de Lugo, eds. Felipe Arias
Vilas, Patrick Le Roux, and Alain Tranoy (Paris, 1979)
IstMitt Istanbuler Mitteilungen
JA Journal Asiatique
JbAC Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum
JBL Journal of Biblical Literature
JDAI Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts
JECS Journal of Early Christian Studies
JEH Journal of Ecclesiastical History
Abbreviations xv
JHS Journal of Hellenic Studies

JIGRE Jewish Inscriptions from Graeco-Roman Egypt, eds. William
Horbury and David Noy (Cambridge, 1992)
JIWE Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe, ed. David Noy. 2 vols.
(Cambridge, 1993–95)
JJP Journal of Juristic Papyrology
JJPSup Journal of Juristic Papyrology, Supplements
JJS Journal of Jewish Studies
JLA Journal of Late Antiquity
JMedHist Journal of Medieval History
JMS Journal of Mediterranean Studies
JNES Journal of Near Eastern Studies
JÖB Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik
JQR Jewish Quarterly Review
JRA Journal of Roman Archaeology
JRAS Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
JRASup Journal of Roman Archaeology, Supplementary Series
JRS Journal of Roman Studies
JSAI Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam
JSav Journal des savants
JSJ Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and
Roman Periods
JSJSup Journal for the Study of Judaism, Supplement Series
JSNT Journal for the Study of the New Testament
JSOTSup Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series
JSP Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha
JSPSup Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha, Supplement
Series
JSR Jewish Studies Review
JSS Journal of Semitic Studies
JTC Journal for heology and the Church
JTS Journal of heological Studies
KAI Kanaanäische und aramäische Inschriften, eds. H. Donner
and W. Röllig (Leipzig, 1919–23)
LCL Loeb Classical Library
LIMC Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae
MAMA Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua
Mansi Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collection, ed. J. D.
Mansi. 53 vols. (Paris, 1901–27)
MEFRA Mélanges de l’École française de Rome: Antiquité
xvi Abbreviations
MGH AA Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi

MH Museum Helveticum
MHR Mediterranean Historical Review
Mus Museon: Revue d’études orientales
NAPSPMS North American Patristics Society, Patristics Monograph
Series
NovTSup Novum Testamentum, Supplements
NTOA Novum Testamentum et Orbis Antiquus
NTS New Testament Studies
OCA Orientalia Christiana Analecta
OGIS Orientis Graeci inscriptiones selectae, ed. Wilhelm
Dittenberger (Leipzig, 1903–5)
OLA Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta
OLD Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford, 1996)
OrChr Oriens christianus
OrChrAn Orientalia christiana analecta
OrSyr L’orient syrien
PAAJR Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research
Pan. Lat. XII Panegyrici Latini, ed. R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford, 1964)
PCBE Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-Empire
PCPhS Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society
PG Patrologia Graeca, ed. J.-P. Migne (Paris, 1857–66)
PGL G. W. H. Lampe, ed. A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford, 1961)
PL Patrologia Latina, ed. J.-P. Migne (Paris, 1862–65)
PLRE Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, eds. A. H. M.
Jones et al. 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1971–92)
PMS Patristic Monograph Series
P.Oxy. he Oxyrhynchus Papyri (London, 1898–)
P.Polit.Iud. James M. S. Cowey and Klaus Maresch, Urkunden des
Politeuma der Juden von Herakleopolis (144/3–133/2 v. Chr.).
Papyri aus den Sammlungen von Heidelberg, Köln, München
und Wien (Wiesbaden, 2001)
PRSt Perspectives in Religious Studies
PS Patrologia Syriaca
PSI XVII Trenta testi greci da papiri letterari e documentari: editi in
occasione del XVII Congresso Internazionale di Papirologia, ed.
M. Manfredi (Naples, 1983)
RA Revue archéologique
RAC Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, ed. T. Kluser et al.
(Stuttgart, 1950–)
Abbreviations xvii
RAE Revue Archéologique de l’Est

RAESup Revue Archéologique de l’Est, Supplement Series
RANarb Revue archéologique de Narbonnaise
Reinach Textes d’auteurs grecs et romains relatifs au judaïsme, ed.
héodore Reinach (Paris, 1895; repr. Hildesheim, 1963)
REJ Revue des études juives
RevQ Revue de Qumran
RGRW Religions in the Graeco-Roman World
RHR Revue d’histoire des religions
RICG Recueil des inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule antérieures à la
Renaissance carolingienne
RIT Die römischen Inschriften von Tarraco, ed. Géza Alföldy. 2
vols. (Berlin, 1975)
RMI Rassegna Mensile di Israel
RomBarb Romanobarbarica
RRJ Review of Rabbinic Judaism
RSR Revue des Sciences Religieuses
RSSR Ricerche di Storia Sociale e Religiosa
SBLSCS Society of Biblical Literature Septuagint and Cognate
Studies
SBLSP Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers
SBLTT Society of Biblical Literature Texts and Translations
SC Sources Chrétiennes
SCI Scripta Classica Israelica
ScrHier Scripta hierosolymitana
SDHI Studia et documenta historiae et iuris
SEG Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum (Leiden, 1923–)
SEL Studi epigrafici e linguistici
SIG Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum, ed. Wilhelm Dittenberger
(3rd ed.; Leipzig, 1920; repr. Hildesheim, 1960)
SJLA Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity
SNG Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum
SNG Cop Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum, Copenhagen
SNTSMS Society of New Testament Studies Monograph Series
SOC Studia Orientalia Christiana
STAC Studien und Texte zur Antike und Christentum
STDJ Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah
StPat Studia Patristica
SVTP Studia in Veteris Testamenti pseudepigrapha
TALSup Travaux d’archéologie limousine, Supplement
xviii Abbreviations
TAPA Transactions of the American Philological Association

TED’A Taller Escola d’Arqueologia
TGUOS Transactions of the Glasgow University Oriental Society
TSAJ Texte und Studien zum antiken Judentum
TUGAL Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen
Literatur
TZ heologische Zeitschrift
UPZ Urkunden der Ptolemäerzeit 1: Papyri aus Unterägypten
(Berlin and Leipzig, 1927)
VC Vigiliae Christianae
VCSup Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae
VDI Vestnik Drevnej Istorii
VetChr Vetera Christianorum
VT Vetus Testamentum
WO Die Welt des Orients
WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament
YCS Yale Classical Studies
ZA Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie
ZDMG Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft
ZNW Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft
ZPE Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik
INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME II
william adler
he nineteen chapters in this volume treat the religions of the ancient

Mediterranean world from Iran and the Roman Near East to Gaul and
the Iberian Peninsula. he bibliography accompanying each essay con-
sists mainly of works cited. Under the heading “Suggestions for Further
Reading,” readers will find supplemental source material.
he temporal limits of each chapter vary according to region, avail-
able evidence, and subject matter. he profound transformation of the
cultural and political landscape brought about by Alexander the Great and
his Macedonian successors forms the natural backdrop for some of the
chapters on the religions of Egypt, the Levant, Greece, and Asia Minor.
For Iran and the western Mediterranean, other chronological limits are
more suitable. he chapter on Iranian religion begins with the Parthian
kingdom and extends to the fall of the Sasanian empire in 654. While
archaeological evidence and the witness of Roman antiquarians and histo-
rians offer a glimpse, however faint, into an earlier age, the basic structures
and practices of Roman and Italian religion become visible only in the last
century of the Roman Republic. Similarly, the cult practices in pre-Punic
and pre-Roman North Africa can only be known through inference from
a scattering of later sources. he advent of Rome represents an obvious
point of departure for the chapters dealing with the gods and cults of Gaul
and Spain. Absent the epigraphic and material remains of Roman civiliza-
tion in these regions, our knowledge of their religious traditions would be
extremely limited.
Because the destruction of the Jerusalem temple and the end of the Jewish
state marked a turning point in the history and character of Palestinian
Judaism, two chapters cover this topic: one on Judaism in Palestine during
the Hellenistic and Roman periods, the other on post-70 Judaism in Judea
and the Near East. While relatively well documented for the Ptolemaic
1
2 William Adler
and early Roman period, Egyptian Judaism largely disappears from view
after the brutal conflicts of the early second century, only to reappear in
a different form in the fourth century. Jews living in Asia Minor and the
West were less affected by the political and social upheaval of the late first
and early second centuries. Although literary evidence for the Jews of
Asia Minor is relatively sparse (and much of it from Christian sources),
inscriptional evidence richly documents their presence in this region; draw-
ing largely upon it, the chapter on the Jews of Asia Minor extends from
their earliest attested settlements up until the rise of Islam. he chapter on
Judaism in Rome and the West encompasses the period from its earliest
attested appearance in Rome in the second century bce up until the later
fourth and early fifth centuries, depending on the evidence (again mostly
epigraphic) from scattered Jewish communities throughout this area.
he chapters on Christianity begin with its first documented appearance
in the region under consideration and extend either into Late Antiquity
(Asia Minor), the early Middle Ages (Gaul and Italy), or the Islamic con-
quest (North Africa, Egypt, and Syria). Either because of the constraints
of space or the paucity of evidence, some important religious movements
of Late Antiquity have been folded into existing chapters. For example, the
discussion of Manichaeism, a highly complex and international religious
tradition, appears in the chapter on Iranian religion and in several chapters
on Christianity.
One of the main editorial challenges in an undertaking of this scope is
to ensure that the volume does not devolve into a series of disconnected
studies, while at the same time taking full account of the inherent com-
plexity of the subject and the extraordinarily mixed primary source mate-
rial. Literary evidence varies in genre and represents, for the most part,
the witness of the elite, educated classes. In many cases, they are either
the product of a later age or skewed by polemical or apologetic interests.
Inscriptions, coins, seals, and other archaeological remains are highly infor-
mative and unmediated witnesses to aspects of everyday religious practices
and beliefs either slighted or undocumented in literary sources. But mate-
rial evidence, often highly fragmentary, can be difficult to integrate with
the literary record. We trust that the essays in this volume will serve as a
guide to the critical evaluation and use of this sometimes intractable cor-
pus of source material.
hanks to the discovery of new sources and reevaluation of the older
material, many of the neat organizing themes of previous studies of
the religions of Late Antiquity are no longer defensible. No one today
can seriously entertain the view that in the Hellenistic and Roman age,
traditional religions had either declined into empty formalisms and

artificial “syncretisms,” or become mere extensions of political power (see
Salzman, “Introduction to Volumes I and II”). If not carefully qualified,
strict binary formulations (for example, “monotheism/polytheism” or
“exclusivism/tolerance”) run the risk of reading a set of static and even
anachronistic categories into a highly fluid and dynamic religious land-
scape. Even for single religious traditions like Christianity and Judaism, it
is a daunting task to construct a “master narrative” that does justice to their
now well-documented varieties.
One variable that sometimes gets lost amid talk of the “religions of the
ancient Mediterranean” is the formative influence of local and regional
conditions (see further Salzman, “Introduction to Volumes I and II”).
Recognition of the importance of this subject for understanding the
religious world of the ancient Mediterranean underlies the ordering of
chapters in this volume. Organizing the material in this way will, we hope,
enable readers to see how a religious tradition or movement assumed a
distinctive local identity, and compare its development both elsewhere
and with other religions of the same region. To help orient readers to the
chapters that follow, the following discussion identifies some of the major
themes and trends that emerge from this approach.
ancient mediterranean religions in their

regional contexts
he eastern Mediterranean after the Macedonian and Roman conquests is
a good example of the value of treating the religions of Antiquity in their
regional settings. In Greece and Asia Minor, new political and social real-
ities inevitably involved the religious realm as well. Well-known oracles
ceased to exert the political influence they once had. With the decline of
the polis and the deme came mounting dependence on royal patronage.
Cult centers in western Asia Minor reaped the benefits of the diversion of
resources in their direction. As the cult of Hellenistic rulers took up its place
alongside more traditional cults, new festivals in honor of Macedonian
kings found their way into the religious calendar (see Roller, Chapter 11).
But despite these reforms, cult practices in Greece and western Asia Minor
remained relatively stable. Panhellenic religious sanctuaries retained their
standing as centers of ritual; sacrifices and festivals were performed as they
always had been, and membership in local and regional cult activities con-
tinued to play a formative role in the creation of Greek civic and per-
sonal identity. With the support of philhellene emperors like Hadrian,
4 William Adler
traditional Greek cults and festivals remained undiminished by the advent

of Rome. In some cases, such as the sacking and refounding of Corinth as
a Roman colony, older sanctuaries were destroyed and civic cults valued by
Roman settlers were introduced in their place. Even so, time-honored cult
practices remained largely intact well into Late Antiquity. One measure
of the dynamism of Greek religion and its “openness and adaptability to
change” (Roller, Chapter 11) is the constructive and mutual relationships
that Greek cities cultivated with Roman emperors. As Roller shows, the
enthusiasm with which Greek cities embraced and pursued the conferring
of cult honors on Roman rulers, and the seamless integration of the impe-
rial cult into existing religious structures, suggest that it represented for
them more than a hollow gesture of political expedience.
he notion of “Hellenistic religion” in Egypt and the Near East as an
artificially imposed Greek veneer that can be neatly peeled away from
an indigenous religious “core” misrepresents a process that was far more
dynamic, adaptive, and regionally and locally specific. As Ted Kaizer points
out in his study of religious identities in the Near East, the whole question
of distilling, from its various local expressions, something that is identi-
fiably and indigenously “Near Eastern” is itself fraught with difficulties.
What Kaizer calls the “continuous renegotiation of religious elements tak-
ing place in the context of various open local cultures” is a more descriptive
model than the still popular view of Hellenistic religion in the Near East
as the accumulation of “stationary religious layers, of which the latest, the
classical one, is believed to have no had real impact on indigenous religious
elements” (Kaizer, Chapter 2).
In Hellenistic Egypt, as elsewhere, the introduction of new gods and the
endowment of indigenous deities with Greek features and dress did change
the face of traditional religion. But expressions of Ptolemaic beneficence
in the form of publicly subsidized restoration of temples and the protec-
tion of priestly prerogatives ensured the continued vitality of traditional
Egyptian religion. Egyptian subjects had little difficulty accommodating
Ptolemaic dynasts to the ideology of the pharaoh as intermediary between
the human and divine realms. Nor were the lines of influence unidirec-
tional. Greeks in Alexandria, for example, gradually adopted the Egyptian
practice of mummification. As Françoise Dunand points out in her chap-
ter, adorning an Egyptian deity in foreign dress was not simply a matter
of tailoring the god to the tastes of a non-native clientele. he goddess
Akoris, dressed in Greek style and situated between two gods, might have
reminded a Greek observer of Helen in the company of the Dioscuri. But
an Egyptian onlooker, comfortable with representations of their deities
in differing forms, would have had no difficulty in finding a traditional

meaning for the same image (Dunand, Chapter 6).
While Rome had little incentive to reverse the religious and cul-
tural policies of Hellenistic rulers in Egypt and the Near East, dislo-
cations caused by a new political regime did sometimes intrude upon
the religious order. Roman reliance on the educated Hellenized classes
for advice and direction in administering Egypt accelerated official use
of the Greek language, marginalizing the non-Greek-speaking Egyptian
population in the process. Even in conservative priestly circles, Greek
gradually overshadowed the native Demotic. he Roman government,
wary of a powerful priesthood, instituted policies to keep holders of this
office in check. Intrusive micromanagement – extending even to priestly
vestments – along with confiscation of temple property, ruinous taxa-
tion, and the auctioning of high-ranking religious offices satisfied Rome’s
ever-growing appetite for revenue and sapped the Egyptian priesthood of
the autonomy, wealth, and influence that it had previously enjoyed under
the Ptolemies (Dunand, Chapter 6). Largely in response to the disrup-
tion of the social hierarchy brought about by Roman administration
of Egypt, Alexandria, a city once known for its multiethnic cosmopol-
itanism, suffered an upsurge in religious and ethnic violence on a scale
previously unknown there. For Egyptian Judaism, the consequences of
escalating ethnic tensions created by Roman conquest were catastrophic
(see Modrzejewski, Chapter 7).
From its earliest encounters with other peoples and cultures of the
Mediterranean world, Rome was adept in embracing new cults and assim-
ilating foreign deities to its pantheon. Prominent Romans sought and
underwent initiation into the Greek mysteries. While enriching its culture
with the myths and traditions associated with the whole panoply of Greek
gods, Rome tended to favor deities that either embodied Roman virtues
or were needed in times of crisis. Following a plague in the early third
century bce, for example, Rome built a temple to Aesculapius, the Greek
god of healing. Cult practices that clashed with Roman values did not nec-
essarily preclude their acceptance, albeit conditionally. A senatorial decree
curbed what to Roman sensibilities were the excesses of the popular cult
of Bacchus/Dionysus. When, at the end of the Punic Wars, the Romans
learned from the Sibylline oracles that the goddess Magna Mater would
protect them from foreign invasion, they imported her and her cult from
Phrygia to Rome. But after her arrival, the Roman senate forbade Roman
citizens from submitting to the rite of ritual castration that was a require-
ment for admission into her priesthood (see Salzman, Chapter 14).
6 William Adler
In Rome’s encounters with its neighbors in Italy and other provinces of

the western empire, Rome found ways to forge an overarching religious
framework flexible enough to accommodate regional and local particulari-
ties. As evidenced by her many epithets, a single deity like Venus could
assume different identities and be worshipped according to prevailing local
customs. A municipal charter from Spain of the Flavian age mandated the
worship of certain deities and the performance of certain rites and dictated
the formulation of oaths. But the same charter provided for the exercise of
discretion in the choice of deities that local municipalities might choose
to include in their pantheons. Rome’s ready embrace and adaptation of
foreign cults and deities might create the impression that this was purely
a political calculation, meant either to satisfy strictly practical needs or to
ensure social harmony. But as Michele Salzman’s chapter demonstrates,
that misconception has led to the false, albeit still prevalent, conclusion
that only more private forms of religious practice (for example, the mys-
tery cults) provided an outlet for the kinds of “real” (that is, personal)
religious experiences lacking in Roman public religion in the imperial age.
Rome’s public cults were not purely the domain of the priests and mag-
istrates who presided over them; nor were they simply an extension of
state power. Although participation was not universally required, Rome’s
inhabitants were deeply invested in the city’s festivals, sacrifices, and rites,
from which they derived real material and spiritual benefit and a sense of
collective and personal identity. As Salzman further points out, the fluid-
ity of religious rituals and the multiple interpretations assigned to them
are themselves testimony to the ongoing vitality of Roman religion (see
Salzman, Chapter 14).
In his chapter on the religions and cities of Roman Gaul, William van
Andringa disputes the common assumption that Rome pursued here a
policy of religious “tolerance” and “coexistence” between indigenous and
Roman gods – terms that in his view are more suitable to the modern
nation-state than to imperial Rome. As he shows, the relocation of Gallic
peoples into autonomous cities incorporated under imperial rule, and with
it, the reorganization of cults and reshaping of sacred space within an urban
context, created new community-defined pantheons and religious systems.
Implementation of this policy depended on the conditions prevailing in
what was by all accounts a patchwork of Gallic provinces with differing
customs and relations with Rome. he Greek settlements of the Midi,
for example, did not undergo the same social realignments as the territo-
ries farther to the west. In the Iberian Peninsula to the west, the Romans
found a somewhat comparable situation. Before their arrival, the more
geographically isolated areas of the Celtic and Iberian interior were less
exposed to Mediterranean culture than the polis- style settlements of the
coastal areas. he spread of Mediterranean gods and cults from the coastal
areas to the interior, Augustus’s urbanization of the entire peninsula, and
the subsequent extension of the Latin right to every municipality under
the Flavians thus introduced a degree of religious homogeneity previously
unknown to the region (see Kulikowski, Chapter 19).
While the formal institution of the cults of the Roman state that com-
menced in the Augustan age, and with it the Romanization of local elites,
helped to create at the official and administrative levels a “common” reli-
gion, these policies did not entirely efface differences in culture and reli-
gion. In the Iberian Peninsula, the geographic isolation of the interior
was always a constraining factor. he physical terrain of North Africa also
played a decisive role in the Romanization of religion and cult in North
Africa. Because of its relative isolation, North Africa was less exposed to
broader cultural movements in the rest of the Mediterranean basin. Once
introduced, however, foreign deities and cults spread quickly, becoming
deeply embedded in the cities and countryside of North Africa. During
the period of the Roman republic, voluntary initiatives pursued by pri-
vate parties and associations, not state policy, were the vehicle for the
assimilation of Greek and Roman deities with local gods and spirits. As
elsewhere in the western Mediterranean, the Augustan age first saw the
deliberate introduction of Roman cults as part of official imperial policy.
he embrace of these cults by civic elites, and their financing of the build-
ing of Capitolia and other Roman shrines and temples in town squares
and forums, illustrate the contribution of the state religion to the process
of “becoming Roman.” But imperial initiatives, private benefactions, and
the long-term impact of Roman-style urbanism on religious behavior are
only one part of a much larger story. Collectively, the myriad local cults
and hybrid gods, the remnants of older indigenous and Punic religious
rituals and beliefs that survived after and sometimes in spite of Roman
conquest, the religious entrepreneurs and specialists operating outside the
confines of temples and priesthood, and the later arrival of Christianity
produced a highly dynamic and identifiably “North African” brand of reli-
gious belief and practice. As Brent Shaw observes, it is hardly surprising
that North Africa is difficult to incorporate into the standard narrative of
Mediterranean religion in the ancient world. he “island of the West” was,
in his words, “just different” (Chapter 9).
Incorporating Judaism into the narrative of ancient Mediterranean reli-
gions raises a very different set of problems. By the first century of the
8 William Adler
Common Era, and largely as a consequence of the colonizing policies of

Hellenistic kings, Jewish communities made up a sizeable segment of the
populations of the Near East, Asia Minor, Egypt, North Africa, and Italy.
he experience of these communities under Hellenistic and Roman rule
and their interactions with the larger culture were hardly uniform. he
assumption of an intrinsic and irreducible antagonism between Jewish
monotheistic particularism and the universalizing ideals of Hellenism runs
the danger of extrapolating the Maccabean uprising – the result of a unique
confluence of events and conditions involving Jewish infighting over the
Jerusalem temple and priesthood – to communities where the reception
of Greek culture was less fraught and the boundaries separating Jews from
non-Jews more fluid (see Eshel and Stone, Chapter 3).
he long and largely untroubled history of the Jews in Ptolemaic Egypt
is probably the best-documented example of the latter case. Incorporation
of the Torah in Greek translation into the Ptolemaic judicial system and
official recognition of its standing as the “civic law” of the Jews allowed
Jewish communities in Egypt to exercise autonomy in the administration
of domestic affairs. For their part, the Jews found ways to adjust their beliefs
and ancestral practices to the practical realities of life in Hellenistic Egypt.
Jewish contracts drew upon Greek legal language and forms of documen-
tation. Dedications of houses of worship in Egypt refer to the God of the
Jews as “the highest god,” a “great god,” or “the god who hears,” religious
language more comprehensible to Greek speakers than the tetragramma-
ton or “Lord.” he author of 3 Maccabees speaks with contempt of an
Egyptian Jewish courtier named Dositheus, who deliberately “changed his
religion and apostatized from the ancestral traditions” (1.3). But whether
Dositheus’s apparent participation in the cult of Alexander and the dei-
fied Ptolemies constituted self-conscious apostasy or merely a gesture of
gratitude to a government that he had served with distinction is another
question. In either case, his ability to do so reflects the wide range of reli-
gious and social options available to a people who, on the whole, “success-
fully negotiated the difficult feat of being simultaneously both Jewish and
Greek” (Modrzejewski, Chapter 7).
While the history of the Jewish communities of Asia Minor is in some
ways comparable to that of Egyptian Judaism, Roman colonization proved
to be not nearly as disruptive. Beginning with the resettlement of Jews in
Phrygia and Lydia by Seleucus III, Jewish communities were, by the first
century ce, spread out over all of Asia Minor. For the most part, they
managed to escape the turmoil engulfing Judea and the diaspora popula-
tions of Egypt and North Africa. In spite of local opposition, the Roman
government protected their civic and legal standing. Jewish participation

in the civic and cultural life of the cities of Asia Minor seems to have
taken place at every level of urban society. At Sardis, Jews served on city
councils, and the synagogue there is one of the most prominent features of
the urban landscape. In the first century ce, Julia Severa, a priestess of the
local emperor cult, contributed money to the restoration of a synagogue in
Phrygia. Another member of her family is mentioned in an inscription as
the “head of the synagogue.” he relative inattention of Greek and Roman
historians to the Jewish population of Anatolia should thus not be under-
stood as a sign of their numerical or social insignificance. It means rather
that their generally peaceful integration into Anatolian society was, in the
words of van der Horst, too “uneventful” to earn their attention (van der
Horst, Chapter 12).
One telling measure of this integration is the penetration of Jewish prac-
tice and traditions into non-Jewish settings. Coins from the third century
found in Apamea include illustrations of biblical themes. An epitaph from
Phrygia warns anyone contemplating abuse of burial privileges to remem-
ber the “law of the Jews.” Evidence for the existence of God-fearers – that
is, gentiles sympathetic to Judaism or observing some degree of Jewish
practice – goes well beyond the famous Aphrodisias inscription (see van
der Horst, Chapter 12). At Miletus, theater seats were reserved for “Jews
who (are) also (called) God-fearers.” A private altar at Aspendos dedi-
cated to the god “not made with human hands” presumably refers to the
god of the Jews. Because Jews were by law forbidden to make offerings
to God outside of the Jerusalem temple, the existence of this inscription
would suggest that cult veneration of the Jewish god had extended into
non-Jewish circles. he most striking instance of this phenomenon is the
cult of “heos Hypsistos,” a movement that, while originating in what
van der Horst calls “pagan henotheistic circles,” incorporated various fea-
tures of Jewish beliefs and practices, including an imageless cult. he exis-
tence of a religious movement functioning quite viably in the interstices of
Jewish monotheism and Greco-Roman polytheism demonstrates that the
gap between the two was neither as wide nor as unbridgeable as sometimes
imagined.
Epigraphic and literary sources from Asia Minor suggest that robust and
ongoing exchanges between Judaism and the wider environment posed lit-
tle threat to community cohesion and attachment to ancestral traditions
(see van der Horst, Chapter 12). Anti-Jewish legislation by Christian emper-
ors that began in the late fourth century did, however, impose hardships
on Jewish life in Asia Minor, as it did elsewhere. For Jewish communities,
10 William Adler
that was only one of a series of reversals beginning with the ill-fated wars
against Rome in the late first and early second centuries. Cumulatively, the
outbreaks of ethnic tensions, the enormous toll in human life exacted by
two wars in Judea, and the violent Roman suppression of Jewish uprisings
in North Africa and the East destabilized relations between Jews and non-
Jews. While these events, and the marginalizing effects of punitive imperial
decrees, did not choke off all relations between the two groups, one result
of the sharpening of the boundaries between Jews and non-Jews was an
emerging and mutually shared consensus that “Jews were not entirely part
of society” (Lapin, Chapter 4).
trends toward religious centralization

During the same period, Judaism itself was undergoing its own internal
restructuring, most evident in the expansion of the influence of rabbinic
Judaism, the increasing centrality of the synagogue, standardization of reli-
gious texts and the liturgical calendar, and the “rediscovery” of the Hebrew
language. he process was gradual but insistent, ultimately extending even
to Jewish communities in the western Mediterranean. In funerary and
synagogue inscriptions from Rome and surrounding areas, for example,
Hebrew, whose use for a long time was either decorative or confined to a
few conventional phrases, had, by the fifth century, begun to rival Greek
and Latin (see Lacerenza, Chapter 15). he destruction of the Jerusalem
temple – a potent and unifying symbol of Jewish identity – and the disap-
pearance of once flourishing forms of Judaism undoubtedly hastened this
movement toward consolidation and normative self-definition. But as par-
allel developments in Christianity and Zoroastrianism illustrate, Judaism of
Late Antiquity is only one instance of a broader cultural transformation.
Beginning in the middle of the third century, the new Sasanian regime
that replaced the Parthian Arsacid dynasty radically changed the face of
what would become the state religion of Zoroastrianism. Sasanian kings
inherited from their predecessors a multiethnic state and a religious tradi-
tion of wide local variety. Parthian rulers, whose practice of Zoroastrianism
took the form of a Hellenistic-style private dynastic cult, had neither the
desire nor the means to enforce a unified understanding of the religion. In
the far reaches of the Parthian empire, Zoroastrianism exerted either mini-
mal influence or assumed forms that differed measurably from what would
later be defined as “orthodox.” While the religious autonomy that Arsacid
kings extended to client kings and nobility may have ensured their loyalty,
the Sasanian kings who succeeded them viewed their failure to promote
religious uniformity as a symptom of weakness and faltering religious

commitment. It was also at odds with the Sasanian vision of a unified
Persian empire, strengthened by a single and overarching state religion.
he campaign by Sasanian kings to bring this about was thoroughgoing,
involving the eradication of heresy, reorganization of Zoroastrian rituals,
destruction of sanctuaries to individual deities, and finally the codification
of authoritative religious texts.
Repeated prohibitions against intermarriage and other forms of social
interaction in the religious and legal texts of religious communities of
Sasanian Iran create the initial impression of an empire evolving into
self-segregating religious islands, living in virtual isolation from one another.
But that is a deceptive impression, called into question by recent compar-
ative studies of the legal and ritual systems of the various religious com-
munities of the Sasanian empire. Religious centralization in Sasanian Iran
did not spell cultural isolation. he Sasanian empire continued to act as an
intermediary between India and the West. As Albert de Jong suggests in his
chapter (Chapter 1), the idea of a state-sanctioned Zoroastrian orthodoxy
was itself a reflection of and response to trends in Late Antiquity toward
religious consolidation. In Sasanian Iran, other religions – most notably,
Christianity and Manichaeism – also claimed possession of a single, textu-
ally codified, and revealed truth. he reorganization and centralization of
Zoroastrianism enabled it to meet the challenges that they posed.
he brand of Zoroastrianism that came to embody orthodoxy in
Sasanian Iran was only one of many expressions of the religion, alter-
native versions of which are much harder to recover. Were it not for
Christian witnesses, for example, we would scarcely have known that the
population of pre-Christian Armenia observed a kind of Zoroastrianism
more closely aligned with the religious practices of Arsacid Parthia
(de Jong, Chapter 1). he filtering effects of orthodoxy are also at work
in Judaism and Christianity of Late Antiquity. From rabbinic sources
alone, we would have little suspicion of the vast range of Jewish prac-
tices and beliefs of pre-70 Judaism, now so richly documented by recent
archaeological and manuscript discoveries (see Eshel and Stone, Chapter
3; Lapin, Chapter 4).
Advocates of Christian orthodoxy engaged in their own brand of his-
torical revisionism. To varying degrees, modern scholars are agreed that,
almost from the very outset, diversity was organic to Christianity’s early
growth and development. But this was not the perspective of Eusebius’s
Ecclesiastical History, the single most important history of the early church.
Eusebius was willing to acknowledge that proliferating heresies threatened
12 William Adler
to disrupt the teachings of Christ and the apostles faithfully preserved and
transmitted by the champions of orthodoxy. But for him these were only
later and transient distortions, meant to sow division and uncertainty.
Eusebius’s conviction that Christianity, no matter where it was established,
shared from the very outset a common set of traditions and beliefs was
hardly any more accommodating to the peculiar features of the various
Christian communities scattered throughout the Mediterranean. To recon-
struct the history and character of these communities, Eusebius’s account
must therefore be augmented with other sources, some of which have only
recently come to light.
When, in the second century, the material and literary evidence becomes
more plentiful, Christian communities stretching from Latin-speaking
North Africa to Syria and Mesopotamia had already assumed distinctive
regional identities. he first we hear about Christianity in North Africa is
the story of the trial and beheadings of the twelve Scillitan martyrs (180),
who refused even to consider an offer to renounce their beliefs. Age-old
resentments of Roman colonial rule resurface in Tertullian’s glorification of
the martyr/gladiator and his mocking defiance of Roman power and reli-
gion. he hallmarks of North African Christianity of Tertullian’s day – the
cult of martyrdom and self-sacrifice, charismatic enthusiasm, and concern
for individual and communal discipline and purity – are to be expected
in a region known for its insularity, religious fervor, and rigorism (Jensen,
Chapter 10). But Christianity in Roman North Africa was culturally far
removed from Christian communities farther to the east, most notably
in the cosmopolitan cities of Alexandria and, to the east of the Roman
empire, Syrian Edessa. Lying on the borders between Rome and Parthia,
Edessa, a semiautonomous Hellenistic city-state and cultural crossroads,
proved to be a congenial environment for a rich variety of beliefs and
practices. Bar Daysān, the cultured Edessene aristocrat, renaissance man,
and friend of King Abgar, was worlds apart from Tertullian, the puritanical
and alienated Latin-speaking polemicist of Roman Carthage (see Griffith,
Chapter 5).
Over time, the transformative political events of the fourth century and
institutional consolidation within the churches themselves brought those
worlds closer together. Intensifying internal struggles about the sources of
religious authority that had begun already in the second century were prob-
ably the single most important catalyst in this drive toward consolidation.
Because the early history of Christian communities was often fragmen-
tary or even inaccessible, attempts at self-legitimation by rival groups often
required the creation of notional pedigrees, whether in the form of a chain
of secret traditions or of episcopal succession lists extending back to the

apostolic age. In Egypt, for example, the great Alexandrian gnostic teacher
Basilides represented himself as the heir to the secret teachings of Jesus,
handed down through the apostle Matthias. Orthodox Christian sources
of the fourth and fifth centuries maintained their own succession lists,
both of the teachers of the Alexandrian catechetical and of Alexandrian
bishops extending back to Saint Mark, the follower of Peter and purported
founder of the Alexandrian church (see van der Vliet, Chapter 8).
We are probably best informed about the stages in this process in the
Christian community of Rome. he official record notwithstanding, insti-
tutional unity in Rome emerged slowly. Like other religious associations
in Rome, Christianity began there as a confederation of loosely connected
groups, meeting in houses and other buildings and subject to the changing
demographics of its membership and the steady inflow of new doctrines
and practices. While the earliest Christians were probably indistinguish-
able from Jews, at least in the eyes of the Romans, the apostle Paul’s epis-
tle to the Romans already suggests the existence of an unresolved dispute
between Jewish and gentile members of the community over the meaning
and significance of the Jewish law. In the second century, the growth of
Marcionite churches contributed to an already pluralist religious environ-
ment, at the same time raising alarm among advocates of a more doc-
trinally unified church. A schism that had developed over the integration
of those who had lapsed during the great persecution of the mid-third
century further heightened the pressure for institutional unity, and with it
concentration of power in the office of the episcopacy. By the end of the
second century, claimed possession of a continuous list of Roman bish-
ops extending back to the chief apostle Peter was a vital argument in the
church’s contest with heresy. Challenges to its authority from the emperor
and the church of Constantinople in the post-Constantinian era intensi-
fied the campaign of the see of Rome to confirm its divinely sanctioned
ecclesiastical primacy.
As Trout observes of Christianity in Rome, “internal diversity, toler-
ance and rivalry, undercurrents of distrust, and evolution toward insti-
tutional unity are primary themes of its social history” (Chapter 16).
he same could be said of other Christian communities throughout the
Mediterranean. But we need not assume that institutional formalization
necessarily filtered down to everyday religious interactions. Differentiating
“Montanist” from “non-Montanist” in epigraphic and archaeological
sources in Asia Minor is far more difficult than might be expected from
the rhetoric of schism that permeates official denunciations of Montanist
14 William Adler
liturgical structures and practices (Trombley, Chapter 13). Developments

in post-70 Judaism and the increasingly gentile composition of Christian
churches no doubt helped to widen the division between the two groups.
But the boundaries between the two groups remained unstable, often to
the dismay of heresiologists and church officials. In Phrygia, joint Jewish
and Christian celebration of the Passover in 367 shows that official decrees
issued at the time against participation in Jewish festivals were not merely
anticipating, in the words of Pieter van der Horst, a “hypothetical possi-
bility” (Chapter 12).
Increasing insistence on institutional unity and doctrinal conformity
could itself sometimes produce the opposite effect. For centuries, the
churches of Egypt remained divided over the polarizing Christological con-
troversies of the fifth century. To judge from the inscriptions of Asia Minor
from the fourth and fifth centuries, members of groups deemed “sectarian”
or “heretical” actually became more assertive in expressing their distinctive
identities (Trombley, Chapter 13). At least initially, coercive attempts by
Christian emperors of the fourth century to abolish the Donatist church
in North Africa only stiffened their resolve, at the same time reawakening
anti-Roman resentments and the ideology of martyrdom. Contemporary
witnesses describe Donatists actively pursuing death by hurling themselves
over cliffs or by deliberate provocations against the local non-Christian
population (Jensen, Chapter 10). In some cases, political boundaries stood
in the way of institutional consolidation. Although the Syriac communi-
ties straddling the Roman and Persian frontiers were bound together by
a set of shared traditions and customs, theological disagreements and the
realities of living under different political regimes ultimately led to the
division of these communities east and west (see Griffith, Chapter 5).
Over the longer term, however, the heterogeneity that marked Christian
communities of the first three centuries gradually yielded to countervailing
pressures. At the Council of Nicaea, there was no longer any disagreement
on the date of the celebration of Easter, a subject that in the second cen-
tury threatened a schism between Rome and the churches of Asia Minor.
By the late fourth century, Syriac theologians, increasingly estranged from
older representatives of their tradition, were now absorbed in the same
divisive Christological controversies engulfing Christendom farther to the
west. hanks largely to Ephraem, himself an ardent advocate of Nicene
orthodoxy, the once influential Bar Daysān was now a heretic in the class
of Marcion and Mani. he Edessene church had also fashioned for itself
a legitimating myth of origins. Records purportedly preserved in Edessa’s
archives established the ancient roots of Edessene orthodoxy and its early
communion with the sees of Rome and Antioch (see Griffith, Chapter 5).
he gradual transformation of Christian monasticism from private acts of
ascetic withdrawal into strictly organized communities, subordinated to
the authority of the bishop and the demands of orthodox doctrine, may
be the most visible sign of the shift toward institutional consolidation and
uniformity that is broadly characteristic of Christianity in Late Antiquity.
Repressive policies of Christian emperors exacted their own toll. While
tolerating the divisive Christological disputes that roiled the churches of
the fourth century, emperors, often acting on the advice of church offi-
cials, could be ruthless in rooting out threats to institutional unity. After
raising the suspicions of local clergy, Priscillian, the leader of a rigorous
Christian movement in Spain of the fourth century, was first banished by
the emperor Gratian and then put to death on the charge of magic, a crime
against the state. Montanist and Novatianist groups were still in existence
in Asia Minor of the sixth century, but in the words of Trombley, “reduced
to tiny remnants” (Chapter 13). Externally enforced uniformity did more
than eliminate religious heterodoxy, however. In the case of North African
Christianity, for example, once known for its defiance of “externally
imposed conformity,” the gradual erosion of its distinctive regional identity
impaired its prospects for survival. In her chapter, Robin Jensen attributes
the virtual disappearance of North African Christianity within a century
of Arab conquest to “a history of successive conquests or domination by
authorities who demanded religious conformity from the resident popu-
lation. . . . Eventually, even the faith of the invading Arab Muslims may
have seemed no more religiously foreign to indigenous African Christians
than those of the previous ruling power – the Byzantine emperor and his
delegates” (Chapter 10).
the christianization of the mediterranean

world of late antiquity
In Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History, the single thread holding together the
narrative is the story of the church triumphant: how it remained unified
and true to the teachings of Jesus and the apostles, in the face of cease-
less threats to its existence from heresy and persecution. he ubiquitous
shrines to martyrs and the stories of their heroism that crowd the historical
memory of a later age add to the impression of early Christian commu-
nities living under constant siege. But the reality of Christian commu-
nities throughout the Mediterranean world was far more complex. For
the first two centuries of their existence, sporadic persecutions against
16 William Adler
Christian communities were left to the discretion of provincial governors,

who implemented the policies according to their assessment of prevailing
conditions. For the Roman government, well experienced in absorbing
and domesticating new cults and beliefs, the socially destabilizing impact
of the new religion was of greater concern than the specifics of Christian
beliefs and practices.
While Christian monotheism was not an insuperable obstacle standing
in the way of religious reconciliation, public refusals by Christian “athe-
ists” to recognize traditional Roman deities did heighten suspicions about
their loyalty to Rome. In his letter to Trajan seeking advice in dealing
with Christians in Bithynia of Asia Minor, Pliny the Younger recalls that
his own investigations revealed only a depraved, but essentially harmless,
superstition. What he found more alarming was their obstinacy and the
harm that the rapid growth of the religion was doing to the temple-based
religion and economy. Even in the mid-third century, when Christians,
especially influential figures in the Church, fell victim to a harsh general
persecution, they were only the most conspicuous targets of a broader pol-
icy meant to ensure participation in the public cults (see Salzman, Chapter
14; Trout, Chapter 16).
In his letter, Pliny voiced his misgivings about a movement spread-
ing from the cities into the countryside, and threatening to infiltrate all
levels of society. His fears were warranted. Inscriptions from Asia Minor
of the late third century show Christians serving as councilors, supervis-
ing public works, and even organizing public spectacles. Tertullian was
exaggerating for effect when he gloats over Christians “filling your cit-
ies, fortresses, towns, assemblies, camp, palace, senate and forum” (Apol.,
37.4). Even so, contemporary sources from North Africa do confirm the
existence of Christian landowners and members of distinguished fami-
lies in North Africa of Tertullian’s day. Inclusion of the educated classes
in their ranks also enabled Christianity to compete more effectively in
the arena of ideas. For the great teachers of the Alexandrian catecheti-
cal school, the allegorical method of interpretation popularized by Philo
“succeeded in bringing the Bible up to the level of Homer and other
classics of the dominant Hellenistic culture” (van der Vliet, Chapter 8).
hrough what Trombley describes as a “shared high culture of the Greek
paideia” (Chapter 13), the language of divinity used in Christian literary
and epigraphic sources was so conventional that it is often difficult to
distinguish Christian from non-Christian inscriptions. During the thaw
in Christian–Roman relations of the latter years of the Severan dynasty,
Origen, the great Alexandrian theologian and scholar, even instructed
the mother of the emperor Severus Alexander when she was traveling in
Antioch (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.21.3).
Increasing Christian participation in Greco-Roman culture did not
always ease long-simmering resentments, however. In some cases, it merely
offered a vehicle for Christian apologists to express their cultural and polit-
ical disaffection more eloquently. In the late second century, the Syrian
polemicist Tatian speaks of abandoning the Greek culture in which he was
raised for the “barbarian philosophy” of Christianity (Orat. 42). With the
tools and persuasiveness of the trained rhetor, Tertullian seethes against
Rome and advises his coreligionists to avoid all interactions with pagan
society. Occasional outbursts of apocalyptic enthusiasm, the appeal of the
ascetic ideal, and the unexpected escalation of religious persecution that
began in the mid-third century no doubt further fueled a sense of alien-
ation from the broader environment. But once the political fortunes of
Christianity and the Roman state had fused in the early fourth century,
it was difficult to sustain the notion that Christianity, now the benefi-
ciary of imperial largesse and privilege, was a movement at war with the
world. In the aftermath of the conversion of Constantine, the influence,
standing, and self-understanding of Christian communities throughout
the Mediterranean entered into a completely new phase.
One highly revealing sign of this change is the growth in the sheer vol-
ume of Christian literature. For the first three centuries of its existence,
Greek, and to a much lesser degree, Latin, were the primary languages
of Christian writing. By the fourth century, however, Syriac and Coptic
began to challenge Greek for supremacy in the Christian East. We should
not assume that the flourishing of these languages either signified the
repudiation of Greek language and culture, or followed unavoidably from
the expansion of Christian communities into the non-Greek-speaking
classes. Bar Daysān, one of the first Christian authors to write in Syriac,
was deeply rooted in the highly Hellenized milieu of Edessa. Nor did the
subsequent growth of Coptic and Syriac as literary languages leave Egypt
and Syria isolated from Greek-speaking Christian communities to the
west. Greek continued to be the official language of the Egyptian church.
Starting in the late fourth century, Greek theological writings in trans-
lation were a staple of Egyptian and Syriac Christianity (see Griffith,
Chapter 5; van der Vliet, Chapter 8). he engine driving this expan-
sion of Christian literary culture was monasticism, a movement that by
the early fourth century had in Egypt evolved into organized and thriv-
ing centers of authority, spiritual discipline, and learning. By recruiting
their membership from the educated classes, monastic communities in
18 William Adler
Egypt played an increasingly vital role in all aspects of scribal and literary
culture (see van der Vliet, Chapter 8).
Endowments from wealthy patrons, the emulation of Egyptian-style
communal monasticism in Syria and the West, and the growing appeal
of monastic holiness made Christian monastic communities a highly vis-
ible presence in the landscape of Late Antiquity. In Egypt, some of them
approached the size of small cities. But this is only one element in the dra-
matic transformation of public space. In keeping with the official recog-
nition of Christianity, churches, once informal gathering places in homes
and open spaces, were now publicly financed architectural monuments. As
physical reminders of the heroic age of the church triumphant (a theme
played out again and again in the literature), proliferating martyr shrines
soon became popular destinations for religious tourists, the sites of healing
miracles, the objects of cult, the focal point of intense competition between
communities over possession of martyrs’ relics, and even an incitement for
fierce theological disputes about the proper way to honor them (see Trout,
Chapter 16; van der Vliet, Chapter 8).
he active role that Christian bishops played in establishing and super-
vising these building projects, and in managing other aspects of the civic
and religious life of Late Antiquity, is clear testimony to the professionali-
zation of the office and the expansion of episcopal authority made possible
by official enfranchisement. Bishops confirmed their leadership through
alliances and networks of support, and the accumulation of moral, spiri-
tual, and intellectual credentials. Some of the best-known bishops of the
church of the fourth century were also exemplars of monastic piety and
highly skilled rhetors. Like other aristocratic elites in Late Antiquity, bish-
ops acted on behalf of cities by advocating for them before imperial officials
and spending private wealth on civic projects. With the decentralization
of political power caused by the decline of the Roman empire in the West,
bishops even played roles once reserved for Roman officials. One project
in which bishops took a direct interest was in rooting out the last vestiges
of paganism, either by policing the behavior of the laity or by reconsecrat-
ing sacred groves and other sites of pagan cult with Christian churches and
shrines (see Klingshirn, Chapter 18; Salzman, Chapter 14).
Imperial decrees, diversion of public funds to the churches, and occa-
sional dramatic acts of mob violence against pagan monuments may have
hastened the neglect and ultimate demise of the priesthood and public,
temple-based religion. Even so, Christian laity continued to participate
in traditional religious festivals, visit healing springs, and consult divin-
ers for advice on everyday matters. Private expressions of traditional
religious piety survived well into the fourth and fifth centuries, especially
in geographically inaccessible places where Christianity had arrived late
and had yet to become the majority religion (as for example in the north
and west of the Iberian Peninsula; see Kulikowski, Chapter 19). In Rome
itself, traditional religious practices were far from moribund. here, and in
the absence of a resident emperor, civic elites played an increasingly impor-
tant role in sponsoring and maintaining the traditional cults (see Salzman,
Chapter 14). An empire now officially Christian, a landscape dotted with
Christian churches and shrines, an increasingly influential clerical class,
and religious calendars dense with the names of Christian saints collec-
tively create the impression of a new religious order. But as the chapters
on this subject amply illustrate, the institution of this new order was a far
more incremental and locally variable process.
 
IRAN AND THE NEAR EAST

1
RELIGION IN IRAN: THE PARTHIAN AND

SASANIAN PERIODS  bce  ce 
albert de jong
introduction
Rich in natural resources and strategically located at the crossroads of the
ancient world’s civilizations, Iran has always been a sought-after prize for
conquerors. Its history is thus one of both conquests and migrations, with
many peoples and tribal federations entering the Iranian plateau in search
of living space and pasture grounds. But human activity is only partly
responsible for the great destruction that Iran has endured over its long
history. Equally important are the earthquakes and other natural disasters
that have engulfed the region periodically, often with devastating conse-
quences, to which slow patterns of aridification and, locally, salination
have further contributed.1 Given its complicated socio-ethnic and natural
history, it is hardly surprising that the cultural and religious history of
pre-Islamic Iran is difficult to write.
To understand the religious history of the region, we must also take
account of the attitude toward writing shown by the Iranian peoples
who dominated the area. When the Achaemenid Persians gained con-
trol of much of the ancient world, the flourishing civilizations that they
encountered employed writing for various purposes: administration,
scholarship, religion, and literature. While they retained local admin-
istrative practices in those parts of the empire that had a functioning
bureaucracy (for example, Babylonia and Elam, the heart of the empire),
the lingua franca of the new imperial bureaucracy was Aramaic. For this
administration, they relied initially on Aramaean scribes, who eventu-
ally taught their craft to local, Iranian-speaking boys, especially in the
1
For overviews see Ambraseys and Melville, Persian Earthquakes; Christensen, Decline of Iranshahr;
and Nützel, Geo-Archäologie.
23
24 Albert de Jong
outlying parts of the empire. his practice, already attested in the names
of scribes found in a recently discovered fourth-century bce archive from
Bactria,2 is especially visible a few centuries later, after the conquests of
Alexander and the collapse of Seleucid rule over Iran and Central Asia.
Independently, some of the former provinces of the Achaemenid empire
continued to use Aramaic scribal conventions, but this time in Iranian
languages: Parthian, Sogdian, and Khwarezmian.3 We have to assume,
therefore, that in the brief period of Macedonian and Seleucid rule over
Iran, the traditional (Achaemenid) system of administration coexisted
with a new administration in Greek.
While we can thus trace an unbroken administrative tradition for
several Iranian peoples, none of them apparently ever extended the use
of writing into two crucial areas of Iranian culture: literature, which
in an Iranian context means poetry, and religion. Each had its own
reasons for rejecting the use of writing. Poetry was the special domain
of a highly trained class of professional minstrels, the gosans, who sang
their lays for wealthy patrons, adapting them to local circumstances
and interweaving old tales with items of local or historical interest.4
In all likelihood, they did not master the craft of writing, the domain
of yet another professional class, the scribes. But even apart from this,
“freezing” their songs in writing must have seemed to them both unnec-
essary and undesirable.
In the religious domain, the situation was different. he two collections
of Zoroastrian religious texts can be distinguished by the language(s) that
they used. he first corpus, known nowadays as the Avesta,5 differs from
all other Zoroastrian texts by its use of an Old Eastern Iranian language
known as Avestan. Although the texts preserved in Avestan are almost
exclusively ritual texts, there is reason to assume that the corpus was orig-
inally larger, consisting of both legal and ritual texts and, perhaps, texts of
a more narrative character. However, the majority of such texts, and in the
case of the narrative texts, all of them, were eventually lost.6
2
Shaked, Satrape de Bactriane, 22–7.
3
For the evidence, see Henning, “Mitteliranisch”; see also Skjærvø, “Aramaic Scripts.” While limited,
Aramaic inscriptions from Armenia and Georgia suggest a similar development there as well.
4
Boyce, “Parthian gosan.”
5
Although the frequent description of these texts as “the sacred books” of the Zoroastrians reflects
the way they are regarded by modern Zoroastrians, it is deeply problematic for earlier periods of the
religion.
6
One “legal” text has been preserved, viz. the Vendidad (Vīdēvdād), the structure of which is dis-
cussed by Skjærvø, “Videvdad.” Important fragments of texts discussing priestly and ritual matters in
Avestan have further been preserved in the Hērbedestān and Nērangestān, on which see Kotwal and
Kreyenbroek, Hērbedestān and Nērangestān.
Iran: he Parthian and Sasanian Periods 25
he second corpus of Zoroastrian texts is known as Zand (“knowledge”).

Unlike the Avesta, Zand texts are presumed to have been in the vernacular.
he common presentation of the Zand as the “translation” of the Avesta
into the vernacular is a wholly plausible interpretation from a modern
point of view. But at least in Sasanian Zoroastrianism, the Zand was seen
as the second part of the revelation, equally revealed to Zarathushtra by his
god Ahura Mazdā. It was, furthermore, the basis for all Zoroastrian theol-
ogy, the Avestan texts being gradually reduced in practical importance to
specific ritual contexts.
hese two collections, frequently referred to jointly as the dēn, “religion/
revelation,” were transmitted orally, but in distinct ways. For recitation
in ritual contexts, the Avestan texts were memorized, syllable by syllable,
line by line. Iranians believed that sacred words needed to be spoken in
order to exert power. Mistakes in pronunciation and recitation of these
sacred texts, in their own ritual language, would invalidate the ritual, with
possibly disastrous consequences. he other corpus, the Zand, was evi-
dently allowed to grow and change in transmission. he distribution of
Zoroastrians over a number of Iranian languages and regions suggests that
the priests of those linguistic communities all used their own Zand. But
because the southwestern region of Iran emerged in Sasanian times as the
dominant Iranian culture, the Zand of Pārs is the only preserved version.
he fact that the Zand was preserved at all is the result of a process of
scripturalization – the introduction of writing to preserve religious texts, a
process that will be discussed more fully later in this chapter.
sources and problems

Owing to the exclusively oral transmission of Zoroastrian texts almost up
to the end of our period, there are no primary religious texts from which to
reconstruct the history of ideas, beliefs, or rituals with any confidence. he
sources we do have from the Iranian world itself are chiefly archaeological
remains, documentary texts, royal and private inscriptions, coins, and seals.
Like its twin sister, the religion of the Vedic Indians, Zoroastrianism is dif-
ficult to trace archaeologically. With roots reaching back to prehistory, in a
nonsedentary setting, its basic requirements have always been simple. he
characteristic rituals of lighting and tending a fire, animal sacrifice, rites
of purification, and the exposure of corpses to be eaten by vultures and
dogs do not require permanent (and thus traceable) installations. On the
contrary, the evidence of the Avesta shows that the only requirement was a
suitable ritual ground chosen and prepared for the occasion. It is true that
26 Albert de Jong
modern Zoroastrians have numerous fire-temples, housing permanently

tended sacred fires, and that a similar abundance of fire-temples is assumed
to have existed in (late) Sasanian times. But we should not suppose that
this was always the case. In fact, before the nineteenth century, the Parsis
(the Zoroastrians of India) survived for eight centuries with a very small
number of sacred fires.
Alongside this body of material evidence are the reports about the
beliefs, rituals, and ideas of the Iranians in the writings of those who came
into contact with them: Greeks, Romans, Jews, and Christians in western
Iran, and Indians and Chinese in eastern Iran. If used judiciously, these
sources are indispensable to the study of Iranian religions. Greek witnesses
demonstrate, for example, that the basic Zoroastrian narrative about two
primal spirits and their pact to test each other’s strength in this world for
a limited period was already fully developed in the fourth century bce.7
Because these Greek authors also show how Zoroastrian communities
throughout the Iranian world differed in their performance of the rituals
and observance of the laws of purity, they supplement the fairly homoge-
neous and normative picture provided by Zoroastrian priestly literature.8
he same is true for the evidence in the literature of the Sasanian period in
Armenian and various dialects of Aramaic (the Babylonian Talmud, Syriac
Christian literature, and Mandaic).
he third, and possibly most controversial, source for our knowledge of
the religious history of Parthian and Sasanian Iran is the later Zoroastrian
tradition itself. Although it is generally accepted that most of the priestly
texts are to be dated in the ninth century (that is, after the Arab conquests,
at a time when Zoroastrians were gradually reduced to a minority), they
contain vital information, especially for the Sasanian period.9 his is also
true for the living tradition, especially its rituals and some of its insti-
tutions. he Zoroastrian calendar has been the focus of particular atten-
tion. his calendar replaced an original one consisting of twelve months
of thirty days (=360 days) with a 365-day year (with five intercalary days,
still short of the natural year) in the Achaemenid period, on the model of
the Egyptian calendar.10 Because the original calendar regulated the rit-
ual year, its reorganization, which is traceable in sources from all over the
7
For a succinct statement, see De Jong, “Contribution of the Magi.”
8
his is treated in detail in De Jong, Traditions of the Magi.
9
Zoroastrian Middle Persian (“Pahlavi”) works are often referred to as the “ninth-century books”
(thus Bailey, Zoroastrian Problems), since most of them are to be dated around that period. Some of
them are earlier and some of them (much) later, however, and the continued use of this appellation
especially distorts the history of Zoroastrianism in Islamic times.
10
See De Blois, “Persian Calendar.”
Zoroastrian world, was most likely enforced by a central government. he

expected opposition to this reform is variously attested in sources from a
wide geographic and chronological range.11
here are obvious dangers in using the living tradition (or evidence
from the Islamic period) for the interpretation of much earlier material.
All evidence dating from the Islamic period reflects a religious tradition
that did not enjoy state support. In pre-Islamic times, however, the chief
expressions of religiosity that we know of were closely tied to the state, the
dynasts and their nobles, and the priestly organization they supported.
It has been suggested, with good reasons, that the dynastic cult was little
more than an appropriately grand version of the domestic cult, just as royal
burials resembled those of commoners but on a different scale. But there
are traces in the sources of profound changes taking place in late Sasanian
times: a tightening grip by the central government on the organization of
the priesthood, the collection and writing down of the sacred writings, and
changes in the way the tradition was to be transmitted. his later process of
unification produced a form of Zoroastrianism substantially different from
that of the Parthian and Sasanian empires. To demonstrate this change, the
following discussion will review developments of Zoroastrianism at three
pivotal stages in its history: early imperial Arsacid times (the second cen-
tury bce), the shift from Arsacid to Sasanian rule (the third century ce),
and the apogee of Sasanian power in the sixth century. Armenia deserves
special attention, for it best exemplifies the substantial differences between
Parthian and Sasanian Zoroastrianism.
the historical setting: the rise of parthia

For the obscure early history of the Parthian empire, only a few subjects have
enjoyed general consensus.12 One of them is the importance of the home-
land of the Arsacids, the Iranian region known as Parthava in Old Persian
sources, as Pahlav in Middle Persian texts, and as Parthia to the Romans.
Its heartland is located in the northeastern part of Iran (Khorasan) and the
southern part of the modern republic of Turkmenistan. Fronted by deserts
on two sides (the Karakum to the north and the Kavir to the south), it
11
For an overview, see Boyce, “Further on the Calendar.”
12
he following discussion of Parthian Zoroastrianism and Parthian history is based on Boyce and
De Jong, Parthian and Armenian Zoroastrianism (in preparation). Indispensable for Parthian history
are the many contributions in Wiesehöfer, ed., Partherreich. Wolski, Empire des Arsacides, is selec-
tive and controversial. See further Lerouge, L’image des Parthes dans le monde gréco-romain; Hackl,
Jacobs, and Weber, eds., Quellen zur Geschichte des Partherreiches.
28 Albert de Jong
is defined chiefly by two parallel mountain chains – known mainly from

their most impressive ranges, the Kopet Dagh and the Binalud – with a
wide, flat, and fertile trough between them, richly watered by the rivers
Atrak and Kashaf and countless other streams.13 Despite its fame in later
times as one of the most pleasant and fertile regions of Iran, some classical
authors, and occasionally modern historians as well, present it as a rugged,
barren, and inhospitable region (see Map 1).14
Originating in the north, the Arsacids were the only Iranian dynasty
from the three pre-Islamic Iranian empires that did not come from Persia.
With close cultural ties to the Hyrcanians and their western neighbors, the
Medes, these northern Iranian regions were culturally dominant through-
out the Arsacid period. Armenia and Georgia, ancient non-Iranian lands
that adapted Parthian culture (and religion), provide additional evidence of
this dominance. Parthian institutions also exerted a profound influence on
the cultures of the buffer zone between the Parthian and Hellenistic-Roman
worlds: Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Babylonia.15
here is also broad consensus about the importance of the year 247
bce, the first year of the Arsacid era. Its importance is best explained on
the assumption that this was the year in which Arsaces I, the founder of
the dynasty, proclaimed himself king of an independent Parthia. He was
not the first to do so, however. A few years earlier, the Greek satrap of
Parthia, Andragoras, apparently broke away from his Seleucid suzerains
and proclaimed himself ruler of Parthia. Although this act of indepen-
dence is reflected only faintly in the sources, it appears to be confirmed
by Andragoras’s unexpected step of minting his own coins (including, sig-
nificantly, gold coins), a few of which have survived.16 hese show him
wearing the royal diadem, though otherwise bareheaded; the coin legend
simply gives his name. At about the same time – that is, around the year
250 bce – neighboring Bactria also claimed its independence under a Greek
ruler, in this case Diodotus I.17 he secession of Bactria was primarily a
13
he best introduction is Fisher, “Physical geography,” 62–72. Despite an outdated treatment of his-
tory and culture, Rawlinson’s Sixth Oriental Monarchy and Parthia contain unsurpassed surveys of
Parthian geography.
14
hus Sherwin-White and Kuhrt, From Samarkhand to Sardis, 84–8, to be read in conjunction with
Bernard, “Asie Centrale.”
15
Both Armenians and Parthians are generally neglected, fatally it would seem, in Millar, Roman Near
East.
16
he best discussion is D’jakonov and Zejmal, “Pravitel’ Parfii,” with Alram, “Stand und Aufgaben,”
369–71.
17
Here too there is controversy over the date of the secession of Bactria. A late date for Bactria and
Parthia is suggested by Lerner, Impact of Seleucid Decline; Holt, hundering Zeus. For the likelihood
of the earlier date see Bernard, “Asie Centrale.”
Map 1. he Parthian Empire
29
30 Albert de Jong
Greek affair, with Greek kings establishing a Greek realm in a country

of mixed ethnic composition. Arsaces’ conquest of Parthia, on the other
hand, was an act of the local Iranian population striving for independence
from “foreign” rule (in this case that of Andragoras).
Because of a dearth of sources, it is unclear to what extent feelings of
ethnic and/or religious “identity” contributed to this uprising. An addi-
tional complication is the report of some Greco-Roman authors who say
that Arsaces I, the founder of the dynasty, was not a Parthian at all, but
rather the leader of a tribe of nomadic Aparnian Sakas who raided and then
conquered Parthia.18 Accepting their report would produce considerable
problems for the religious history of the region. In particular, the Sakas
are not known to have been Zoroastrians, while the Parthian kings are not
known to have been anything other than Zoroastrians. here are many
reasons to doubt the historicity of the Aparnian conquest, and preference
must be given to the equally attested identification of Arsaces as a Parthian
leading a Parthian uprising and establishing a Parthian kingdom.19
he early days of the Parthian kingdom, when Arsaces and his suc-
cessors ruled their little province in northeastern Iran, saw the forging of
traditions and institutions that lasted throughout the period of Arsacid
rule, the longest of any pre-Islamic Iranian dynasty. One of these traditions
was the practice, known already from the Achaemenid period, of lighting
a dynastic fire, a special elaboration of the old custom of lighting a house-
holder’s fire. Arsaces’ fire burned in the city of Asaak, the precise loca-
tion of which is unknown.20 Two further early Arsacid traditions remained
virtually unchanged throughout the Parthian period: the use of only one
throne name (Arsaces) and the design of Arsacid coins, the chief material
for any reconstruction of Arsacid history.
At his accession, Arsaces’ successor Tiridates also took the name of
Arsaces, which he put on his coins.21 His successor, whose name may have
been Artabanus, followed suit, and from that moment onward, all Arsacid
18
Following the many works of Jozef Wolski (and Rawlinson before him), most scholars have accepted
the veracity of this tradition. For important objections, see especially Boyce, “Sedentary Arsacids,”
and Hauser, “Ewigen Nomaden.”
19
his is the version of early Arsacid history given in Arrian’s Parthica.
20
It is known only from a short mention in Isidore of Charax, Parthian Stations §11, ed. Shoff.
21
Although now a minority opinion, it seems most likely to the present writer that Arsaces I did not
live very long to enjoy his success – a mere two years – and that he was succeeded by his brother,
Tiridates, who literally chose to rule in his name. his reconstruction, once accepted as true by all,
has been attacked relentlessly by Jozef Wolski (and before him by Von Gutschmid, Geschichte Irans,
29–34) and has now been commonly abandoned. he “traditional” interpretation, suggested here, is
better equipped to deal with the evidence of the Parthian ostracon 1760, as discussed by Lukonin,
“Institutions,” 686–9.
kings took the name Arsaces upon their accession.22 hey are distinguished
by their personal, given names only in Greek and Latin sources. Documents
surviving from the Parthian empire itself exclusively use the name Arsaces
(unless there was uncertainty about which Arsaces was meant, in periods
of coregency) – to the unending frustration of historians and numismatists
trying to sort out the different reigns and attribute coins to different rulers.
he coins themselves, at least the silver drachms and tetradrachms struck
throughout the empire (but known especially from Seleucia-on-the-Tigris
and Susa), are equally difficult to distinguish.23 heir reverse design under-
went virtually no changes, showing a figure known as the “royal archer”
holding a bow and sitting on a backless throne. It is generally agreed that
this image represents Arsaces, the founder of the dynasty. Because the
example of Arsaces was faithfully followed, there was never any room on
the coins for religious symbols. his practice contrasts with the coins of the
neighboring Kushanas, which contain images of various divinities along
with their Greek, Iranian, and Indian names.24
parthian zoroastrianism: the nisa texts

Apart from a few stray notices in classical writers of a much later period,
there are no direct sources about the religion of the formative early period
of Arsacid rule. hese emerge only with the first written documents in
their language, Parthian, and with the first tangible traces of their mate-
rial culture. Both take us to Nisa, their first dynastic center, located in the
vicinity of the modern city of Ashqabad in Turkmenistan. Excavations of
the site, begun in the 1930s by Soviet archaeologists, continue to the pre-
sent day.25 Written evidence shows that the royal city, the layout of which
was of staggering proportions, was known as Mithradatkird, “made by
Mithradates”; this suggests that its royal buildings were commissioned by
the first monarch of that name, Mithradates I (r. ca.171–32 bce).
his written evidence comes from a large collection (more than 2,500) of
ostraca found at various places during the excavations of Nisa.26 he chief
use of these ostraca for the historian of religion lies in their preservation of
22
his is explicitly mentioned in Justin’s Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus, 41.5.6.
23
he standard work of reference is Sellwood, Introduction. Indispensable discussions can be found in
Le Rider, Suse.
24
See Staviskij, Bactriane sous les Kushans.
25
For a vue d’ensemble of the results of the Soviet excavations, see Pilipko, Staraja Nisa. A joint
Turkmen-Italian team of archaeologists directed by A. Invernizzi and C. Lippolis is currently con-
ducting excavations, with regular reports being published in the journal Parthica.
26
Published in Diakonoff, Livshits, and MacKenzie, Parthian Economic Documents.
32 Albert de Jong
a large number of names of local Parthians, of months and days, of some

places and temples, and of a few functions, including priestly ones.27 he
Nisa ostraca have removed any possible doubt about Zoroastrianism as the
religion of the Parthians. Although they are more than a century later than
the early Arsacid kings – and thus stem from imperial Arsacid times – it
is unlikely that the abundant Zoroastrian elements in them represent an
innovation. he absence of even a single name of Saka origin from among
the hundreds of names recorded has dealt yet another blow to the image of
the Parthians as Saka invaders. he names, moreover, are generally recog-
nizable as Zoroastrian, honoring a wide range of Zoroastrian divinities.
Not a single name has been found that “could not be borne by an orthodox
Zoroastrian.”28
he Nisa ostraca provide the first post-Alexander evidence for the use of
the Zoroastrian calendar, recording a number of names of the Zoroastrian
months and days. Further evidence from Parthian documents of later
times29 shows that the Parthian kings used the Zoroastrian calendar (in
combination with their own Arsacid era) only when dealing with other
Iranians in their empire. hey did not impose the calendar on non-Iranian
subjects and client states, nor was it used by the Greek cities within their
realm. Its use is thus an emblematic one, a symbol of their allegiance to
Zoroastrianism as their native, ancestral religion.
Cumulatively, the Nisa texts firmly establish the Zoroastrianism of the
Parthians and their kings. hey refer – sparingly, as is to be expected in this
type of document – to priests, both with the general western Iranian term
for a Zoroastrian priest, magus, and with the unique title “master of fire.”
Finally, they mention a number of temples from the vineyards of whose
estates wine was brought to Nisa. Only one of these carries a further name,
indicating the deity worshipped there: it is Nanaia, originally a Sumerian
goddess, who was early incorporated into Zoroastrianism and whose cult is
well attested among the Parthians and generally in Central Asia.
he Nisa texts thus offer a unique insight into Parthian society and reli-
gion in a fairly early period of Arsacid rule. Because additional documents
are rare, recovering the further history of Zoroastrianism in the Parthian
period requires hypothetical reconstructions. Although the sources about
the Parthians themselves are much more extensive from this period
27
For a good overview of their contents, see Bader, “Parthian Ostraca.”
28
Lukonin, “Institutions,” 689, quoting their first publication (in Russian) by Diakonoff and Livshits.
For the names, see Schmitt, “Parthische Sprach- und Namenüberlieferung.”
29
See, for example, the documents from Avroman. hese are three parchment documents, two in Greek
(Minns, “Parchments”) and one in Parthian (Nyberg, “Pahlavi Documents”). Characteristically, the
Zoroastrian calendar is used in the Parthian text, not in the Greek ones.
onward, they are one-sided, written almost exclusively by their enemies,

the Seleucids and especially the Romans.
the arsacid empire: a multiethnic state

Mithradates I expanded the original kingdom of Parthia into the new
Parthian empire by slowly but virtually unceasingly adding new ter-
ritories to the Arsacids’ possessions. While not all of Mithradates’ con-
quests are known, the most important of them is recorded: the conquest
of Babylonia, including the Greek city of Seleucia-on-the-Tigris, in 141
bce. Although Babylonia was not held continually thereafter, whatever
losses the Parthians suffered at the hands of the Seleucids and others were
only temporary and reversible setbacks. Mithradates evidently did what he
could to ease the pain of suddenly being cast from the Seleucid domain
into the hand of the Parthians. As he did with a few other Greek cities,
he accorded Seleucia a special status within the empire and put the epi-
thet philhellēnos, “friend to Greeks,” on his coins, a practice that was to be
repeated by most, but not all, of his successors.
From this moment on, the Parthian empire became a truly multieth-
nic state, home to many different religions. Like their Achaemenid pre-
decessors, and in the main – despite appearances – their successor (the
Sasanians), the Arsacids did not impose their private religion on the inhab-
itants of the empire. Whatever information we possess strongly suggests
that the religious life of the Arsacids themselves was mainly seen in terms
of a family tradition, or a dynastic cult. his is shown by the many traces of
veneration of the ancestors (in Zoroastrian terms the cult of the fravashis)
at the royal court, as well as the practice of keeping dynastic fires. A further
part of the religious life of the Arsacid dynasts must have been the cele-
bration, with great pomp, of Zoroastrian festivals, for which nobles would
assemble at the Parthian court. Because the celebration of these festivals is
a fixed part of Persian literary works (from the early Islamic period) that
have been shown to have originated in Parthian minstrel traditions, the
written evidence for such celebrations comes only from much later times.30
But the splendor of such public festivals is supported by the layout of some
of the Parthian royal sites that have been preserved, with a marked example
in far-away Georgia.31
30
Especially the eleventh-century poem Vīs u Rāmīn of Gurgānī, the Parthian origins of which were
established by Minorsky, “Vīs-u-Rāmīn.”
31
See Gagoshidze, “Dedoplis Mindori.”
34 Albert de Jong
the religions of the arsacid empire

Before we discuss the religions of the Parthian empire, it is perhaps useful to
say something about its general structure. For various reasons, the Parthian
empire is best conceived of as the private possession of the Arsacid dynasty.
As it was crucial to the empire’s enduring existence, its heartland – Parthia
itself, Hyrcania, some Arsacid possessions on the Iranian plateau, and
Babylonia – seems to have been governed centrally. Bordering these lands
were various clusters of ancient kingdoms and satrapies, ruled by local
dynasties or governed by some of the great Parthian noble families. An
example of the latter case is eastern Iranian Zrangiana (modern Seistan),
which was governed by the Parthian house of Suren. Several of the former
satrapies within Iran were ruled by junior members of the Arsacid family,
who were occasionally granted the honorary title of “king” (especially the
kings of Media).
In the western territories of the Parthian empire, the Parthians, and any
other Iranians, were a minority among the population. While the vitally
important Babylonia was generally governed centrally, there were also
semi-independent client states, ruled by local monarchs under Parthian
suzerainty. Occasional battles and declarations of more formal indepen-
dence have led to the assumption that this policy reflected the empire’s
weakness. But this estimation of the empire has now been generally rejected.
Several of these kingdoms – the city of Hatra, Adiabene, Osrhoene – lay
between the two superpowers of Parthia and Rome. Although they often
bore the brunt of their military confrontations, in the main they showed
unswerving allegiance to their Parthian overlords.32 he history of these
countries is in fact mainly known because of these battles between Parthia
and Rome. None of them was decisive: the Euphrates remained by and
large the border between the two empires.
Since Zoroastrianism obviously survived to emerge in the sources with
the rise of the Sasanians, its existence during the reign of the Arsacids can
hardly be denied. But Zoroastrianism during this period is difficult to trace
archaeologically and did not transmit its traditions in writing. For these
reasons, as well as Sasanian propaganda, the importance of that religion
for the Arsacids and for the Iranian inhabitants of their empire has fre-
quently been underrated. he impact of Greek culture on the Parthians,
32
For two exemplary case studies of such vassal states, see Schuol, Charakene, which discusses the
southern kingdom of Mesene, and Wiesehöfer, Dunklen Jahrhunderte, on the history of Pārs. he
history of the more northerly regions in their Parthian context still needs to be written.
for example, has been cited as evidence of a weakened attachment to their

religion or Iranian culture. here is, however, no reason to assume that the
enjoyment of Greek art and literature in any way obviated the practice of
Zoroastrianism. Interest in Greek culture did, however, shape the way in
which the religion was practiced. As with most other Hellenistic dynas-
ties, the kings had a private religious life, focusing on the dynasty and
its ancestors, and offering them generous occasions for displaying their
power, wealth, and status.33
hey did this chiefly by organizing banquets and hunting parties. Here,
as well as in other aspects of court life, they were followed by the dynasts of
their client states in the West, who adopted or imitated Parthian costume
and took over some institutional aspects of court life, such as accession
rituals, and frequently Parthian names as well. his common culture is
reflected in the easily recognizable Parthian costume34 and what is often
called “Parthian art” – that is, the sculptural traditions of the Near East
and the subject of much confusion and controversy.35 But this common
culture did not extend to those aspects of Parthian culture that required
language to be communicated and transmitted, including, of course, reli-
gion. Not a trace of Zoroastrianism has been found in the abundant epi-
graphic record from Hatra, nor at Dura-Europos, which, from the end of
the third century bce to 165 ce, was a Parthian possession. But the general
assumption that Zoroastrianism either did not exist or did not amount to
much in the western parts of the Parthian empire is wholly contradicted
by the abundant evidence from Armenia. Because this evidence is crucial
to our understanding of the later development of Zoroastrianism, it must
be explored in somewhat greater detail.36
armenia
he study of Armenian history depends largely on the historical record
that the Armenians themselves produced shortly after the conversion
of the (Arsacid) dynasty of that country to Christianity.37 Within a few
generations, the conversion of the Armenians to Christianity in the early
33
On the interconnections between the Hellenistic/Near Eastern dynasties, see Sullivan, Near Eastern
Royalty.
34
See, for instance, Curtis, “Parthian Costume.”
35
he classic statement remains Rostovtzeff, “Problem of Parthian Art.”
36
he basic works of reference are Russell, Zoroastrianism in Armenia, and Armenian and Iranian
Studies.
37
For the three most important among them, see homson, Agathangelos; idem, Moses Khorenats’i; and
Garsoïan, Epic Histories.
36 Albert de Jong
fourth century ce, and along with it the invention of a special Armenian
alphabet, produced an abundant literature. he Armenians, who iden-
tified themselves with the heroic Maccabees, viewed their pre-Christian
religion as a form of “paganism.”38 Although the use of this literature is
therefore problematic, the enormous amount of information preserved
in these early writings has established that the religion of the Armenians
was Zoroastrianism – more specifically, a variety of Zoroastrianism with
a strong Parthian flavor. hough it possessed its own distinctive culture,
Armenia had old and very close ties with the Iranian world. he fact
that the kings of Armenia were, from the beginning of the common era,
Arsacids themselves made these ties even stronger.
he paucity of evidence for a temple cult of fire in Armenian
Zoroastrianism can be easily explained; as we have seen, fire-temples
were by no means necessary for the persistence of Zoroastrianism. he
more interesting feature of Armenian Zoroastrianism is its abundance of
temples for individual deities. It is becoming increasingly clear that these
temples were a prominent part of pre-Sasanian Zoroastrianism and were
the first to fall victim to the Sasanian wish for a unified version of the
religion. For early Armenian historians, Zoroastrian temples – dedicated
to Aramazd the creator, the highest god of the Zoroastrian pantheon; to
Anahit the Lady, goddess of water and fertility; to Tir, the scribe of the
gods; to Mihr (Mithra), god of contracts; and to Vahagn (Verethraghna),
god of victory – offered a dramatic backdrop for their account of the
country’s Christianization.39 By documenting the destruction of the tem-
ples and the erection of churches in their place, they have recorded innu-
merable details of the religious life of these places. Ironically, we know
much more about Parthian Zoroastrianism from Armenia than we do
from anywhere else.
After the Sasanians put an end to the Arsacid dynasty in Iran (but
not in Armenia), they attempted both to conquer and pacify Armenia
and to reconvert the Armenians to Zoroastrianism. But their version
of Zoroastrianism was barely recognized by the Armenians as the same
religion as that of their ancestors; even those Armenians who were still
Zoroastrian did not welcome it. In order to explain the marked differences
between Parthian and Sasanian Zoroastrianism, we must therefore exam-
ine the early Sasanian evidence.
38
homson, “Maccabees.”
39
hey function in this way especially in Agathangelos’s History of the Armenians §§784–90 (homson,
Agathangelos, 323–31).
the rise of the sasanians

he first Sasanian king, Ardashir I, began his life as the prince-in-waiting for
the small principality of Stakhr in southwestern Iran.40 here, his ancestors
combined their rule of the city and its surrounding lands as vassals of the
Parthian King of Kings with the hereditary guardianship of an important
fire or an important temple. his was a land full of the ancient monuments
of the Achaemenids. Even though now in ruins, they were still stand-
ing, evoking the former grandeur of important kings of the past. When
Ardashir’s father Pabag died, he was succeeded by Ardashir’s older brother
Shapur, who died unexpectedly, leaving the throne to his younger brother.
Ardashir apparently succeeded in uniting local noble colleagues to
revolt against the Parthian king, Artabanus V. After defeating – and killing,
according to the stories – the last Arsacid, he was crowned the new king
of the Iranians in 224 ce. Immediately following this success, Ardashir
evidently had to fight other battles to consolidate his reign. Although the
stories of his success are deemed historically unreliable, they are highly
useful for the study of the history of Zoroastrianism, as are the chosen
coin design of the Sasanians and the rock reliefs commissioned by their
first kings.
All of them stress the theme of unity. Ardashir chose for the reverse of
his coins a representation of his own regnal fire, so indicated by its legend.
he obverse bore his portrait, with a new and striking legend, present-
ing the new king as “the Zoroastrian Lord Ardashir, King of Kings of the
Iranians.”41 Sasanian art and literary tradition help to explain why he chose
to represent his own fire on the reverse. In the literary tradition, Ardashir
fights heroic battles against evil creatures – including “the Worm” and a
local queen – who reside in castles, there to be worshipped as living gods.
He defeats them, takes away their treasure, destroys their sanctuaries, and
replaces them with fire-temples. his is only reported of him and his son
and successor Shapur, not of any later monarch.42 It is to be read in con-
nection with the Letter of Tansar, a Persian literary work that purports to
reproduce a correspondence between Ardashir’s high priest Tansar (Tosar)
and the (Parthian vassal) king of Tabaristan (in northern Iran), recording
his objections to Ardashir’s seizure of the throne of Iran.43 he most telling
40
Although partly outdated, Christensen, L’Iran, remains indispensable. For the stories of the rise of
the Sasanians, see Widengren, “Establishment.”
41
For early Sasanian coins, see Alram and Gyselen, Sylloge I.
42
See De Jong, “One Nation under God?”
43
Boyce, Letter of Tansar.
38 Albert de Jong
of his objections is that Ardashir extinguished many fires, a heinous sin in

Zoroastrianism. Tansar defends his king by stating that the “kings of the
peoples” had no right to have lit them in the first place. he “kings of the
peoples” is the technical term by which Sasanian propagandists referred to
the Parthians. To rob them of their legitimacy, they accused them of hav-
ing divided Iran over a large number of “petty kings,” thus denying to the
country the unity to which it was entitled.
he stories about Ardashir’s destruction of the sanctuaries (fires or
temples in which living deities gathered treasure) and the choice of his
coin design clearly belong together: the message of the coin is not one of
Zoroastrian revival – as has often been claimed – but rather of the unity
of the realm, symbolized in his own dynastic fire, the only one to be left
burning. he most splendid visual illustration of the theme comes from
the impressive rock relief he commissioned at Naqsh-i Rustam, under
the tombs of the Achaemenid kings.44 here the new king is represented
mounted on a horse, facing the god Ohrmazd (Ahura Mazdā) himself, also
mounted on a horse. Ohrmazd gives him the ring symbolizing sovereignty,
handing over to him the unique role of ruling the Iranians as the chosen
one of their god. Under the hooves of the horses are two figures. While
Ohrmazd’s horse tramples the evil Ahriman, recognizable through a snake
coiling in his hair, Ardashir’s horse tramples the defeated Parthian king.
he message is clear: just as there is only one king in heaven, Ohrmazd
himself, there can be only one king on earth.
he same theme recurs in the most extensive narrative we have of the
early Sasanian period, the “book of the deeds of Ardashir son of Pabag.”45
Contrary to its (spurious) title, the book does not conclude with Ardashir,
or with his son Shapur, who did more than his father to consolidate the
empire. It ends rather with his grandson Hormizd I, the only of the three
early Sasanians to be credited with the crowning achievement of the nar-
rative: the establishment of a single rule in all the lands of the Iranians.
Because his reign was both short (one year) and uneventful, it is most
likely that the book of Ardashir, despite later additions, was first produced
under him.
It was his father, Shapur, however, who did most for the expansion and
the consolidation of the empire. his is recorded in the extensive trilin-
gual inscription he ordered to be engraved – in Parthian, Middle Persian,
and Greek – on the Ka’ba-i Zardusht at Naqsh-i Rustam, one of the other
44
See Hinz, Altiranische Funde, 115–43.
45
he best edition is Grenet, Geste d’Ardashir.
Achaemenid remains at that highly important place.46 his inscription,

sometimes known as Res Gestae Divi Saporis, describes the lands conquered
by Shapur and his victories over the Romans – with the death of Gordian
III and the humiliating defeat of Valerian. he inscription further mentions
the organization of his court and ends with a long list of fires founded by
him and religious observances for the care of the souls of his relatives paid
for by generous donations.
he religious elements in his inscription, together with the evidence
for Ardashir mentioned above, have created the not unreasonable impres-
sion that these early kings were devout Zoroastrians. Together with the
anti-Parthian propaganda, it has also contributed to the notion that the
Parthians were much less occupied with religion. While that was clearly
the intention of some of these texts and traditions, their testimony can
hardly be considered objective. he impression is strikingly enhanced,
however, by what are arguably the most important written documents for
religious history from the early Sasanian period: the inscriptions of the
priest Kerdīr.47
the inscriptions of kerd  r

he inscriptions of Kerdīr, the only substantial epigraphic records of a
commoner to have survived, were written on some of the most impor-
tant sites of the early Sasanian state. Significantly, these include the same
Ka’ba-i Zardusht where Shapur had commissioned his victory inscription
to be engraved. Four versions are known, some of them accompanied by
artistic representations of the priest himself. All this suggests a place of dis-
tinctive importance for Kerdīr at a certain stage of his career.
Kerdīr’s inscriptions are divided into two sections, the first documenting
his priestly career, the second his visionary journey to heaven, with proofs
of the truth of the Zoroastrian religion.48 What occasioned the unique
honor of having these inscriptions engraved on such important places is
still a matter of debate, but the texts themselves provide clues. In them,
Kerdīr documents his rise to high office, from a comparatively humble
court priest under Shapur to the clerical head of the whole realm under his
successors. He boasts how, in attempting to establish a unified, organized,
and “orthodox” version of the religion, he persecuted both Zoroastrian
46
For the site, see Schmidt, Persepolis III; for the inscription, Huyse, Dreisprachige Inschrift.
47
For a synoptic edition of these texts, see Gignoux, Quatre inscriptions.
48
See Skjærvø, “Kirdīr’s Vision.”
40 Albert de Jong
“heretics” and their establishments and, famously, the religious minorities

in the empire, some of whom he actually lists.
Whether or not Kerdīr actually did all this must remain uncertain; his
persecutions of minorities are entirely undocumented in the traditions of
those communities he mentions (Jews, Christians, Buddhists, and others).
But the essence of his message ties in well with the requirements of the new
Sasanian state: the creation of a unified nation for all Iranians, shielded
by their ancestral religion. His description reveals important changes in
particular features of the religion. For Kerdīr, a priest himself, the most
important bearers of the tradition were the priests, the chief responsibility
of whom was to care for the fires in their sanctuaries.
Although Kerdīr, unlike the Sasanian kings, frequently refers to the
forces of evil – human and nonhuman – in his inscriptions, the first part
of them is not a theological text. he second part, the famous vision of
the hereafter, is different and unique, and thus difficult to contextualize.
Kerdīr is granted the sole privilege of performing a ritual enabling him to
gain knowledge of the hereafter, to have a visual experience of heaven and
hell, and to be informed of his destined place in heaven. Kerdīr’s vision
seems to be part of a more widespread narrative tradition about chosen
mortals to whom are revealed the most important tenet of the religion:
that it and only it leads to a blessed afterlife. A few more examples of the
same tradition have been preserved: the story of Vishtaspa, the patron king
of Zarathushtra, and the book of the righteous Wiraz.49 In all three cases,
the urgent need to establish the truth about the religion constitutes the
narrative background of their visit to the otherworld. Vishtaspa’s vision is
part of the narrative about the beginnings of the religion, for his conver-
sion marks its first success. he book of the righteous Wiraz dates his visit
to the otherworld to the mid- or late Sasanian period, a time of uncertainty
caused by the activities of wicked priests and foreign faiths.
Viewed in the context of this literary topos, Kerdīr’s vision served to jus-
tify some of the most important changes he advocated in the organization
of the Zoroastrian religion and its rituals, imposing a single type of sanc-
tuary – housing a consecrated fire – served by a hierarchy of priests, united
by a common set of beliefs and doctrines, confirmed by his revelation.
manichaeism
One of Kerdīr’s most infamous acts was his campaign to bring about the
death of the prophet Mani, the founder of Manichaeism. In interpreting
49
For the latter see Gignoux, Ardā Vīrāz.
Kerdīr’s inscription in this context, some scholars have seen the threat of
this new religion as the occasion of his visionary journey to the other-
world. here can be no doubt that Mani was tried and executed at the
height of Kerdīr’s power; Manichaean sources are in fact the only other
texts to have preserved his name.50 But such an interpretation of Kerdīr’s
inscriptions disregards the constant references to the correct performance
of Zoroastrian rituals in these texts. hese would be oddly out of place had
the threat of Manichaeism been the main motive behind them.
Manichaeans are mentioned in the inscription only collectively,
together with the other non-Zoroastrian religious communities that
Kerdīr claims to have persecuted. But the rise of Manichaeism is an
important part of the religious history of the early Sasanian empire, one
that Kerdīr may have wished to conceal by ignoring it further in his
inscriptions. Although the debate over Manichaean origins is far from set-
tled, a clear majority among modern scholars have embraced the notion
that it drew its main inspiration, initially, from Jewish Christianity.51
Evidence for this comes mainly from the Cologne Mani Codex, a min-
iature parchment codex from fourth- or fifth-century Egypt containing
a Manichaean Greek text on the early history of the prophet Mani and
his community.52 Much of that text is devoted to the initial split between
Mani and the religious community he grew up in, referred to exclusively
as a community of “baptists.” In fictional discussions with its members,
allusions in the text to passages from the Gospels and Paul have enabled
scholars to establish that this community of baptists was a Christian
one.53 It has also drawn increasing attention to the Christian elements
in Manichaeism, sometimes to the point of treating Manichaeism as a
branch of Christianity.54
he chief flaw of this approach is that it perpetuates the notion that
discussions of Manichaean origins must choose between Zoroastrianism
on the one hand and Christianity on the other. Whereas Manichaeism
was once conceived of as an exotic variety of Zoroastrianism,55 it is cur-
rently presented as an equally exotic variety of Christianity. his robs
Manichaeism of its striking originality and, as will be shown later in this
chapter, perpetuates a decidedly obsolete vision of interrelations between
50
See the Coptic “Recitation about the Crucifixion” from the Manichaean Homilies in Gardner and
Lieu, Manichaean Texts, 79–84.
51
See Gardner and Lieu, Manichaean Texts, 25–35. See further Griffith in Chapter 5 of this volume.
52
he standard edition of the text is Koenen and Römer, Kölner Mani-Kodex.
53
See especially Cologne Mani Codex, 91–3 (Gardner and Lieu, Manichaean Texts, 62–3).
54
See, for example, Pedersen, Demonstrative Proof, 6–12.
55
he classic statement is Widengren, Mani and Manichaeism.
42 Albert de Jong
various communities within the Sasanian empire – the undisputed place

of origin of Manichaeism.56
religions in the sasanian empire

he body of literature documenting the activities of the many religious
communities active in the Sasanian empire is considerable. he most
important communities are those of the Zoroastrians, Jews, Christians,
Manichaeans, and Mandaeans. Zoroastrians and Jews, who had been in
contact with each other for almost a millennium, shared important char-
acteristics, such as an elaborate code of purity rules and the importance
assigned to oral tradition. Although the origins of the Mandaeans are
unclear, they too had much in common with the Zoroastrians, particu-
larly in their rituals.57 Christians and Manichaeans were newcomers to this
scene and, unlike the other three groups, actively missionary. he literature
of all these communities is frequently hostile to the others, abounding in
ritual and legal prescriptions that would seem to preclude the possibility of
friendly relations. Mixed marriages, for example, are forbidden in almost
all sources, from whatever religious community, as is selling or consuming
food prepared or procured by members of another religious community.
With regard to marriage, it is difficult to be certain, but repeated warnings
against mixed marriages imply that this practice was more common than
the normative texts would suggest.58
Only recently have scholars begun to question the validity of the tra-
ditional view of the religions of the Sasanian empire as more or less fixed,
impenetrable, and spiritual domains to be studied in comparative isola-
tion from one another. his has happened in various fields. Apart from
the artistic traditions referred to above, important studies of legal sys-
tems and of literary traditions have now shown how much the various
communities interacted. he notion of a shared culture in the Sasanian
empire’s western regions is slowly but firmly gaining recognition.59 he
subject that has contributed most to this reassessment of relations is
magic, as evidenced particularly in the unique Babylonian tradition of
56
See De Jong, “Zoroastrian Religious Polemics.”
57
See Drower, Mandaeans; Rudolph, Mandäer II: Der Kult.
58
Some examples are discussed in De Jong, “Zoroastrian Religious Polemics,” 56–8. See further Lapin
in Chapter 4 of this volume.
59
For law, see Elman, “Marriage and Marital Property”; Macuch, “Servant of the Fire.” For Iranian
literary themes in Jewish texts, see Herman, “Ahasuerus” and “Iranian Epic Motifs.” For Iranian
themes in Christian literature, see Frenschkowski, “Parthica Apocalyptica”; Walker, Mar Qardagh.
making “incantation bowls,” small earthenware bowls with protective

texts written spirally inside. Hundreds of these bowls have already been
published and hundreds more are known.60 Although mostly writ-
ten by Jews and Mandaeans, there are also many Christian and several
Zoroastrian bowls, possibly even a few Manichaean ones. Much of the
information in these texts is specific to the religious tradition that pro-
duced them: Talmudic sages and sayings characteristically appear on
Jewish bowls, Mandaean spiritual beings on those in Mandaic. Even so,
these bowls provide overwhelming evidence of religious interaction, with
a notable Iranian element.61
he religious world of the Sasanian empire was thus a vibrant one,
full of innovation and diversity. As if to underline this, there is grow-
ing evidence demonstrating the role of the Sasanians as a bridge between
the Christian world in the West and India in the East. In this way, they
enriched both cultures, mediating Indian science, stories, and ideas to the
West, and Greek science and ideas to India, while adding their own dis-
tinctive Iranian traditions to both.62
It remains true, however, that the development of Zoroastrianism, the
religion of the majority population, continues to be difficult to trace for
most of the Sasanian period. One large body of evidence comes from the
thousands of personal and official seals and sealings that have been pre-
served, while the documents to which the sealings were attached have
almost entirely perished.63 Detailed study of the seals, especially of the
inscriptions on them, has enabled scholars to make enormous progress in
our understanding of the organization – geographical and institutional –
of the empire, and the prominent role played by priests in its administra-
tive structure.64 his, in turn, is fully confirmed by the relatively numerous
Christian reports on the trials and executions of Zoroastrian apostates (or
Christian converts). As far as the development of doctrine and ritual is
concerned, however, the often conflicting information from Christian
sources and from later Zoroastrian texts has made it difficult to arrive at a
balanced picture.
60
For recent publications of such bowls (with references to earlier collections), see Segal, Catalogue;
Müller-Kessler, Zauberschalentexte. Hundreds more are currently being prepared for publication by
Shaul Shaked.
61
For an introduction, see Shaked, “Popular Religion.”
62
For literature, see, for example, De Blois, Burzōy’s Voyage; for astrology, Pingree, From Astral Omens
to Astrology.
63
he most recent publication is Gyselen, Sasanian Seals and Sealings.
64
See Gyselen, Géographie administrative; idem, “Sceaux des mages.”
44 Albert de Jong
zurvanism
he case of Zurvanism illustrates the problem. Christian sources in
Armenian, Syriac, and Greek show that in certain circles of the Sasanian
court, there existed a version of Zoroastrian doctrine that placed a deity
of time, Zurvan, above the two spirits Ohrmazd and Ahriman, and thus
presented the two spirits – the basic notions in the Zoroastrian theology
of the Pahlavi books – as twin brothers born of this single deity.65 he
Pahlavi books, which preserve barely a trace of such ideas, are thus thought
to have been purged of this doctrine.66 here is general agreement that
“Zurvanism,” the name given to this putative heresy, was largely indis-
tinguishable from other varieties of Zoroastrianism in its rituals and its
doctrines. he chief difference was its elevation, presumably effected also
in ritual contexts, of the god Zurvan.67
Western scholars, for whom “Zurvanism” was the first known variant
form of Zoroastrian theology, have made it the subject of intensive study.
In the process, almost every variant idea or doctrine came to be attributed
to it.68 “Zurvanism” thus acquired a robust identity that has taken much
effort to deconstruct. In all likelihood, it was one among many varieties of
the crucial Zoroastrian narrative of the cosmogony. It has been suggested
that it grew out of an alternative exegesis of a verse from the Gathas (Y.
30.3), which speaks of “the two spirits” as twins.69 If this is correct, we
must assume that this interpretation was accepted by priests working at
the court, who handed their interpretation down to their students. It was
evidently not the exegesis adopted by many other priests, whose traditions
were preserved in the Pahlavi books. his both explains its prominence in
reports on “court traditions” (in Syriac and Armenian) and its subsequent
loss in the Zoroastrian tradition; because the court priests were the most
affected by the Arab conquests, many such court traditions were lost.
A case in point is the supremely important theologian and politician
Mihr-Narseh, active under the Sasanian king Bahram V (r.420–38). As
the monarch’s prime minister (wuzurg-framādār), he was actively engaged
in the reconversion of Armenia, trying to impose Zurvanite ideas on the
Armenians. One of his three sons, all of whom rose to high office, was
65
See Boyce, “Reflections on Zurvanism”; eadem, “Further Reflections on Zurvanism”; Shaked, “he
Myth of Zurvan.”
66
his is discussed critically in De Jong, “Jeh the Primal Whore?”
67
See Boyce, History of Zoroastrianism II, 233–4.
68
Especially in the one monograph devoted to the subject: Zaehner, Zurvan.
69
Boyce, History of Zoroastrianism II, 232.
named Zurvāndād, “given by Zurvān.”70 Although this fact has been much
highlighted, all other reports on Mihr-Narseh simply present him in the
traditional activities of a Zoroastrian politician: accumulating offices for
himself and his sons, founding temple-fires in his own name and the names
of his sons, and endowing them with rich estates. Zurvandad became, it
seems, the clerical head of the Zoroastrian scholar-priests, and he may have
attempted to spread the doctrine of Zurvan throughout the empire. But
other events quickly overtook such efforts.
the movement of mazdak and its consequences

his takes us to our final episode: the reign of Husraw I (r.531–39). he
period before Husraw’s reign was marked by intense religious turmoil,
sparked by the movement of a certain Mazdak.71 As the arch-villain of
Zoroastrian history, he is the target of extremely hostile reports, fatally
obscuring what really happened. While we must therefore be cautious
with the evidence, it is certain that some of the most drastic reforms in
Zoroastrian history followed on the trauma of this movement.
he Mazdakite movement appears in the sources chiefly as a move-
ment of social reform, advocating the redistribution of wealth and prop-
erty, including – famously – women. he sharing of women, which caught
the attention of the opponents of the Mazdakite movement, has created a
very lopsided image of the Mazdakites. he Sasanian law-book and later
Zoroastrian legal texts make it clear that lineage was a crucial issue in
Zoroastrian legal thought.72 Every Zoroastrian man was obliged to pro-
duce a legitimate son and heir, who was indispensable not only for the
management of his estate, but particularly for a set of ritual duties to com-
memorate his soul. If he did not have a son, he was expected to appoint
one to perform these duties. he idea of obscuring the lineage by dissolv-
ing the institution of marriage was thus both a social and a religious prob-
lem. Even if one takes into account their particular focus, there are many
indications in the sources that the Mazdakite movement was also a move-
ment of religious reform. In fact, the Mazdakites presented their ideas in
religious terms, claiming to offer an alternative, and better, interpretation
of the Zand.
70
he information comes from the Muslim historian Tabari; see Bosworth, Sāsānids, 103–6.
71
See Klíma, Mazdak; Crone, “Kavad’s Heresy”; idem, “Zoroastrian Communism”; Yarshater,
“Mazdakism.”
72
For the Sasanian law-book, see Macuch, Rechtskasuistik.
46 Albert de Jong
he real threat to the status quo came when the Sasanian king Kawād
was accused of supporting some Mazdakite ideas. he king was deposed,
to return after an interregnum; in his second reign, he is said to have
recanted his former support for the Mazdakites, and to have reigned long
and successfully. It is his son, Husraw, who made decided efforts to end
Mazdakism, by this time a full-fledged revolutionary movement.
For this, and for many other accomplishments, Husraw is remem-
bered as the most successful and the most pious of the Sasanian kings.73
In the domain of religion, the suppression of Mazdakism led to impor-
tant reforms, with a lasting impact on the development of Zoroastrianism.
One of them was the codification and writing down of the Avesta and its
Zand, the two halves of the revelation. Because the recitation of the Avesta
depended on a correct pronunciation of these texts in their own language,
a special alphabet was developed for it, in which even the smallest of pho-
netic differences could be recorded.
he Dēnkard, a compendium of Zoroastrian theological works from
the ninth century, has preserved a much-discussed passage on this process
of codification, showing the attempts of many earlier kings – including,
significantly, a Parthian king – to collect and codify the revelation, end-
ing in the reign of “his present Majesty,” Husraw I.74 Apart from thus
codifying the text and writing it down, it seems that even more drastic
measures were taken by this king. Although Zoroastrians were enjoined
to memorize the Avesta and to listen to the Zand, as it was expounded by
scholar-priests (hērbed) in priestly schools (hērbedestān),75 severe restric-
tions were imposed on this instruction. Every individual was to choose
a priest who would be in a position of spiritual authority (dastwar) over
him, and whose decisions in ritual and religious matters, based on his
knowledge of the Zand, were binding.76 According to several texts, the
teaching of the Zand, in a further development, came to be forbidden to
the laity.
his development is part of a process of scripturalization, and with it
more intensive study of the now codified corpus of the revelation.77 his
is evident from the way in which passages from the Avesta and the Zand
are quoted. Most often, quotations are vague. here are references only to
“the revelation” (in the often occurring phrase “he/it says in the religion”),
73
For a magisterial description, see Christenen, L’Iran, 363–440.
74
he most reliable discussion of the text is Shaked, Dualism in Transformation, 99–103.
75
See the introduction to Kotwal and Kreyenbroek, Hērbedestān.
76
Kreyenbroek, “Spiritual Authority.”
77
Shaked, “Scripture and Exegesis.”
followed by the quotation of small passages of Avestan text or – much

more regularly – passages from the Zand. A new system made reference to
one of the twenty-one sections of the Avesta-with-Zand that were devised
in the sixth century (“it is stated in the Dāmdād Nask”), thus making it
easier to check for accuracy among those who had memorized that par-
ticular section. A final system of reference specified chapters of text (“it is
said in the fifth chapter of the Vendidad”), in which case we have arrived
at an almost literate stage of the development. We can assume that scholar-
priests now no longer relied exclusively on oral transmission, but also used
written sources for reference.78
concluding remarks
he period of Zoroastrian and Iranian history we have been reviewing was a
long and eventful one. At the beginning of the Arsacid empire, Zoroastrians
lived in a religious world that had completely vanished by late Sasanian
times. he Iranians in early Arsacid times shared their empire with Greeks
and Babylonians, whose temples, festivals, and priests flourished as they
had in the centuries before.79 heir vassals – such as the kings of Elymais,
Characene, and Hatra – reigned in kingly fashion, richly endowing sanc-
tuaries devoted to their own ancestral gods.80 Although their religion may
have set an example, the Arsacids otherwise thought better of exerting their
influence. he royal practice of religion, and its emulation by local nobles,
must have been the professional domain of priests attached to the courts
and estates, just as village communities were administered by community
priests. Because of the lack of concrete evidence, the reconstruction of reli-
gion in the Arsacid empire is necessarily a static one. here is little hope
of recovering stages of developments or of the ways in which the common
people practiced and experienced their religion. One distinctive feature of
it, however, was local variety: the cult of rivers, mountains, and other sig-
nificant places. Another, better attested, aspect is the great importance of
the cult of the ancestors.
What remains unseen is not only the religion of the ordinary Iranians in
this period, but also the priestly tradition.81 his is the first instance where
78
he most recent discussion of the Zand in historical context is Cantera, Pahlavi-Übersetzung.
79
For the great temples of Mesopotamia, see Van der Spek, “Cuneiform Documents”; the considerable
evidence for Greek religion is collected in Canali de Rossi, Estremo Oriente Greco.
80
For Elymais, see Hansman, “Great Gods”; for Hatra, Drijvers, “Hatra, Palmyra und Edessa.”
81
his is only slightly remedied by the evidence from Greek and Latin literature; for discussion, see De
Jong, Traditions of the Magi.
48 Albert de Jong
we have to rely on the simple fact that the religion, with its Avestan texts,
its high rituals, and its theological traditions, survived, to reemerge in writ-
ten sources in the Sasanian period. he priests, as bearers of the tradition,
are regularly found, moreover, in descriptions of the Persians in Greek and
Latin literature. In addition, the evidence from Armenia suggests that the
local and family-based characteristics of Parthian Zoroastrianism made that
religion appealing to the Armenians. Although Zoroastrianism reached the
Armenians long before the Arsacids, their version of the religion is strongly
colored by Parthian traditions, evidently allowing the Armenians to com-
bine their practice of Zoroastrianism with a strong and proud sense of
their cultural distinctiveness.
In the third century, when the Sasanians removed the Arsacids as the
rulers of Iran, the religious world had changed dramatically, with the rise of
Christianity, the gradual erosion of traditional religion in Babylonia, and
the impending rise of Manichaeism with its universal message. Official
declarations by Ardashir and his successors about the restoration of former
glories and especially of unity suggest that the capacity of the Parthian
empire to forge loyalty to the Arsacid dynasty by allowing local and
regional autonomy was now seen as a weakness. While the Zoroastrianism
of the Parthians was not questioned in itself, this new vision of the empire
was especially visible in the sphere of religion. One clear indication of this
was the eradication of signs of regional diversity and the most important
sources of local resistance: the dynastic shrines and the sanctuaries of indi-
vidual deities.
While there is thus some truth in the image of the Sasanians as devout
Zoroastrians, it is true only for a specific variety of that religion, the one that
was to prove successful. heir version of the religion was arguably much
better equipped to answer the threat of Christianity and Manichaeism. It
was aniconic and hence less vulnerable to accusations of idolatry. It had
its own version of universality, with a revealed message for all mankind.
And it had a well-organized body of priests, a network of fire-temples, and
institutions of learning. Zoroastrian priests dominated legal institutions
and participated fully in the exchange of ideas that was characteristic of
the Sasanian period.
Late Sasanian times present an image of Zoroastrianism similar to
that of the other important religions of the empire, rabbinic Judaism and
Christianity. he transformation of Zoroastrianism from a religion shar-
ing important characteristics with the traditional religions of the ancient
world to one resembling the religions of Late Antiquity shows the capacity
of its priests and laymen to absorb new ideas and adapt to new circum-
stances. It also helps to answer the question: How did a religion apparently
so closely connected to its kings survive the Arab conquests? Although it
lost all of its territory and its adherents all came to live under Muslim rule,
Zoroastrianism lived on as the only representative of an imperial religion
dating back to the first millennium bce.
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2
CREATING LOCAL RELIGIOUS IDENTITIES

IN THE ROMAN NEAR EAST
ted kaizer
he attentive visitor to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge may spot

in room 24 a beautiful, large statue in basalt stone that, according to
the accompanying label, represents a “syncretistic, Syrian military deity”
(Fig. 1). he statue, from the Syrian Hauran region, circa 100km south
to southeast of Damascus, was published in the acquisitions guide of the
museum but has, to the best of my knowledge, not otherwise been dis-
cussed in scholarly literature.1 In 1979 the Keeper of Antiquities, Dick
Nicholls, described it in a slightly longer, unpublished report to the then
director of the museum as follows:
his statue, possibly the finest of the Hauran sculptures now surviving, lacks its
arms and legs but is otherwise splendidly preserved. he head is that of a goddess
wearing drop ear-rings, a splendid late Roman link-in-link chain necklace with
animal-head finials and a central medallion and, in her hair, the form of the Greek
stephanē that had by Roman times evolved into a kind of crown worn by certain
goddesses such as Venus and Diana. . . . Her hair is rendered in one of the develop-
ments from the much older Hellenistic “melon style” that became widespread in
the eastern Roman provinces in the 3rd century AD, and more especially in the
later part of that century. he figure wears a military cloak, fastened at the right
shoulder by a brooch with ivy-leaf pendants hanging by chains, and a breastplate.
he latter terminates below the androgynous breasts which mark the transition
I am very grateful to Bill Adler for asking me to contribute to this volume. Earlier versions were
presented as seminar papers at Cambridge and Aarhus, and I should like to thank Rebecca Flemming
and Rubina Raja for the respective invitations. I owe a special thank you to Lucilla Burn, Keeper of
Antiquities at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, for providing information about the statue
with which this paper starts, and for allowing me to quote from her predecessor’s unpublished report
from 1979.
1
Nicholls, Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge, Principal Acquisitions 1979–83, 36, no. 224. Lucilla Burn
informed me that there was an opportunity in 1979 or 1980 to analyze a sample of the stone, since
the statue’s head proved to have been detached and there were some problems mounting it, and that
it was then confirmed to be “olivine basalt,” common throughout Syria but especially characteristic
for the Hauran.
54
Local Religious Identities in the Roman Near East 55
Fig. 1. Statue of a “syncretistic, Syrian military deity” from the Hauran. Now in
the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Courtesy of the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam
Museum.
56 Ted Kaizer
from a female head to a male body and is worn without shoulder-guards. he

preserved shoulders and struts from the body show that both arms were lowered
to the sides. he right arm held a double-bladed battle axe, the blades and top
of which are preserved against the right shoulder. . . . he left arm also held an
attribute, of which the only part surviving is the head of a snake that extends over
on to the breastplate. Almost certainly, what the statue held was the kerykeion, or
herald’s staff, of Hermes, twined with two snakes.
he report further recognized elements of different gods and goddesses
in the figure: Zeus, Aphrodite, and Hermes, who were equated with the
Syrian deities Hadad, Atargatis, and Simois, respectively, and connected
with the planets Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury. Noting that sculptures from
the Hauran – in the words of Nicholls, “possibly the most remarkable of
all branches of provincial Roman art” – were not at all well presented in
British museums, he was especially keen to buy the statue because it comple-
mented the so-called shrine of Malikat already in the Fitzwilliam (Fig. 2).2
his monolithic monument, with a preserved height of half a meter, and a
hollow interior that originally housed a divine image or sacred object, owes
its name to a Greek inscription referring to the lamp originally topping the
shrine: Λύχῶος Μαλειχάθου (Malikat being the very common indigenous
name behind the Greek transcription). he monument is especially nota-
ble for its side reliefs: on the right, a bust of a sun-god with solar crown,
wearing a chiton, and on the left, a bust of a moon-goddess with accom-
panying crescent. As is emphasized correctly in the museum catalog, this
divine imagery does not necessarily hint at the deity or deities to whom the
monument would have been dedicated. he view traditionally held among
scholars – namely, that the supreme gods of most localities in the Near East
had become solar deities by the Hellenistic period – was put straight by a
classic article of Henri Seyrig. Seyrig pointed out that in virtually all cases
the sun-god in the local religions of the classical Levant was never actually
identified with the relevant supreme deity, but did instead become one of
the latter’s main manifestations.3 Solar imagery – often, but certainly not
always, in combination with a lunar representation – was in any case very
present in many local Near Eastern religious contexts, where it could be
used to portray, in some sort of abbreviated format, the cosmic settings of
the divine world, as, for example, on the lintels of the Palmyrene temples
of Bel and of Baal-Shamin.4
2
Budde and Nicholls, A Catalogue of the Greek and Roman Sculpture, 78–9, no. 126 with pl. 42.
3
Seyrig, “Le culte du soleil.”
4
Gawlikowski, “Aus dem syrischen Götterhimmel.” For the lintels from the temples of Bel and of
Baal-Shamin at Palmyra, see Drijvers, Religion of Palmyra, pl. II and pl. XXXII, respectively.
Fig. 2. Miniature “shrine,” supporting lamp of Malikat, from the Hauran. Now in
the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Courtesy of the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam
Museum.
58 Ted Kaizer
he brief introductory remarks about these two relatively unknown

sculptures in the Fitzwilliam have touched upon some of the issues that
will be addressed in this chapter. here is something, whether it is in their
material, style, or iconographic detail, that makes the sculptures instantly
recognizable as inherently “Oriental” or, rather, “Near Eastern.” Some ele-
ments, such as the busts of the sun and the moon deities on the sides of
the miniature shrine, or the military breastplate of the statue, are similar
to, or even identical with, evidence known from elsewhere in the Near
East. Other aspects cannot be pinned down so easily, and it is especially
the unprecedented combination of this particular set of iconographic fea-
tures that turns the statue of the “syncretistic, Syrian military deity” into
a unique, unparalleled divine figure. While we can withhold judgment on
the report’s precise identification of the statue, its characterization of the
figure through iconographic features and requisites relating to different
deities calls to mind the device applied in a well-known passage in the
only contemporary account of pagan worship in the Roman Near East by
someone claiming to be an insider: On the Syrian Goddess, attributed to
the second-century satirist Lucian of Samosata. Here the author describes
the statue of the main goddess at the large temple of Hierapolis (Mabog,
in northern Syria) as follows:5
Certainly, the image of Zeus looks entirely like Zeus in features and clothes and
seated posture; you could not identify it otherwise even if you wished. But when
you examine Hera, her image appears to be of many forms. While the overall
effect is certainly that of Hera, she also has something of Athena and Aphrodite
and Selene and Rhea and Artemis and Nemesis and the Fates. In one hand she has
a sceptre, in the other a spindle, and on her head she wears rays, a tower, and the
kestos with which they adorn Ourania alone.
he description then continues, referring to precious stones sent to the
goddess from far away and elaborating on the radiating lychnis she wears
on her head. It may be known for certain from other sources, such as
Strabo and Pliny the Elder, that she was Atargatis,6 or rather Atar-ate, as
5
Lucian, Syr. d. 32: Καὶ δῂτα τὸ μὲῶ τοῦ Διὸς ἄγαλμα ἐς Δία πάῶτα ὁρῃ καὶ κεφαλὴῶ καὶ εἵματα
καὶ ἕδρηῶ, καί μιῶ οὐδὲ ἐθέλωῶ ἄλλως εἰκάσεις. ἡ δὲ Ἥρη σκοπέοῶτί τοι πολυειδέα μορφὴῶ
ἐκφαῶέει· καὶ τὰ μὲῶ ῷύμπαῶτα ἀτρεκέϊ λόγῳ Ἥρη ἐστίῶ, ἔχει δέ τι καὶ Ἀθηῶαίης καὶ Ἀφροδίτης
καὶ Σεληῶαίης καὶ Ῥέης καὶ Ἀρτέμιδος καὶ Νεμέσιος καὶ Μοιρέωῶ. χειρὶ δὲ τῃ μὲῶ ἑτέρῃ σκῂπτροῶ
ἔχει, τῃ ἑτέρῃ δὲ ἄτρακτοῶ, καὶ ἐπὶ τῃ κεφαλῃ ἀκτῖῶάς τε φορέει καὶ πύργοῶ καὶ κεστὸῶ τ῭
μούῶηῶ τὴῶ Οὐραῶίαῶ κοσμέουσιῶ. he translation follows Lightfoot, Lucian, On the Syrian
Goddess, which is both an excellent edition and commentary on a complicated text and the most
extensive study of Near Eastern religion in book form thus far.
6
Strabo 16.1.27 (748): ἡ Βαμβύκη, ἣῶ καὶ Ἔδεσσαῶ καὶ Ἱερὰῶ πόλιῶ καλοῦσιῶ, ἐῶ ᾗ τιμῬσι τὴῶ
Συρίαῶ θεὸῶ τὴῶ Ἀταργάτιῶ (“Bambyce, which is also called Edessa and Hierapolis, where the
Syrian goddess Atargatis is worshipped” [LCL]); Pliny, Nat. 5.19.81: Bambycen quae alio nomine
coin legends from Hellenistic Hierapolis and Aramaic inscriptions from

elsewhere in the Near East inform us.7 But that is not how the treatise refers
to her. Instead, it seems clear that this explicit syncretism (if the word may
be used) – the invocation of other divine names in order to make a deity
understandable – is a way to approach the uniquely local, indigenous dei-
ties of the Near East not only on the part of modern scholars but also in
Antiquity. Of course, this is only Lucian, and if it was not Lucian, then
it was at least an equally skilled literator who presents himself as some-
one able to give inside information while imitating the linguistic style of
Herodotus with near perfection, as Jane Lightfoot has now established
beyond reasonable doubt. Naturally, it could be argued that the fact that
On the Syrian Goddess was first and foremost meant to be a linguistic play
on its Herodotean model has a serious effect on its usefulness for histor-
ical purposes. But it should also be recognized that even if the piece was
meant as tongue-in-cheek, the joke could only have worked if the author
managed to portray a realistic representation of religious life in the wider
Roman Syria. While the text may therefore not have given an accurate pic-
ture of what went on in this specific sanctuary at Hierapolis, it is emblem-
atic of religious life in the Near Eastern lands as a whole.8
Moving away from the literary nuances, something similar can indeed
be observed at the ostentatious hierothesion at Nemrud Dag, the tomb
sanctuary of Antiochus I, king over Commagene from circa 70 to 36 bce.
he enormous statues on the west and east terraces of Mount Nemrud,
among which the king himself is also seated, are explicitly identified in
the inscriptions running on the back of the statues as Ζεὺς Ὠρομάσδης,
Ἀπόλλωῶ Μίθρης Ἥλιος Ἑρμῂς, and Ἀρτάγῶης Ἡρακλῂς Ἄρης – the
ultimate embodiment of the notion of syncretism, and the same gods with
whom the king portrayed himself on the multiple dexiōsis reliefs that were
set up throughout his kingdom (Fig. 3).9 Naturally, these over-the-top
remnants of the royal dynastic cult of Commagene do not seem to tell
us much about the area’s indigenous religious culture. However, even if
they proceeded from the religious and political program of the slightly
Hierapolis vocatur, Syris vero Mabog – ibi prodigiosa Atargatis, Graecis autem Derceto dicta, colitur
(“Bambyce which is also called by another name, Hierapolis, but by the Syri Mabog; there the mon-
strous goddess Atargatis is worshipped, but called Derketo by the Greeks” [LCL]).
7
Lightfoot, Lucian, On the Syrian Goddess, 4–6 and 13–14 for references to coins and inscriptions, and
434–43 on the above-quoted description of the iconography of the temple’s statue.
8
I have made this point in Kaizer, “Introduction,” 28–9.
9
For the tomb sanctuary, see Sanders, Nemrud Dağı; for the dexiôsis reliefs, see Petzl, “Antiochos I. von
Kommagene,” and for the epigraphic sources on Antiochus’s ruler cult, see Crowther and Facella,
“New evidence for the ruler cult of Antiochus.” Cf. Facella, La dinastia degli Orontidi, 279–85.
60 Ted Kaizer
Fig. 3. Dexiōsis relief of Antiochus I of Commagene with Artagnes Heracles Ares, in

situ at Arsameia on the Nymphaios. Photo by Ted Kaizer.
megalomaniac Antiochus himself, they still needed to be sufficiently geared

to his subjects in order to realize their potential as adherents to the cults.
he religious structures in Commagene are of course very distinct from
those known from other areas within the Near East. But any bird’s-eye view
of the religious life of the wider region, even if far from comprehensive,
will immediately reveal that the same can be said about most other places
as well.10 Patterns of worship in the many cities, villages, and subregions
that constituted the Roman Near East (see Map 2) were above all very
different from each other, despite some obvious similarities. It is true that
the various local temple complexes were all embedded in subregions with
quite specific geological characteristics, which obviously had a bearing on
their relevant cultural developments. But the geographical divisions cannot
explain all the variety, and neither should that variety be attributed to the
undeniable imbalance in the spread of evidence. Literary sources are scant
and – with the exception of the aforementioned On the Syrian Goddess,
which has its own instruction manual, and Philo of Byblos’s Phoenician
History, which according to its title is geographically speaking of a more
limited value – mostly useless. Still, they are interesting for their approach.
he Church Father Tertullian’s statement from the late second century that
“each individual region and each locality had its own deity,” linking Syria
to the goddess Astartes and Arabia to the god Dusares, is a key example
of the simplified treatment that the religious life of the Roman Near East
suffered at the hands of Christian and other literary sources.11 An enigmatic
passage in the Syriac Oration of Melito the Philosopher, which claims to be a
Christian speech addressed to a Roman emperor, gives a list of which dei-
ties received a cult where. he section, which possibly comes from a differ-
ent source from that of the rest of the discourse, takes a euhemeristic form,
describing how the respective gods and goddesses came to be worshipped
as a result of their benefactions made while human. he often confusing
passage states, for example, how “the Phoenicians worshipped Belti, queen
of Cyprus” and “the Syrians worshipped Atti, a woman from Adiabene,
who sent the daughter of BLT, a nurse, and she cured SYMY, the daughter
of Hadad, the king of Syria,” while “on Nebu then, who is in Mabog, why
10
For an attempted bird’s-eye view of local religious life in the Hellenistic and Roman Near East as a
whole, see Kaizer, “Introduction,” 2–10.
11
Tertullian, Apol. 24.7: unicuique etiam provinciae et civitati suus deus est, ut Syriae Astartes, ut Arabiae
Dusares, ut Noricis Belenus, ut Africae Caelestis, ut Mauritaniae reguli sui (“every individual prov-
ince, every city, has its own god; Syria has Astartes; Arabia, Dusares; the Norici Belenus; Africa, her
Heavenly Virgin, Mauretania its chieftains” [LCL]).
62 Ted Kaizer
shall I write to you? For behold, all the priests who are in Mabog know
that this is the image of Orpheus, the hracian magian, and Hadaran, this
is the image of Zaradusta, the Persian magian, because these two practised
magianism to a well which was in the forest near Mabog.”12 Similarly, in
the sixth century, Jacob of Serugh in his homily On the Fall of the Idols
describes how Satan places Antioch under the protection of Apollo, Edessa
under that of Nebu and Bel, Harran under that of the moon-god Sin and
Baal-Shamin, and so forth.13
Such “fractionation”14 of worship in the Near East, as the literary sources
with their simplified treatment propagate it, was of course not reflected by
the cultic realities. he cults of individual gods and goddesses were not
restricted to particular places only, and many of them were worshipped
throughout the wider region. It seems logical, then, that worshippers of a
deity with the same name in different localities in the Near East (for exam-
ple adherents to the cult of Bel at Palmyra, Apamea, and Edessa, among
other places) must have shared a certain focus in their worship of that
deity, even if they operated quite differently from each other within their
respective local contexts. However, whether we should therefore assume
that the multifarious idolization of individual deities was the result of one
“central” cult of a particular deity being distributed over the Near East is
a different matter. Such multiple occurrences of a god’s idolization could
also, and maybe better, be understood as being in the first place local cults,
thanks to whose totality of pluralist identities the notion of a Near Eastern
cult of that god would be shaped.15
If a Near Eastern religion in the Roman period may be hard to distin-
guish, several broad patterns of resemblance – such as the application of
certain types of cult titles to deities, some specific rituals, and above all the
presence of a number of nonclassical languages – have certainly assisted in
the recognition (in any case on the part of modern scholars) of elements
known from specific local contexts as generally Near Eastern. In his Burnett
12
Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, 24, lines 15–25, line 23 (Syriac text). For a translation of the pas-
sage with further references, see Kaizer, “In search of Oriental cults,” 30–5. For discussion, see now
above all Lightfoot, “he Apology of Pseudo-Meliton”; eadem, “Pseudo-Meliton and the cults of the
Roman Near East.” While I would of course not want to suggest that it was Lucian himself who
wrote the piece in his alleged mother tongue (Bis. acc. 27), it might be worth contemplating that the
Oration of Melito the Philosopher (or at least its euhemeristic section) could also be read in a manner
similar to On the Syrian Goddess, as a linguistic play on an unknown, perhaps only orally transmit-
ted, Aramaic model of localizing religious history.
13
Martin, “Discours de Jacques de Saroug,” 110, line 42–112, line 91 (Syriac text).
14
Kaizer, “Introduction,” 1.
15
As was argued in Kaizer, “In search of Oriental cults,” 39–41.
Map 2. he Roman Near East
63
64 Ted Kaizer
lectures at Aberdeen University from 1888 to 1891, William Robertson Smith

famously orated on the “religion of the Semites.”16 Scholars at least since
then have searched for common characteristics of religious practice among
the inhabitants of the Near East who spoke one of the Semitic languages.
Mikhaïl Rostovtzeff formulated it as a “religious κοιῶή, familiar to all the
Semites and to the semitized Greeks and Iranians throughout Babylonia,
Mesopotamia, Syria, and Arabia.”17 As Fergus Millar has pointed out, this
search is not only understandable, but also in principle legitimate: “Given
the fundamental importance of language to the emergence of nationalism
in the modern world, it is natural that we should pose the question, pro-
vided that we remain aware that it may embody completely inappropri-
ate preconceptions.”18 However, one would need a large-scale study of the
applied terminology for religious practices in the various Semitic languages
and dialects in order to establish properly to what degree relevant phra-
seology was shared between different local and subregional communities
in the Near East as a whole. he jury is still out over the degree to which
the use of different Aramaic dialects, such as Palmyrenean, Hatrean, and
Nabataean, could provide a “common link” for the pagan cult centers in
the Levant. Naturally, these different dialects followed their own trajectory
from the period when they started to develop from the dominant “impe-
rial Aramaic” onward, but that is not to say necessarily that it was only
Greek, the new lingua franca in the Near East since Alexander, that could
meet such a need, as Glen Bowersock wanted to see it.19
Scholars have attempted to get around the apparent variety in Near
Eastern forms of religious life in various ways. Maurice Sartre proposed
a traditional division in multiple pantheons (Phoenician, Aramean, and
Arab), “that correspond to each other without being identical.”20 However,
the evidence from the different places in the Near East is seldom good
enough to warrant the recognition of clearly structured relations between
different divinities on the local level, let alone of a proper religious system
on a larger scale, and talking of Phoenician, Aramean, and Arab panthe-
ons is a huge oversimplification. Indeed, William Robertson Smith in his
final lecture series on the subject already recognized that it is the physical
16
Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites.
17
Rostovtzeff, Dura-Europos and its Art, 66. For useful criticism of his influential thesis, see Dirven,
Palmyrenes of Dura-Europos, xix–xxii.
18
Millar, Roman Near East, 11.
19
Bowersock, Hellenism in Late Antiquity, 15–16. On the variety of Aramaic dialects in the Roman
Near East, see most recently Gzella, “Das Aramäische in den römischen Ostprovinzen.”
20
Sartre, L’Orient romain, 490: “Le premier aspect qu’il faut souligner est la présence de panthéons
différents, qui se recoupent sans être identiques. Il faut distinguer entre les panthéons phéniciens,
araméens et arabes.”
connection between a deity and its local sanctuary that is fundamental.21

he idea that the divine worlds of the Roman Near East were “mixtures”
of larger pantheons basically builds on the classic thesis of Otto Eissfeldt
that nearly all Near Eastern sites were founded, or at least refounded,
in the Hellenistic period; that they underwent influence not only from
the Greco-Roman world (and in some cases from the Parthian and later
also Persian spheres), but also from the surrounding “Arab” populations;
but that ultimately, and most importantly, their local religious cultures
remained at heart indigenous.22 Consecutively, it has often been argued
that the assumed “indigenous nature of Near Eastern religion” was visible
also in the Greco-Roman appearance of the Levantine temples. Above all,
the separation of the innermost sanctuary, the adyton (θάλαμος in Lucian’s
terminology [On the Syrian Goddess 31]), from the cella, the temple build-
ing proper, is said to reflect the primitive chapel, which despite its “super-
ficial” Greco-Roman veneer remains the home of the indigenous deity. he
indigenous Near Eastern deities are believed to have remained untouched
by the interpretatio Graeca from the Roman period, even if the classical
cover layer at first glance suggests otherwise.
he religious history of the Roman Near East has, inevitably and invari-
ably, been analyzed in terms of an intersection between “indigenous” and
“foreign” (mostly classical) elements, between “local” aspects and those
coming from, or at least ascribed to, different cultural spheres of influence.
One way around this problem would be a radical appreciation that those
elements of a local religion that were themselves not “local,” or at least not
local in origin, could over time become considered an intrinsic part of that
same local religion, and would subsequently lose any foreign association
to which they had been subject in an earlier phase. hus, a relief from
the temple of Bel at Palmyra showing a naked Heracles figure with club
and lion skin, standing alongside three deities in traditional Palmyrene
dress, ought really to be discussed as a relief of four gods, all of which are
Palmyrene (Fig. 4). Although the iconography of the Heracles figure may
be originally Greek, the style in which he is depicted on this relief is sim-
ilar to that of the other deities, and hence very local. his is even clearer
at Hatra, originally a Parthian stronghold in the northern Mesopotamian
Jazirah steppe, where the Heracles figure could be depicted wearing typi-
cally Hatrene jewelry.23 According to the available sources, both at Palmyra
21
Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites. 2nd and 3rd Series, 62–4.
22
Eissfeldt, Tempel und Kulte, 9, 153–4.
23
For example, Sommer, Hatra. Abb. 117.
66 Ted Kaizer
Fig. 4. Relief of four Palmyrene deities, including a Heracles figure, from the temple
of Bel at Palmyra. Courtesy of the General Director of Antiquities and Museums,
Syria.
and at Hatra, the Heracles figure formed very much a part of the local
religious setup.
In order to make sense of the often baffling evidence – and as an alter-
native to the still fashionable theory of an accumulation of rather “station-
ary” religious layers, of which the latest, the classical one, is believed to
have had no real impact on the indigenous religious elements – it may be
more helpful to postulate a process of continuous renegotiation of religious
elements taking place in the context of the various open local cultures, a
process that did not take place automatically in what moderns might view
as a progressive or logical format.24 hat said, it remains a problem that the
static nature of the documentary and visual evidence seems to show the
opposite of the dynamism of the model of continuous renegotiation. But
if the religious worlds of the Roman Near East may have been more depen-
dent on tradition than this model seems to take into account, it is also a
very risky assumption to conclude from the static nature of the evidence
that pagan religious practice in the Near East was therefore unchanging
and unchangeable in the Roman period.25
24
For this model, see Kaizer, “he ‘Heracles figure’,” 225–6.
25
Contra, for example, Teixidor, Pagan God, 6.
So far it has been argued that gods and their cults in the Near East
ought to be interpreted first and foremost as conditioned by their direct
local context, and that these local forms of religious life must have under-
gone continuing development, even if the nature of the evidence does not
always help to reveal such development. But by what means were local reli-
gious identities created? In order to answer that question in full, attention
ought to be paid to a variety of aspects, such as, for example, the language
chosen by the worshipper to address his or her deity and to publicize his
or her adherence to its cult; the actual terminology used in the inscriptions
to describe the gods and to deal with the complicated divine worlds; the
way the gods are depicted in sculptures and on coins; the sort of temple
in which a particular deity was worshipped and that temple’s location in
relation to other sacred places within the locality; and the financial backing
for a cult and its maintenance. hese are only some of the issues related to
the large and commonly ignored subject of the mechanics by which specif-
ically local gods and goddesses could be created, by their worshippers and
observers alike, in the Roman Near East. And only some of them can be
dealt with in a little more detail in what follows.
It is fitting to look first at the widely spread worship throughout the
region of so-called toponymic deities, gods and goddesses who were explic-
itly named after a specific locality. hey provide important case studies, as
it is clear that the local context is by definition of the utmost relevance for
our understanding of the cult centered on a “universally known” god with
an epithet that links him to his place of origin, whether a famous city in
the case of Zeus Damaskēnos or a village owned by a temple complex in
the middle of the Jebel Ansariyeh in the case of Zeus Baitokēkē.26 By means
of such expressions, worshippers applied explicit labels of cultural identi-
fication to their deities. hese can therefore illuminate the way in which
the inhabitants of the Near East conceived of themselves – namely, above
all belonging to a particular city or (even more common) a particular vil-
lage. he Roman Near East has been described as “a world of villages.”27
Although the archaeological remains of these villages and small towns are
scant and often lost, the multitude of inscribed dedications to their local
gods show that they often formed the focal point in daily life.
26
On Zeus Damaskènos: IGLS XIII.1 no. 9013 (an inscription actually found at Bostra), and see
now Freyberger, “Im Zeichen des höchsten Gottes.” On Zeus Baitokēkē: IGLS III no. 4028, with
Steinsapir, Rural Sanctuaries in Roman Syria, 31–45. Further examples of toponymic deities are
innumerable.
27
Millar, Roman Near East, for example, 228, 250, 292, 390.
68 Ted Kaizer
hat is of course not to say that we can claim to know who these local
deities really were, since we are handicapped by the nearly complete absence
of sources that may have hinted at what the inhabitants of the Near East
actually “believed.” Inscriptions commonly form the basis of our investiga-
tions, providing the opportunity to attend first and foremost to the names
and epithets actually given to the deities by their worshippers. In a way,
therefore, as Fergus Millar phrased it, “the god is what the worshipper says
he is.”28 his is certainly right in the sense that most of our knowledge of
the divine world of the Roman Near East depends on the inscribed altars,
stelae, and columns that individual dedicants and benefactors paid for in
honor of specific inhabitants of that divine world. hat said, an ancient
worshipper would certainly not agree with this idea that he had “made up”
his own god. Surely, he just addressed his deity in the manner that seemed
to fit the appropriate situation best? In other words, and on a more theo-
logical level, the inhabitants of the local divine worlds within the Near East
were there perpetually and invariably. Worshippers could simply adjust
the divine names and approach deities in sometimes contradictory man-
ners, depending both on the local context and on the worshippers’ own
perspectives.
In addition to the use of toponymic epithets, a strong local religious
identity could also be expressed, and accordingly created, by using epithets
that were not connected to the place name of the town or the village as
such, but that were still restricted to one particular site. Two examples will
show, in different ways, how unique and local forms of religion must be
put in a wider context in order to gain full appreciation of the peculiar-
ity that seems to characterize them in the first place. he first example is
that of the well-known set of fascinating deities in the Limestone Massif,
the hinterland of the cities of northwest Syria. hey are characterized by
unique epithets that simultaneously reveal some conceptual similarity lying
underneath, namely a link with aniconic cult features.29 At Burj Baqirha
on the Jebel Barisha, the best-preserved temple of the Massif (Fig. 5) was
dedicated by local benefactors, according to the lintel of the temenos gate,
to Zeus Bōmos, Zeus “Altar.” At Srir, also on the Jebel Barisha, a temple
was built in classical style for Zeus Tourbarachos, the “ancestral deity,”
whose etymology is based on a junction of the Semitic roots swr and brk,
leading to something along the lines of “blessed rock.” At Kalota on the
Jebel Seman, to the northeast of Srir, a shrine belonged to Symbetylos,
28
Millar, Roman Near East, 248–9, 270.
29
For what follows, see Callot and Marcillet-Jaubert, “Hauts-lieux de Syrie du Nord”; Millar, Roman
Near East, 250–6; and Gatier, “Villages et sanctuaires.”
Fig. 5. he temple of Zeus Bōmos at Burj Baqirha. Photo by Ted Kaizer.
Zeus Seimos, and Leôn, thus to a deity whose name means “the one who
shares the betyl (the aniconic stone),” a god whose name may be con-
nected with the Semitic word for “name” (shem), and a divine figure called
“lion.”30 A fourth pagan temple, on top of the dominant hilltop in the
area, Jebel Sheikh Barakat, and hence from a topographical point of view
the most important of the set, was dedicated to Zeus Madbachos (mdbk’)
and Selamanes. Whereas the latter may be connected with an old Assyrian
divine name “Shulmanu,” the epithet of Zeus, Madbachos, is in fact the
Aramaic version of the Greek bōmos, “altar,” since mdbk’ comes from the
root dbk, “to sacrifice.”
Whether all those involved in the worship of these deities fully realized
the conceptual overlap between these cults is of course another matter. But
despite the fact that the individual divine names appear only in the context
of their own site, the idea of some sort of notional network between these
sanctuaries and their gods is hard to escape. Nevertheless, even if the deities
were named in similar fashion, the fact that their peculiar epithets seem to
30
he latter, and especially his association with an aniconic cult object, calls to mind a passage in
the early sixth-century Life of Isidorus (203) by the Neoplatonist Damascius, which is preserved in
Photius’s Bibliotheca, cod. 242 [348a-b]), in which an aniconic stone near Damascus replies to an
oracular question that it belonged to a deity worshipped in Baalbek in the shape of a lion. he story
may be suggestive, but of course it would be too far-fetched to look for any direct connection.
70 Ted Kaizer
have been restricted to one particular place only implies that worshippers
considered them individual deities. Simultaneously – and this is especially
relevant considering the nonclassical elements of the divine nomencla-
ture – it is worth emphasizing that the architectural expression given to
these cults in the Roman period is not indigenous but Greco-Roman.31
his observation may be used as a warning against too hastily drawn con-
clusions about the nature of these cults: despite the agreement in meaning
between the divine names, it is not an automatic given that in the Roman
period, the cults centered completely around aniconic imagery. Indeed, it
has now been convincingly argued by Milette Gaifman that the long-held
view that aniconic imagery was characteristic for the Near East as a whole
is no longer tenable, and that the scholarly model that contrasts aniconic
with anthropomorphic cult objects conflicts with the actual realities of
worship.32 As to the pagan temples in the Limestone Massif, it ought to
be noted that some anthropomorphic figures are indeed present. At the
start of the two roads leading up to the sanctuary at Srir, of the three roads
leading to the top of Jebel Sheik Barakat, and also of a road leading up
to Qal‘at Kalota are inscribed reliefs of a reclining Heracles figure. he
two reliefs at Srir differ from each other, and from the other ones, in one
important aspect: while the relief at the northern approach is dated to
130 ce according to the era of Antioch (year 179), the one at the southern
approach is dated to 131 ce according to the Seleucid era (year 445), show-
ing how the sanctuary was situated right at the border between the civic
territories of Antioch and of Chalcis, and hence raising questions about
the logistics of the temple’s administration and about the relevance that
this local rural temple must have had for the civic communities of two
major cities on either side.
he second example is that of Deir el-Qala, a place located on Mount
Lebanon with a view over the nearby colonia Berytus that functioned as
the center of worship of a god known as the “Lord of Dances.”33 His Latin
and Greek names, Jupiter Balmarcod and heos Balmarkōs, both attested
only at Deir el-Qala, come from the Semitic phrase b‘l mrqd, which has
that precise meaning. And like his more famous toponymic counterparts
from the Near East, the originally local gods of Doliche and Baalbek
31
hus Millar, Roman Near East, 255: “Continuity of cult over centuries is quite possible. Even if
that must remain a mere hypothesis, our evidence from this rural area makes it certain that the
Hellenistic cities did not wholly determine the nature of religious practices even at the heart of the
most Hellenised part of the Near East. Yet the expression given to this cult in architectural form
belongs, as always, to the Roman Empire.”
32
Gaifman, “Aniconic image.” Cf. Stewart, “Baetyls as statues?”
33
For what follows, see Rey-Coquais, “Deir el Qalaa.”
(known throughout the empire as Jupiter Optimus Maximus Dolichenus

and Jupiter Optimus Maximus Heliopolitanus, respectively), the Lord of
Dances could receive dedications to Jupiter Optimus Maximus Balmarcod,
similarly turning a local cult into a nominal alternative to the deity who
presented Rome’s most traditional and far-reaching parade of power. he
case of Deir el-Qala is of particular interest because it can provide a glimpse
into the role that mythology known from the classical world could play in
local religious contexts in the Roman Near East.34 he Dionysiac epithet
κοίραῶε κώμωῶ, “leader of the processional band of revellers,” which the
Lord of Dances received in at least one inscription, seems to confirm that
for at least some worshippers this indigenous divine figure was to be iden-
tified with Dionysus, the Greek god of merry-making, in whose cult pro-
cessional and wild dancing played such a major part.
If that is correct, it may be possible to explain the surprising presence
of some of the other deities who are mentioned in the inscriptions from
Deir el-Qala, such as Mater Matuta (the Latin equivalent of Leucothea),
Juno, and Poseidon. As is well known, these deities play a role in the myth
of Ino-Leucothea. Ino was the daughter of Cadmus and second wife of
Athamas, who – by bringing up Dionysus (the son of Zeus by her sister
Semele) – provoked the anger of Hera. In her revenge, the goddess drove
them mad so that Athamas killed their son, Learchus, and Ino jumped
with their other son, Melicertes, to their death into the sea. here, of
course, they were received by Poseidon as sea-divinities, under the names
of Leucothea and Palaemon. Interestingly, coins from Berytus, the city
closest to Deir el-Qala that issued coinage, often show a dolphin, alongside
Poseidon or his trident,35 and it could be that this imagery is connectable
to the version of the myth in which Melicertes-Palaemon is carried to the
Isthmus by a dolphin.36 It is of course a valid question to ask how much
of this story would actually have been known in a Hellenized city on the
Phoenician coast that had become a Roman colony in the late first century
bce, and especially why it is relevant to cultic practice in the immediate sur-
roundings of Berytus. However, as Denis Feeney has emphasized, mythol-
ogy functioned as a vital component of the continuous reproduction of
Greco-Roman religious culture.37 And as regards the Roman Near East
in particular, the unfolding of local mythologies was further complicated
34
For full details and references concerning the example that follows, see Kaizer, “Leucothea as Mater
Matuta,” and now also Aliquot, La vie religieuse au Liban, 164–9.
35
BMC Phoenicia, no. 11 (from the first century bce); SNG Cop., no. 102 (from the reign of Antoninus
Pius).
36
Pausanias 1.44.7–8 and 2.1.3; Statius, heb. 9.330.
37
Feeney, Literature and Religion.
72 Ted Kaizer
because there were no coherent “Oriental” mythological accounts that

were spread all over the region, comparable to Homer and Hesiod, or to
Ovid. he case of Deir el-Qala may therefore be used, with care, as a case
study of how a mythological “package” from the classical world contrib-
uted to the creation of a local religious identity.
Further problems are encountered when considering visual representa-
tions of mythological stories: as long as there is no written evidence to
tell us otherwise, it seems only natural for the modern scholar to assume
that a Near Eastern depiction of a myth known from the classical world
implies not only full knowledge of that classical myth on the part of the
relevant worshippers, but also adherence to the prevalent version from the
Greco-Roman world. In some cases, it must indeed have been a rather
straightforward process of interpretation. A relief on a basalt lintel from
the Hauran, now in the Louvre, represents – albeit in unclassically static
fashion – the judgment of Paris.38 For the observer unable to spot this
dynamic story immediately from the inactive line-up of figures on the
relief, the accompanying labels leave no space for doubt: from left to right
the figures are named as Paris himself, Hermes, Aphrodite, Athena, Hera,
and finally Zeus.
However, even if the divine figures are unambiguously identified by
accompanying inscriptions, what we get is not always what we seem to
see. In the late 1930s, excavations behind the temple of Bel at Palmyra
laid bare a mosaic with the figure of Cassiopeia, identified by an inscrip-
tion (Κασσιεπεια), revealing herself in all her naked beauty, with Poseidon
standing in the center of the scene (Fig. 6).39 When the mosaic was pub-
lished, it was concluded that this was a depiction of the well-known story
in which Cassiopeia, the wife of king Cepheus of Ethiopia, boasted that she
was more beautiful than the Nereids, with the result that an angry Poseidon
sent a sea-monster in revenge of Cassiopeia’s slight of the sea-goddesses,
with due consequences for Cassiopeia’s daughter Andromeda.40
he interpretation seemed very logical indeed. However, many years
later two mosaics were discovered at Apamea on the Orontes and at New
Paphos on Cyprus, respectively, that clearly show Cassiopeia as the victress
in her beauty contest with the Nereids, as she is crowned by a Nikē in the
presence of a divine judge (Poseidon again, on the mosaic from Apamea).41
38
Dunand, Le musée de Soueïda, 11–3, no. 1.
39
Stern, Les mosaïques, 26–42.
40
Apollodorus, Bibl., 2.4.3.
41
For the mosaic from Apamea, see Balty, Mosaïques antiques de Syrie, 82–7, nos. 36–8. For the mosaic
from New Paphos, see Bowersock, Hellenism in Late Antiquity, pl. 3.
Fig. 6. Mosaic of Cassiopeia from Palmyra. Courtesy of the General Director of

Antiquities and Museums, Syria.
No representation of the standard story, therefore, but an interesting twist

on the classical myth, as was first noted by Jean-Charles Balty.42 His theory
was built on by Janine Balty, who put forward a Neoplatonic interpreta-
tion of the mosaic:43 the victory of Cassiopeia, etymologically linked to
the toponymic deity of Mount Kasios, probably the most famous hill-
top in Syria, is believed to stand for the victory of the cosmic order over
the chaos of the aquatic powers – of the unchanging, immaterial world,
which is the real beauty, over the changing, material world, which is rep-
resented by the marine element. Indeed, the Suda identifies Cassiopeia as
hē kallonē, Beauty personified.44 Poseidon, standing in the center of the
Palmyrene mosaic and seated on the one from Apamea, seems far removed
from the raging sea-god acting out his revenge, as we know him from
classical mythology. On these Near Eastern mosaics, he is instead acting
as a wise judge and a more supreme deity. In fact, a bilingual inscription
from 39 ce from Palmyra explicitly identifies Poseidon with Elqonera, “El
the creator,”45 and it does not come as a surprise, then, that his place on
the mosaic from New Paphos has been taken by Aion (identified by an
inscription, Ἀιωῶ), the divine personification of the permanence of the
42
Balty, “Une version orientale méconnue.”
43
Balty, “Composantes classiques”; eadem, “Zénobie et le néoplatonisme.”
44
Suda, s.v. Kασσιέπεια, ed. Adler.
45
Hillers and Cussini, Palmyrene Aramaic Texts, no. 2779-IGLS XVII.I no. 318.
74 Ted Kaizer
cosmos. It is argued by Balty that this unique mixture between Oriental

cosmological conceptions and the Neoplatonic theory of the transmigra-
tion of souls could only have come into existence in the local circumstances
of Palmyra, where the philosopher Longinus spent the last years of his life
at the court of Zenobia, and that the idea was later copied at New Paphos
and at Apamea. In any case, the clear diversion from the classical story on
these three mosaics serves as a warning that our main sources for classical
mythology are insufficient to provide a supraregional framework to which
we can relate the indigenous deities of the Near East.
Nor can it be automatically assumed that ancient Mesopotamian
mythology was transmitted to the Roman Near East without changes,
as a discussion of the “battle relief ” on one of the beams from the tem-
ple of Bel at Palmyra can clarify (Fig. 7). With a few early exceptions of
scholars who wanted to see elements of the myth of Zeus and Typhon in
the relief,46 there has long been agreement that it depicts the fight against
Tiamat, known from the Babylonian epic of creation Enuma Elish (in
which the chief deity Marduk-Bel riding in his chariot had to overcome
the monster Tiamat in order to create the world), and that therefore the
famous Akitu festival from ancient Babylon was still celebrated in more
or less identical format a thousand years later in the caravan city in the
Syrian desert.47 However, Lucinda Dirven has drawn attention to some
important variations on the Babylonian myth.48 he monster on the
Palmyrene relief is represented with multiple legs in the shape of snakes.
In addition, the figure in the chariot, on the far left of the relief (Fig. 8),
is not the most important adversary of the chaos monster. Instead, the
central position of the action scene seems to go to a horse rider, who is
leading six other figures standing to the right of the relief.
If it is correct to view the figure in the chariot as Bel, this may be sur-
prising, since Bel was by far the most important god of the city. Dirven’s
iconographic analysis concludes convincingly that nearly all the six figures
who stand to the right of the horse rider can be identified with deities
who received a cult in the temple “of Nebu” at Palmyra.49 Nabu, as he
was known in ancient Mesopotamia, was the son of Marduk-Bel, and his
46
Note that Strabo (16.2.7) locates the mythical story of Typhon’s stroke by lightning “somewhere”
along the Orontes river, “formerly called Typhon.”
47
For example, Dalley, Legacy of Mesopotamia, 51; Tubach, “Das Akītu-Fest.”
48
For what follows, see Dirven, “he exaltation of Nabû”; eadem, Palmyrenes of Dura-Europos,
128–56.
49
For the inscriptions and sculptures from this temple, see Bounni, Seigne, and Saliby, Le sanctuaire de
Nabū à Palmyre. Planches; Bounni, Le sanctuaire de Nabū à Palmyre. Texte. Cf. Kaizer, Religious Life
of Palmyra, 89–99.
Fig. 7. “Battle relief ” from the temple of Bel at Palmyra. Photo by Ted Kaizer.
Fig. 8. Drawing of the missing part of the “battle relief ” from the temple of Bel at
Palmyra. Source: H. J. W. Drijvers, he Religion of Palmyra (Brill, 1976), pl. IV. 2.
76 Ted Kaizer
leading role on the battle relief would not be incompatible with the fact
that by the late Babylonian period he had reached a status virtually equal
to that of his father – a rise to power reflected in an ancient Mesopotamian
text known as he Exaltation of Nabu, and that scholars also believe to
have been manifested in the proceedings of the Akitu festival. However,
whether that says much about an Akitu festival at Palmyra is another mat-
ter. he temple “of Nebu” at Palmyra was, despite its central location, a
relatively minor religious building, certainly compared to that of Bel. And
the simple but often forgotten fact that Palmyra had no kingship (at least
not before Odaenathus and Zenobia’s episode) necessarily means that the
rituals of the ancient Mesopotamian festival, which served to confirm the
existing socio-political order centered around the king, cannot have had
the same meaning at Palmyra. On the other hand, as will be seen later
in this chapter, in 32 ce the temple of Bel at Palmyra was dedicated on
the sixth day of Nisan (April), falling precisely in the period in which the
Akitu festival was traditionally celebrated.
hus far, we have seen how inscriptions, sculptures, and mosaics could
contribute to the creation of local religious identities. It is only natural
that different source materials provide different sorts of information on
deities and their cults. Among the sources, the so-called Roman provin-
cial coinage stands out as the medium par excellence by which cities in
the eastern part of the Roman empire expressed their civic identity.50
Because these coins were issued by the city as a collectivity, the religious
imagery on such coinage was not the result of the piety of an individual
or a small group like a family. hey are therefore more significant than
individual dedications for our understanding of local religious identity
from a civic point of view. he religious imagery on these issues was
supposedly recognized, and worshipped, by the entire population of the
place where they were minted. However, as the following three examples
illustrate, the numismatic evidence for gods, cults, myths, and rituals at
a city does not provide a complete and impartial view of the patterns of
worship of that city. he coinage of cities in the eastern provinces of the
Roman empire presents a mere civic façade of religious life – indeed, a
façade decided on by, and thus in the first place reflecting, the religious
tastes of the local elites.
First, at Gerasa in the Syrian Decapolis, the earliest coins, struck from
the reign of Nero onward, have both Artemis and Zeus on the reverse, but
50
See Harl, Civic Coins and Civic Politics, and now Howgego, Heuchert, and Burnett, Coinage and
Identity.
from Hadrian onward, only Artemis appears on coins, usually explicitly

identified as the Tyche of the citizens of Gerasa.51 It seems clear that this
development signifies the increasingly important role of the goddess in
the public presentation of the city outward, to such a degree that she
even came to monopolize it. But it is not the whole story.52 Both Zeus
and Artemis occupied a large sanctuary at Gerasa. But whereas the tem-
ple of Zeus goes back to the late Hellenistic period, possibly even to a
prehistoric grotto, the temple of Artemis was built only under Hadrian,
resulting in a substantial reconstruction of the city’s center. With the
new temple built, the temple of Zeus became, in a geographical sense, a
bit peripheral. But that is not to say that this temple ceased to perform
an important function in day-to-day religious life, and inscriptions do
indeed tell us that it continued to be well maintained throughout the
second and third centuries ce.53
Second, at Scythopolis in the Decapolis, also known as Nysa – after the
nymph who acted as nurse of the baby Dionysus and who was supposed to
have been buried here – strong local traditions led to the complete domina-
tion of the city’s coinage by Dionysus.54 he god is depicted on issues from
the early Roman period onward, but it is only in the late second century
ce that a new visual program came to be introduced: Dionysus’s mytho-
logical world now became directly connected with the local foundation
legends, and a number of scenes appeared for the first time. Coins struck
under the Severans and Gordian III show the second birth of Dionysus
out of Zeus’s thigh, after which he is handed over to the nymph Nysa, who
is depicted on the coins with the corona muralis of the city protectress.
Other coins from the early third century show how the baby Dionysus is
cradled by Nysa, again depicted with a mural crown. And an issue from
the reign of Gordian III shows the god riding in a biga drawn by two pan-
thers, a reference to his triumphal return from India.55 Taking all this into
account, it seemed logical that at the beginning of the twentieth century,
archaeologists chose to identify the large temple on top of the acropo-
lis at Beth-Shean, the modern name of Scythopolis, as that of Dionysus.
Who else? However, later epigraphic finds have revealed that this temple
was actually dedicated to another god, to Zeus Akraios, according to his
51
Spijkerman, Coins of the Decapolis, 156–67; Lichtenberger, Kulte und Kultur, 195–200.
52
See now Lichtenberger, “Artemis and Zeus Olympios.”
53
For a new discussion of the temple, see Raja, “Changing spaces and shifting attitudes.”
54
See now Barkay, Coinage of Nysa-Scythopolis.
55
he respective coins are Spijkerman, Coins of the Decapolis, 194–5, no. 23; 198–9, no. 32, and 202–3,
nos. 46–48; 208–9, nos. 60–1. Cf. Barkay, Coinage of Nysa-Scythopolis, 123–4, with clear drawings of
the images.
78 Ted Kaizer
epithet “dwelling on heights.”56 And according to recent excavations, the

main cult of Dionysus at the city was located in a smaller sanctuary in the
center.57 Dionysus’s domination of the civic coinage of Nysa-Scythopolis
seems, then, not to have been the result of an actual or literal domination
of the city’s religious life. It could be suggested that it had rather more to
do with the civic spirit that was of such importance in this period, the
Second Sophistic, and that led cities throughout the eastern empire to
highlight their Greek past, whether real or legendary, with a view toward
self-promotion before other cities.58
hird, the coinage of Palmyra – generally poorly executed and badly
preserved, and probably not minted before the second century ce – is
very different from “regular” Roman provincial coinage. It has neither an
imperial portrait on the obverse (with the exception of coins minted under
Zenobia, but that is a different story), nor a legend to identify it as being
“of the Palmyrenes.”59 Only a very few issues refer to the city at all, simply
stating “Palmyra,” without mention of Palmyrēnōn. he obverse, giving
the Greek name of the city (ΠΑΛΜΥΡΑ), shows a Nikè holding scales
and possibly a palm. he reverse shows three gods: the one in the middle
wears a kalathos, while the two figures that flank the central figure wear a
solar crown and a crescent, respectively.60 he three gods on the reverse
can be interpreted, on convincing iconographic grounds, as the “triad of
Bel”: Bel and his “acolytes” Yarhibol (the sun) and Aglibol (the moon). As
is well known, these are the three gods to whom the north adyton of the
great temple of Bel was dedicated in 32 ce, on the sixth day of Nisan, as an
inscription from thirteen years later records.61 he designation “temple of
Bel,” even if it does appear as such in a number of other inscriptions,62 is
a simplification of the actual cultic situation. Long before the dedication
of the north adyton in 32 ce, a large number of other deities are recorded
as receiving a cult in the sanctuary too.63 And indeed, in addition to the
inscriptions from the first century ce that refer to the temple as that “of
56
Lifshitz, “Der Kult des Zeus Akraios”; Tsafrir, “Further evidence of the cult of Zeus Akraios”;
Lichtenberger, Kulte und Kultur, 153–5.
57
Foerster and Tsafrir, “Skythopolis,” 80. Cf. Lichtenberger, Kulte und Kultur, 150: “Für Dionysos wäre
allerdings zu erwarten, daß in Nysa-Skythopolis ein größeres Heiligtum errichtet war.”
58
Cf. Di Segni, “A dated inscription from Beth Shean”; Lichtenberger, “City foundation legends.”
59
See now Kaizer, “‘Palmyre, cité grecque’?”
60
Du Mesnil du Buisson, Les tessères et les monnaies de Palmyre, no. XCI. In Kaizer, “‘Palmyre, cité
grecque’?,” 53. I have argued that there is just enough visible of an Aramaic dalet (-d-) to postulate
that the reverse gave the indigenous name of the city, “Tadmor,” which – if correct – matches the
unique bilingualism of the city’s public inscriptions and its countermarked coins.
61
Hillers and Cussini, Palmyrene Aramaic Texts, no. 1347.
62
Ibid., nos. 0270, 1352.
63
Kaizer, Religious Life of Palmyra, 67–79.
Bel,” others from the same time designate it – more correctly – as the
“house of the gods of the Palmyrenes.”64 But while the latter name seems
to have gone out of fashion, the conventional designation “temple of Bel”
remained in use into the second century, as inscriptions show.65 he fact
that in 32 ce the temple was dedicated jointly to Bel and Yarhibol and
Aglibol is generally interpreted as the direct result of a priestly interven-
tion, the creation of a new “triad” on theological grounds. However, it
is equally possible, if not more likely, that this joint dedication has to be
explained simply as the initiative of the benefactor who paid for the north
adyton.66 Along the same lines, one could then argue that another ben-
efactor, who was responsible a generation later for the addition of a sec-
ond, south adyton, ought to be credited with the addition of the goddess
Astarte to the most prestigious part of the temple. An inscription from
127 ce points to the group of Bel, Yarhibol, Aglibol, and Astarte having
become a divine constellation in its own right by then.67 If this hypothesis
is correct, one could further suggest, with regard to the representation of
Bel, Yarhibol, and Aglibol on the Palmyrene coin, that the so-called triad
of Bel, originally put together at the whim of one benefactor, had grown
into a true civic symbol for Palmyra by the second century, when the city
started to mint its own coins.
he above examples of Gerasa and of Nysa-Scythopolis also show
clearly to what degree the religious topography of a place – that is, the way
in which temples are distributed over a city’s territory and are related to
each other – can give a very different impression of that site’s religious life
from the one gained through coins. At Gerasa, Zeus eventually lost out
on the coinage, but the cult in his temple (the major religious building
of the city alongside that of Artemis) remained of significance. At Nysa,
the divine inhabitant of the largest temple on the city’s acropolis (Zeus
Akraios) did not make it at all to the coinage, which was instead dominated
by Dionysus, who had to do with a more modest shrine. It may therefore
be useful to focus briefly on Hatra, a city whose religious topography must
form the basis of any study of its patterns of worship. Seemingly appearing
out of the blue in the late first century ce and flourishing in the second
and early third centuries, Hatra is characterized by a circular plan, domi-
nated in its center by an enormous rectangular temple complex.68 Central
64
Hillers and Cussini, Palmyrene Aramaic Texts, nos. 0269, 1353.
65
Ibid., nos. 0260, 2769.
66
Kaizer, “Reflections on the dedication of the temple of Bel.”
67
Drijvers, “Inscriptions from Allât’s sanctuary.”
68
Kennedy and Riley, Rome’s Desert Frontier, 105, fig. 53.
80 Ted Kaizer
to any understanding of Hatrene religion is the difference between, on the

one hand, the temples within this central temenos and, on the other, the
numerous minor shrines spread throughout the city. he deities who were
worshipped in the central temple complex – above all, the unique family
triad of Maren, Marten, and Bar-Maren, “Our Lord, Our Lady, and the
Son of Our Lord and Our Lady” – appeared also in the smaller shrines.
By contrast, the cults of deities such as Baal-Shamin and Atargatis were
practiced only in one or more of the minor shrines, but never in the cen-
tral complex.69 In addition, the city’s temples were differentiated by their
respective building plans and architecture: the iwans in the temenos, enor-
mous vaulted structures that were representatives of a new temple type in
the Parthian period, contrasted with the “Breitraum” shrines elsewhere in
the city, which were rooted in an older, Mesopotamian tradition. Both
these aspects seem to point to a division between centralized cults that
were important for the city as a whole and deities who were worshipped by
a particular part of the population only.
he examples discussed in this chapter illuminate in various degrees
the continuing process by which religious identities were created in the
different localities that constituted the Roman Near East. he final case
comes from Dura-Europos, a small town on the Euphrates that started life
as a Seleucid fortress and fell under Parthian control for hundreds of years
before it was occupied by Roman troops during the last age of its existence,
finally being captured and destroyed by the Sasanians in the middle of the
third century. he location of nearly all religious buildings at Dura was
embedded within a gridiron city plan, which created conditions for the
negotiation of religious space that were very different from those at Hatra.
In one of those shrines, built against the wall and a tower in the southwest
corner of the city, a relief was found showing a deity in cuirass (Fig. 9),
the divine dress code generally taken to single out a god or goddess as pro-
tector of those traveling through the steppe and desert areas of the Near
East,70 and similar to the outfit worn by the statue from the Fitzwilliam
that was discussed at the beginning of this chapter. Bearded like Baal-
Shamin, the lord of the heavens, and wearing a kalathos like Bel, the god
is standing on top of two griffons, resembling the near-canonical type of
Jupiter Dolichenus, who in his characteristic representation is standing on
the back of a bull.
69
Kaizer, “Some remarks about the religious life of Hatra,” 231.
70
On the military outfit as a popular dress code among Near Eastern deities, see Seyrig, “Les dieux
armés,” and now also Downey, “Arms and armour as social coding,” and Aliquot, La vie religieuse au
Liban, 185–7.
Fig. 9. Relief of Aphlad from Dura-Europos. Courtesy of the General Director of

Antiquities and Museums, Syria.
82 Ted Kaizer
My choice to describe the figure by means of reference to other divinities

is of course deliberate, and it would once again have been impossible to
guess which god this was were it not for the accompanying inscription.
his time, fortunately, it is recorded on the relief itself how “Hadadiabos
son of Zabdibolos son of Sillos set up this ἀφείδρυσις from the sanctuary
of Aphlad, named god of Anath, the village on the Euphrates, as a vow, for
his own salvation and that of his children and of his whole house.”71 he
divine name, otherwise unknown and transcribed differently in the avail-
able Greek inscriptions from the temple72 (clearly reflecting a god whose
name was originally spelled in a different language), has been explained
as a combination of the Akkadian word aplu, “son,” and Adda, meaning
“son of Hadad,” which matches the fact that an old Assyrian text had con-
nected the “Son of Hadad” to this region along the Middle Euphrates.73
he text establishes beyond doubt that the cult of Aphlad at Dura-Europos
was considered as having its origins in the village of Anath. Indeed, the
choice of the term ἀφείδρυσις implies that the image set up in the tem-
ple of Aphlad at Dura-Europos was a precise copy of the original cult
statue.74 However, what is most peculiar is the meticulous description of
the god, which makes it very doubtful whether his cult at the Euphrates
stronghold was adhered to only by villagers from Anath themselves. he
inscription, referring explicitly to Aphlad, known as the god of Anath, a
village on the Euphrates, must have been meant to communicate this spe-
cific information to a wider audience. It must be emphasized too that the
relief is inscribed in Greek, despite the fact that not only the deity but also
the dedicant and the village have nonclassical names.75 his final exam-
ple demonstrates once again clearly how a specific local religious identity
could be created – from elements which seem typically Near Eastern – by
labeling a deity whose very name (“Son of Hadad”) locates him firmly in
a supraregional divine world, as god of a particular village, and by doing
so simultaneously expanding the local religious world of the small town
Dura-Europos: “the religion of the locality interacts with principles, ideas
and traditions which transcend space.”76
71
Rostovtzeff, Excavations at Dura-Europos, 112–13, no. 416: Τὴῶ ἀφείδρυσιῶ ταύτη[ῶ] ἱεροῦ Ἀφλαδ
λεγομέῶου θεοῦ τῂς Ἁῶαθ κώμης Εὐφράτου ἀῶέθηκεῶ Ἁδαδιαβος Ζαβδιβωλου τοῦ Σιλλοι εὐχὴῶ
ὑπὲρ τῂς σωτηρί[ας] αὐτοῦ καὶ τέκῶωῶ καὶ τοῦ πά[ῶ]τος οἴκου.
72
For example, ibid., 114, no. 418, a dedication Ἀπαλαδωι θεω̑ ι, and 122–3, no. 426, a memento
inscription, πρὸς τὸῶ Ἀφαλαδοῶ θεὸῶ.
73
Ibid., 118.
74
Robert, Hellenica, 120, no. 4, and 124, no. 4.
75
On the relation between cults and languages at Dura-Europos, see Kaizer, “Language and religion
in Dura-Europos.”
76
Horden and Purcell, Corrupting Sea, 422.
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3
JUDAISM IN PALESTINE IN THE

HELLENISTICROMAN PERIODS
esther eshel and michael e. stone
the “dark ages” of the fourth and third centuries bce

Although Alexander the Great’s conquest of the Near East was a turning
point in the region’s history, Jewish historiography rarely marks this event
as the beginning of a new era. he fourth (still mainly Achaemenid) and
third (Ptolemaic) centuries are grouped together, bounded at their begin-
ning by Ezra and Nehemiah and at their end by the Seleucid conquest of
Judea (198 bce). he reason for this neglect of Alexander’s conquest is the
darkness that shrouds Judaism in the fourth and third centuries.
Flavius Josephus provides little information about these two centuries
apart from one document dealing with the Transjordanian Jewish princi-
pality ruled by the Tobiads in the third century (Ant. 12.4.157–236). From
him, we learn that they intermarried with the aristocracies of Judea and
Samaria, and that members of the Tobiad family, familiars at the Ptolemaic
court, bid for and bought from the Ptolemies in Alexandria the right to
farm the taxes of Judea. Information from the Zeno papyri intersects with
Josephus. Zeno, the business manager of Apollonius, a financial minister
of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, traveled in Syria and Palestine and traded with
the Tobiads.1 An inscription from the fifth century bce and the last verses
of Nehemiah also mention the Tobiads.
We know relatively little about the priestly aristocracy of Jerusalem and
Samaria. Sanballat (Nehemiah 2, 4, 6, 13) was a member of a powerful
governing family in Samaria,2 while the Oniad priesthood of Jerusalem
held an equivalent position in Jerusalem. here were thus two major dis-
tricts inhabited by worshippers of the God of Israel, Samaria, and Judea.
1
Tcherikover, “Palestine,” 49–53; idem, Hellenistic Civilization, 39–89.
2
Cross, “Samaritan and Jewish History,” 201–5.
87
88 Esther Eshel and Michael E. Stone
Map 3. Syria Palaestina
here was also a smaller, independent Jewish “barony” of the Tobiads in

Transjordan (see Map 3). Samaria and Judea were each organized around
a temple controlled by a priestly aristocracy, and the ruling classes were
interrelated and often intermarried.3
3
Grabbe, History of the Jews, 207–37.
Judaism in Palestine in the Hellenistic-Roman Periods 89
he discovery since 1991 of around sixteen hundred ostraca from

Khirbet el-Kôm (biblical Makkedah) has shown that under Alexander,
the Macedonians continued to administer the province of Idumea (a
region southeast of the Dead Sea) in the same way it was administered
during the Persian period.4 A bilingual ostracon found there attests to
a shift from Aramaic to Greek.5 he archaeological evidence of the late
Persian and Ptolemaic periods paints a complex picture. Favissae, pits into
which clay figurines and stone statues had been deposited, show that the
pagan population of Idumea and the coastal area worshipped many gods.6
he Idumean population used Aramaic, while Phoenician was spoken in
the coastal area of Ashdod, Ashkelon, and Gaza.
Underlying the Jewish court tales of the Persian and early Hellenistic
periods is a relatively benign attitude toward foreign rule. Daniel 2–6 and
Esther record how a gentile king came to recognize the sovereignty of
the God of Israel. Enterprising and wise Jewish courtiers like Zerubbabel
(1 Esdras 3:1–5:6) and Daniel (Daniel 2–6 and Bel and the Dragon) func-
tioned and rose to the highest positions in the pagan court.7 One outcome
of Achaemenid policy was that the Torah came to have the force of the
law of the land, which led in turn to the creation of a hierocracy in Judea.8
During this period, the Torah seems to have become authoritative in a
written rather than oral form.9 Once the transmundane norms of the reli-
gion of Israel were written down, or rather, once the written form of the
tradition became authoritative, knowledge of the tradition was taken out
of the priests’ hands alone and became available for investigation by the
learned. By the second century bce, argument over the right of exegesis
had thus become argument over power.
Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, our sources for this early
period were the latest of biblical writings, minimal material in Josephus,
4
he name mnqdh, biblical Makkedah (Josh. 10:10, 16, 21; 12:16; 15:41), appears in numerous inscrip-
tions included in these collections and is identified with Khirbet el-Kôm (Dorsey, “Location”). Eph‘al
and Naveh, Aramaic Ostraca, contains inscriptions dated to the Persian and Hellenistic periods that
presumably also originated at Khirbet el-Kôm; see also Lemaire, Nouvelles; idem, Nouvelles inscrip-
tions II.
5
Geraty, “Khirbet el-Kom.” For the history of the Idumeans and their incursion into the region of
southern Judea, see Kasher, Jews, Idumaeans, and Ancient Arabs, 1–6.
6
Stern, Archaeology, 490–505.
7
Wills, Jews in the Court, 9–19, 22–3.
8
Bickerman, “Historical Foundations,” 70–114, esp. 73–4; Smith, “Jewish Religious Life,” 219–78, esp.
260–9.
9
Stone, “hree Transformations”; Carr, Writing; cf. Najman, Seconding Sinai. his is not to deny the
importance of written documents in early periods; see Najman, “Symbolic Significance,” 13–16, with
references to earlier discussions.
some relatively minor books of the Apocrypha, certain fragments of Jewish

writings in Greek, and some epigraphic and archaeological evidence. he
early dating of a number of Qumran documents has shown that parts of
the Book of Enoch (1 Enoch) originated in the third century bce and Aramaic
Levi Document (hereafter ALD) also originated in that period or slightly
later. he Temple Scroll from Qumran, a work exhibiting an unusual atti-
tude to authority and biblical law, and a book (or books) of Noah10 may
also have been composed at this time.
What we learn from these sources about Judaism of that time is not
found in the “conventional” historical record. he Enochic Book of
the Luminaries and Book of the Watchers presuppose a developed tradi-
tion about Enoch, a relatively obscure figure in the Hebrew Bible. he
Enochic Book of the Luminaries promotes a 364-day solar calendar, differ-
ent from the Babylonian lunar-solar calendar that the Jews took over after
the Exile. Different calendars imply different sources of religious author-
ity, and different branches or wings of Judaism. Whether the people sus-
taining this calendar formed a distinct group remains a mystery, but they
were likely forerunners of trends and groups that emerge more distinctly
on the stage of events in the second century bce.11 Documents from this
early period, known only through the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls,
also reveal the influence of the priesthood in the Persian and Ptolemaic
periods. ALD transmits detailed priestly instructions that nicely relate to
Noah’s priestly role and that claim Noachic origin.12 It gives regulations
for sacrificial cult that agree neither with Pentateuchal nor with rabbinic
sources. We are as yet unable to place these views in Jewish society or to
relate them to the groups that appear in the following century, but their
very existence means that Jewish expression in the third century bce was
multifaceted.
he Book of Enoch (1 Enoch) and the references to a Book of Noah
show us other aspects of Jewish creativity in the period. 1 Enoch is a
vision book, an apocalypse. In addition to the revelation of the cal-
endar in its Book of the Luminaries, its first part (Book of the Watchers)
10
he existence of Book(s) of Noah is much debated. See Stone, Amihay, and Hillel, Noah and His
Book(s).
11
What became the normative Jewish calendar originated in Babylon: see Talmon, “Calendar and
Mishmarot,” 112–16; Ben-Dov, “Babylonian Lunar hree”; “Tradition and Innovation.” he calen-
dar of 1 Enoch, Jubilees, and ALD is a solar calendar of 12 x 30 days with one intercalated day every
quarter. It resembles, but is not identical with, the Ptolemaic and old Persian calendars; see Samuel,
Chronology, 145; Ginzel, Chronologie, 314.
12
Levi was instructed by Isaac (ALD 5:8), who learned from Abraham (7:4), who, in turn, consulted
the “Book of Noah” (10:10).
also preserves a very old instance of extrabiblical traditions (chs. 6–11).13

Chapter 14 is the first ascent vision in postbiblical Jewish literature.14
Enoch plays a role in the heavenly court. It describes the underworld
(ch. 22), and discusses the distant parts of the earth (chs. 26–7, 33–6).
Both 1 Enoch and ALD suggest that the idea of two opposed spirits, one
of truth and one of falsehood, had already emerged by the third cen-
tury.15 he work’s developed angelology (ch. 20) and demonology con-
trast with First Temple writings. It has been stressed that this period saw
the beginning of a process of “remythologization” of Judaism, in which
time and metatime, space and metaspace, history and metahistory were
emerging once more.16
judea in the context of the hellenized east

While Greek penetration into the East preceded Alexander’s conquest,
Alexander’s policies had far-reaching effects on the civilization of the east-
ern Mediterranean basin.17 he Hellenization of the East brought about
profound changes in the cultures of the Greeks and subject eastern peo-
ples. In the third century bce, ancient eastern civilizations, including
the Jews, felt the need to present their traditions in Greek. Alexandrian
Judaism of this period saw the translation of the Torah into Greek and the
composition of the fragmentarily preserved work of Demetrius the Jewish
“chronographer.”
How pervasive was Hellenization in Palestine, where, in addition to a
Jewish population, there were Greek cities and other pagan settlements?
Although the exact extent of the Hellenization of Judea is unknown, it
was no doubt considerable. he involvement of the Tobiads with the
Ptolemaic court is well documented by Josephus and the Zeno papyri.18
Zeno’s reports on the Tobiads show the level of their participation in
13
See Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch, 29–30.
14
It is not certain whether the idea of a separable soul is involved. Compare 14:8, which is not
explicit.
15
See Stone and Greenfield, “Prayer of Levi,” 252.
16
Stone, “Eschatology”; Cross, “New Directions”; cf. Cross, Canaanite Myth, 343–6; Boccaccini,
Origins of Enochic Judaism.
17
See Hengel, “Political and Social History,” 35–6; Bickerman, Jews in the Greek Age, 13–19. hirty-nine
different seal impressions of the Wadi Daliyeh bullae, as well as one ring, were defined as stylistically
Greek; see Leith, Wadi Daliyeh, 20–8, 35 (late fourth century bce). he Aramaic of Daniel contains
three Greek words (Dan. 3:5; all are names of musical instruments); see Coxon, “Greek Loan-Words.”
An Aramaic marriage contract found in Maresha, dated to 176 bce, includes the Greek word nomos
(“law” or “custom”); see Eshel and Kloner, “Marriage Contract”; Eshel, “Inscriptions in Hebrew,
Aramaic, and Phoenician Script,” 72–6.
18
Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization, 60.
Hellenistic culture, an impression strengthened by Josephus’s reports on

the activities of Tobias’s sons at the Ptolemaic court in Alexandria (Ant.
12.156–222, 228–36).19 Out of 564 ossuaries with inscriptions discovered in
the Jerusalem area, 187 (36) were written in Greek, with the addition of
48 written in both Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek.20 Even the list of early rab-
binic authorities contains three individuals with Greek names.21 According
to one theory, the Maccabean revolt was not chiefly a reaction to the
attempt of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175–64 bce) to impose Hellenism; it
began rather as a response to a Hellenizing group in Jerusalem, aided by
the monarch.22 his theory assumes a substantial measure of Hellenistic
penetration among the aristocracy, at least.23
Before the Maccabean period, court stories, for which the Joseph cycle
in Genesis was the biblical prototype, became increasingly prominent.
Although the conduct of these ideal heroes contrasts with the dissolute
and avaricious mores of the Tobiad offspring, the context is not dissimilar.
In these stories, the climax is the foreign potentate’s recognition of the God
of Israel as the true God.24 Such stories disappeared after the Maccabean
revolt, a reflection of the deteriorating relations with Hellenistic courts
after that event. In a book like 3 Maccabees, God’s intervention against the
king’s plans makes the point and not the wise Jewish courtier. he idea of a
Jew in a high position in the pagan court has yielded to a more nationalist
attitude pitting Jews against gentiles, as exemplified in the stories of Judith
and Daniel 1.
developments in the second century bce

After the “dark ages” of the fourth and third centuries bce, the sources for
Second Temple Judaism become far more abundant. While these sources
attest a great variety of groups, trends, and sects, they are largely known
to us outside of received Jewish tradition. Rabbinic literature does refer to
Pharisees and Sadducees, but its evidence is sparse and it foreshortens the
Persian period, leaping from the generation of Ezra and Nehemiah to the
19
On the Tobiads, see also 2 Maccabees 3:11; Josephus, Ant. 12.156–222, 228–236; see Gera, “On the
Credibility.”
20
See Rahmani, Jewish Ossuaries, 13–15; Ilan, Lexicon, 11–13, 257–324; and lately, Cotton et al., Corpus
Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae.
21
Tryphon (m. Berakot 1:3), Abtalion (m. Abot 1:10–11), and Antigonus of Socho (m. Abot 1:3); see
Hengel, “Interpretation of Judaism,” 217–18.
22
See Bickerman, God of the Maccabees, 30, 38–42.
23
For discussion of these issues see Victor, Colonial Education, 77–108.
24
See, for example, Daniel 2:47, 3:28, 4:31–34, 6:27–28.
early second century bce. he Dead Sea Scrolls, pseudepigrapha preserved

in the Christian tradition, some apocryphal psalms, Josephus, Philo, and
other Jewish-Hellenistic fragments provide information independently
of the rabbinic tradition.25 his plethora of sources contrasts strongly
with the First Temple period, for which we have virtually no documents
except the Hebrew Bible, a tendentious and quite carefully censored work,
albeit a rich, variegated, and invaluable source.26 It is difficult, therefore, to
know whether religious phenomena appearing for the first time in Second
Temple sources were new, or whether they came to light because of the dif-
ferent character of the transmitted sources. In all likelihood, both factors
were at play.
In the second century bce, Judaism underwent fundamental changes.27
Early in this century (198 bce), the Seleucid king Antiochus III defeated
Ptolemy V at the Battle of Panium and gained control of Palestine. he
ensuing conflict over Hellenism culminated in Antiochus IV Epiphanes’
decrees against Judaism in 167 bce, the outbreak of the Maccabean revolt
in the same year, and the series of battles and subsequent political maneu-
vering that led to the independence of Judea under the Hasmonean high
priest Jonathan in 152 bce. he Hasmonean dynasty ruled until the Roman
annexation of Judea in 63 bce.
hroughout the Persian and Ptolemaic periods, a priestly aristocracy
headed by the Oniad dynasty had led the Jewish polity until its replace-
ment in 170 bce. In that year, the high priest Onias IV fled to Egypt,
where he established a temple in Leontopolis.28 It continued to function
down to the Jewish revolt when it was closed in 73 ce by the Romans as a
precautionary measure (Josephus, Ant. 7.420–36). At the same time, the
Tobiad family was ruling in Transjordan, while in Samaria to the north,
leadership was in the hands of a family favoring the name Sanballat. he
first known ruler of this name is mentioned in Nehemiah (2:10, 19; 4:1,
7; 6:1, 2, etc., and in Elephantine papyri). His family intermarried with
the Jerusalem high-priestly families (Nehemiah 13:28), and he was associ-
ated with Tobiah (Nehemiah 6:4). In a bulla that sealed one of the Wadi
25
Hippolytus also has a treatment of the Jewish sects. See Smith, “Essenes in Josephus”; Baumgarten,
“Josephus and Hippolytus.”
26
On this issue, see Stone, Scriptures, 27–47.
27
Gera, Judaea and Mediterranean Politics, 59–254.
28
In J.W. 1.33, Josephus states that Onias III built the Leontopolis temple, but cf. Antiquities 12.387–
8; 13.62–73, where he attributes the undertaking to Onias IV. For this reason, there is disagree-
ment over which Onias established the Leontopolis temple; see Parente, “Onias III’s Death,”
70–80. On the Egyptian reaction to this temple, see Bohak, “CPJ III, 520.”; see also Schwartz, 2
Maccabees, 187.
Daliyeh papyri (no. 16), another ruler named Sanballat (fourth century
bce) is mentioned.29
After Judea became independent of both the Seleucids and Ptolemies
in 142 bce, Simon the Hasmonean ruled as both high priest and eventu-
ally ethnarch. he Hasmonean kingdom pursued a policy that, particu-
larly under John Hyrcanus (135–104 bce) and Alexander Jannaeus (103–76
bce), led to a significant expansion of the boundaries of the country
and the forced conversion of various surrounding tribes, including the
Idumeans.
Despite Judaism’s increased hostility to the pagan world, Hellenism had
by the second century bce made great inroads into Jewish society, not least
in the Greek-speaking diaspora. Although it owed its position to a revolt
against Antiochus’s imposition of Hellenism, the Hasmonean court and its
customs were deeply Hellenized. Like many other eastern peoples, the Jews
entered into an intellectual dialogue with the Hellenistic world, developing
an interpretatio Graeca of Judaism, a process that had already begun in the
third century bce. he same deeply ambivalent encounter with Hellenism
was later exhibited in the philosophico-exegetical undertaking of Philo of
Alexandria (late first century bce to mid-first century ce) and in Josephus’s
Jewish Antiquities, a monumental work composed in Rome toward the end
of the first century ce. hese works, while clearly designed to demonstrate
the superiority of Judaism, did so in literary forms and intellectual catego-
ries that were part of Hellenistic culture.
Over the course of the second century bce, a number of religious
movements (called “philosophies” by Josephus) appeared on the stage.30 he
Pharisees and Sadducees were involved in the court politics of Alexander
Jannaeus and his wife Salome. It is unknown how much earlier they existed.
Although the early history of the sect that lived at Qumran, on the north-
western corner of the Dead Sea, is disputed, these sectarians were estab-
lished in their communal center by approximately the early part of the
first century bce. he stories surrounding the outbreak of the Maccabean
revolt mention another group, the Hasideans (1 Macc. 2:29–42; 7:12–17;
2 Macc. 14:6). hey disappear from our sources by the middle of the sec-
ond century. Closely connected with the Temple, they were apparently a
pietistic group who at the beginning of the revolt preferred death to fight-
ing on the Sabbath.31 An earlier conflict between the returnees from the
29
Cross, “Samaria Papyri,” 120–1.
30
See Schürer, History of the Jewish People, 2.381–414, 550–9; Sievers, “Josephus.”
31
Kampen, he Hasideans, 45–62, 65–76, 128–35, argues for the identification of the Scribes and the
Hasideans, 115–22. But cf. Schwartz, “Hasidim.”
Babylonian exile and those remaining in the land is reflected in the books
of Ezra and Nehemiah; the broad split between Judeans (that is, Jews) and
Samaritans also goes back to that time or even earlier (if the highly biased
account in 2 Kings 17 is to be believed, at least in general chronological
terms).32 So, by the end of the second century bce, the existence of many
religious groups and trends had become a defining feature of Judaism of
the Greco-Roman period.33
One commonplace of biblical scholarship holds that from the time of
the reforms of Josiah (622 bce), the cult of the God of Israel was carried
out exclusively in the Jerusalem temple. here is no doubt that the Temple
played an absolutely dominant role in Judaism in the Greco-Roman period;
its destruction by the Romans in 70 ce thus marked the end of an era in
Jewish history. Disagreements over the Temple and over high-priestly legit-
imacy apparently played a major role in the formation of the Essene sect,
as well as in the events subsequent to the victory of the Maccabees.34 How,
then, can we reconcile its apparent centrality with the establishment of a
rival temple in Leontopolis by a refugee Oniad high priest?
Archaeological evidence and a rereading of Josephus suggest in fact that
the centralization of worship in the Jerusalem temple, while an ideal of
many, was not the practice of all. As early as the late sixth century bce, a
temple, built according to the architectural plan of the Jerusalem temple,
existed in Arad on the southern border of Judea. An altar from the end
of the First Temple period was found at Beer Sheba. A temple from the
Persian period was discovered in Lachish. In the fifth century bce, Jewish
mercenaries in the Persian army in Elephantine, far up the Nile, had a
temple dedicated to the God of Israel; when it was burnt, they had no
inhibitions in writing to their brethren both in Samaria and in Jerusalem
to ask for help in its rebuilding.35 Based on the recently discovered ostraca
from the Khirbet el-Kôm site, it seems probable that a temple for the
God of Israel also existed there.36 In addition to the temple in Leontopolis,
there seems to have been a Jewish sacrificial cult in Sardis in Asia Minor
(Josephus, Ant. 14.259–61). his situation seems to indicate that both dias-
pora Jews (see Philo’s description of his pilgrimage, Prov. 2.64) and those in
32
Nickelsburg and Stone, Early Judaism, 10–16; Coggins, Samaritans and Jews, 37–74; Karveit, Origin
of Samaritans.
33
Baumgarten, Jewish Sects, 57–8.
34
Sanders, Judaism, 341–79; Baumgarten, Jewish Sects, 75–91, esp. 86–91.
35
On the northern traditions in Second Temple Jewish writing, see Nickelsburg, “Enoch, Levi, and
Peter”; Freyne, “Galileans,” but cf. Eshel and Eshel, “Toponymic Midrash.”
36
Lemaire, New Aramaic Ostraca, 416–17; for the sanctity of Bethel at that period, see Schwartz,
“Jubilees.”
Judea did indeed recognize the uniqueness and centrality of the Jerusalem
temple. Yet, at the same time it was possible to conduct sacrificial cult not
only outside the Jerusalem temple, but also outside the land of Israel.37
the dead sea scrolls and jewish sectarianism

he Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in eleven caves in Qumran between
1947 and 1956, constitute a library of about nine hundred documents and
thousands of fragments (many unidentified). hey include biblical writ-
ings, copies of known apocrypha, and pseudepigrapha together with other
unknown but analogous works, as well as works of a distinctly sectarian
character.38 In this latter category of writings, we may discern the particular
ideas and theological concepts of the Essene sect.39
It is not clear exactly where the Essenes originated. hey must be related
broadly to those third-century bce circles that produced the Enochic Book
of the Luminaries and the Aramaic Levi Document, circles that observed
the 364-day solar calendar. Both groups also stressed the central role of
the priesthood, but in different ways. Twelve manuscripts of 1 Enoch and
fifteen of Jubilees appear among the Qumran sect’s manuscripts, though
neither work bears the unique ideas or specific terminology typical of the
sect. his indicates the overall continuity of this type of Judaism, but also
that the Qumran sectarian form of it was quite distinctive. here is no evi-
dence for the survival of the Essenes after the destruction of Qumran by
the Romans in 68 ce.40
he Qumran sect and its lifestyle are chiefly known from three sets
of sources. he first consists of documents from Qumran that prescribe
the way of life of the group. he most important of these is the Rule of
the Community, included in the Manual of Discipline (1QS). his book,
found in numerous copies and versions at Qumran,41 presents the way of
life, laws, and customs of a communal sect living together, all subject to
rigorous rules of conduct and discipline. Admission to the sect occurred in
37
On Jewish cult outside Jerusalem, see Stone, “Judaism at the Time of Christ,” 228; Smith, Palestinian
Parties, 69–73; Campbell, “Jewish Shrines.” On the Jewish temples at Elephantine and Leontopolis,
see Mélèze Modrzejewski in Chapter 7 in this volume; on private altars in Asia Minor, see van der
Horst in Chapter 12 of this volume.
38
For the classification of the Qumran compositions, see Lange and Mittmann-Richert, “List of
Texts.”
39
his seems the most reasonable identification, despite much debate. See VanderKam, Dead Sea
Scrolls Today, 71–98; Beall, “Essenes,” 262–3.
40
For the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice found on Masada, see note 53.
41
It was preserved in one copy from Cave 1 (1QS), and ten copies from Cave 4 (4Q255–264); see
Qimron and Charlesworth, Rule of the Community; see also Metso, Community Rule, 69–155.
three stages: a preliminary year, a second year during which the candidate
was a partial member, and then a final stage, when the candidate became a
full, albeit junior member of the sect. Conduct, daily life, food, and dress
were all regulated. his pattern of life may be compared with that of the
Essenes described by Josephus in both of his descriptions of the Jewish
sects, or “philosophies” as he calls them (Josephus, J.W. 2.119; Ant. 13.171;
18.11). Indeed, the writings of Josephus and Philo, Pliny the Elder, Nat.
5.15.73, and to a lesser extent of Hippolytus,42 form the second source of
information about the Essenes. he third source is made up of the archae-
ological finds at the site of Qumran. he nature of the installations uncov-
ered there fits with the pattern of life that may be reconstructed from the
Manual of Discipline and from the ancient sources.43 Apparently, though,
the sect living at Qumran was not the only type of Essene. Philo, in his
treatises Every Good Man Is Free (75–91) and Hypothetica (11.1–18; preserved
in Eusebius Praep. evang. 8.5.11–11.18), describes the way of life of Essenes
living among others.44
his fits in overall terms with another intriguing ancient document.
In 1910 a document was published from the Geniza in Cairo.45 his doc-
ument, later named the Damascus Document, was a puzzle to scholars
until the discovery of the Dead Sea manuscripts, at which point it became
immediately evident that it was cognate with them.46 Afterward, copies
of it were discovered at Qumran.47 here are distinct differences between
the way of life prescribed in the Qumran Manual of Discipline and that
set forth in the Damascus Document. hese probably reflect differing tar-
get audiences. While the Manual of Discipline was directed to a separat-
ist, communal sectarian settlement, the Damascus Document, like Philo’s
description, addresses the way of life of Essene conclaves living in the
towns and villages of Judea.
42
Smith, “Essenes in Josephus.”
43
Milik, Ten years, 49–60; Magness, Archaeology of Qumran, 32–46.
44
On the Essenes, see also Pliny the Elder, Nat. 5.15.73. See further Collins, “Sectarian Communities”;
Taylor, “Classical Sources.”
45
he document was early discussed by Louis Ginzberg (“An Unknown Jewish Sect,” 257–73) and
included in Charles’ Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament under the title “Zadokite
Fragment.” Ginzberg was of the opinion that it belonged to early zealot Pharisees; see Charles,
Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha 2. 785–834. See now Broshi, Damascus Document Reconsidered.
46
A few months after he bought the first three scrolls, Eleazar L. Sukenik (after consulting with
Chanoch Albeck) recognized the connection between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Damascus
Document.
47
Eight copies were found in Cave 4 (4Q266–273), one from Cave 5 (5Q12), and one from Cave 6
(6Q15). See Baumgarten, Damascus Document, 1–22; Baumgarten, Charlesworth, Novakovitc and
Rietz, Damascus Document II,; Hempel, Damascus Texts.
Before the discovery of these documents, the existence of separatist,

indeed sectarian,48 groups was not a familiar dimension of Judaism in Late
Antiquity. he only prior reference to such groups, besides the Essenes in
Josephus and Philo, was Philo’s discussion of the herapeutae, a Jewish
sect living on the banks of Lake Mareotis in Egypt (Contempl. 1–90).49
Scholars have debated the existence of this group and the accuracy of
Philo’s description. Was it influenced by Greek utopian ideas or by Greek
ethnography that described groups of eastern sages such as the gymnoso-
phists? No answer is known, although today, in light of Qumran, we may
perhaps regard Philo’s herapeutae as reflecting a diaspora expression of
the same impetus toward separation from daily life and toward pietism and
communal living that characterized the Essenes in the land of Israel.
A typical expression of Essene religious ideas may be found in the cos-
mological dualism of the Community Rule (1QS 3:13–4:26). God, who is
one, created two spirits, one of light and one of darkness. Humans and
superhuman beings are divided into two camps under the leadership of
these two spirits. It is unclear and debated whether the division between
the sons of light and the sons of darkness was absolute or whether there
was a mixture of the two spirits within humans. People are exhorted to
piety, yet at the same time their lot in light or darkness has been fixed. his
tension between determinism and piety was probably never resolved. In
any case, such an approach to the world is quite different from what we
find in rabbinic Judaism, for which human free will is the crucial factor in
the religious life.50 Qumran dualism has been compared with Zurvanism
in Iran, both having a supreme deity below whom are two spirits, one good
and the other evil. here are difficulties of chronology and of channels of
contact, and Iranian influence on the Qumran sectaries cannot be asserted
unambiguously.51 Regardless, the dualism at Qumran does not resemble
the “soul–body” dualism that characterized many Hellenistic religious
viewpoints, pagan and Jewish.52
Although Josephus refers to Essenes in Jerusalem during the reign of
John Hyrcanus and King Herod, it is difficult to trace their influence on
48
On the term “sectarian,” see Baumgarten, Jewish Sects, 5–15.
49
See Hayward, “herapeutae,” 943–4; Taylor, Jewish Women, 74–104. For a survey of the literature,
see Riaud, “Les hérapeutes.”
50
b. Ber. 33b (= b. Nid.16b; b. Meg. 25a): “All is under the control of Heaven (i.e., God) except the fear
of Heaven.” See Urbach, he Sages, 255–85.
51
Winston, “Iranian Component”; Frye, “Qumran and Iran”; Shaked, “Iranian Influence,” 324–5. On
problems in the study of Zurvanism, see also De Jong in Chapter 1 of this volume.
52
See, for example, Wisdom 9:15: “for a perishable body weighs down the soul, and this earthy tent
burdens the thoughtful mind.”
the course of events in Judea in the last century bce and the first century
ce. A liturgical composition named he Songs of Sabbath Sacrifice was dis-
covered in nine copies in Qumran caves, as well as in one copy at Masada.
here is no scholarly consensus as to whether it is Essene or non-Essene in
origin, and whether these prayers, which seem to have gained some pop-
ularity, were recited by the Qumran sect alone, or by other Jewish groups
as well.53
he significance of the Qumran discoveries, then, reverberates in a num-
ber of different fields. he library contains the oldest surviving substantial
manuscripts of books that became part of the Hebrew Bible, fragments of
the lost Hebrew or Aramaic originals of known extrabiblical works, and
many fragmentary works of similar character, as well as documents reflect-
ing the ideas and practices of this sectarian community. It contains works
in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. From the evidence of this literature, we
can see a group in which the priests played a major role that rejected the
validity of the Jerusalem temple and its establishment, and that developed
ideas of bloodless sacrifice and daily, weekly, and festival prayer cycles. In
other words, this group cultivated a disciplined and ascetic way of life,
designed, we may speculate, as a prolepsis of the eschatological state.54
his, combined with the double determinism that dominated their cos-
mology, makes them remarkable in the history of Judaism.
During the same period as the floruit of the Qumran sect, sources
also mention the Pharisees and Sadducees. Truth be told, our knowledge
of these groups, especially of their early stages, is limited. According to
Josephus, the Pharisees had a strong tradition of interpretation of the laws,
which was crucial to their worldview. Although the process of commit-
ting oral tradition to writing took place earlier, during the Persian and
Ptolemaic periods, its written form, particularly as embodied in the Torah,
gradually became recognized as authoritative.55 Once the oral tradition had
been reduced to writing, it became available to larger circles in society, and
was not limited to its oral tradents, who were most likely the priesthood.
Much of the debate in Judaism throughout the Second Temple period, and
particularly in its second part, was about the right to interpret the law.
53
See Newsom, “Sectually Explicit,” 179–85; Alexander, he Mystical Texts. For doubts about the sec-
tarian character of he Songs of Sabbath Sacrifice, see Morray-Jones, “he Temple Within,” 409–10.
54
Cross, Ancient Library of Qumran, 37–79.
55
Stone, hree Transformations. Earlier, particularly important documents were said to be “written”;
cf. Najman, Seconding Sinai. On the question of canonical traditions and the extent of fluidity,
see Trebolle Barrera, “A Canon within a Canon”; Carr, Writing, 217–18; Bowley and Reeves, “he
Concept of ‘Bible’”; McDonald and Sanders, he Canon Debate.
he Qumran sectaries thus made much of the inspired exegesis of the

Teacher of Righteousness (see 1QpHab II:1–10; VII:3–5); they called their
Pharisaic opponents the “Seekers-After-Smooth-hings” (e.g., 4ApNah
Figs. 3–4, Col. 1:2).56 he Pharisees were not only exegetes of the sacred
writings with their own distinctive tradition and customs, but they also
played a role in current events. In the first century bce, we are told that the
Hasmonean queen Salome gave them much power. Josephus’s statement
that most of the people later followed the Pharisees does not mean that
in the first century ce most of the people were Pharisees themselves, but
rather that they were considered the most influential group.57 According to
Josephus’s characterization, the Pharisees also believed in the immortality
of the soul. While the combination of Josephus with the New Testament
Gospels and Acts provides a sort of checklist of Pharisaic beliefs, it is
impossible to know how far this list reflects reality; it is wisest to regard it
with a good deal of suspicion.
Even less is known of the Sadducees. heir name indicates their
apparently priestly orientation. It derives from that of the Zadokite family,
which had held the high-priestly position from the time of King David.58
his group played a distinct role in politics and seems to have included
wealthy aristocrats of priestly orientation.59 he priestly aristocracy, as we
have pointed out, held crucial political power through the Persian period
and also down to the Ptolemaic. If the Sadducees were descended from
that priestly aristocracy, their role in politics and the Temple is completely
understandable. In 4QpNahum, there is some further support for the
idea that they were the wealthy, upper-class group in society.60 Like the
Pharisees, however, they did not appear on the stage of history until the
middle of the second century bce. While both groups disappeared from
the known historical record after the destruction of the Temple in 70 ce,
it is the common view that the subsequent rabbinic tradition continued
that of the Pharisees.61
Other groups existed in Palestinian Judaism at the turn of the era.
Although not strictly “Jews” (that is, Judeans), the Samaritan worshippers
56
See, e.g., CD I:18; 1QHa X:15,32; 1QpNah frags. 3–4, I:2.
57
Josephus’s motives for writing his histories, as well as for his presentation of the Pharisees, were very
mixed, and it is difficult to tell how far he is serving his own aims in his description of their influ-
ence; see Baumgarten, Jewish Sects, 42, n. 2, 51–2, 62–3.
58
Zadok is first mentioned in 2 Samuel 8:17 and in 2 Samuel and 1 Kings in connection with the Ark
of the Covenant; see Ramsey, “Zadok.”
59
While this is the communis opinio, it may oversimplify things about which very little is known; see
Regev, “Pharisees and Sadducees.”
60
Flusser, “Pharisäer.”
61
See Neusner and Chilton, In Quest.
of the God of Israel held different political and religious views. While the
Sadducees rejected Pharisaic exegesis of the Torah, the Samaritans accepted
only the Pentateuch as authoritative.62 hey identified with the northern
kingdom of Israel and regarded Shechem, not Jerusalem, as the holy city
and Mount Gerizim, not Mount Zion, as the holy site of the Temple.
here were a number of Samaritan sects in the period under discussion and
Samaritan communities also existed in the diaspora.63
eschatology and apocalypticism

Scholars of the Hebrew Bible, for the most part, hold the view that dur-
ing the period of the First Temple, the eschatology of the religion of Israel
looked forward to events that would unfold in the ordinary course of his-
tory. At some point after the Restoration, this hope was transformed into
the expectation of a momentous change in the historical order, an end
of history, and finally the redemption of Israel and vindication of God.
hese events would take place beyond history. At some time, the arena of
events changed from this created world alone and included the heavenly
metaspatial world. We cannot trace the beginnings of this development
in detail, but it was certainly well underway by the time the oldest parts
of 1 Enoch were written.64 his hope for redemption beyond history and
outside this world became a major force in the Judaism of the day, and of
course in incipient Christianity.
George Nickelsburg has remarked that the persecutions of Antiochus
IV in all likelihood played a significant role in the crystallization of escha-
tology. If theodicy, the flourishing of the wicked and the suffering of the
righteous, was at the root of the eschatological solution, then the events of
the Maccabean period brought this issue into sharper focus. he traditional
explanation no longer held. With the death of the righteous for observance
of the Torah under the decrees of Antiochus IV, people were dying because
they observed God’s commandments, not for disobeying them.65 his
made the issue of theodicy more acute, pushing the expectation of vindica-
tion and recompense beyond history and beyond the series of this-worldly
events into the metahistorical. Without recompense of the righteous at the
end of days, divine justice would be completely flaunted.66
62
See Eshel and Eshel, “Dating the Samaritan Pentateuch’s Compilation.”
63
Crown, “he Samaritan Diaspora”; Isser, he Dositheans; Coggins, Samaritans and Jews.
64
See Hanson, Dawn of Apocalyptic and idem, “Rebellion in Heaven.”
65
Van Henten, Maccabean Martyrs ; Nickelsburg, Resurrection, Immortality, 97–111.
66
Nickelsburg, Resurrection, Immortality.
he hope of future redemption was often expressed in terms of the

expectation of a redeemer figure(s) who would usher in the ideal future
age. he Jews in the centuries before and after the turn of the era did not
have a fixed and generally accepted belief about the details of such matters.
he literature of the age expresses a yearning for a variety of redeemers and
redemption. One pattern desired to see the restoration of the ideal polity
of Israel as a sacred people living according to God’s will and led by two
figures, a king of the line of David and a Zadokite high priest. his hope
is already expressed by the prophet Zechariah (6:11–12). Since both the
king and the high priest were anointed with oil, they came to be called
“Anointed Ones,” or “Messiahs,” a name symbolized by the two olive
trees in Zechariah 4:16. he hope for two Messiahs was not widespread,
but it is to be found in Essene documents from Qumran, which speak of
the “Messiah” or “Messiahs of Aaron and Israel.”67 In the Aramaic Levi
Document, we find the idea of a single, Levitical figure combining elements
of the priestly and royal Messiahs.68 he expectation of the restoration
of the Davidic monarchy was bolstered by Nathan’s prophecy to David
(2 Samuel 7:13), as well as by prophetic expectations of the coming of a
future ideal king (for example, Isaiah 11, and Balaam’s oracle in Numbers
24:17–20). his hope is first expressed clearly in the apocryphal Psalms of
Solomon 17:23–51. Although it later became the center of Jewish hope for a
redeemer figure, during the Second Temple period it was only one among
other expectations.
Another anticipated figure was the mysterious person of Melchizedek.
He appears in Gen 14:18–20 as king of Salem (traditionally interpreted
as Jerusalem) and priest of God Most High to whom Abraham brought
tithes. Melchizedek is also mentioned suggestively in Psalm 110:4 where
the king is told, “he LORD has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘You
are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.’” In 2 Enoch,
Melchizedek is said to be Noah’s nephew, to be assumed to heaven and
to return to earth (71.33–37). In one version of the work, Melchizedek is
called “my priest to all priests (71.79) . . . the head of the priests of another
generation (71.37).” One Dead Sea Scroll also expresses the expectation
of a Melchizedek figure who will come as a judge at the end of the pre-
sent period (11QMelchizedek). he representation of Melchizedek in Heb
7:1–17 should also be understood in the context of the expectation of a
non-Levitical priestly redeemer figure who returns to earth and whose
67
See Evans, “Messiahs,” 539–40; Collins, he Scepter.
68
Greenfield, Stone, and Eshel, Aramaic Levi, 36–8.
final appearance will be eschatological. Unlike Hebrews, however, none of

the other texts hint at a contrast or tension between Melchizedek and the
eschatological expectation of an Aaronid Messiah. hese traditions about
Melchizedek, which cannot be reconciled or harmonized into a single sys-
tem, must have coexisted within the spectrum of Second Temple Jewish
thought.69
Another human type figure also expected at the end of days has been the
subject of much discussion in the scholarly literature. his human figure
bears one of the titles that the Gospels apply to Jesus, “Son of Man.”70 he
title, in our texts, derives from the symbolic vision in Daniel 7, specifically
from the description of the younger human figure who is to be associated
in judgment with the Ancient of Days (Dan 7:9). he explanation offered
by Daniel 7:22–28 is that this human figure represents the kingdom of the
holy ones of the Most High, an ambiguous expression that can be taken
to designate Israel or the saints, or else the angels.71 hese two figures, the
Ancient of Days and the Son of Man, were taken up in the somewhat mys-
terious second part of 1 Enoch, the Similitudes (Parables) of Enoch. here
the Son of Man, also called the Elect One, is anointed and enthroned
(46:1). He is hidden before creation and takes over part of God’s function
of judgment. his sort of depiction may lie in the background of the use
of “Son of Man” in the Gospels.72
Other figures also served as redeemers or played a part in redemption.
One is the eschatological prophet, a development of Malachi’s reference to
Elijah’s future return as part of a new world order (Mal 3:23). Another actor
in the eschatological drama is the leader of the forces of evil, expected to
rally the armies in a final cataclysmic clash of the forces of good and evil.
Following Ezekiel 38, this battle was called the war of Gog and Magog by
later Jewish sources, while it is called Armageddon in Christian sources.
hat name possibly derives from Hebrew Har (Mount) Megiddo, where
the battle was expected to take place (Rev 16:16).73
In the last century bce and the first century ce, then, eschatological
hopes assumed a special urgency. On the one hand, we hear of itinerant
prophets such as John the Baptist, who according to the Gospels withdrew
69
See Ellens, “Dead Sea Scrolls and the Son of Man”; and Roberts, “Melchizedek.”
70
See Nickelsburg, “Son of Man,” with references to earlier discussions; also Yarbro-Collins, Cosmology
and Eschatology, 139–58; Collins, Daniel, 79–89.
71
Collins, Daniel, 278–94.
72
In the Testament of Abraham, 13:2 (long recension) the eschatological judge is Abel, who is son of
Adam = “man.” See Allison, Testament of Abraham, 280–82; Boccaccini, Enoch and the Messiah Son
of Man.
73
See Meyers and Meyers, Zechariah, 343–4.
to the desert to preach the imminence of the eschaton and the requital of
the righteous and wicked;74 on the other, active anti-Roman agitation that
seems to have been fueled, in part at least, by acute eschatological expecta-
tion broke out on a number of occasions.75
changes in judean society and religion

under roman rule
he civil war between the Hasmonean brothers Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus
II resulted in the annexation of Judea by Pompey in 63 bce. Succeeding
it were the Idumeans Antipater, Herod, and his sons, the last of whom,
Archelaeus, was deposed by the Romans in 6 ce.76 Roman governors,
under the authority of the governor of Syria, ruled the country thence-
forth. A pattern of civil turmoil, stoked by Zealot activist tendencies, typ-
ified the first century ce, leading to full-scale revolt against Rome in 66
ce. Although Jerusalem was taken in 70 ce, the last of the fighters on the
Herodian fortress of Masada were only overcome in 73 or 74 ce. Revolt
erupted again half a century later under the leadership of Bar Kokhba (or
son of Kosiba), lasting from 132 to 135 ce.
Judean history before the revolt saw major changes in Jewish society
and religion. One factor that changed with Herod and Antipater was
the removal of the high priesthood from the center of political power.
he Temple played a central role in Jewish life in this period, and the
high-priestly office carried great prestige. In seeking to concentrate all effec-
tive power in his own hands, Herod suppressed opposition fomented by
scions of the Hasmonean family and took complete control of the office.
he high priesthood thus became the object of manipulation under the
Herodians and the procurators, and the holder of the office was frequently
replaced.
Roman control of Judea brought about changes in Judean society and
religion as far-reaching as those in political structures. he central role
of the Temple in Jewish life continued, despite the divorce of the high
priesthood from the monarchy.77 hree major transformations, however,
were to have considerable effects. In the early part of the first century ce,
74
See Gray, Prophetic Figures, 122–3.
75
On Judah the Galilean’s “fourth philosophy,” see Josephus, J. W. 2.117–119, 433; Ant. 18.4–10, 23–5.
See also Hengel, Zealots, 76–145; cf. Horsley, Bandits, Prophets, and Messiahs, 118–27.
76
Herodians continued to rule different parts of the land of Israel down to 100 ce. Members of this
family, known for their loyalty to Rome, were even appointed as vassal monarchs elsewhere in the
East; see Kokkinos, Herodian Dynasty, 225, 339–40.
77
Sanders, Judaism, 47–72.
under the leadership of Judah the Zealot, the movement that Josephus
calls the “fourth philosophy,” or the Zealots, began to conduct activities
with populist tendencies against the power elites and the Roman occu-
pation.78 he question remains open whether the nationalist enthusiasts
whose actions played such a great role in the events leading up to the Great
Revolt in 66–70 ce and in its aftermath were continuators of those early
first-century agitators. he chief difficulty for the historian is that the only
source with any detail is Josephus, whose jaundiced view of the Zealots
makes him a suspect witness.
here seems no doubt, however, that in Judea and the Galilee in the first
century ce, groups of individuals arose who, inspired by the expectation
of divine intervention on behalf of the people of Israel and its Temple,
cultivated activism against Roman rule. In the Testament of Moses, as Jacob
Licht has pointed out, the symbolic figure Taxo with his sons sought, by
direct action and martyrdom, to precipitate the divine redemption that
they expected.79 his layer of Testament of Moses certainly reflects events in
the time of Archelaus.80 he same sort of ideals permeated the rebels who
formed the last pocket of resistance on Masada in 73 or 74 ce, choosing
suicide rather than surrender.81 Revolutionary activism seems to have been
motivated by eschatological hopes interpreted in such a way as to become
a program of military and political action.
literary types and social realities

During the Greco-Roman period, the Jews produced a rich crop of lit-
erature, much of it in Greek. Attested already in the late fourth or early
third centuries bce, it included belletristic compositions such as the drama
“Exodus” by Ezekiel the Tragedian, as well as philosophical, chrono-
graphic, oracular, sapiential, and other writings. In the diaspora, especially
in Egypt, Greek was the language in which Jews usually chose to express
themselves. here is good reason to think that Jews in the land of Israel
also wrote original works in Greek. If the Eupolemus mentioned in 1 Macc
8:17 is the same as the fragmentary historian Eupolemus, then his work
was perhaps composed in Jerusalem.82 By the first century, many Jewish
78
See note 75.
79
Licht, Taxo, 95–100.
80
Nickelsburg, “Antiochan Date,” 36–7.
81
Although Josephus’s report of the speech of Eleazar, the head of the Masada fortress under Roman
siege (J. W. 7.323–88), is fictitious, some aspects of it contain ideas that may have animated these
activists.
82
See Hummel, Historiography, 25–7; Wacholder, Eupolemus, 4–7; Cohen, “Masada.”
sarcophagi from Jerusalem bore names written in Hebrew or Aramaic,

Greek, or else Hebrew or Aramaic and Greek together.83 Previously we
alluded to Cave 7 at Qumran, which contained only Greek papyri, includ-
ing translations of a few pseudepigrapha.84 hus, it is not implausible that
some religious works (and nearly all Jewish literary writing of this period
was religious) were composed in Palestine in Greek.85
Most of the hundreds of compositions that survive from the land of
Israel were written in Hebrew and Aramaic. Most likely, the Aramaic
ones antedate those in Hebrew. hey include four of the five parts of
1 Enoch,86 Daniel 2–7,87 Aramaic Levi Document, Tobit,88 the Genesis
Apocryphon, and others. he Hebrew works include an enormous range
of writings from Qumran’s sectarian documents, like the Community Rule,
to pro-Hasmonean court propaganda, such as 1 Maccabees.89 Books of
psalms and prayers, such as the hanksgiving Hymns from Qumran, the
Psalms of Solomon, and the Apocryphal Psalms existed alongside sapiential
writings such as the Wisdom of ben Sira. Many works, including some from
Qumran, were pseudepigraphic – that is, they were attributed to authors
who did not write them, most frequently biblical characters. Another sub-
stantial body of texts is anonymous, and there are almost no works from
the land of Israel whose authors’ names are known (Wisdom of Jesus ben
Sira forming a notable exception).
he visionary texts, the apocalypses, which transmit teachings about cos-
mology, eschatology, and future redemption, have received great attention,
at least in part because of their connection with the teachings of Jesus and
his followers. hese texts and the type of religious experience underlying
83
See Cotton et al., Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae.
84
Compare also the late first-century bce scroll of the Greek revision of the Septuagint version of the
Minor Prophets found at Nahal Hever; see Tov, Greek Minor Prophets.
85
For evidence of Greek influence in the early rabbinic period, see Lieberman, Greeks in Jewish
Palestine, and idem, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine. See also the detailed statement by Hengel, Judaism
and Hellenism, 1.83–106.
86
he remaining part, the Similitudes of Enoch, might have been written in Aramaic as well, but this
is unknown; see Nickelsburg and VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2, 30–4, who prefer an Aramaic origin,
although the Parables are attested only in an Ethiopic (Ge’ez) version. It is later than the other four
parts and probably written around the turn of the era: see Knibb, “Parables of Enoch”; Collins,
Daniel, 80–2.
87
hough chapter 7 is problematic; see Collins, Daniel, 280–94, 323–4.
88
For the assumption that Hebrew Tobit was translated from Aramaic, see Fitzmyer, “Significance,”
419–23; idem, Tobit, 18–28. To date, no evidence is known for Hebrew translations of Aramaic
compositions at that period, while there are examples of Aramaic translations of Hebrew texts (e.g.,
Targum Job from Qumran). Because people were fluent in Aramaic, it is possible that the Hebrew
composition Tobit was translated into Aramaic.
89
Of course, it is not always possible to determine the original language of works that survive only in
Greek translation, or in daughter versions of the Greek.
them exhibit a form of Judaism that would not have been expected had
they not survived.90 In addition to apocalyptic and oracular literature, the
psalmodic and prayer texts both in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha
and among the Dead Sea Scrolls exemplify the piety of the period. Personal
religious sentiment, a sense of closeness to the deity and of divine provi-
dence, permeates these works. We can also discern simultaneous develop-
ments that stand close to the liturgical tradition of fixed prayer that became
typical of Judaism toward the end of this period.91 Speculative thinking,
both about the nature of wisdom understood as a metaphysical element
and about moral and ethical issues, is expressed in the sapiential books.
Changes in the conception of time and history meant that the attempt
to understand God’s working by retelling the events of Israel’s history was
not undertaken again after Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah.92 Instead, histori-
ography found expression in apocalyptic reviews of history.93 Of the major
genres of biblical writing, the psalmodic and sapiential writings continue
to be produced.
A major problem in writing the religious history of this period lies in
the disjunction between this religious literature in all its genres and varie-
ties and the numerous Jewish sects, trends, and movements attested in the
historical sources. While the historical sources for the period give ample
evidence of a great variety within Judaism, the ideas expressed in the liter-
ature of the period suggest that the various works originated from groups
or individuals holding differing points of view. he only group to which
we can attribute writings with any assuredness is the Qumran sect. hat
attribution is made on the basis of the archaeological find at Qumran and
its relationship to the books found in the caves.94 Even in this case, which
of the documents actually reflect the ideas of the sect and which were just
part of their library is debated.
Is it possible to speak of “normative Judaism” during the first century ce,
a type of Judaism generally recognized and viewed as that from which other
groups dissented? he only general ancient statement about this remains
Josephus’s assertion that most of the people followed the Pharisees. Yet,
as observed previously, this statement may well be tendentious. Clearly,
certain common institutions and practices characterized the Jews, such
90
Stone, “Apocalyptic, Vision or Hallucination?”; idem, “A Reconsideration.” Ancient Judaism,
90–121.
91
Chazon, “Psalms,” 710–11, 714.
92
Flavius Josephus’s major work, Jewish Antiquities, was modeled on Greco-Roman patterns.
93
Stone, Ancient Judaism, 57–89.
94
Magness, Archaeology of Qumran, 43–6.
as aniconic worship, the reverence for the Temple in Jerusalem, dietary

laws, and Sabbath observance. Recent attempts to assess different groups
in Jewish society taking advantage of sociological understandings of sec-
tarianism have yielded some insights.95 However, it remains impossible to
declare one or another of the “sects,” “parties,” or “philosophies” to repre-
sent the norm from which the other groups differed. To pose the question
in such a way is in all likelihood anachronistic. he impact of the destruc-
tion of the Temple in 70 ce, together with the loss of national autonomy,
led to consolidation in many areas, including the biblical text and the
rabbinic academies. It is difficult to reconstruct the situation before this
process got underway.
Eschatological ideas lay at the root of much of the political unrest that
characterized first-century Judea. It was exacerbated by a general eastern
opposition to Rome 96 to which some must have subscribed, though the
Jews, on the whole, were positive toward Rome.97 In any case, this unrest
issued in the Great Revolt, which broke out in 66 ce and continued down
to 70 ce. Its end came with the destruction of the Temple in that year,
though opposition continued in Masada down to 73 or 74 ce. he after-
math of the revolt brought further changes to Judaism and among the
Jewish people.
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4
POST JUDAISM IN JUDEA AND

THE NEAR EAST
hayim lapin
he period between 70 ce and the Muslim conquests of the seventh century

in the Near East saw the formulation of lasting features of Jewish ritual and
practice. During this time, the authoritative legal texts, scriptural exege-
ses (midrash) and translations (targum), liturgical structures, and the basic
liturgical calendar were all worked out in ways that would be adopted
and perpetuated for centuries afterward. We know of these developments
almost exclusively through the literary legacy of the rabbinic movement.
For this reason, as well as for their traditional authority, rabbinic texts
and traditions have been at the center of historiography on late antique
Judaism.
To the surprise of nonspecialists (and some specialists), for much of
the period under discussion, rabbis played rather marginal and geograph-
ically circumscribed roles. But the story of the rabbinic movement is part
of larger developments in the complex and sometimes elusive history of
late antique Judaism. Our goal in this chapter is to establish three main
points about late antique Judaism: (1) In the first century, Jews already had
a long history of porous boundaries within the non-Jewish settings they
inhabited. If, by the end of our period, Jewish communities had higher
and more articulated boundaries, the process requires explanation in terms
of both the specific history of Jews in the Near East and the broad trans-
formation of late antique religion. (2) We should resist the impulse to
subordinate the fundamental diversity of Judaism in Late Antiquity to a
“common Judaism.” Common practices, institutions, or symbols that do
emerge in our evidence thus require explanation in terms of the cultural
work of Jews and others in creating commonality. Finally, (3) synagogues
and emergent rabbinism, among the two best-documented developments
in late antique Judaism in the Near East, underscore an increasing ten-
dency toward high cultural boundaries between Jews and non-Jews from
116
Post-70 Judaism in Judea and the Near East 117
within Jewish communities. However, both can only be fully understood

within the broader landscape of late antique society and religion.
jews and judaism in the late antique near east

he population of Jews in the Roman and Parthian empires at the end of
the first century was almost certainly denser in the “fertile crescent” that
linked Palestine, the Levant, Syria, and Mesopotamia than it was either in
the plateau of Persia or in the western Mediterranean.1 By the end of our
period, there were also Jews in Arabia, particularly the Hijaz and Yemen.2
At the start of the revolt of 66 ce in Palestine, Jews constituted a size-
able majority of the inland population of Palestine although not of the
coastal cities, and were not necessarily a majority in the territories histori-
cally controlled by Judea on the eastern side of the Jordan (particularly in
the cities).
he suppression of two revolts and the punitive measures that followed
cost lives and prompted emigration. Some scholars have claimed a precip-
itous slide in the Jewish population in Palestine; a recent revisionist treat-
ment has argued that the more significant transformation was the collapse
of “Judaism.”3 By the fourth century, Jews were particularly concentrated
(and predominated) in a small region south of Judea proper and in the
eastern Galilee and the western “Upper” Golan. By the end of Antiquity,
some Jews in Palestine, especially in most cities, lived as minorities within
their immediate environs much as in the diaspora, while others, perhaps
most, lived in ethnic enclaves.
Anecdotal literary evidence about the diaspora suggests that Jews in
the Roman Near East lived as minority populations in cities and towns.
In Mesopotamia before the first century ce, there existed a sizeable
Jewish population that ancient and modern writers sometimes trace to
the Judeans expelled in the sixth century bce (2 Kings 25; Jeremiah 52).
Antiochus III is said to have resettled Babylonian Jews in Asia Minor and
Herod to have done the same in Batanaea.4 In Late Antiquity, information
is heavily weighted toward central and southern Iraq (from the Babylonian
Talmud), but northern regions had significant, if less well-attested
1
See the survey in E. Schürer, History, rev. ed. G. Vermes, et al. 3.1, 5–17. For northern Mesopotamia,
see Segal, “Jews in Northern Mesopotamia”; Drijvers, “Jews and Christians.”
2
Newby, Jews of Arabia. Medinan Jews: Lecker, “Muhammad”; Yemen: idem, “Conversion”; both
reprinted in Jews and Arabs.
3
Avi-Yonah, Jews of Palestine, 15–25; Schwartz, Imperialism, 103–10 and passim. See now Leibner,
“Settlement.”
4
Josephus, Ant. 12.147–53; 17.23–31.
118 Hayim Lapin
populations.5 According to Josephus, in the Parthian period Jews lived in

cities, much as in the Roman empire; the Babylonian Talmud may reflect
a more dispersed Mesopotamian Jewish population in the Sasanian period.
he apparent urbanism of Jews may represent the bias of our literary sources
and the greater epigraphic profile of cities. In some parts of southern Syria
(although generally in areas with limited urbanization in Late Antiquity),
there is epigraphic evidence for synagogues in villages or other noncities.6
In addition, Nawe was known both to rabbis and to Eusebius as a “city”
east of the Golan with a predominantly Jewish population, suggesting the
possibility of Jewish enclaves outside Palestine as well.7
Absolute numbers of Jews are unknown. Statistics provided by Philo
(over a million Jews in Egypt [Flacc. 46]) or Josephus (innumerable myriads
in Mesopotamia [Ant. 11.133]) are unreliable. he conventional estimates,
ranging from four to eight million in the first century (7–13 percent of the
population in the Roman empire) would most likely require demographic
in-migration, or what scholars of Judaism tend to call, imprecisely, “prose-
lytism.” Even a far more conservative number of, say, one million (less than
2 percent of the population, although more concentrated and visible in the
East) presupposes a rate of growth higher than one might expect from a
premodern population over a substantial period of time.8
If the increase and spread in population were a result solely of repro-
ductive growth, we would need to explain how Jews maintained a higher
reproduction rate than expected – and higher than that of their diaspora
neighbors – in both the diaspora and Palestine across very different settings
in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. An alternative hypothesis is that
Jewish communities grew through the slow but regular incorporation of
non-Judeans into their numbers. Expansion of “Judaism” in Palestine in
the Hasmonean period and later had its own complex dynamic, involving
military conquest and political dominance, which was disrupted by the
revolts against Rome.9 As for the diaspora, there is anecdotal and epigraphic
5
Gafni, Babylonian Jewry; idem, “Babylonian Jewry”; Neusner, History; Oppenheimer, Rome and
Babylon; Babylonia Judaica; Segal, “Jews of Northern Mesopotamia”; Becker, “Anti-Judaism.” On the
size of the Jewish population in Sasanian Mesopotamia, see Beer, Babylonian Amoraim, 22–3, n. 14.
6
IJO III Syr 34–41.
7
Eusebius, Onom. 136.1, ed. Klostermann. See also t. Shebi. 4:8; y. Dem. 2:1, 22d; IJO III Syr 35–36
(54–56).
8
Four to four and one-half million: Harnack, Mission, 1, 8–12; eight million: Baron, Social and Religious
History, 1, 167–71, 370–2, n. 7. See also Juster, Juifs, 209–210; Simon, Verus Israel, 33–4; and criticism
in McGing, “Population.” Growth and proselytism: Feldman, Jew and Gentile, 293. My hypothetical
one million merely doubles a conservative estimate of the Jewish population in Palestine in the first
century ce.
9
Smith, “Gentiles.”
evidence for conversion to Judaism in the Near East both before and after
70 ce.10 But growth through in-migration need not require or be mistaken
for a “Jewish mission.” It may simply mean that as religious associations,
Jewish communities were able to absorb new members faster than they
lost them through assimilation. Cultic devotion or philosophical interest,
and a dose of exoticism, account for some new recruits in Hellenistic cit-
ies.11 Recalling, however, that military colonists and war captives, enslaved
or freed, dominate the accounts of diaspora origins,12 we should also
allow for more mundane incentives: marriage and family connections,
community-provided services, and mutual aid (a feature of Hellenistic reli-
gious associations) traveling along established social networks.
his model of diaspora origins and maintenance has significance for
understanding the late antique religious landscape that Jews in the Near
East inhabited. It implies a role for Jews in the earliest spread of Christianity,
as noted already by Harnack, and reasserted more recently by Stark and
Hopkins, and not merely for the demographic reasons cited by them.13
Without Jews and their social networks, one is left to wonder what kind of
hearing this alien “new religious movement” would have received.14
he formation of more rigid ethnic and religious boundaries between
Jews and others in Late Antiquity has partly to do with the specific history
of Jews in this period. Long before Constantine, the outbreak and sup-
pression of two revolts in Palestine in 66 and 132 ce, the interest of Roman
emperors in regulating circumcision if not conversion, and the apparent
state fiscal interest in determining who was eligible for the punitive didrach-
mon tax may all have contributed to the perception of Jews (also held by
Jews themselves) as a distinct category of Roman subject.15 Josephus points
to unrest and hostility to Jews in the cities of Syria during and after the
revolt of 66–74.16 With the important exception of the (connected?) upris-
ing of Jews in the territories of Parthian Mesopotamia newly conquered by
10
Material for the later period is collected in Feldman, Jew and Gentile, 383–415. See also Goodman,
Mission.
11
See Isis (Plutarch, Is. Os.) or the Hermetic Corpus (Fowden, Egyptian Hermes).
12
For example, Barclay, Jews, 20–2, 233, 261, 289–90.
13
Harnack, Mission, ch. 1; Stark, Rise, 3–28; Hopkins, “Christian Number,” 212–16.
14
See the assimilation of Noah to the symbolic repertoire of Apamea in Phrygia (on which see also van
der Horst in Chapter 12 of this volume).
15
First Judean revolt (66 ce): Schürer (rev. Vermes), History, 1, 484–513; Bar Kokhba revolt (132): H.
Eshel, “Bar Kokhba Revolt,” 105–27; Roman restrictions on circumcision/conversion: Dig. 48.8.11
(Modestinus, citing a ruling of Antoninus Pius); Paulus, Sententiae 5.22.3–4, with Linder, Jews, nos.
1, 6; didrachmon tax and possible state interest in defining who was Jewish: Goodman, Mission,
121–6. Rabbinic tradition remembers the period of the Bar Kokhba revolt as one of persecution
(shemad).
16
Josephus, J.W. 2.461–80; 7.41–2, 54–62, 110–15.
120 Hayim Lapin
Trajan, the Jews in the Near East seem to have avoided the massive out-
breaks of violence that had devastating effects on the Jewish populations of
Egypt, Cyrene, and Cyprus in 115–17.17 Punitive policies during or following
the Trajanic revolts cannot be excluded although these are ill attested.18 If
there were episodes of persecution after 117 or after the Bar Kokhba revolt
of 132–35, analogy with persecution of Christianity suggests that these need
not in the long run have resulted in diminution of numbers (or even in
the slowing of recruitment from the outside). For both Jews and non-Jews,
however, they may well have accentuated Jewish “alterity.”
Later developments further defined boundaries: Christianization of the
Roman empire; the increasing centrality of Zoroastrianism in official prac-
tices of the Sasanian state; the concomitant marking out of specific political
and religious places for Jews in the wider society; and, at least in the later
Roman context, increasing legal marginalization. Hardening of existing
internal divergences within Jewish communities may also have helped to
rewrite the boundaries between Jews and others in Late Antiquity. Debates
within Jewish communities over theology, eschatology, or membership
(“conversion”) may have contributed to sharpening divergence between
Judaism and Christianity.19 his sharpening of boundaries should not be
overstated; at the end of the fourth century, it was much clearer to John
Chrysostom than to the Antiochene Christians against whom he railed.20
However, the phenomenon of mutually exclusive and highly bounded reli-
gious communities was also, paradoxically, a feature of late antique society
and consequently a measure of how Jews in Late Antiquity made up part
of the larger society.21
religion or ethnic praxis: the question

of a common judaism
hus far we have surveyed Jews. Analyzing the historical development of
“Judaism” – the overlapping clusters of descent, practice, belief, onomas-
tics, language, and symbols that scholars use to identify an individual,
17
Revolts and military action 115 (or 116) to 117: Pucci Ben Zeev, Diaspora.
18
See the assignment of Lucius Quietus to Palestine, SHA Hadrian 5.8 (Stern, GLAJJ 2.618–19,
no. 510); the story of Pappos and Lulianos (Julianos) in Laodicea (if about Trajan), Sipra, Pereq 10:5,
99d; y. Shebi. 4:2, 35a-b and parallels; and the scholion of Megillat Ta’anit to 12 Adar (Lurya, ed.
189–90; No‘am, ed. 117–18); see Pucci Ben Zeev, Diaspora, 99–119 (texts); 240–3 (discussion). For an
attempt to claim extensive persecution of Jews in the Roman Empire see Baer, “Israel.”
19
For example, Boyarin, Radical Jew; idem, Border Lines, but see my reservations on the latter in
“Boyarin, Critical Assessment.”
20
John Chrysostom, Adv. Iud. (PG 48); translation in Harkins, Discourses. In general, see Millar,
“Christian Emperors.”
21
R. Lim, “Christian Triumph”; Stroumsa, La fin, 147–86.
an artifact, or a community as “Jewish” – poses problems of its own.

Although the term is inevitably anachronistic, it is still useful to ask: Was
Judaism a “religion”?22 In the period under review, the Mediterranean
and Near Eastern world saw the emergence and spread of forms of indi-
vidual identity and group association best described as “religions” in the
modern sense. Christianity, Manichaeism, and later, Islam created pri-
mary identification through voluntary but exclusive adherence to a set
of rituals, practices, and beliefs shared with other members and valued
conformity to the group’s values over broader societal, familial, or polit-
ical norms.
Was Judaism a “religion” in the way that ancient Christianity was? he
common answer is generally negative. Belonging in Judaism was ethnic;
adherence flowed from membership (descent), not membership from vol-
untary adherence. Jews certainly were known and knew themselves to have
peculiar beliefs and practices. But we would be hard put to define Judaism
in every case as the belief in the one god, worshipped in a discrete set of
ways (Sabbath rest, avoidance of pork, etc.), without also including a spe-
cific national or ethnic myth (exodus from Egypt, revelation, covenant,
etc.) that locates Judaism and Jewishness in an ethnic identity.23 his is
because “Judaism” as a social formation both before 70 ce and after was
complex. It was the distinctive beliefs and practices of the Judeans in their
ancestral home, as practiced by a Jewish ethnos in a far-flung diaspora as
well, but membership in the ethnos was not limited to those who shared
common ancestry with their “brethren.”24
Yet there are reasons to think that the ethnic definition of Judaism
(what Ioudaioi do, believe, etc.) does not fully capture the experience or
identification of ancient Jews. Conversion stories may give the best insight.
In his account of Izates of Adiabene’s conversion to Judaism (presumably
in the 30s ce), Josephus has Izates assume that only circumcision would
assure that he was Jewish (Ant. 20.38). However, what is principally at issue
is not adoption into a community of ethnic Jews, but devotion to God
after the Jews’ ancestral manner (20.34, 41) or being brought over to their
laws (nomous) (20.36) while practicing more or less alone. Moreover, for a
time Izates followed the advice of one Ananias that God would forgive his
failure to be circumcised for his own personal safety; a decision “to adhere
to the ancestral practices of the Jews (ta patria tōn Ioudaiōn)” was “more
22
Asad, Genealogies, 27–54, esp. 40–3; and for the period under discussion, Boyarin, Border Lines, 11;
Satlow, “Defining Judaism,” 837–60. See now Schwartz, “How Many Judaisms,” 208–238.
23
For the variety of types of identification, see Collins, Between Athens.
24
Here, it is best to bracket the problem of “God-fearers” as a different kind of affiliation to the Jewish
God. See Mitchell, “heos Hypsistos,” and van der Horst in Chapter 12 of this volume.
122 Hayim Lapin
authoritative than circumcision” (20.41–42).25 his, from a contemporary

of the author of Acts about an older contemporary of Paul, suggests the
possibility that the debates over proselytizing, circumcision, and belong-
ing as they are described in Acts for first-century Christian groups may
well have been “intra-Jewish” debates that also occurred in other Jewish
communities.
Joseph and Aseneth, a text that may come from late antique Syria,
describes the individual spiritual transformation of an Egyptian woman
(the wife of the biblical Joseph) through direct divine intervention.26 A
paradigmatic description of “conversion” by a gentile, the text can also
be read as a model of preelection, prayer, and revelatory illumination that
applies to born Jews as well. An artificially sharp dichotomy between a
Pauline, gentile Christianity of conversion and commitment and an ethnic
Judaism of birth with a penumbra of converts and/or semiconvert “god-
fearers” seems out of place at least in the first century, and may have con-
tinued to be so.
Intersecting the ethnos-or-religion dichotomy at several points is a sec-
ond dichotomy of a single “Judaism” over against multiple “Judaisms.”
he plural “Judaisms” provides a necessary corrective against a tendency to
harmonize fundamental differences in practices or beliefs among diverse
Jewish groups. Unfortunately, there are no clear criteria as to what con-
stitutes a “Judaism” as opposed to variation within a broader category.
Although the impulse to identify identity groups with surviving or recon-
structed texts has merit, it is rarely more than guesswork and risks treating
in isolation indicators of a fluid cultural landscape.
he evidence for a diverse but fundamentally unitary “common
Judaism” linking Jewish communities is impressive. However, the approach
is marred by an inevitable circularity in how it selects and interprets data
that are already distinctively “Jewish,” such as synagogues, burial inscrip-
tions with Jewish symbols or names, or literature that identifies its authors
or audience as Jewish.27
25
Accounts of fifth- and sixth-century conversions to Judaism by dynasts in southern Arabia, in which
joining to the Jewish ethnos in the conventional communal sense does not fully apply and may be
relevant in this context. See Newby, Jews of Arabia, 33–48; Tabari, 1, 901–6, 919–20, 924–6; trans.
Bosworth, History of al-tabarī V, 165–72, 194–5, 202–4; Ibn Hisham, Sīra, 1, 12–24; trans. Guillaume,
Life, 7–12, 17–18.
26
Kraemer, Aseneth, 225–93, tentatively ascribing the text to the fourth century and Syria, leaning
also toward identifying the text as Christian. Kraemer’s is a revisionist reading in all three respects.
he text is more conventionally seen as Jewish, considerably earlier, and from Egypt; for example,
Collins, “Joseph and Aseneth.”
27
“Common Judaism” was coined by Sanders, Judaism, 46–9 and passim, followed subsequently by,
for example, Rutgers, Jews in Late Ancient Rome, 206–9 and Fine, Holy Place; idem, Art (for the latter
varieties of jewish religious experience:

diversity and coherence
In many respects, Jews adhered to social norms current in the regions
they inhabited. In Palestine and Iraq, rabbinic marriage norms and other
social conventions may mirror broader Roman and Sasanian conventions,
respectively.28 he Jews of Arabia known to early Islamic tradition were
embedded in the kin-based groupings (“tribes,” “clans”) of the other Arabs
with whom they interacted.29
he experience of Jews where they formed substantial ethnic enclaves
likely differed from those who inhabited cities and villages as resident
minorities. Palestine contained the best-attested and (probably) largest of
these enclaves, and these are not merely the survival of pre-70 settlement.
Between 70 and 400 ce, the geographical distribution of Jews in Palestine
underwent a dramatic transformation and, in the Golan at least, a spe-
cifically Jewish enclave may have formed and grown in Late Antiquity.30
he Judaism of central and southern Mesopotamia richly attested in
the Babylonian Talmud has features one might expect from an enclave
population.31
Purpose-built synagogues are first attested archaeologically in Palestine
centuries after synagogues developed in the diaspora, and in a deeply
Christianized provincial context (see later discussion). he floors of some
of those Palestinian synagogues were decorated with a depiction of the
God of Israel, represented as the sun god Helios surrounded by the signs of
the zodiac; one synagogue piously refrains from depicting the God of Israel
himself, while another replaces depiction of the heavens with their tex-
tualization.32 In Parthian or Sasanian Mesopotamia, synagogues also had
images: the Babylonian Talmud discusses the presence of a statue, ’andrata,
that was seemingly a fixture of the Shap we-Yateb synagogue in Nehadea
and that posed for rabbis the problem of seemingly idolatrous practice
(b. Rosh Hash. 24b; b. ‘Abod. Zar. 43b).
cf. Lapin, “Review”). “Judaisms” is the contribution of Neusner. See, for example, Neusner, Judaic
Law, 9, characteristically insisting on texts as discrete “systems” (the volume specifically responds to
Sanders: see especially 289–95). Collins, Between Athens, analogously treats writings of diaspora Jews
from Antiquity as independent articulations of identity.
28
Satlow, Jewish Marriage; Kalmin, Sage.
29
Newby, Jews of Arabia, 50–5. Medinan Jews: Lecker, “Muhammad.”
30
Lapin, Economy, Geography, 190; but the matter must be reevaluated in light of Ben David, Settlement;
Leibner, “Settlement.”
31
Gafni, Babylonian Jewry.
32
See Hachlili, “Zodiac.” For textualization, see the synagogue inscription from En Gedi, Naveh,
Mosaic, no. 70. My interpretation is influenced by Goodman, “Jewish Image,” and Schwartz,
Imperialism, 248–63.
124 Hayim Lapin
In Palmyra, a doorway was inscribed with Deuteronomy 6:4–9 (the

Shema) along with other verses (Deut 7:14, 15; 28:5), suggesting an
apotropaic understanding of their purpose. he practice clearly parallels,
but differs from, the rabbinic institution of mezuzah and has analogies in
Samaritan practices and “magical” texts.33 he same city has yielded an
inscription of one Sadiq Kahana (or “the priest”) b. Eleazar in the tem-
ple of Bel; a lamp with a fairly common late antique Jewish temple motif
(menorahs flanking a conch) in the temple of Allat; and an inscribed altar
whose dedicator may have been Jewish.34 Participation by Jews in sacrifi-
cial practices,35 and perhaps in non-Jewish temples, cannot be excluded.
he Qur’an attributes to Jews the belief that ‘Uzayr (Ezra) is the son of
God just as the Messiah (Jesus) is for Christians and accuses them of
treating their teachers (ahbārahum) as “lords” in addition to God alone
(9:30–31). Other early Islamic traditions attribute to Jews eschatological
knowledge, magical expertise, and apparently some rabbinic traditions
and practices.36
As with other late antique groups, some Jews gathered in conven-
ticles of intense study and ritual practice. Rabbinic circles might well be
described in this way for much of the period covered in this chapter, and
even more certainly those responsible for the Hekhalot texts. It has long
been conventional to distinguish between a nonascetic Judaism and the
ascetic impulse guiding early Christianity (especially in Syria). Yet the
Tosepta, a third-century rabbinic text, presents an unresolved exchange
involving ben Azzai (early second century), who does not marry “for
my soul yearns for Torah; let the world be maintained by others” (t. Yeb.
8:7); it also describes a debate in which a first-century rabbi convinces
“abstainers” (perushim, sometimes to be read “Pharisees”) that they must
not abstain from meat and wine in perpetual mourning for the destroyed
33
IJO III Syr 44–7; Naveh, Shaked, Magic Spells, 28–30.
34
Temple of Bel: IJO III Syr48 (the assigned seventh-century date, after Christian re-use of the space
as a church had ceased, is possible but circular); lamps in Temple of Allat: IJO III, 76; Krogulska,
“Lampe,” Ass’ad, Ruprechtsberger, Palmyra, 354–5, no. 110 (fourth century); inscribed altar: CIS
ii.3.1.4029, cited IJO III, 78 (father of dedicator’s is Ya‘aqob, Jacob).
35
See the temple of Onias in Egypt (destroyed 73 or 74, Josephus, J.W. 2.433–6) or Josephus’s descrip-
tion of the Jewish “place” at Sardis (Ant. 14.260); and the apparent practice of slaughtering of a
paschal lamb in the manner of a sacrifice, the latter clearly post-70 (t. Besah. 2:15; and apparently
presupposed by m. Pes. 10:4–5). See also Jerome, Ep. 112.15 (CSEL 55, 384), assuming Jerome is
thinking of “real” Jewish practice. he emperor Julian argued that Jewish lay slaughtering was still
“sacrificial” (Gal. 305D-306A; but cf. 351D; Stern, GLAJJ 2.513–48, no. 481a); might this reflect con-
temporary understandings? Jewish “pagan” sacrifice at Caesarea: t. Hul. 2:13.
36
Eschatological knowlege: Sīrā of Ibn Hisham, generally before the break between Muhammad and
the Medinan Jews; magic by a Jewish habr, 1, 352; trans. Guillaume, Life, 240. Rabbinization (?), Sīra
1, 383, 387; trans. Guillaume, 260, 263; see also 1, 659, trans. Guillaume, Life, 442.
Temple (t. Sot. 15:11–12).37 In both cases, the texts seem to respond to
tendencies within rabbinic circles or in groups with which rabbis were
in conversation.38
Like late antique Christians and others, some Jews engaged in pilgrim-
age or religious tourism. One tradition in both the Palestinian and the
Babylonian Talmud implies an itinerary and practices (for example, “the
place where they take dust”) associated with visiting the ruins of Babylon (y.
Ber. 9:1, 12d; b. Ber. 57b). In Mamre in southern Palestine, Jews, Christians,
and “Hellenes” (that is, pagans including local Arabs) were in the fifth
century still visiting a religious festival and fair, where they had reportedly
worshipped commingled – this in spite of the earlier intervention of the
emperor Constantine, who at the behest of his mother-in-law provided
a Christian basilica and separate enclosure and prohibited “pagan” sacri-
fice.39 As late as the 380s, there was a Jewish shrine at Daphne that was the
site of overnight ritual incubation (John Chrysostom, Adv. Jud. 1.6.2 [PG
48.852]).
Some Jews were influenced by eschatological expectations: a return by
“Moses” to Crete reportedly led to suicidal enthusiasm (Sozomen, Hist.
eccl. 7.38). here is also evidence for the continued survival, even flourish-
ing, of apparent “hybrids.”40 Forms of “Jewish Christianity” – groups that
understood themselves as Christian, but also as descendants of Jews and
practitioners of some “Jewish law” – seem to have survived in Beroea in
Coele-Syria and elsewhere in the region at least until the end of the fourth
century, if we may believe Jerome and Epiphanius.41 In addition, magic as
practiced by Jews developed considerably in Late Antiquity in the form
of magical amulets, bowls, and recipe books. Amulets from the vicinity
of Palestine in Jewish Aramaic range from the invocation of biblical verses
37
Compare the other views expressed in the whole pericope. See also b. B. Qam. 59b (symbolic mourn-
ing); Pesiq. Rab. 34.2, 3 (“mourners of Zion”; early medieval); t. Ber. 3:25; m. Sot. 15:11 (polemics
against abstemiousness, perishut). Regarding sexual abstinence, see also the rabbinic discussions of
Moses’s prophetic celibacy in Koltun-Fromm, Hermeneutics, ch. 7 (in preparation; my thanks to
Koltun-Fromm for making available portions of her manuscript); eadem, “Zipporah’s Complaint”;
Boyarin, Carnal Israel, 159–65.
38
Note also Koltun-Fromm’s argument that sexual renunciation in encratite Syrian Christianity was
innovative in the third century, Hermeneutics, ch. 5. he alternative view that sees Tatian as instru-
mental still leaves these developments contemporary to rabbinic traditions.
39
Sozomen, Hist. eccl. 2.4. See further Kofsky, “Mamre.”
40
See also Mitchell, “heos Hypsistos” on late-antique evidence for hypsistarians and theosebeis; and
van der Horst in Chapter 12 of this volume.
41
Epiphanius, Pan. 29.7.7; Jerome. Vir. ill. 3 (claiming personal knowledge); texts in Klijn and
Reinink, Patristic Evidence 172/173, 210/211; see also Kinzig, “Non-Separation,” 27–35. For the
Pseudo-Clementines, Ascension of Isaiah, and Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, see Baumgarten,
“Literary Evidence”; Frankfurter, “Beyond ‘Jewish Christianity’”; and Reed, “‘Jewish Christianity.’”
126 Hayim Lapin
alone to appeals to angelic and divine powers. Both amulets and bowls
(from Mesopotamia) include the occasional appropriation of rabbinic
personalities.42 One literary collection of rituals, Sepher ha-razim (Book
of Secrets), written in literate, biblically informed Hebrew, embeds such
rituals in a distinctly “Jewish” cosmology, and includes an incantation for
visionary experience that echoes at once the visionary incantations of late
antique Jewish mystical texts (Hekhalot or Merkabah texts), Greek magi-
cal papyri, and philosophical and paraphilosophical interest in divinatory
practices in Late Antiquity.43
Diversity, indeed differentiation, is what we should expect from a
highly dispersed population in a period of substantial political, cultural,
and religious change. Despite this, a significant body of evidence suggests
coherence of Judaism around ethnic models of identity and around pat-
terns of belief, practices, and symbolic representation with strong family
resemblances among them (a “common Judaism”). It would be a mistake
to view this coherence as simple, inevitable, or natural. It should be under-
stood rather as the historical result of sustained cultural work.
In the pre-Christian and Christian Roman empire and in Sasanian Iraq,
imperial, provincial, urban, and local actors performed some of that cul-
tural work through formal and informal legal, religious, and social clas-
sification. But much of this work was carried out by Jews themselves. On
the model of the propagation of Christianity, with its coalescence of a
far-flung “proto-orthodoxy” in the second century and an episcopal net-
work in the third, we should perhaps assume noncentralized intercommu-
nication through emissaries and correspondence that might support and
foster consolidation. Direct evidence for such intercommunication is very
limited. here are, of course, traditions involving letter-writing in rab-
binic literature.44 Indirect evidence of communication appears in inscrip-
tions where archisynagogai are honored or noted for their dedications in
synagogues not their own.45 Others include the emergence of the rabbinic
movement in Babylonia and the tradition of nahote, rabbis who moved
back and forth between Palestine and Babylonia; the appearance on an
inscription from Bayt al Khadr in Yemen of a list of the twelve priestly
42
For texts, see Naveh and Shaked, Amulets; idem, Magic Spells; Levene, Corpus, all with discussion of
earlier publications. Verses alone: Naveh and Shaked, Amulets, Amulet. 13; cf. no. 15; Magic Spells,
Amulet 22. Rabbinic personalities: Naveh and Shaked, Amulets, Bowl 5.5, 6; Levene, Corpus, no.
156.7. See also De Jong in Chapter 1 of this volume.
43
Margulies (Margaliot), Sefer Ha-Razim; the invocation of Helios appears at 4.61–3.
44
Hezser, Jewish Literacy, 267–75. See, for example, letters of recommendation discussed on p. 269 (y.
Hag. 1:8, 76c [y. Ned. 10:8, 42b]; y. Mo’ed Qat. 3:1, 81c).
45
E.g., IJO III Syr5, 54, although interpretation of both is disputed.
courses and their assignment to towns generally in the Galilee (the motif
is otherwise epigraphically attested only in Palestine); and the utilization
in the fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions of a liturgical formulary that
echoes that of developing rabbinic statutory prayers.46
We can also identify attempts to centralize coherence. While the
Jerusalem temple stood, it played this type of consolidating role for dias-
pora communities through the Temple priesthood, the custom of send-
ing monetary tribute, the practice of pilgrimage, and the role of the high
priests in acting as patrons of Jewish communities. In the wake of the
Temple’s destruction, there were no groups or institutions that could “nat-
urally” step into such a role, although it is possible that rabbis and groups
of priests or others tried. It is only in the fourth century or perhaps the
third that the descendants of the Gamalielide patriarchs experienced some
measure of success in extending their role as patrons and arbiters in dias-
pora communities, a role that is attested in inscriptions, Roman law, and
literary texts.47
aspects of the development of jewish “religion”

in the near east after 70 ce
Let us turn, finally, to some features of Jewish practice that seem to be
products of the post-70 era and help to mark out the higher boundaries
that Jewish communities forged and maintained in Late Antiquity. We may
begin with synagogues. his may seem surprising: Josephus, the Gospels,
and Acts attest to synagogues before 70 in Jerusalem, Caesarea, Tiberias,
Capernaum, Dora, perhaps Nazareth, and in the Near Eastern diaspora in
Antioch, Damascus, and Salamis on Cyprus.48 However, the archaeological
attestation for synagogues is almost entirely later, from the latter half of the
second century (Dura Europos) onward.49
46
Oppenheimer, Rome and Babylon, 418–21; Bayt al Khadr: Degen, “Inscription”; Apostolic Consitutions
7.33–38.
47
Inscriptions: IJO I Mac1; possibly Ach51 and JIWE I 145. Roman law: Ch 16.8.8 (392), 11 (396), 13
(397), 14 (399), 15 (404), 17 (404), 22 (415), 29; 2.1.10 (398), Linder, Jews, nos. 20, 24, 27, 30, 32, 34,
41, 53, 28. Literary texts: Julian, Ad communitatem Iudaeorum (Stern, GLAJJ 2.559–68, no. 486a);
Libanius, Epistulae (texts in Stern, GLAJJ 2.589–603, nos. 496–504). See Schwartz, “Patriarchs”; cf.
Levine, “Status,” building on his own earlier contributions.
48
Jerusalem: Acts 6:9 (assuming a building); Caesarea: Josephus, J.W. 2.285–92; Tiberias: Josephus,
Life, 277, 280, 293; Capernaum: Mark 1:21 (Luke 4:33); Luke 7:4; John 6:49; by implication Mark 3:1
(Matt. 12:9; Luke 6:6); Nazareth: Luke 4:16 (cf. Mark 6:1; Matt. 13:54); Antioch: Josephus, J.W. 7.44;
Damascus: Acts 9:1, 20: Salamis: Acts 13:5. Binder, Temple Courts, 156–61, 263–69; Levine, Ancient
Synagogue, 42–69.
49
Outside of Palestine: Roth-Gerson, Jews of Syria, 245–80. Dura-Europos dates from the mid-third
century ce, with a previous phase in use as a synagogue from the late second century, White,
128 Hayim Lapin
he widespread establishment of monumentalized synagogues paid

for by donors whose names are commemorated in inscriptions coincides
with broad reorganizations of religion and piety in the late antique eastern
Roman empire, where the emergence of liturgies and architectures con-
structed Jewish, Christian, Manichaean, and ultimately Muslim congrega-
tions.50 he spread of synagogues beyond larger towns reflects an emerging
village culture in the Roman Near East.51 In Palestine it dates largely to
the fifth and sixth centuries, the period during which rural Palestinian
churches, whose architectural features they echo, were also becoming
numerous.
Within that broader framework, synagogues emerged as places where
people articulated a communal ideology. Inscriptions wished that donors
“be remembered for good.” An inscription from Apamea honoring donors
ends with the words “peace and mercy upon all your sanctified people.”52
Apamea in particular demonstrates the coexistence within communities of
both a communitarian ethos that distributed blessings upon all members
and also a dedicatory practice of contributing for the sotēria, “wellbeing,”
or perhaps in this late fourth-century context “salvation,” of individuals,
family members, and apparently whole households.53
While sharing much stylistically with the roughly contemporaneous
Durene Mithraeum, baptistry, and other non-Jewish cultic sites, the syn-
agogue at Dura manifests on its decorated walls two important features of
communal formation that will be important in later Middle Eastern Jewish
religious culture as well: the thematization of the Jerusalem temple, and
with it a visual rhetoric of communal religious distinctiveness, even superi-
ority.54 he assimilation of synagogues to the Temple is a significant theme
Social Origins, 2, 276–87. For Palestine see Levine, “First-Century Synagogue”; Levine, Synagogue,
42–69. Pre-70 synagogues in Palestine: the heodotus inscription from Jerusalem (CIJ 2, 1440;
Lifshitz, Donateurs, no. 79; dating and context remain contested); modified “synagogue” spaces
in rebel-occupied Masada and Herodium (special cases, reflecting the ideology of their occupiers);
public building at Gamla (none of the remains implies a ritual function); and a number of proposed
synagogues in Judea (Jericho: Netzer, “Synagogue”; Kh. Umm el ‘Umdan: Levine, “First-Century
Synagogue, 86–87; Qiryat Seper: Levine, Ancient Synagogue, 65–66). For the late dating of Palestinian
synagogues, see, for example, Jodi Magness, “Question”; and “Heaven on Earth.” (I cannot accept
her position on either priests or the identity of Helios.)
50
Stroumsa, La fin, esp. 148–49.
51
Grainger, “Village Government”; Tate, Les Campagnes.
52
See Lapin, “Palestinian Inscriptions,” esp. 257–66. “Remembered [for good]”: for example, Naveh,
Mosaic, s.vv. dkr, zkr; Roth-Gerson, Greek Inscriptions, 1, 4, 7, 17; Weiss, Netzer, Promise, 41–2 and
photos throughout; IJO III Syr23, Syr35, Syr83?, Syr84, Syr90–2. Apamea: IJO III Syr54, cf. Syr53.
53
IJO III Syr53–71, esp. Syr61–6, Syr71.
54
Elsner, “Cultural Resistance,” esp. 281–99. For distinctiveness or superiority, see, for example, the
depiction of Yahweh’s victory over Dagon (represented as two (!) local deities, ibid. plate 12, with
Goodenough, Jewish Symbols, 10, 74–80).
in the decorations and epigraphy from synagogues in Late Antiquity. As

with much else, the evidence is overwhelmingly from Palestine; however,
all or part of the synagogue at Apamea is called a naos (temple), and one
of the sites preserving a list of priestly courses is in Yemen. Emerging litur-
gical poetry (generally from the end of our period) in particular expresses
temple and priestly themes, and its performance may reflect a kind of
sacerdotalization of worship.55 We can say little about the actual liturgy
of synagogues outside the rabbinized circles that produced and preserved
surviving liturgical poetry. Early rabbinic traditions about liturgy sug-
gest that rabbis were working with and standardizing forms, rubrics, and
motifs, including some that may have predated 70 ce and were not unique
to rabbis. he appropriation of a manifestly Jewish liturgical tradition in
Apostolic Constitutions 7.33–8 suggests either a certain degree of rabbiniza-
tion in a Greek liturgical context in Syria before the fourth-century date
of the Constitutions, or a shared, if geographically dispersed and bilingual,
tradition about how to construct at least some elements of a liturgy.
An explicit rhetoric of cultural distinctiveness is easiest to trace in the
most significant Jewish literary corpus of Late Antiquity, that of the emerg-
ing rabbinic movement. Rabbis constructed an identity for Jews that was
in but not of the Roman or Sasanian kingdoms, whose governments could
be called simply ha-malkut, “the kingdom” (with or without the adjec-
tive “evil”). Although the rabbinic movement had a prehistory connected
to Second Temple Jewish “sectarianism” and especially to Pharisees, the
movement as we know it took shape only after 70. he development of
textual and ideological consolidation is attested only in the second cen-
tury, with the editing of the Mishnah in about 200 ce.56 he production in
something like their present form of the other corpora of classical rabbinic
texts took shape after 200, with continued production of some significant
texts after the Arab conquests of Palestine and Mesopotamia in the seventh
century.57 As historical artifacts, rabbinic texts are difficult to pin down.
Palestinian texts do not cite rabbis or events any later than about 360 ce;
the Babylonian Talmud extends the range of sages cited to about 500 ce.
However, all draw on preexisting sources, and the durations of the collec-
tion and editing processes are unknown.
A mildly revisionist reconstruction understands the rabbinic movement
as emerging first as a group of pietists and ritual experts who, in the third
55
Temple themes: Fine, Holy Place, 95–126 (Palestine), 127–58 (Diaspora). Liturgy and Temple: Swartz,
“Sage”; Yahalom, Poetry, esp. 107–36.
56
his section draws on Lapin, “Origins.”
57
Discussion and bibliography in Stemberger and Strack, Introduction.
130 Hayim Lapin
and fourth centuries, congregated in a number of cities of Palestine.58 Also

by sometime in the third century, a parallel rabbinic movement had set
down roots in Mesopotamia.59 he Babylonian Talmud, the sole, but mon-
umental, “classical” product of rabbinic circles in Mesopotamia, draws
heavily on Palestinian sources. Use of invented Palestinian traditions for
a variety of rhetorical reasons implies an extended period of intellectual
dependence. However, already within classical texts and especially in the
early medieval (and largely Babylonian-oriented) Geonic literature, the
relative authority of the two traditions and the superiority of Babylonia
were matters of polemic and debate. In both Mesopotamia and Palestine,
the rabbinic “movement” consisted of informal circles of masters, disci-
ples, and other adherents who seem to have drawn their membership from
wealthy, literate strata of the Jewish population.60 By late Talmudic times,
Babylonian rabbis may have developed formal academies.61 Nothing quite
so formalized seems to have existed in Palestine (although “academies” of
some sort did develop) before the late Umayyad or early Abassid period.
he classical rabbinic texts reflect a situation in which rabbis and
their legal norms or traditions did not dominate “Judaism” and in any
case presuppose that rabbis were localized in certain areas of Sasanian
Mesopotamia and Roman Palestine. Broadly speaking, the general piety
that rabbis espoused and promoted made use of elements that preceded
the origins of the movement, and were not unique to rabbis: male infant
circumcision, a calendar whose major festivals were biblical, reading of
scripture and particularly the Torah, synagogues, some liturgical formulae
and structures, sabbath observance, and food avoidances. At the hands of
rabbis, however, these features were given elaborate, specific treatments
that do not necessarily reflect general Jewish practices. In certain cases,
notably sabbath law, rabbinic innovations may mark this group’s piety as
peculiar, if not in fact “sectarian.”62 Rabbinic cases from Palestine largely
reflect the concerns of adherents in the absence of means of enforcement,
while Babylonian traditions about nonrabbis reflect a distinct corporate
rabbinic identity verging on the separatist.63 Yet by the early Middle Ages,
58
Lapin, “Rabbis and Cities.”
59
Gafni, Babylonian Jewry; the essays on Babylonia collected in Oppenheimer, Rome and Babylon; and
Gafni, “Babylonian Jewry”; Goodblatt, “Babylonian Academies”; Kalmin, “Babylonian Talmud,” all
in CHJ IV; and Elman, “Middle Persian Culture.”
60
Hezser, Social Structure; Lapin, “Rabbis and Cities”; Beer, Babylonian Amoraim.
61
Rubenstein, Culture; cf. Becker, Fear of God on the Christian school of Nisibis.
62
See Fonrobert, “Separatism” on rabbinic ‘erub.
63
See, for example, Rubenstein, Culture, 123–42, Kalmin, Sage, 27–50, with differing emphases. he
characterization as “separatist” or sectarian is my own, however.
rabbis seem to have imposed substantial hegemony on Jewish communi-

ties. In the Near East, full-fledged “rabbinization” may well be the prod-
uct of the early Islamic period. However, there are several markers of an
extension of rabbinic authority and influence beyond limited circles of
adherents, particularly between the end of the fourth century and the early
seventh. hese markers include some limited knowledge on the part of
Church Fathers of rabbinic tradition; Justinian’s Novella 146 prohibiting
some form of rabbinic teaching; inscriptions more or less unambiguously
referring to rabbis; the Qu ’ran’s reference to rabbis and haberim (ahbār);
the emergence of a corpus of liturgical poetry within the Palestinian Jewish
community that is dependent upon rabbinic exegetical traditions; refer-
ences to rabbinic personalities in magical bowls; and the development of a
subrabbinic genre of Jewish mystical texts that appropriates the authority
and power of early rabbinic figures.64
here are important political and social dimensions to even the limited
rabbinization that we can trace at the end of our period of study. Roman
law increasingly treated Jews as an administrative body with its own insti-
tutions, which it directly or indirectly authorized.65 Legislation about the
Palestinian Patriarchate, for instance, included laws giving them charge
over primates, who in turn had charge over aspects of the religious or
administrative life of Jewish communities.66 Although these laws did not
designate rabbis in such religious or juridical roles, rabbis in Palestine, with
a long history of interaction with the Patriarchs, may have been among
those with access to appointments or commissions where they could apply
their influence. Nor did the discontinuation of the Patriarchate remove
either the tendency to mark out Jews as legally and administratively dis-
tinct (some of these laws were carried over into the Codex Iustinianus of 529
and 534) or the opportunity for rabbis to fill communal roles.
From the point of view of Jewish “religion,” rabbis and late antique syn-
agogues of the Middle East contributed to the practices, beliefs, and iden-
tity of Jewish communities. Synagogues provided Jewish communal spaces
64
Schwartz, “Rabbinization”; and Lapin, “Aspects” (forthcoming). Church Fathers: Jerome, Ep. 121.10
(CSEL 56, ed. Hilberg, 48–49); Comm. Matth. (22:23), (CCL 77, 204–5); Comm. Isa. 3, to 8:11–15
(CCL 73, 116–17, esp. 117); Epiphanius, Pan. 15.2.1; 33.9.3–4 (GCS, ed. Holl, 1, 209–10, 459). See
also Augustine, Contra adv. leg. et proph. 2.1.2 (CCL 49, ed. K.-D. Daur, 87–88). Justinian, Novella
146: Linder, Jews, no. 66. Inscriptions: Naveh, Mosaic, 49 (Rehov); plausibly also 6 (Dabbura); JIWE
I, 186 (Venosa, Italy). “Rabbi” existed as a general title in inscription, and cannot automatically be
assumed to refer to the rabbinic movement (Cohen, “Epigraphical Rabbis”) as in IJO III Syr36 (not
in Cohen), Cyp1 (Cohen’s no.7). Qu ’ran: 5:44, 63; see also 3:79; 9:30–1, and above n. 39. Liturgical
Poetry: Yahalom, Poetry. Magical bowls: see above. Mystical texts: Swartz, Scholastic Magic.
65
Linder, “Roman Rule”; idem, Jews, 67–78, 87–9.
66
See n. 50; see, esp., Ch 16.8.8 (392), 2.1.10 (398), 16.8.29 (Linder, Jews, nos. 20, 28, 53).
132 Hayim Lapin
by drawing, not insignificantly, on the same technologies of architecture

and ritual as Christian churches. Rabbinic tradition offered a totalizing
alternative Jewish discursive world, the wherewithal to ritually enact and
embody that world through festivals, liturgy, fasts, and dietary practices,
a cognitive map of that world ranging from an anthropology and eth-
nography of Jews and gentiles to a mildly eschatological theodicy, and a
disciplinary culture that fashioned rabbis through a lifetime of study and
piety into lay experts who could navigate that discursive world. Yet rabbis,
too, performed their cultural work in part by utilizing strategies (not least
those of philosophical schools) appropriated from the wider world they
inhabited.
In the end, one legacy of Late Antiquity for medieval Christian and
Muslim societies was a consensus shared by Jews and non-Jews alike
that Jews were not entirely part of society. A larger dynamic in the late
antique formation of orthodoxies, and with it state engagement in reli-
gious enforcement, was the stigmatization as “foreign” of practices and
groups of long standing within society and communal self-segregation.
Late antique Jews contributed to their own alienation and demonstrated,
paradoxically, that even in their cultural stigmatization Jews were firmly
embedded within the late antique religious landscape they inhabited.
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through the Centuries, ed. E. M. Meyers (Winona Lake, Ind., 1999): 239–68.
“Rabbis and Cities: Some Aspects of the Rabbinic Movement in Its Greco-Roman
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“Review of Steven Fine, Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman World: Toward a New
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“he Conversion of Himyar to Judaism and the Jewish Banu Hadl of Medina.” WO 26
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Lehto, Adam. “Moral, Ascetic, and Ritual Dimension to Law-Observance in Aphrahat’s
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Leibner, Uzi. “Settlement and Demography in Late Roman and Byzantine Eastern Galilee.”
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136 Hayim Lapin
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5
CHRISTIANITY IN SYRIA
sidney h. griffith
he history of Christianity in Syria is a story of how this burgeoning

religious movement of Late Antiquity came to take on a distinctively
regional dress. Effectively a large frontier zone between the Roman and
the Parthian (and later the Persian) empires, Syria was exposed to ever-
changing cultural and political influences. While Aramaic, with many
regional variations, was the dominant language in this milieu, from the
late fourth century bce onward Greek language and culture also gained
a powerful presence. From the last third of the second century bce, local
circumstances allowed the development of the semi-independent kingdom
of Edessa. Here the cultivation of the native Aramaic dialect eventuated in
the appearance of Syriac, an Aramaic idiom that facilitated the growth of
a unique Christian identity in cultural terms, defined largely in reaction
to and/or in tandem with Greek thought and religious expression. While
inscriptions and other archaeological evidence document the beginnings,
for the most part the historical evidence is literary.
edessene christianity
To the north and east of the Roman province of Syria, beyond the
Euphrates and just within the borders of the province of Mesopotamia
(Persian Osrhoene), lay the city of Edessa. Founded in 304 bce by the
Greek-speaking Seleucus I Nicator, the name Edessa recalled the city of
the same name in Seleucus’s native Macedonia. Syriac-speaking locals,
however, have persistently called the city Ûrhāy.1 In Parthian times, from
around the year 132 bce onward, the city and its associated territories
1
Harrak, “he Ancient Name of Edessa.”
138
Christianity in Syria 139
became the kingdom of Edessa, a dignity it preserved until the year 214
ce, when it officially became a Roman colony.2 In the environs of Edessa,
sometime in the early first century ce, developments in the writing of
Aramaic began to take the form that in due course would come to be
called Syriac. From about the middle of the second century ce until well
into Islamic times, Syriac, the standard Aramaic of a large corpus of mostly
Christian texts, was, together with Greek, one of the principal vehicles of
Christianity in Syria and eastward.3 Indeed, by the fifth century Syriac and
its associated ecclesiastical culture had extended its influence well to the
west of the Euphrates.4
Culturally, theologically, and eventually jurisdictionally, the
Greek-speaking city of Antioch, where “the disciples were for the first time
called Christians” (Acts 11:26), exerted an enormous influence throughout
Syria, beyond the Euphrates and even beyond the largely Syriac-speaking
frontier areas between the Roman and Persian empires.5 In all probability,
Christianity first spread from the milieu of Antioch to the Syriac-speaking
environs of Edessa, where Greek had also long been a language of intellectual
and religious culture.6 here too, again in all probability, Aramaic-speaking
Christians also came from further to the east, from Persian territories such
as the province of Adiabene and southern Mesopotamia, in Babylonia,
where Jewish-Christian and other Christian communities had flourished
at least from the third century.7
In the first decades of the fifth century ce, a now anonymous writer
in Edessa, following in the footsteps of Eusebius of Caesarea in his
Ecclesiastical History, composed the Doctrina Addai on the basis of records
said to have been preserved in the city’s archives. he narrative claims that
at Jesus’s own behest the disciple Addai was sent by the apostle homas
immediately after Jesus’s death to bring Christianity to Edessa. he text
further specifies the city’s communion with Rome, by way of its com-
munion with the see of Antioch, and in set speeches espouses the themes
of Edessene orthodoxy. While the legendary character of this narrative is
2
Segal, Edessa: he ‘Blessed City’; Ross, Roman Edessa: Politics and Culture on the Eastern Fringes of the
Roman Empire, 114–242 CE.
3
Van Rompay, “Some Preliminary Remarks on the Origins of Classical Syriac as a Standard Language:
he Syriac Version of Eusebius of Caesarea’s Ecclesiastical History”; Drijvers and Healey, he Old
Syriac Inscriptions of Edessa and Osrhoene: Texts, Translations and Commentary, esp. 1–41.
4
Millar, “heodoret of Cyrrhus: A Syrian in Greek Dress?”
5
Wallace-Hadrill, Christian Antioch: A Study of Early Christian hought in the East.
6
See the review of the pertinent literature in Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early
Syriac Tradition.
7
Chaumont, La Christianisation de l’empire iranien: des origins aux grandes persécutions du IVe siècle.
140 Sidney H. Griffith
clear, it nevertheless preserves the local memory of Edessa’s ties with the
Christians of Palestine.8
Historically reliable evidence for the beginnings of Christianity in
Edessa and its environs is scarce. By the time of the Roman emperor
Septimius Severus (r.193–211 ce), the Christian community in Edessa was
large enough to support a church building of some sort. For the Chronicle
of Edessa records the memory that in the year 201 ce, the church of
the Christians was destroyed by a flood. he same sixth-century chron-
icle, presumably because of the popularity of his ideas in Edessa, dates
the “apostasy” of Marcion to the year 138 ce. It also records the date of
the birth of Bar Daysān, the local Christian philosopher, in Edessa in
the year 154 ce.9 Dated around the year 192 ce, the epitaph of Abercius
Marcellus, bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia, mentions the presence of
Christians around Edessa. And Julius Africanus (ca.160–240), who in
the year 195 ce may have come with Septimius Severus’s expedition to
Osrhoene, mentions in his Cesti or “Embroideries” that he had met Bar
Daysān in Edessa.10
varieties of early syriac-speaking christianity

An important Christian figure in the early history of the Syriac-speaking
milieu is Tatian the Syrian (ca.160 ce); he says of himself that he was from
Assyria,11 by which he presumably meant northern Mesopotamia. In the
works of early Christian heresiographers, Tatian is often accused of the
“heresy” of the “Encratites,”12 that is, ascetical rigorists – a charge that
would long echo in accounts of Christianity in Syria. But the most impor-
tant contribution of Tatian to church life in Syria and Mesopotamia was
undoubtedly the Diatessaron, a work that he put together while in Rome.
he original language of the composition is uncertain, either Greek or
Syriac. But in the latter language, which many scholars think was in fact
its original language, it had a wide circulation east of the Mediterranean.
8
Griffith, “he Doctrina Addai as a Paradigm of Christian hought in Edessa in the Fifth Century.”
he Addai legend is continued in stories of his missionary journeys from Edessa into Iraq and
beyond, including the adventures of Mar Mari, his disciple. he accounts seem to have the pur-
pose of making a claim for the early influence of Edessene Christianity well into the realms of the
Parthians and the Persians. See Chaumont, La Christianisation de l’empire iranien, 8–29; see also the
important introduction in Ramelli, ed. Atti di Mar Mari, esp. 19–144.
9
Guidi, Chronica Minora, 1, 2–3.
10
Julius Africanus, Cesti, 1.20.39–53; Griffith, “Beyond the Euphrates in Severan Times: Mani, Bar
Daysān, and the Struggle for Allegiance on the Syrian Frontier.”
11
Tatian, Orat. 42, ed. Whittaker.
12
Grant, “he Heresy of Tatian”; Barnard, “he Heresy of Tatian – Once Again.”
Although it was officially banned by Bishop Rabbula of Edessa (d.435), its

influence was pervasive.13
Bishop Rabbula banned the Diatessaron in favor of another early liter-
ary accomplishment of Syriac-speaking Christians, the production of the
so-called Peshitta translations of the scriptures into Syriac. he Peshitta, or
the “simple” version of the Bible in Syriac as it was called from the ninth
century onward, seems to have had its roots in the translation of the Torah
and other Old Testament books made directly from Hebrew or Aramaic
into Syriac and undertaken by Jews in Edessa already in the second half of
the second century ce. By the fifth century, the process was complete, and
the Peshitta itself becomes evidence of the early presence of a broad-based
Christianity in the Edessene milieu.14 In this connection, it is worth recall-
ing the passages in Eusebius of Caesarea’s Ecclesiastical History referring to
the city’s archives and to Edessa’s participation in early, empire-wide doc-
trinal and liturgical controversies.15
Christian works in Syriac from the early period suggest a significant
Christian presence by the Severan period, although there is some contro-
versy over whether or not Syriac was actually their original language. here
are, for example, the Odes of Solomon, the Acts of Judas homas (including
the Hymn of the Pearl ), and the Gospel of homas.16 But the earliest Syriac
writer among the Christians whose name and work we actually know is
Bar Daysān (154–222).17 We learn from Eusebius that Bar Daysān wrote
polemical works against the teaching of Marcion of Sinope (d. ca.154),
whose ideas had become popular among some people in Edessa, and that
Bar Daysān was the author of a system of thought putting together ele-
ments from his own world beyond the Euphrates and the philosophy of
the Greeks. Epiphanius of Salamis (ca.315–403) wrote in his Panarion that
Bar Daysān was “a learned man in both Greek and Syriac,”18 and Ephraem
the Syrian called him “the Aramean philosopher.”19 Ephraem also presents
Bar Daysān as a successful composer of madrāshê,20 a genre of “teaching
songs” in Syriac that became the effective vehicles of his teaching in the
13
See Peterson, Tatian’s Diatessaron: Its Creation, Dissemination, Significance and History in Scholarship.
14
Weitzman, he Syriac Version of the Old Testament: An Introduction; Brock, he Bible in the Syriac
Translation.
15
See Ross, Roman Edessa, 127–8.
16
For discussion and bibliography, see Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom, esp. 24–8; Patterson,
“he View from Across the Euphrates,” 411–31.
17
Drijvers, Bardaisan of Edessa; Teixidor, Bardesane d’Edesse: la première philosophie syriaque.
18
Epiphanius, Pan. 56, ed. Holl.
19
Mitchell, S. Ephraim’s Prose Refutations of Mani, Marcion and Bardaisan, 2.225.
20
Ephrem, Hymns Against Heresies, 1.11,17; 53.6, ed. Beck.
Aramaic-speaking milieu. his genre was to become the preferred medium

for Ephraem’s own teaching, and some modern scholars have suggested
that Bar Daysān had in fact been virtually its inventor in the form in
which Ephraem was to use it so effectively.21 Bar Daysān is also thought to
have had a significant influence on the teaching of Mani (ca.216–76) and
Manichaeism, a suggestion made not only by modern scholars22 but by
Ephraem himself. According to Ephraem, Mani, like Bar Daysān, com-
posed madrāshê, presumably in Aramaic, in which “he published the fact
that he sold his freedom to his ‘companion.’”23
Mani and Manichaeism had in fact a purchase in Edessa. Mani
was born near Seleucia-Ctesiphon, the capital of the Persian empire;
Ephraem said he was from Babylon.24 Mani was religiously nurtured in
the Aramaic-speaking milieu of the Elkasaites, a Judeo-Christian group
in lower Mesopotamia.25 he backbone of his mature teaching was based
in the epistles of St. Paul; it was gnostic in its inspiration and dualistic
in essence, featuring conflict between darkness and light. Manichaean
adepts, divided into two groups, the “perfect” and the “hearers,” worked
to release the particles of light that according to their texts had been
captured by darkness in a primeval conflict. In this effort, they fol-
lowed in the footsteps of the ancient prophets, the Buddha, Jesus, and
Mani himself.26 In due course, after many vicissitudes, Manichaeism
spread from Mesopotamia west into the far Roman empire and east-
ward into Persia and beyond.27 Mani is said to have addressed one of
his own epistles to a community of his followers in Edessa.28 When
Ephraem the Syrian spoke of Mani’s madrāshê, he presumably had in
mind the book of Psalms and Prayers, originally composed in Syriac, and
one of the seven works in the official canon of Manichaean scriptures.29
By the early fourth century ce, according to some authorities,
21
McVey, “Were the Earliest Madrāshê Songs or Recitations?”; Griffith, “St. Ephraem, Bar Daysān
and the Clash of Madrāshê in Aram: Readings in St. Ephraem’s Hymni contra Haereses.”
22
See, for example, Wessendonk, “Bardesanes und Mani”; Drijvers, “Mani und Bardaisan: Ein Beitrag
zur Vorgeschichte des Manichäismus”; Aland, “Mani und Bardesanes – zur Entstehung des man-
ichäischen Systems.”
23
Ephraem, Hymns against Heresies, 1.16. he reference to Mani’s “companion” here is presumably to
the syzygos, or “heavenly twin,” from whom Mani was said to have received revelations.
24
Ephraem, Hymns against Heresies, 14.8.
25
Lieu, Manichaeism in Mesopotamia and the Roman East.
26
BeDuhn, he Manichaean Body: In Discipline and Ritual.
27
Lieu, Manichaeism in the Later Roman Empire and Medieval China: A Historical Survey. For
Manichaeism in the Sasanian empire, see De Jong in Chapter 1 of this volume.
28
he Cologne Mani Codex (P. Colon. Inv. Nr. 4780; ‘Concerning the Origin of his Body’, 50–1, ed.
Cameron and Dewey.
29
Lieu, Manichaeism in the Later Roman Empire, 6.
Manichaeism had already gained a commanding presence in the envi-

rons of Edessa.30
By the dawn of the fourth century, the teachings of Marcion, Bar Daysān,
and Mani, whom the Church of the Roman empire would in due course
come to consider heretics, had thus already gained a hearing and a following
in Edessa and the Syriac-speaking milieu at large. In a famous essay, Walter
Bauer argued that these groups were actually the first Christians of Edessa;
those who would come to be called “orthodox” were only organized later,
in the days of bishop Qûnâ (r. ca.289–313), the last of the bishops named in
the Doctrina Addai’s list of founders of the see of Edessa.31 Significantly for
Bauer, the names of both Bishop Qûnâ and Bishop Jacob of Nisibis (d.338)
are on the list of attendees at the Council of Nicaea in 325 ce.32 But Bauer’s
hypothesis seems unlikely on a number of grounds. Among other things,
the teachings of all three groups presume the preexistence of a Christian
community with whose views they were in dialogue; there are also refer-
ences to earlier Christian activity in the larger Syrian milieu.
What is more, it is clear from the sources that in the first quarter of the
fourth century, and extending to the beginnings of the fifth century, the
controversies that engaged the attention of the Syriac-speaking Christians
were for the most part the same religious and political issues that embroiled
their coreligionists in the Greek-speaking Roman empire. In this connec-
tion, one must recall the fact that as Christianity was spreading in Persia in
the third century, and experiencing tension with the Zoroastrian religious
authorities, including some persecution, the Persian governmental policies
at the same time, in the course of Persian conquests beyond the Euphrates,
favored the deportation of a considerable number of Greek-speaking
Christians from Roman Syria, even from the environs of Antioch, well
into Persian territory and beyond the Tigris, a population shift that had
important effects in the history of the church in Persia.33
aphrahat and ephraem the syrian

As it happens, after the time of Bar Daysān, the first important Syriac
writers on religious themes whose names we know were from regions to
30
Drijvers, “Addai und Mani, Christentum und Manichäismus im dritten Jahrhundert in Syrien.”
31
Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, esp. 33.
32
Gelzer, Hilgenfeld, and Cuntz, Patrum Nicaenorum Nomina, Latine, Graece, Coptice, Syriace, Arabice,
Armeniace, s.v.
33
Chaumont, La christianisation de l’Empire iranien; Fiey, Jalons pour une histoire de l’Église en Iraq;
Brock, “Christians in the Sasanian Empire: A Case of Divided Loyalties.”
the east of Edessa: Aphrahat, the “Persian Sage,” who lived in northern
Mesopotamia, and Ephraem the Syrian, the “Harp of the Holy Spirit,”
who served the church in Nisibis for most of his life. While little or noth-
ing is known for certain about Aphrahat’s biography, his Demonstrations,34
the only writings we have from him, have survived along with the dates of
their composition. he first ten of them carry the date of 336/337 ce, num-
bers 11 to 22 are dated to 344, and number 23 was written in 344/345 ce in
the course of a major persecution of Christians in Persia. hese dates allow
us to suppose that Aphrahat’s lifetime spanned approximately the years
between 270 and shortly after 345. A number of significant themes emerge
from the Demonstrations that shed light on the shape of Christianity in the
Syriac-speaking milieu in the first half of the fourth century. Immediately
evident to even the most casual reader is the biblical focus of the religious
discourse; doctrinal themes are developed and their prose Demonstrations
are composed in a process of scriptural reasoning that is expressed in a
tissue of quotations from and allusions to passages in the Old and New
Testaments, which are read through the lens of the Gospel. It is a mul-
tifaceted typological mode of scriptural reasoning, much akin to the
modes of biblical theology to be found in contemporary Greek-speaking
Christianity, but without any trace of the idiom of Hellenistic philoso-
phy.35 hey address the major themes of Christian faith and practice, often
vis-à-vis what is presented as their Jewish counterparts.36 Church organi-
zation reflected in Demonstrations speaks of distinctively Syrian forms of
the ascetical life, such as the institution of the “sons and daughters of the
covenant” (VI); one Demonstration (XIV) is in the form of a letter from
a church synod. here is no explicit trace of the theological controversies
over Arianism, for example, that would engage Aphrahat’s younger con-
temporary Ephraem, nor is there any hint of a line of thinking that could
be traced to earlier figures such as Bar Daysān or Mani. What is distinc-
tive in Aphrahat’s expression of Christianity is its Syriac idiom rather than
any departure from what in his time was quickly becoming conventional
Christianity.
By way of contrast, Ephraem the Syrian (ca.306–73), whose works and
thought would long remain authoritative for Syriac-speaking Christians,
was embroiled in all the controversies, both religious and political, that
34
Parisot, ed. Aphraatis Sapientis Persae Demonstrationes; Bruns, trans. Aphrahat: Unterweisungen;
Pierre, trans. Aphraate le Sage Persan: Les Exposés.
35
Bruns, Das Christusbild Aphrahats des Persischen Weise.
36
Neusner, Aphrahat and Judaism: he Christian-Jewish Argument in Fourth-Century Iran; Koltun-
Fromm, “A Jewish-Christian Conversation in Fourth-Century Persian Mesopotamia.”
swirled throughout the fourth century in the Great Church.37 For all but
the last ten years of his life, Ephraem lived in Nisibis. here he served the
local bishops, of whom Jacob of Nisibis (d.338) was the first. Perhaps a
deacon, Ephraem was certainly a “teacher” (mallpānâ) and probably an
ascetic, a “single man” (îhîdāyâ) in the service of the church.38 He retained
this same state in life during his service to the bishop of Edessa in his last
decade. Ephraem was a prolific writer in Syriac, with a large number of
probably inauthentic works in Greek also attributed to him; the number
of pages it takes in the Clavis Patrum Graecorum to list the latter is second
only to the number of pages it takes to list the works attributed to St. John
Chrysostom! For all that, most of the Greek works attributed to Ephraem
are more than likely by someone else.39 His bibliography in his native
Syriac is also long and includes all the major genres: prose, rhythmic and
rhymed prose, verse homilies (mêmrê), “teaching songs” (madrāshê), and
dialogue poems (sûgyātâ).40 Due to their masterful literary quality and the
acuity of the thought expressed in them, Ephraem’s works, especially his
madrāshê, remain classics in the Syriac language.41 His literary and religious
authority is unmatched in the whole Syriac tradition, and many of the
works attributed to him were soon translated into the other languages of
Late Antiquity: Greek, Armenian, Georgian, Arabic, Slavonic, and Latin.
Historically and politically, the major crisis in Ephraem’s life was doubt-
less the death of the Roman emperor Julian deep in Persian territory in the
year 363 ce. Ephraem loathed the emperor, who had renounced Christianity
and had promoted the renewal of the old state religion, and composed a
series of invective madrāshê in view of the slain emperor’s catafalque placed
before the gates of Nisibis on its return to the Romans.42 he political con-
sequence of the Roman defeat was the cession of the city of Nisibis to the
Persians and the flight of many of its Christians, including Ephraem, to
the city of Edessa in Roman territory. For the rest of his life, the frontier
between Rome and Persia lay between Edessa and Nisibis, arguably the
heartland of the Syriac-speaking peoples. And Ephraem became a vocal
37
Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom, 3–34; Brock, he Luminous Eye: he Spiritual World Vision
of St Ephrem; Den Biesen, Bibliography of Ephrem the Syrian.
38
Griffith, “Images of Ephraem: he Syrian Holy Man and his Church.”
39
For overview, see Hemmerdinger-Iliadou, “Éphrem (Les versions). I. Éphrem grec; II. Éphrem
latin,” cols. 800–19; Den Biesen, Bibliography, 23–4.
40
List of texts, editions, and translations in Den Biesen, Bibliography, 22–93.
41
Survey and detailed study of the literary aspects of Ephraem’s works in Den Biesen, Simple and Bold:
Ephrem’s Art of Symbolic hought.
42
Griffith, “Ephraem the Syrian’s Hymns ‘Against Julian’: Meditations on History and Imperial
Power.”
champion in Syria and beyond of both Roman political alignment and

Nicene orthodoxy.43
Marcion, Bar Daysān, and Mani remained major thinkers in the Syriac-
speaking milieu. While Ephraem and Syriac writers after him continued to
resist their ideas, they also responded to the challenges posed by the local
indigenous religious communities, notably those whom they called hanpê
in Syriac – that is, devotees of the local deities and their cults44 – and the
Jews, whose communities were widespread in the Syriac-speaking milieu.45
Against this background, Ephraem, who became a champion of Nicene
orthodoxy, arguably did more to advance its cause in Syriac than any other
single writer of the fourth century. It is notable in this connection that
the theological adversaries whose ideas Ephraem combated in Syriac came
from the wider world of the Roman empire and wrote almost exclusively
in Greek. his fact is of great significance for almost all the religious texts
written in Syriac from the time of Ephraem onward. Indeed, Ephraem’s
own pedagogical and doctrinal accomplishments consisted largely in
expressing artfully and accurately in Syriac ideas and doctrinal formulae
that had become widespread first in Greek.
church-dividing controversies from the fourth

to sixth centuries
For the most part, church councils convened by the Roman emperors
set the agenda for Ephraem46 and the Syriac writers who came after him,
including even those living beyond the Roman frontier in Persia and east-
ward. Greek writers provoked the calling of these councils by espous-
ing doctrines deemed officially unacceptable; others either inspired and
defended the councils’ decisions or attacked their decisions in writing.47
his Greek-inspired agenda is especially visible in ongoing translations of
the Greek theologians by Syriac writers and in the theological tracts they
composed. Translation thus became an increasingly major factor in Syriac
intellectual life from Ephraem’s time onward, a phenomenon that would
43
Griffith, “Ephraem, the Deacon of Edessa, and the Church of the Empire,” 22–52; idem, “Setting
Right the Church of Syria: Saint Ephraem’s Hymns against Heresies,” 97–114.
44
Drijvers, Cults and Beliefs at Edessa.
45
Drijvers, “Jews and Christians at Edessa,” 350–64; Shepardson, Anti-Judaism and Christian
Orthodoxy: Ephrem’s Hymns in Fourth-Century Syria.
46
Possekel, Evidence of Greek Philosophical Concepts in the Writings of Ephrem the Syrian.
47
Brock, “From Antagonism to Assimilation: Syriac Attitudes to Greek Learning”; idem, “Greek and
Syriac in Late Antique Syria.”
play a major role in the church-dividing controversies that dominated the

fifth century ce.
Ephraem and his Syriac-speaking contemporaries were very much au
courant with mainline thinking in the Church of the empire.48 In his Syriac
mêmrê and madrāshê “On Faith,” Ephraem’s intention was to commend
Nicene orthodoxy.49 Although Ephraem wrote in a very different idiom
from the Greek employed by Athanasius of Alexandria (ca.296–373) or the
Cappadocian Fathers, such as Basil of Caesarea (ca.330–79) and Gregory
of Nazianzus (329–89), his teaching echoed their doctrinal line. In the
Syriac-speaking milieu, Ephraem, who was in the service of the bishops
of Nisibis and Edessa, stands as a bellwether for ecclesiastical thinking in
Syria in the fourth century ce. Other than his works, we have few sources
of information about local Christian thought and practice in the fourth
century.
Syria of the fifth century ce, with its multiple Christological controver-
sies, conducted initially almost entirely in Greek, became the seedbed of
the church divisions that would emerge in the Syriac-speaking milieu of
the mid-sixth century, and which in due course would result in the devel-
opment of new Christian church communities by early Islamic times. As
was the case for the fourth century, so too the extant evidence for Christian
life in Syria in the fifth century is almost entirely textual. Although archae-
ological and art-historical data are not totally absent, they are neverthe-
less in their present state meager resources for the historian’s purposes.50
heological, and specifically Christological, issues consumed the attention
of the Syriac writers of the period. But the stage was set for them by events
transpiring outside the Syriac-speaking milieu. In the major sees of the
Roman empire, theological controversies in Greek about the proper for-
mulae to be used in affirming the divinity and humanity of Christ resulted
in the calling of church councils. While decisions taken at these councils
resolved the outstanding issues, they also incited further controversy.51
Developments began in earnest when in the year 429, Nestorius (d.
ca.452/3), bishop of Constantinople (428–36), delivered a sermon in which
he rejected the Greek term heotokos (God-bearer, or Mother of God)
48
Russell, St. Ephraem the Syrian and St. Gregory the heologian Confront the Arians.
49
Beck, Die heologie des hl. Ephräm in seinen Hymnen über den Glauben; idem, Ephräms Reden über
den Glauben: Ihr theologischer Lehrgehalt und ihr geschichtlicher Rahmen; Bou Mansour, La pensée
symbolique de saint Ephrem le Syrien.
50
For mostly later periods, see Leroy, Les manuscripts syriaques à peintures conserves dans les biblio-
thèques d’Europe et d’Orient.
51
For discussion of parallel developments in Egyptian Christianity, see van der Vliet in Chapter 8 of
this volume.
as a fitting or truthful epithet for the Virgin Mary. Nestorius’s position

elicited a strong, disapproving response from Bishop Cyril of Alexandria
(d.444), who made his own position clear in a spirited correspondence he
engaged in with Nestorius over the next several years.52 A church council
called by Emperor heodosius II (401–50) and held in the city of Ephesus
in the year 431 decided the matter in favor of Cyril. It approved the title
heotokos and deposed and excommunicated Nestorius, who was sent into
exile in 436. But controversy continued. Another church council held in
Ephesus in the year 449, under the domination of Cyril’s successor in
Alexandria, Bishop Dioscorus (d.453), failed to defuse the controversy,
and the council was itself later repudiated. hen in the year 451 another
council, called by Emperor Marcian (396–457) was held in Chalcedon in
Asia Minor, where a decision was reached that would ultimately be rec-
ognized as expressing the orthodox position of the Church of the empire.
he council proclaimed that Jesus of Nazareth, confessed to be the Son
of God, was and is one divine person, one divine being or substance
(ousia) in two natures (physeis), one divine and one human. After many
vicissitudes, and a century after the Council of Chalcedon, its conciliar
decision was systematically enforced in the Roman empire by Emperor
Justinian I (ca.483–565). In 553, he called a council in Constantinople
(Constantinople II), where actions were taken that would have a direct
effect among the Syriac-speaking Christians.
hese church councils and the Greek works of the scholars who par-
ticipated in the councils or wrote about the issues decided in them were
the prelude for developments among the Christians in Syria. Interest
in the Greek works of an earlier Antiochene, biblical exegete, heodore
of Mopsuestia (ca.350–428), among some Syriac-speaking church-
men in Edessa and its environs inspired their translation into Syriac;
they were thought by many to support the views of Bishop Nestorius
of Constantinople, condemned at the Council of Ephesus. Meanwhile,
among another group in the same Syriac-speaking milieu, the teaching
of Cyril of Alexandria became popular, especially in the form in which
it was presented in the anti-Chalcedonian, cathedral homilies of Bishop
Severus of Antioch (ca.465–538, r.512–18). In due course, these texts were
also translated into Syriac.53
52
McGuckin, St. Cyril of Alexandria, the Christological Controversy: Its History, heology, and Texts;
Wessel, Cyril of Alexandria and the Nestorian Controversy: he Making of a Saint and of a Heretic.
53
Lebon, Le monophysisme Sévérien: étude historique, littéraire et théologique sur la résistance monophysite
au Concile de Chalcédoine jusqu’a la constitution de l’Église jacobite; idem, “La christologie du mono-
physisme syrien”; Menze, Justinian and the Making of the Syrian Orthodox Church.
From the beginning, bishops in the Syriac-speaking sphere had shown

an interest in the controversies. Bishop Rabbula of Edessa (d.435), who had
early on championed the views of Cyril of Alexandria, was even respon-
sible for the translation of one of Cyril’s works into Syriac; Rabbula also
fought against the influence of the works of heodore of Mopsuestia.54 But
Rabbula’s successor in Edessa, Ibas (435–49; 451–57), associated himself
with the policies of heodoret of Cyrrhus (ca.393–460), who was friendly
to the exegetical methods of heodore; Ibas was deposed in the council of
449, but restored in 451. heodoret’s writings against Cyril of Alexandria
and a letter of Ibas to another Syriac-speaking bishop, Mari, were together
proscribed at the Council of Constantinople in 553. Meanwhile, Bishop
Barsauma of Nisibis (d. ca.496) was an avid promoter of the works and
thought of heodore of Mopsuestia.55 he struggle over the works of
heodore between rival scholarly circles reached such a pitch in Edessa
that in the year 489, in the time of the Roman emperor Zeno (ca.450–91),
the so-called School of the Persians in the city was closed. hose who sup-
ported the Antiochene exegete’s views fled to Nisibis, in Persian territory,
where they were welcomed by Bishop Barsauma. here they founded a new
school, which would eventually become the famed “School of Nisibis.”56
hen, in the year 542 ce, Jacob Baradaeus (ca.500–78) became bishop of
Edessa. He was the first bishop of the city to organize the church there
in opposition to the Roman imperial policy of enforcing the decisions of
the Council of Chalcedon. After being driven from his see, he continued
in this enterprise; he and his followers became the nucleus of the com-
munity that would evolve into what is today called the Syrian Orthodox
Church; in Late Antiquity they were often called “Jacobites,” after Jacob
Baradaeus. heir adversaries in the imperial church polemically and mis-
leadingly called them, along with the Egyptian and Armenian followers of
Cyril, “Monophysites” because of their espousal of Cyril of Alexandria’s
dictum that after the incarnation, Christ was “one incarnate nature (mia
physis sesarkomenē)” and that divine, in one divine hypostasis or person.
he Syriac-speaking students of the doctrines and works of heodore of
Mopsuestia early on expressed their sympathy for Nestorius and included
him as an honored father along with Diodore of Tarsus (d. ca.390) and
heodore. In the 540s, Mar Aba, who would become the Catholicos of
Seleucia Ctesiphon (540–52), and thus hierarchical head of the church
54
Blum, Rabbula von Edessa, der Christ, der Bischof, der heologe.
55
Gero, Barsauma of Nisibis and Persian Christianity in the Fifth Century.
56
Becker, Fear of God and the Beginning of Wisdom: he School of Nisibis and the Development of
Scholastic Culture in Late Antique Mesopotamia.
in Persia, brought works of Nestorius with him back into Persia after a
sojourn in Alexandria and had them translated into Syriac. In due course,
synods of the church in Persia held in the sixth and early seventh centu-
ries adopted creedal statements that echoed both Chalcedonian teaching
and the doctrinal positions of the Syriac-speaking scholars of the works
of heodore of Mopsuestia; their community had no participation in the
councils of the imperial church in the Roman empire.57 heir adversar-
ies in the imperial church and among the “Jacobites” polemically called
them “Nestorians”;58 they called themselves members of the “Church of
the East” and, in modern times, the “Assyrian Church of the East.”
Meanwhile, Syriac writers in the Edessene world, such as Philoxenus of
Mabbug (ca.440–523)59 and Jacob of Serugh (ca.451–521)60 wrote homilies
and treatises that favored the views of Cyril of Alexandria and Severus of
Antioch; other Edessene writers, such as Narsai (ca.399–503),61 wrote in
support of the views of heodore of Mopsuestia and of Nestorius. Further
to the east, in Nisibis and Persia, Syriac writers associated with the School
of Nisibis continued to write commentaries on the scriptures after the
manner of heodore of Mopsuestia, and theologians such as Babai the
Great (d.628) articulated in Syriac the doctrinal views both of heodore
and of Nestorius.62
Church-dividing controversies about Christology were not the only
developments in the life of the Syriac-speaking communities that strad-
dled the frontier between the Roman and Persian empires in the fifth and
early sixth centuries. At the beginning of the fifth century, in a synod at
Seleucia Ctesiphon held in the year 410 ce under the influence of Bishop
Maruta of Maipherqat/Martyropolis (d. after 410), the assembled bish-
ops of the church in Persia formally accepted the teachings and canons of
the Roman imperial council of Nicaea (325). In another synod in 424 ce,
they are also said to have reaffirmed their juridical independence from the
church in the West, that is, the sees associated with the patriarchates in
the Roman empire.63 Albeit independent, the church in Persia, as in the
57
Brock, “he Christology of the Church of the East in the Synods of the Fifth to Early Seventh
Centuries: Preliminary Considerations and Materials.”
58
Brock, “he ‘Nestorian’ Church: A Lamentable Misnomer”; Wilmshurst, he Martyred Church.
59
De Halleux, Philoxène de Mabbog: sa vie, ses écrits, sa théologie.
60
Bou Mansour, La théologie de Jacques de Saroug.
61
McLeod, he Image of God in the Antiochene Tradition.
62
Chediath, he Christology of Mar Babai the Great; Reinink, “Tradition and the Formation of the
‘Nestorian’ Identity.”
63
See, in connection with these developments, McDonough, “A Second Constantine? he Sasanian
King Yazdgard in Christian History and Historiography.”
West, was organized in bishoprics ranked under metropolitan sees. he

bishop of the Persian capital city, Seleucia Ctesiphon, served as the chief
hierarch, under the title Catholicos; this title was later supplemented with
the addition of the term Patriarch, as it was used in the West from the
mid-fifth century for the bishops of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria,
Antioch, and Jerusalem (after 451).64 In the seventh century, beginning
with Bishop Maruta of Tagrit (d.649), Christians in Persia who owed their
creedal allegiance to the “Jacobite” community, and not to the “Church
of the East,” came under the jurisdiction of a bishopric first established
in the Mesopotamian city of Tagrit just for them. Formally known by
the somewhat enigmatic Syriac term mapryānâ (“fructifier”), or Maphrian,
the bishop owed his allegiance to the “Jacobite” patriarch of Antioch in the
Roman empire. Gradually other bishoprics for “Jacobites” in Persia and
beyond came under the jurisdiction of the “Maphrianate.”
Over the course of the fifth and sixth centuries, the West and East
Syriac-speaking church communities gradually parted company with one
another over theological and creedal issues, exacerbated by political divi-
sion. hey nevertheless shared a common religious heritage that had its
roots in the earlier centuries, and particularly in the fourth century. hey
shared the Peshitta, the Syriac translation of the Christian scriptures; they
shared a reverence for the Syriac patristic tradition, particularly for the
name and the Syriac works of Ephraem the Syrian;65 and they shared a
common ascetical and monastic tradition.
forms of ascetic and monastic practice

he ascetical and monastic traditions that developed in the Syriac-speaking
milieu track an interesting trajectory. In their beginnings, they were very
much the distinctive product of local ecclesiastical arrangements. In the
fifth and sixth centuries, just as the Syriac-speaking hierarchs and theo-
logians were setting their sails to catch the prevailing winds from the
Greek-speaking churches in the Roman empire, so too the ascetical
and monastic establishment in Syria became more and more attuned to
the ever more popular ascetic and monastic literature emanating from
Greek-speaking Palestine, and especially from Egypt.
64
Baum and Winkler, he Church of the East: A Concise History, 14–41.
65
It is interesting to note in passing that some writers, Philoxenus, for example, were somewhat diffi-
dent in their respect for Ephraem; see Van Rompay, “Mallpânâ dilan Suryâyâ: Ephrem in the Works
of Philoxenus of Mabbog: Respect and Distance.”
While a number of scholars have called attention to the rigorist and

encratite character of Syrian asceticism,66 the earliest texts actually speak of
ascetical arrangements that developed within the everyday life of the local
churches. he Demonstrations of Aphrahat and the madrāshê of Ephraem
the Syrian refer to groups of men and women whom the texts call “sons”
or “daughters” of the “covenant” (bnay or bnāt qyāmâ), in the customary
translation. Living in loosely defined communities called dayrê or “sheep-
folds” in Syriac, the inhabitants were designated as dayrāyê. Both terms
are now usually anachronistically translated “monasteries” and “monks.”
Aphrahat, Ephraem, and Jacob of Serugh speak of these ascetics as “sin-
gles” (îhîdāyê), leading a single way of life (îhîdāyûtâ) as virgins or “holy
ones” (qadîshê). “Holy ones” were persons who once may have been mar-
ried, but who subsequently consecrated themselves to the single way of
life. he term îhîdāyâ means simply “single one”; as the Syriac writers used
it in the present context, it designates a person who in this life has taken
on a special relationship with Jesus the Christ, the “Single One,” the single
son of God the Father.
In Syriac canonical texts, these “single ones,” sons and daughters of the
covenant, are seen to have had a special rank in the local church communi-
ties and at the liturgy, alongside the virgins and widows of whom the New
Testament speaks.67 It was presumably from among them that the earliest
hermits and “monks” more properly so called came. Ephraem the Syrian
wrote madrāshê to celebrate the memory of two of the earliest of them
in the environs of Edessa: Julian Saba, whom Jacob of Serugh called the
“father of the monks” of Syria, and Abraham Qîdûnāyâ, who came out of
his solitude to help settle ecclesiastical affairs in far-away Antioch.68 Later
Syriac writers, such as the elusive Isaac of Antioch,69 wrote long poems in
praise of the monks and hermits of Syria. Referring to them with the col-
orful names of “mountain men,” “mourners,” or “loners,” they lauded their
wild and uncivilized behavior, including their unkempt, often unwashed
appearance.70 Some scholars have mistakenly assumed that the ascetic
66
Vööbus proposed that monasticism developed independently in Syria, first in its anchoritic form,
and that it had its origins in Manichaeism; see his History of Asceticism, 1. 143–6; 158–69. In devel-
oping these views, Vööbus was misled in part by mistaken dates assigned to a number of texts; see
Mathews, “’On Solitaries’: Ephraem or Isaac?” Even more recent scholars speak of the rigors of
Syrian asceticism as a special characteristic; see Escolan, Monachisme et église: Le monachisme syrien
du IVe au VIIe siècle; un ministère charismatique.
67
Griffith, “Asceticism in the Church of Syria: he Hermeneutics of Early Syrian Monasticism.”
68
Griffith, “Julian Saba, ‘Father of the Monks’ of Syria”; idem, “Abraham Qîdûnāyâ, St. Ephraem the
Syrian and Early Monasticism in the Syriac-Speaking World.”
69
Mathews, “he Works Attributed to Isaac of Antioch: A[nother] Preliminary Checklist.”
70
See the descriptions in Escolan, Monachisme et église.
rigors and bizarre excesses celebrated in these later texts are representative
of an earlier Syrian asceticism.
A particular ascetic movement with its origins in the Syriac-speaking
world of the fourth century eventually caused problems as far away
as the Egyptian desert. Greek-speakers called it “Messalianism” or the
heresy of the “Messalians”; the term has its origins in the Syriac word
msîallyānē, basically meaning “people devoted to prayer.” he so-called
Pseudo-Macarian Homilies, surviving in Greek, seem in the judgment of
modern scholarship to have had their origins in the Syriac-speaking ascet-
ical milieu.71 It is interesting to note in this connection that the Syriac
writer Philoxenus of Mabbug claimed that a monk of Edessa named
Adelphius, who had been a disciple of Julian Saba, was the inventor of
the heresy of the Messalians.72 However this may have been, the genuinely
Syriac text most readily expressing ideas that Greek speakers might call
“Messalian,” namely that the “perfect” are free of the normal obligations
of the faithful and of the ministrations of the hierarchy, is the now anon-
ymous book of the late fourth century that in the West goes under the
name Liber Graduum.73
By the early fifth century, under the burgeoning influence of monas-
ticism in the Greek-speaking world, Greek writers began to incorporate
the stories of the monks of Syria into the narrative that features Antony
of Egypt (ca.251–356) and his countryman Pachomius (ca.290–346) as
the fathers of monasticism. he Greek-speaking historian Sozomen (d.
ca.445) was one of the earliest writers to mention Antony and Pachomius
in connection with the history of monasticism in Syria. Sozomen, like
his near-contemporary Palladius of Hellenopolis (d.431), and the younger
heodoret of Cyrrhus (d.460), in his History of the Monks of Syria, was
full of enthusiasm for the Egyptian monastic experience.74 Together with
Palladius, heodoret, and others, Sozomen sang the praises of the monastic
movement in Greek in ways that quickly became standard in the Roman
empire and wherever Greek culture exerted its influence, not least in Syria
itself. As for the introduction of monasticism into Syria, Sozomen claims
in his Ecclesiastical History that a monk named Eugene (Awgîn, Aones)
played a role comparable there to that of Antony in Egypt. According to
the story, Eugene was an Egyptian, a disciple of Pachomius, who with a
71
Stewart, “Working the Earth of the Heart”: he Messalian Controversy in History, Texts, and Language
to AD 431.
72
Ibid., 39.
73
Kitchen and Parmentier, trans. he Book of Steps: he Syriac Liber Graduum.
74
Canivet, Le monachisme syrien selon héodoret de Cyr.
number of companions (variously numbered from seven to seventy) first

brought monasticism to Syria when he settled at Padana, not far from
Edessa and Charrān.75 he trouble with this story is that while Sozomen
may well have known of an Egyptian monk named Eugene who had set-
tled with his companions in Syria, the claim that he introduced monas-
ticism into the country can be found in Syriac only in later sources, the
earliest of them dating from the ninth century.76
St. Jerome (ca.342–420) is another writer in the Roman world who con-
nected the origins of monasticism in Syria with Egypt. Between 375 and
381 ce, Jerome spent four or five years as a hermit in Chalcis ad Belum, in
the desert area of Syria Prima (Kennesrin). On the authority of his expe-
rience there, Jerome later remarked in his Vita Hilarionis that knowledge
of the monastic way of life had come to Syria at the hands of St. Hilarion
(ca.291–371). In 306 he had returned to his native Palestine from a sojourn
in the Egyptian desert under the influence of Antony, and had settled as
a hermit in the desert south of Majuma, near Gaza. According to Jerome,
prior to Hilarion the Syrians knew nothing of monks and monasteries.77
By the early sixth century, even Syriac writers like Philoxenus of
Mabbug were speaking of Antony, Evagrius of Pontus (346–99), and the
other fathers of the Egyptian desert as the spiritual ancestors and teachers
of record for the monks of Syria.78 Philoxenus went so far as to suggest
that Syria’s own first eremitical monk whose name we know, Julian Saba,
made something of an ad limina visit to Antony in Egypt when he, Julian,
together with his disciple Adelphius, made a pilgrimage to Mount Sinai.79
Other Syriac writers of the same era and later also wrote about monasti-
cism, asceticism, and growth in the spiritual life, now following the lead of
Greek writers like Palladius, Sozomen, and heodoret. hey commended
Syria’s own early ascetics in the guise of the monastic figures of Egypt
and the Holy Land, whose stories had achieved an almost canonical status
in the Roman empire. To celebrate the person and writings of the Syriac
community’s own most notable father of the church, Ephraem of Nisibis
and Edessa, they put him in the literary company of Basil of Caesarea and
Antony of Egypt in the Syriac Vita Ephraemi, dressed him up in their icons
in the monastic habit of the Greek-speaking fathers of desert asceticism,
75
See Sozomen, Hist. eccl. 6.33.4.
76
Fiey, “Aonès, Awun et Awgin (Eugène) aux origines du monarchisme mésopotamien”; idem, “Coptes
et Syriaques; contacts et échanges,” 310ff.
77
Jerome, Vit. Hil. (PL 23.29–54, esp. col. 30).
78
Graffin, “La lettre de Philoxène de Mabboug à un supérieur de monastère sur la vie monastique.”
79
See British Library add. MS 14,621, fol. 66 a-b, in Wright, Catalogue of Syriac Manuscripts in the
British Museum 2.757.
and composed monastic texts in Greek, attributed to Ephraem.80 his

development seems to have gone hand in hand with the previously men-
tioned “Hellenization” of theology in Syriac in the fifth and sixth cen-
turies. And in the same period, the lives of the holy men of Syria were
used to promote the veracity of the theological positions espoused by their
compilers, as in the instance of the works of John of Ephesus (ca.507–86),
who supported the Syrian Orthodox cause.81
Several important Greek works in the ascetical and monastic tradition
were translated into Syriac in the course of the sixth century, including
such formative texts as the Vita Antonii, the first Letter of Antony,82 and
Palladius’s Lausiac History.83 But perhaps the most significant instance of
Greek ascetical and mystical texts becoming religious classics in their Syriac
translations involves the works of Evagrius of Pontus in Syriac. In fact, one
of the most important of Evagrius’s works, the Kephalia Gnostica, is pre-
served only in two Syriac recensions: the presumably original form of the
text, and an expurgated form, seemingly produced in view of the condemna-
tions of Origenism made at the Roman church council, Constantinople II,
in 553 ce.84 Interestingly, the two most important Syriac-speaking scholars
who promoted the works of Evagrius were Philoxenus of Mabbug, a theo-
logical champion of the Syrian Orthodox Church,85 and Babai the Great,
the most prominent theologian of the “Church of the East.” But the work
with the most widespread influence in the later Syriac-speaking, monastic
milieu was undoubtedly the Paradise of the Fathers, a compilation of origi-
nally Greek texts in Syriac translation, put together in the seventh century
by the “Church of the East” monastic traveler, “Enānîshô” (fl. ca.630–70)
of the monastery of Mount Izla. he compilation included such classics as
the Life of Antony, Palladius’s Lausiac History, the rule of Pachomius – that
is, the Asketikon – Rufinus of Aquileia’s Historia Monachorum in Aegypto,
attributed to Jerome, and a collection of the Apophthegmata Patrum.86
80
Griffith, “Images of Ephraem;” Amar, “Byzantine Ascetic Monachism and Greek Bias in the Vita
Tradition of Ephraem the Syrian.”
81
Harvey, Asceticism and Society in Crisis: John of Ephesus and the Lives of the Eastern Saints; Brock and
Harvey, Holy Women of the Syrian Orient.
82
Rubenson, he Letters of St. Antony: Monasticism and the Making of a Saint; Draguet, La vie primitive
de s. Antoine conserve en syriaque.
83
Draguet, Les formes syriaques de la matière de l’Histoire Lausiaque.
84
Guillaumont, Les ‘képhalaia gnostica’ d’Évagre le Pontique et l’histoire de l’Origénisme chez les grecs et
chez les syriens.
85
Watt, “Philoxenus and the Old Syriac Version of Evagrius’ Centuries”; Young, “Evagrius in Edessa:
Philoxenos of Mabbug’s Use of Evagrius in the Letter to Patricius.”
86
Edition and English translation in Budge, he Book of Paradise, being the Histories and Sayings of the
Monks and Ascetics of the Egyptian Desert.
Against this background of translated texts, a number of spiritual writers

in Syriac emerged in the fifth and sixth centuries, whose works became
classics in their own milieu. In this connection one might mention figures
such as John of Apamea (fifth century), Abraham of Nathpar (ca.600),
and from the seventh century, Sahdona and Isaac of Nineveh.87 he latter
writer, Isaac of Nineveh, or Isaac the Syrian, as he is sometimes called, wrote
homilies on ascetic topics in Syriac, a selection of which were translated
into Greek in the eighth or ninth century in the Judean Desert monastery
of Mar Sabas. In the eighteenth century, extracts from the Greek transla-
tions were included by Sts. Macarius Notaras and Nicodemus of the Holy
Mountain in the collection of ascetic homilies known as the Philocalia. In
this way, Isaac, a monk and bishop of the “Church of the East,” became a
venerated spiritual writer of the western Orthodox Church.88
In the first half of the seventh century, the Syriac-speaking heartlands
and their churches came into the world of Islam, where they contin-
ued their growth and development and for a time flourishing, spread-
ing Christianity eastward along the so-called silk roads into China, and
continuing their ties with daughter churches in south India, until finally,
in modern times, in their historic homelands they have become demo-
graphically insignificant.89
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 
EGYPT AND NORTH AFRICA

6
TRADITIONAL RELIGION IN PTOLEMAIC

AND ROMAN EGYPT
françoise dunand
translated by william adler
introduction
Over the course of three centuries, two successive conquests profoundly
altered Egyptian society. he introduction of a new ethnic group into
the country resulting from the Macedonian conquest in 332 seems not
to have brought about major changes. Greco-Macedonians and Egyptians
coexisted without great conflict. And Egypt in the hands of the Ptolemies
remained, at least up until the second century bce, an independent and
prosperous kingdom. But in integrating Egypt into a vast empire of which
it was only one province among many, the Roman conquest of 30 bce far
more profoundly transformed its institutions, administrative and economic
organization, and Egyptian society as a whole. (See Map 4.) Henceforth,
the practice of the traditional religion of Egypt occurred within the frame-
work of a nation subject to “foreign occupiers,” but under very different
circumstances.
religion and political power

he religious policy of the rulers
he new regimes did not demonstrate any hostility to the native Egyptian
religion. What interested the conquering powers was the domination and
exploitation of the territory, not the diffusion of their own religious cults
in the vanquished nation. Because they resided in Egypt, the Lagids found
it necessary to heed the reactions of a people obviously committed to its
traditional forms of worship. his was far less the case for the emperors;
barring rare exceptions, they did not set foot in a country that for them
was basically, in the words of Tiberius, “sheep for shearing” (see Cassius
Dio 57.10).
Even before the accession of Ptolemy I to the throne in 305, the Lagids
provided ample evidence of their benevolence to the traditional religion.
165
Map 4. Roman Egypt
166
Traditional Religion in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt 167
hese “benefits,” enumerated in the decrees of assemblies of the third

and second centuries bce1 and in royal edicts of the second century bce,2
extended from the restoration of temples and the support of sacred ani-
mals to the cancellation of debts and the exemption of the clergy from
taxation. From the beginning of the third century, the extent of temple
building and repair projects was also substantial. his period witnessed
the building of the chief sanctuaries of Isis from Behbeit el-Hagar in the
Delta to Philae on the Nubian frontier. he temples were arrayed all along
the Valley: Dendara, Esna, Edfu, and Kom Ombo. heir own revenues,
that is, the revenues from the lands under their control, constituted the
main source of financing for both construction and renovation and for the
upkeep of the buildings. But the government also must have made a con-
tribution, and appeals could be made to the generosity of believers as well.
his work continued up to the first and second centuries ce, extending
from Esna to Philae as far as Nubia, as well as in the oases of the Western
Desert, Dakhla, and Kharga. Although the temples bear the cartouches of
Roman emperors from Augustus to Decius, we cannot know the extent to
which the Roman administration contributed financially.
he Lagid administration, eager to appropriate as much of the resources
of the country as possible, strove to take under its control the lands in the
possession of the temple. According to Diodorus (1.21.7), this would have
represented a third of the land of Egypt; but this estimate is surely inflated.
Over time, the Ptolemies had to cede control and grant the priests the
right to “administer the sacred arourai.” Although Cleopatra VII expro-
priated temple property to replenish a treasury depleted by the ruinous
policies of Ptolemy XII, the temples remained a source of considerable
income. One of the first decisions of the Roman government was to con-
fiscate this source of revenue, either by annexing it to the imperial estate or
by distributing it to big Roman landowners. his measure allowed the new
government to gain control over all the sectors of the economy.
It was also a means to keep watch over a suspect segment of the Egyptian
population, namely the clergy. No longer able to administer the temple
lands and their revenue, the priests found themselves obliged to resort to
the closing of pieces of these territories, or even to receive, in exchange
for their services, a subvention from the state, a syntaxis. his made them
directly dependent upon and subject to the control of the Roman admin-
istration. Starting in 120 ce, a high-ranking civil functionary, “the high
1
OGIS, 56, 90; Valbelle and Leclant, eds. Décret de Memphis, 41–65.
2
Lenger, Ordonnances des Ptolémées, 53.
168 Françoise Dunand
priest of Alexandria and all of Egypt,” was responsible for the supervision
of the temples and their staff. he Gnomon of the Idios Logos, compiled
during the reign of Antoninus Pius, reveals the fastidiousness of the regu-
lations imposed on members of the clergy and their activities.3 Included
among its stipulations are conditions for admittance to priestly offices,
and regulations about authorized vestments and the participation of the
differing ranks of priests in cultural activities. Any infraction was sub-
ject to a fine. We might ask, of course, why the Roman administration
cared whether or not priests wore a linen garment or whether or not pas-
tophoroi were allowed to take part in processions. It is likely that this was
first and foremost a matter of making the existence of authority palpable
to members of the clergy. Because violations of such restrictive regula-
tions would hardly be rare, it was also a means of extracting income from
their activities. Moreover, different taxes were deducted by the state on the
occasion of admission to the priesthood. Some offices, in particular the
most high-ranking in the priestly hierarchy, were put up for auction and
awarded to the highest bidder.
Compared to the general population, the Egyptian clergy in the
Ptolemaic era appears as a relatively privileged class. his continued to be
true even in the Roman period, their degraded status notwithstanding.
Priests and priestesses were entitled to a part of the food offerings, which
were distributed among them according to their function and rank in the
hierarchy. A text from Edfu reports that the priests are entitled to what
is found on the “table of god,” while also making clear that this is “after
the god is served.”4 hey possessed land, houses, and livestock, and even
lent money. In a society in which the majority of the people lived from
day to day, the position of the priest, and its attendant advantages, would
seem quite desirable. his is the reason why, just as had been the case in
previous centuries, those serving in these offices strove to keep them in
their family. Both in the lower echelons and in the uppermost ranks of
the hierarchy, there were always veritable priestly dynasties. As a matter
of course, inequalities in the priestly standard of living were substantial,
varying from one sanctuary to the next and depending on their relative
importance.
he Lagid government had to accommodate itself to a priestly class
that was both influential and powerful. As priestly offices could coexist
3
BGU,V, 1210.
4
Sauneron, Les prêtres, 83.
with civil and even military offices, there was no genuine conflict between
the interests of the state and those of the clergy.5 For its part, the Roman
government very likely feared clerical influence over the populace and its
potential to incite nationalist movements. Two centuries after the “pacifica-
tion” of Egypt, an insurrection did take place in the Delta during the reign
of Marcus Aurelius, under the leadership of a priest named Isidorus. Up
until then, the Egyptian priests apparently had no inclination to oppose
the Roman government.
Religious continuity
From the moment of his arrival in Egypt, Alexander was acknowledged
by the clergy of Memphis as the legitimate successor to the pharaohs. his
reaction was not at all surprising, as the kings of Persia had already been
received in the same way. It is possible that he was enthroned according to
Egyptian ritual. Although Ptolemy I did not receive this form of corona-
tion, it was conceivably done for Ptolemy II, and in any case for Ptolemy
IV and all his Lagid successors up to Cleopatra. Ptolemaic kings main-
tained a privileged relationship with the high priests of Memphis, who
were responsible for their investiture.6 heir images and cartouches reg-
ularly adorn the inner walls of several temples either built or refurbished
during their reigns. he same is true of the emperors, who are depicted
with the same features as their predecessors. If these images recur endlessly
in the temples, it is because, irrespective of who was in power – a Ptolemy
or an emperor – he was always regarded as the sole intermediary between
human beings and the gods. Under the Lagids, the official titulature of a
sovereign, inherited from pharaonic times, was always standard usage. he
epithets that this titulature comprises might have been modified in the
Roman period, as for example in the explicit formula “He whose power
is unrivalled in the preeminent city that he loves: Rome.”7 But only those
capable of reading hieroglyphs were able to appreciate the degree to which
this formulation marked the difference between the pharaohs and the new
masters. When the illiterate others – and they were the majority – saw the
cartouches on the temple walls and knew that they contained the royal
names, these cartouches affirmed the presence of a pharaoh, whom they of
course had never seen.
5
Hüss, Makedonische König, 73–93.
6
hompson, Memphis, 125–54.
7
Grenier, “L’Empereur et le Pharaon,” 3181–94.
What the temple texts proclaim in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods is
the doctrine, in effect from the time of the Old Empire, of the sacred and
hence inviolable character of pharaonic royalty. As son of and successor to
the gods (who were thought to have been the first to reign over Egypt),
the pharaoh was simultaneously both a god himself and servant of the
gods. In the reciprocal arrangement existing between them, the gods gave
to their son the authority to govern; he, on the other hand, was expected
to bring to the land the rule of order that they desired, symbolized by the
figure of Maat.8 his power, of divine origin, could not be limited under
any circumstance; nor could his decisions be subject to question. Potential
opponents could only be treated as “impious,” the “enemies of the gods.”
his is, for example, the way that the priests assembled at Memphis in 196
bce described their countrymen from the Delta, whose rebellion was ulti-
mately brutally crushed by Ptolemy V.9
he role assigned to the king of Egypt thus had a cosmic dimen-
sion. While universal order is the desire of the creator god, this world
is constantly threatened by a return to primordial chaos. Every night,
hostile forces, embodiments of the great serpent Apopis, engage in com-
bat against the sun god Re, whose victory each morning recreates the
world. In this endlessly recurring struggle, Re has his assistants, the chief
one of whom is his son, the pharaoh. In this way, the king of Egypt was
responsible not only for social order, but for the stability of the world as
well.10
he ups and downs experienced by the Egyptian government, espe-
cially during crises in the transfer of power, are well known. It is clear
that the Egyptians drew a distinction between the royal function, which
was both divine and intangible, and the person of the king, who could
be unimpressive and fallible. But the actual institution of the pharaoh
was never challenged. he ideology on which it claimed to be based thus
proved to be remarkably effective; it continued in operation up to the
fourth century of the common era, at which time it was replaced by a
new ideology, that of the Christian emperor, “vicar” of God on earth.
From the moment when the clergy recognized in the Lagids, and then in
the emperors, the heirs to the pharaohs, the traditional political-religious
ideology did more than legitimize the power of the new rulers; it made
it absolute.
8
Assmann, Maât, 115–34.
9
OGIS , 90.
10
Bonhême and Forgeau, Pharaon, 110–20.
the vitality of the traditional religion

he world of the temples
he great sanctuaries either built or restored during the Ptolemaic and
Roman eras are in themselves a sign of the vitality of the traditional reli-
gion.11 he temple of Horus at Edfu, constructed in the Ptolemaic period;
the temple of Hathor at Dendara, built between the end of the second
century bce and the end of the first century ce; as well as the temple of Isis
of Philae, the construction of which extended from Ptolemy II to Trajan,
all adhere to a design of long standing. One passes in stages from the larg-
est and most open space, the courtyard, to the enclosed space of the holy
of holies, where one finds the cult statue, enclosed in its shrine. Some
local sanctuaries conform to the same design, but on a smaller scale – for
example, the temple of Osiris and Isis at Dush (the Kharga Oasis) and the
temple of Amon at Deir el-Hagar (the Dakhla Oasis). Others are notice-
ably different, as, for example, the temples of Karanis (Fayyum) dedicated
to various forms of the crocodile god and the temple of Amenebis (Amon
of Hibis) at Qasr el-Zayyan (the Kharga Oasis). his latter temple, the res-
toration under Antoninus Pius of a building begun in the Ptolemaic era,
consisted of a suite of two rooms, the second of which was meant to serve
as the holy of holies. A simple niche, hollowed out of the room’s interior
wall and probably sealed off by a curtain or a wood shutter, was intended
to shelter the cult statue. hese small sanctuaries were widespread through-
out all of Egypt. From the papyrological documents, we know that a vil-
lage of middling importance like Kerkeosiris in the Fayyum numbered no
fewer than fifteen temples in the second century bce; we can thus imagine
that quite a few of them were very modest buildings, little more than sim-
ple chapels.12
Depending on the importance of the temple, the number of officiants
varied considerably. In a large temple like Dendara or Philae, we can sup-
pose that, including auxiliary staff, they numbered in the hundreds. In
the second century ce, the temple of the god Soknebtunis at Tebtunis, a
building of modest significance, included several dozen officiants.13 Strictly
speaking, the priestly ranks were very hierarchical, each of its members
assigned to clearly defined roles. Even so, it is likely that several smaller
11
Arnold, Temples of the Last Pharaohs.
12
Dunand and Zivie-Coche, Hommes et dieux, 300–4.
13
Evans, “Social and Economic History,” 145–83.
local sanctuaries consisted of a scaled-down staff. he existence of chapels

having a single officiant, who might also be its owner, is attested in papyri
from the Fayyum of the Ptolemaic period.14
he chief function of this priestly workforce remained “service to the
god.” Offerings made each morning, and accompanied by prayers and
chants, were thought to assure the presence in the world of a god who,
when “awakened” in this way, would take up residence in his cult statue.
We know that this ritual, which was repeated over the course of the day,
was performed in the heart of the sanctuary and excluded any “profane”
presence. To the extent that they took place outside the temple proper,
festival rites were, by contrast, open to all. he liturgical calendars that sur-
vive from Dendara, Edfu, and Esna record for each month a sizeable num-
ber of festivals, many of which would last for several days. Some of them
were local festivals, like the “Creation of the Potter’s Wheel” in honor of
Khnum in Esna.15 Others, like the festivals of the month of Choiak in
honor of Osiris, would be observed throughout all of Egypt; as Herodotus
notes (2.61), on the occasion of this festival, all the Egyptians “beat them-
selves” as a show of grief. he Dendara texts describe in great detail the
complex rites, performed more or less in secret, of this combined agrar-
ian and funerary festival commemorating Osiris’s death and resurrection,
marked most notably by the creation of the “gardens of Osiris.” 16
In the Ptolemaic and Roman eras, theological reflection on the part
of the clergy of the great sanctuaries of Egypt led to the development of
a subtle and complex synthesis of religious doctrines. he temple texts
of Horus at Edfu, and Sobek and Haroeris at Kom Ombo, attest to this
development. While each temple had its own “sacred discourse” to the
gods, this did not prevent more extensive contemplation of the nature and
powers of different gods and an attempt to synthesize varying traditions.
Often inscribed on the walls of temples, these texts were also preserved in
their libraries. As the inventory of the Edfu library shows, they contained
all manner of treatises – on theology and liturgy, as well as astronomy,
geography, and medicine.
Personal piety
In Egyptian religion, theological and liturgical activity was in principle
reserved for the king, the mediator between the gods and human beings,
14
Guéraud, Enteuxeis, 6, 80.
15
Sauneron, Fêtes religieuses d’Esna, 71–244.
16
Chassinat, Mystère d’Osiris.
but in practice performed by a clergy of specialists. Even so, starting with

the New Kingdom, it would appear that men and women increasingly
pursued direct and personal contact with their gods. his movement
intensified once again in the first millennium, perhaps in response to the
social and political upheavals of the age and the deep feelings of material
and psychological insecurity that ensued.
In the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, displays of personal piety were
ubiquitous. As copious graffiti attest, visits to temples were extremely com-
mon. Composed in both Demotic and Greek, they were inscribed on the
walls of temples in places accessible to devotees, especially on doorposts.
he pylon at Philae, covered with Greek inscriptions, is a striking example.
To leave one’s names, often accompanied by a small prayer or the simple
formula to proskynema, “the act of adoration,” meant leaving something of
oneself with a god and under his care. Simply stroking or rubbing a wall
was often considered enough, a way to collect a little of the sacred dust.
his practice accounts for the deep fingerprints commonly visible in the
courtyards and beside temple doors.
Visiting a temple might have as its sole objectives “contemplation of
the god” and prayer. In other cases, however, the devotee had a petition to
make or advice to solicit. his is what occurred in the oracular sanctuaries,
widespread throughout all of Egypt.17 Consultation of oracles increased
considerably during the first millennium. In the Ptolemaic period, new
“techniques” arose, especially the practice of incubation. Here one would
spend the night in a temple in the hope that a god would appear in a
dream. his technique was particularly popular in the temples of Serapis
at Canopus and Memphis. Another widely employed technique involved
writing a query on a slip that was then submitted to the god. he drawing
of lots made it possible to “draw out” the divine response. Numerous notes
of this type have been discovered in the temples of the crocodile gods of
the Fayyum. he questions asked reflect an unshakable confidence in the
gods who, it was believed, responded to concerns of the most basic and
mundane type, among them family, marriage, and professional problems.
As would be expected, the subject of health was a frequently recurring
question. For the afflicted who might be able to visit a temple in search of
a cure, the priests usually dispensed medical/magical knowledge. A build-
ing adjacent to the temple of Hathor at Dendara could be explained as a
“sanatorium” set aside for the ill.18
17
Valbelle and Husson, “Questions oraculaires d’Égypte,” 1055–71.
18
Dunand, “La guérison dans les temples,” 4–24.
Particularly common were images of the gods in the form of stelae,

amulets, and terra cotta (or more rarely bronze) figurines; these included
Isis and Bes, guardians of women and childbirth, and especially the child
god Harpocrates, son of Isis. His image, found in countless reproductions
in homes and tombs, is a prime example of what we might call “popular
piety.” As patron of early childhood, he is a god who safeguards against
everyday dangers, especially the bites and stings of snakes and scorpions.
Devotees might deposit in the temples images of the gods as votive offer-
ings. his is the case for the golden plates depicting Serapis or the Apis
bull found in the hoard of Dush.19 But they could also pray before images
of the gods that they had in their homes. Dating from the second and
third centuries ce, wall paintings have been found in homes at Karanis
(Fayyum) with representations of Isis, Harpocrates, and the sphinx god
Tutu (Tithoes).
he “cult of animals”
Although widely used, this expression is surely inappropriate. What is
venerated in animal form is the special power that it embodies, above all
its physical strength and fertility. Every deity in fact, or at least almost
every one, could be represented simultaneously in human, animal, and
hybrid form. What made this possible was that in the Egyptian world-
view, god, human being, and animal all owe their origin to the work of
the creator-god, without any difference existing between them either in
nature or in the hierarchy of being. While the representation of the gods
in animal or hybrid form is as common in the Roman period as it is in
previous times, scholars have puzzled over the existence in this period of
huge necropolises of mummified animals.
here is a twofold explanation for this practice. From the time of the
New Kingdom, certain animals had been considered as the living image,
the ba, of the gods with whom they were associated. his was especially
true of the Apis bull, a “living image” of Ptah of Memphis; the Buchis
bull of Armant, a “living image” of Montu; and the Mnevis bull, a “liv-
ing image” of Re at Heliopolis. In the later period, the god Khnum was
embodied by a live ram in Elephantine, and another ram (or goat?) embod-
ied the god of Mendes, Banebdjedet. he crocodile-god Sobek could also
be embodied by a live crocodile in the temples of the Fayyum. At Edfu,
Horus was represented by a live falcon, enthroned for one year (while the
19
Reddé, Trésor de Douch.
other divine animals were enthroned for life). hese animals, selected by
means of elaborately defined criteria, were supported over the course of
their lives in the temple confines, lavished with care and honors, and of
course ritually mummified and interred after their death.20 Strabo offers a
very vibrant account of a visit to a sacred crocodile of Arsinoë (Fayyum),
which was fed all sorts of delicacies (Strabo 17.38).
As for the hundreds of thousands of animals of all species uncovered in
tombs throughout all of Egypt, it is now known that they were deliberately
put to death (usually while still young), after which they were mummified.
Devotees could then purchase them and use them as votive offerings to
the gods with whom they were linked. he great necropolises of Saqqara
have, for example, revealed the existence of ibises offered to hoth, falcons
offered to Horus (mixed with shrews), and cats offered to Bastet. hese
mummies could obviously not be kept in the temples. It was necessary
either to dig catacombs for their use or to stack them in unused human
tombs. Because they would be put up for sale to people of varying wealth
(or generosity), their presentation and quality were highly variable. here
are also cases in which mummies that were carefully prepared with beau-
tiful cloth contain only a single bone, if any at all. heir use as votive
offerings evidently gave birth to a profit-making enterprise, and their prep-
aration was made possible by the development in a later age of simplified
and probably less costly methods of mummification.21
transformations in the religious universe

A multicultural society
Although the Egypt conquered by Alexander preserved its identity,
language, culture, and traditional religion, Greek was imposed as the dom-
inant language and Greek education became progressively more pervasive.
Different practices and customs were introduced. Indeed, a new society
that could be described as multicultural was instituted in the Ptolemaic
era.22 It is likely that over time peoples living in Egypt, regardless of their
ethnic origin, were increasingly influenced by the two dominant cultures.
his was especially true for the upper echelons of the population. In the
mid-second century, the vizier Dioscurides, the son of a Greek father and
Egyptian mother, served as both a high officer in the Lagid court and
20
Ikram, ed. Divine Creatures.
21
Dunand and Lichtenberg, Des animaux et des hommes, 149–200.
22
Johnson, ed. Life in a Multicultural Society.
high-ranking priest in the Egyptian temples.23 In the second half of the

second century bce, senior officers in the garrison at Edfu had themselves
buried with epitaphs on their tombs in both languages, in each case com-
posed in the correct wording.24
Many things changed with the Roman conquest. he increasing
dominance of Greek, at the expense of the Egyptian language, extended
even into priestly circles, despite their conservatism. At the temple of the
crocodile-god Socnopaeus at Socnopaei Nesus (Fayyum), oracular ques-
tions, which were formerly composed in Demotic in the Ptolemaic era,
were drawn up in Greek in the Roman period. he policy of the Roman
administration, dependent on the Greek or Hellenized segment of the pop-
ulation, relegated the mass of the Aegyptii to subordinate status. Egyptian
culture was kept alive within the confines of the temples, which came to
represent the custodians of the traditions. Without doubt, it was also pre-
served in the chōra population, but under the most straitened conditions.
From the time of the Ptolemies, many foreign communities also arrived
from all over the Mediterranean, settling in the Delta and the Valley and
bringing with them their social organization, customs, and often their lan-
guage as well. Egypt had never been closed to foreigners, especially since
the New Kingdom. From the sixth century bce, it had been receptive to
Greek and Jewish communities. In the third century bce, Jews in great
numbers settled in Egypt. In the second century, a sizeable community
arriving from Jerusalem settled in Tell el-Yahudiyeh, in the eastern Delta.25
he appearance of Jewish communities made for the emergence of a very
distinctive culture, Greek-speaking Hellenistic Judaism, one of whose most
conspicuous representatives was the philosopher Philo.
Alexandria, factory of the gods

he new capital founded by Alexander is the symbol of the diversity of
peoples and cultures characteristic of Egypt in the later period. Although
Alexandria, the largest city of the ancient world in the common era, was
a cosmopolitan city, coexistence did not continue free of discord. In the
first half of the first century ce, conflicts between Greeks and Jews were
unending. It would require a rather terse resolution of the problem by the
23
Collombert, “L’exemple de Dioskouridès,” 47–63.
24
Yoyotte, “Bakhthis,” 27–141.
25
Mélèze Modrzejewski, Juifs d’Égypte, 107–26, 174–88; see also by the same author, Chapter 7 of this
volume.
emperor Claudius to restore a semblance of peace between them, which

lasted until the Jewish war under Trajan (115–17 ce). he consequence of
this war was the eradication of the Jewish communities of Egypt, lasting
for almost two centuries. Even so, over the course of many centuries, the
Jews were able to practice their religion freely, both in Alexandria and else-
where in Egypt.
In Alexandria of the Ptolemaic era, the various religions coexisted peace-
fully.26 Naturally, the Greeks brought their gods with them. At the top of
the ranks was Dionysus, who had assumed a new importance throughout
the entire Hellenistic world. his god was very popular with the Ptolemies.
Following a practice that was widespread in great Greek families, they
claimed Heracles and Dionysus as their divine ancestors. In the great fes-
tival of the Ptolemaea organized by Ptolemy II, the procession for the god
held a separate place, marked by extraordinary pageantry and repeated
evocations of the Dionysiac myth, in the form of statues or “live scenes.”
Ptolemy IV openly proclaimed himself an adept of Dionysus; during his
reign there were numerous associations in Egypt devoted to him and per-
forming initiations into his mysteries. Another deity widely worshipped
in Egypt was Demeter. Just as in Attica, the festival of the hesmophoria
was celebrated in her honor, and perhaps as well her mysteries, modeled
after the cult at Eleusis (whose name was given to a suburb of Alexandria).
Beginning with Arsinoë II, Aphrodite, with whom several Ptolemaic
queens were identified, had temples in the city and its surroundings.
Among them was the temple at Cape Zephyrion, dedicated to Aphrodite
Arsinoe Zephyritis and possibly the source of the beautiful statue recently
discovered in the waters of Canopus. Other Greek gods, such as Zeus, Pan,
and the Dioscuri, were also known, although no trace of their places of
worship has been located.
But the god who most embodied this new city was Serapis.27 Although
his “creation” has been the subject of controversy, it is clear that we are
dealing with a genuine Egyptian deity, the Apis bull, who after his death
became an Osiris, under the name Osor-Hapi. As is shown by the “Oath
of Artemisia,” a Greek document dating to the fourth century bce, the
Greeks inhabiting Memphis before the founding of Alexandria knew
him by the name “Oserapis.”28 But this Memphite deity received a Greek
makeover. He is represented in the form of a Zeus or an Asclepius, with
26
Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 189–301.
27
Dunand and Zivie-Coche, Hommes et dieux, 285–94.
28
UPZ, 1,1.
beard and long hair, dressed in chitōn and himation, and wearing as his
crown the kalathos, a basket-like grain measure. Cerberus, the dog of
the underworld, is often at his side. Without doubt, the legend of the
dream of Ptolemy came into existence as a way to explain this decid-
edly un-Egyptian appearance; the god of the Greek city of Sinope on
the Euxine city appeared to him and ordered him to bring his statue
to Alexandria (Plutarch, Is. Os. 361F–362E). his new god was probably
thought to take over the functions of the god of the dead, which belonged
to Osiris. Indeed, in the twosome made up of Isis and Osiris, Serapis
often took the place of Osiris. In funerary ideology and iconography,
however, Osiris continued to occupy the chief position. Serapis, on the
other hand, assumed Osiris’s agrarian function. Quite soon, two of his
most prominent attributes involved healing and oracles; his temple at
Canopus was a healing center, the one at Oxyrhynchus the seat of a very
frequently consulted oracle.
While the Ptolemies supported the cult of this composite god, it was
certainly not with the intention of using it to promote a “mixing” of the
Egyptian and Greek populations. No suggestion of such a policy exists
elsewhere. On the other hand, in a new city, a Greek city in which the
Egyptian component also had its place, it was expedient to have a god
embodying both cultures. Although Serapis in Alexandria did not receive
the epithet polieus, “guardian of the city,” until the imperial period, we can
assume that this was also the function he played at the very outset.
Even if the Serapis cult initially had somewhat the look of an implant
into the Greek environment of Alexandria, his popularity in the period of
the empire was well established throughout the entire country. His name
is prevalent in onomastic evidence, and the formula, “I pray to Serapis for
you,” appears frequently in private letters. He was now well integrated into
the Egyptian pantheon.
New images
he depiction of Egyptian gods on temple reliefs of the Ptolemaic and
Roman eras adhered to age-old standards, which remained in effect for
as long as the decoration and restoration of buildings continued (third
century ce). But at the beginning of the Ptolemaic era, other images came
into use, translating a vision of the divine body into a form quite close to
that of the Greeks. In some cases, it was not merely a matter of modifying
existing iconographic rules; the new image of an Egyptian god expressed a
new way of conceptualizing his nature and powers.
he most significant of these transformations concerned the iconog-

raphy and ideology of Isis.29 From the third century bce, and no doubt
initially in an Alexandrian setting, there appeared statues representing the
goddess in the Egyptian style: upright, with arms attached to her body.
But her dress and hairstyle are of a new type, with a fringed sash and long
ringlets. he same period witnessed the proliferation of bronze statuettes
depicting the goddess in the same dress, and notably with an attribute of
Greek origin, the cornucopia, the symbol of the prosperity and wealth that
she distributes to humankind. She is also represented leaning on a rud-
der, bringing to mind the patronage she exercised over maritime affairs.
Alexandria, a port city whose shipping traffic was vital to her existence,
stood in need of a divine guardian. he choice of Isis for this function
(no other deity had any special relationship with navigation) attests the
importance that she held in this era. At the temple built in her honor near
Pharos of Alexandria, she was invoked by the name Isis Pharia. But the
rudder also symbolized the direction that she exercised over human affairs.
She has become a Tyche, a benevolent embodiment of Fortune. Images of
her, which proliferate, often present her with peculiar features. Assimilated
to Renenutet-hermuthis, the cobra-goddess and guardian of the har-
vest, she is a half-female, half-serpent figure. Identified with Aphrodite as
Isis-Hathor, she is depicted nude, her flowing hair adorned with wreaths
of flowers, above which is the Isianic crown. Often she even performs the
action of Aphrodite Anadyomenē (“Aphrodite rising from the sea”), wring-
ing out her hair as she emerges from the water. It is clear that these images
reflect the norms of Greek iconography, which found nothing scandalous
about depicting the body of a god unclothed.
If in the Ptolemaic era the figure of Isis was enriched by new features,
she did not lose her Egyptian identity in the process. Traditional repre-
sentations of her persisted in the great temples of Philae, Dendera, and
Kalabsha, built during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods (Fig. 10). She
remained essentially a “mother-goddess,” giver of life, restorer of life to the
dead, guardian of royal power, and guarantor of its continuity. At Philae,
where she is depicted in the most conventional form, the hymns inscribed
on the walls of the temple ascribe to her a power that she exercises both
in the divine and human realms. She is even a power superior to Destiny,
inasmuch as she “extends the years of the one devoted to her.” But what
is new in this age is the emphasis assigned to her universal character. he
temple hymns of Narmuthis in the Fayyum, composed in Greek probably
29
Dunand, Isis, mère des dieux, 41–62.
Fig. 10. Relief of the goddess Isis in the temple of Kalabsha at Aswan. Photo by
Françoise Dunand.
by a temple priest who declares his wish to “make known to the Greeks”
the Egyptian gods, proclaim that the goddess is worshipped by various
peoples under different names; but only the Egyptians know her by her
true name.30
Other Egyptian gods also underwent a transformation of their images.
his is the case for the Nile, depicted with the traits of a bearded old man,
30
Bernand, Inscriptions métriques, 631–8.
along the lines of a Greco-Roman river-god. He carries the cornucopia,

often surrounded by a swarm of little children, symbolizing the number of
cubits equivalent to a “good” flood. But in the same era, Hapy, the demi-
god of the Nile, continues to be represented as a fat young man (an expres-
sion of the prosperity that he personified), wearing a wig and false beard,
as he appears on the monumental statue (also quite exceptionally) recently
discovered in the waters of the port of Heracleum.31
Even more striking is the adoption, for various deities, of Roman mil-
itary dress. hus, Horus could appear as imperator, which is not all that
surprising, seeing that he is a warrior-god, avenger of his father, and victor
over the forces of evil. It is probably in virtue of the same role that Bes
could be represented in military regalia, with sword and shield. Anubis,
even though he is not a god of combat, is depicted as a Roman legionary
on a wall of the main tomb of Kom esh-Shugafa in Alexandria.
One highly interesting innovation in the iconography of the Egyptian
deities occurred in the Roman period. Various deities were at that time
endowed with a crown of rays, Serapis in particular, whose solar character
is highlighted in the Roman period. But it is also worn by Harpocrates,
identified as the infant sun that emerges from a lotus flower at the origin
of the world, and even by more unexpected divine personages, such as the
crocodile Sobek or the sphinx Tutu. he crown of rays, a motif borrowed
from Greco-Roman iconography, apparently carried in Egypt the double
meaning of regeneration of power and regeneration of life.32
Many of these new images were disseminated through the medium of
mold-cast terra cotta statuettes. hese were manufactured in enormous
quantities with a popular clientele in mind, and either kept in the home
or deposited in tombs. Produced in the workshops of the chōra by arti-
sans who also turned out everyday wares, they appear to have bypassed
the rules governing the decoration of temples.33 Even so, we cannot rule
out the possibility that the Egyptian clergy had been gradually induced
to integrate new features in both the figurative and textual representation
of the traditional gods. he statuettes of Harpocrates on the lotus flower,
ringing him with a crown of rays, reflect a doctrine elaborated in priestly
circles, the so-called Hermopolitan cosmogony. he Nubian god Mandulis
at Kalabsha is invoked under the name of Apollo and Aion in scholarly
texts certainly composed by temple priests.
31
Goddio, ed. Trésors engloutis, 94–5.
32
Tallet, Les dieux à couronne radiée (forthcoming).
33
Dunand, Terres cuites gréco-romaines, 5–17.
While the adoption of new images to represent traditional gods could

be accounted for by the presence of foreign “customers,” it would be
much too simplistic to assume that the traditional images were intended
for Egyptians and the new images for Greeks and other foreigners who
had settled in Egypt. he latter are not at all hesitant about adopting the
Egyptian vision of the gods. What is quite striking in this era is the coexis-
tence of the divine images. A belief of long standing in Egypt allowed that
a single deity could assume various forms, thereby accommodating the
appearance of novel forms. As for these images, it was left for each person
to interpret them in the context of his own culture. A relief discovered at
Akoris depicts, dressed in the Greek style, a goddess between two gods.
Although one might recognize here Helen in the company of the Dioscuri,
another reading would make it possible to see in this triad Isis in the com-
pany of the two crocodile-gods (who, as we know, could be identified with
the Dioscuri).34 Graffiti from the temple of Deir el-Hagar (the Dakhla
Oasis) portrays, side by side, Amon in the form of a bearded god, along
the lines of Zeus or Asclepius, and in his Egyptian form as a ram. In Dush
(Kysis) in the Kharga Oasis, at the end of the first century of the common
era, the temple built in honor of Osiris depicts on its walls the traditional
image of the god. But it is the classical image of Serapis (to whom the
monumental inscription in Greek on the pylon is dedicated) that adorns
the gold crown of the temple treasury. As for the votive offerings found in
the treasury, they contain the image of Serapis, and that of the Apis bull in
particular. he majority of the gods could be seen in various forms, which
coexist with no trouble.35
an unchanging domain: funerary beliefs and practices

Universal mummification
From the Ptolemaic up to the late Roman period, the practice of mummi-
fication experienced considerable growth. he explanation for this trend is
very likely the development over the course of the first millennium bce of
simplified techniques; these were much less costly than the “classical” tech-
nique, which had attained a high degree of sophistication toward the close
of the New Kingdom. Herodotus reports that in his time (the middle of the
fifth century ce), three “classes” of mummification existed, ranging from
the most sophisticated, evidently the longest standing and most expensive,
34
Drew-Bear, “Triade d’Akôris,” 227–34.
35
Dunand, “Syncrétisme ou coexistence,” 105–15.
to the third class, used “for the poorer.” here was also an intermediate
category, simplified and thus accessible, but also of reasonably high qual-
ity (Herodotus 2.86–9). he study of mummies “in the field” attests to
the accuracy of Herodotus’s information. Necropolises of villages of the
Kharga Oasis, dating from the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, confirm the
existence of three classes of mummies. A few of them were prepared very
well, according to the classical method, with evisceration, careful bandag-
ing, and, in many cases, gilding of the body. Without doubt this was meant
for prominent people. Many corpses have been mummified with the use of
a simplified technique; although without evisceration, their preservation
is often excellent. In other even more numerous cases, they are little more
than skeletons; even so, they bear practically all the markings of mummi-
fication. It is necessary to add a fourth category to Herodotus’s tableau:
mummies of proper appearance that under X-ray show up as veritable
“bags of bones.”36
One should not, however, speak of a decline in mummification tech-
niques in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. Because the practice had
become much more widespread during this period, the result was a lower-
ing of the overall standard. Even so, embalmers often possessed the skill to
prepare “good” mummies.
In addition, this practice spread into Greek circles in Egypt. In
Alexandrian cemeteries, the oldest tombs were often for cremation, with
funerary urns. But this practice gradually disappeared. From the beginning
of the second century ce, the majority of tombs were for interment. he
majority of the mummies discovered and described in excavation reports
are in a poor state, due to the deplorable conditions of conservation in
Alexandria.37 With its close links to the affirmation of eternal life after
death, mummification might well have seemed to the Greeks as expressing
greater hope than their own practices did.
Visions of the afterlife

he traditional perception of the next life thus remained unchanged.
Composed in the New Kingdom, the Book of the Dead, a “passport,” as
it were, for the journey to the next life, continued to be recopied and
deposited in tombs in the Ptolemaic period. Although it was replaced by
other funerary texts in the Roman period – the Books of Respirations and
36
Dunand and Lichtenberg, Mummies and Death, 166–71.
37
Charron, ed. La mort n’est pas une fin, 62–74.
the Book of Passing through Eternity – the objective remained unchanged.

he countless images of the world of the dead illustrate these beliefs: the
weighing of the heart performed by Anubis and Horus in the presence
of hoth, the presentation of the “justified” dead to Osiris, the voyage to
the next world and the confrontation with the formidable demigods, the
gate-keepers. hese motifs are often reproduced on the sarcophagi and the
“boxes” of painted stuccoed cloth into which corpses were very frequently
deposited during this period.38 he cartonnages could also depict the dead
in “everyday” dress. An individualizing tendency appears also in the prac-
tice, dating to the beginning of the Roman period, which consisted of
replacing the mask made of cartonnage or stucco with a portrait painted in
tempera or in encaustic on a wooden backboard, sometimes directly on the
shroud, following a tradition completely alien to Egyptian tradition.39 his
practice obviously was available only to an affluent and relatively privileged
segment of the Egyptian population. his is also true of the practice that
involved gilding the face and other parts of the corpse; this was a means
of conferring divinity, inasmuch as gold, for the Egyptians, was the “flesh
of the gods.”
In this period, however, there are hints of a vision of the next world
perhaps at odds with the traditional view. Before Alexander’s conquest,
texts insisted on the idea of retribution and the necessity of leading a just
life in this world. But a literary text well known in the Roman period, the
Story of Satni, provides a picture of the world of the dead relatively close
to the Greek Underworld, including a series of “circles” in which various
torments are inflicted on those who had lived bad lives.40
decline and disappearance of the traditional religion

One question remains open: the role that the diffusion of a new religion
in Egypt – Christianity – played in the decline and disappearance of the
traditional religion. he spread of Christianity appears to have been rela-
tively late and rather slow. here are hardly any signs of it before the end
of the second century, and the establishment of institutional structures was
accomplished only gradually over the course of the third century. Even at
the beginning of the fourth century, the position of Christians in Egyptian
society was modest; judging from the onomastic evidence, they probably
38
Walker and Bierbrier, ed. Ancient Faces.
39
Parlasca, Mumienporträts und verwandte Denkmäler; Borg, Mumienporträts.
40
Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, III, 139–42.
numbered less than 20 percent of the population. his number slowly

increased before undergoing a sudden acceleration toward the end of the
century.41 In other words, Christianity before the fourth century did not
emerge as serious competition with the traditional religion. he Christian
minority was evidently well integrated into a society within which there
were no discernible conflicts. Persecutions officially carried out against the
Christians under Decius, Valerian, and then Diocletian, the motives for
which seem to have been of a political as much as a religious character,
apparently did not have much of an impact in the chōra.
In Alexandria, on the other hand, troubles between the various com-
munities erupted throughout the course of the fourth century. In 363, it
was the mob-murder by the populace of the bishop George, who, being
of Arian leaning, appears to have had enemies among both Christians and
pagans (Amm. Marc. 22.11.3–10). But numerous conflicts erupted between
different communities, often over the question of the possession or the
recovery of a place of worship.
From the middle of the third century, the condition of the traditional
cults is difficult to assess in its entirety. Up to this time, work continued
to be done on the upkeep and restoration of the great sanctuaries; the car-
touche of Decius is even present at Esna. But some temples have already
collapsed, such as the one at Luxor. In the period of the tetrarchs, it was
occupied by a Roman camp with a chapel of the emperor cult built in a
room before the holy of holies. he only major temple providing indica-
tions of uninterrupted activity at a relatively late date was at Philae, where
the last hieroglyphic inscription dates from the year 394 ce, and where the
worship of Isis continued up until the beginning of the sixth century. But
if the great temples of the Valley give little sign of activity starting in the
middle of the third century, the reason probably has to do with the finan-
cial troubles observable at this time throughout the whole empire. After
the Severan dynasty came a period of “military anarchy,” from which the
empire only recovered with the accession of Diocletian. All these years were
marked by political and institutional crises, invasions, monetary disasters,
and inflation. In Egypt, as elsewhere, the large temples must have been
especially vulnerable. heir financial needs were substantial, because they
involved maintaining buildings, organizing daily ritual and ceremonies,
and providing for the livelihood of a sizeable staff. When public subsi-
dies were lacking, the temples’ own resources were certainly insufficient to
ensure that they operated smoothly.
41
Bagnall, Late Antiquity, 278–82. See further van der Vliet in Chapter 8 of this volume.
Small local temples, on the other hand, which essentially depended

on the generosity of worshippers and were thus less exposed to politi-
cal uncertainty, were not as vulnerable to major changes. he temples at
Oxyrhynchus continued in operation in the fourth century, as well as the
temple of the sphinx god Tutu at Kellis (the Dakhla Oasis).42 In the same
period, the little temple of Taffeh, to the south of Aswan, was rebuilt.
Religious associations were active, like the one that came every year from
Ermant to Deir el-Bahari to celebrate there a ritual banquet and sacrifice.
Religious life at that time experienced profound changes, and along
with them the traditional role of the clergy. Possibly replacing the great
official rites were practices more attentive to the expectations of worship-
pers; consultation of oracles and ritual magic assumed increasing impor-
tance. One can detect in Egyptian religion, over the course of the third and
fourth centuries, a centrifugal tendency, placing more emphasis on local
cults and expressions of personal piety.43
One central factor behind the disappearance of traditional religion
was of course the religious policies of the emperors of the fourth century.
Over the course of this century, measures intended to limit the practice
of “pagan” cults followed one after the other. he edicts of heodosius
in 391/392 administered the coup de grâce. he Christians of Alexandria,
under the direction of Bishop heophilus, then seized the great temple of
Serapis, looted it, and destroyed the statue of the god (Rufinus, Hist. eccl.
2.22–3). Even if Rufinus’s report contains much rhetorical exaggeration,
the event certainly had great repercussions. Beginning at this time, traces
of the traditional religion were systematically effaced. Targeted for destruc-
tion were those countless little temples that in the words of Rufinus “fill all
the country, the banks of the Nile, and even the desert” (Hist. eccl. 2.26).
Even at Philae, an inscription proclaims, “he cross has triumphed, it tri-
umphs forever.”
Ancient practices endured nonetheless. At the end of the fifth century,
monks invaded a private home in Menouthis near Canopus after a pub-
lic accusation, and found there a stash of “idols,” which they seized and
destroyed. But even if private practices, more or less in secret, were still
possible, the disappearance of the great temples, which for so long had
been vibrant centers of theological reflection and ritual activity, brought
about the end of traditional religious life.
42
Kaper, he Egyptian God Tutu, 140–54.
43
Frankfurter, Religion in Roman Egypt, 198–237.
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7
JUDAISM IN EGYPT
joseph mélèze modrzejewski

translated by william adler
the egypt of the bible, the pharaohs, and the persians

For the period of time from Abraham to Moses, we know the point at
which ancient Israel took root in the Egyptian past. he Bible recounts a
long sojourn of the Hebrews in Egypt, leading to the foundational events
of Judaism: the Exodus, the giving of the Law, and the Mosaic covenant.
For the historian, however, it is not an easy task to reconcile the biblical
narrative with the historical and archaeological data now made available
by Egyptology. he Bible and Egyptian hieroglyphs do not speak the same
language. Points of intersection between the Egypt of the Bible and the
Egypt of Egyptologists are both rare and a matter of dispute.1
he Egypt of the Bible is a reasonably accurate reflection of the various
features of society in the Egyptian New Kingdom. History and archaeol-
ogy allow us to verify its account with a certain degree of probability. hus,
the travails of the Hebrews described in the book of Exodus correlate with
the projects undertaken in the Delta by the pharaohs of the eighteenth
dynasty. he strict supervision of the workers, against which Moses revolts,
today finds confirmation in Egyptian documents originating from a village
laborer of Deir el-Medina.2 his applies equally to quotas of bricks, the use
of straw, and the allotment of vacation days. All of this was part of every-
day life in Egypt of the thirteenth century bce. In the ranks of the royal
court, the figure of Aper-El, a Semite identified as vizier of Amenophis III,
can be considered as a “prototype” of the biblical Joseph.3 His success dem-
onstrates that foreigners, who had either moved to Egypt or who had been
born into an immigrant community in Egypt, could rise to high-ranking
positions, including high office in the Egyptian court.
1
Zivie, La prison de Joseph.
2
Allam, Arbeitersiedlung von Deir el-Medineh.
3
Zivie, Le vizir oublié.
189
190 Joseph Mélèze Modrzejewski
Although Egyptology can furnish a historical and geographic framework

into which the sojourn of the Hebrews in Egypt can be integrated, it can-
not confirm the literary embellishments of a biblical text governed by doc-
trinal concerns extrinsic to this framework. he exodus of the Hebrews, for
example, a critical moment in the sojourn in Egypt, could well be based
on a historical event that would be tempting to date during the long reign
of Ramses II (1279–12), around the year 1270 bce. For the pharaoh’s army,
this was only a minor skirmish with a band of forced laborers who had
managed to escape. he Jews, on the other hand, saw here a momentous
event, a manifestation of the divine protection that had allowed them to
escape their servitude and become an independent nation.
Properly speaking, the history of the Jews in Egypt begins with the
Aramaic documents discovered in Elephantine, near Aswan. hey consti-
tute the “archives” of a Jewish military colony of the fifth century bce, at
a time when Egypt was a province (satrapy) of the Persian empire.4 hey
inform us about the organization of a garrison of Syene/Elephantine,
responsible for guarding the southern frontier of Egypt. In addition,
they reveal details about the community life of this group, whose cul-
tural and religious autonomy was ensured by the Persian government.
Unique in the history of ancient Judaism, these documents raise fasci-
nating questions about the enforcement of legal and social regulations
within the community.5 he issue of divorce will suffice as an exam-
ple. As consecrated by biblical law, the only way to dissolve the marital
bond – recognized in rabbinic law up to the present day – grants this
privilege unilaterally to the husband. As a corollary to this right, the
community of Elephantine extended this prerogative to the woman as
well (Porten-Yardeni B 2.4).
he religious life of the colony revolved around the temple of their
national God, “YHW,” the tetragrammaton reduced to three letters. Its
presence on the island did not continue without stirring up conflict with
the neighboring Egyptians, worshippers of the ram-god Khnum, who also
had his sanctuary there. he existence of a Jewish temple in Egypt in the
fifth century bce might appear to run afoul of the Deuteronomic prin-
ciple of the unity of the sacrificial cult, reserved solely for the Jerusalem
temple by the reforms of Josiah (622 bce). Even so, the founding figures of
postexilic Judaism, who adopted this principle, did not disown their fellow
4
Porten, Archives from Elephantine.
5
Yaron, Introduction; Muffs, Studies.
Judaism in Egypt 191
countrymen in Elephantine. Rather, they strove to absorb this peripheral

Judaism into a movement of unification seeking to incorporate the vari-
ous Jewish communities of Babylon and Jerusalem under the authority of
the high priest. A document known by the name “Passover Papyrus” bears
witness to this (Porten-Yardeni A 4.1). he purpose of the letter, written
in 419/418 bce and addressed to the leaders of the colony by a relative
of Nehemiah, is to introduce Elephantine to the Passover calendar and
the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which hereafter was to be celebrated at a
fixed date – from the fifteenth to the twenty-first of the month of Nisan.
Deuteronomic centralism, while fiercely opposed to “high places” in the
land of Israel, spared the Elephantine sanctuary. heir reason for doing so
could be that, during the entire period from the fall of Jerusalem in 586
bce up to the reconstruction of the Temple after the return from captivity
in Babylonia, Elephantine was the sole location where the temple cult was
maintained.
To be sure, certain features of the religious practice of the Jews of
Elephantine must have displeased the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. Although
the colonists respected the ancient commandments, such as the Sabbath
rest, they continued the cultic practices that the reforms of Josiah attempted
to abolish. he financial records of the temple reveal, for example, the exis-
tence of a female character, Anat-Yahu or Anat-Bethel, alongside the god
venerated by the colonists (Porten-Yardeni C 3.15). his consort goddess is
assuredly none other than the “Queen of Heaven,” to whom the Jews of
Egypt proclaim their devotion in response to the denunciations addressed
against them by the prophet Jeremiah (Jer. 44:7). A “pre-Deuteronomic”
Judaism lived on in Elephantine.
Despite these deviations, the dialogue between Elephantine and post-
exilic Jerusalem resumed at the end of the fifth century. In the spring of
410 bce, the sanctuary of YHW was sacked by Egyptian rebels with the
support of a governor of Syene, who had split off from the central govern-
ment. Although it would be rebuilt with the cooperation of the Persian
regime, the sacrificial cult would from that point have to limit itself to
vegetable offerings and incense; making burnt offerings of animals was
discontinued (Porten-Yardenu A 4.9 and 4.10). his compromise would
be of short duration. Everything came to an end at the beginning of the
fourth century bce, when the Jewish colony and its temple were eradicated
by a surge in Egyptian nationalism. It would require the Macedonian con-
quest of Egypt in 332/331 bce to see the revival of Jewish life on the banks
of the Nile.
alexandrian judaism
he foundation of Alexandria by Alexander, king of the Macedonians, at
the beginning of 331 bce inaugurated a new era in the history of the Jews
of Egypt and a new experience in Jewish history: Alexandrian Judaism,
a nonrabbinic form of Judaism and the first Jewish diaspora in the West
in the modern sense of the word.6 In assimilating themselves to the con-
quering Greco-Macedonians – the “Hellenes” – the Jews of Hellenistic
Egypt practiced their Judaism according to the terms of Greek language
and culture, even while remaining faithful to the monotheistic tenets of
their ancestral law.7
Inscriptions on the tombs of Alexandrian necropolises confirm Flavius
Josephus’s claims about the antiquity of the Jewish settlement in Alexandria
( J.W. 2.487; Ag. Ap. 2.42f.). he oldest of them extend back to the times
of Ptolemy I Soter (satrap in 323–282 bce and then king, beginning in 305)
and his son Ptolemy II Philadelphus (282–46 bce). he names attested
there are either Hebrew names in Greek form, or Greek names, some of
which express devotion to the royal family (for example, “Ptolemaios” or
“Arsinoë”). With two or three exceptions, the inscriptions are in Greek.
hey attest to the rapid integration of the Jews into the dominant group of
Greek-speaking immigrants.
his integration did not entail the disappearance of Jewish identity,
even though it aroused in pagan circles the hostility that comes to the
fore in both literary sources and the papyri.8 Adherence to Greek culture
did not inevitably lead to apostasy, the abandonment of Judaism for the
service of “other gods.” One celebrated case of this occurring can be cited
here, that of Dositheus, son of Drimylus. Dositheus, a Hellenized Jew,
had a successful career in the service of Ptolemy III Euergetes, culminat-
ing in his commission in 223/222 bce as eponymous priest of the cult
of Alexander and the deified Ptolemies.9 Despite the obviously political
character of the priesthood of Alexander, Dositheus was, in the eyes of
the author of 3 Maccabees, simply an apostate who “renounced his reli-
gion and apostatized from the ancestral traditions” (3 Macc. 1:3). His case
is a rare one, however. On the whole, Hellenistic Judaism in Alexandria
6
See Mélèze-Modrzejewski, Juifs d’Égypte; idem, “Espérances et illusions du judaïsme alexandrin.” For
a recent overview, see Schimanowski, Juden und Nichtjuden in Alexandrien.
7
Mélèze-Modrzejewski, “Le statut des Hellènes.” Jewish integration into Greek society is ratified by
their fiscal status: P. Count. 2, 147–8.
8
Mélèze-Modrzejewski, “Sur l’antisémitisme païen”; Schäfer, Judaeophobia.
9
CPJud. I, 127a-d. See Fuks, “Dositheos Son of Drimylos.”
and Egypt successfully negotiated the difficult feat of being simultaneously

both Jewish and Greek.
According to latest estimates, the Jews at the beginning of the Roman
era would have constituted one-third of the total inhabitants of the city, or
between 150,000 and 180,000 people out of a total population of approx-
imately 500,000 (the highest total population imaginable for an ancient
megalopolis). Despite their numbers, they were not, barring extremely rare
exceptions, citizens of Alexandria. In his Letter to the Alexandrians (P.Lond.
VI 1912 = CPJud. II 153; November 41 ce), the emperor Claudius could thus
remark that “they live in a city that is not their own,” even though they had
been settled there for more than three centuries. Although Alexandrians
in the general sense – that is to say, inhabitants of Alexandria – they were
not part of the Greek polis (city-state). hey called themselves “Jews from
Alexandria” (Ioudaioi apo Alexandreias: CPJud. II 151, 5/4 ce), a formula
analogous to what one finds for local communities in the chōra – for exam-
ple, the Jews of Xenephyris (Horbury-Noy, 24), Nitriai (Horbury-Noy,
25), Athribis (Horbury-Noy, 27), and Crocodilopolis (Horbury-Noy, 117).
We have little detailed information about the organization of their com-
munities. Strabo, quoted by Josephus (Ant. 14.117), speaks of an ethnarch
(“leader of the people”) who administered Jewish affairs in Alexandria and
settled legal disputes by means of arbitration. his function is not attested
in the documentary material. Under the Roman empire, the sending of
Jewish embassies to Rome presupposes the existence of a structured com-
munity with the means to select envoys invested with the authority to
represent the Jews of Alexandria before the emperor. On the other hand,
the existence of a politeuma of Alexandrian Jews, a quasi-civic community
with aspirations to legal equality with the civic unit, the Greek polis, is far
from proven. We shall return to this question later.
the septuagint
he religious and community life of the Jews in Greco-Roman Egypt was
organized around the biblical law available in the Greek translation of the
Torah known as the Septuagint. he historicity of this translation is con-
firmed by fragments from the Septuagint preserved in papyri dating to the
pre-Christian era. On the other hand, historians are divided about its ori-
gins. According to one school of thought, the initiative for the translation
came from the Lagid sovereigns. For the other school, it arose out of the
rapid Hellenization of Jews in Ptolemaic Egypt. Because they no longer
understood Hebrew, they required a version of the Scriptures that was
comprehensible to them. he Greek version of the Torah was, therefore,

initially only a Greek targum accompanying the reading of the Torah in
the synagogue. What we now call the Septuagint would have only been a
standardized and officially sanctioned later redaction.10
Examination of the documents preserved in the Greek papyri of Egypt
enables us to break the impasse of this debate. At the same time, they dis-
close an important, but little-known, aspect of the Alexandrian Bible: its
place in the judicial system of the Ptolemaic monarchy.11 he need felt by
the Jews to have a Greek version of the Torah available to them comple-
ments the goals of a royal policy anxious about guaranteeing respect for
the national traditions of the kingdom’s inhabitants. Translations of their
“sacred books,” undertaken during the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus,
were thus received favorably, if not materially supported, by the monarchy.
A local counterpart of the Jewish Law, the Egyptian Priestly Case Book, a
collection of rules and legal guidelines assembled by the native priests, was
also translated into Greek under Ptolemy II. his translation has survived
the Roman conquest, as a copy known to us from the Antonine era attests
(P.Oxy. XLVI 3285).
Translations like these had significant practical value. For judges and
royal functionaries, familiar only with Greek, they offered access to legal
regulations relevant to the administration of justice but originally recorded
in other languages. In a way comparable to the role that the Egyptian legal
compendium played for the native population, the Septuagint version of
the Torah could now be invoked by Jewish litigants before courts and offi-
cials. It thus received official sanction as the “civic law” (politikos nomos)
of the Jews of Egypt.12 For this reason, knowledge of the Bible in pagan
circles pertained initially to legal matters and Ptolemaic administration.
One must wait until the beginning of the Christian era to find an echo
of the Septuagint in Greek literature (Ps. Longinus, On the Sublime 9, 9 =
GLAJJ 1.364–65, no. 148: an allusion to Gen. 1:3).
In the eyes of some of the sages of the Talmud, the translation of the
Torah into Greek was a quite legitimate, even inspired, undertaking, not-
withstanding the alleged errors of the translators. R. Simeon b. Gamaliel,
an admirer of Greek wisdom, goes so far as to privilege Greek as the only
“other language” authorized for scripture (b. Megilla 8b-9b). To justify his
opinion, the Gemara appeals to “the beauty of Japhet” (Gen. 9:27). he
10
See Dorival, Harl, and Munnich, La Bible grecque des Septante, 39–82, 182–93.
11
See Mélèze Modrzejewski, “Law and Justice in Ptolemaic Egypt”; idem, “Droit et justice dans
l’Égypte des premiers Lagides.”
12
See Mélèze Modrzejewski, “he Septuagint as Nomos.”
opposing opinion – which accepts only the Hebrew “square script” (ktav
ashuri) and considers the day on which the Torah was translated into Greek
for king Ptolemy “as disastrous as the day on which Israel fashioned the
golden calf ” (Massekhet Soferim, 7–10) – should be understood in its his-
torical context. It represents the rejection of the Septuagint at a time when
this translation, made by Jews for Jews, had, in the wake of the destruction
of Alexandrian Judaism at the beginning of the second century ce, become
the Bible of Greek-speaking Christians.
jewish books in greek

he Septuagint version of the Torah is the first and most celebrated rep-
resentative of Judeo-Alexandrian literature: a literature composed in the
Greek language, while remaining Jewish both in content and in the goals
that it sought to achieve.13 With the exception of a few works, the most
important of which were the Septuagint and the exegetical corpus of
Philo, we know of them only in fragments that survive thanks to a chain
of transmission extending from Alexander Polyhistor (first century bce) to
Eusebius of Caesarea (fourth century ce). A resource of inestimable value,
they collectively reflect the various streams of thought, ideological choices,
and political options available to Alexandrian Judaism.
Two works are directly connected with the Septuagint. Under the title
Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates, the first work, possibly dating to the second
part of the reign of Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II (ca.146–16 bce), offers us
an idealized account of the translation. Its author, a Hellenized Jew who
represents himself as a Greek and approaches Judaism from a Greek per-
spective, asserts the adherence of the Greek version of the Torah to the
norms of Alexandrian philology.14 he position that he adopts supports the
view that ascribes the initiative for the translation of the Torah to Ptolemy
Philadelphus II.
he same view is also held by the Judeo-Alexandrian philosopher
Aristobulus, the author of an exegetical work dedicated to king Ptolemy
VI Philometer, around 176–70 bce. Convinced that Greek philosophy has
its origin in biblical wisdom, Aristobulus has no hesitations about claiming
that Pythagoras and Plato were already inspired by the Jewish Bible. He
thus posits the existence of a Greek translation, at least a partial one, prior
to the Septuagint (in Eusebius, Praep. Evang. 13.12.1).15 While the existence
13
Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah, 191–230.
14
Honigman, he Septuagint, 42–9.
15
Walter, Der horaausleger Aristobulos, 27–9; 43–51.
of such a translation is highly doubtful, an Oxyrhynchus papyrus, known

since 1972, now suggests that in fact some biblical themes, in this case
Solomon’s famous judgment scene (1 Kings 3:16–28), were already known
in Greece before the death of Plato.16
he “chronographer Demetrius,” who lived in Alexandria in the time of
Ptolemy IV Philopator, is the first Greek-speaking Jewish historian known
to us. Six fragments have survived from his work On the Kings of Judea.17
Under the influence of Eratosthenes of Cyrene, Demetrius rationalizes
Israelite history to an extreme degree, representing it as a series of chro-
nological calculations, a method that he evidently regarded as the highest
form of scientific discourse. He follows the biblical text of the Septuagint
version, his sole source, for which he is the oldest historical witness.
In a work of the second century bce, which is as much historical nar-
rative as it is novel, another Jewish author, bearing the Persian name of
Artapanus, portrays Joseph and Moses as the “first inventors,” who taught
the Egyptians the arts of astronomy, agriculture, philosophy, and religion
(in Eusebius, Praep. Evang. 9.27.1–6).18 In this way, Moses becomes, unex-
pectedly for us, the founder of the Egyptian worship of animals. he poet
Ezekiel, inspired by Aeschylus and Euripides, describes the exodus from
Egypt (Exagōgē) in the guise of Greek tragedy.19 Another poet, Philo the
Elder, recounts in archaizing hexameters the history of the holy city of
Jerusalem.20
he novel Joseph and Aseneth (first century bce), whose author remains
unknown to us, addresses the problem of a mixed marriage between a
Jew and a pagan and advocates conversion to Judaism as a solution.21 An
interpretation of this story in connection with the temple at Leontopolis
has also been suggested.22 A kind of historical-moral novel, also composed
anonymously at the beginning of the first century bce and preserved in
some manuscripts of the Septuagint under the title hird Book of the
Maccabees, recounts a conflict connected with the cult of Dionysus, pitting
the Jews of Alexandria and Egypt against king Ptolemy IV Philopator.23
16
See Mélèze Modrzejewski, “Philiscos de Milet et le jugement de Salomon.”
17
Text and translation in Holladay, Fragments 1: he Historians, 51–91. See Bickerman, “he Jewish
Historian Demetrios.”
18
Artapanus’s Jewish identity is contested by H. Jacobson, “Artapanus Judaeus.”
19
Collins, “Ezechiel.”
20
Gutman, “Philo the Epic Poet.”
21
Burchard, Joseph und Aseneth. cf. Chapter 4 above, p. 122.
22
Bohak, Joseph and Aseneth.
23
For a new English translation (replete with anachronisms), see Croy, 3 Maccabees. For fuller exposi-
tion, see the edition of Mélèze Modrzejewski, in La Bible d’Alexandrie.
Criticized by modern philologists for its labored style, it conveys a mes-

sage that places fidelity to the law over loyalty to the sovereign of the Jews’
host country.
Judeo-Alexandrian literature culminates in the work of the philosopher
Philo (ca.20 bce–40 ce).24 Only a portion of his purely philosophical trea-
tises is extant, either in Greek (Quod omnis probus liber sit, De aeternitate
mundi) or in an Armenian version (Alexander, De providentia). His politi-
cal writings shed light on both the history of Alexandrian Judaism in the
first century of the Roman empire (In Flaccum, Legatio ad Caium), and on
the Jewish “sects,” including the Essenes (Apologia pro Iudaeis/Hypothetica)
and the herapeutae (De vita contemplativa).
In the more than three-quarters of his writings devoted to the Torah,
Philo, who is unfamiliar with Hebrew, uses the Greek version of the
Septuagint for his commentary and interpretation. His exegesis is grounded
in an allegorical reading that he pursues to its highest level. Proceeding
from the principle that all language is symbolic, his method attempts to
search out the deep meaning of the voice of God behind the terms of
human discourse. In this way, Philo aspires to establish the perfect com-
patibility between the Torah and Greek reason.
At the heart of this exegesis stand the law and the law-giver: Moses,
the unrivaled legislator, far superior to a Solon or a Lycurgus. Both the
prophets of Israel and the Greek philosophers are his disciples. But while
the former follow him faithfully, the latter preserve the revelation to Moses
only in a partial and obscure form. hrough the exegesis of scripture, Philo
thinks it possible to restore the unity of the truth revealed to the world by
Moses. he use of one universal language, namely Greek, the common
language (koinē) of the civilized work (oikoumenē), would facilitate the
undertaking. In this way, Philo hopes, the Mosaic law would end up tri-
umphing on a universal scale.
Philo’s influence on the Fathers of the Church and his role as interme-
diary between Greek philosophy and Christian theology are well known,
even though the rabbinic sages pass over him in silence. Recent research,
however, has attempted to delineate points of contact between his thought
and rabbinic teaching of the same time.25 his great sage was also an
intrepid community leader. We see him at the head of a Jewish embassy
24
For bibliographic inventory, see Goodhart and Goodenough, General Bibliography of Philo Judaeus
(up to 1937); Radice, Runia, et al. Philo of Alexandria (1937–1986); Runia and Keitzer, Philo of
Alexandria (1987–1996). For a good recent account intended for the general public, see Hadas-Lebel,
Philon d’Alexandrie.
25
Cohen, Philo Judaeus.
taking up the fight before the emperor Caligula in defense of the “civic
rights” of his coreligionists.26 What is at stake in this contest, one more reli-
gious than political, is a guarantee of the right of the Jews to live according
to the precepts of the Torah.27
the politeuma
In discussion of Philo and his Alexandrian compatriots, several writers
make use of the term politeuma, “a corporate civic body,” as if it were an
established fact. In fact, only the Letter of Aristeas (12.310) employs the term
politeuma in connection with the Jews of Alexandria, in this case to dis-
tinguish the “people of the politeuma” (hoi apo tou politeumatos) from the
“leaders of the people” (hēgoumenoi tou plēthous). One might as well say
that the politeuma did not mingle with the “multitude” (plēthos) – that is,
the Jewish population of the city. Flavius Josephus (Ant. 12.2.13), who para-
phrases this text, does not even refer to it. Modern historians have inflated
the significance of this isolated and temporally limited witness.
Papyrological discoveries now enable us to refine the terms of the
debate. Until recently, we knew for sure of only one Jewish politeuma in
a Hellenized province at the beginning of the Roman empire – that of
Berenice in Cyrenaica (IGLBibbia 24; 24 bce). Although evidence of the
politeuma was at one time lacking for the Jews of the Egyptian chōra, this
social structure, at once religious and military (consisting of soldiers who
worshipped the same deity), was confirmed for other immigrant groups of
shared origin: Idumeans, Cretans, hracians, Boetians, Cilicians, Lycians,
and Phrygians.
he 2001 edition of a score of documents scattered among the collec-
tions of Munich, Heidelberg, and Vienna (P.Polit.Iud.) now makes it pos-
sible to link these groups to a single Jewish politeuma established in the
nome of Heracleopolis, at the entrance to the Fayyum, during the second
part of the reign of Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II and after his restoration
in 145 bce (144/3 to 133/2 bce).28 It is described in these sources as the
“politeuma of the Jews in Heracleopolis” (to en Herakleou polei politeuma
tōn Ioudaiōn: P.Polit.Iud. 8.4–5, 133 bce; cf. 20 v° 8–9, ca.143–32 bce). Its
members call themselves “those of the politeuma” (ek tou politeumatos) and
26
Smallwood, Philonis Alexandrini Legatio ad Gaium (2nd ed.; Leiden, 1970); cf. Blouin, Le conflit
judéo-alexandrin de 38–41, 38–137.
27
See Mélèze Modrzejewski, “Les Juifs dans le monde gréco-romain,” 10–12.
28
he clarification of the term sought by Lüderitz, “What is Politeuma?,” should now be answered in
light of this archive. See Honigman, “Politeumata and Ethnicity.”
proclaim themselves as “citizens” (politai) in contrast to the “foreigners”

(allophuloi: P.Polit.Iud. 1.17–18, 135 bce).
he politarch (politarchēs), the leader of the politeuma, and the archons
(“magistrates”), who assist in the exercise of his duties, are petitioned by the
members of the politeuma and other persons to settle disputes that arise in
their domestic and community life. he business they engage in is thus of
a judicial nature, in all likelihood by virtue of royal sanction. he petitions
referred to them demonstrate that the Jews of Egypt appealed to biblical
law as the system of justice regulating judicial practice. Formulae such as
kata ton nomon, “according to the law” (P.Polit.Iud. 4.14–15, 30), to express
conformity of an action to Jewish law, or parabebēkotos ton patrion nomon,
“in violation of ancestral law” (P.Polit.Iud. 9.28–9), in connection with the
violation of an oath, explicitly refer to the Mosaic law. he vocabulary is
Septuagintal: mneusteuomai for a marriage proposal (P.Polit.Iud. 4.5–6; cf.
Deut. 22:23–29 [lxx]), or byblion tou apostasiou for a writ of divorce (P.
Polit.Iud. 4.23–4; cf. Deut. 24:1[lxx]). he documents from Heracleopolis
thus establish that the Septuagint was not only the text that was read in the
synagogues; it was also the law implemented in everyday life.
he archive of Heracleopolis also validates our doubts as to the contin-
ued existence of a Jewish politeuma in Alexandria. If one were to apply to
Alexandria the official terminology used in Heracleopolis, we would expect
to hear about a “politeuma of the Jews of Alexandria” (to en Alexandreiai
politeuma tōn Ioudaiōn). But such terminology does not appear in any
known source. All the evidence suggests that the Jewish community of
Alexandria was not firmly organized as a politeuma. Nor is the politeuma
the sole or even the dominant form of community organization of the Jews
in Egypt. As a privilege extended to a group of soldiers, it is a social system
reserved for military colonies like Heracleopolis and possibly Leontopolis
(to be dealt with later).29
the practical affairs of diaspora judaism

he information provided by the archive of Heracleopolis offers us a real-
istic picture of the way in which Egyptian Jews practiced their Judaism in
both their domestic and community life. A complaint addressed to the
magistrates of the politeuma of Heracleopolis (P.Polit.Iud. 4) in 134 bce is
especially illustrative.30
29
his is the conclusion of Cowey and Maresch, P. Polit. Iud., 5–6.
30
See Mélèze Modrzejewski, “La fiancée adultère.”
After a member of the politeuma had proposed marriage to the daughter

of another member of the community and the “betrothal” had been
finalized, the father of the “fiancée” changed his mind and married his
daughter to another man, without waiting to receive from his unfortunate
son-in-law “the traditional writ of divorce” (to eithismenon tou apostasiou
byblion). Believing that he had been wronged, the son-in-law demanded a
judgment “in accordance with the law” (kata ton nomon). his document
shows us that Jewish marriage in Ptolemaic Egypt was transacted, as it
was elsewhere during the same time, in two successive stages: (1) erusin or
kiddushin (“sanctification”), a term usually translated as “betrothed,” but
which actually designates a marriage that has already begun; (2) nisuin
(“elevation”), the sealing of the conjugal bond through the introduction
of the “fiancée” into the home of the husband. A period of several months
could separate the two events, and a writ of divorce was necessary to dis-
solve the bond established by the kiddushin; if not, then the young woman
would find herself in an unlawful state. In considering the question of her
status, Philo of Alexandria (Spec. 3.72) wavers between adultery (moicheia)
and seduction (phthōra), but opts for the first solution. he same problem
also concerns his contemporary Hillel the Elder (t. Ketub. 4, 9, and paral-
lels), who is more lenient than the Alexandrian philosopher on the subject
of “betrothed adultery.” In the time of Philo and Hillel, the pregnancy of
Mary, the mother of Jesus, falls, from a judicial perspective, into the same
category (Matt. 1:18–25). hanks to the Heracleopolis papyrus, the texts
of Philo, Hillel, and Matthew thus receive confirmation from a witness of
unquestionable credibility.
he attachment of the Jews of Egypt to their ancestral law and the
freedom they enjoyed in administering it in domestic affairs did not deter
them from borrowing Greek terminology used by Hellenistic notaries
for certifying contracts. In order to document in writing the rights and
responsibilities of spouses, for example, they resorted to the sungraphē
sunoikisiou ou sunoikeseōs, “a (written) agreement of cohabitation,” cor-
responding in Alexandria to the sunchōrēsis, “judicial transaction,” a type
of document that is distinctively Alexandrian. References in the papyri
dealing with Jewish couples in Egypt in the third and second centu-
ries bce31 coincide with the story of the marriage of Tobias and Sarah
in the book of Tobit (Tob. 7:13–14, in the version of codex Sinaiticus).
Matrimonial practice in the diaspora thus sought to accommodate
31
CPR xviii 9, 180 (Samaria, Fayyum, 232 bce); P.Polit.Iud. 3, 9 (Heracleopolis, ca.140 bce); probably
also P.Ent. 23 = CPJud. i 128.
the Jewish character of marriage to the practical necessities of life in a

Greco-Roman setting.32
In business affairs, Jewish practice is illustrated by documents involving
the biblical prohibition of loans with interest (Exod. 22:24; Lev. 25:35–37;
Deut. 23:20–21). On this matter, the archive of Heracleopolis (P.Polit.Iud.
8, 133 bce) confirms the assumption that a distinction was drawn between
“a charitable loan” (a loan for consumption), for which interest was pro-
hibited, and a “commercial loan” (an investment loan), in which case it
was allowed. he prohibition against interest was thus in effect only when
group solidarity came into play. Jewish practice in Egypt foreshadows rab-
binic discussion of this same thorny question.33
Documents like those just cited allow us to uncover the state of halakhah
in a Hellenized diaspora society more than three centuries before the redac-
tion of the Mishnah. For the conduct of Jewish worship, we must now
turn our attention to sources connected with the synagogue, the mainstay
of the institutional framework of community life in the Jewish diaspora
of Egypt.
synagogue worship
Although archaeological remains are lacking, papyri and inscriptions attest
the importance of synagogue worship in Greek and Roman Egypt.34 In
addition to this evidence, there is the description of the great synagogue of
Alexandria attributed to R. Judah b. Ilai in the Talmud (y. Sukkah 5.1.55a).
Built in the very heart of the Jewish quarter, it was, according to Philo
(Legat. 134), “the largest and most famous of all.” his “double colonnade”
(diplē stoa), which evokes the account of the Talmud, is well deserving of
the epithet “splendor of Israel” bestowed on it by R. Judah (y. Sukkah 5.1
cited previously).
Dedicatory inscriptions attest to the existence of “houses of prayer”
(proseuchai) in the interior of the country from the middle of the third
century bce (Horbury-Noy, 22; 117). he fact that they were established by
local communities implies a community effort and a certain sense of group
solidarity. In placing the synagogue under the auspices of the king and his
family, some dedications express the loyalty of the founders to the mon-
archy and the benevolence of royal authority, which both sanctions their
32
Mélèze Modrzejewski, “Jewish Law and Hellenistic Legal Practice”; cf. Cowey, “Das ägyptische
Judentum in hellenistischer Zeit,” 37–9.
33
For in-depth discussion, see Weingort, Intérêt et crédit.
34
Levine, he Ancient Synagogue, 74–89.
initiative and on occasion even provides financial backing for it. Cases also
occur in which a synagogue is founded by a single individual, possibly
associated with a group, or in which a family makes a donation for furnish-
ings (Horbury-Noy, 27 and 28).
he most ancient synagogue dedications do not specify the identity of
the deity worshipped in the houses of prayer, on the pediment of which
the inscriptions were engraved. he difficulty arose from the ineffable
name of the God of the Jews. For the Greeks, the Hebrew tetragrammaton
YHWH was indecipherable; Kyrios, “Lord,” the Greek equivalent of the
Hebrew Adonai, would have been highly enigmatic. Among the various
divine names, one was finally found that could most favorably impress the
religious sensibility of their Greek neighbors: El Elyon, “God most high”
(Gen. 14:18–20), or heos Hypsistos in Greek (Horbury-Noy, 9; 27; 105;
116). he word hypsistos evokes the supreme deity, comparable to Zeus,
to whom Sophocles applies the same adjective.35 But the God of the Jews
is also a “great God” (theos megas: Horbury-Noy, 13; 116) and “one who
hears” (epēkoos), an ability that was highly valued among the deities of the
Hellenistic world (Horbury-Noy, 13).
In Egypt, as in Judea, the principal feature of synagogue worship was
the reading of the Torah. When the passage from the Talmud cited above
describes the reading of the Torah in the great synagogue, it in this respect
surely expresses a historical reality. Fragments from scrolls of the Septuagint
preserved on papyrus, the oldest of which date back to the end of the sec-
ond century bce, attest to the regularity of this practice in the synagogues
of Egypt.36 hey complement the witnesses of the inscription of heodotus
(IGLBibbia, 31), Philo, Josephus, and the New Testament (Luke 4:16–22;
Acts 13:13–16).
he administration of the synagogue required the presence of a special-
ized staff. Its direction was delegated to a prostatēs, the equivalent of the
Hebrew “rosh ha-knesseth.” his office could be a collective one, as the
mention of two prostatai in Xenephyris suggests (Horbury-Noy, 24). A
cantor (hazzan) was also employed in the great synagogue of Alexandria.
he Greek equivalent of this term is nakoros (neokoros); two attestations of
the word are found in the papyri (P.Ent. 30 = CPJud. I 129, 218 bce and
PSI XVII Congr. 22, 114 or 78 bce). he second document refers to a nako-
rikon, a word that in all probability denotes the contributions offered by
35
Mitchell, “he Cult of heos Hypsistos.”
36
Aly and Koenen, hree Rolls of the Early Septuagint.
the community for the cantor’s salary. It is likely that this kind of financing
of synagogue staff was widespread throughout all of Egypt.
In addition to the reading of the Torah, the synagogue could play a
role in other community activities. In the first century bce, an association
(synodos) held its assembly (synagogē) in a house of prayer (CPJud. I 138);
perhaps it was a kind of “funeral association” (thiasos), as was found among
the Greeks in Egypt from the third century bce. We also hear about a
Jewish “club” (CPJud. I 139, first century bce); its members, who include
in their numbers a “sage” (sophos, the Greek equivalent of hakham), paid
their share of the costs of holding the banquet.
Like pagan temples, the synagogues could also be beneficiaries of the
privilege of asylum. hat is, they could offer, with royal permission, a
haven for people seeking refuge there. A bilingual inscription composed in
Greek and Latin (Horbury-Noy, 125) records the granting of this privilege
to an Egyptian synagogue by a Ptolemy Euergetes (Ptolemy VIII, rather
than Ptolemy III), and its confirmation by a “queen and a king” (regina et
rex). It is now thought that this was in reference to the last Cleopatra and
one of her coregents, probably Cesarion, the son that she had from Julius
Caesar.37
leontopolis
Egypt was the only country outside the land of Israel in which a
Jewish temple, at two different times, was in operation. he first was at
Elephantine, at the time of the last pharaohs and Persian kings. he sec-
ond was at Leontopolis, from the middle of the second century bce up to
73 ce. It owes its origin to the high priest Onias IV, a refugee in the court
of Alexandria during the Maccabean crisis. Leontopolis has now been
identified with the site of Tell el-Yahudiya, “the mound of the Jews,” near
Shibin el-Qanatir, to the north of Heliopolis. he identification of the
site, recognizable by its Arabic name, is confirmed by epigraphy; an epi-
taph informs us that we are indeed on the “land of Onias” (Horbury-Noy,
38), the equivalent of the “district of Onias” to which Josephus refers
( J.W. 1.190; Ant. 12.287).
In describing the appearance of the sanctuary, Josephus evokes the image
of a miniature copy of the Jerusalem temple (Ant. 13.73, 387–8). Elsewhere,
37
Bingen, “L’asylie pour une synagogue.” he use of the term proseuchē (“house of prayer”) calls into
question Rigsby’s hypothesis (“A Jewish Asylum in Greco-Roman Egypt”) that this inscription refers
to the temple of Leontopolis.
however, he provides a different description, one more in keeping with an

Egyptian setting: a tower (purgos), almost 30m (60 cubits) in height (J.W.
7.426–30) his tower could well have been a central component of a reli-
gious and military body (politeuma?) situated in Leontopolis.
he papyri assist in dating this construction, which is not reliable in
Josephus’s account. We find Onias serving in high office in the Alexandrian
court in 164 bce (P.Paris 63 = CPJud. I 132). He must have arrived in
Alexandria well before this time, not as a child as Josephus states, but as
a young man capable of moving swiftly through the ranks of the royal
circle of Ptolemy VI. his dating enables us to assign the construction of
the temple at Leontopolis to the years 167–64 bce; its purpose would be,
then, to ensure that the continuity of the Jewish sacrificial cult, which
had been imperiled in Jerusalem, would be maintained in the “land of
Onias.”
his conclusion is corroborated by rabbinic sources. While aware of
the existence of the Leontopolis sanctuary, the sages of the Talmud do
not condemn it. hey debate the legitimacy of Onias’s undertaking (b.
Menah. 109b) and reach the judgment that a sacrifice or an oath could
be made in Leontopolis, just as in Jerusalem. But they deny the service
of the Jerusalem temple cult to the priests who exercised this function in
Leontopolis (b. ‘Abod. Zar. 52b). he latter are likened to the officials of the
“high places,” which had formerly been targets of Josiah’s reforms (2 Kings
23:9). In other words, for the sages, the Egyptian sanctuary, founded by
Onias, was not at all “schismatic.”38 Far from being a rival to the Jerusalem
temple, it was simply a temple for Jewish soldiers under Onias’s command,
just as, a few centuries before, the temple of Elephantine had been for the
Jewish garrison stationed on the island.
he temple of Onias outlasted its counterpart in Jerusalem. Following
the siege of Jerusalem, Josephus says ( J.W. 7.420–36), those combatants
who had escaped the disaster sought refuge in Egypt and began to incite
a revolutionary movement there. When the prefect of Egypt, Tiberius
Julius Lupus, informed the emperor Vespasian about this, he ordered
the destruction of the temple of Leontopolis. As a dangerous symbol
of Jewish nationalism, this vestige of the glorious past of the Oniads
represented a direct challenge to Roman power. For Lupus and his suc-
cessor, Valerius Paulinus, it was enough simply to put an end to the
temple service and close the sanctuary. Its closing took place toward the
end of 73.
38
Against Momigliano, “Un documento.”
decline
For Alexandrian Judaism, the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 bce
inaugurated a period marking both its cultural apogee, brilliantly exempli-
fied by the work of Philo, and its political decline. Although the Romans
did not interfere with the religious and cultural autonomy of the Jews,
their conquest destroyed the social structure that allowed them to maintain
both their national identity and their membership in a dominant group.39
he state of decline in which the Jews of Egypt found themselves under
Roman domination revived old pagan-Jewish disputes. he first out-
burst occurred during the year 38 ce, under the government of A. Avilius
Flaccus, a prefect of Egypt well known, thanks to Philo (In Flaccum), for
his abuses.40 At the time of the accession of Claudius in the beginning of
41 ce, a Jewish embassy from Alexandria confronted a Greek embassy in
a court case unfolding before the emperor in Rome.41 A certain kind of
Greek universalism, espoused by the Alexandrian gymnasiarch Isidorus,
son of Dionysius, denounces Jewish particularism, embodied in this case
by Agrippa I, king of Judea. he lawsuit, known solely from papyrus
sources, concluded with a capital sentence imposed against Isidorus and
his associate, Lampo the registrar. Put to death for his homeland, Isidorus
became the heroic archetype, whose example would be followed by other
“pagan martyrs of Alexandria” (Acta Alexandrinorum).42
In 66 ce, under the reign of Nero, Tiberius Julius Alexander, nephew
of Philo, who at that time was discharging the duties of the office of pre-
fect, mercilessly crushed a Jewish uprising. Regarding this event, Josephus
speaks of 50,000 Jewish victims in Alexandria (J. W. 2.490–97) – assuredly
an exaggeration, although for the Jews of Alexandria, the year 66 was cer-
tainly an ordeal as severe as the pogrom of 38.
he outcome of these confrontations was one final test of strength at the
beginning of the second century ce, culminating in the destruction of the
Jewish communities of Alexandria and Egypt. Over the course of several
months, from the end of the reign of Trajan to the beginning of the reign
of Hadrian (the summer of 115 or the spring of 116 to August–September
of 117), a bitter war incited the Jews of the diaspora (Cyrene, Egypt, and
Cyprus), the East (Mesopotamia), and perhaps even Judea against Roman
39
See further Dunand in Chapter 6 of this volume.
40
Van der Horst, Philo’s Flaccus.
41
Mélèze Modrzejewski, “Le procès d’Isidôros.”
42
Musurillo, ed. he Acts of the Pagan Martyrs; idem, Acta Alexandrinorum; Rodriguez, “Les Acta
Isidori.”
power. he result of this uprising was calamitous for Alexandrian Judaism:

it totally disappeared.43
A notice in Eusebius of Caesarea, citing pagan authors of the second
and third centuries (Hist. eccl. 4.2.1–5 = Stern, GLAJJ 3, vii), sketches an
escalating series of conflicts that is abundantly illustrated in the papyri.
We see how a local disturbance (tarachos) rapidly evolved into full-scale
war (polemos). he commander of the Roman expeditionary force, Marcus
Turbo, massacres the Jewish rebels in the thousands. In Mesopotamia, a
similar mission was entrusted to Lusius Quietus, whose name is known
in rabbinic references to the “war of Quietus” (polemos shel Qitos). When
a contemporary Greek observer, Appian of Alexandria, refers to “Trajan,
who annihilated the Jewish nation in Egypt” (Bell. civ. 2.90), he echoes the
Talmud’s condemnation of the “massacre” that brought about the destruc-
tion of Alexandrian Judaism by the “vile Trajan” (y. Sukkah 5.1.55a, cited
previously).
Accounting records preserved in Egyptian papyri and ostraca balance the
books of this tragic revolt. hey reveal the existence in Egypt of the mid-
second century of two special accounts in the administration of the impe-
rial domain: the “estate of Greeks who had died without heirs” (pekoulion
Hellēnōn aklēronomētōn) and the “Jewish account” (Ioudaïkos logos). he
Greeks in question are the combatants in the revolt who had died with-
out leaving a will or legitimate heirs; the Jews are the rebels slapped with
the confiscation of their property. We thus learn of a judgment from the
emperor Hadrian passing sentence post mortem on the Jews complicit in
sedition and ordering the seizure of their property.44 After a reversal of such
magnitude, it would not be a simple matter to reconstitute Jewish life in
Egypt.
a new diaspora
In the wake of the failure of the revolt, Judaism in Egypt resembled a vast
cemetery. Men have perished in conflict; their property, as we have seen,
has been confiscated on the authority of a punitive sanction. On the Greek
side, the destruction of Hellenistic Judaism in Egypt did not appear to
have occasioned any sorrow. To the contrary, even at the very end of the
second century ce, the Greek population of the town of Oxyrhynchus
43
Sources and discussion in Ben Zeev Pucci, Diaspora Judaism in Turmoil.
44
See further Mélèze Modrzejewski, “La fin de la communauté juive d’Égypte.”
joyously commemorated the day on which the “impious Jews” had been
reduced to nothing (P.Oxy. IV 705 = CPJud. II 450).
One must wait until the end of the third and the beginning of the fourth
centuries to see the reappearance of Jewish settlements in Alexandria and
on the shores of the Nile. Quite removed from the one that ceased to exist
at the beginning of the second century, this new Jewish diaspora in Egypt
foreshadows the way of life characteristic of Jewish communities in medi-
eval and modern Egypt under Islamic rule. Hebrew and Aramaic are tend-
ing to replace Greek in prayer and funerary inscriptions as well as contracts
and correspondence between community leaders. Even so, the preference
for Semitic languages did not result in the elimination of Greek in the
Jewish diaspora. Bilingualism took root, and along with it the inevitable
interplay of influences and reciprocal borrowings.
Among the rare texts having to do with Jews in Egypt during this era,45
a ketubah (marriage contract), the oldest one in existence (15 November
414 ce), beautifully illustrates this biculturalism. he contract was drawn
up in Antinoopolis, a city founded by Hadrian in 130 as a memorial to his
beloved Antinous, who had drowned in the Nile. It registers the marriage
of a Jewish couple probably hailing from Alexandria.46 Although the ter-
minology used is indeed that of a Jewish ketubah, the Aramaic text is sprin-
kled with Greek words transcribed into square characters, rough breathing
being rendered with a chet. hus, the mohar, the “cost” of the bride paid by
the groom to her father, is rendered by the word hedna (“nuptial gifts”). his
archaic Greek word replaces the word phernē (dowry) that the Septuagint
uses for mohar, reflecting common usage but to the detriment of judi-
cial rigor. To reinstate the mohar into the marriage contract, the Jews of
Byzantine Egypt revived a Homeric word that had been out of use for a
long time. Here is how one could continue to be both a Jew and a Greek.
Hellenistic Judaism in Alexandria and Egypt did not therefore
completely disappear at the end of Trajan’s reign. It survived the turmoil of
the years 115/116–17, not only as a social phenomenon, but as a major cul-
tural force, of which the Septuagint and the exegetical work of the philos-
opher Philo are the most celebrated representatives. A noteworthy element
of the cultural legacy of the Jewish people, it has left, via Christianity, a
lasting imprint on the intellectual heritage of the ancient Mediterranean
handed down to modern civilization.
45
CPJud. III, supplemented by Fikhman, “Les Juifs d’Égypte à l’époque byzantine.”
46
Sirat, Cauderlier, Dukan, and Friedman, eds. La ketouba de Cologne.
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A Photographic Edition (Bonn, 1980).
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History 2 (Leiden, 1980): 347–58.
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2005).
Bohak, Gideon. Joseph and Aseneth and the Jewish Temple in Heliopolis (Atlanta, 1996).
Burchard, Christoph. Joseph und Aseneth kritisch herausgegeben (Leiden, 2003).
Cohen, Naomi G. Philo Judaeus: His Universe of Discourse (Frankfurt, 1995).
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8
ANCIENT EGYPTIAN CHRISTIANITY
jacques van der vliet
More decisively than any other event in the country’s history, the surrender
of Alexandria to Arab troops in November 641 marked the end of Antiquity
in Egypt. Egypt was irrevocably severed from the Hellenistic world to
which it had belonged culturally ever since Alexander the Great, and from
the Roman empire of which it had been part politically since the reign of
Augustus.1 Long before that crucial event, however, dramatic changes had
already transformed the Egyptian landscape. In Alexandria itself around
the middle of the fourth century, the Caesareum on the waterfront, com-
pleted in the time of Augustus as a temple in his honor, had been con-
verted into the cathedral church of the city’s Christian archbishops.2 In the
far south of the country, in hebes, the age-old mortuary temple of Queen
Hatshepsut in Deir el-Bahari experienced a different fate. In Ptolemaic
and early Roman times, it had housed a thriving healing shrine patron-
ized by the indigenous “saints” Amenhotep, son of Hapu, and Imhotep.3
In the third and fourth centuries of the common era, part of the temple
served as a cemetery; members of the corporation of iron-workers from
nearby Hermonthis used another part of the building for social and rit-
ual gatherings, which involved, among other things, the traditional sac-
rifice of a donkey.4 At a much later stage, toward the end of the sixth
century, it became the core of an impressive monastery. Dedicated to
Saint Phoibammon, the monastery dominated the area until its remains
were demolished by nineteenth-century archaeologists.5 A process of
1
Introductory: Bagnall, Rathbone, Egypt; for the later part of the period covered here, see now the
essays in Bagnall, Egypt in the Byzantine World.
2
Haas, Alexandria, 210–11.
3
Laskowska-Kusztal, Sanctuaire ptolémaïque; Łajtar, Deir el-Bahari, 3–94.
4
Łajtar, Deir el-Bahari, 94–104.
5
Godlewski, Monastère.
211
212 Jacques van der Vliet
irreversible Christianization had, at an unequal pace and with different

outcomes, affected both the centers of official ceremony (like Alexandria’s
Caesareum) and the shrines that served the needs of local populations (as
in Deir el-Bahari).
Egypt, as it was found by the Arab invaders, was a predominantly
Christian land. On its southern borders, in Nubia, the Christian states
that had developed there transmitted the culture of Byzantine Egypt to
remoter parts of Africa.6 Deeply divided over questions of Christological
doctrine, Egypt’s Christianity was not monolithic, however. As elsewhere
in the East, church leaders and civil authorities perpetuated the conflicts
over the divinity and the humanity of Jesus Christ that had arisen in the
wake of the great church councils of the fifth century (Ephesus 430, 449;
Chalcedon 451). Another notable characteristic of Egypt at the time was
its bilingualism. Greek was the official language of church and administra-
tion alike, as well as the lingua franca of Egypt’s intellectual elite. From the
early fourth century onward, however, the indigenous language, Coptic in
its various forms, had increasingly gained in status. he result was a pro-
foundly bilingual society in which social and regional variables, not differ-
ences in ethnicity or nationality, determined linguistic preference. Other
characteristics that might have struck the Arab conquerors concerned the
specific forms of Christian Egyptian religiosity. Monasticism in its various
forms occupied a central position within the religious and social life of
Christian Egypt. Monasteries were more than places of continuous wor-
ship; they were also institutions of considerable symbolic and economic
power, as were the numerous shrines devoted to the cults of the saints, in
particular the holy martyrs.
On the eve of the Arab conquest, Egyptian Christianity had its own
profile, shaped by a history extending over almost six centuries. he fol-
lowing discussion will present a brief outline of this history, not as a linear
development, starting from obscure “roots” and ending in a predictable
tree, but rather as the outcome of a series of transformations, determined
by the interaction of religious ideas, cultural values, and social processes.
Indeed, the whole concept of roots will be avoided here.
Our sources for the history of ancient Egyptian Christianity are
both extremely rich and highly heterogeneous. he Greek works of the
Alexandrian Church Fathers, from Clement (ca.150–215) down to Cyril
(d.444) and his successors, have been transmitted carefully over the cen-
turies. Among the chance manuscript finds preserved in Egypt’s dry soil
6
Welsby, Medieval Kingdoms.
Ancient Egyptian Christianity 213
is a corpus of gnostic and Manichaean scripture, mainly in Coptic; there

are also countless Greek and Coptic papyri and ostraca, including magical
and liturgical texts, that reflect the concerns of daily life. For the world of
monasticism, descriptions of ancient visitors and hagiographical literature
supplement archaeological witnesses and inscriptions on stone or wood.
Although each of these sources may provide access to significant aspects
of the life and thought of Egyptian Christians, they cannot be used indis-
criminately. A cosmological treatise provides information different from
that found in a business document.
An in-depth evaluation of these various sources and their respective
contributions to the history of Egyptian Christianity is beyond the scope
of this essay. Instead, the following pages will sketch some major processes
of transformation from various perspectives. he first section concentrates
on “transformations of the mind” – that is, on major trends in the devel-
opment of Christian thought and ideology in Egypt. he second section
is devoted to “transformations of authority,” investigating the sources
and structure of authority and the shifts that occurred in its attribution.
Finally, a third section will deal with “transformations of the landscape,”
or the ways in which the Christian religion took shape on the level of local
cult and piety.
transformations of the mind

he first Christians who set foot on the Alexandrian wharf are unknown.
Presumably, they were Jews, most likely from nearby Palestine. Several
New Testament passages mention an early Christian missionary, Apollos,
an Alexandrian Jew by birth (Acts 18.24–28; 1 Cor. 1:12; 3:6; 4:6; 16:12).7
A later tradition connects the establishment of the Alexandrian church
with the name of St. Mark the Evangelist.8 Otherwise, the history of
first-century Christianity in Egypt is a void. According to one widely held
theory, the lack of surviving sources arose from the heretical, gnostic char-
acter of earliest Egyptian Christianity. Another explanation, more popular
nowadays, maintains that Christian life, initially integrated into the Jewish
community of Alexandria, became visible only after the great Jewish revolt
of 115–17. Although both theories have strengths and weaknesses, they
appear equally inadequate when confronted with the richness and diversity
7
See Jakab, Ecclesia alexandrina, 41–2.
8
Ibid., 45–9.
of Christian intellectual life in second-century Alexandria.9 For the first

century, we simply lack information.
Descriptions of Alexandrian culture in Antiquity like to stress its cos-
mopolitan, multicultural, and multiethnic character, underlining the city’s
status as a major international harbor. here can be no doubt, however,
that Hellenism was the predominant cultural paradigm. However cosmo-
politan the city may have been, Hellenistic culture conveyed status and
prestige and thereby imposed its standards.10
Early Christian culture of Alexandria reflects both the variety of avail-
able models and the preeminence of the Hellenistic cultural paradigm.
As a missionary religion, Christianity had to find its place in this cultural
marketplace and choose its models accordingly. Papyrus finds from Upper
Egypt attest to both the early diffusion of what was soon to become the
canon of Christian scripture, the Greek Old and New Testaments, and
the popularity of the heterogeneous body of texts that came to be desig-
nated as extracanonical or apocryphal literature.11 We can distinguish two
ways by which this material was processed into a Christian ideology in
Alexandria. One is the multifarious phenomenon of Gnosticism, repre-
sented in Alexandria by the names of Basilides (fl. ca.120–45) and Valentinus
(ca.100–65) among others. he other is the so-called Alexandrian cate-
chetical school, with Clement of Alexandria and Origen (ca.185–253) as its
most brilliant representatives.
Gnosticism is a modern label that conventionally designates a wide range
of early Christian dualistic currents.12 Our direct knowledge of Gnosticism
derives to a considerable degree from the fourth- and fifth-century Coptic
manuscripts of Upper Egypt. While some of them were found as early as the
eighteenth century, the so-called Nag Hammadi library is the best-known
representative of these manuscript finds. Stray discoveries include the
recently published papyrus codex, which, among other gnostic writings,
contains a Coptic translation of the so-called Gospel of Judas.13 Several of
these texts may derive from second- or third-century originals composed
in Greek. A few of them have received considerable popular attention in
recent years. Most renowned are the Gospel of homas, a sapiential text
recycling sayings of Jesus,14 and the Gospel of Philip, probably a set of notes
9
Ibid., 38–41, 58–61; Pearson, Gnosticism and Christianity, 12–15.
10
See Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria.
11
Van Haelst, Catalogue; cf. Roberts, Manuscript.
12
he term is contested: Williams, Rethinking “Gnosticism”; King, What is Gnosticism?; introductory:
Roukema, Gnosis and Faith; a good selection of original texts: Layton, he Gnostic Scriptures.
13
Kasser et al., Gospel of Judas.
14
Layton, Nag Hammadi Codex II, 37–128; introductory: Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, 452–79.
for a gnostic baptismal instruction.15 Although these original writings are

precious witnesses to the history of early Christianity, they are regrettably
more often exploited for polemical and devotional purposes than taken
seriously as historical sources.16
Two distinguishing features of Gnosticism are its negative view of the
perceptible world and material man and its complicated relationship with
Judeo-Christian scripture.17 Accordingly, cosmology and anthropology
occupy a central place within gnostic thinking. Many so-called Sethian
writings (named after Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve) share a phil-
osophical myth about the origin of the world and humanity that serves as
a blueprint for the gnostic understanding of salvation.18 It situates divinity
and humanity in their various manifestations on a sliding scale between
the extremes of the purely and ineffably spiritual and the gross ignorance
of pure materiality. he Sethian myth, once discarded as a marginal aberra-
tion, is now seen as an important key to gnostic thought. Its very centrality
explains its quasi-ritual repetition, its insertion into the most diverse con-
texts, and the insistence with which it is echoed in every aspect of Sethian
gnostic teaching. In addition to its undeniable philosophical aspirations,
which explain its ambivalent attitude toward the cosmogonical myth of
the biblical book of Genesis, the Sethian myth showed an astonishing
capacity to absorb diverse ritual and magical elements. he astrological,
demonological, and angelological material derived from various scholarly
traditions (Hellenistic, Jewish, and Egyptian) enhanced and expanded its
ritual character. he famous Apocryphon of John, one of the most popular
works of ancient Gnosticism, is a crowning witness to the magical and per-
formative aspects of much of Sethian scripture.19
he figures of Basilides and Valentinus, the major representatives of
Alexandrian Gnosticism in the second century, are not easy to grasp, as
their works are largely lost. Both appear to have been speculative Christian
theologians who borrowed their conceptual tools from contemporary
philosophy.20 Although Gnosticism has often been generally character-
ized as strongly Platonizing, in recent years due attention has been paid
15
Layton, Nag Hammadi Codex II, 129–217; see Van Os, Baptism. See Roukema, “Historical
context.”
16
his even applies to popular publications by scholars like Elaine Pagels and Gilles Quispel; cf. the
ideologically tainted publicity around the recent rediscovery of the Gospel of Judas.
17
For the latter: Luttikhuizen, Gnostic Revisions.
18
Sethianism: Turner, Sethian Gnosticism.
19
Waldstein and Wisse, Apocryphon; commentary: Tardieu, Codex; cf. Quack, “Dekane”; Van der
Vliet, “he Coptic Gnostic Texts.”
20
Löhr, Basilides; on Valentinus: homassen, Spiritual Seed.
to the Aristotelian element in gnostic theology, particularly in Basilides.21

Later Sethian gnostics tended to move away from Christianity toward
neo-Platonism. hat the major neo-Platonist philosopher Plotinus (205–
70) expended the effort to attack them suggests that, in addition to sharing
a common idiom, they also addressed similar audiences.22
A second major current in early Christian thought, which is no less
indebted to Greek dualist philosophy, appears in the writings of the
so-called Alexandrian catechetical school.23 Although perhaps not a school
in the strict sense, it represents a tradition stretching from Clement well
into the fourth century with Athanasius (295–373) and Didymus the Blind
(ca.313–98). his tradition took its lead from a current within Alexandrian
Judaism best known from the work of Philo (ca.30 bce–45 ce). “Gospel
message” and “Hellenistic culture” (Daniélou 1955) are fused in a particu-
lar way of reading the Bible and of interpreting the figure of Jesus Christ.
he so-called allegorical way of reading the scriptures attempted to reveal
a symbolic meaning behind a text that need not have had this meaning
originally. It was not just an arbitrary way of interpreting texts in terms
of contemporary ideology, but rather a means of making them accessible
to audiences who were not primarily interested in the details of Israelite
history and cultic law or in the political and social conditions of early
first-century Palestine. In terms of symbolic value, it succeeded in bring-
ing the Bible up to the level of Homer and other classics of the dominant
Hellenistic culture.
A similar cultural strategy can be observed in the even more central
doctrine about Christ. Alexandrian Christian theology, again inspired by
Philo, took up the Johannine notion of Christ as the Word of God, his
Logos. In particular, Clement developed an all-embracing theological,
cosmological, and historical concept of the Logos as the innate reason of
God, who in the beginning had created the world and finally had become
incarnate in Jesus Christ for the salvation of humanity. his tendency was
even more marked in Origen’s Christology, which sought to describe with
greater precision the relation between the divine Logos and the incarnate
Christ. In the fourth century, Athanasius’s masterwork On the Incarnation
of the Word would later set out from this broad concept of the Logos to
sketch the history of human fall and redemption starting from the origins
21
For example, Bos, “Prägung.”
22
See also Tardieu, “Recherches.”
23
Introductory: Jakab, Ecclesia alexandrina, 91–106; Pearson, Gnosticism and Christianity, 26–32; on
Clement and Origen: Rankin, From Clement, 113–41. Still unsurpassed: Daniélou, Gospel Message;
idem, Origen.
of the world.24 he Alexandrian doctrine of the Logos again gave Christians

access to Greek philosophical discourse on a high level.
From the half-magical, half-philosophical cosmology of Sethian
Gnosticism to the refined theology of Origen and Athanasius, the whole
spectrum of early Alexandrian Christian thinking reflects the appropria-
tion at different levels of the various modes of discourse locally available.
hese could range from high-level Greek philosophy to liturgical and mag-
ical rites deriving their authority from (supposedly) Egyptian or Jewish
models, passing through Stoic prescriptions for a “rational” lifestyle, as
witnessed, for example, by the Teachings of Silvanus.25 he various audi-
ences of the Alexandrian Christian teachers were looking for such gener-
ally coveted symbolic goods as divine wisdom, personal salvation through
spiritual or moral purification, or simply power over demons, rather than
for creeds. Ancient Christian authors themselves recognized the intellec-
tual and social differences underlying this variety. hus, the modern word
“gnostic” derives from a Greek term gnōstikos; defining Christian excel-
lence in terms of access to superior intellectual and spiritual knowledge,
the term was used by gnostics proper as well as by Clement of Alexandria
and, later, Evagrius (345–99).26 he domain in which these cultural distinc-
tions and the corresponding doctrinal variety were expressed was probably
that of liturgical and associated social practices. Although we know little of
these practices, the remarkably fierce polemics of gnostic groups over bap-
tism and the Eucharist confirm their importance at a quite early stage.27
he watershed of Late Antiquity, initiated by the reign of Diocletian,
introduced entirely novel styles of Christian discourse, including in Egypt.28
Following the Edict of Milan (313), Christianity developed, over a period
of less than a century, from a persecuted minority to a rapidly spread-
ing state-supported religion. But already before Constantine, social shifts
and administrative reforms had changed the face of society. New religious
movements – in particular, organized monasticism in its different forms –
had moved ascetic lifestyles into a central position within the Christian
culture of the period, making them a favorite option for those longing for
purity and sanctity. What has been called “the politics of the body” would
henceforth become a focus of much of Christian discourse.29
24
Text: homson, Athanasius.
25
Zandee, Teachings.
26
On the term: Layton, “Prolegomena.”
27
Baptism: Sevrin, Dossier; Eucharist: Gospel of Judas; cf. Rouwhorst, “Gospel of Judas.”
28
General: Bagnall, Egypt.
29
Brown, Body.
Traditional scholarship has often considered Egyptian monasticism as

a kind of peasant movement, originating among the lower strata of indig-
enous society. he sources for fourth-century Egypt do not confirm this
picture, however. From the standpoint of literary culture, fourth-century
Egyptian monasticism was highly oriented toward learned Alexandrian
theology. he letters attributed to St. Antony (ca.251–356), authentic or
not, betray in their spiritual language a clear Origenist inspiration.30 he
Coptic gnostic manuscripts from Upper Egypt apparently circulated in
monastic communities.31 Monasticism is not an unreflective flight into
primitivism, but a movement deeply rooted in Christian dualist thought.
In fact, the most influential contribution to the construction of the spiritual
profile of Egyptian monasticism, the Life of Antony, was probably written
by Athanasius himself.32 Ideologically, monasticism represented the influx
of Alexandrian thinking in all its variety into the Egyptian countryside.
For all its spirituality, the discourse of late antique asceticism was par-
adoxically focused largely on human behavior, morally and socially, in its
relation to the body, sexuality, kinship, and the world. Asceticism as an
institutionalized way of life demanded a rethinking of man in his social
and moral dimensions. A similar urge for new and more precise defini-
tions characterized the development of the debate about the nature of
Christ as the Godhead incarnate. From the perspective of a new, more
practical anthropology, the traditional Alexandrian view of Christ as an
abstract, extratemporal Logos was hardly apt to answer all questions that
could be posed about Christ’s humanity and divinity. While this had cre-
ated tensions already before the fourth century, it now found a broader
echo during the first great crisis over Christology, the Arian schism. Arius
was a priest of the Alexandrian church (256–336), now best remembered
as an exponent of what is called subordinationism. his is, roughly speak-
ing, the tendency to make Christ inferior in position and in essence to
the Father. What exactly Arius taught, however, is difficult to assess, and
modern opinions on his theology are divergent.33 he conflict ended in a
triumph for another Alexandrian, Athanasius, bishop of that town from
328. His name remains connected with the term homoousios, “of the same
substance,” to define the relationship between the Father and the Son, over
against Arian positions. During the Council of Nicaea (325), this term was
30
Rubenson, Letters.
31
Wipszycka, “Nag Hammadi Library.”
32
Text: Bartelink, Vie; cf. Brakke, Athanasius, 201–65.
33
For a balanced view: Williams, Arius; cf. Grillmeier, Jesus, 1, 356–85. Arius as an Alexandrian: Haas,
Alexandria, 268–77.
included in the Nicene Creed, which is still at the basis of most Christian
denominations.34 What have been called the learned and scholastic style of
Arius, on the one hand, and the narrative and anthropomorphic style of
Athanasius, on the other, were not merely matters of personal preference.
heir opposing catechetic styles represent divergent modes of discourse
attuned to different response groups.35 he frictions that this divergence
engendered on the level of theological definitions remained a source of
conflict in the centuries to come.
As a way of solving doctrinal disputes, the ecumenical Council of
Nicaea established a precedent. In the fifth century, the Christological
debate flared up once again.36 his time, the central theme was the rela-
tionship between the divine and the human in Christ incarnate. Facing
Nestorius’s provocative statements, which seemed to deny the essential
unity of Christ, the Council of Ephesus was convened in 431. Once again,
the council eventuated in a victory for an Alexandrian bishop and theolo-
gian, Cyril. But Cyril’s almost scholastic use of the terms “nature,” “hypos-
tasis,” and similar philosophical terms created confusions that persisted
after his death during the Councils of Ephesus II (449) and Chalcedon
(451), and continued thereafter. Whether one defined the union of divinity
and humanity in Christ as “one single hypostasis in two natures” or as “the
one nature of the Logos incarnate” had by the middle of the fifth century
become shibboleths, opposing what are called, incorrectly, dyophysites
and monophysites. Egypt was also embroiled in the controversy. In 451
the Council of Chalcedon condemned the Alexandrian bishop Dioscorus
as an exponent of the latter option. he result was a violent conflict that
split the Egyptian church for centuries to come. In the second half of the
sixth century, what had formerly been a latent schism grew into an open
one, with the development of parallel hierarchies and separate churches.
Although the conflict over the nature of Christ arose out of a genuine
interest in safeguarding the essential integrity of the Godhead incarnate,
subtle but irreconcilable differences in discourse and the search for water-
tight definitions and purity of terminology came to dominate the debate.
In spite of the efforts of, for example, the Alexandrian philosopher John
Philoponus (ca.490–575), an important Aristotelian scholar,37 the discus-
sion was eventually decided by authority.
34
Cf. Grillmeier, Jesus, 1, 386–413.
35
Cf. Kannengieser, quoted in Williams, Arius, 112.
36
For the theological issues involved: Grillmeier, Jesus, 1, 637–775, with vols. 2/1 and 2/4. Easier but
partly antiquated: Frend, Rise. For Cyril’s Christology, see now Van Loon, Dyophysite Christology.
37
Grillmeier, Jesus, 2/4, 109–49; Lang, John Philoponus.
transformations of authority
Very little is known about the social organization of the earliest Christian
communities of Alexandria. It can be inferred that they were organized
according to a hierarchical model and that, at an early stage, inner-group
dissension had led to the demarcation of subgroups.38 he definition of
such groups could involve their social setting, liturgical practices, and
questions related to doctrinal correctness and access to wisdom and knowl-
edge. Our earliest sources show how, in each of these domains, authority
was defined and debated.
Real or spiritual genealogies were an important instrument in the pro-
cess of establishing the authority of a group or an individual teacher. hus,
Basilides and his son Isidorus, both early Alexandrian gnostics, appear
to have claimed access to secret teachings of Jesus himself, transmitted
through the apostle Matthias. his is a rather simple, unequivocal way
of mapping the transmission of authority. Other literary constructs are
more complicated. As one moved away from the apostolic age chrono-
logically, group dissension was projected onto the gospel narrative itself.
By an identical procedure already found in the Synoptic Gospels (e.g.,
Matt. 16:13–20), the Gospel of homas (logion 13) and the Gospel of Judas
(34:22–36: 9), for example, isolated privileged disciples (homas, Judas)
and thereby created room for dissident views in a space where author-
ity was defined traditionally. his does not mean that real-life homas or
Judas communities existed. We are dealing rather with literary conventions
meant to validate dissident views or positions. he same applies to the var-
ious representatives of the genre of the so-called gnostic dialogue, a literary
setting in which Jesus answers the questions and remarks of some or all of
his disciples, preferably in the forty-day period between his resurrection
and ascension.39 hese dialogues were not particular to gnostic groups. It
was a literary device that remained popular in Egypt and shaped much
non-gnostic apocryphal literature. In a direct and straightforward way, this
literary device lent authority to what has been called secondary teaching.
Genealogies were also important to the legitimation of the so-called cat-
echetical school and the episcopal office, the main institutional sources of
authority within the early Alexandrian church.40 Fourth- and fifth-century
sources give the succession of the school’s supposed main teachers as well
38
For general principles: Dorogovtsev and Mendes, Evolution.
39
On the genre: Hartenstein, Zweite Lehre.
40
Pearson, Gnosticism and Christianity, 19–21 and 27–8 (with further references).
as the pedigree of the Alexandrian bishops, beginning with St. Mark. he

historicity of both traditions in the strict sense is hardly relevant. heir signif-
icance lies in the literary construction of a double genealogy of authority.
Whereas these two kinds of authority, of the teacher and of the bishop,
were both tied up with an office, this was not the case with the authority
of the martyr in the early church. Because it was linked to an individu-
al’s fate, the martyr’s authority could not be translated into a genealogy.
It is again Origen who at an early stage had designed the profile of the
Christian martyr in his Exhortation to Martyrdom.41 Like many other early
Christians, Origen had desired from his youth to become a martyr – not
in order to assert his authority, but out of a longing for Christian perfec-
tion that found its highest expression in the martyr’s suffering and eventual
death.42
he importance of martyrdom as a privileged way to obtain Christian
perfection became apparent in a major crisis in the early fourth century,
the Melitian schism.43 his crisis pitted the Alexandrian bishop Peter, who
died in 311 as one of the last victims of the persecutions under Maximinus
Daia, against a local bishop, Melitius of Lycopolis (Assiout), in south-
ern Egypt. According to the traditional view, the conflict involved the
treatment of the so-called lapsi, Christians who, faced with persecution,
had renounced their belief instead of accepting martyrdom. Peter took a
lenient stand, allowing their readmission into the church under certain
conditions, whereas Melitius’s position was more rigorist. When a schism
occurred, Melitius found wide support among bishops and clergy, who
claimed for themselves the title “church of the martyrs.” here can be no
doubt that this conflict helped to thematize and popularize martyrdom
during a time when it had properly become something of the past. After
the persecutions had stopped, the debate no longer concentrated on the
question of the lapsi, but rather on the proper forms and ways of honor-
ing the martyrs. Access to martyrs’ relics was apparently an issue, and their
possession and authenticity were debated. In his Life of Antony, Athanasius,
the major adversary of the Melitians, expressly situated the ascetic lifestyle
in the spiritual lineage of the martyrs.
he traditional view of the Melitian schism should not go unchallenged,
however. Essentially, the conflict may have been between the local bishop’s
authority and the traditional prerogatives of the Alexandrian bishop as the
41
Text: O’Meara, Origen.
42
Origen’s ideal of perfection: Völker, Vollkommenheitsideal.
43
Martin, Athanase, 215–98.
head of the Egyptian church. In any case, Athanasius reacted by forging

the Egyptian church into a strongly structured unity kept in place by a
great number of bishops with the bishop of Alexandria at their head.44
Although the framework of episcopacies existed for the greater part before
Athanasius, he unified election procedures and created new sees. Even cen-
turies later, a marginal diocese like that of Philae traced its pedigree back
to Athanasius.45
A perhaps more revolutionary move was Athanasius’s close personal
involvement in the rising ascetic movement of his time.46 Although
monasticism in its various fourth-century forms may have been ideologi-
cally prepared by Alexandrian theology, it gathered momentum only after
becoming a broad communal movement. As such, it offered new forms of
authority based on a distinct, ascetic lifestyle and on new forms of social
organization. he typical monastic saint was not a theologian, but rather
a mediator of spiritually based authority grounded in a particular lifestyle.
If traditional research has perhaps been too focused on the spiritual ide-
als propagated by monastic pious reading, the scholarship of the last few
decades, ever since Peter Brown, tends to isolate the heroic individual (the
“holy man”) as he is best known through hagiography, always a dangerous
genre.47 hanks to the input of papyrological and archaeological research,
there is a growing awareness that monasticism is mainly a communal
effort with a strong institutional and economic basis.48 Prescriptive litera-
ture demanded that the monk be an ascetic, turned away from the world,
living in a symbolic desert, and feeding on the word of God. In reality,
however, monks fulfilled a variety of economic and social roles. Otherwise,
monasticism could never have become a viable lifestyle. In late antique
Egypt, small and large monasteries fully integrated into the fabric of soci-
ety covered both urban and rural regions. Society in its turn also favored
this lifestyle: wealthy individuals became the founders and patrons of their
own local monasteries.
Among the variety of authoritative models that characterized Egyptian
monasticism as an institution, the two that became best known were
the cenobitic and the eremitic lifestyles. he latter aimed at creating for
44
Ibid., 637–763.
45
Dijkstra, Philae.
46
See particularly Brakke, Athanasius.
47
Cf. Brown, “Rise.”
48
For example, Wipszycka, “Formes”. Much current research aims at integrating the various strands
of information (papyrological, archaeological, literary, etc.) for monastic centers like Bawit (Middle
Egypt) and others; see in particular Wipszycka, Moines. For a reliable guide to the literary sources,
see Harmless, Desert Christians.
the monk a real or supposed desert, where he lived in isolation, fighting

demons.49 It was perhaps most influentially propagated by the Life of
Antony, but the same work shows the monk’s isolation to be relative:
Antony lived for a considerable part of his life surrounded by disciples and
was visited by a sizeable clientele. His example, according to a well-known
phrase from the Life, had turned “the desert into a city.” he cenobitic
lifestyle is traditionally connected with the name of Pachomius (ca.286–
346), whose ideal of a communal life, strictly controlled by a rule, a shared
daily schedule of work and prayer, and the oversight of a superior, spread
from Upper Egypt throughout the whole of the Empire.50 In Egypt too,
this model was developed, for example, by Shenoute (d. ca.465), from the
region of Panopolis.51 He stood at the head of a gigantic monastic confed-
eration, comparable to a town in size and structure. His style of leadership,
well documented by his own writings, was modeled after the prophets of
the Old Testament. he main church of his monastery, which still stands,
is by far the most impressive surviving building of late antique Egypt, the
visible expression of the authority of monastic charisma in the fifth cen-
tury.52 But many other forms of monastic life are attested, sometimes by
both archaeological finds and textual sources. In northern regions, mon-
asteries tended to consist of modular units of modest size, rather than of
great compounds, such as in the Kellia region.53 Elsewhere, in particular
in Middle Egypt, as it seems, cenobitic and eremitic lifestyles coexisted on
the desert edge, as on the mountain of Naqlun in the Fayyum province.54
A fourth-century house-size community of Manichaeans was discovered
during excavations in the village of Kellis, in the Dakhla Oasis (Western
Desert).55
Monastic authority was supported both by ascetic discipline and spir-
itual charisma, and by high-profile literary and rhetorical activity. hat
is why the ascetic movement could provide the framework in which the
indigenous language, Coptic, rose to the status of a fully fledged equiva-
lent of Greek as a written language.56 Coptic was not adopted because of
the inability of some classes of society to write or read Greek, but because
49
Desert: Goehring, Ascetics, 73–88; demons: Brakke, Demons.
50
Best introduction: Rousseau, Pachomius.
51
Emmel, Shenoute’s Literary Corpus; Layton, “Rules.”
52
Grossmann, Christliche Architektur, 528–36.
53
See the essays in Bridel, ed., Site.
54
Wipszycka, “Rapports.”
55
Gardner et al., Coptic Documentary Texts.
56
Various information about Coptic in Atiya, ed., Coptic Encyclopedia, vol. 8, 13–227; cf. Reintges,
“Code-Mixing.”
the native language had come to share the status and the authority of a
successful new Christian lifestyle. Typically, monks were able to read and
write, and to engage in scholarly activities like book production, medi-
cine, and magic. Already the Manichaeans of Kellis maintained a lively
correspondence in Coptic and Greek, which shows them active in copy-
ing sacred texts and magical spells.57 he ascetic movement created liter-
ary genres of its own, like the spiritual letter of guidance or the monastic
rule. Evagrius is still famous for his “handbooks,” which provided psy-
chological and spiritual guidance for the life of the monk.58 he ability to
preach was also a privilege of the educated. People flocked from all over the
country to attend the sermons of the leaders of the Pachomian communi-
ties.59 Likewise, the preaching of Shenoute, a prolific bilingual (Greek and
Coptic) author, attracted the great names of his time, who in their turn
sponsored the building of his great basilica.
Athanasius’s Life of Antony has been described as a step toward the
“domestication” of monasticism – that is, as a way of subordinating
monasticism to the authority structures of the church at large and assuring
its orthodoxy.60 Although Athanasius does indeed stress Antony’s ortho-
doxy, this is a somewhat reductionist view of the Life. Yet it cannot be
denied that in the course of the fourth century, the struggle over authority
within the Egyptian church and the debate over correct doctrine following
the Arian crisis helped to shape the development of the rapidly growing
monastic communities of the country. While the hoards of fourth- and
fifth-century Manichaean and gnostic texts in Coptic discovered in Upper
Egypt attest their wide diffusion, they also mark the end point of their
manuscript transmission. In general, monastic discourse in the fourth and
fifth centuries moved away from the tradition of Alexandrian dualism.
It may be best, however, to see this development as a function of a far
broader ideological change by which, on the one hand, spiritual author-
ity had become anchored in a practical and physical lifestyle and, on the
other hand, authority was increasingly coming to depend on doctrinal
correctness.
he turning point in this trend was undoubtedly the so-called Origenist
controversy of 399–400.61 In this controversy, the Alexandrian bishop
heophilus (385–412) opposed an influential group of monastic intellectuals
57
Gardner et al., Coptic Documentary Texts, 224–8.
58
Guillaumont, Philosophe.
59
Goehring, Letter of Ammon.
60
Brakke, Athanasius, 201–65; the term is from M. A. Williams.
61
Clark, Origenist Controversy, in particular 105–57.
in a dispute, as it appears, over the limits of anthropomorphism in the

representation of God. he conflict signaled a development in which a
more literal and moralizing interpretation of the Bible, stricter forms of
organization, and greater attention to doctrinal orthodoxy came to charac-
terize Egyptian monasticism. he Pachomian model, with its insistence on
rules of communal behavior and biblical instruction, gained in authority,
even if it had never become the sole model for the organization of monas-
ticism in Egypt. Shenoute may be seen as a representative example of this
tendency.
Another element that contributed to what might be called the ecclesi-
asticalization of Egyptian monasticism was the fusion of ascetic and prag-
matic authority in the person of the bishop.62 Athanasius not only favored
the ascetic movement; he also appealed to it for the recruitment of clergy
and bishops in particular. As several models of authority converged in the
bishops of Late Antiquity, the bishop as monk became increasingly central
to his makeup. From the biographies of Bishop Pisentius (569–632), it is
hardly possible to discern what his proper episcopal role may have been
institutionally or even practically. Judging from these hagiographical texts,
he seems to have remained a monk who strayed from his cell more or less
incidentally. Only his archives show the sharp edges, and even the limits,
of his episcopal authority.63
he strong ties between the monastic movement, the local bishops,
and the Alexandrian church as they had been forged since Athanasius are
usually held responsible for the massive support that Egypt gave to the
Alexandrian bishop Dioscorus during and after the Councils of Ephesus
II (449) and Chalcedon (451). However, the still commonly held view of a
predominantly monastic and Coptic Egypt that after 451 massively opted
for monophysite positions and held to them against all odds is a myth that
is at least partly born from hindsight.64 Precisely within the monasteries,
the Christological debates seem to have been particularly intense. In the
course of the sixth century, the unity of Pachomian monasticism itself suc-
cumbed to the pressures of the conflict.65 Several foundations of “double
monasteries” are also reported: communities split up, and new monaster-
ies were built at the threshold of old ones. he anti-Chalcedonian party
itself was strongly divided, even if the moderate theology of Severus of
Antioch (exiled in Egypt from 518–38) later succeeded in overcoming many
62
Rapp, Holy Bishops; Sterk, Renouncing, pays less attention to Egypt.
63
Hagiography: Gawdat Gabra, Untersuchungen; archives: Van der Vliet, “Pisenthios.”
64
Wipszycka, “Nationalisme.”
65
Goehring, Ascetics, 241–61.
of the divergent tendencies.66 he sheer mass of the anti-Chalcedonian

movement finally proved to be decisive. Nevertheless, what made up this
mass was not nationalist or class sentiment (oppressed Copts against a rul-
ing class of Greeks or even Byzantines), but rather the authority of local
clergy and monks and the force of local practice. he case of John the
Almsgiver, pro-Chalcedonian bishop of Alexandria (610–19) and not even
an Egyptian, suggests that properly exercised local authority could cause
shifts in loyalties.67 he fate of schisms was decided by local alliances rather
than by church councils.
transformations of the landscape

he destruction of the Serapeum of Alexandria in 391 has been called
an “iconic event.”68 he great temple of Serapis was indeed a visual and
historical landmark. he very iconicity of the event also made it a sym-
bol of Egypt’s conversion to Christianity. Temples were demolished and
replaced by churches and martyria (shrines for the relics of the saints). he
Christianization of a country and its culture is not adequately described,
however, in the dramatic events that epitomize it. It is rather the outcome
of a process of gradual transformation. In this process, the primary role
did not fall to theology or to church politics, but rather to the sum of local
practices that is called landscape here.
he Christianization of the landscape involved more than the appro-
priation of its physical space; it also shaped and reshaped the symbolic
associations that give the landscape its meaning. It could take the form of
shifts in the localization of symbolic authority as it was distributed over
the landscape by community rites and social habits; by liturgy and cal-
endar; and by the establishment of chapels, churches, and monasteries.
All religion, whatever its pretensions to universality, is lived locally, and
Egyptian Christianity is no exception. Modern authors sometimes tend
to emphasize the more sensational and, usually, violent incidents marking
the Christianization of the country, in particular at the end of the fourth
and the early fifth century. hese, however, are the result rather than the
engine of transformations that were already well underway. Christianity
spread rapidly in the decades after Constantine’s victory. Some authors
claim that the demise of the traditional temples was already a fact before
66
Allen and Hayward, Severus.
67
Haas, Alexandria, 218–19, 258 (with n. 28).
68
McKenzie et al., “Reconstructing,” 107.
Constantine, which would explain the rapid success of Christianity.69

While this may be true at the level of economic institutions, local religious
practices, as distinct from the economic and political aspects of traditional
pharaonic religion, were still very much alive.70 he vitality of traditional
religious knowledge and ritual expertise is well attested in Greek and late
Demotic sources, mainly magical, from western hebes.71 Also in west-
ern hebes, traditional ritual practices persisted until well into the fourth
century, well anchored in the social life of the local community.72 While
imperial protection assuredly caused a steep rise in the cultural market
value of Christianity after 313, the main explanation for the quick spread of
Christianity over Egypt can be found at the level of local practices.
At this level, two aspects of Egyptian Christianity were particularly
decisive: the cult of the saints and the rise of monasticism. From the
beginning, the Christian saint par excellence was the martyr; even in late
antique Egypt, most saints with an attested cult were martyrs.73 Focused
on the martyr’s burial spot or the place where his relics were kept, such
cults imparted a Christian character to the shape of the landcape. From the
early fourth century onward, Alexandria became an important depository
of martyrs’ relics, including those of “Old Testament martyrs,” such as the
three youths of Daniel 3.74 After 381, a martyrium for St. John the Baptist
was built directly on the precincts of the Serapeum, as only one step in
building the city’s Christian identity.
In the wake of the spread of cults and relics over Egypt, the devel-
opment of a rich martyrological literature assumed typically Egyptian
forms.75 Localizing holiness in the landscape was one of its primary func-
tions. Coptic martyrdoms show the martyr traveling around the country
from one tribunal to another, thus mapping his presence on the Egyptian
landscape. he Alexandrian itinerary of St. Mark can be reconstructed
from his Acts.76 Whether or not the places indicated really did play a role
in his life is less interesting than the role that reading these Acts played in
shaping and perpetuating the Christian townscape of Alexandria.
Martyrs traveled even after their death. heir relics could be transferred
more or less miraculously, and their journeys were the subject of a literary
69
Bagnall, Egypt, 261–8.
70
Frankfurter, Religion, esp. 97–144.
71
Dieleman, Priests.
72
Łajtar, Deir el-Bahari.
73
Papaconstantinou, Culte des saints, 233–5.
74
Ibid., 199; Frankfurter, “Urban shrine.”
75
Baumeister, Martyr Invictus; Zakrzewska, “Masterplots.”
76
Pearson, Gnosticism and Christianity, 100–11.
genre of its own, that of the translatio. he probably rather late translatio of
St. James the Persian does more than simply explain the presence of his rel-
ics at a certain sanctuary in an insignificant village outside Oxyrhynchus.
he complicated itinerary of his relics also attaches them to heroic epi-
sodes from the fifth-century resistance against the Council of Chalcedon.
It thereby situated the cult of the saint not only spatially, but also histori-
cally and ecclesiastically by attaching it to the “correct” anti-Chalcedonian
tradition.77
Miracles apart, relics did not travel on their own. In the fourth and
fifth centuries, various witnesses attest to a widespread relics hunt.78 he
Melitians were sometime blamed for plundering cemeteries to obtain rel-
ics for their own churches. It is clear, however, that this was a much more
pervasive phenomenon, unsuccessfully combated by moralists. But rel-
ics, once they had found their proper place, made people move in still
another way. he mortal remains of several martyrs had become the cen-
ter of famous cults, sometimes attracting pilgrims beyond the bound-
aries of the region itself. In some instances, the new pilgrimage centers
assumed functions once performed by the traditional temples. he sanc-
tuary of St. Menas to the west of Alexandria enjoyed an international rep-
utation as a healing center. Pilgrims traveling to the site from all over the
Mediterranean world took home with them the well-known oil flasks that
can now be found in nearly every collection of antiquities. Excavations
at the site revealed gigantic structures designed to receive and care for
the pilgrims, confirming the prestige of this sanctuary.79 Hundreds of
oracle tickets have been found at the sanctuary of another healer-saint,
St. Collouthos, near Antinoë in Upper Egypt. By soliciting advice about
all kinds of daily life matters, these tickets were a direct continuation of
pharaonic oracle practices.80
he cult of the saints played an important part both in the Christian
appropriation of space and in shaping Christian time. he rhythm of pil-
grimages was primarily determined by the liturgical calendar, much less by
the private needs of the pilgrims. According to Shenoute, the authentic-
ity of a martyr’s cult must be hallmarked first of all by written acts and a
date on the calendar.81 he same author, and others as well, describes (and
77
Van der Vliet, “Bringing home,” 39–44.
78
Lefort, “Chasse”; Horn, Studien, 1–9.
79
Grossmann, “Pilgrimage Centre.”
80
Frankfurter, Religion, 145–97; on Egyptian oracle tickets, see also Dunand in Chapter 6 of this
volume.
81
Horn, Studien, 9. (Note that this passage is no longer attributed to Shenoute himself.)
criticizes) the festivals that took place on the occasions of the martyrs’
commemoration. While primarily liturgical in form, they also included
fairs and markets, as is still the habit in modern Egypt. Whether purely
local or supraregional in scale, these were social events that bound commu-
nities around the liturgical commemoration of the saint. Complex activ-
ities focusing in particular on the martyrs’ shrines had considerable social
impact and made them an important factor in the Christianization of the
Egyptian landscape.
he rise and development of the ascetic movement exerted a similar
influence. he monk or the monastic community was clearly localized in a
given landscape. As privileged habitation sites for monks, deserted temples
or pharaonic tombs and quarries afforded them the opportunity to combat
the demons inhabiting these places. his was not merely a literary topic,
but a fact well confirmed by archaeological and epigraphical evidence – for
example, from western hebes. In the early phase, itinerant monks also
contributed to the geographical spread of the movement. Monasticism did
more than make the “the desert a city”; it turned the inhabited world into
a metaphorical desert.82
Quite early, the monks – not only the isolated charismatic hero, but also
those of the great monastic communities – became the object of monastic
tourism, both from abroad and from elsewhere in Egypt. “Pilgrimage to
living saints” inspired various literary works that propagated the monas-
tic lifestyle.83 On the local level as well, visitors sought out monasteries,
either as sources of moral or material support, or as centers of economic
and ritual activity; in this way, they assumed many of the roles of the tra-
ditional temples. As strongholds of literacy, they also played an active role
in the transmission of intellectual and ritual expertise. By the fifth century,
monks had become the experts in magic.84 Ascetic and monastic circles
modernized the traditional discourse of magic, thereby adapting it to a
newly developing Christian culture. Although some traditional practices,
such as those connected with the Isis-Horus mythology, retained their
force remarkably long, by the fourth century a new magical literature had
already arisen, steeped in biblical and liturgical language, and with a heavy
emphasis on practical angelology.85
82
Goehring, Ascetics, 89–109.
83
For example, Goehring, Letter of Ammon; Frank, Memory.
84
Frankfurter, Religion, 189–264.
85
Christian Egyptian magic: Meyer and Smith, Ancient Christian Magic.
A rich literature, predictably often monastic and martyrological in

character, supported the Christianization of the Egyptian landscape. One
of the most characteristic and fascinating genres of Christian popular lit-
erature deserves to be mentioned separately: the so-called cycles. hese
are groups of literary works (martyrdoms, homilies, and revelations about
the angelic world) that may in themselves be distinct units, with different
protagonists and stemming from different authors. What connects them
are common background narratives – for example, about the early history
of the Diocletianic persecutions, the exiles of Athanasius, or the discovery
of apostolic autographs on the dusty shelves of ancient libraries.86 Like
modern movies about World War II, they set different stories in a familiar
frame, welding history and landscape into one single universe that toward
the year 641 had become a world of its own: Christian Egypt.
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9
CULT AND BELIEF IN PUNIC AND

ROMAN AFRICA
brent d. shaw
he narrow belt of habitable lands that lines the southern shores of the
Mediterranean – between Libya in the East and Morocco in the West – has
always been an insular world. From their perspective, the Arab geogra-
phers logically named these lands the Jazirat al-Maghrib, the “Island of the
West.” he countries that make up North Africa today are thus collectively
called “the Maghrib.” he flow of sea currents and the predominant winds,
the hard and rugged barrier formed by the coastal mountains, and a loca-
tion between the world’s largest desert and its largest inland sea, have pro-
duced a peculiar mix of connectivity and isolation that has affected both
ideas and economies.1 While moderating the exposure of its inhabitants
to influences from elsewhere in the Mediterranean, these same forces have
also promoted the rapid development of outside ideas and practices once
they have entered North Africa.
One result of this double heritage of relative isolation and internalized
intensity was the emergence of a bewildering variety, range, and localized
identity of religious ritual and practice among Africans before the arrival
of Christianity. In an area larger than that of the Iberian and Italian penin-
sulas combined, every environmental niche as small as a village or a valley
came to have its own spirits, deities, rituals, and festivals. he practices and
beliefs were so integrated into the life of each ethnic people, village, cul-
tural or occupational group that they formed an almost out-of-mind part
of daily routine. On the other hand, amid all this fragmentation and mul-
tiplicity, there was sufficient contact to encourage the formation of strands
of unity that can be traced between Africa and the Mediterranean world
of which it was part.2 When a Christian empire during the later fourth
1
Shaw, “Challenging Braudel,” “A Peculiar Island,” and At the Edge of the Corrupting Sea.
2
Graf, “What Is Ancient Mediterranean Religion?,” esp. 4–5, 11–12, gives eloquent expression to the
nature of the problem.
235
236 Brent Shaw
century ce began to threaten the local festivals, pilgrimages, parades, and

other performances, it was apprehension over the loss of this vital core of
everyday life that provoked distress as much as any danger to deeply held
beliefs.
Despite the complexity and range of deities and demons, ritual prac-
tices and sacred sites, the factor of isolation encouraged another, equally
powerful tendency toward intensely local interpretations of various aspects
of cult. he combination of these effects produced similarities in ritual
and belief that were regionally specific to the Maghrib. Once they entered
Africa, external cultural institutions tended to develop more rapidly and
uniformly than they did elsewhere in the Mediterranean. In religion and
ritual, this relative monism took the form of a pragmatic henotheism: a
special emphasis on one deity around which other gods and goddesses
oriented themselves as minor players. Within small regions in Africa,
conflicts between local and Mediterranean-wide forces reproduced this
larger pattern marked by strong polarities. Attempting to grasp the first of
these processes, much less the second, as well as the complex interactions
between the two, by deploying the traditional heavy armament devised
for understanding big religions is bound to disappoint.
what was african cult?

Although Africans came to share in a pan-Mediterranean oikoumenē of
belief and practice, local forces working within regional ecologies strongly
conditioned the manner in which elements of an external Mediterranean
culture took root in an African environment. he striking absence of
North Africa from recent surveys of Roman religion, however, reflects the
perception of African cults as a peculiar thing within the context of the
Roman empire.3 Given the principal concerns of these surveys, the exclu-
sion is understandable. hese general accounts of ancient religions tend to
mirror an eastern and northern Mediterranean arc of practice, and they
take that constellation – for example, highlighting a classic mix of mys-
tery religions and state cult, and the central roles of divinities like Isis and
3
Among many general works, see, by way of example, Turcan, Cults of the Roman Empire; Scheid,
Religion et piété; Beard, North, and Price, Religions of Rome despite some scattered references in the
seventh chapter; and Ando, Roman Religion. Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians, who offers one of the
finest evocations of the two worlds of religion, is still mainly devoted to this same arc of belief across
the northern Mediterranean, with special emphasis on the Syria-Asia Minor nexus. MacMullen,
Paganism in the Roman Empire, is a manifest exception. It would probably be an error, in any event,
to postulate any one pattern as typically Mediterranean; see Woolf, “Sea of Faith.”
Cult and Belief in Punic and Roman Africa 237
Mithras – as the dominant norm. For the reasons just noted, however,
Africa does not fit this paradigm. Its distinctive rituals and beliefs were
fundamentally different from the styles and patterns found elsewhere in
the empire. he student of African religion must therefore work with a
looser and more dynamic paradigm that highlights the different constitu-
ent elements of pre-Christian “religion” in the Mediterranean world of the
Roman empire.4
In the period of Roman military and political domination of Africa that
extended from the mid-second century bce to the sixth century ce, new
developments were not inscribed on a blank slate. Additions, mutations,
abatements, and intensifications of belief, structure, and practice grew out
of and alongside an existing world of African and Punic religions that were
dominant in the Maghrib down to the first century bce and later. Given
the nature of the evidence, it is difficult to estimate the state of belief and
rituals in Africa before the Phoenician colonization of African lands that
began in the mid-eighth century bce. Because the conduct of cult before
the advent of the Phoenicians took place wholly in a world of oral com-
munication, the history of this early African phase of religion has been lost
to us. he little material or archaeological evidence that survives or can
be identified with confidence does not suggest much more than a gener-
alized connection with animating forces resident in this tree or that water
spring, in a rock outcrop, a mountain peak, a cave, or similar markers of
a sacred landscape.5 Local cults later glossed with specific Punic or Roman
forms and names might suggest an element of continuity.6 One example
is the concentration of shrines and written dedications to Neptune from
the Roman period found in small villages of no formal municipal rank,
hamlets that were overseen by local African magistrates like the Eleven
Men (undecimprimi) or the Elders (seniores).7 Despite his name, in Africa
Neptune was never a god of the sea or the ocean. He was, rather, a spirit
of springs who embodied the living force of the waters that flowed from a
local crevice or cliffside.
4
Rives, Religion in the Roman Empire, provides a good model of an approach that is more useful for
this investigation.
5
For a general survey of what little can be known or estimated, see the overviews offered by Gsell,
“Religion,” ch. 2 in idem, Histoire ancienne, 6, 119–69; Charles-Picard, “La religion Libyque,” in
idem, Religions de l’Afrique antique, 1–25; and Bénabou, La résistance africaine, 267–308. Note that
almost all the reliable evidence comes from the Roman period and that most of the rest consists of
ethnographic parallels and guesswork.
6
See Beschaouch, “Une fête populaire de Dougga,” for a convincing demonstration of one case.
7
A. Cadotte, Neptune Africain, and “Neptune, africain,” ch. 8 in idem, Romanisation des dieux, 307–
24; cf. Bénabou, “Neptune africain et le problème de l’eau,” in idem, La résistance africaine, 356–8;
Shaw, “he Elders,” 27–9; and, on a closely related theme, Arnaldi, “Culto delle Nymphae.”
238 Brent Shaw
Because detailed knowledge of local African practices is mostly lacking

for pre-Roman or pre-Punic times, inferences, however risky, must be
made from iconic representations and the physical design of sacred places.
In the Roman period, written records sometimes accompanying material
remains make more explicit the structure and meaning of cultic practice.
In these few cases, it is possible to gain greater certainty. For example,
hundreds, if not thousands, of cave sanctuaries once existed all over North
Africa. Critical written documentation from the high Roman empire exists
for exactly two of them. One is the cave on Jebel Taya (or Taïa), the moun-
tain overlooking the Roman town of hibilis in east-central Algeria. In
the third century ce, the magistrates or magistri (ordinarily two of them)
from the village of hibilis made annual pilgrimages to the cave to offer
sacrifices to the local deity Bacax who lived in it. On the rock surfaces of
the corridor-like entrance to the cave, the magistrates of hibilis recorded
in Latin their annual votive promises, specifying the day and year of their
visits. Because all of the attested pilgrimages date to the kalends (the first
of the month) or the evening before the kalends, of March, April, or
May, the annual journey to the mountain cave seems to have been a local
spring ritual, albeit one now adapted to the timing of the Roman imperial
calendar.8
A similar cave sanctuary was found on the Jebel Chettaba, to the south-
west of the city of Cirta. Here inscriptions in Latin dating to the Roman
period that recorded dedications to a local deity named Giddaba were
crudely inscribed or painted over the walls of the rock shelter.9 hese,
too, were made by the magistrates or magistri of the nearby town of Phua
to the patron deity of the village and its surrounding rural lands. If the
kinds of evidence that survive from the Roman period are extrapolated
backward in time, they suggest a precontact field of religious and ritual
behavior that was intensely fragmented and represented by cults primar-
ily limited to specific locales. Other indicators suggest the same conclu-
sion. he seven African deities named on a stele from the Roman period
found near Baga (Roman Vaga) – Macurtam, Macurgam, Vihinam,
Bonchor, Varsissima, Matilam, and Iunam – exemplify the general pat-
tern. Individually and collectively, they are unattested anywhere else at
8
Monceaux, “La grotte du dieu Bacax”; ILAlg. 2.2, 407–21, nos. 4502–85 (the inscriptions date from
210 ce [no. 4502] to 284 ce [nos. 4557–8]); J. and P. Alquier, Le Chettaba, 141–68, nos. 1–70; Toutain,
Cultes païens, 48, 59–61. he god is often noted by the abbreviation G.D.A.S. (which is understood
to mean Giddabae Deo Augusto sacrum).
9
J. and P. Alquier, Le Chettaba, 129–68; Gsell, Histoire ancienne, vol. 6, 136; for the inscriptions, see
CIL 8.6267–302; 19249–81; AE 1901: 54, and BCTH (1917), 227–38, nos. 60–3; all now conveniently
gathered in ILAlg. 2.3 (Paris, 2003) 968–76, nos. 8907–70.
any other time.10 Or there is the list of gods called the Dii Magifae found
at a small locale west of Tébessa (Roman heveste). he five African dei-
ties named – Masiden, hililva, Suggan, Iesdan, and Masidicca – are
unknown outside this small place.11 his phenomenon of the fine locali-
zation of cult can be documented time and time again.
opening to the mediterranean

When Phoenician colonists from Tyre, Sidon, and other places in the Levant
began establishing colonial settlements along the African coast in the ninth
and eighth centuries bce, they brought to the western Mediterranean a
fully developed panoply of deities. Along with the colonists, these were
implanted along its shores from Tripolitania, through Sicily, Sardinia, and
the Balearics, to the southern coasts of Iberia. he settlements in Africa
were part of this larger process. New Phoenician cities, from Lepcis and
Carthage in the East to Lixus and Volubilis in the West, belonged to the
greater Phoenician colonial world in the West. Founded as colonies, these
settlements had, by the sixth and fifth centuries bce, acquired a distinctive
“western” social, cultural, and political order that we call Punic. Although
divinities, practices, and beliefs had been transplanted from their eastern
homelands, in Africa they developed in specifically regional ways. he
local western Mediterranean versions of Punic beliefs and rituals became
core elements of western Phoenician self-definition. In a colonial society
suffused with Greek and Hellenistic elements, Punic language and religion
provided the people with their distinctive cultural identity.12
In its eastern Mediterranean homes, the Phoenician divine economy
was already henotheistic, sharing a typical northwest Semitic emphasis on
El, the one great god. his emphasis seems to have become only more pro-
nounced in its overseas colonial developments in the western Mediterranean.
he rapid spread and intense growth of western Phoenician cult in Africa
produced a divine system that matched the greater sameness of the colo-
nial culture of which it was a part, just as the latter developed a new and
more uniform Punic identity in its western Mediterranean home. he
result was a strongly henotheistic cosmic order, lorded over by a supreme
earth-, sky-, and underworld-deity, Adôn or the Lord as he was called. he
10
Merlin, “Divinités indigènes”; cf. Charles-Picard, Religions de l’Afrique antique, 22–3.
11
CIL VIII: 16749 (Henchir Mektides); see Toutain, Cultes païens, 40 (and his list of such single occur-
rences of local deities on p. 41); and Charles-Picard, Religions de l’Afrique antique, 24, with another
dozen examples of the local deities known nowhere except for the one place where they are attested.
12
Lancel, Carthage, 193.
240 Brent Shaw
name of this great and powerful Lord was Ba’al Hammon or BL HMN
in Punic.13 His consort was a female deity who, like Ba’al, was at once
Queen of the Skies, Queen of Nature, and Queen of the Underworld. In
an important sense, she was not much more than his female alter ego, his
“face” as she was often called: TNT PN BA’AL in Punic, Tinnit Pene Ba’al,
meaning Tinnit the Face of Ba’al. Most often, however, she was named,
simply, Tinnit.14 he other spirits and deities that we hear of from time to
time, like Shadrapha (“Shad” the Healer), Eshmûn, and Melqart (“God of
the City”), were lesser bit players in this dominant single-god system. he
latter two deities continued to have an important presence in the Roman
period when they were identified with Aesculapius and Hercules.15
For the people who communicated with these deities, the ritual of sac-
rifice was at the very heart of practice.16 he blood sacrifice of living beings
at the core of the sacred ritual in the cult of Ba’al Hammon assumed an
extreme form that required more than just an animal blood sacrifice.17 Of
living beings, the sacrifice of humans ranked as the most meaningful and
powerful. It was the prince of sacrifices, so to speak. And among blood ritu-
als, the rite of the sacrifice of living infants and children to the god Ba’al has
drawn most modern attention. From descriptions of sacrificial sites found
in the Hebrew Old Testament, modern students have labeled the sacred
place of the sacrifice a tophet: a site specially set aside for the most impor-
tant of all blood sacrifices, the molk.18 In Africa, the main evidence comes
from the sanctuary or tophet at Carthage, but the practice is also attested
at other sacred sites found in Africa.19 It is clear that these areas of sacrifice
were specially delineated “sacred places.”20 Here vases containing the bones
of infant humans and animals (mainly sheep and goats, but also birds)
13
Although it is usually asserted that the “Hammon” means “of the perfumed ones,” this is far from an
established fact. For numerous conjectures about the significance of the name, see Lancel, Carthage,
195–8.
14
here is uncertainty about the vowels in her name. She is most often called Tanit, but the Greek
texts of the El-Hofra stelae vocalize her name as T(h)innit(h).
15
Cadotte, “Eshmoun/Esculape et Eshmoun/Apollon” and “Melqart, Milkashtart et Hercule,” chs. 4
and 7 in idem, Romanisation des dieux, 165–200; 283–305.
16
Recognized by Charles-Picard, Religions de l’Afrique antique, 130: as he noted, the vast majority of
material records that we have are related to votives meant to memorialize a sacrifice.
17
he eastern origin of the rite, however, seems to be more in the manner of a prompt. No clearcut
evidence of a tophet has yet been found in Phoenicia. At Carthage, the role of Tinnit was later and
peripheral. Mosca, Child Sacrifice, 99: “It was Baal Hammon who was and remained the great Punic
god, the head of the Punic pantheon, and it was primarily to him that children were sacrificed.”
18
hey were places set aside for this exceptional type of sacrifice: Mosca, Child Sacrifice, 102–3.
19
Brown, Late Carthaginian Child Sacrifice; Hurst, “Child Sacrifice at Carthage”; Stager, “Rite of
Child Sacrifice”; Charles-Picard, Religions de l’Afrique antique, 25–49.
20
Bénichou-Safar, Tophet de Salammbô, 150–1: it was called a shr hqdsh, “a cut-off or defined holy
place,” in other words a temenos.
have been recovered in layers dating from the late eighth to the mid-second
century bce. In the period for which the most abundant evidence is avail-
able at Carthage, Ba’al Hammon and Tinnit received an estimated hun-
dred child-sacrifices annually.21 he tophet at Carthage was the largest of
many such sacrificial sites known from various locales in the Phoenician
western Mediterranean. Others have been found at Hadrumetum, Cirta,
and Henchir el-Hami in Africa; at Motya and Lilybaeum in Sicily; and at
Nora, Sulcis, Monte Sirai, and harros in Sardinia. he geographical dis-
tribution of these sites maps nicely onto the range of direct Carthaginian
political, military, and cultural power. No tophet has yet been found either
in southern Spain or in the far western parts of North Africa to the west of
direct Carthaginian control.22 At Carthage, a series of excavations strung
out between the 1920s and the 1940s, and then resumed again in the late
1970s, uncovered about 3,000 burials in urns and an equal number of stelae
connected with them.23 he first analyses of the urns containing the remains
of the sacrificed revealed a mixture of animal and human bones, the latter
mainly those of infants and small children.
Detailed work done on the sacred precinct at Monte Sirai in Sardinia
has confirmed the nature of these sacrifices. Some of the urns discovered
there contained only the bones of infants or small children (some up to
six months old). Others – about a third to a half of them – contained
the bones of both animal sacrifices, mainly kids and lambs, and those
of infants and children. It is now clear that this type of sacrifice was a
central, permanent, and normal part of Punic cult.24 Descriptions of
the offerings written on the accompanying stelae designate them as a
return payment for a promise or a vow that the devotee had made to the
deity.25 here is a vibrant debate over whether or not, in a demographic
regime already marked by high infant mortality, the infants were already
deceased at the time of their sacrifice.26 he final verdict on this will
21
Stager, “Rite of Child Sacrifice,” 3.
22
his distribution might well be the fortuitous result of archaeological finds. I think that Cic. Pro
Balb. 43: inveteratam quandam barbariam ex Gaditanorum moribus disciplinaque [sc. Caesar]
delerit, refers to the termination of this ritual at Gadir/Gades by the actions taken by Julius Caesar.
It is just the case that we have not yet found the tophet there.
23
For a survey of the historical background of the excavations, see Lancel, Carthage, 227–56.
24
Mosca, Child Sacrifice, 97; see 24–5, 102, where he explains the propensity of some classical authors
to identify these sacrifices with “great crises.”
25
Bénichou-Safar, Tophet de Salammbô, 151–3: the words ndr (he vowed) and zbh (a sacrifice) are
used.
26
Moscati, a supporter of the revisionist school – that is, that the majority of the infants were fetuses
or stillborn births – arrays the evidence and arguments in support of this view in his Gli adoratori di
Moloch, esp. 63–9; cf. Bénichou-Safar, Tophet de Salammbô, esp. 159–63, who also supports this view,
developed by Fantar, Richibini, and others.
242 Brent Shaw
ultimately depend on much better analyses of the osteological data than

is now available. In the view of this author, the weight of the evidence
as it stands manifestly suggests the sacrifice of living infants and young
children.
he rite of human sacrifice continued deep into the Roman period. In
a famous if tendentious passage in his Apology (ch. 9.2 = CCL 1: 102), the
Christian writer Tertullian claims:27
hroughout Africa, infants were openly sacrificed to the god Saturn up to the
proconsulship of (the governor) Tiberius [n.b.: the name is certainly in error] who
had the priests set out, crucified alive on crosses, on the same trees of the sacred
area, in the shadows of which they had committed their crimes. I have my own
father as a witness to this fact. He was among the soldiers who served the pro-
consul in this task. Even to the present day, this same sacred crime is still being
perpetrated, although in secret.
Despite well-known problems with this passage, it is reasonably certain that

for regions in proximity to the provincial metropolis of Carthage, human
sacrifice continued in public until the lifetime of Tertullian’s own father,
that is, as late as the 170s and 180s ce, when a few known human sacrifices
were made the object of official repression. In Tertullian’s own day, that is
in the 190s to 210s, human sacrifices were still being performed, even if as
a secret ritual. Sacred burials from the town of Lambafundi, probably dat-
ing to this same time, as well as the new discoveries from the sacred area at
Henchir el-Hami, confirm the long continuity of the practice.28
Sacrifices requiring the spilling of the blood of living beings were cen-
tral to almost all Mediterranean religions of the time. Africa is no different
in this respect. What is different about Africa is the peculiar intensity of
the ritual. Here it involved human life – a human blood sacrifice that was
central to the whole of the henotheistic system focused first on the wor-
ship of Ba’al and, later, on his Roman continuator, the omnipotent god
Saturn. And it continued long after the rite of child sacrifice had been
abandoned in Israel (Judea), Phoenicia, and elsewhere. In Africa, infant
sacrifice represented an especially strong regional peculiarity of action and
belief. Gradual changes in the practice over long periods of time, and its
termination, varied from one region and site to another, depending on
27
Charles-Picard, Religions de l’Afrique antique, 132–3; for a summary of problems with the text,
including some new ones of his own, see Rives, “Child Sacrifice.”
28
Leglay, Saturn africain. Monuments, 2, 114–24, esp. 114–15: some of the vases buried in front of each
stele contained the bones of infant children, while others contained the bones of sheep or of small
birds. Leglay dated the stelae to the late second and early third century ce.
a mix of cultural influences, new interpretations of ritual meaning, and

official repression.29
In response to both official Roman repression and cultural pressure,
a substitute for human life was deemed both possible and preferable to
the actual blood sacrifice of humans. In the Roman town of Nicivibus
(modern-day N’gaous) in south-central Algeria, a series of five stelae set up
to the god Saturn, dating to the end of the second and early third century
ce – that is, from the period when the shift from human to stand-in was
taking place – speak of the molchomor or the sacrifice of a sheep or a lamb
as a substitute for a human life.30 he texts on the stones, which variously
call the sacrifice a molchomor, morchomor, or mochomor, explicitly mention
the nature of the substitution: “spirit for spirit, blood for blood, life for
life” (anima pro anima, sanguine pro sanguine, vita pro vita). he sacrifice is
accompanied by a vow of the devotee, itself often provoked by a dream or
a vision. he victim, however, is now a lamb, described as a substitute for a
human, “the lamb serving in the place of another, the lamb as a substitute”
(agnum pro vikario). his is the same type of sacrifice that is specified as a
MLK’ MR on the Punic stelae from the El-Hofra sanctuary at Cirta.
he long-term record of the tophet at Carthage, covering the entire
period from the eighth century bce to the second century ce, confutes
easy ideas about the ameliorating effects of so-called civilizing forces on
such rituals. In fact, the propensity to infant sacrifice only grew and inten-
sified as time passed.31 he worship of the supreme deities Ba’al and, later,
Saturn, was this strongly attached to the idea of human blood sacrifice. he
hypersacrality of the human victim and of the priest making the sacrifice
remained at the core of local religious beliefs and values. A quasi-monothe-
ism reinforced the peculiar intensity and meaning of the human sacrifice
and the surrogates for this human blood. It is hardly accidental that in
Christian times Africa became the land of the blood of the marytrs.
the post–afro-punic world

he dual propensity to the rapid adoption of outside Mediterranean
ideas and their intense development in local forms remained just as
29
See McCarty, “Representations of Ritual Change,” on the particular case of the tophet at
Hadrumetum.
30
Charles-Picard, Religions de l’Afrique antique, 135–6; Carcopino, “Survivances par substitution”;
Février, “Molchomor” and “Rite de substitution.”
31
Stager, “Rite of Child Sacrifice,” 4–5, and Table 1; his results are questioned by Janif, “Sacrifices
d’enfants,” on the basis of the trends reported by Richard, Étude médico-légale, which I have not
been able to consult.
244 Brent Shaw
true in the period following the conquest and incorporation of the for-
mer Carthaginian territory by Roman imperial power in 146 bce. In this
new wave of Mediterranean colonization, Greek and Roman deities were
imported in abundance and began to populate African towns and their
rural territories. In the day-to-day reality of belief and practice in any one
of myriad places, gods and spirits associated, mixed, and merged with
others or aspects of others.32 his mixing and migration of types was not
so much a conscious or even a subversive syncretism as it was a series of
associations and convergences suggested by local forces mostly beyond the
reach of our understanding. But we can see that the Roman state had an
impact on official ritual, at least at the three levels at which it was officially
represented: as an imperial state, as a provincial administration, and at
the local level of municipal government. But these influences were just as
insular in form as the terrain in which they worked.
here is very little evidence for the formal institution of Roman or Italic
cults in the Roman province of Africa from its inception in 146 bce to
the end of the republic in the 40s bce. Down to the reign of the first
Roman emperor, Augustus, such influences appear to have been mainly
private in nature, emanating from the practices of individual Romans and
Italians who came to Africa as settlers, businessmen, and soldiers, and from
the collective groups in which they associated. he large-scale deliberate
importing of official cult began in the Augustan Age. During the triumvi-
ral period at the end of the republic and the beginning of the Principate,
powerful generalissimos struggled to assert their control over Africa and
its strategic resources. In Africa, this global Roman conflict was marked
by the refoundation of Carthage as the great Roman colony that was to
become the imperial metropolis of all Africa. Everywhere else, the evi-
dence indicates the continued practice of Punic cult, which only gradually
abated over the course of the first century ce. At Hadrumetum, the tophet
continued to receive typical inhumed burnt offerings – albeit of animals
only – that were marked by stelae until the 80s ce.33 Further to the east,
the same practice also continued to the end of the first century at Sabratha
in Tripolitania.34 And at Henchir el-Hami in the interior, human sacrifices
continued to the end of the second century ce. he widespread formal
32
hey are measured in epigraphical terms by Cadotte, Les syncrétismes religieux en Afrique romaine; in
part 3.1, “Les associations divines,” 416–76, the author notes dyads, triads, and even more complex
juxtapositions and assimilations, groupings of imperial and local divinities, as just some of the ways
in which these mixings happened.
33
Charles-Picard, Religions de l’Afrique antique, 103–4, reporting the excavations of Cintas.
34
Taborelli, L’area sacra di Ras Almunfakh presso Sabratha, 69–78: sacrifices only of animals such as
goats.
introduction of Roman deities and cult that began in earnest only in the
reign of Augustus corresponds to a generalized Roman imperial develop-
ment observable around the whole circuit of the Mediterranean.35
After its refounding as a Roman colony in the 30s bce, a massive dem-
onstration of brute imperial power on African soil signaled the formal
establishment of the cults of the deities of the Roman state at Carthage.
he entire top of the great high hill at the center of Carthage, the so-called
Byrsa, was systematically leveled to provide a large flat surface analogous
in appearance, say, to the acropolis at Athens. Extensions of the platform
formed at the top of the leveled Byrsa were supported by massive stone
revetments and buttresses. he platform itself was a great stage of more
than 30,000m2 in area – one and a half times the combined size of the
forums of Caesar and Augustus at Rome. It was a state project of staggering
scale. On this stage were built the major structures of the Roman state: the
forum, the basilica and law court buildings, and the temples.36 he shrines
that celebrated the imperial family and the cult of Concord (Concordia)
looked out both over the harbors that were located to the southeast and
over the city and its vast agricultural hinterland to the southwest – all from
the focal point of the groma, or the Roman surveyor’s central sight-point,
from which all of the colony’s territory had been systematically measured.
Facing the provincial judicial basilica at the eastern end of the platform
was the temple of the Capitoline triad on the western side.37
Everything on this high platform of state echoed not only the religious
architecture of the imperial capital of Rome, but also that of the rebuilt
Roman colony at Corinth. Corinth had been destroyed by the Romans in
the same year that they had obliterated Punic Carthage, so it too was rebuilt
in tandem. All of the cult innovations, like the systematic destruction of
both cities in 146 bce, were the result of both artifice and deliberation.38
At both places, constructed as new imperial centers of the western and
eastern Mediterranean, religion and the state intersected. To the very last
years of Roman Africa, the imperial tribute for the province was displayed
in front of the Capitolium on the height of the Byrsa at Carthage.39 And it
was before the Capitolium that the Christians, in the first state-driven per-
secutions, were compelled to demonstrate their loyalty by making public
35
Woolf, “Unity and Diversity.”
36
Deneauve, “Le centre monumental de Carthage.”
37
Accepting the arguments of Ladjimi Sebaï, La colline de Byrsa, 260–6. hey are, however, far
from certain, as she herself admits; see Rives, Religion and Authority, 42–5, favoring a temple of
Concordia.
38
Purcell, “he Sacking of Carthage and Corinth.”
39
Ch 11.1.34, dating to 429 ce, the year of the Vandal invasion.
246 Brent Shaw
sacrifice.40 Even from a great distance out in the countryside, anyone could
look up to the monumental high place that defined the new metropolis of
Africa. Lit up at night, it presented a brilliant spectacle: the African sub-
jects of empire would have witnessed a symbol of imperial political unity
and concord. “You overlords of the Roman empire, in public and on high,
on the very summit of the city [sc. Carthage], there you preside to issue
your judgments, openly to investigate matters and to examine us in pub-
lic,” remarked the Christian Tertullian, closely connecting the site with the
religious and political ideology of empire.41
As the sign of a conscious identification with the Roman imperial state
by local ruling orders, the building of Capitoline temples was one measure
of “becoming Roman” in the province of Africa. Usually built in the main
public square or forum of a town, they were a common project undertaken
and funded by wealthy members of the local political elite. At hugga, a
mixed Roman-African city located about 100 miles inland of Carthage, a
Capitoline temple was built by L. Marcius Simplex in the 160s ce.42 he
act and its timing are typical, so it is important to note the drag in the date
of these developments. he delay in the introduction of the Capitoline
deities by means of formal temples correlated with the solid wealth and
power of local municipal elites in Africa in the Antonine age and later –
and had little to do with official city status as such.43 It was more a measure
of the final acceptance of Roman identity by the urban elites of the African
provinces than it was any preemptive strike by either side to incite a new
sense of belonging.
divine forces and their ecology

A census of the official gods of a Romano-Mediterranean pantheon cele-
brated in epigraphical texts reveals a normal top-down order, with Jupiter
and other members of the Capitoline triad, Victory, and the Fortuna
Augusta at the head of the list. Of the private or unofficial deities, a
similar top-to-bottom order can be discerned: Saturn, Mercury, Magna
Mater, Caelestis, Pluto, Frugifer, Hercules, Aesculapius, the Cereres,
40
Cyprian, Ep. 59.13.3 (CCL 3C: 358); Laps. 8 (CCL 3: 225).
41
Tertullian, Apol. 1.1 (CCL 1: 85).
42
Barton, “Capitoline Temples,” 278–9; Toutain, Cultes païens, 187–95; Rives, Religion and Authority,
118–22; Brouquier-Reddé, 285.
43
Février, “Religion et domination,” 801–3, believed that none were earlier than the Antonine age;
Barton’s list, “Capitoline Temples,” 270–2, reveals some instances probably of Trajanic date. But
they are few. Almost all are of Antonine date and later – as admitted by Ladjimi Sebaï, La colline de
Byrsa, 264 n. 821, who makes the one at Carthage “a sort of peculiarity.”
Mars, Neptune, Silvanus, Liber and Sol Invictus, approximately in that

order.44 Again, Africa differs from other areas of the Latin West of the
empire.45 Nor is Africa itself uniform. In the core “western” provinces of
Proconsularis, Numidia, and the Mauretanias, for example, dedications to
the chief Roman deity Jupiter came only from official functionaries and
soldiers; the Saturn cult usurped all the “high ground.” In Byzacena and
Tripolitania, on the other hand, some local African adherents of Jupiter are
found.46 Although cult centers of Aesculapius, such as the one at huburbo
Maius, might have been impressive, they were not numerous when com-
pared with the god’s Mediterranean profile. he same observation applies
even more to the cult of Isis and Serapis. Other deities like Mercury and
Silvanus seem to have been more heavily represented in Africa than else-
where, although it is unclear why this was so.
he problem with simple lists of deities is that they falsely represent
them as isolated individuals and occlude degrees of local intensity. he
case of Isis, for example, is particularly problematic. he pilgrim’s pro-
gress, from black magic to the true revelation of Isis, reported by the
African philosopher Apuleius in his novel he Metamorphoses, is one of
the best-known and most striking cases of conversion described for the
high Roman empire.47 But for Africa, the story is misleading. Apuleius is
indeed a good representative of a new cosmopolitanism, a bearer of the
pervasive cultural values and beliefs shared by the metropolitan classes
of imperial Greco-Roman society during the age of the so-called Second
Sophistic. As a cultural movement, it paralleled broad Mediterranean-wide
fashions linking the social elites in the powerful arc between Asia Minor
and Rome – styles like the worship of Isis. As a scion of the social elite,
Apuleius was educated in Athens, and was widely traveled, having resided
in both Alexandria and Rome. Although African born and raised, and
long remembered in Africa for his involvements in philosophy and magic,
Apuleius is only modestly representative of most Africans and their beliefs.
Moreover, the cosmopolitan cultural movement that he exemplified was to
die a hard death in the generation after his death. Trying to generalize about
Africa from this exception is risky.48 For it was not Isis, Mithras, Jupiter,
44
Toutain, Cultes païens, 17; Smadja, “L’empereur et les dieux.”
45
MacMullen, Paganism in the Roman Empire, fig. p. 6.
46
Leglay, Saturne africain, histoire, 233–4; cf. Foucher, “Paganisme en Afrique,” 3.
47
he classic case, even before Nock, “he Conversion of Lucius,” ch. 9 in idem. Conversion, 138–55,
made it central to modern conceptions.
48
Isis does not figure anywhere, for example, in Cadotte’s massive survey, Romanisation des dieux; for
what can be said, see Leglay, “Paganisme en Numidie,” 79–80.
248 Brent Shaw
or any of the other big gods and goddesses of the standard Greco-Roman
pantheon, who dominated in Africa.
Divine power and identity, in fact, continued to concentrate in dis-
tinctively local African beliefs and practices. During the Roman period,
the combination of African, Phoenician, and Punic beliefs that had earlier
produced the dominant cult of Ba’al and his consort Tinnit manifested
itself in the equally dominant cult of the Romano-African deity Saturn
and his consort Caelestis.49 Saturn and Caelestis were living continuators
of Ba’al and Tinnit.50 Connections with the Italic or Roman deity Saturn
are very tenuous in any particular aspect and almost meaningless in gen-
eral. Apart from his Latin name, this Saturn is an African creation who was
the Roman-period manifestation of Ba’al Hammon, the single great deity
of the previous Punic age. he cult of Saturn was the pervasive and domi-
nant African practice of the Roman imperial age.
he ecological frontiers of Saturn worship can be mapped with reason-
able accuracy. Evidence of the cult is concentrated in the main heartland
of the Maghrib, between the plains of Sétif in the West and the borders of
Byzacium in the East. his was the weight of its center and its peripheries.
he cult of Saturn was not rooted elsewhere in Africa – not in Tripolitania
to the east nor in Mauretania Tingitana to the west.51 heir religious worlds
reflect instead the fundamentally different circuits of Mediterranean
communications in antiquity to which these two parts of North Africa
belonged. Distinctions, however, were not just geographic; they were also
social. New evidence has not fundamentally altered the analysis of social
catchment of Saturn worshippers done a century ago. Members of the
upper strata of Roman urban society under the empire – from emperors
and governors and their imperial bureaucrats, to army officers and the local
senatorial, equestrian, and municipal elites – are almost entirely absent
from the recorded worshippers.52
49
For what follows, see Leglay, Saturne africain and Saturne africaine. Monuments, vols. 1–2.
50
On the nature of the translation from the one to the other, see Cadotte, “Baal Hammon/Saturne,”
ch. 1 in idem, Romanisation des dieux, 25–64; on Tinit or Tanit, see “Tanit/Caelestis,” ch. 2 in ibid.,
65–111.
51
Toutain, Cultes païens, 89–90. For Tripolitania, see Brouquier-Reddé, Temples et cultes, who cites
one possible, but questionable instance; cf. Charles-Picard, Religions de l’Afrique antique, 181. For
Tingitana, see Shaw, Edge of the Corrupting Sea, 18–19.
52
Toutain, Cultes païens, 98–102. For example, of the ten military men, all are footsoldiers whose
names mark them as indigenous Africans (e.g., M. Porcius Easuctan, a centurion from Calama: CIL
VIII: 2648). Toutain notes that at the Saturn sanctuary at hurburnica there is not a single dedica-
tion from the imperial administrators of the mines at Simitthus, only ten kilometers away. Of the
more than 1,400 dedicators to Saturn, at an absolute maximum there are only thirty who might have
had any formal link with the Roman imperial order.
he numerous portraits, symbolic associations, and descriptions that

survive of Saturn represent him as ruler over all the aspects of nature –
skies, soils, and springs – responsible for Africa’s great agricultural
wealth. Insofar as any Roman influences might be discerned, Saturn
could be said to be a divine projection of the harder Afro-Roman ver-
sion of the patriarchal Roman paterfamilias or household head. His por-
trait was a local innovation, a pastiche of the elements of a common
Hellenistic repertoire of expected physical characteristics in an anthro-
pomorphic representation of a dominant male deity. He is portrayed as
a heavily bearded mature man, often armed with a harvester’s sickle that
represented his role as a harvest-god, a divine reaper. One of his most
frequent epithets indicated that he was, indeed, the Lord, just like Ba’al
Hammon, whose cultural successor he was. Saturn was the Dominus –
the Lord. his divine Lord was the owner of all lands, plants, and ani-
mals, and the patriarchal head of all humans. Saturn was called Frugifer,
the bringer of bounty and plenty to the land and to each household.
Finally, Saturn was the Senex, “the Old Man.” And the African social
system did in fact recognize and reward old age much more than any
other circum-Mediterranean culture. Councils of elders or seniores gov-
erned the myriad hamlets and villages in which most Africans lived. In a
later age, the highest-ranking Christian bishop in each African province
would also be called the Senex or the “Old Man.” Saturn was the exem-
plar of this power of seniority.53
In the Roman period, the other half of this divine power couple, the
direct successor to Tinnit, was the universal sky-, earth-, and nature-deity,
Caelestis. But, if anything, her presence and power had diminished con-
siderably from Punic times. Her main temple at Carthage, however, was
nothing to be despised. It was only finally decommissioned by imperial
force in 420 ce, at which time the description of it by the Christian bishop
of Carthage vividly evoked the image of a supreme deity around whom
other quite lesser spirits oriented themselves: “here is at Carthage a vast
temple to Caelestis, surrounded by lesser sanctuaries of the other gods
of the country. he area is decorated with rich mosaics, beautiful stones,
high columns, and a walled enclosure that is over two-thousand feet in
length.”54 It was to be the end of almost a millennium of the goddess’s
dominant presence on African soil.
53
Shaw, “he Elders.”
54
Quodvultdeus, Lib. prom. 3.38 (CCL 60: 185–6); cf. Charles-Picard, Religions de l’Afrique antique,
106–7.
250 Brent Shaw
urban power and metropolitan cult

From the Augustan Principate onwards, but taking special hold with the
concerns of the upstart Flavian emperors and their new dynastic rule of
the empire, the worship of the emperors gradually added to the legitima-
tion of their rule in the provinces. Despite its apparent significance for the
central government, imperial ideology, and the identity of local elites, the
general importance of the imperial cult or emperor worship is probably
less than is perhaps suggested by the modern attention lavished upon it.55
Most of the spectacular evidence, like the votive altars erected by imperial
freedmen and their friends and associates, are Augustan in date and located
in the large imperial urban centers anchored on the Mediterranean coast:
Lepcis Magna, Carthage, and Caesarea.56 So, too, evidence for the deliber-
ate cultivation of an imperial cult in terms of representations of the domus
divina in statuary or in special shrines in town forums, with some excep-
tions, are located in cities on the Mediterranean coast that functioned as
important administrative centers, again like Lepcis Magna in Tripolitania.
Apart from honorific dedications to the emperor, which were just as much
if not more a part of a system of secular patronage, there is little to suggest
the widespread impact of the cult as a pervasive form of religious belief
and practice.
Granted, there are some striking examples of the iconography of the
Augustan restoration. hese include two altars whose reliefs feature mem-
bers of the Augustan imperial family, and sacrificial scenes that reflect the
program on the great Altar of Peace at Rome itself. Both were found in
neighborhoods lying directly below the great imperial monumental com-
plex atop the Byrsa at Carthage.57 Although these do attest the direct impact
of the new imperial religious ideology in the one great Augustan colony
in Africa, they probably signify a lot less than is usually suggested. hey
were erected by freedmen, some of whom were the emperor’s own servants,
who were directly connected with the imperial family and whose economic
interests made them direct beneficiaries of the new order. Naturally, they
were energetic celebrants of its triumphalist ideology.
55
Much that follows has been made clear by the studies of Fishwick, he Imperial Cult in the Latin
West, esp. vol. 1.2, chs. 6 and 8; vol. 3.1, 128–32, 190–2; and vol. 3.2, ch. 6, on the foundational
importance of the Augustan period, the importance of Flavian innovations, and yet the relative
marginality of Africa in the whole apparatus of the cult when it is compared with the other western
provinces of the empire; cf. Foucher, “Paganisme en Afrique,” 24–8.
56
Charles-Picard, Religions de l’Afrique antique, 170–4.
57
Poinssot, L’Autel de la gens Augusta; Zanker, he Power of Images, 313–16 and fig. 247.
he role of the imperial cult in Africa was more comparable to the status
that it had in Phoenicia, Syria, and Judea than that which it had in Asia
Minor (for example). Notwithstanding examples of municipal adherence
to the cult, there is very little evidence for the typical bearers of the impe-
rial cult in the imperial age – the so-called seviri Augustales, under what-
ever name they were known. Unlike the other western provinces and Italy,
these officials of the imperial cult are hardly attested at all in Africa. On
the basis of the present evidence, it is safe to say that these core institutions
of emperor worship are almost unknown in Africa.58 A possible exception
is the provincial council or concilium provinciae, which appears to have
emerged from a general reform and regularization of the imperial cult by
Vespasian and the Flavians – a more uniform reorganization that stressed
the general western Mediterranean dimensions of the cult. Each city in the
province that held the official status of a colony or a municipality chose a
representative to this council, probably the same man who served as the
local flamen Augusti or priest of the imperial cult. he council itself chose
one man as the sacerdos of the whole group, a particularly high honor that
they seem to have done their best to circulate among the various cities
that were members of the council. he cult was important to the imperial
court, and the ranks of its local administrators, but not much beyond.
Other official cults, however, had a wider reach and deeper impact. he
worship of the Cereres, principally of the grain goddess Ceres, through the
whole rural region of the new Roman colony at Carthage was established
by Julius Caesar and confirmed by his adoptive son Octavian in 38 bce. It
was one of the official cults introduced in this axial age that was to have a
long life.59 Its priests and priestesses are found throughout the abnormally
large pertica or rural surveyed lands that formed the territory of the impe-
rial metropolis of Carthage. It encompassed dozens of towns and cities,
like hugga (mod. Dougga) and huburbo Maius (mod. Tébourba), that
would only become independent municipalities in their own right at an
artificially late date.60
Outside Carthage and its district, we find from Flavian times
onward the steady elevations of towns to the formal status of colony
(colonia), all of whose citizens become Roman citizens, or to the status
58
Février, Approches du Maghreb romain, vol. 1, 195–6.
59
Cadotte, “Les Cereres,” ch. 10 in idem, Romanisation des dieux, 343–62 for a survey; see Gascou, “Les
Sacerdotes Cererum,” for a more specific study; cf. Leglay, “Paganisme en Numidie,” 64–5.
60
Pflaum, “La romanisation de l’ancien territoire de la Carthage,” yet another regional and adminis-
trative peculiarity that helped determine the configuration of official cult in a large number of towns
and villages in the whole hinterland of Carthage.
252 Brent Shaw
of municipality (municipium), where only the members of the ruling

elite became Roman citizens. In addition, there were many self-styled
“Romanizing” towns (res publicae) whose elites, seeking to mimic the
forms of Roman public life, developed their local forms of official cult.
In this new urban context, the temples, shrines, nymphaea, statues, and
public altars that constituted the public face of religion depended on
the generosity of powerful and wealthy local citizens. his was partic-
ularly true in Tripolitania, where almost all the big temples and their
iconic art were the result of such private subventions.61 In the proconsu-
lar province of Africa, counts have shown that about three out of every
five large temple constructions were built by private benefactions.62 he
general significance that local elites assigned to gods and deities must
be seen in this wider context of their patronal interests. Where did they
put most of their money? he overwhelming bulk of the evidence shows
that they were more interested in investing in the “living deities” of the
super-wealthy and the super-powerful among the living who could assist
them and their communities. By far, most laudatory dedications were set
up to imperial, senatorial, and other such elite patrons among the living
rather than to gods or goddesses.63
he one deity whom the urban elites of the burgeoning towns and cities
of Africa, especially in its ebullient Antonine age, associated with their cele-
bration of wealth, power, success, and general improvement was Bacchus –
Dionysus in his world-conquering form, in his triumphal and festive
mood.64 Dionysus is found everywhere and in every form of middle-rank
kitsch: in statues and paintings, in lavish and brilliant floor and wall mosa-
ics, and in countless bric-a-bracs made of wood, marble, bronze, and glass.
here is some truth to the claim that Dionysus, as Liber Pater, simply con-
tinued the cult of Punic Shadrapha (or Shadrapa).65 But this claim really
does not tell us more than the fact that this continuity was deemed to be
61
Brouquier-Reddé, Temples et cults de Tripolitaine, 285–7.
62
Rives, Religion and Authority, 178; and at 178 n. 6, where he notes that Duncan-Jones, “Who Paid
for Public Buildings?” (30), found that the financing of all public building was divided roughly half
and half between private benefaction and public expenditure.
63
Rives, Religion and Authority, 179. In his “rough survey,” Rives counts 18 dedications to deities as
such, as against 162 to emperors and members of the imperial family, and 144 to civic patrons.
64
Remarkably, there is still no in-depth study of this most important subject. Bénabou, “Bacchus
africain,” in idem, La résistance africain, 351–8 has some relevant remarks, as does Charles-Picard,
Religions de l’Afrique antique, 115, 194–209, where he remarks on the profusion of mosaics alone.
On the latter, see Dunbabin, “Dionysus,” who remarks on the unusual importance of Dionysus in
Africa and the exceptional profusion of artistic representations of the god and his story, a represen-
tational art that has serious cultural significance.
65
Charles-Picard, Religions de l’Afrique antique, 194–5.
useful.66 What we are witnessing in this profusion of Dionysiac representa-

tions is a heady celebration of wealth and fecundity – one that drew on
a cosmopolitan Hellenistic repertoire of images to rejoice in real African
achievements. In his raucous celebration of the Happiness of the Times,
the Felicitas Temporum, Dionysus rose above isolated individuals and indi-
vidual communities to offer a general and unifying spirit of joy, one in
which the civic elites of Africa in their Roman heyday could share.67 If one
is seeking the one divinity drawn from the classic Greco-Roman pantheon
in which the well-off urbanites in Africa’s heyday of empire invested their
best and finest sentiments, that god was Dionysus.
In general, however, the process of identification, adaptation, continu-
ity, innovation, synthesis, and mutation was a volatile and messy mix. he
funerary monument built by the family of the Flavii at Cillium (modern
Kasserine) is a good example of the problems.68 he classic Afro-Punic
mausoleum constructed in three stages was meant to house the body and
the soul of the deceased, Titus Flavius Secundus, the 110-year-old pater-
familias of the family. After serving in the auxiliaries of the Roman army
in the mid-first century ce, he had in consequence received citizenship
from one of the Flavian emperors. A professional Latin poet was hired
to compose a long eulogy in hexameters to the deceased – it is in fact
the longest piece of verse epigraphy surviving in Latin. It was carved,
although somewhat carelessly, on the face of the monument. he result-
ing cultural mélange of poem and monument can be seen either as a
botched attempt at cultural identity or as a strange but powerful cultural
amalgam. he Roman poet completely misunderstood the religious cult
inherent in the monument. In consequence, he failed to mention the
all-important rooster, perched on the peak of the pyramid-shaped top
that crowned the whole monument.
When his patron drew this critical deficit to the poet’s attention, he
added another twenty lines of verse to compensate. Although ostensibly
done to make up for his fault – and also to mention the all-important
rooster – the poet did this somewhat disdainfully, in elegaic couplets. He
finally did note the rooster in passing, otherwise using his new verses to
suggest the superiority of elite Roman values of secular memory to their
odd Punic superstitions. Perhaps not fully understanding the implied
66
Cadotte, “Shadrapha/Liber,” ch. 6 in idem, Romanisation des dieux, 253–82, for some of the com-
plexities involved; cf. Foucher, “Paganisme en Afrique,” 8–13, for a survey of the depth and range of
Dionysian worship in Africa.
67
Charles-Picard, Religions de l’Afrique antique, 195–205, with a host of examples.
68
he studies in Les Flavii de Cillium are an insightful guide.
254 Brent Shaw
insult, the African Flavii dutifully had the additional verses carved on the
face of their tomb. Even if the Latin verses simultaneously misunderstood
and mocked their beliefs, as a form of imperial writing the formal and ele-
vated language publicly proclaimed the middling success of the Flavii. he
rooster, however, was not insignificant. Whereas the tomb itself housed the
man’s nephesh, his body, the bird represented the rouah, his eternal soul.69
What Flavius Secundus held most significant in life and death was simply
not transcribed by the Latin poem meant to celebrate his life and death.
microreligion and individual practice

With our attention drawn to the more visible and well-documented pub-
lic levels of communal cult, it is easy to forget the far more pervasive
micro-level of daily religious practice centered on the day-to-day concerns
of most Africans: personal health and the well-being of friends and family;
the fate of love and marriage; the birth of children; and success in gaming,
gambling, and confronting personal enemies and threats to one’s house-
hold, brutishly in the streets or more civilly in the courts.70 A wide range
of belief and practice therefore depended on the technical knowledge of
experts outside the formal system of priests and temples. hese private
entrepreneurs could manipulate the power of protective amulets and apo-
tropaic devices, or, more aggressively, summon the darker demonic forces
of the Underworld to attack and coerce an intended victim.
he surviving evidence on these private practices points to a division
between urban and rural.71 In the rural world, where manipulative pow-
ers had been recognized and managed by holy men and holy women for
a long time – in the second century bce, the mother of the African king
Massinissa was a renowned woman of magic – the same continued to
be true in the Roman period. In the larger urban centers, on the other
hand, professionals whose expertise could be acquired on the market for
a price were now available. Ritual experts, it was known, commanded
powers that could both harm and protect. Ennia Fructosa, a modest and
much-loved wife of a tribune in the hird Augustan Legion at Lambaesis,
was killed by curses; they first blocked her voice and then turned her into
69
Fantar, Eschatologie phénicienne-punique, 32–8, whose ideas are significantly modified and extended
by Bessi, “Il significato del gallo nel mondo semitico.”
70
See Sichet, La magie en Afrique du Nord, for a near-comprehensive collection of the texts and mate-
rial evidence relevant to the problem.
71
Most of the tabellae defixionis, for example, come from larger urban Mediterranean port centers in
Africa, and of these almost all are from Carthage and Hadrumetum.
a mute.72 In the more democratic world of the Roman empire, these

powers could now be mobilized by anyone who could pay, not just by
someone with patronal access to the mother of an African king.
he divine experts had access to a trans-Mediterranean body of techni-
cal knowledge and skills. A partial record of such curses-for-hire survives
in the so-called tabellae defixionum or “binding tablets.” hese magical
texts were inscribed, often on lead, before being sold to the patron.73 A
typical example, found at Carthage, was inscribed on a thin leaden sheet
rolled up and buried in a grave. he client had purchased a curse whereby
demonic spirits would impede the charioteer of the Blues racing team at
Carthage.74
SEMESILAM DAMATAMENEUS IESNNALLELAM LAIKAM ERMOUBELE
IAKOUB IA IOERBETH IOPAKERBETH EOMALTHABETH ALLASAN. A
curse. I invoke you by the great names so that you will bind every limb and every
sinew of Victoricus the charioteer of the Blues . . . and of his horses. . . . Bind their
legs, their onrush, their bounding, and their running. Blind their eyes so that
they cannot see. Twist their soul and heart so that they cannot breathe. Just as this
rooster has been bound by its feet, hands, and head, so tomorrow bind the legs
and hands and head and heart of Victoricus the charioteer of the Blues. . . . Also,
I invoke you by the god above heaven, who is seated upon the Cherubim who
divided the earth and separated the sea. IAO ABRIAO ARBATHIAO ADONAI
SABAO. . . . Now! Now! Quickly! Quickly!
Another leaden curse tablet, rolled up and provided with a hole through
which it could be nailed into the ground, was found in the cemetery at
Hadrumetum. Marked with a mixture of Greek and Latin found in the
tablets from this city, the text also reveals a not atypical admixture of tra-
ditional magical spells along with elements from Greco-Jewish holy texts
emanating from an Alexandrian milieu. Here, too, there is manifest evi-
dence of the pervasive hybrids found in all other aspects of religious life.
Copied out of a book of standard magical curses by the professional magus,
it was provided for a female customer – on this occasion, to deal with a
matter of the heart.75
I invoke you daimonion spirit who lies here, by the holy name AOTH ABAOTH,
the god of Abraham, and IAO, the god of Jacob, IAO AOTH ABAOTH, god
of Israma . . . Go to Urbanus, to whom Urbana gave birth, and bring him to
72
CIL VIII: 2756 (Lambaesis) = Gager, Curse Tablets, no. 136 (246); cf. Ogden, “Binding Spells,” 27.
73
Gager, Curse Tablets, 20f., and Ogden, “Binding Spells,” 54–60 on “professionalism and
specialisation.”
74
Gager, Curse Tablets, no. 12 (65–67) = CIL VIII: 12511 (Carthage)
75
Gager, Curse Tablets, no. 36 (112–15) = Maspero, “Deux tabellae devotionis.”
256 Brent Shaw
Domitiana to whom Candida gave birth so that loving, frantic, and sleepless with
love and desire for her, he may beg her to return to his house and become his
wife . . . I invoke you . . . to bring Urbanus, to whom Urbana gave birth, and
unite him with Domitiana, to whom Candida gave birth, loving, tormented, and
sleepless with desire and love for her, so that he may take her into his house as his
wife. . . . Unite them in marriage and as spouses in love for all the time of their
lives. Make him as her obedient slave, so that he will desire no other woman or
girl apart from Domitiana alone, to whom Candida gave birth, and will keep her
as his spouse for all the time of their lives. Now! Now! Quickly! Quickly!
hese texts were urbane and answered to the citified concerns of courts
and courting. But magical experts were also found out in the countryside.
One of them was working in the area around the village of Aradi, deep in
the hinterland of Carthage, and provided assistance to a landowner in the
technical magical language of Greek.76
SSSEXI OREOBAZAGRA, OREOBAZAGRA, ABRSAX, MAKHAR,
SEMESEILAM, STENAKHTA, LORSAKHTHE, KORIAUKHE, ADONAI,
LORD GODS, prevent and turn away from this land and from the crops grow-
ing on it – the vineyards, olive groves, and the sown fields – hail, rust, the fury
of Typhonian winds and the swarms of evil-doing locusts, so that none of these
forces can gain a hold in this land or in any of its crops – all of them wherever they
might be. Rather, keep them always unharmed and undamaged as long as these
stones, engraved with your sacred names, are placed under the ground which lies
around.
Magicians and astrologers, often not distinguished, represented them-
selves as skilled technicians who sold their expertise at a price. hey were
not priests. hey had no temples. hey practiced openly in the streets
and alleyways of the towns, and in the fields and forests around them,
where they sold their technical expertise to anyone seeking access to
their knowledge and power.77 But here, too, because of cost, expertise,
and communications, there appears to have been a distinctive ecology of
belief and practice. Almost all the known tabellae defixionum, for example,
are found in Mediterranean port cities like Carthage and Hadrumetum,
and so they reveal the presence of a more cosmopolitan and technically
proficient aspect of magic. But other means of accessing this power were
cheaper, and required less expertise. hese material repositories of mag-
ical power, like symbols of phalluses; little statuettes; images of the god
Mercury; and models of scorpions, eyes, lizards, sphinxes, and peacocks
76
AE 1984: no. 933 (Aradi). Ferchiou, Gabillon,“Une inscription grecque magique de la région de Bou
Arada”; cf. Rives, Religion and Authority, 193.
77
Madden, Pagan Divinities, 18, citing Augustine, Tract. Ev. Jo. 8.11 (CCL 46: 89).
are much more widely distributed, especially in the rural centers of the
African hinterland.78
what was happening?

he fact of diversity was both a strength and a limit of cult. he enormous
range of choice meant that each rural site, neighborhood, town, and social,
ethnic or professional group could have its own deities and sacred things
selected, as it were, from a smorgasbord of possibilities. If the modal com-
monalities in the whole repertoire of these choices were widespread, then
the deity appears to have been a very popular one with a ubiquitous pres-
ence and cult. But this is a misleading impression. he effect is produced
by the serial replication of similar circumstances. If they did not exist, the
deity remained more narrowly confined. Serapis, for example, is indeed
attested in Africa, but was limited to certain venues like the port areas of
Carthage and to worshippers who were mostly expatriate Alexandrians.
Both reveal how much Serapis remained a niche deity. he same is true of
Mithras – no competitor at all for Christianity – whose cult was located
sporadically and specifically in army camps and in urban milieus where
the military servants and bureaucrats of the state found in its cult a heav-
enly and more perfect replication of their own hopes and values.79 And
that was that. Even more restricted were some Syrian deities, like the god
Malagbel, that were found in small army encampments on the edge of
the Sahara where Syrian detachments had been sent to serve the empire.80
Other instances are provided by Mars as the city-deity of Roman colonies
like Cuicul and Sitifis, settlements of veteran soldiers, or by Diana as the
patron goddess of gladiators and professional wild-beast hunters in the
78
Sichet, La magie en Afrique du Nord, vol. 1, 363–485; cf. Charles-Picard, Religions de l’Afrique
antique, 247: mostly associated with “small people,” like slaves, freedmen, and town and village
commoners.
79
See Leglay, “Paganisme en Numidie,” 82–3; other than dedicatory inscriptions and a few altars – all
by military men and administrative slaves – only three Mithraea are known, including one in the
port city of Rusicade, a port where the Familia Caesaris was present, and another in the army base
at Lambaesis: Clauss, “Africa,” in idem, Cultores Mithrae, 246–52. Others probably existed in similar
milieux, at Carthage and Hadrumetum, for example, but they were certainly specific in kind and
never numerous. he locations conform with the known social catchment of Mithraic adherents:
see Gordon, “Who Worshipped Mithras?”; Clauss, “Anhängerschichten,” in idem, Cultores Mithrae,
261–79, and “Recruitment,” ch. 6 in idem, Roman Cult of Mithras, 33–41, and distribution map,
26–7; see further Salzman in Chapter 14 of this volume.
80
Charles-Picard, Religions de l’Afrique antique, 221–2, from his own excavations of Castellum
Dimmidi: the unit of archers from Palmyra constructed a shrine with a painting of the god in
Iranian costume; similarly, the god heandrios was worshipped by Arabs at Manaf, and Illyrian
immigrants in Numidia honored their Medaurus. For more of these Syrian “niche” deities linked to
army units brought in from the East, see Leglay, “Paganisme en Numidie,” 81–2.
258 Brent Shaw
arena.81 So profuse and fragmented and mixed were the deities and their
various presences, and so fragmentary is the evidence about them, that in
most cases all we can see is this effect. We cannot understand what peculiar
combination of local or personal interests produced the results that we wit-
ness in the surviving record. As with the unusual presence of the goddess
Bellona in Cirta and its environs, the explanatory connections are simply
missing.
he core problem, then, is that the defining characteristics of these
practices, their great diversity and pliability, their morphing and matching,
the fragmentation and disconnectedness of their parts frustrate analysis.
We have to confront a huge and ever-changing kaleidoscope of possi-
bilities. he modern label of “toleration” is a misleading description of
these practices.82 Over time, each individual and community could cre-
ate their own worlds of practice and belief from a huge and varied reper-
toire. In center-periphery studies it has been argued that indigenous and
other local cults represented a focus of resistance to the cultural impact
of Romanization.83 It is equally possible, however, to understand cult as
an integrative force that was successfully manipulated to modulate and to
mediate cultural difference.84 Appeals to the “Gods of the Moors,” the Dii
Mauri, can be interpreted as solicitations of the benevolence of indigenous
deities, as examples of the continuity of African cult that betokened a kind
of resistance to foreign power, or as a way of manipulating the dedicators’
picture of their African world – and all these interpretations can be simul-
taneously true.85
What, for example, is the significance of the cult of Neptune in
Africa? Because the process of cultural change was complex and contra-
dictory, rarely was any element – “this spring should be identified with
Neptune” – consciously taken by any persons as a sign of their own sub-
jugation or domination. Not at all. hey surely thought of many of these
elements as part of a shared cosmopolitan culture from which everyone
had an equal right to filch (“to appropriate”) with no necessary impair-
ment of their own identity.86 Was the worship of Neptune therefore a
81
Leglay, “Paganisme en Numidie,” 60 and 75.
82
Garnsey, “Toleration” and O’Donnell, “Paganism” are model attempts. See further van Andringa in
Chapter 17 of this volume.
83
Bénabou, “La résistance religieuse.”
84
Février, “Religion et domination.”
85
Fentress, “Dii Mauri”; Camps, “Le problème des Dii Mauri” and “Qui sont les Dii Mauri?”;
Bénabou, “Le problème des Dii Mauri: un culte ambigu,” in Résistance africaine, 309–30; and
Leglay, “Paganisme en Numidie,” 76–7.
86
Veyne, Sexe et pouvoir, 18f., is insightful on the process.
straightforward adaptation and sign of Romanization? A touchstone of

African resistance? Did the cult serve an accommodating and enabling
function? Or was it an instance of the “creolization” of cult? Or was it
none of these, but rather a practice being manipulated by both sides in
power negotiations over values and representations? All of these were
possible in the same world, and all were present to some degree. One
modern interpreter is as right on resistance as another is on integration –
each catches part of how this dynamic and fragmented world could and
did function in different contexts. As the monument and poem of the
Flavii at Cillium dramatically demonstrates, they were both badges of
Romanization and they were not. Our interpretations are both very sen-
sible and problematic.
Every African, whether indigenous or settler, peasant or merchant, town
councilor or imperial administrator, could select from a wide and varied
repertoire. he sum of all choices could thus add up to anything from
resistance to accommodation, from tradition to revolution. he kaleido-
scope of belief and practice in Africa kept shifting over time and in funda-
mentally different patterns from one region to the next. he pattern of the
more than one hundred different cults and as many temples and shrines
attested for Tripolitania has almost nothing to do with the system of doz-
ens of gods and numerous temples and shrines known for a well-defined
rural region just to the north of Carthage.87 Not only do the individual
parts and building blocks of each matrix shift, but the whole that was
produced for each region formed its own peculiar identity. Despite some
specific connections and analogies – and therefore the ability of any par-
ticipant readily to translate from the one to the other, it cannot be made
the same as that of its neighbor. hese regionally contained forces written
on a larger scale for all of Africa reveal why the Maghrib cannot be easily
assimilated into the religious narrative of the rest of the Mediterranean.
he interrelated elements of worship and cult in Africa formed a world of
shared characteristics having more in common with each other than with
those of the other regions of the empire. he sum made this system sepa-
rate from all the rest. Despite all of the prompts, similarities, and analogies,
it was just different. And this distinctiveness was decisively to shape the
contours of African Christianity.
87
Brouquier-Reddé, Temples et cultes, 311–15 and “La place de la Tripolitaine,” for Tripolitania, as com-
pared to Peyras, Le Tell nord-est, 340–53, 425–7, for the region north of Carthage. he same could be
said, for example, of the whole region of Mauretania Tingitana when compared to the rest of Africa:
see Shaw, “A Peculiar Island,” 106–16, and At the Edge, 16–19.
260 Brent Shaw
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10
CHRISTIANITY IN ROMAN AFRICA
robin m. jensen
introduction
No one knows exactly how or when Christianity arrived in Africa, and
its demise under the Arabs is equally difficult to comprehend. While
Christianity in other regions (for example, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Syria)
survived under Muslim rule, African Christianity virtually disappeared
within a century of the Arab conquest. A history of successive conquests
or domination by authorities who demanded religious conformity from
the resident population may partly explain the region’s failure to establish
a surviving local cult (or “national church”). At first, those authorities were
Roman traditionalists who prosecuted Christians as such. Later, however,
they were Christians themselves whose theology, ecclesiology, or rituals
differed from established local practice. Rather than tolerantly accepting
local difference in practice or dogma and being content merely to govern,
these rulers sought theological and disciplinary acquiescence among the
Christian communities they governed (Donatists, Nicenes, Arians, and
Western Chalcedonians in turn). hey enforced their demands by legal
restrictions, confiscation of buildings and capital, and even persecution of
nonconformists.
In each instance, existing Christian communities resisted such imposi-
tions, and evolving African churches were repeatedly challenged and trans-
formed in ways that may have undermined the survival of an enduring
established community – especially one associated with a dominant ethnic
group. Moreover, from its beginnings, resistance to an often hostile sec-
ular authority was a hallmark of African Christianity. hus, consecutive
cycles of oppression, in most instances a case of one group of Christians
attempting to impose its authority over another, ultimately resulted in the
loss of a unified religious identity, either theological or cultural. Eventually,
264
Christianity in Roman Africa 265
even the faith of the invading Arab Muslims may have seemed no more
religiously foreign to indigenous African Christians than those of the pre-
vious ruling power – the Byzantine emperor and his delegates.
From the outset (although to varying degrees depending on time and
place), African Christians esteemed rigorous individual and communal
purity; valued martyrdom and self-sacrifice; argued that only one “mother
Church” possessed the saving sacraments; and accented the importance of
prophecy, dreams, and visions (given through the Holy Spirit). hey typ-
ically understood themselves as disciplined athletes or soldiers allied with
Christ against evil principalities and powers, and they claimed that what-
ever communion they belonged to was the unique true church. Repeated
resistance to externally imposed conformity arguably made the commu-
nity initially strong, authentic, and even attractive to converts. Over the
centuries, however, political domination by successive alien powers eroded
or changed the meaning of such resistance and thus diluted any single,
coherent, or characteristically African brand of Christianity rooted enough
to significantly survive the arrival of Islam over the long term.
the emergence of north african christianity:

its character, variations, and relations
with other religious cults
Evidence for North African Christianity includes an extensive corpus of
theological and disciplinary documents, including the earliest Christian
Latin treatises of Tertullian of Carthage and Marcus Minucius Felix. Both
men were active around the turn of the third century, Tertullian’s far more
prolific output numbering more than thirty surviving treatises. From that
time until the end of the Christian era, Africa produced some of the west-
ern church’s most significant thinkers, including Cyprian of Carthage in
the mid-third century and Augustine of Hippo, who lived and wrote from
the end of the fourth century to the beginning of the Vandal era in the first
quarter of the fifth century. Augustine’s many theological treatises are bal-
anced by sermons and letters, all revealing dimensions of lived Christianity
during his time. Added to the works of individual writers are the records
(acta) of the African church councils, as well as imperial legislation that
impinged upon the practice of Christianity in the area.
In addition to a vast textual tradition, however, are extensive archae-
ological, epigraphic, and art historical remains that testify to the char-
acter of African Christianity in the Roman, Vandal, and Byzantine eras.
Excavations have brought hundreds of church and church complexes to
266 Robin M. Jensen
light that date from the fourth century through the eighth. hese include
urban cathedrals as well as saints’ shrines and ex-urban pilgrimage and
cemetery churches, many of them with baptisteries and living quarters for
clergy. Along with church architecture at these sites, moreover, are poly-
chrome mosaic pavements, inscriptions, epitaphs, funerary mensae, and
tomb mosaics that are especially characteristic of Roman Africa.1
he first documented evidence of Christianity in Africa survives in what
purports to be the official record of a trial held in Carthage on 17 July 180.
he proconsul Saturninus attempted to persuade twelve Christians to take
advantage of the legally allowed delay to consider the consequences of their
adherence to Christ and then ordered them beheaded when they refused
to recant or even reconsider.2 he hometown of these Scillitan martyrs
has not been identified, but some inscriptional evidence suggests that it
might be located near Simitthu (Chemtou – see Map 5).3 If so, Christianity
had spread as far as 160km southwest of Carthage, no later than the mid-
second century.
At this time, the local population was a blend of native African (Libyan)
and Phoenician (Punic) peoples who had intermarried with occupying
Romans and other immigrant groups (including Greeks, Spaniards, and
Celts). he native languages (Libyan and Punic) persisted in the rural areas,
but Latin had become the language of the governing elite, commerce,
and high culture – including Christian intellectuals.4 Often called “the
father of Latin Christianity,” Tertullian of Carthage (ca.155–230) authored
what are arguably the oldest surviving Latin Christian documents apart
from the Vetus Latina (Old Latin Bible) to which he referred. hese docu-
ments contributed key Latin words to the western theological vocabulary,
including “vetus testamentum,” “novum testamentum,” “Trinitas” and
“sacramentum.”
Despite its legal prohibition, African Christianity was well established
by the early third century. Although probably exaggerating, Tertullian
claimed that Christians constituted a majority in every city (Scap. 2.10).
According to Bishop Cyprian (ca.200–58), seventy bishops from towns
in Africa Proconsularis, Numidia, and Byzacena, attended a council in
Carthage in the 220s or 230s. At a 256 assembly, the participants numbered
1
he bibliography for both textual and material evidence for African Christianity is vast, of course.
However, among the most significant recent publications on the archaeological side are Duval, Loca
sanctorum africae; Gui et al., Basiliques chrétiennes; and Ennabli, Carthage.
2
Musurillo, Acts, 86–9.
3
Lancel, ed., Actes, vol. 373, 1456.
4
Mattingly and Hitchner, “Roman Africa,” 172–3. See Brown, “Christianity and Local Culture,” 279–
84 (on the problem of native languages in North Africa in Augustine’s era).
Map 5. Roman North Africa
267
268 Robin M. Jensen
eighty-seven.5 hese figures suggest that Christians were not only more or
less tolerated, but secure enough to send representatives some distance to a
meeting that must have been, to some degree, publicly known.
Moreover, the church attracted persons of status, family, education, and
relative wealth. Tertullian’s writings demonstrate his training in rhetoric
and knowledge of Latin literature and philosophy. Perhaps himself the son
of a Roman centurion,6 he insisted that Christians populated every rank
and station of life (Apol. 1.7).7 Cyprian’s execution by beheading and own-
ership of private estates indicate that he was an honestior (having both
wealth and privileges). And the author of her Passion describes the martyr
Perpetua (ca.202) as a member of a distinguished family, of good upbring-
ing (or well educated), and a newly married matron (Passio Perp. 2.1).
hese third-century African Christians established small congregations
that met in private dwellings where they prayed together and shared an
evening meal in addition to celebrating a eucharistic ritual.8 hey practiced
baptism for adult converts and expected the initiated to follow a strictly
disciplined life of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, and avoiding idolatry,
adultery, and other major sins. he church was the sacred “mother,” whose
womb was her baptismal font; outside of her protection, salvation was
impossible.9
heir communities included consecrated virgins, dedicated widows,
and councils of elders. Although the church to which Tertullian belonged
had a bishop, presbyters, and deacons, other roles, such as reading, teach-
ing, curing, and exorcizing were open to all males. Tertullian also argued
that laymen could lawfully administer baptism in an emergency (Bapt. 17).
Women, however, were restricted to seeking revelations, or living as dedi-
cated widows and virgins. he bishop presided at the eucharistic banquet,
administered baptism, and disciplined members who violated the moral
code of the community. Clergy could be married, but only once.
As elsewhere, most third-century African Christians, including
Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Perpetua, and Cyprian, were converts from
traditional Roman religion.10 he oath of commitment to Christ taken
at baptism required almost complete separation from ordinary social
and civic life, because renouncing the traditional gods meant shunning
5
Cyprian, Ep. 71.1; Sent. 77 (CSEL 3.1.435–61); cf. Maier, L’espiscopat, 23–4.
6
Jerome, Vir. ill ., 53.
7
Groh, “Upper Class Christians,” 41–7.
8
Tertullian, Apol . 39.
9
Jensen, “Mater Ecclesia ,” 140–4.
10
See Tertullian, Apol. 18.
even casual contact with idols in the temples, marketplace, circus, and
theater. In addition, Christians avoided passive (even accidental) presence
at non-Christian rituals, because such occasions offered demons and evil
spirits opportunities to pollute the unwary.11 Undoubtedly, such behavior
made them seem antisocial and secretive, especially because they excluded
the uninitiated from their rituals.12
Christian-Jewish relations are less well understood. Although Tertullian
denounced Jews for rejecting Christ, his writings refer only in passing to
contemporary Carthaginian Jews.13 Furthermore, Tertullian’s attitudes
toward Jews depended upon his audience. While taking a predictably
supersessionist position in his Answer to the Jews (probably written for a
Christian audience), his Apology (arguably directed at non-Christians)
describes Jews as “dear to God” and their religion as allied to Christianity
(Adv. Jud. 1.1; Apol. 16.11). He defended their scriptures as ancient and
authoritative texts, but ones that would compel readers to Christian belief
once fully understood (Apol. 18, 19, 21).
Potentially more problematic than idol-worshippers or Jews were hereti-
cal or deviant sects who, while considering themselves Christians and com-
peting for adherents, held divergent views on the incarnation, the material
world, and the biblical God of creation. Various such groups found their
way to Carthage, among them the followers of Hermogenes, Valentinian
gnostics, and Marcionites. Tertullian also encountered instances of devi-
ant ritual practices, including a novel form of baptism administered by a
woman whom he characterized as a pestilential viper. To his horror, she
recruited a substantial following, including many of his fellow congregants
(Bapt. 1).
he New Prophecy or Montanist movement also gained a substantial
following in third-century Carthage. In this instance, Tertullian him-
self became an adherent, and perhaps also the martyr Perpetua and her
comrades.14 Followers claimed that the Holy Spirit commanded, through
ecstatic human prophets, a tightening of Christian discipline. For exam-
ple, Tertullian’s rigorist later writings condemned second marriages, urged
rigorous fasts, insisted on veils for unmarried women, and lauded the for-
titude of the martyrs (Mon., Jejun., and Virg). On the basis of Montanist
teaching, Tertullian also challenged the claims made by both bishops and
11
Tertullian’s treatises, Idol. and Spect., treat this theme in general.
12
See, for example, Minucius Felix, Oct. 9–10.
13
Evidence for Jews in Carthage includes the Jewish necropolis at Gamarth. See Setzer, “Jews,” 185–
200; Stern, Inscribing Devotion and Death.
14
See Tabbernee, “Perpetua.” On Montanism, see Trombley, Chapter 13 of this volume.
270 Robin M. Jensen
martyrs to forgive significant sins committed by their members, insisting

that the Spirit had forbidden tolerance of postbaptismal transgression.
he New Prophecy movement’s emphasis on charismatic prophecy
and visionary dreams was, however, compatible with more general North
African Christian practice. For example, the Passion of Saints Perpetua and
Felicity extols the validity and promise of continuing prophecy, the possi-
bility of women as prophets, and the importance of dreams and visions (1,
4, 7, 8, 11–14). African Christians also assigned great value to martyrdom.
Martyrs were the church’s heroes, celebrated on their feast days (dates of
death). Many (though not Tertullian) believed them to be endowed with
the power of intercession for the forgiveness of sin because they went
immediately to heaven (bypassing the interim time and final judgment
that awaited ordinary believers after death). Although not all martyrs
were dramatically killed in the arena or by the sword (some were impris-
oned, exiled, or sent to the mines), their stories were exemplary lessons
of courage and paralleled with those of exceptionally brave or steadfast
Romans. Tertullian extolled the examples of Lucretia and Dido for women
and Regulus for men, among others. Lucretia and Dido chose death over
dishonor (at their own hands), and Regulus was a Roman general who
endured torture at the hands of the Carthaginians rather than participate
in a prisoner exchange (Mart. 4).
he Roman African love of blood sport may have also shaped the
Christian perception of martyrs as athletes or gladiators.15 hat preoccu-
pation is evident in many surviving mosaic pavements – some of which
even depict victims going to their deaths in the arena (Fig. 11). On the
night before they went to the beasts, Perpetua and her companions shared
the “free banquet” that was traditionally served to combatants, but which
they transformed into a Christian love feast (Passio Perp. 17).16 he ancient
Carthaginian practice of human sacrifice may also underlie the signifi-
cance of the martyr cult in African Christianity. Both Minucius Felix and
Augustine referred to that practice. Tertullian, in fact, claimed that no one
should reproach the Christian God for requiring martyrdom, because the
African Saturn was well known to have been appeased by human sacrifice
(Scorp. 7).17
Early in 250, the emperor Decius required a general sacrifice to the
Roman gods for the good fortune of the empire. Everyone was required
15
Tertullian, Scorp. 6.
16
Tertullian, Apol. 42.5, compares the two banquets.
17
On the practice see Minucius Felix, Oct. 30.3; Tertullian, Apol. 9.2; Augustine, Civ. 7.26; and Rives,
“Human Sacrifice,” 65–85. See also Shaw, Chapter 9 of this volume.
Fig. 11. Detail from a third-century mosaic pavement, hysdrus (El Djem), Sollertiana
Domus. Now in the Museum of El Djem. Photograph by Robin M. Jensen.
to offer incense, pour a libation, or eat sacrificial meat to secure a certif-

icate of compliance. Obstinacy resulted in exile, confiscation of goods,
imprisonment, and torture. his first systematic challenge to Christian
religious exclusivism had a devastating effect. Many Christians satisfied
the edict to protect themselves or their families; others bribed officials
by acquiring a certificate of compliance without actually performing the
action. Widespread failure demonstrated that the church risked going out
of existence unless it could find a means of accommodating severe sin (e.g.,
apostasy).
A series of councils led by Cyprian worked out a compromise between
the hardliners, who would have excommunicated the lapsed, and the lax-
ists, who would have readmitted them to communion through intercession
of the martyrs. he compromise required fallen sinners publicly to repent
while the church prayed that Christ would forgive them. After months
or years, depending on the offense, the bishop allowed them to return in
hope that they would be saved. Because they had rejected Christ, however,
272 Robin M. Jensen
failed clergy had lost the power of the Spirit and so were demoted to lay
status. hus the ideal of purity was transferred from all members to repre-
sentative clergy – especially to the bishop.
fourth-century consolidation and efforts

at enforcing conformity
he great persecution at the beginning of the fourth century once again
strained the competing ideals of purity and accommodation. As before, the
Christian community faced the problem of Christians who failed the test
of faith. In this instance, however, some of the lapsed were clergy and even
bishops, who (it was claimed) cooperated with the persecutors by handing
over holy books and other sacred objects.18 Such defection undermined the
theory that clergy representatively maintained the church’s purity.
he election of Caecilian as bishop of Carthage (ca.311) provided a test
case. Caecilian had made enemies during the persecution (allegedly) by
refusing to allow congregants to bring food to Christians in prison, and
(even worse) one of the bishops who consecrated him, Felix of Aptunga,
supposedly turned over sacred scriptures to Roman soldiers.19 Based on the
compromise struck fifty years earlier, his consecrator’s apostasy invalidated
Caecilian’s authority, and additionally infected any bishops (and laity) who
accepted him into communion. Reacting to the urging (perhaps bribes) of
certain interested local parties, the bishops of Numidia convened a council
in Carthage, which tried, condemned, deposed, and replaced Caecilian in
his absence.20 hus two competing communions were established – one
led by Caecilian and the other by Donatus, whom the Numidians eventu-
ally chose as his replacement.
Because, after the peace, imperial funds financed the rebuilding
of churches that had been destroyed in the persecution, the emperor
Constantine needed to break the impasse between the two sides. He referred
the case to episcopal courts in Rome and Arles, and by his own decision
on the final appeal, Caecilian was affirmed as bishop while Donatus was
condemned for schism. Meanwhile, the courts also required Caecilian’s
party to abandon the African practice of rejecting rituals (especially bap-
tisms) performed in schismatic churches and to adopt the Roman church’s
policy of accepting them. his meant that Donatists who entered the
18
See, for example, the accusations against Majorinus, Brev. Coll. 3.13.2.5; and the Gesta apud
Zenophilum 2–5.
19
See the proceedings against Felix of Abthungi, in Edwards, Optatus, 170–80.
20
Mansi 2, 407–10; 4, 41; Maier, L’épiscopat, 25–6.
Catholic fold were not to be rebaptized, and their clergy could be installed
in Catholic churches without being reordained.21
he party of Donatus refused to accept its condemnation. It claimed to
be the true African church, unsullied by the apostasy of Felix and Caecilian,
which, by virtue of its Roman recognition, also polluted the worldwide
episcopacy. It also refused to accept baptisms performed by non-Donatist
clergy. Both the emperors Constantine and Constans attempted to over-
come the schism by suppressing the Donatists by force, but from a Donatist
point of view, imperial persecution only confirmed the Caecilianists as col-
laborators and the Donatists as the authentic, pure Christian community.
Disputed claims over church buildings focused the struggle between
the two rival communities. hroughout the fourth century, alternating
periods of suppression and toleration of the Donatist churches meant that
buildings often changed hands with losing parties forced to vacate and
rebuild. In 330, for example, the Donatists seized the Catholic basilica
in Constantine (built with funds from Constantine himself ). Although
appeals were made, the emperor simply supplied the Catholics with funds
to build another.22
From Julian’s restoration of their rights and property (361) until the end
of the fourth century, Donatism grew to be the majority sect in Africa,
especially in Numidia.23 Bishops’ lists from councils around that time show
that nearly 60 percent of the towns in North Africa had both Donatist and
Catholic bishops, and presumably at least two different church buildings
served those separate congregations. Carthage, for example, had a Catholic
cathedral (the Basilica Restituta)24 as well as a Donatist one.25 Timgad,
the center of Numidian Donatism, also had both Donatist and Catholic
cathedrals (the former built by Optatus himself ).26
According to one thesis, Donatism’s strength was an instance of native
African identity asserting itself over against Roman culture, religion, and
political domination. Allied with the rural population and the lower social
classes (especially in Numidia), the Donatists opposed the more Romanized
(i.e., less African) inhabitants of large urban centers (e.g., Carthage).27
A different view, although acknowledging Donatism’s Numidian domi-
nance, claims that region’s Donatists were no more rural and of no lower
21
Mansi 4.48; Maier, L’épiscopat, 27–8.
22
Optatus, Don. 10.
23
Possidius, Vita 7, and Optatus Don. 7.1: Catholics were few in number.
24
Augustine, Serm. 19, 29, 90, 112, 277.
25
Augustine, Ep. 139.1; Enarrat. Ps. 80; and Gest. Coll. Carth. 411, 3.5.
26
Gui, Basiliques chrétiennes, 263–86.
27
Frend, Donatist Church; see review by Brown, “Religious Dissent,” 237–59.
274 Robin M. Jensen
social status than their Catholic counterparts.28 Whatever their situation,

Donatist bishops occasionally allied themselves with rebellions against
Roman imperial rule and used gangs of local (probably Punic-speaking)
religious terrorists, the Circumcellions, to thwart the enforcement of laws
restricting their activities.29 he Donatist bishop of Timgad, Optatus, even
formed an alliance with the rebel Mauretanian prince Gildo. Both were
executed by Roman authorities (ca.398).30
In response to one particularly outrageous assault on a Catholic bishop,
the emperor Honorius applied the heodosian laws against Christian
heretics to the Donatists in 405, and attempted to suppress the church
by exiling its leading bishops and confiscating its property.31 When this
led to increased violence, he proposed a full judicial hearing of the cases
of both sides in the spring of 411 in Carthage. he theological and legal
arguments of the Donatist delegates were unsuccessful, and the imperial
commissioner found for the Catholics. As a result, Donatist property was
officially turned over to the Catholics, and civil penalties were reinstituted
against individual Donatists. Enforcement was, of course, piecemeal, and
the Donatist church continued to function, perhaps even to thrive.
Donatists were attached to their local martyrs, and especially to those
who withstood what they perceived as unjust government coercion – in
particular their model and patron, St. Cyprian. Not only did they revere
those who had stood firm in the face of past persecution, but they viewed
themselves as currently tested victims – sure proof that they were the
authentic Christians while the others collaborated with God’s enemies.32
According to contemporary (Catholic) documents, some even sought out
martyrdom by throwing themselves over cliffs, burning themselves alive,
or by provoking local polytheists to kill them, presumably in fits of out-
rage, when they made a public spectacle of mocking their gods at tra-
ditional festivals.33 he Donatists reflected on their plight and evaluated
their place in history in the Liber Genealogus, a chronicle that was reedited
multiple times in the first half of the fifth century. Although all extant
versions begin with creation, they stop at successively later points, and
include contemporary events (e.g., instances of Catholic persecution), and
28
Mandouze,”Donatisme,” 357–66; and Bénabou, Résistance.
29
Shaw, “Circumcellions,” 227–58. For a thorough study of the sectarian conflicts between Catholic
and Donatist communities see Shaw, Sacred Violence.
30
Augustine, Parm. 3.24; Bapt. 2.11.16; C. litt. Petil. 1.10, 11; 1.24.26; 2.83.184; Ep. 53.3.6.
31
Ch 16.10.16–25.
32
Augustine, C. litt. Petil. 2.92.202. See also Gesta coll. Carth. 411, 3.22.
33
Augustine, Parm. 1.10.16; Gaud. 1.28.32; Ep. 185.3.12 and Haer. 69: Tilley, Martyr Stories, 77.
present themselves as heirs to such great biblical heroes as Abel, Daniel,

and the Maccabees.34
Although the dominant struggle of the fourth and early fifth century
was between Donatist and Catholic communions, other groups continued
to exist and from time to time emerged to challenge religious authori-
ties. Among these groups were Manichees and Tertullianists – or those
who continued to follow the New Prophecy.35 While the Tertullianists
appear to have been still active only in Carthage, Manichees were a major
focus of Augustine’s attentions in the first years of his service at Hippo
(ca.391–92).36
Unlike the Donatists, Manichees espoused a doctrine that ran coun-
ter to orthodox teaching. Even more significantly, their teaching contra-
dicted some of the most deeply held African Christian values; they did not
believe that martyrdom served any good, they denied the resurrection of
the body, and they repudiated the use of material elements in the sacra-
ments.37 Different from their teachings elsewhere in the empire, moreover,
African Manichees presented themselves using distinctively Christian lan-
guage (invoking the Trinity and referring to the crucifixion) – which made
them even more of a specifically regional threat.
Roman authorities associated Manichaeism with foreign (Persian) cults
and magic and tried to suppress the cult. Diocletian’s first rescript of per-
secution (31 March 297) actually was promulgated against Manichees and
seems to have been triggered by complaints from Africa.38 Like Christians,
they survived persecution. Among their converts in fourth-century
Carthage was young Augustine, who was initially attracted to their expla-
nation of evil and probably also to their high-status adherents as poten-
tial patrons (Conf. 3.10). Much later, after his conversion to Christianity
and arrival in Hippo, he twice persuaded the prominent Manichee
Fortunatus to a debate over matters of doctrine. He also authored a series
of anti-Manichaean treatises.39
In contrast to these variant forms of Christianity, devotees of the
pre-Christian gods appear to have dwindled numerically by the mid-fifth
century. At the beginning of the third century, traditional religion was robust
34
Mommsen, MGH 9,154–96; Monceaux, Histoire, 247–58.
35
Augustine, Haer. 86.
36
Brown, “Diffusion,” 92–103; Frend, “Gnostic-Manichaean Tradition,” 13–26. See also Griffith
(Chapter 5) and De Jong (Chapter 1), this volume.
37
See Augustine, C. du. ep. Pelag. 4.4–5 and Haer. 46. On denial of the resurrection see Evodius, Fide,
40.
38
Cited in Brown, “Diffusion,” 95.
39
Possidius, Vita, 6.
276 Robin M. Jensen
and, as elsewhere in the Roman empire, followed the practice of identifying

local gods with their Roman counterparts. he Punic-African deities Ba’al
and Tanit were thus secondarily named Saturn and Caelestis (also Juno,
Cybele, or Magna Mater).40 Even though the gradual establishment of
Christianity as the state’s official cult took its toll, the native Augustine
described his attendance at festivals for Caelestis and Cybele (Berecynthia)
in Madauros as a boy and in Carthage as a young man (Civ. 2.4, 2.26, 7.26).
Quodvultdeus, bishop of Carthage (d. ca.453), bemoaned the continuing
popularity of the gods in a sermon preached to catechumens in the 430s, and
at least a decade later the Gallican historian Salvian claimed that supposedly
Christian Carthaginians still paid homage to Juno Caelestis.41
Perhaps in response to this, by the end of the fourth century Christian
emperors began to pass laws against the old Roman cults. heodosius I
(347–95) promulgated edicts abolishing sacrifices. Honorius moved to con-
fiscate temples for public use, actions directed specifically at African tra-
ditionalists.42 Simultaneously, Christians began taking over those temples
and transforming them into churches. While still a deacon, Quodvultdeus
had witnessed Aurelius’s seizing of Carthage’s temple of Caelestis on Easter,
probably sometime after 407.43 Bishop Aurelius and his entourage entered
the temple and placed the bishop’s throne in the place of the goddess’s
statue. Augustine preached in one of these transformed temples, renamed
the Basilica Honoriana, around 417 (Serm. 163). Its new name suggests that
the emperor himself sanctioned and possibly even funded that particular
conversion.44
Similar transformations were probably less dramatic but no less perma-
nent – an indication that the Christian faith had replaced the older Roman
cult. For example, churches in Sufetula (Basilica III, called the Church of
Servus and possibly also Basilica I, “of Bellator”), huburbo Maius, and
Djebel Oust were all installed within former temple structures, the last
within a former temple of Asclepius. In all three cases, the formerly open
peristyle was transformed into the nave, its columns serving as the supports
for a roof over nave and aisles. he cella of the temple became its baptistery,
a small chamber now attached to the side of the building rather than being
its inner sanctum.
40
Tertullian, Apol. 24, Augustine, Civ. 7.26; Conf. 1.23.36. See Mohamed Kheir Orfali, “De Baal
Hammon à Saturne africaine,” 142–9.
41
Quodvultdeus, Symbol. 2.3.1; Salvian, Gub. Dei. 8.2, see discussion below.
42
Ch 16.10.16–25. See Augustine, Civ. 18.54.
43
Quodvultdeus, Lib. prom. 3.38.44. Regarding the date (407), see Ch 16.10.2.1–2.
44
Hanson, “Transformation,” 257–67.
Meanwhile, the sack of Rome by the Goths brought an influx of Roman

refugees to North Africa, among them the British monk Pelagius, with
whom Augustine had one of his last theological disputes. Presumed to
have been initiated by a line in his Confessions (10.2) in which Augustine
asked God to “command what you will, and give what you command,” this
dispute has often been characterized as a debate about the transmission of
original sin, although its substance was more focused on Augustine’s con-
tention that humans were incapable of consistently choosing and doing
the good.45 Although the bishops of Africa backed it fully, his view that
divine love not only assisted human goodness but constituted it undercut
the autonomy of human choice and was not accepted or understood by
eastern Christians. In modified forms, however, it eventually passed into
the tradition of Latin (western) Christianity.
fifth-century conflicts – vandal arians

and african catholics
As Augustine lay dying in the summer of 430, Vandal armies surrounded
Hippo. In a letter to a brother bishop in hiabe, he referred to the enemy
army as “subverters of Romanity,” in contrast to the local population who,
in his view, were the heirs of Roman civilization.46 According to his biogra-
pher, Possidius, the invaders were a mixture of Germanic Vandals, Iranian
Alans, Goths, and various other ethnic groups (Vita, 28). hese peoples
had united, crossed the Rhine in 406, and by 409 were in Spain – where
the Romans (and their Visigothic allies) accorded them rights to resi-
dency but not to property. Caught in an imperial power struggle follow-
ing Honorius’s death, Augustine’s friend, the African governor Boniface,
revolted against Rome and, according to Procopius, invited the Vandals
into Africa (he had married a Vandal woman, Pelagia, through whom he
had connections to the Vandal king, Gunderic). Later, after regaining the
favor of the empress Galla Placidia, he defended the province against the
united Vandal tribes, led by Gunderic’s brother Gaiseric.47
Although composed of different languages and ethnicities, the majority
of the Vandal people adhered to an Arian form of Christianity, probably
having been converted during the reign of the Arian emperor Valens. Unlike
other Arian groups (e.g., the Visigoths and Ostrogoths), the Vandals were
45
As reported by Augustine himself, Praed. 2.53.
46
Possidius, Vita, 30.
47
Procopius, Vand. 3.3.22, 25–34.
278 Robin M. Jensen
intolerant of Christians who confessed the Nicene faith.48 In their defense,

they claimed the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia, presided over by an
earlier Arian emperor Constantius.49 If this is accurate, Vandal theology
was probably more Homoean than truly Arian, and taught that the Son
was like (rather than unlike) the Father, although not of the same essence.
Augustine’s understanding of Arianism likely was based on his encoun-
ter with Gothic Arians in Milan, and he agreed to debate the Arian bishop
Maximinus, who came to Africa with the Gothic Count Sigiswulf in 427 or
428.50 According to Augustine, the Donatists tried to win the Arians over
to their cause, purporting to hold similar beliefs (Ep. 185.1.1). However, he
pointed out, the Donatists confessed that the Trinity has one substance,
while the Arians held differently. For their part, the Vandals (like the
Goth Maximinus) considered themselves true “Catholics.” he dramatic
differences, illuminated in a theological debate called by the Vandal king
Huneric in 484, show that historians may justifiably argue that the Vandals
were engaged in a religious war as much as in territorial conquest (Hist.
2.56–101).51
Under the leadership of their king Gaiseric, the Vandals swept east
across Mauretania from Spain taking city after city until they reached
Carthage. According to Possidius and Victor of Vita (both fifth-century
eyewitnesses), they demolished and burned churches, dispersed their con-
gregations, and captured – and even killed – some clergy. hey also took
over cathedral churches in major cities (Hippo, Cirta, and Carthage) and
installed their own bishops.52 he Donatist editors of the Liber Genealogus
saw these events as signs of the end time, and characterized Geiseric as
the Antichrist (Lib. Gen. 618F) – a term removed at the king’s insistence
from subsequent editions. Victor also reported that the Catholic bishop of
Carthage, Quodvultdeus, with a number of other clerics was herded naked
onto a rudderless ship and put out to sea.53 Catholics and Donatists alike
were forced to rely on their rural congregations, and to practice the passive
resistance to state power that the Donatists had perfected.
Vandals occupied Carthage’s Basilica Maiorum, Basilica Celerina, and
the Scillitan Martyrs (perhaps two different basilicas), Mensa Cypriani,
48
Heather, “Christianity and the Vandals.”
49
Victor of Vita, Hist. 3.5; Shanzer, “Intentions,” 271–90.
50
Augustine, Arian.; Maxim.
51
Modéran, “Une guerre de religion,” 21–44.
52
Possidius, Vita 28, Victor of Vita, Hist. 1.15–16.
53
Victor of Vita, Hist. 1.15; Quodvultdeus, Temp. barb. 11 and 12. Quodvultdeus arrived in Naples
safely and died in exile.
Memoria Cypriani, and Basilica Restituta (the Catholic cathedral).54

Although their churches had been confiscated and their bishops exiled,
one can infer from Victor of Vita’s account that Nicenes were yet permit-
ted to hold services in basilicas outside the city walls (the Basilicas Fausti
and Novarum [Hist. 1.25]). And although they initially refused to replace
bishops who died in exile, after an intervention of Emperor Valentinian
III, they allowed the Africans to consecrate Deogratias as primate of
Carthage to replace Quodvultdeus. Nevertheless, when Deogratias died
in 457, the post again went empty. According to Victor of Vita, the num-
ber of Catholic bishops in Africa Proconsularis dwindled to three from an
original 164 (Hist. 1.24–9).55
Between 457 and 480, the Vandals reportedly clamped down further,
prohibiting assemblies and forcing the Nicenes to celebrate in secret.56
However, about 480 or 481, Gaiseric’s successor, Huneric (477–84),
adopted a more moderate stance and, acceding to the wishes of emperor
Zeno (474–91) and Placidia (sister to Huneric’s wife Eudocia), once again
allowed the Nicenes a bishop. his was granted on condition that the
Arians be allowed to practice their own religion elsewhere in the empire,
and preach in whatever language their people could understand. he elec-
tion of Eugenius (481–84) took place soon after, to general joy among
Catholics.57
Jealousy soon shattered the momentary peace. Because Vandals were
seen going into Nicene churches (raising questions about loyalty), Huneric
required all court officials to follow the Arian faith and reinstituted perse-
cutions.58 He tortured consecrated virgins, and (according to Victor [Hist.
2.23–37]) sent nearly five thousand Nicene deacons, priests, and bishops
into exile in the desert. Intending to show himself as theologically moti-
vated, Huneric ordered the beleaguered bishops to a Collatio (484) to argue
their case. he African Nicenes, led by Eugenius, presented the king a book
containing their confession of faith. Ultimately they were denied an actual
hearing, in part because the Arians immediately objected to the Nicenes
calling themselves “catholics,” because they also claimed that nomencla-
ture for themselves.
54
Victor of Vita, Hist., 1.9, 15, 16; Procopius, Vand. 1.21.18–19.
55
Heather, “Christianity and the Vandals.” he number of bishops (fifty-four) at the 484 collatio
suggests that not all were exiled and that some remained in their sees. E.g., see Merrills and Miles,
Vandals, 177–203 (Chap. 7, “Religion and the Vandal Kingdom”).
56
Victor of Vita, Hist., 2.1; 1.41; 2.39, 3.4.
57
Victor of Vita, Hist., 2.2–6; ibid., 2.18, 47–51 also mentions Eugenius as bishop from about 480–84,
and exiled in 484, Hist., 3.34.
58
Victor of Vita, Hist., 2.8–9.
280 Robin M. Jensen
he uproar at this perceived insult moved the king once again to grant
all African churches and property to Arian bishops, and to threaten to exile
any Nicene cleric who persisted in holding services.59 Finally, by means
of a subterfuge, Huneric rounded up the destitute clergy and demanded
that they swear to uphold a document naming his son, Hilderic, as his
successor. Whether they succumbed to this demand or not, all were sent
into exile – on one hand, for disloyalty; on the other, for swearing an oath,
contrary to the Gospel (Matt. 5:13).60
Huneric’s plan failed in any case. He was succeeded not by his son,
but by his (older) nephew Gunthamund (484–96). King Gunthamund
returned to a policy of appeasement and granted the shrine of St. Agileus
to Eugenius, the bishop of Carthage, when he returned from exile.61 he
expanded shrine served as the Catholic cathedral for most of the rest of the
Vandal era in Africa.62 Gunthamund also allowed some clergy to return from
exile. When his younger brother, hrasamund, came to power (496–523),
however, the tide turned again, as he collaborated with the Ostrogothic
King heodoric and once again exiled the Catholic bishops, including
Fulgentius of Ruspe, the Nicenes’ leading theologian.63 At the end of his
life, hrasamund allowed the establishment of parallel churches.64
hrasamund was succeeded (finally) by Huneric’s son Hilderic (523–
30), whose mother was the Byzantine princess Eudocia (the daughter of
Valentinian III). Probably because of this lineage, Hilderic broke with the
Ostrogoths, allied himself with the Byzantines, allowed exiled clergy to
return once again, and reopened the churches. Bonifatius was installed
as bishop of Carthage and presided over a council in 525.65 he returnees
included Fulgentius of Ruspe, who had been recalled earlier (515) to medi-
ate a dispute on the nature of the Trinity (but as he had then refused to
cooperate, he was returned).66 he homecoming of the exiled clerics was
a triumphant moment for the African Nicenes. Recorded by Fulgentius’s
biographer Ferrandus, a Carthaginian deacon, these heroes were their gen-
eration’s martyrs for the true faith.67
59
Victor of Vita, Hist., 3.7–14, the Decree of Huneric.
60
Victor of Vita, Hist., 3.17–21.
61
Victor of Tunnuna, Chron., 52; Laterculus reg. Wand. (annals of the Vandal Kings); Steinacher,
“Laterculus Regum Vandalorum,” 177.
62
Perhaps to be identifed with Bir el Knissia; see Ennabli, “Carthage,” 38–9, 114–20.
63
Stevens, “Fulgentius,” 327–41.
64
Courtois, Vandals, 304.
65
Victor Tunnuna, Chron., 523.2, 535; Laterculus reg. Wand. A. 16; Ferrandus, Vita Fulgentii, 26–7.
66
Victor of Tunnuna, Chron., 78–9.
67
Lapeyre, Vie de Saint Fulgence; Stevens “Fulgentius,” 327–41.
In 530 Gelimer deposed Hilderic, claiming that he had become more

Roman than Vandal, and even colluded with the emperor to hand over the
kingdom. Gelimer’s action outraged Emperor Justinian, who demanded
that Gelimer return the throne to Hilderic. Gelimer’s refusal to acknowl-
edge the emperor’s demand only compounded Justinian’s outrage and led
him to launch a final attempt to retake Africa for the empire. Four years
later, the Byzantine navy arrived on African shores.68
he Gallican historian Salvian (ca.400–80) may have been one of the
earliest witnesses to everyday life in Vandal Carthage, although it is not
certain that he ever visited the city. His treatise he Governance of God
(written ca.439–51) explained the incursions of barbarian tribes as God’s
punishment for Christian moral laxity and misbehavior (Gub. Dei 7.13).69
In his view, while ancient Carthage had been home to apostles and mar-
tyrs, in latter times it had become a city filled with all kinds of iniqui-
ties, from effeminate men to unchaste women. Salvian reported that while
Vandal besiegers encircled the walls, Christians in Carthage were oblivi-
ous, reveling in the theaters and going mad in the circuses (Gub. Dei 6.12).
Furthermore, he claimed, supposed Christians had continued to worship
the Roman goddess Caelestis (Gub. Dei 8.2). Although Salvian was proba-
bly no less biased than Victor of Vita, his view of the Vandal Arians offers
a useful counterpoint. He described Vandals rehabilitating prostitutes by
compelling them to marry and as enforcing chastity within marriage. In
Salvian’s view, Vandals merely took possession of a corrupt population’s
property, as it deserved (Gub. Dei 7.22).
Whatever they were, the Vandals do not seem to have been builders.70
Few Vandal-built churches (or significant renovations) can be identified,
which suggests that when the invaders appropriated available buildings for
their religious services, little in the Vandal liturgy required architectural
adaption. he main evidence of Vandal occupation of a formerly Catholic
or Donatist church is inscriptional, especially Germanic names on funer-
ary plaques. One such inscription, found in what was probably Augustine’s
basilica in Hippo, identifies a certain Gulia Runa as a presbyterissa – a title
that has led some scholars to suggest that she attained some type of clerical
standing.71
68
Procopius, Vand., 3.9.6–26.
69
Cleland, “Salvian,” 270–4.
70
See A. Ben Abed and N. Duval, “Carthage, la capitale du royaume et les villes”; Merrills and Miles,
Vandals, 228–55, Chap. 9, “Justinian and the End of the Vandal Kingdom.”
71
See Madigan and Osiek, Ordained Women in the Early Church, 197–8.
282 Robin M. Jensen
the last centuries: from byzantine rule

to the arab conquest
Procopius, a native Palestinian, also witnessed life in Carthage under the
Vandals, although at the end of the era and during another power shift.
He accompanied Justinian’s general Belisarius in the successful campaign
to drive the Vandals out of Africa. In his chronicles – one on the Vandalic
War and another describing Justinian’s building programs – he recounted
the retaking of Carthage and its rebuilding, which included new churches
(one dedicated to the heotokos) and a monastery (BV and Aed. 6.5.8–11).
Other African cities benefited from this era of reconstruction and elabora-
tion. Byzantine forts were planted, using large blocks of dressed stone in
place of the older style of building known as opus Africanum (uprights and
horizontal courses filled with mortared loose rubble), and new churches
were built in nearly every important center.
In a later chronicle, Procopius described the harsher realities of the
reconquest and imposition of Byzantine rule – the deaths of count-
less Vandals (as well as Romans and Moors), and the violent repression
of Arianism (Anec. 18.5–10). he Byzantines, no more tolerant of Arian
Christians than the Vandals had been of African Nicenes, reestablished
the Nicene faith and restored the native Catholic hierarchy to their former
churches. Despite their reinstatement, the African bishops soon learned
that their Byzantine liberators were actually only a new set of colonial rul-
ers. he army and civil administration were controlled by an elite group
of Greeks who kept largely to themselves; in matters of religion, however,
they expected the Africans to conform to orthodoxy as it was defined in
Constantinople.72
Although the churches retained Latin, their liturgies were inevitably
influenced by Byzantine customs. New buildings were often dedicated to
Greek saints. Altars that had been traditionally close to the center of the
main aisle were gradually shifted toward the apse and surmounted with
ciboria. Domes were constructed over the nave and vaults set over aisles,
instead of the former wooden roofs, covered by decorative terra cotta
tiles. Nevertheless, some distinctively African traditions were maintained
and some developed that were specific to the region, including the use of
polychrome mosaic tomb covers – often covering burials in the floors of
churches (Fig. 12) – and more elaborately designed and decorated baptis-
mal fonts (Fig. 13). Counter apses were added to many African churches in
72
Cameron, “Byzantine Africa,” 45.
Fig. 12. Mosaic tomb cover from Furnos Minos, mid-fifth century. Now in the Bardo
Museum, Tunis. Photograph by Robin M. Jensen.
284 Robin M. Jensen
Fig. 13. Baptismal font from Kélibia, Basilica of Felix, sixth century. Now in the Bardo
Museum, Tunis. Photograph by Robin M. Jensen.
this period to accommodate the African practice of burying clergy within

the church.
Nevertheless, while the cult of the heotokos was evident in the
Byzantine palace chapel at Carthage, neither the veneration of the Virgin
nor that of icons in general seems to have taken hold beyond the capital.
hus, the architecture reflected the continuity of African tradition, and
though it incorporated certain elements imported by the new rulers, it
appears to have blended those with typically indigenous characteristics.
Based on the rarity of Greek names on bishops’ lists for councils in the
540s and 550s, it appears that African clerics also managed local ecclesias-
tical politics. Furthermore, African Catholics continued to turn to Rome
(rather than to Constantinople) as their closest ecclesiastical ally, just as
they had during the Donatist controversy. Now, however, they were even
more inclined to agree with Roman policies. For example, when in 535,
under the leadership of Bishop Reparatus of Carthage, the bishops called
a council to decide what to do with Arian converts to Nicene orthodoxy,
they called upon the bishop of Rome, John II, for advice and validation
of their decrees. he decision not to admit former Arians to orders and
to reduce their converted clergy to lay status conformed to the Roman

handling of reconciled schismatics at the beginning of the fifth century
(contrary to their earlier African position).73 he strengthening of these ties
may have been the result of the years that many African bishops spent in
exile in Sicily and Italy.
Meanwhile, a series of Mauri uprisings in the late 530s and 540s, com-
bined with rebellions of Vandals who had been brought into the impe-
rial army, caused the Byzantine general, Solomon, to flee to Syracuse.
Simultaneously, a resurgence of ancient ethnic identity also threatened the
fragile alliance as Romanized, Latin-speaking Africans found themselves
caught between suddenly energized Mauri tribes and a government made
up of Greek-speaking foreigners. In the 540s the Mauri, perhaps in another
instance of native nationalistic feeling, instigated a revolt against their new
rulers. Corripus, the chronicler of this era, although an African himself,
had no sympathy with the rebels, whom he described as uncouth and vio-
lent worshippers of a bull-god called Gurzil. His writings supply precious
but undoubtedly biased evidence on contemporary Berber tribes and cus-
toms.74 His hero, John Troglita, a general in Justinian’s service, successfully
restored Byzantine control and military discipline.75
Having come through more than a century of political, economic,
and military disruption and disorder, native clergy resented efforts from
the imperial court to impose doctrinal conformity, especially when they
judged compliance as drawing them into heresy. hus, another religious
crisis erupted in 546 when Justinian wrote to the African bishops, order-
ing them to accept the condemnation of the “hree Chapters” (writings
of heodore of Mopsuestia, heodoret of Cyrrhus, and Ibas of Edessa).
Although Justinian’s edict was aimed at reconciling eastern Monophysites,
in the eyes of African Catholics it profoundly undermined Chalcedonian
orthodoxy. he Africans, not especially attuned to Justinian’s desire for
unity, refused his demand.76
A series of dogmatic treatises produced from the late 540s to the early
560s summarized the Africans’ reasons for dissent. hese works, produced
by Ferrandus (author of the Life of Fulgentius), Bishop Facundus of
Hermiane, and the archdeacon of Carthage, Liberatus, show that African
clerics presumed the right to independently judge matters of dogma and
73
Cameron, “Byzantine Africa,” 46; Collectio Avallana, 85–7.
74
Ibid. 39–40, 46–9. Corippus’s writings give some precious but problematic evidence on Berber tribes
and customs at this time.
75
Kaegi, “Arianism,” 23–53.
76
Modéran, “L’Afrique reconquise,” 39–82.
286 Robin M. Jensen
discipline. Further, they showed that the Africans were unconvinced that
heodore’s views were in any way heretical, although their knowledge of
his theology came largely from a textbook based on the teachings of Paul
of Nisibis, a student of heodore’s.77 Facundus’s treatise, he Defense of the
hree Chapters, came to the attention of Justinian himself in 551, who spe-
cifically denounced it in his second edict of 551.78
Although at first allied with the Africans, Rome’s bishop Vigilius
(537–55) succumbed to Justinian’s pressure to conform, prompting the
Council of Carthage (550) to excommunicate him.79 his council’s action
provoked Justinian to summon the ring-leaders to Constantinople to
justify themselves – apparently to no avail. At the fifth general council
(II Constantinople, 553), all were deposed or exiled, including Bishop
Reparatus of Carthage.80 he main chronicler of these events, Bishop Victor
of Tunnuna, was himself imprisoned for his resistance, first in the monas-
tery that Justinian had earlier established in Carthage (the Mandracium),
and subsequently in Egypt. African resistance to the imperial government
continued until Justinian’s death in 565.
Meanwhile, the African church may have experienced a Donatist revival.
In the 590s, Gregory I wrote to Gennadius, the exarch of Africa, to request
that he suppress the Donatists and take steps to bar former Donatists
from the episcopate (Ep. 1.74–7). his effort seems to have failed, how-
ever, because several subsequent letters refer to bishops handing churches
over to Donatist clerics or permitting the establishment of Donatist sees.
Gregory insisted that the heresy of Donatism was spreading and that many
Catholics had received rebaptism (Ep. 2.48). In a letter to Pantaleo, prefect
of Africa, he claimed that Donatists were throwing Catholic priests out
of their churches and rebaptizing their congregants (Ep. 4.34).81 Finally,
Gregory, apparently frustrated by lack of cooperation, went straight to the
top and wrote to the emperor Mauricius, pleading with him to enforce the
laws against the Donatists and punish the disobedient (Ep. 6.65). At least
one scholar thinks that Gregory’s letters reveal that he was more concerned
about Donatists and Catholics forming a practical alliance than he was
about Donatist resurgence, however.82
77
Cameron, “Byzantine Africa,” 46; the textbook was Junillus’s Instituta regularia divinae legis. See
Honoré, Tribonian, 237–42.
78
Cameron, “Byzantine Africa,” 47.
79
Ibid., 47–49. Victor of Tunnuna, Chron., 141 (550).
80
Victor of Tunnuna, Chron., 145 (552)–152 (555).
81
See also Gregory, Ep., 6.37 (to Columbus, Primate of Numidia).
82
Markus, “Donatism,” 118–26.
At the least, these letters suggest that Donatism never totally disappeared,
despite centuries of church and state efforts at coercion. he tenacity of
this ethnically African movement perhaps demonstrates a continued disaf-
fection of the native population from a Catholic, Romanized hierarchy as
well as from foreign secular authorities.83 Editions of the Donatist chroni-
cle, the Liber Genealogus, were published between 427 and 453, Leo I wrote
a letter to the bishops of Gaul about possible Donatist refugees in the 450s
(Ep. 168.18), and Victor of Vita may have mentioned Donatists as late as 480
(a passing mention and possible interpolation – Hist. 3.71). Archaeological
evidence of Donatism in the Vandal and Byzantine era includes certain
church inscriptions that mention characteristically Donatist themes (e.g.,
purity and sanctity), record so-called Donatist watchwords (e.g., “Deo
laus”), or employ the term “unitas” (perhaps indicating anti-Donatist
sympathies).84 Apart from these slim indications, however, no literary or
archaeological records of Donatists in Africa exist for the century before
Gregory’s writings.
he doctrinal debate over Monotheletism in the first half of the sev-
enth century represents the last significant theological or ecclesiological
output from Christian North Africa and (for the last time) demonstrates
its continued sense of doctrinal independence. By this time, based on sur-
viving documentary evidence, all of the discussion was carried on in Greek
rather than in Latin. As with the earlier efforts of Justinian to reach a
rapprochement with Monophysites, the emperors Heraclius (610–14) and
Constans II (641–68) attempted to impose the dogma that the two natures
of Christ (human and divine) shared a single activity or energy. As before,
the African church resisted. his time, however, their opposition was sup-
ported by Gregory, the imperial exarch of Africa along with the orthodox
theologian Maximus the Confessor, who had come to Africa from Palestine
to escape the Persian advance and had been living in a Carthaginian mon-
astery. his monastery was also home to another major orthodox figure
from the seventh century, Sophronius, the patriarch of Jerusalem (634–39),
who had also fled from the invading Muslims and who, like Maximus,
viewed Monotheletism as a heresy. hus, Byzantine governors and theolo-
gians rather than native Catholic clergy represented the African church in
this last major controversy.
Gregory sponsored a debate between the Maximus and Pyrrhus, the
Monothelite patriarch of Constantinople. Pyrrhus was no match for
83
Frend, Donatist Church, 300–14.
84
Ibid., 306–8; Duval, Cintas, “L’eglise du prêtre Felix,” 139–49.
288 Robin M. Jensen
Maximus, and the confrontation ended in his recantation.85 As always,

the African bishops looked to Rome for support, and both Maximus and
Pyrrhus sailed there to seek the assistance of Pope Martin I. Under polit-
ical pressure, the now-deposed Pyrrhus changed his position again and
returned to Constantinople, where he was reinstated as patriarch. In the
meantime, the African bishops joined forces with Maximus and Martin
at a Lateran synod (649) to anathematize Monotheletism. Meanwhile,
because Emperor Constans had forbidden any further inquiry into Christ’s
“single activity,” both Martin and Maximus were accused of rebellion and
were arrested and extradited to Constantinople. Martin died en route, but
Maximus was tried, exiled, and tortured. He died in exile (662). Gregory,
meanwhile, had been killed in a first battle with invading Arabs, possibly at
Sufetula in 648 – his death the beginning of the end of Christian Africa.86
Little is known about the African bishops who returned from the Lateran
synod, or how they coped with the next fifty years of Arab conquests. From
the middle of the seventh century, the written record of Christianity in
Africa dies out entirely; the only sources are Arabic histories that concen-
trate on the conversion of the region to Islam and its transformation from
a set of Roman provinces into the Maghreb. Carthage held out longer than
many other places, finally falling to the Arabs in 698 after a siege of some
months and help sent too late from Constantinople.
Although Christianity may have survived for another century or two,
and possibly even longer in rural areas among native tribes who never
fully converted to the new religion (Islam), the story of one of the most
influential and robust of early Christian communities seems to end here.87
he reasons for its ultimate extinction may not be so puzzling, however,
in light of the previous centuries of successive foreign occupation and
divisive doctrinal controversies that arose when those occupying ruling
powers attempted to repress distinctively African Christian teachings and
traditions. Had the African church been united from the outset, rather
than torn apart by competing claims of purity and legitimacy, a coherent
and sustainable community may have been established and survived, even
in the face of continuous opposition and even oppression from the out-
side. Given this history of internal conflict and external threat, however,
the Arab arrivals may have been viewed as no more “foreign” than any of
the other invading groups, and perhaps in some respects sharing some of
85
Maximus, Disputatio cum Pyrrho (PG 91.288–353).
86
heophanes, Chronographia, 343.24–9, ed. de Boor (A.M. 6139); Nicephorus, Breviarium, 39.
87
On the survival of Christianity in Africa see Prevost, “Les dernières communautés.”
the ancient indigenous values of African Christianity – their emphasis on

rigorous individual and communal purity, the importance of heroic mar-
tyrs and saints, and the belief that the righteous community both guarded
and guaranteed authentic religious faith.88
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 
GREECE AND ASIA MINOR

11
RELIGIONS OF GREECE AND ASIA MINOR
lynn e. roller
Greek cult practice comprised a broad spectrum of ritual activities that

acknowledged and communicated with the multiplicity of deities in the
Greek pantheon. Rather than presupposing a body of revealed truth,
Greek cult reflected the cumulative expression of the Greeks’ conceptions
about the general order of existence and their need to interact with the
divine beings that created and controlled that order.1 Because the Greeks
had no authoritative text(s) or central organization that served to codify
and interpret their religious system, the best way to approach the topic
of Greek religion is to examine the actual rituals and cult observances
of the Greeks. Essential rituals included the time-honored practices of
prayer and votive offerings to a deity, augmented by animal sacrifice and
shared meal on a group level. Cult activities were woven into the lives
of virtually all Greeks living in Greece and Asia Minor, and the shared
activities of cult practice articulated social networks that strengthened
bonds of affiliation with family, community, and state. Such activities
could be more elaborate for a larger and wealthier unit, such as a civic
festival, while an individual or small group with fewer resources cele-
brated simpler rites. In the absence of any sacred writings to explain
Greek cult practices to us, our principal evidence lies in the physical
remains of Greek religion – the sanctuaries, temples, cult images, and
votive offerings – and the written texts that discuss these, both literary
and epigraphical. Taken together, this material gives us a rich picture of
a multifaceted religious experience that was an important component of
individual lives.
1
In this approach I am following the conceptual framework of the study of ancient Greek religion as
defined by scholars such as Nock, “Cult of Heroes,” and Burkert, Greek Religion, and more broadly
the anthropological approach of Geertz, “Religion as Cultural System,” esp. 4 and 42.
295
296 Lynn E. Roller
Religious practice was an essential part of the Greeks’ consciousness of

their own ethnic identity as something different from that of neighboring
peoples.2 It was one of the factors that contributed to the development of
the polis, the independent Greek city-state, in the ninth and eighth centu-
ries bce and to religious institutions, such as panhellenic sanctuaries, that
played a key role in mediating relationships between Greek city-states.3 By
the latter part of the fourth century bce, Greek ritual practice was estab-
lished along well-recognized lines. While ending the independent polis, the
advent of Hellenistic monarchies and Roman hegemony did not dislodge
the fundamental sense of a compact between human and deity. However,
the changed circumstances of Greek cities in the eastern Mediterranean
led to several significant developments in Greek religious practice. he
new political landscape resulted in the creation of cults honoring rulers,
including Alexander and his Hellenistic successors and the cult of Roma
and Roman emperors. hroughout the Greek world, the construction
and maintenance of cult centers relied increasingly on the patronage of
monarchs and their representatives. he Greek cities of Asia Minor gained
markedly in wealth and prominence during the Hellenistic and Roman
periods, and their enhanced resources enabled them to build or restore sig-
nificant cult installations. Yet despite altered political and economic condi-
tions, the rhythm of religious practice in the Greek world continued with
surprisingly little change. Greek cult practice continued to be centered
on the cyclical patterns of sacrifices, festivals, and rituals administered by
communities and individual groups. Sanctuaries such as Olympia, Eleusis,
and Delphi, which had long been regarded as sacred places, continued to
serve as important centers of cult ritual. he interwoven layers of member-
ship in local and regional cult activities remained influential in shaping a
Greek’s sense of civic and personal identity (see Map 6).
In this chapter, the time span from the late fourth century bce to the
early fourth century ce is treated as a continuum. While this long period
brought many changes in political alliances and in the status of individ-
ual cities and regions in the eastern Greek world, the major elements that
constituted Greek cult practice retained their basic identity until Late
Antiquity. For this reason, the elements of Greek cult practice during this
time period are examined thematically, with comments on chronological
2
On Greek cult as a marker of Hellenic identity, see Herodotus 8.144.
3
For good introductions to Greek cult practice during the Archaic and Classical periods, see Burkert,
Greek Religion, and Bremmer, Greek Religion. On the relationship of religious practice to the Greek
polis, see Sourvinou-Inwood, “Polis Religion,” and “Further houghts”; De Polignac, “Sanctuaries
and Festivals.”
Map 6. Greece and Western Asia Minor
297
298 Lynn E. Roller
development within a thematic unit where appropriate. Because of the

abundance and complexity of the material, it is not feasible to offer a com-
prehensive treatment of every facet of Greek cult during the Hellenistic
and Roman periods. Detailed treatment of a few selected examples of rep-
resentative features of Greek cult will make it possible both to explore the
evidence more fully and to convey a sense of the emotional content and
meaning that cult practice brought to Greek society. he main emphasis
is on cult practice from the third century bce through the second century
ce, although some later Roman material is discussed.
civic and panhellenic cults

Every Greek city acknowledged the presence of its own tutelary deities,
both the gods of Olympus and the deities and heroes with more local and
regional significance. he rhythm of civic life had long been punctuated
by regular offerings and festivals to honor these divine beings. hese fes-
tivals, open to citizens, were organized and supported by the community
and conducted by priests who were regular citizens of the community.
Service as a priest was a civic duty that brought prestige to the participant;
some priesthoods were hereditary, while others were actively sought after
for the status they conferred.4 Priesthoods could be held by both men and
women, with special priesthoods reserved for women, who normally held
them for a limited time and during a specific stage of their lives.5
Athens offers one well-documented example of cult practice in civic
life. During the Hellenistic and Roman eras, cult practice, as before, cen-
tered on the Acropolis and the Agora. he quadrennial celebration of the
Greater Panathenaia was still the most important civic festival, and pro-
vided an opportunity for Athenians to display their pride in their patron
goddess Athena. he new political realities, however, soon became appar-
ent: the Panathenaia was occasionally omitted when warfare or other
forms of civic stress prevented it, and increasingly the expense of produc-
ing the Panathenaia was borne not by the city, but by individual donors
such as Hellenistic monarchs.6 Royal patronage also contributed to the
4
Clinton, “Eleusis and the Romans,” 169–74, gives examples of hereditary priesthoods at Eleusis
that continued into the Roman period. An inscription of the third century bce from Erythrae, in
Asia Minor, details the sale of priesthoods (in Engelmann and Merkelbach, Inschriften von Erythrai,
287–327, no. 201); most cost a considerable sum of money and formed a source of profit to the civic
government.
5
Connelly, Priestess, 27–55.
6
On changes in the Panathenaea, see Mikalson, Religion in Hellenistic Athens, 99–101, 108–10
(Panathenaea canceled in 286 and 282 bce), 196–9.
Religions of Greece and Asia Minor 299
construction of the grandiose temple of Zeus Olympios, supported by

the Seleucid monarch Antiochus IV.7 he new political realities of the
Hellenistic era resulted in further changes in cult practice in rural Attica.
he gods and heroes of Attica still exerted their presence in Attic life, but
the role of the deme, the rural district or village, in the religious life of the
average Athenian diminished sharply in the third century bce and disap-
peared in the second.8 With this ends the series of deme calendars with
their richly detailed lists of sacrifices and group obligations. he average
rural resident of Attica may well have retained his sense of affinity with
regional shrines, but there was little organizational or financial structure in
the Hellenistic and Roman eras to encourage the cult rituals that had been
supported by membership in a deme or genos (ancestral clan group).
During the Roman imperial period, a major innovation in Athenian
cult practice was the introduction of the Roman imperial cult (discussed in
greater detail below), which became a conspicuous feature on the Acropolis
and in the Agora. he status of the Agora as a cult center was also rein-
forced by the placement of older cult structures in its center, including the
altar of Zeus Agoraios and the temple of Ares. While this development has
been attributed to the impoverishment of the Attic countryside, it more
likely reflects Augustus’s decision to enhance the status of the Agora as a
sacred museum of religious art and architecture, paralleling the Augustan
use of Athenian models in Rome.9 he new prominence of the temple of
Ares may also suggest the higher prestige accorded by the Romans to the
cult of the god Mars.10
Civic cult in Corinth, in contrast, reflected the discontinuity of its
history during the Hellenistic and Roman periods.11 Hellenistic Corinth
was a venerable Greek city with a rich range of temples and shrines,
including cults of well-established Olympian deities like Apollo, Athena,
and Zeus, and cults with strong local connections, such as the shrines
for the children of Medea and several Corinthian heroes. here were also
prominent sanctuaries outside the city, including that of Demeter and
Kore on the slope of Acrocorinth and of Aphrodite on its height. Many
of these shrines were destroyed in the sack of Corinth by Mummius in
146 bce. When the city was refounded in 44 bce, a new series of cults
was initiated, reflecting the concerns of the new Roman settlers. hese
7
Mikalson, Religion in Hellenistic Athens, 200.
8
Parker, Athenian Religion, 264.
9
On transplanted temples, see hompson, Athenian Agora XIV, 160–8; on the Agora in the Augustan
period, Walker, “Athens under Augustus,” 69–72.
10
Spawforth, “Early Reception,” 193. See also Alcock, Graecia Capta, 195–6.
11
Bookidis, “Religion in Corinth,” 141–64.
300 Lynn E. Roller
include cults connected with official imperial patronage, such as Apollo

(protector of Augustus), Venus, and the imperial cult, and cults of Greek
deities that meant much to the Romans, including Asclepius, Demeter,
and Kore. Some cults with a distinctively Corinthian identity, like that
of Medea’s children, seem to have been preserved primarily for their nos-
talgia value.12
Ephesus furnishes a good example of civic cult practice in Asia
Minor. Ephesus had long been celebrated for its sanctuary of Artemis,
for whom a magnificent new temple was built in the later fourth cen-
tury bce after the older one was burned down.13 he Artemis sanctuary
and its distinctive cult image continued to play a major role in the
religious life of the newly refounded Hellenistic city, along with cults
for many other divinities, including Zeus, Athena, Aphrodite, Apollo,
Hephaestus, Dionysus, Demeter, Asclepius, and the Egyptian deities
Isis and Serapis.14 he Anatolian Mother-goddess retained an impor-
tant shrine on the slope of the mountain east of the city.15 hese cults
continued to flourish during the Roman-period city as well, although
the evidence for them comes largely from epigraphical and sculptural
evidence; few actual temples and sanctuaries have been found. he
most prominent sanctuaries in the Roman city were connected with the
imperial cult, particularly in the upper Agora.16 hey provide vivid evi-
dence for Ephesus’s status as the capital of the province of Asia, and for
the dominant role played by imperial freedmen and Roman emissaries
in the religious life of the city.
he civic cults of Pergamum offer a different model of cult prac-
tice in an Asiatic city. As the center of a new Hellenistic monarchy, the
Pergamene kings placed their city under the protection of the gods, espe-
cially Athena Polias, who was given pride of place on the acropolis. Cults
of major Olympian gods, including Zeus, Demeter, and Dionysus, were
also established in the city.17 he altar of Zeus on the Hellenistic acropolis
may represent cult honors to both Zeus and the Pergamene hero Telephos,
the mythical city founder.18 he pre-Greek cult traditions of the region
also left a mark on the city; the Anatolian Mother-goddess and her consort
Attis received a prominent shrine near the entrance to the acropolis, and
12
Pausanias 2.3.7.
13
Knibbe, “Via Sacra Ephesiaca,” 141–54.
14
Knibbe, “Nicht nur die Stadt Artemis”; Walters, “Egyptian Religions,” 281–311.
15
Knibbe, “Via Sacra Ephesiaca,” 142–3; Roller, God the Mother, 200–2.
16
Scherrer, “Historical Topography of Ephesos,” 69–71, 74–8.
17
Ohlemutz, Kulte in Pergamon; Radt, “Urban Development,” 48, 53.
18
Stähler, “Pergamonaltar.”
in mountain sanctuaries nearby.19 here were also provisions for the ruler
cult of the Attalid monarchs.
he cults of Roman Pergamon were even more varied. he older sanc-
tuaries of Athena, Demeter, and Dionysus continued to be important in
the city, while a new sanctuary came to dominate the acropolis, dedicated
jointly to Zeus Philios and the Roman emperor Trajan.20 Noteworthy
sanctuaries were also erected in the lower city. One, the Roman-period
Asklepieion, was a revival of an older cult; its magnificent complex, which
included facilities for the god’s healing cult and a theater, gained wide
renown for Pergamon.21 he impressive sanctuary of the Egyptian deities
Isis and Sarapis, the so-called Red Hall, was a new foundation, represen-
tative of the popular appeal of Egyptian deities in Asia Minor and indeed
throughout the eastern Mediterranean.22 All of these structures, built dur-
ing the second century ce, attest to the prosperity of the city and the desire
of the citizens to use their wealth to advertise cult affiliations.
In addition to cults and sanctuaries supported by individual cities, the
major panhellenic sanctuaries in Greece lost little of their luster during the
Hellenistic and Roman periods. he celebration of the Olympic Games
remained unbroken until the closure of the games in 396 ce. he fabled
chryselephantine cult statue of Zeus continued to excite admiration: the
orator Quintilian (Inst. 12.10.9) stated that the statue added something to
the conventional religion, while the orator Dio Chrysostom (Or. 12.25)
praised it as the work most dear to the gods. Changed political realities were
evident; the Philippeion at Olympia, gift of Philip II, father of Alexander,
attests to the impact of the Macedonian rule, while the Metroon, the tem-
ple of Rhea, mother of Zeus, was furnished with statues of Roman emper-
ors. he sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi also continued as one of the most
prominent oracular shrines in the Greek world, although its influence on
political affairs was noticeably less prominent (see more on this later in
this chapter).
voluntary cult associations

In addition to cults administered by civic and panhellenic authorities, many
individual groups were formed to celebrate cult rituals. Known primarily
19
Roller, God the Mother, 206–12.
20
Radt, “Urban Development of Pergamon,” 49; Schowalter, “Zeus Philios and Trajan Temple,” 233–
49. See also n. 75 on the imperial cult.
21
Hoffman, “Asklepieion,” 41–59.
22
Nohlen, “Red Hall,” 81–3. On Egyptian deities in Asia Minor, see Koester, “Egyptian Deities,”
111–33.
302 Lynn E. Roller
through inscriptions that describe the obligations of their members, these

groups constituted an increasingly vital part of Greek religious life.
Documentation from the Piraeus, the port city of Athens, describes several
such cult groups, called orgeōnes and thiasoi.23 Because they fell outside the
structures for conducting Greek civic cults, cults for deities of non-Greek
origin were often administered in this way. he cult of the hracian deity
Bendis furnishes a well-documented example. he worship of Bendis had
been known in Athens since the fifth century bce and became an increas-
ingly prominent part of the city’s religious life during the Hellenistic period.
he hracians resident in Attica received the right to own land and to
establish a temple and conduct rites in honor of their goddess. hese were
special privileges not granted lightly to any group outside the Athenian
citizen body, and their implementation needed the sanction of the ora-
cle of Zeus at Dodona.24 Plato’s vivid description of the festival of Bendis
conveys some of the emotional fervor of the goddess’s rites (Plato, Republic
1), and also portrays the festive celebrations that involved both hracians
and Athenians. Another Attic cult administered by orgeōnes and thiasoi
was the cult of Meter, the mother of the gods. While this deity, originally
a Phrygian goddess, had long had a civic cult in the Athenian Agora, she
also enjoyed a substantial following in the Piraeus during the Hellenistic
period. he Piraeus group administered a separate cult whose members
included Athenian citizens, noncitizens, and freedmen, all of whom seem
to have been treated on equal footing in the context of the cult. Rites could
include both the standard Greek practices of sacrifices and communal ban-
quets, and rites that were specific to Meter and involved her consort Attis.
Members also contributed to a common burial fund.25 Membership in the
cult offered a mix of religious observances and social activity.
here were also individual cult groups in Athens that honored Egyptian
deities, primarily Isis, but also Serapis, Anubis, and Osiris.26 he cult of Isis
is first attested in the late fourth century bce and continued through the
early Roman period. his could have been initiated by an Egyptian emi-
grant community in Attica, but it may have resulted as well from Athenian
commercial interests and from contact with emporia such as that on Delos,
where Isis had a reputation as patroness of sailors.27 Political motives also
played a role: an inscription from the later first century bce recording
23
For a general discussion of individual cult groups in Athens, see Mikalson, Religion in Hellenistic
Athens, 140–55.
24
IG ii2 1283; Mikalson, Religion in Hellenistic Athens, 140–2.
25
Roller, God the Mother, 218–24.
26
Pollitt, “Egyptian Gods”; Mikalson, Religion in Hellenistic Athens, 275–7.
27
On Isis in Athens and Delos, Mikalson, Religion in Hellenistic Athens, 276–7.
the cult of Isis in Athens may signify Athenian support for Antony and
Cleopatra. Egyptian deities were worshipped during the Roman period
also, as attested by a calendar of a local group recording sacrifices to
Nephys and Osiris along with the Greek deities Demeter and Kore, Apollo
and Artemis, Zeus, Poseidon, Dionysus, Cronus, and Heracles.28 Clearly
the traditional Olympic pantheon had broadened to include several deities
not of Greek origin, whose presence reflected both political realities and
personal needs.
Voluntary associations were also involved in the cults of established
Hellenic divinities. A second-century-bce text from the Piraeus describes
a cult of Dionysus in which a father and son, both Attic citizens, were
honored, the father as former priest and the son as the next holder of
the priesthood; both gained these honors by contributing a substantial
sum of money to the group.29 his association did not supplant the civic
cult of Dionysus in Athens, but rather served the group, whose members
had monthly meetings to honor the god and undoubtedly to enjoy social
conviviality. In some cult associations, the social life may have superseded
the sacred activity. he cults administered by the Iobacchi in Athens are a
well-documented example. Attested in an inscription of the second cen-
tury ce, this seems to have been a men’s club for an exclusive group of
wealthy donors.30 Deities honored by the Iobacchi included Dionysus,
Kore, Palaemon, Aphrodite, and Proteurythmus (an otherwise unknown
figure). he occasion of the inscription is the induction of Herodes Atticus,
one of the wealthiest men in Greece, who was to take over the leadership
of the group. he group was to meet monthly and hold regular festivi-
ties, including drinking wine; club members appointed as “horses” were to
maintain order. Membership brought together social festivities, religious
piety, and, for the priests, the potential for public prestige.
Individual cult could also be set up by the bequest of an individual
donor to perpetuate the memory of the individual’s family. A third-
century-bce inscription from the island of hera is typical: it records that
a generous sum of money was given by a woman named Epikteta to fund
a cult honoring the Muses and the “heroes,” a term used here to designate
Epikteta’s deceased husband and sons and presumably also Epikteta herself
after her death.31 he text describing the bequest makes it clear that the cult
28
IG ii2 1367, Sokolowski, Lois sacrées, no. 52.
29
IG ii2 1326; cf. IG ii2 1325.
30
IG ii2 1368; Sokolowski, Lois sacrées, no. 51; translation and commentary by Tod, Sidelights, 85–93;
discussion by Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians, 85–9.
31
Laum, Stiftungen, II, 43; Sokolowski, Lois sacrées, 230–3, no. 135.
304 Lynn E. Roller
honoring this family was to be a lavish affair, one that lasted three days and
included an elaborate feast.
mystery cults
Another important form of religious experience was the mystery cult, so
called because practitioners had undergone rites of initiation that required
secrecy from them about the nature of those rites. Some mystery cults
attracted a wide international following, while others were of local signifi-
cance. Mystery cults were very widespread throughout the Greek-speaking
Mediterranean world; even a rural district like Arcadia celebrated no fewer
than thirteen mystery cults,32 and comparable numbers probably existed in
other regions of Greece. Older cults such as the Eleusinian mysteries con-
tinued to flourish during the Hellenistic and Roman eras, and there were
also new foundations and revivals of older rituals. he deities most often
associated with mystery cult were Demeter, goddess of agriculture, and her
daughter Kore, but there were many others, including the unnamed Great
Gods of Samothrace, and the Kabeiroi, worshipped on Lemnos and near
hebes.33
he mysteries of Demeter and Kore celebrated at Eleusis continued
to be the most prominent and venerable of Greek mystery cults. heir
presence brought prestige to Athens, which administered the rites.34
Inevitably, the mysteries were affected by the politics of the age: powerful
men such as Demetrius Poliorcetes were allowed to bypass the normal
progression of rites of initiation and complete initiation into all grades of
the mysteries within one day.35 Many Romans of high rank were initiated
into the mysteries also; among the noteworthy are Cicero and his friends
Atticus and Appius Claudius Pulcher in the late Republic, and the emper-
ors Augustus, Hadrian and his favorite Antinous, and Marcus Aurelius,
along with the empresses Sabina and Faustina.36 he Roman era witnessed
extensive building activity in the sanctuary: an impressive Propylon was
erected, along with extensive facilities such as hotels and baths for the
large crowds of pilgrims. he Telesterion, the main hall of rituals, was
rebuilt during the reign of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius after its
32
Jost, “Mystery Cults in Arcadia,” 143.
33
Schachter, “heban Kabiroi.”
34
Clinton, “Eleusinian Mysteries,” 1500. Athens’ benefits from the prestige of Eleusis, Isocrates, Paneg.
28–31; Xenophon, Hell. 6.3.4–6; IG ii2 1134.
35
Plutarch, Demetr. 26.
36
Clinton, “Eleusinian Mysteries,” 1499–1539.
destruction in 170 ce, and the sanctuary remained in use until the sack of
Alaric in 395 ce.37
he mysteries celebrated on the island of Samothrace offer a further
example of a mystery cult with wide appeal. he Samothracian pantheon
chiefly honored the Megaloi heoi, the Great Gods, but also included
a number of other deities, Greek and non-Greek.38 he rites were held
from at least the seventh century bce, but an impressive set of cult struc-
tures from the Hellenistic period attests to the growing importance of the
mysteries during this time and to their ability to attract adherents from
many parts of the Greek world. Like the mysteries at Eleusis, the rites cel-
ebrated at Samothrace were held in strict secrecy; even the identity of the
Great Gods is not entirely certain. Dancing seems to have been a key part
of the rituals, and we hear of those who had reached a higher grade of ini-
tiation dancing ecstatically around the new initiates.39 he mysteries seem
to have had a special appeal to sailors and seafarers and attracted dedica-
tions for naval victories, such as the famed Nike of Samothrace, a Rhodian
dedication. Samothrace too attracted powerful patrons: the Macedonian
Philip II was initiated into the mysteries and important structures were
donated by Ptolemy II and Arsinoë, wife of Lysimachus. here were also
many prominent Roman initiates at Samothrace, although no emperors;
Hadrian took a personal interest in the cult but was probably never ini-
tiated into it.40 he mysteries of the Great Gods enjoyed a wide follow-
ing beyond the island of Samothrace; followers of the Samothracian gods
spread the rites throughout Greek cities in the eastern Mediterranean, and
also to hrace, the Black Sea region, and North Africa.41
In addition to mystery cults of long standing, new mystery cults became
prominent. he mysteries celebrated at Andania in Messenia provide one
example.42 According to Pausanias, the Andanian mysteries traced their
origin to the heroic age and the Messenian hero Kaukon, their founder.
he tradition of the legendary past, however, may have been invoked to
confer prestige and authority on a set of rites that were linked to the more
recent history of Messenia and its liberation from Spartan rule in 371 bce.
Pausanias reports that the Messenian rites were derived from the Eleusinian
37
Mylonas, Eleusis, 186.
38
Burkert, Greek Religion, 283–5; Cole, heoi Megaloi; Matsas, “Problems in Island Archaeology.”
39
Clinton, “Stages of Initiation,” 61–70. Marconi, “Choroi, heōriai and International Ambitions,”
123–133.
40
Plutarch, Alex. 2.2, initiation of Philip II; Cole, heoi Megaloi, 22 (on Philip and Arsinoë), 87–103
(Romans at Samothrace). For a plan, see Clinton, “Stages of Initiation,” 62, fig. 3.2.
41
Cole, heoi Megaloi, 57–86; also at Ilion, Lawall, “Sanctuary,” 79.
42
Pausanias 4.1.5–8; Guarducci, “I culti di Andania,” 174–204; Graf, “Lesser Mysteries,” 242–6.
306 Lynn E. Roller
mysteries and were dedicated to several deities, including Demeter and

Kore, here called Hagne (the Pure One), Apollo Karneios, and Hermes; he
also states that the mysteries, whose contents he would not divulge, were
second in holiness only to the Eleusinian rites.43 Pausanias’s information
is augmented by a lengthy inscription of 92/1 bce, after Messenia came
under Roman control.44 According to this text, the mysteries were cele-
brated for the Megaloi heoi (the Great Gods), Demeter, Hermes, Apollo
Karneios, and Hagne. he text offers rich detail on issues such as cult
administration, acquisition of animals for sacrifice, and musicians. A strict
code of behavior and dress was prescribed for the participants, along with
regulations limiting the types of lodging available during the ritual period;
methods of accounting for the money were also spelled out. here is, how-
ever, no information about the actual rituals; these were clearly much too
sacred to reveal in a public document.
hese descriptions of processions and sacrifices and dispersal of funds
convey the importance that the Greeks attached to mystery cults but do
little to explain why people found them so moving. Yet the frequency,
ubiquity, and richness of the documentation on mystery cults indicate
that their rites became, if anything, even more important to people dur-
ing the Hellenistic and Roman periods. In part, this may reflect the fact
that mystery cults were open to all who were willing to undergo the rites
of initiation. Several of them drew adherents from places far from their
location, and many were open to non-Greeks; the Andanian mystery
regulations contain comments about the role of slave initiates, although
the greater severity of punishment for slaves who broke the rules clearly
implies that even here a slave initiate retained his inferior status. But apart
from the more fluid social groups that mystery cults encouraged, we sense
that the mysteries offered some form of deep emotional experience that
people found satisfying. he comments of Dio Chrysostom (Or. 12.33) on
the spiritual insight gained from the mystery rites are revealing:
If one would bring a man, Greek or barbarian, for initiation into a mystic recess
of overwhelming beauty and size, so that he would behold many mystic views
and hear many sounds of the kind, with darkness and light appearing in sudden
changes and other innumerable things happening, . . . would it be possible that
such a man should experience just nothing in his soul, that he should not come to
surmise that there is some wiser insight and plan in all that is going on, even if he
were one of the most remote and nameless barbarians?
43
Pausanias 4.33.4–6.
44
SIG 3 736; Sokolowski, Lois sacrées, no. 65.
Indeed, the term epopteia, or seeing, was used to describe the more
advanced stage of initiation rites. he statement in the early Homeric
Hymn to Demeter, that the man who had seen the Eleusinian mysteries
was blessed and would not fear death, implies a personal experience of a
profound nature. his sentiment was reiterated in the first century bce by
Cicero (De legibus 2.14.26):
For by means of these mysteries . . . we have learned the fundamentals of life, and
have grasped the principle not only of living with joy but also of dying with better
hope.
his promise of hope and inviolability remained a forceful and meaningful
part of the Greek religious experience until the end of Antiquity.
oracles
he practice of divination, or consulting a deity for guidance about the
unknown, had a long and respected tradition in the Greek world, and
that tradition continued during the Hellenistic and Roman eras. Subtle
changes can be noted, however; some oracular shrines that had earlier had
a history of involvement in affairs of state became less influential, while
others gained prominence. Reasons for these developments lie in political
grounds: because the independent city-state was no longer the principal
unit of political organization, there was little need for a divinely man-
dated institution that mediated between states. he geographical focus
shifted also, as oracular sanctuaries in Asia Minor became more promi-
nent, reflecting the greater political patronage and economic resources that
they enjoyed during the Hellenistic and Roman eras.
Several oracular sanctuaries on mainland Greece, like the oracle of Zeus
at Dodona and the Boiotian sanctuary of Apollo Ptoios, continued to exert
influence, but the most prestigious oracle in the Greek world remained
the oracle of Apollo at Delphi. Regular inquiries to the god continued
unabated in the Hellenistic and Roman eras, as the inscriptional record,
both in Delphi and in the inquirer’s home community, indicates; how-
ever, the nature of these inquiries suggests that the oracle was consulted
primarily about religious, not political, questions.45 here are a few note-
worthy exceptions: the Romans consulted Delphi in 216 bce, on the occa-
sion of their early defeats in the Second Punic War, and again in 204 bce,
45
Fontenrose, “Delphic Oracle,” 244–354, lists historical and quasi-historical responses continuing
until the fourth century ce. Parker, “Greek States and Greek Oracles,” 101–5.
308 Lynn E. Roller
to clarify the command from the Sibylline Books to bring the Anatolian
Mother-goddess, the Magna Mater, to Rome.46 Numerous inscriptions
also demonstrate the prestige of Apollo as a witness in the establishment
of asylum and the manumission of slaves. he reality of Hellenistic power
politics can be seen in dedications by the Pergamene kings Attalus I and
Eumenes II, and by the Roman general Aemilius Paullus, to celebrate his
victory over the Macedonians in 168 bce. he majority of the questions
to the oracle, however, are less concerned with political matters than with
the establishment of cult rituals and shrines for deities and heroes in the
inquirer’s home community. Decisions about inter-state relations lay in
the hands of Hellenistic monarchs, as a telling passage about Demetrius
Poliorcetes makes clear: instead of Delphi, a petition was sent to Demetrius
and the king’s pronouncements were considered “oracles.”47 Even Plutarch,
a priest of the oracle at Delphi, was conscious of the oracle’s loss of political
influence.48
In addition to Delphi, there were several oracular sanctuaries of Apollo
in western Asia Minor, and these enjoyed a marked revival. he sanctuary
at Didyma provides an excellent illustration. he sanctuary, about 20km
south of Miletus and controlled by that city, had been an important cult
center during the Archaic period. Its fortunes waned when western Asia
Minor came under Persian control, then rose again with the liberation of
the Greek cities by Alexander of Macedon. In the early third century, a
magnificent new temple to Apollo, largest in the Greek world, was begun
under the patronage of the Seleucid kings; after a lapse of several centu-
ries, its construction was further advanced by Hadrian, but it was never
fully completed. he building is an imposing testimony to the strength of
the oracle. he main structure is an unroofed shell that surrounds a small
shrine and sacred spring; its exterior is marked by a theatrical arrange-
ment of steps, platforms, and towers that allowed the priests to address
a crowd gathered on the steps of the building. he sanctuary of Apollo
at Claros is a product of similar circumstances. his sanctuary, under the
control of the Ionian Greek city of Kolophon, also had a local following
in the early Archaic period, but its main period of prominence began in
the third century bce with the construction of a new temple dedicated
to Apollo, Artemis, and Leto, and other facilities to support the sacred
oracular spring and shrine. A propylon added visual magnificence. As at
46
On the Punic Wars: Plutarch, Fab. 18.3; Appian, Hann. 5.27. On the Magna Mater: Livy 29.11.5–6.
47
Plutarch, Demetr. 13. Parker, Athenian Religion, 103.
48
Plutarch, Obsolescence of Oracles. Moralia 5.408–38.
Didyma, the sanctuary was provided with structures that contributed a

theatrical element to the delivery of the god’s oracles – in this case, vaulted
underground structures.49 As the vivid description of Iamblichus makes
clear, the consultations took place at night, and the journey in the dark
to the god’s underground oracle added a heightened sense of drama to the
proceedings.50
Petitioners came to both Didyma and Claros from great distances, attest-
ing to the prestige of both oracles. he delegations to Claros were often
accompanied by a choir of children, and the varied ages and character of
the group must have taken on the air of a religious pilgrimage.51 At Claros,
petitioners were delegates of cities, while at Didyma most of the inscribed
oracles are responses to individuals. No oracular texts from Claros sur-
vive,52 but we have oracles from Apollo at Claros that were inscribed in the
delegation’s home city; the oracle at Oenoanda, discussed below, furnishes
a vivid example. Responses from the oracle at Didyma were inscribed
on stone, although the surviving total is roughly a tenth of those known
from Delphi, suggesting that even with imperial patronage, Didyma did
not surpass the prestige of Apollo’s oldest and best-known oracle.53 he
responses from Didyma cover a wide spectrum of topics, including polit-
ical issues and cult administration. One telling example that illustrates
the influence of Didyma comes from the reign of the Roman emperor
Diocletian, who consulted the god to learn if he should pursue Christians;
the god answered affirmatively.54
ruler cult
Cult honoring a monarch or emperor was a phenomenon that appeared in
the Greek world with the power of Alexander of Macedon and lasted until
the Christianization of the Roman empire. he concept of cult for a liv-
ing or recently deceased person was not entirely new, for such honors had
been given to several successful military commanders in the fifth century
bce.55 Cult honors paid to a living ruler, though, were something different
49
Parke, Oracles of Apollo, 137–9.
50
Iamblichus, On the Mysteries, 3.11.
51
Robert, La Carie, 214–16; Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians, 177–80.
52
Parke, Oracles of Asia Minor, 205; Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians, 180.
53
Fontenrose, Didyma, 86, 179–244, lists 61 recorded responses from Didyma, in contrast to 535 from
Delphi.
54
Lactantius, Mort. 11. 7; Fontenrose, Didyma, 206.
55
Heroic honors for Miltiades in the Chersonesos (Hdt. 6.38), Brasidas in Amphipolis (huc.
5.11); divine honors for Lysander on Samos, Duris, FGrHist 76 F 71 and F 26; Habicht, Gottmen-
schentum, 3–6.
310 Lynn E. Roller
in both concept and scale. Such cults became a way for Greek cities to
acknowledge the power of an outside ruler, frequently one who had been a
special benefactor to the community.56
he cult of a ruler became a forceful presence in the Greek world with
the prominence of Alexander and the exceptional nature of his accom-
plishments. Alexander’s visit to the oracle of Zeus Ammon in Siwah had
prepared the way for his acceptance as a son of Zeus,57 and divine honors
soon followed. Divine cult to Alexander was established in a number of
Greek cities in Asia Minor in gratitude for their liberation from Persian
rule.58 On the Greek mainland, divine cult appears after Alexander’s death,
and did not always meet with approval, as the disparaging comment by
the orator Hyperides illustrates: “We [Athenian citizens] are forced now
to accept sacrifices for men, and statues and temples and altars are estab-
lished for both gods and men.”59 Yet the reality of Macedonian politics not
only encouraged such cult but made it desirable. Only twenty years after
Alexander’s death, the Macedonian commander Demetrius Poliorcetes was
honored with divine cult by the Athenians. A hymn to Demetrius from
the early third century bce helps convey the sentiment behind this: “he
other gods are far away or do not have ears or do not exist or do not pay
attention to us, but you are present among us, not of wood or stone, but
real.”60 he cult of the ruler was not created solely for political expediency,
but was a genuine expression of support and gratitude.
his concept reappears regularly in the cults of Hellenistic rulers. Ruler
cult was not a routine, birth-to-death ritual automatically given to every
sovereign on the pharaonic Egyptian model, but was an honor given to
individual monarchs from individual Greek cities in appreciation of special
benefits. hus, Antiochus III of Syria was awarded an altar in 197 bce by
the city of Iasos in Asia Minor, in thanks for liberating the city from Philip
V of Macedon. Similar cult and sacrifices were paid to his wife Laodike
III, who among other things endowed a fund to provide dowries for poor
girls in the city.61 In Teos, in Asia Minor, a cult for Antiochus III and his
wife Laodike was established in the temple of Dionysus. Cult statues of the
king and queen stood next to those of the god; an inscription explains this:
“by sharing in the temple and other matters with Dionysus, they (the king
56
See the discussion in Price, Rituals and Power, 25–40.
57
Bosworth, “Alexander and Ammon.”
58
Habicht, Gottmenschtum, 17–25.
59
Hyperides, Epitaphios, 8.21–2. Badian, “Deification,” favors Athenian worship of the living
Alexander; Cawkwell, “Deification,” argues against it.
60
Athenaeus, Deipn. 6.253.
61
Price, Rituals and Power, 30.
and queen) should become the common saviors of our city and should
give us benefits in common.”62 Such sentiments help us understand how a
living flesh-and-blood human being could be viewed on par with the tra-
ditional gods of the Hellenic pantheon; just as the divinity of the gods was
manifest through their power to help or hurt mankind, so the same status
was accorded a powerful human figure. Ruler cult could also vanish with
the disappearance of power. Cult to Philip V of Macedon was formally
ended in Athens after the Athenians broke their alliance with him, and
cult to Antiochus III ended with his defeat by the Romans and the Peace
of Apamea in 188 bce.63
he ruler cult for Hellenistic kings took on a more potent dimension
when Greece and Asia Minor came under Roman control in the second
century bce. Cult for the goddess Roma was established, and several out-
standing Romans were worshipped as deities; Mark Antony and his wife
Octavia, for example, received divine cult at Eleusis.64 he whole con-
cept of ruler cult, however, changed markedly with the accession of the
emperor Augustus. Greece and Asia Minor had supported Mark Antony in
his struggle against Octavian, and so the supremacy of the successful ruler
of the Mediterranean world had to be acknowledged.65 While Augustus
was given the title of divus in Rome only after his death in 14 ce, cult
honors for Octavian/Augustus were initiated by the Greek cities in Asia in
29 bce, shortly after the battle of Actium. he new emperor insisted that
the cult be dedicated both to Roma and Sebastos (Augustus), probably
to avoid the image of self-aggrandizement that had been associated with
Mark Antony. Yet it is clear that Augustus himself was the cult’s princi-
pal subject. In documents dated to 9 bce, the Roman proconsul of Asia
described Augustus as “most divine,” and the cities of Asia followed suit,
praising Augustus as a god and savior who ended war and established all
good things for the people.66
It would be easy to dismiss the imperial cult as an empty gesture of
flattery or a calculated statement of political expediency.67 Recognizing
the new master of the Roman world, however, was more than a matter
of expediency. Both Greece and Asia Minor had undergone a tumultu-
ous period of warfare and impoverishment in the first century ce. he
62
Ibid., 30–1.
63
Ibid., 30–40.
64
Mellor, Worship of Goddess Roma; Clinton, “Eleusis and the Romans,” 165.
65
Friesen, Twice Neokoros, 7–15.
66
Sherk, Roman Documents, 328–37, no. 65; Price, Rituals and Power, 54–5.
67
As Mellor, Worship of Goddess Roma, 21–2, does.
312 Lynn E. Roller
advent of Augustus brought stability and prosperity that deserved the

thanks owed to a divinity. Moreover, the enthusiastic response to the
cult of the emperor continued beyond Augustus to many of his suc-
cessors. In some cases, the emperor personally requested worship; the
emperor Gaius (Caligula) demanded divine cult, an action not incon-
sistent with his unstable character, but Hadrian also established new
shrines or rededicated older ones to himself during his travels in Greece
and Asia Minor.68 Usually, though, the initiative came from the Greek
East, and the physical presence of the emperor was not necessary. Cities
in Greece, and more especially in Asia Minor, openly competed for the
honor of establishing a cult of the emperor, applying to the imperial
house in Rome for permission to establish a cult shrine and/or an hon-
orific statue.69 It was considered a privilege when such requests were
granted.
In addition to the encomium of the texts, the monuments cre-
ated for the imperial cult convey its importance and intensity. In some
cases, monuments celebrating the Roman emperors appropriated space
within pre-existing cult structures. he fourth-century-bce Metroon in
Olympia housed statues of emperors and imperial family members from
the Julio-Claudian and Flavian dynasties; Augustus as Zeus was given the
position of honor.70 In Athens too, the imperial cult appears among vener-
able monuments of the Classical era: a temple to Augustus and Roma was
erected on the Acropolis, and the priest of the cult of Augustus was given
a special seat of honor in the heater of Dionysus. In the Agora, a statue
of Tiberius was placed in front of the Stoa of Attalus, and the imperial cult
was incorporated into the temple of Apollo Patroos and the stoa of Zeus.71
A cult to Hadrian was added to the temple of Zeus Olympios in Athens,
which the emperor was responsible for finishing.72 In Corinth, the imperial
cult was integrated into the buildings of the new Roman Forum, including
a basilica and market as well as temples designated for this purpose.73 In
Asia Minor, the cult of Antoninus and Faustina was placed in the vener-
able temple of Artemis at Sardis, while a shrine to the imperial cult was
added to the Asklepieion at Pergamum.
68
Price, Rituals and Power, 68–9, 244–5.
69
Tacitus, Ann. 4.55–6; Mellor, Worship of Goddess Roma, 14–15; Friesen, Twice Neokoros, 18–21, 49.
70
Pausanias 5.20.9; Price, Rituals and Power, 160, fig. 9. Alcock, Graecia Capta, 189–91. hese were
honorific statues, not cult images, Price, Rituals and Power, 179.
71
Hoff, “Athenian Imperial Cult”; Spawforth, “Early Reception,” 183–6; Clinton, “Eleusis and the
Romans,” 168–9. On the imperial cult in Greece, see Alcock, Graecia Capta, 181–91.
72
Wycherley, Stones, 162–5.
73
Walbank, “Imperial cult in Corinth”; Bookidis, “Religion in Corinth,” 156–7.
Even more striking were altars, shrines, and temples that were
constructed specifically for the imperial cult. Asia Minor is particularly rich
in this regard. he temple of Augustus and Rome was and still is a con-
spicuous feature of Roman Ancyra (Ankara). Ephesus had several such cult
installations, including a temple to Domitian and the great Antonine altar
with its elaborate sculpted frieze; the city proudly boasted that the cult of
the Sebastoi (the imperial cult) was equal to that of Ephesian Artemis.74 In
Pergamum, the temple dedicated by Hadrian to Trajan occupied the most
conspicuous point of the acropolis, and formed the focal point for the
orientation of the rebuilt Roman city.75 he extensive array of monuments
devoted to the imperial cult in Asia Minor vividly illustrates its importance
to the social and religious life of this region.
survivals of pre-greek anatolian cults and shrines

Along with a wide range of Greek cults, Asia Minor was also home to a
number of religious cults of the pre-Greek peoples who had dominated the
region for many centuries before the advent of Greek influence. While these
peoples, including the Carians, Mysians, Lydians, Lycians, and Phrygians,
had long since lost their political independence and, in most cases, their
native languages,76 many sanctuaries and cults of traditional Anatolian dei-
ties were still in evidence as late as the fourth century ce.
In some cases, the Anatolian deity was identified with a Greek deity,
with only an epithet or distinctive attribute to give evidence of a pre-Greek
identity. he best example is the dominant male deity, who was identified
with the Greek Zeus and addressed with a wide variety of regional epi-
thets in Phrygia, Lycia, Lydia, Caria, and Galatia.77 Others retained their
Anatolian name. he Anatolian Mother-goddess Matar, or Meter in Greek,
was widely worshipped throughout Asia Minor. Sanctuaries to her existed
both at long-established cult centers such as Midas City in Phrygia and
Pessinous in Galatia and at many smaller local shrines, where regional epi-
thets stress her association with a specific place.78 An interesting melding of
74
Friesen, Twice Neokoros, 56–7.
75
hese are but a few of the best known examples. Price, Rituals and Power, 249–74, gives a complete
list. On the temple of Trajan at Pergamum, see Radt, “Urban Development,” 49–50.
76
Epigraphical texts in the Phrygian language continued to be written until the second or early
third centuries ce; see Haas, Sprachdenkmäler; Lubotsky, “Phrygian Inscription,” 115–30; Brixhe,
“Interactions,” 246–66.
77
Mitchell, Anatolia, II, 22–4. Note also the cult of Zeus Sabazios (see Roller, “Sabazios”) and the cults
of Zeus Alsenos, Zeus Petarenos, Zeus Ampeleites, and Zeus hallos (see Drew-Bear, homas, and
Yildizturan, Phrygian Votive Steles).
78
Mitchell, Anatolia, II, 19–22; Roller, God the Mother, 334–43.
314 Lynn E. Roller
the cults of Zeus and Meter is found at Aizanoi in Phrygia; here a striking
pseudodipteral Greek temple, constructed during the Flavian period, was
dedicated to Zeus, while a shrine in a nearby cave was dedicated to Meter,
recalling the goddess’s traditional association with caves and hollows.79
Another traditional Anatolian deity widely worshipped in Roman Asia
Minor was Men. A prominent sanctuary dedicated to him near Pisidian
Antioch includes two impressive temples and more than twenty small
houses for worshippers’ banquets. His cult had long been important in
Lydia, and is also attested in the regions of Phrygia and Lycaonia.80
Anatolian cult practice also gave a prominent position to deities that
represented ethical values. One example is the divine pair Hosios and
Dikaios, the gods Holy and Just. Often shown holding a balance sym-
bolizing the scales of justice, the pair is frequently depicted as two male
figures, although a female counterpart, Hosia, is also known.81 hey could
be worshipped jointly with deities such as Meter and Apollo, stressing the
local connection of these Hellenized deities to traditional Anatolian cults
and values. Other deities whose cult reflects a concept of divinity based
on ethics and moral values include heos Hypsistos, the Highest God,
object of many dedications in the second and third centuries ce in cen-
tral Anatolia; Helios, the Sun, the deity whose rays see all; and Aither, the
air.82 he gods were considered a powerful force for inflicting divine jus-
tice and retribution on those who did not live up to expected standards of
integrity. his is vividly illustrated by a series of texts known as confession
inscriptions, from the region near the Lydian-Phrygian border zone, where
both anthropomorphic deities and personifications combined to uphold
justice.83
As a final example, we may note an inscription from Oenoanda in
northern Lycia. he text, a response to a question posed to the oracle of
Apollo at Claros, defined the nature of god:
Self-born, untaught, motherless, unshakeable,
Giving place to no name, many-named, dwelling in fire,
Such is god: we are a portion of god, his angels.
his, then, to the questioners about god’s nature
79
Roller, God the Mother, 336–41; Rheidt, Aizanoi und Anatolien, 18–19; Jes, Posamentir, and Wörrle,
“Das Tempel des Zeus in Aizanoi.”
80
Mitchell, Anatolia, I, 191; II, 24–5.
81
Ricl, “Hosios kai Dikaios, Premiere partie.” 1–69; idem, “Hosios kai Dikaios, Seconde partie,”
71–103; Mitchell, Anatolia, II, 25–6.
82
Mitchell, Anatolia, II, 43–6; Mitchell, “heos Hypsistos.”
83
Petzl, Die Beichtinschriften Westkleinasiens; Chaniotis, “Watchful Eyes.”
he god replied, calling him all-seeing Aither: to him, then, look

And pray at dawn, looking out to the east.84
he text illustrates the strength of traditional Greek practices such as
prayer and sacrifice as applied to all deities, seen and unseen, named and
unnamed.
conclusion
he evidence for the religious life of Greece and Asia Minor during the
Hellenistic and Roman periods is diverse and diffuse, but several patterns
emerge. Taken together, they produce a picture of a dynamic and active
tradition of cult practice that was fundamental to the ways in which peo-
ple lived their lives and viewed themselves in the social, political, and cos-
mic hierarchy. One key part of the picture is continuity. Places that had
been considered sacred well before the Hellenistic era remained sacred
until Late Antiquity; this could include sites such as the oracle of Apollo
at Delphi and the Eleusinian Mysteries, where the tradition of cult prac-
tice remained unbroken, and also sites such as the oracle of Apollo at
Didyma, which underwent a significant revival during the Hellenistic and
Roman eras. he sense of continuity was not static, for cults could and did
respond to shifting political and social circumstances as needed. Athens
provides an excellent example of this: the cults of the Athenian Agora,
including the Panathenaic Procession that had been practiced since the
first half of the first millennium bce, continued even as a new temple
to Ares and a center for the imperial cult, both reflecting an increased
Roman presence, were established in the center of the Agora. he city of
Pergamum continued to honor the cults of Athena and Demeter, estab-
lished by the Attalid monarchs, but also incorporated a major new cult
structure dedicated to Isis and Serapis into the city. Overall, a sense of
sanctity associated with a deity’s territory was an enduring feature of the
religious experience.
Another key part of the polytheistic cult system was its openness and
adaptability to change. As the Greek cities in Greece and Asia Minor came
under the dominance of Hellenistic monarchies and later of the Roman
empire, the cult of rulers became an increasingly important element of the
religious experience, offering cities a means to honor a living or deceased
84
On the Oenoanda text, see Robert, “Oracle.” I follow the translation of Lane Fox, Pagans and
Christians, 169. On its relationship to Claros and Didyma, see Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians,
168–77; Mitchell, Anatolia, II, 44.
316 Lynn E. Roller
ruler and to increase their status and visibility. hese honors did not replace
honors due to the gods, and were often combined with them, such as the
cult of Zeus Philios and the emperor Trajan at Pergamum. Honors due to
a ruler were not a one-way street, for several emperors were active patrons
of traditional Greek cults and festivals. Hadrian was particularly conspic-
uous in this regard, donating funds to the sanctuary of Zeus Olympios in
Athens and the sanctuary of Apollo in Didyma and completing the rites of
initiation at Eleusis. On a more personal level, voluntary cult associations
became an increasingly prominent part of the spectrum of religious activ-
ities. hese could be formed to administer rituals for deities from outside
the Greek world, such as Bendis, the Phrygian Mother, and Isis and Osiris,
and also became a way for individuals to honor traditional Greek deities
within a setting that encouraged social interactions between fellow mem-
bers of the association.
he evidence also provides a vivid picture of different levels of engage-
ment with cult activities. As members of a political community, citizens
participated in rituals of their city’s deities even as they joined individual
cult groups. People took part in public festivals and public sacrifices that
were open to all, while some chose to undergo rites of initiation in mystery
cults that offered meaningful spiritual experiences on an individual level.
he open system of polytheism permitted – even encouraged – such flex-
ibility. hroughout this variegated picture, the one constant is the impor-
tance of cult practice for the individual and the community. he text from
Oenoanda summarizes this sense of regular interaction with the gods:
“Unnamed and many named, such is god, and we are a portion of god.” It
encapsulates a key feature of Greek religious practice – namely, the deeply
rooted sense that deity, whether one specific deity or an abstract concept
of divinity, was the center of human existence.
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12
JUDAISM IN ASIA MINOR
pieter w. van der horst
introduction
Map B VI 18 of the Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients (the map with the
title Die jüdische Diaspora bis zum 7. Jahrhundert n. Chr.)1 reveals a striking
concentration of Jewish settlements in Asia Minor (modern Turkey). As
is to be expected, there is a higher density of Jewish communities in the
west of Asia Minor than in the east, especially in great coastal cities such as
Ephesus, Miletus, and Smyrna. he interior of Anatolia, however, also has
a very high number, especially in Lydia, Caria, and Phrygia (see Map 7).
he history of the Jewish diaspora in Asia Minor is a long one, probably
starting as early as the fifth century bce and continuing until the present
day.2 his chapter will focus on the roughly one thousand years between
the beginnings of Jewish settlement there and the end of the Talmudic
period (or the rise of Islam). Unfortunately, the literary sources at our
disposal are relatively scarce: only a handful of references in pagan literary
sources, several more in Josephus and the New Testament, and some also in
the Church Fathers and in canons of church councils. On the other hand,
we have no fewer than some 260 Jewish inscriptions, the overwhelming
majority in Greek and only a handful in Hebrew.3 Because there is no
scholarly consensus as to whether or not we possess Jewish writings from
Asia Minor (perhaps some of the Oracula Sibyllina and 4 Maccabees), we
will have to leave this question out of account.4 Archaeological remains are
1
Wiesbaden, 1992. For a helpful but less complete map, see Trebilco, Jewish Communities, xvi. For a
good and concise survey of the evidence, see F. Millar in Schürer, History, III 17–36, with the addi-
tions by H. Bloedhorn in Hengel, “Der alte und neue ‘Schürer,’” 195–6.
2
Hirschberg and Cohen, “Turkey,” 1456–62.
3
All relevant material has been conveniently collected in Ameling, Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis II
(hereafter IJO).
4
See Trebilco, Jewish Communities, 95–9 on Or. Sib. I-II; Buitenwerf, Book III of the Sibylline Oracles,
130–3; Waßmuth, Sibyllinische Orakel, 475–86; Norden, Kunstprosa, 416–20 (on 4 Maccabees).
321
Map 7. Asia Minor
322
Judaism in Asia Minor 323
not very numerous (apart from the epigraphic material), but some of them
are spectacular (see below on Sardis).
historical aspects
he beginnings of a Jewish presence in Asia Minor may go back to the
fifth century bce, although the evidence is controversial. he problem
originates from the contested meaning of a word in Obadiah 20. here
the prophet says that the exiles of Jerusalem who live in Sepharad will pos-
sess the towns of the Negev. Because Sepharad (the designation for Spain
only in later Hebrew) is a name that occurs nowhere else in the Hebrew
Bible, it is uncertain which place or region the prophet had in mind.5 hat
uncertainty is also reflected in the ancient versions: the Septuagint renders
it Ephratha (or Sephratha), the Vulgate has Bosporus, and the Peshitta
and the Targum read Spain. According to some modern scholars, however,
the city of Sardis is meant here.6 hey base this on an Aramaic inscription
from the Persian period (KAI no. 260: fifth century bce) found in 1916 in
the ancient necropolis of Sardis. In this inscription, the name Sepharad
(in the same spelling as in Obadiah 20: sprd) was used for the capital of
the Persian satrapy Sparda (= Sardis). he publication fifty years later of
another Aramaic inscription from the Persian period (ca.450 bce) revealed
that a Jewish family had settled in Daskyleion, not far from Sardis.7 It is
thus possible that the prophet did indeed have in mind Jewish exiles in the
Lydian capital of Sardis. But because that cannot be strictly proved, some
scholars remain understandably skeptical.8
According to the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, some two cen-
turies later, in the year 205 bce, the Seleucid king Antiochus III issued
a letter ordering that two thousand Jewish families be transferred from
Mesopotamia to serve as military colonists in the most important cities of
Lydia and Phrygia. he purpose of the decree, a characteristic example of
the colonization policy of the Seleucids in Asia Minor, was to maintain the
Rabbinic references to Jewish communities in Asia Minor are extremely rare and have little or no
historical value (e.g., t. Meg. 2:5; b. Mo’ed Qat. 26a).
5
See the survey in Wineland, “Sepharad,” 1089–90.
6
See, for example, Lipinski, “Obadiah 20,” 368–70; Wolff, Dodekapropheton 3: Obadja und Jona, 47–8.
Wineland, “Sepharad,” is also inclined to see a reference to Sardis here.
7
For details, see the publications mentioned in the previous note.
8
For example, Trebilco, Jewish Communities, 38; and F. Millar in Schürer, History, III 1, 20–1. he story
that in the middle of the fourth century bce, Aristotle met a learned Jew in Asia Minor (Clearchus
ap. Josephus, Ag. Ap. 1.179–82) is to be regarded as nonhistorical; see Tcherikover, Hellenistic
Civilization, 287; Stern, GLAJJ 1.47, no 7.
324 Pieter W. van der Horst
king’s control over the region (Ant. 12.148–53).9 hese Jews were allotted
arable land for cultivation and a plot for building a house. We can thus be
reasonably sure that at least by the end of the third century bce, these two
Anatolian provinces numbered Jewish families among their inhabitants.
Most probably, these families laid the foundations for what was to become
the rapidly expanding Jewish diaspora in Asia Minor. Some six decades
later (ca.140 bce), a letter from the authorities in Rome “to the kings and
to the countries” (1 Macc. 15:15) urged them to refrain from harming the
Jews or waging war upon them because they are “our friends and allies”
(15:17). he reference to Caria, Pamphylia, Lycia, Halicarnassus, Phaselis,
Side, Kos, Rhodos, etc. (15:23) among the “countries” enumerated implies
that within two or three generations Jews had spread out over most of Asia
Minor.10
Josephus also preserves a long series of decrees and resolutions, taken
by either the Roman rulers or the Greek city councils, concerning the
rights of the Jews in Asia Minor. Among the places named are Ephesus,
Miletus, Smyrna, Tralles, Pergamon, Halicarnassus, Laodicea, Sardis,
and the islands of Paros and Cos.11 hese documents, all dating from
the period between 50 bce and 50 ce, show that when friction did arise
between the Jews and the local authorities in the early Roman period, the
basic cause was usually “tension over questions concerning the civic status
of the resident diaspora communities vis-à-vis the Greek citizen bodies of
the host cities.”12 Apparently, at least some Jews were claiming admission
to Greek citizenship, while the Greeks felt that “such admission should
entail integration into pagan civic life and that the Jews could not expect
to temper the privilege of citizenship with exemption from its uncon-
genial features.”13 he secure position of the Jews in the cities did not
come to them automatically. Roman authorities had granted the Jewish
communities certain rights and privileges (for example, exemption from
military service), and the Jews had to struggle to maintain them. But
9
See Schalit, “he Letter of Antiochus III.” here are some scholars, though, who doubt the authen-
ticity of the letter of Antiochus III; see Barclay, Jews, 261 with note 8; but see also Tcherikover,
Hellenistic Civilization, 287–8; Hegermann, “he Diaspora,” 146; Mitchell, Anatolia, II, 32 n. 181.
10
Perhaps also the Jewish woman Plousia, who is mentioned in P. Polit.Iud. 8 (from 132 bce) as
Gargarissa, should be taken as a testimony of Jewish presence in Gargara (in the Troad); see Cowey
and Maresch, Urkunden des Politeuma der Juden von Herakleopolis, 97.
11
Most of them are in Ant. 14.185–267; 16.160–78; 19.278–312. On the question of the historicity of
these documents as preserved in Josephus see Pucci ben Zeev, Jewish Rights. On the reasons why
the tensions apparent in these documents disappear after the first half of the first century ce, see
Ameling, “Die jüdischen Gemeinden,” 49–50.
12
Smallwood, “he Diaspora,” 177.
13
Ibid., 179.
they apparently had sufficient influence and good will to get things done
as they wanted.
On the whole, the documents leave the impression that “in a number
of cities in Asia Minor, Jews often met with local opposition to their rights
and privileges and had to appeal to Roman authorities who always ruled
in their favour.”14 he picture we get is that although Jewish communities,
keen to retain their own identity in the midst of a pagan society, often met
with resistance, that very same society enabled them over the long run to
maintain their way of life without insurmountable problems. Occasionally,
however, we do get glimpses of more serious conflicts. Josephus says, for
example, that in the time of Augustus, the Jews of Asia Minor were mis-
treated by the Greeks and saw no limit to their inhuman behavior (Ant.
16.161; but see note 14 for Augustus’s reaction).15
Cicero further corroborates the impression of a growing diaspora in
Asia Minor. He informs us that in 62 bce the Jews accused Flaccus, the
Roman governor of Asia Minor, of having confiscated money (that is, the
annual half-shekel payment for the temple in Jerusalem) from the Jewish
inhabitants of Apamea, Laodicea, Adramyttium, and Pergamum (Flac.
28.68).16 he New Testament adds further evidence, especially in the book
of Acts, which mentions Jewish communities in Cappadocia, Phrygia,
Pamphylia, Pontus, Ephesus, Smyrna, Philadelphia, Pisidian Antioch,
Tarsus, Lystra, Derbe, and Iconium (2:9–10; 13:14; 14:1; 16:1–3; 19:17; see
also Rev. 3:9).17 Philo states that “in every village” of Asia and Syria there
were innumerable Jews (Legat. 245; in 281 he mentions Jewish “colonies”
in Cilicia, Pamphylia, and “most of Asia as far as Bithynia and the remote
corners of Pontus”).
he literary sources make it clear that by the first century ce, Jewish set-
tlement had spread all over Asia Minor. his is confirmed by epigraphic evi-
dence: we have inscriptions from at least some seventy-five Anatolian cities
14
Levinskaya, he Book of Acts, 143. As a good example, at pp. 141–2, Levinskaya quotes the important
edict issued by Emperor Augustus in 12 bce stating that the Jews “may follow their own customs in
accordance with the law of their fathers . . . and that their sacred monies shall be inviolable and may
be sent to Jerusalem and delivered to the treasurers in Jerusalem and they need not give bond (to
appear in court) on the Sabbath or on the day of preparation for it after the ninth hour; and if any-
one is caught stealing their sacred books or their sacred monies from a synagogue or an ark (of the
Law), he shall be regarded as sacrilegious and his property shall be confiscated to the public treasury
of the Romans” (Ant. 16.163–4).
15
It should be kept in mind that, as Pucci Ben Zeev states, the rights given to the Jews “may not be
regarded as proof of a special consideration for Jewish needs, but rather an application of common
principles of Roman policy” (Jewish Rights, 482). On the legal status of the Jewish communities,
which falls outside the scope of this article, see Ameling, “Die jüdischen Gemeinden,” 34–7.
16
Marshall, “Flaccus and the Jews of Asia.”
17
See Levinskaya, he Book of Acts, 137–52.
and villages, most of them from the early centuries ce. his literary evi-
dence is insufficient, however, to write a history of the Jews in ancient Asia
Minor. Jewish life in Anatolian cities was typically probably too unevent-
ful to earn the attention of ancient historians. Even so, we do observe
that, compared with the situation of cities such as Alexandria and Rome,
friction and tension between Jews and non-Jews were relatively scarce. It
would seem that Jews gradually attained a high degree of integration into
Greek city life.
socio-religious aspects
Only some of the more striking instances of this high degree of integration
can be mentioned here. A very intriguing inscription (IJO II 168) from
Phrygian Acmonia informs us that some prominent members of the local
Jewish community had seen to the restoration of the synagogue built by
Julia Severa. his woman is well-known to us – she is also mentioned in
other inscriptions and on coins from Acmonia – as the priestess of the local
emperor cult in the fifties and sixties of the first century ce. Definitely not
Jewish, she played a prominent role in an important pagan cult in the city.
Even so, this inscription testifies to her warm interest in the Jewish com-
munity (which recalls the story of the Roman centurion in Capernaum,
who, according to Luke 7:5, loved the Jewish people and for that reason
had a synagogue built for them at his own cost). Julia Severa, an aristocratic
woman whose son later became a senator in Rome, had close connections
with the prestigious Roman emigrant family of the Turronii. One of them,
Turronius Rapo, was also a priest of the emperor cult and together with
Julia Severa is mentioned on the coins of the city. Another member of
the same family, Turronius Cladus, is mentioned in our inscription as the
“head of the synagogue (archisynagōgos)” that had undergone the renova-
tions!18 We see here how a woman of high social standing, with a prominent
role in the pagan community of Acmonia, extended a largesse to the Jewish
community – a sure sign of the successful integration of the Jews of that
city and of the sympathy they enjoyed among non-Jewish inhabitants.19
Some inscriptions referring to the book of Deuteronomy also originate
in Phrygia, but now two centuries later. hey threaten anyone who buries
someone in a tomb other than the person for whom it was intended with
18
See Mitchell, Anatolia, II, 9.
19
For other instances, see Feldman, Jew and Gentile, 310, although I disagree with his statement that
“we may conclude that she [Julia Severa] later converted to Judaism and then built the synagogue”
(576 n.120).
“the curses that are written in Deuteronomy” (IJO II 173 and 174; a third
instance is from Laodicea, IJO II 213). his is an interesting variant on the
curse formulas that are so frequent on Phrygian graves.20 he reference is
undoubtedly to Deuteronomy 28, where we read, inter alia, “he Lord
will affect you with consumption, fever, inflammation, with fiery heat and
drought, and with blight and mildew” (22) and “he Lord will afflict you
with madness, blindness, and confusion of mind; you shall grope about at
noon as blind people grope in darkness, but you shall be unable to find
your way” (28–29). And thus more curses follow, not only in the Hebrew
text but also in the Septuagint, which the authors of the inscriptions used.
he blindness motif mentioned in vv. 28–29 also occurs in another epi-
taph from Acmonia: “If someone opens this grave, he will be struck by
the curses that are written against his eyes and all the rest of his body”
(IJO II 172). While Deuteronomy is not mentioned explicitly, the allusion
is unmistakable.21 In this connection it is interesting to see that another
Phrygian epitaph, IJO II 179 from Apamea, states that whenever anyone
dares to bury here another person, “he knows the Law of the Jews!” his
formulation (“the Law of the Jews”) seems to indicate that the non-Jewish
population of the region had some knowledge of the Torah, however par-
tial and superficial.22
his suggestion is further confirmed by evidence of quite a different
nature but from the same place, namely the curious Noah coins from
Apameia. In this city, coins found from the first half of the third century
ce depict Noah and his wife together with the ark (and the name Nōe
added). In a number of ancient sources, the city of Apamea is also called
Kibōtos (= ark).23 (In the Septuagint, kibōtos is the word used for Noah’s
ark.) here circulated a legend that Noah’s ark had landed on a hill in
the neighborhood of the city. Is this a case of Jewish influence? he coins
were struck by the pagan authorities of the city, showing that the legend
was accepted outside Jewish circles. And the fact that as early as the first
century bce the Greek geographer Strabo says that Apamea was also called
Kibōtos (Geogr. 12.8.13)24 would seem to be proof that Christians did not
introduce the legend into Phrygia. But doubts about the Jewish origin of
the legend arise when one sees that some earlier coins of the city, from the
20
For which see Strubbe, “Curses Against Violation of the Grave.” See also Trombley, Chapter 13 of
this volume.
21
See van der Horst, Ancient Jewish Epitaphs, 56–7.
22
See Trebilco, Jewish Communities, 100. Cf. an inscription from Catania on Sicily: adiuro vos per legem
quem Dominus dedit Iudaeis (JIWE I, no. 145).
23
See for references Schürer, History, III.1, 28–30; Trebilco, Jewish Communities, 86–95.
24
In the 60s of the first century ce, Pliny the Elder says the same (Nat. 5.29.106).
time of Hadrian, use the plural kibōtoi and depict five chests. hat seems
to indicate that this nickname of the city had a “non-Noachidic” origin
(otherwise unknown to us) and that only at a later stage did this nick-
name give the Jewish inhabitants the occasion to localize the landing of
Noah’s ark there. However uncertain much of this remains, the depiction
of a biblical scene on the city’s coins is a clear case of Jewish influence on
a non-Jewish population. But influence could also work the other way, as
is demonstrated by a Phrygian tombstone (IJO II 171) that stipulates that
each year at a fixed day the tomb should be adorned with roses; if the sur-
viving relatives neglect this duty, they will have to account for that before
God’s justice (tēn dikaiosynēn tou theou). his is an interesting threat in that
the said ritual (the rosalia) was an originally pagan usage that had arrived
in Asia Minor from Rome.25
Another striking example of peaceful coexistence of Jews and non-Jews
is the recently discovered inscription from Aphrodisias in Caria on a huge
marble block or pillar. Almost 3m high and some 45cm wide, it is inscribed
on two sides with a long Greek inscription of 86 lines (IJO II 14).26 It most
probably – but not certainly – dates from the late fourth or fifth cen-
tury ce.27 he greatest part of the text consists of lists of some 125 names28
mentioned as donors or contributors to a local synagogue institution.
Although tentatively identified by the editors as the Jewish community’s
soup kitchen, it may have been the collective burial place of that commu-
nity.29 he 125 or so names of the benefactors are subdivided into three
categories: 68 are Jews (although they are not explicitly so described, the
overwhelming preponderance of biblical and Hebrew Jewish names leaves
no room for another conclusion); 54 are called “God-fearers (theosebeis)”;
three are proselytes.
his strikingly high percentage of God-fearers – that is, pagan sym-
pathizers with Judaism – in a list of benefactors and contributors to a
Jewish institution, is the great surprise of this inscription. We know from
the book of Acts and from Josephus that in many cities of the ancient
world, synagogues had sympathizers in the form of a body of permanent or
25
See Williams, he Jews Among Greeks and Romans, 128; Mitchell, Anatolia, II, 35. A sign of Greek
philosophical influence is perhaps the frequent use of Pronoia (Providence) as a designation of God
in the inscriptions from Sardis.
26
Reynolds and Tannenbaum, Jews and Godfearers at Aphrodisias; van der Horst, “Jews and Christians
at Aphrodisias.”
27
On the problems of dating this inscription, see esp. Chaniotis, “he Jews of Aphrodisias.”
28
he uncertainty about the exact numbers of persons is due partly to the damaged state of the stone,
partly to the fact that it is not certain whether or not some names are patronymics; see Reynolds and
Tannenbaum, Jews and Godfearers, 93–6.
29
See for the latter interpretation Ameling’s commentary on IJO II 14.
semi-permanent catechumens.30 he author of Acts leaves us in no doubt

about the presence of a sizeable body of God-fearers in the major cities of
Asia Minor. Josephus even reports, with characteristic exaggeration, that
most of the pagan women of Damascus belonged to this category, and that
in Syrian Antioch the number of sympathizers was also extremely great
(J.W. 2.560; 7.43–5).31 It was among these God-fearers that, according to
Acts, Paul made most of his early converts.
If we leave out of account Josephus’s exaggerated reports, it is not pos-
sible either from Acts or from inscriptional evidence to gauge the exact
extent of this phenomenon of pagans sympathizing in various degrees with
Judaism (although the literary and epigraphic attestation for God-fearers
in Asia Minor is not negligible).32 Now we have for the first time an indi-
cation of the degree of influence of the synagogue on local pagans in a
middle-sized city of Asia Minor. And we have to bear in mind that this
inscription records only the names of the contributors – that is, probably
of only a part of the more well-to-do citizens among the God-fearers. Even
so, 54 of them are listed.
he occupations of the God-fearers, of which some 22 are given in the
inscription, cover a wide range, only very few of which indicate lower social
status.33 Most remarkable is the fact that nine of them are bouleutai, city
councillors. In the later Roman empire, this office imposed heavy financial
obligations and could only be exercised by the wealthy of a city. So what
we are now able to see is that, in Aphrodisias at least, the Jews attracted
large numbers of local gentiles – again, the people recorded undoubtedly
form only a part of the total group of God-fearers – and persons of high
standing and great influence at that. When pagan local magistrates heartily
support and partly pay for the foundation of a Jewish institution, one can-
not but conclude that the Jewish community of that city was influential
to a degree hitherto hardly imaginable. Its members appear to have been
self-confident, accepted in the city, and evidently able to attract the favor-
able attention of many gentile fellow Aphrodisians.
God-fearers, who were not full converts to Judaism, had relative free-
dom to follow or not follow the commandments of the Jewish Bible.
One of the commandments required sacrifices to the God of Israel to be
30
Wander, Gottesfürchtige und Sympathisanten, 143–54, 180–203; and Trombley, Chapter 13 of this
volume.
31
On these and other cases of “adherence” and “conversion” in Josephus see Cohen, “Respect for
Judaism by Gentiles.”
32
Mitchell, “he Cult of heos Hypsistos,” 117–18.
33
Reynolds and Tannenbaum, Jews and Godfearers, 116–23, esp. 119–22.
offered only in the temple of Jerusalem. A recent find may indicate that
God-fearers felt free to sacrifice to this God in their own home town as
well. IJO II 218 is an inscription on a small private altar found in Aspendos
in Pamphylia and probably dating from the first or second century ce.34
It reads, “For the truthful god who is not made with hands (in fulfillment
of ) a vow (theōi apseudei kai acheiropoiētōi euchēn).” he interpretation of
this inscription is debated.35 Although the terminology (especially the use
of acheiropoiētos) suggests a Jewish origin, it is hard to imagine a Jewish
altar outside the Jerusalem temple.36 It seems much more credible to look
for the origin of this altar inscription in the circles of God-fearers. If the
God-fearer was in a position to decide which elements of the Jewish way
of life to adopt, then the problem of a Jewish altar outside a Jewish tem-
ple disappears. he centralization of the sacrificial cult in Jerusalem (or
the cessation of that cult after 70, if the inscription was engraved after the
destruction of the Temple) was no constraint on a pagan Judaizer who
wanted to confess belief in the one true God who is not made with hands.
As a non-Jew, one was free to bring sacrifices to the God of the Jewish peo-
ple wherever one wanted.
A private altar, erected by oneself before one’s own house or in the back-
yard, was one of the possibilities. Indeed, in the soil of Pergamon, a small
altar was discovered with an inscription that several scholars regard as hav-
ing been engraved by a God-fearer.37 At the top of the altar, we read theos
kyrios ho ōn eis aei,38 “God the Lord is the one who is forever” (or “God
is the Lord who is forever”); the lower part of the altar reads, “Zopyrus
(dedicated) to the Lord this altar and the lampstand with the lantern.”
In this case, too, the clearly Jewish terminology and the fact that it is an
altar from the second century ce are together sufficient reason to regard
the inscription as belonging to a pagan sympathizer or Judaizer, that is,
a God-fearer. hroughout Antiquity, the bringing of sacrifices, as Elias
Bickerman has rightly recognized, was part and parcel of the daily life of
Greeks or Romans. “Rabbinic doctors of the Law,” he writes, “approved of
gentile altars to God. . . . he situation was paradoxical. While the sons of
Abraham, after the destruction of the Temple, were no more able to make
34
For what follows see van der Horst, “A New Altar of a Godfearer?”
35
For a survey see Ameling, IJO II, 458–61.
36
We do know of Jewish temples in places other than in Jerusalem, but not of private altars; see Eshel
and Stone in Chapter 3 and Mélèze Modrzejewski in Chapter 7 of this volume.
37
See Nilsson, “Zwei Altäre aus Pergamon”; Delling, “Die Altarinschrift eines Gottesfürchtigen in
Pergamon”; Bickerman, “he Altars of Gentiles.” his inscription has not been included by Ameling
in IJO II.
38
Note the allusion to Exod. 3:14, egō eimi ho ōn.
offerings to God, a sweet savor continued to go up to the God of Abraham,

Isaac, and Jacob from sacrifices offered by God-fearing gentiles. Yet the
rabbis abetted this impairment of the privileges of the chosen people.”39
he best-known example of Jewish integration into Greco-Roman city
life is Sardis.40 In 1962, American archaeologists unearthed the greatest
ancient synagogue ever in the city of Sardis, capital of ancient Lydia. he
colossal basilica-shaped building measures almost 20 by 100m and could
accommodate some 1,000 people. his richly decorated basilica is an inte-
gral part of a huge municipal bath-and-gymnasium complex with a shop-
ping mall in the city center. As such, it is a monument to the integration
of the Jewish community into this Greco-Roman city.41 he building is
one of the most prominent features of the city’s urban landscape, as every
modern visitor can now easily see. Even apart from the enormous size, it
points to the fact that the Jewish community of Sardis was definitely not
a “quantité négligeable.” Minorities in a city do not usually get hold of a
central and prestigious building if they do not have any clout and influ-
ence there.
hat the Jews did indeed have this influence is amply confirmed by the
more than eighty inscriptions found in the synagogue. No fewer than nine
of the Jews mentioned are bouleutai, that is, members of the city council
(boulē), the highest administrative body of the city.42 Here we see Jews who
have climbed up to the highest rung on the social ladder, for “the coun-
cils of Greek cities under the late empire were open only to the wealthier
families, with membership, once purchased, being hereditary and held for
life.”43 Distinguished and well-to-do Jewish families thus participated here
in the government of the city.44 No wonder that here, unlike elsewhere
in the fifth and sixth centuries, Christians did not expropriate the syna-
gogue for conversion into a church building. Although this basilica could
have been a magnificent church, during the fifth and sixth centuries the
Christians in Sardis had to make do with a building much smaller than
the synagogue. he famous Aphrodisias inscription also mentions nine
39
Bickerman, “he Altars of Gentiles,” 344.
40
From the abundant literature, I refer exempli gratia only to Seager and Kraabel in Hanfmann, Sardis;
van der Horst “he Synagogue of Sardis”; and Levine, Ancient Synagogue, 242–9, where further refer-
ences can be found.
41
Seager and Kraabel, “he Synagogue and the Jewish Community.”
42
Note that here, again, six non-Jewish donors are explicitly called “God-fearers” (theosebeis, nos.
67, 68, 83, 123, 125, 132). See now the caveat by Martin Goodman in his “Jews and Judaism in the
Mediterranean Diaspora.”
43
Kroll, “Greek Inscriptions,” 10.
44
Also elsewhere, we have evidence of the relative affluence of Jewish families, for example, in Phrygian
Acmonia; see Mitchell, Anatolia, 35. IJO II 172 and 173 are striking cases.
bouleutai. But there the city councillors are all gentiles, whereas in Sardis
they are Jews. “he Sardis dossier stands out for its sheer richness and scale,
and for the striking vitality of late Roman Judaism that it conveys, a vital-
ity that appears all the more remarkable because of the growing strength of
Christianity at the same period in history.”45
Finally, we have to discuss a very significant form of rapprochement
between Jews and gentiles in Asia Minor – namely, the cult of heos
Hypsistos, God Most High.46 Stephen Mitchell has collected almost 300
inscriptions of worshippers of this god from the second and third centu-
ries ce,47 mainly from the eastern Mediterranean, but especially from Asia
Minor. Almost half of these inscriptions, some 140, are from Asia Minor.48
In most cases, it is impossible to determine whether the inscription is
pagan, Christian, or Jewish; arguments for assigning them to any of these
three categories are rarely decisive. hat is so because heos Hypsistos is a
designation that was current as an epithet for the highest god in paganism,
Judaism, and Christianity.49 It is highly probable that this rather elusive
cult concerned a syncretistic religious movement that made a conscious
effort to bridge the gap between polytheism and monotheism. Its origins
lie not in Jewish but in pagan henotheistic circles, where the attraction of
Judaism was strong enough to cause them to seek common ground.
Hypsistarians chose to address their god by a name befitting both pagan
and Jewish patterns of belief. Quite often they combined their worship of
heos Hypsistos with that of angels, another trait with monotheistic, or at
least henotheistic, overtones.50 As Mitchell says, “We are evidently dealing
with an area of belief, where Jews, Judaizers, and pagans occupied very
similar territories. . . . he cult of heos Hypsistos had room for pagans and
45
Kroll, “Greek Inscriptions,” 48. hat the growing strength of Christianity could also have the effect
of Jews stressing more and more their distinctive Jewishness (e.g., by more frequently adopting
Hebrew names) is illustrated for Cilician Corycus by Williams, “he Jews of Corycus.”
46
For what follows, see esp. Mitchell, “he Cult of heos Hypsistos.”
47
It is important to realize that whereas the epigraphic evidence is mainly from the second and third
centuries, other evidence makes clear that this cult was not a development of these centuries,
“but occurred at least sporadically during the late Hellenistic or early Roman periods, (. . .) for
which there is little or no epigraphic attestation” (Mitchell, “he Cult of heos Hypsistos,” 209).
Mitchell also points out that there is still evidence for the Hypsistarians in the fourth and fifth
centuries ce.
48
he greatest density of inscriptions outside Asia Minor is to be found in Athens (23), Cyprus (23),
and the Bosporan Kingdom (22). For its relatively frequent occurrence in Phrygia (23 items so far),
see Drew-Bear and Naour, “Divinités de Phrygie,” 2032–43.
49
See esp. Simon, “heos Hypsistos.”
50
Sheppard, “Pagan Cults of Angels in Roman Asia Minor”; Mitchell, “he Cult of heos Hypsistos,”
102–5; van der Horst, “Hosios kai Dikaios.” Sheppard’s no. 8 even mentions an “association of the
lovers of angels” (philangelōn symbiōsis). For a hymn “for God (. . .) and his first angel, Jesus Christ”
see Mitchell, Anatolia, II, 100–2 with n. 406.
for Jews. More than that, it shows that the principal categories into which
we divide the religious groupings of Late Antiquity are simply inappropri-
ate or misleading when applied to the beliefs and practices of a significant
proportion of the population of the eastern Roman empire” (114–15).51 he
lack of any representations of the god and the absence of animal sacri-
fice from the rituals “distinguish the worship of Hypsistos from most other
pagan cults in Greece, Asia Minor, and the Near East.”52
Mitchell also shows that what we know about pagan “God-fearers”
(theosebeis), or sympathizers with Judaism, agrees so closely with the
information we have about the worshippers of heos Hypsistos that both
groups could very well have been identical. Hypsistarians often used the
term “God-fearers” (theosebeis) as a technical term to describe themselves.
“Dedications to heos Hypsistos occur at almost all the places [in Asia Minor]
where God-fearers appear.”53 A very strong argument Mitchell adduces for
identifying Hypsistarians with God-fearers is what he calls the “uncanny
parallel” (120) between Josephus’s description of God-fearers and the
Cappadocian Father Gregory of Nazianzus’s description of Hypsistarians.
Josephus says about the God-fearers, “he [non-Jewish] masses have long
since shown a keen desire to adopt our religious observances, and there is
not one city, Greek or barbarian, not a single nation to which our custom
of abstaining from work on the seventh day has not spread, and where the
fasts and lighting of lamps and many of our prohibitions in the matter of
food are not observed.”54 Compare this with what Gregory says about the
Hypsistarians (to which his own father had belonged!): “his cult was a
mixture of two elements, Hellenic error and adherence to the Jewish law.
Shunning some parts of both, it was made up from others. Its followers
reject the idols and sacrifices of the former and worship fire and lamplight;
they revere the sabbath and are scrupulous not to touch certain foods, but
have nothing to do with circumcision.”55 A pagan confirmation of these
Jewish and Christian descriptions can also be found in Juvenal’s famous
Satire 14.96–106.56
Occasional references in the inscriptions to gods other than heos
Hypsistos (for example, Zeus, Helios, Men, Cybele, Larmene) do not
plead against their association with Hypsistarians and God-fearers.57 his
51
For an elaborate presentation of the problems of categorization see Mitchell, Anatolia, II, 11–51.
52
Mitchell, “he Cult of heos Hypsistos,” 108.
53
Ibid., 119 [my addition].
54
Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.282.
55
Or. 18.5 (PG 35.989–91).
56
See GLAJJ 2.102–7, no. 301.
57
Instances can be found easily in Mitchell, “he Cult of heos Hypsistos,” 129–47.
apparent polytheism does not militate against the essentially henotheistic

nature of the cult. In Hypsistarian circles, gods other than the Most High
were often regarded as his angels. A second- or third-century-ce inscription
from Oenoanda, for example, contains a Clarian oracle in which Apollo
says that he and other gods are no more than angels of the highest god
(SEG 27 [1977] 933 = no. 233 in Mitchell’s list).58 In general, it can be said
that in the century between 150 and 250 ce, the oracles of Apollo at Claros
and Didyma forged a kind of new theology which can be seen as “a persis-
tent effort to integrate the pantheon of paganism into a system governed
by a single guiding principle or a supreme god.”59 An impressive testimony
to that effort is another oracle of the Clarian Apollo, in which he says that
Yahweh (Iaō) is the Highest God, who is called Hades in winter, Zeus in
spring, Helios in summer, and Iakchos (=Dionysus) in autumn.60
If God-fearers and Hypsistarians were identical, that would be another
confirmation of the important role that Jewish communities in Asia Minor
played in religious and social interactions. It would explain, for instance,
the identity of the persons for whom the theater seats in Miletus were
reserved according to the much-debated inscription IJO II 37. If this text –
topos eioudeōn tōn kai theoeebion [sic] (= topos Ioudaiōn tôn kai heosebiōn) –
is to be translated as “place of the Jews who (are) also (called) God-fearers,”
it may imply that the connections between Jews and Hypsistarians (theo-
sebeis) were so close that Jews managed to obtain reserved seats in the city
theater by parading as Hypsistarians, the latter possessing enough clout
with the municipal authorities to provide these seat reservations for their
“coreligionists.”61
Before the Council of Nicaea in 325 ce, Christians in Asia Minor gen-
erally “mingled with their non-Christian fellows without friction and con-
frontation in a territory which was familiar to all of them.”62 We also know
of Christian priests who worshipped heos Hypsistos.63 As is to be expected
under these circumstances, interrelationships between Jews and non-Jews
did not remain restricted to gentiles. his is apparent, among other things,
from the canons of the synod of Laodicea (in Phrygia) from the middle
58
See also Zuntz, Griechische philosophische Hymnen, 89–94; Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians, ch. 4.
59
Mitchell, Anatolia, II, 43.
60
Quoted by Cornelius Labeo, De oraculo Apollinis Clarii, fr. 18 Mastandrea (ap. Macrobius, Sat.
1.18.19–20). See Mastandrea, Un neoplatonico latino, 159–92 (160–1 on the text-critical problem of
the last name); Zuntz, Griechische philosophische Hymnen, 76. For a general discussions of these
oracles see van der Horst, “Porphyry on Judaism.”
61
See Baker, “Who Was Sitting at the heatre at Miletos?”
62
Mitchell, “he Cult of heos Hypsistos,” 122. But there is anti-Jewish Christian literature from Asia
Minor; see Trebilco, Jewish Communities, 27–32.
63
Mitchell, “he Cult of heos Hypsistos,” 122–3.
of the sixties of the fourth century ce. hese decrees issue severe warnings
to Christians against participation in all sorts of Jewish practices.64 hat
this was more than a hypothetical possibility is made very clear by a pas-
sage about exactly this period (namely, the year 367) in heophanes’s
Chronographia (62.17–19). It tells us that in that year Christians in Phrygia
celebrated Passover together with the Jews. (Here one is reminded strongly
of the situation a couple of decades later in Antioch-on-the-Orontes, where
the many strongly Judaizing Christians were heavily castigated by John
Chrysostom.65) It is also to be noted that both Jewish and Christian epi-
taphs from Phrygia use as a standard warning to grave robbers the so-called
Eumeneian formula (“he/they will have to reckon with God”), which often
makes it very hard to distinguish one group from the other.66 “he later
fruits of this close relationship between Anatolian Jews and the Christian
communities living alongside them are clear in the Judaizing strain of
Novatian Christianity, which is attested above all in Phrygia in the late
fourth and fifth centuries.”67 Celebrating Easter at the time of the Jewish
Passover was only one of these Novatian practices. he seventh-century Life
of Saint heodore of Sykeon tells us that the Jews of the village of Goeleon
were present at this saint’s greatest miracle of exorcism.68
On the other hand, it should be added that there was not always a
peaceful coexistence between Jews and Christians. In the Acta Pionii, we
read about the martyrdom of Pionius in Smyrna in 250 ce. In chapters
13–14, Pionius launches an attack on the Jews that is more vehement than
his attack on his pagan persecutors. As it appears from his words, the Jews
of Smyrna, who we know formed a prominent and influential commu-
nity in the city,69 tried to make proselytes among persecuted Christians.
Conversion to Judaism was of course as efficacious in avoiding martyrdom
as a sacrifice to idols. Even in the Diocletian persecution, the emperor
explicitly exempted the Jews from the necessity of offering sacrifice,
thus confirming an old privilege of Judaism. And, as Marcel Simon has
observed, “it is very difficult to believe that Jewish attempts to convert
persecuted Christians were made without the cognizance of the Roman
64
For the texts, see Jonkers, Acta et symbola, 86–96, esp. canons 29 (keeping Sabbath), 35 (angelolatry),
37 (festivals with Jews), and 38 (celebration of the Jewish Passover); discussion in Trebilco, Jewish
Communities, 101–3.
65
See van der Horst, “Jews and Christians in Antioch.” For a map showing the many sites with both
Jewish and Christian presence in Phrygia see Mitchell, Anatolia, II, 42.
66
Trebilco, “he Christian and Jewish Eumeneian Formula.”
67
Mitchell, Anatolia, II, 35; cf. ibid., 96–108.
68
See Mitchell, Anatolia, II, 139–43, for extensive discussion.
69
See Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians, 481–3, and Ameling, IJO II, 174–95, for the evidence. Note that
almost a century earlier the Jews of Smyrna opposed Christianity according to Mart. Pol. 12:2.
authorities. . . . It looks as if the state, in its desire to eliminate Christianity

by making apostates and not martyrs, accepted the two recognized reli-
gious categories, Jewish and pagan, and left to the defecting Christians
themselves the choice.”70 If Simon is right, we see here one of the most
threatening consequences for the church of the Jewish-pagan coalition.
Robin Lane Fox has also proposed that the “Great Sabbath” (mentioned in
Acta Pionii 2) marking the occasion of the persecution was the festival of
Purim, which the Jews in Smyrna celebrated at the same time as the pagan
celebration of the Dionysia (!). If he is correct, then we see that the church
had to face a bizarre form of that coalition in an easy relationship between
a Jewish and a gentile festival.71
In spite of the many proofs of peaceful coexistence and rapprochement
between Jews and non-Jews (both pagan and Christian) in Asia Minor,
we should not doubt that many of these Jews attached great importance
to maintaining their Jewish identity and singularity. his is most visible
in the epigraphic material, but not only there. One finds their central
institution, the synagogue, mentioned many times (sometimes as “most
holy synagogue”);72 the functions they had in their religious community
(archisynagōgos, archōn, presbyteros, gerousiarchēs, grammateus, diakonos,
anagnōstēs, hiereus, psalmologos, phrontistēs);73 the repeated references to
their Bible (see above on the curses from Deuteronomy74) and to reading
and studying the Bible (IJO II 14,2–5 from Aphrodisias; 131 from Sardis);
the mention of their religious festivals (Pesach and Festival of Weeks in no.
196,7 from Hierapolis); their commitment to the annual collecting of the
temple tax before 70 (see Augustus’s decree in Josephus, Ant. 16.163–4); the
regulations for kosher food in Sardis and no doubt elsewhere (see the decree
in Josephus, Ant. 14.259–61); their request for exemption from military ser-
vice in order not to desecrate the Sabbath (Josephus, Ant. 16.163–4);75 the
references to God’s punishment and judgment on tombstones (see above
70
Simon, Verus Israel, 111.
71
Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians, 486–7. Note that Ch 16 8,18 (from 408 ce) prohibits the Jews
from mocking Christianity on Purim by burning Haman’s effigy on a cross.
72
See IJO II, p. 624 s.v. See also the term sambatheion (synagogue?) in no. 149.
73
On the meanings of these designations (quite often obscure), see van der Horst, Ancient Jewish
Epitaphs, 85–101; Levine, Ancient Synagogue, 387–428. Note that there is no mention of rabbis, who
apparently had no influence at all in Asia Minor until the early Middle Ages (IJO no. 184 is only an
apparent exception; see Ameling, ad locum). It is telling that in at least some, but probably more,
places women even had leading positions in the communities (IJO II 14, 25, 36, 43); see Brooten,
Women Leaders, and Trebilco, Jewish Communities, 104–26.
74
In IJO II 175 and 176, one also finds references to Zech. 5:1–4.
75
See the discussion in Trebilco, Jewish Communities, 16–18.
on the curses in epitaphs); the numerous representations of the menorah;

and last but not least, the frequent self-identification as Ioudaios (especially
in Hierapolis). It is clear that for most of the imperial period the Jews of
Asia Minor formed self-conscious communities that were in intense inter-
action with their surroundings, both pagan and Christian. It is only from
the end of the fourth century ce onward that the anti-Jewish legislation of
Christian emperors began to make Jewish life increasingly difficult.76
appendix: samaritans in asia minor?

Alongside a Jewish diaspora, in Antiquity there was also a Samaritan
diaspora that was much more extensive than is often assumed.77 From Rome
to Mesopotamia there were Samaritan communities, so it stands to reason
that there were also Samaritans in Asia Minor. But what is the evidence?
Apart from a late (fifth-century) literary reference to the effect that the city
of Tarsus had two synagogues, a Jewish and a Samaritan one,78 we have a
very limited number of inscriptions. IJO II 11 (second century ce, from
Rhodos) mentions a Rhodocles Samaritas, but here the problem is that
ancient sources use one and the same term for “Samaritan” (a member of
the religious community of the Samaritans) and for “Samarian” (an inhab-
itant of Samaria, who could be a Jew, a gentile, or a Samaritan). Without
further indicators we cannot know whether Rhodocles was a Samaritan.
he same applies to no. 243 (fourth to sixth century, from Corycus in
Cilicia), where a woman is called Samarissa. his woman, however, is also
called diakonissa and there is a cross on the stone, so she was most proba-
bly a Christian from Samaria. Finally, there is no. 24 (first century bce–ce,
from Caunos in Caria), where five persons are called Sikimitai, people
from Sichem. Here we most probably have to do with a self-designation of
Samaritans, who sometimes named themselves after the biblical site at the
foot of their holy mountain, Mount Gerizim. Even if this interpretation is
rejected, it still remains highly probable that Samaritans were part of the
religious landscape of Asia Minor. Most of the evidence may not be trace-
able for the simple reason that in many cases it is impossible to distinguish
Jewish from Samaritan inscriptions.
76
Quite telling is a recently discovered inscription from the fifth or sixth century, found in a church
on the island of Icaria, which says, “It is impossible that you will ever hear the truth from Jews at
Icaria!” (IJO II 5a).
77
See van der Horst, “Samaritan Diaspora.”
78
See Palladius, Dial. de vita Joh. Chrys. 20 (PG 47.73). he implication of the passage may be that
there were Samaritan synagogues in other cities of Asia Minor as well.
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Interaction, 2nd ed. (Leuven, 1998): 65–72.
“Hosios kai Dikaios.” In Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (DDD), 2nd ed.,
eds. Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst (Leiden, 1999):
427–8.
“Jews and Christians in Antioch at the End of the Fourth Century.” In Christian-Jewish
Relations through the Centuries, eds. Stanley E. Porter and Brook W. R. Pearson
(Sheffield, 2000): 228–38.
“Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis: A Review Article.” JSJ 36 (2005): 65–83.
“he Synagogue of Sardis and Its Inscriptions.” In Jews and Christians in heir
Graeco-Roman Context (Tübingen, 2006): 43–52.
“Porphyry on Judaism: Some Observations.” In “Follow the Wise.” Studies in Jewish
History and Culture in Honor of Lee I. Levine, eds. Zeev Weiss, Oded Irshai, Jodi
Magness, and Seth Schwartz (Winona Lake, 2010): 71–83.
Wander, Bernd. Gottesfürchtige und Sympathisanten: Studien zum heidnischen Umfeld von
Diasporasynagogen (Tübingen, 1998).
Waßmuth, Olaf. Sibyllinische Orakel 1–2: Studien und Kommentar. AJEC 76 (Leiden,
2011).
Williams, Margaret H. “he Jews of Corycus – A Neglected Diasporan Community from
Roman Times.” JSJ 25 (1994): 274–86.
he Jews Among the Greeks and Romans: A Diasporan Sourcebook (Baltimore, 1998).
Wineland, J. D. “Sepharad.” ABD 5 (1992): 1089–90.
Wolff, Hans W. Dodekapropheton 3: Obadja und Jona. BKAT XIV/3 (Neukirchen, 1977).
Zuntz, Günther. Griechische philosophische Hymnen, eds. Hubert Cancik and Lutz Käppel
(Tübingen, 2005).
13
CHRISTIANITY IN ASIA MINOR

observations on the epigraphy
frank r. trombley
Asia Minor is one of the few areas of the Mediterranean where the
continuous development of Christianity can be traced from the first cen-
tury ce.1 Apart from Rome, other regions are by comparison devoid of
specific literary references to the physical layout of Christian communi-
ties, the trades they practiced, their position in local social strata, and their
interactions with non-Christians, excluding of course those with imperial
and provincial authorities in times of sporadic persecution.
For a long time, the ecclesiastical histories of Eusebius and his succes-
sors provided the basic evidence for Asia Minor. Starting with the last
decades of the nineteenth century, however, there began systematic explo-
ration of the region for early Christian remains. Among the researchers
to visit these sites were J. G. C. Anderson, William Mitchell Ramsay,
and Ramsay’s students (among them W. H. Buckler and W. M. Calder).
he latter took advantage of the construction of the Berlin-to-Baghdad
railway to inspect parts of western and central Asia Minor that western
scholars had seldom before seen.2 Some of this research was embodied in
Ramsay’s monumental he Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia. heir work,
and that of teams of German scholars, resulted in the publication of the
ten-volume Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua, which contains editions of
inscriptions and discussion of literary conventions. A comprehensive edi-
tion of the early Christian inscriptions of Asia Minor remains, however,
a desideratum; many important editions and commentaries still lie bur-
ied in volumes of collected articles and back issues of journals. Synthetic
treatments of the subject have often been disappointing in their results
and at times controversial. An example of this can be seen in unsuccessful
1
It has proved impossible to offer more than a selection of key texts in this chapter.
2
Frend, Archaeology of Early Christianity, 93–104, 130–4, 193–5, etc.
341
342 Frank R. Trombley
attempts to find Montanist nuances in the “Christians for Christians”

inscriptions and other texts.3
he discussion that follows provides a commentary on inscriptions that
illuminate key features of Christian self-identification in Asia Minor, as well
as the language of monotheism with its related eschatological concerns. It
also explores the participation of Christians in the main lines of Anatolian
social and economic life, which was inseparable from that of their fellow
monotheists, the Jews, and the adherents of traditional Greek religion. A
broad consistency of thought, yet at the same time flux of religious ideas,
can be traced through surviving vernacular and public documents – the
canons of provincial councils, inscriptions, and hagiographic texts – all of
which make use of a cognate theological terminology. he flux was partly a
consequence of the need for Christian families and church communities to
communicate their identities in disguised language. his may have enabled
them to evade persecution and defacement of their funerary monuments,
but generated an idiosyncratic and sometimes even a heretical tone in their
statements about personal and family concerns. With the consolidation
of the dynasty of Constantine and his sons after 324, the Christian com-
munities achieved greater consistency in the modes of self-identification;
this came with an increasingly coercive response to theological difference,
whether it was a matter of pre-Christian attitudes toward the interaction
of the divine and material worlds, or conceptions of Christ and the ideal
Christian community. he final working of the Anatolian synthesis can be
seen in the attempts of the “catholic” and “orthodox” church to regulate
the use of the sacred space vis-à-vis pre-Christian cult and to transfer it to
the liturgies of Christ, the martyrs, and recognized archangels. It involved
the prohibition of sacrifice and reduction of traditional gods to the status
of daemons, but also an acceptance of the traditional etiologies and lit-
urgies through Christianization of rite. he final synthesis is at the same
time visible in systematic attempts to isolate and repress the public voice of
Christians who through cultural habit failed to assimilate the theological
consensus expressed in the horos of the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea
in their teaching, as with the Montanists, Novatianists, and other sects
seen as having a defective concept of the Trinity. Culturally and demo-
graphically significant dissenting groups still existed at the beginning of
the sixth century, but the repressive policies of Justinian the Great were a
critical and final factor in reducing these communities to tiny remnants
and driving them underground.
3
Tabbernee, Montanist Inscriptions, passim.
Christianity in Asia Minor 343
origins
he earliest Christian communities took root in the metropolitan towns of
the Aegean coastlands such as Ephesus before the Pauline mission of the 50s
ce. he new monotheism grew up in the cultural life of the synagogues of
some Hellenized Jews who accepted the messianic status of Jesus and were
among the so-called God-fearers (theoseboumenoi).4 he latter were gentiles
forming a quasi-catechumenate on the periphery of the synagogue, shar-
ing its monotheism and ethical norms, but abstaining from circumcision
and the Mosaic dietary laws. Like Hellenistic Jews, Christians utilized the
Septuagint as their scripture until the books of the New Testament canon
and other early works came into circulation. he Christians soon became
alienated from the synagogues, as documented in Acts of the Apostles and
the epistles of Paul, and there began a period of uneasy relations between
the two communities that worsened with the coming of the Christian
empire under Constantine and his sons.5
Apart from the fragments of earlier writers excerpted in Eusebius’s
Ecclesiastical History, the earliest document giving an idea of the social
composition and behavioral features of the primitive Christian commu-
nities is the account of the martyrdom of Polycarp of Smyrna.6 Much of
the reportage in this work is consistent with the data found in the earliest
surviving Christian inscriptions, which begin to appear not later than the
end of the second century.7 Among the phenomena mentioned in the Acta
of Polycarp are the presence of Christians on farms and estates in the rural
territories of Smyrna, their ownership of multistory residential buildings,
and Christian agricultural workers of servile status.8 he early third-century
Christian inscriptions of Phrygia often lay on imperial estates and should
be read against the rural background of the church of Smyrna.9
he practice of Judaism enjoyed long continuity in Asia Minor, and
in many respects it developed in parallel with the local Christianities.10
he most expressive architectural example of this was the synagogue of
Sardis. his pattern is also apparent in the way Hellenized Jews codified
4
On “God-fearers,” see van der Horst, Chapter 12 of this volume.
5
Simon, Verus Israel; Neusner, Age of Constantine.
6
Musurillo, Acts of the Christian Martyrs, 2–21.
7
Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics, 388, 390, 500, 534, 545f., 549, 553; Tabbernee, Montanist Inscriptions,
nos. 1–4.
8
Mart. Pol. 5–7.
9
Anderson, “Paganism and Christianity,” 188–93, 200f.
10
See van der Horst, Chapter 12 of this volume; also Chaniotis, “Jews of Aphrodisias”; idem, “Zwischen
Konfrontation und Interaktion.”
and expressed their theological views in places like Acmonia.11 here is

a remarkable verse inscription in a funerary altar (bōmos) at Eumeneia
(ca.211–34 ce) that reflects a synthesis of philosophical ideas with those of
a monotheistic religion. Ramsay was inclined to suggest a Jewish author-
ship for the inscription. One possible translation is as follows:12
Gaius, a tradesman (pragmatikos), who was practiced in (the arts of ) the Muses,
made this tomb for himself and his dear wife and beloved children while still liv-
ing. May they have an everlasting home (aiōnios domos) with Roubēs, who is a
servant of a great god (megaloio th[eou] therapōn) and with [---], and as an equal of
these two men. I Gaius say openly that I am a holy (hagios) (and) good (agathos)
man. I did not have much wealth in my livelihood or much money, but I was
practiced in writing and worked at composing verses (ta metria). I imparted these
to my friends as much as I was able. I pleased everyone with the talent I possessed.
It was a pleasurable art for me to practice if anyone desired it, since the happi-
ness of others brought joy to my heart. So let no one who is blinded by wealth be
complacent, for Hades is one (and the same) for all and their end is the same. Is
anyone great in consequence of his landholdings? his man exists no more and
received this measure of ground for his tomb. You mortals should take care to
enjoy life at all times, as life is sweet and (this) is the measure of life. his (comes)
after that, my friends, for what more is there? (hen) this (exists) no longer. Stele
and stone speak these words, for I am no longer. he gates and roads to Hades are
here, and its footpaths have no exit to daylight (anexodeutoi d’ esti es phaos triboi).
All the wretched people [ – – ] for rising again (es anastasin) [ – – ].
Gaius’s statement is at first sight full of paradoxes. One might associate his
implied association with the great god, his self-characterization as “holy,”
and the closing reference to “rising again” with a monotheistic religion. But
“great god” was a theologically neutral expression, as was “eternal home,”
and both turn up at times in clearly non-Christian inscriptions.13 Ramsay
saw Epicurean and Stoic elements in Gaius’s characterization of the joys
of living, but being a “good” man is if anything a Platonic concept. he
observations about the fate of the soul after death were easy to come by
for anyone knowledgeable in Greek literature, which Gaius clearly was. It
is easier to take Gaius’s statement as a contextually mixed synthesis of all
the different systems of thought commonly available in early third-century
Eumeneia, but with a particular predilection for monotheistic ideas. While
one might have anticipated a statement of this type from a member of
the Christian catechumenate or “God-fearers” leaning to Judaism, there is
strictly speaking no simple way to make an exact identification of Gaius’s
11
Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics, nos. 562–4.
12
Ibid., 386–8, no. 232.
13
MAMA 4, no. 228.
adherence. Eumeneia is one of the few towns to have large concentrations

of Christian clergy and lay persons attested in its third-century epigraphy,14
and the famous Eumeneian formula “he shall be accountable to God”
or “the god” is itself of pre-Christian origin and therefore theologically
ambiguous,15 sometimes appearing in contexts where the cult of the per-
sons named is in doubt.16 he Gaius inscription may be an early indication
of the theological flux from which the Christian consensus finally arose
in Eumeneia. here is also the possibility that Gaius intended to disguise
his adherence to Christian monotheism by using ambiguous or polyvalent
theological language, a process William Calder characterized as “crypto-
Christian” evasion.
the discourse of christian monotheism

here was thus a “special relationship” between the primitive Christian
local churches of Asia Minor and the non-Christian populations from
whom the catechumenate was drawn. In various ways the older etiologies
and rituals would become part of a new Christian synthesis that drew on
the language of the older ethos, but was ruthlessly monotheistic in its final
formulation. While the main period of transition was the third and fourth
centuries, experimentation in the new language extended until the time of
George the Monk, author of the life of heodore of Sykeon (d.613). he
Christian God was usually conceived in exclusively monotheistic terms.
Although the common phrase “one God” seldom appears in the epigraphy
of Asia Minor, it has a degree of currency in the letters of Ignatius to the
Christian communities of Ephesus and Magnesia.17 A pre-Christian form
of this idea occurs in an inscription of Settae or Saettae in Lydia, and reveals
the pre-Christian currency of any number of designations: “(here is) one
god in the heavens, (the) great celestial Men (megas Mēn ouranios). Great is
the power of the immortal god (athanatos theos).”18 here is an important
counterfoil to this in a Christian “one God” funerary inscription origi-
nally copied by Ramsay: “No one is immortal except only (the) one God
himself, the begetter of all things who apportions all things to all.”19 While
earlier divinities continued to enjoy their spheres of activity, they fell to the
14
Drew-Bear, Inscriptions de Phrygie, nos. 48–9.
15
Ibid., nos. 44–9.
16
MAMA 4, no. 91.
17
Ignatius, Eph. 7.2 (heis iatros . . . theos); Mag. 8.2 (heis theos estin). See E. Peterson, ΕΙΣ ΘΕΟΣ,
77f.
18
Cited in Peterson, ΕΙΣ ΘΕΟΣ, 268.
19
Petrie, “Epitaphs,” no. 11.
degraded status of daemons (daimones), persisting in folklore and ritual of

Greece and Asia Minor until the twentieth century.20
he religious affiliation of the authorship of a significant number of late
second- and third-century inscriptions is ambiguous. Arguments for or
against Christian authorship are indecisive. A good example of this is seen
in a funerary inscription at Brouzos in the Phrygian Pentapolis (late sec-
ond century?). After naming the deceased, it adds a curse: “We adjure the
greatness of God (or “the god,” to megethos tou theou) and the subterranean
daemons (katachthonioi daimones) that no one injure this tomb and no one
else be placed in it.”21 his phrasing is based on earlier, pre-Christian for-
mulations, as for example, “If anyone harms the tomb (to mnēmeion), he
shall be accountable to the celestial gods and to the subterranean <gods>
who have been provoked.”22 References to “the god” can also be Christian,
as in the case of the Eumenian formula, but not in every instance. he
activity of subterranean daemons as the guardian spirits of tombs and bur-
ied wealth remained a feature of Christian Anatolian belief for many cen-
turies after this, until the time of heodore of Sykeon (seventh century).
It should be recognized that pagan and Christian shared an increas-
ingly conventionalized language of discourse in the literature, both epi-
graphic and literary, about the divine milieu.23 his was a consequence
of the increasingly shared high culture of the Greek paideia, which had
already made its influence felt in the catechetical school of Alexandria
and which Gregory haumaturgus promoted in the borderlands of north-
eastern Anatolia.24 Clear traces of the paideia exist in the Christian funer-
ary inscriptions of Asia Minor from the middle of the third century. An
inscription mentions a Christian teacher of grammar (grammatikos) in the
borderlands of Lycaonia.25 here is a notable example of this at Aslanapa in
the territory of Cotyaeum (ca.250–325), in an inscription that mixes epic
meter and morphology with somewhat clumsy late Greek grammar and
spelling. A fairly literal translation might run like this:26
Suddenly you lie, O young woman, last of all (of our children), after receiving the
sting of a terrible Mistress. You were given in marriage to death (moros) and your
father did not betroth you to a marriage bed, but the deadly Furies in Acheron
doubly bewail your name Kyrilla to your parents, Katylla (and) Menandros,
20
Lawson, Modern Greek Folklore, 66–70, 89–91, 120, 146f., etc.
21
Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics, no. 635.
22
Ibid., no. 592; see above, note 15.
23
Jaeger, Paideia, passim; Dodds, Pagan and Christian.
24
Altaner, Patrologie, 187f.; Young, “Towards a Christian paideia,” 485.
25
Callander, “Explorations,” no. 73.
26
MAMA 10, no. 275.
and (brother) Onesimos and sister-in-law Alexandria. All of them together were
servants of merciless Plouton, for he has laid garlands for this (young woman) over
whom it was more proper for revellers to rave. Christians for Christians.
Praise of this sort could please a family whose members enjoyed an educa-
tion in Greek grammar. he mythological references can only have been
understood as an extended metaphor for the grief these people suffered,
and perhaps a desire to impress their social and cultural peers in local
society. here would have been little question about the monotheistic
views of the family in light of the militant closing formula “Christians for
Christians.”27
the christianization of space

A central feature of Christian institutions in Asia Minor was the con-
struction and use of buildings for liturgical activity. here is little evi-
dence about the use of buildings for primitive Christian liturgical activity.
While it is usually supposed that “house churches” were the norm, there is
no archaeological evidence to bolster this hypothesis for Asia Minor. he
absence of any references to buildings in correspondence between Trajan
and Pliny the Younger tends to corroborate the idea that Christians relied
on the houses of their community. his is borne out by the epigraphy;
not one of the pre-Constantinian inscriptions of Asia Minor mentions
the construction of a church. he earliest of these is the funerary altar
of Abercius of Hieropolis, a small town in the Upper Tembris valley in
Phrygia; it gives the impression of an ecclesiastical organization in the
countryside, but no indications of church buildings. Its ostensible author
could even observe, “My name is Abercius, disciple of the holy shepherd
who feeds his flocks on mountains and plains.”28 It is a clearly literary
simile, but may also be a reflection of local practice involving open-air
liturgies organized in the countryside to avoid the scrutiny of civil offi-
cials. In other inscriptions such as the “Christians to Christians” docu-
ments, the community is emphasized rather than the local church or
a particular locality. Such buildings as turn up are the “eternal house”
(aiōnios oikos) of the Christian afterlife, as in the funerary inscription
of Aurelios Satorneinos (242/43 ce).29 he choice of the word oikos may
be as much an indication of the buildings where Christians assembled
27
Gibson, “Christians for Christians,” 4–98.
28
Snyder, Ante Pacem, 139f.
29
Gibson, “Christians for Christians,” 116–19, no. 42.
as an expression of eschatological hope. he open-air character of the

pre-Christian cults of Asia Minor – which were often associated with
numinous places such as mountain peaks, rivers, sacred springs, trees, and
subterranean rock formations – may have assured a degree of continuity
in this.30 he later life of Abercius mentions the existence of Christian
buildings in the countryside around Hieropolis. A probably apocryphal
fifth-century tradition has it that Abercius supervised the construction of
these places using funds donated by Plotina, the wife of Marcus Aurelius.
he endowments – which appear to be historical – may well have come
from the wife of Constantius II (337–61). Whatever the case, the histori-
cal Abercius may well have used his personal wealth to establish open-air
shrines in the town’s territory that later became sites of liturgical focus
and later acquired buildings in the time of Constantine or Constantius.
here is the example of Gonyklisia:31
It happened that [Abercius] was one day on a high mountain that is opposite the
city of Lysia. When he and the people with him became thirsty, he knelt down
and prayed. A spring of pure water bubbled up and everyone who was thirsty drew
satisfaction from it. he place was called Gonyklisia (“spot of kneeling”) from that
time on.
he place may well have been a limestone peak – places where geolog-
ical forces drove groundwater upward and caused it to exit as a spring.
Detecting potential springs was a well-known practice and is mentioned
as late as the mid-sixth century, when Nicholas of Hagia Sion discov-
ered hidden water on a mountain in the territory of Myra in Lycia. In
pre-Christian lore, the breaking forth of a spring in a “high place” was
considered a numinous event controlled by subterranean divinities, par-
ticularly Attis-Men and certain non-Christian “angels.” Christian leaders
who discovered or exploited springs attributed these natural phenomena
to the mastery of the Christian God over the forces of nature. Church
leaders sometimes built hydraulic installations in these places, like the
bathhouse at Agros on the River, another place where Abercius had knelt
and prayed, and where “springs of hot water had then bubbled up,” as
the fifth-century tradition about him reports.32 hese institutions must
be seen partly in terms of competition with the gods and their priest-
hoods who dispensed the ground waters at sacred springs. Archaeological
finds could change this view of pre-Constantinian Christianity in Asia
Minor, but until then one must put the construction of the monumental
30
Trombley, Hellenic Religion and Christianization 1, 151f., 153f.
31
V. Abercii, §75 (Nissen 52, lines 9–15).
32
V. Abercii §65 (Nissen 46, lines 14–19).
early Christian basilicas in places like Nicomedia not earlier than the late
third century.33
christian participation in public life

Christians participated fully in the social, political, and economic life of
their communities in the century before Constantine. his is borne out by
the professions they practiced and the social conventions they observed.
Among the status positions mentioned in the Christian inscriptions of
Eumeneia in Phrygia are a number of city councillors (bouleutai), men
who because of wealth in landed property sat in city council and at times
served as the local executives, involving themselves in the maintenance of
public works and sometimes even funding public spectacles.34 A number
of the Christians of Eumeneia in Phrygia enjoyed formal membership in
the traditional tribes of the polis and displayed pride in this, like a certain
Aurelius Phrontōn, “citizen of Eumeneia of the tribe (phylē) of Argias.”35
Aurelius Messalas, a Christian city councillor of Sebaste in Phrygia, was also
a physician.36 Another Christian named Demetrianus from Claudiopolis
was city councillor, first archon of the town’s executive and agonothete,
that is, organizer of the games. In this instance, he may have succeeded in
avoiding the public liturgies such as gladiatorial combats and stage produc-
tions. For while Christian sponsors of these spectacles were condemned for
“murder” and “adultery” at the Council of Elvira in Spain, a family funer-
ary inscription praises Demetrianus and his kin as “faithful to God and
most pure.”37
Many army veterans, who enjoyed higher social status as honestiores, set-
tled in Eumeneia.38 he first Christian soldiers do not appear until perhaps
circa 290–300. here were two of them, one of whom allowed his friend to
be buried in a tomb he had made for himself and his wife. he inscription
gives a good idea of the upward mobility of Christians into the middle
ranks as officers in the military and civil hierarchy under the Tetrarchy and
thereafter, particularly after Constantine became sole Augustus:39
Aurelius Neikerōs prepared the tomb for himself, his wife and children, but I set
a friend (in it instead). In this place is buried Aurelius Mannos, soldier, cavalry
33
Gibson, “Christians for Christians.”
34
Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics, nos. 359, 361, 368; Johnson, Early-Christian Epitaphs, no. 3.3.
35
Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics, no. 378. Cf. no. 364 = Johnson, Christian Epitaphs, no. 3.4.
36
37
Cited by Johnson, Early Christian Epitaphs, no. 3.1.
38
Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics, no. 209 and commentary.
39
Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics, 372; cf. Johnson, Christian Epitaphs, no. 3.9.
archer (and) bearer of the dragon standard (drakōnaris) from the headquarters
(ex ophikiou) of the most brilliant governor (hēgemōn) Castrius Constans. If any-
one else does this, he will be accountable to God.
Christians were thus found in the officium of a civil governor, perhaps
of Phrygia. Another example of this was the well-known Marcus Iulius
Eugenius, who was a soldier in the officium of the governor of Pisidia at
the time of Maximinus Daia’s decree for Christians to sacrifice and later
became a possibly Montanist bishop of Laodicea Combusta.40 A Christian
protector, or staff officer attached to a senior military commander or logis-
tic services as the occasion required, is mentioned at Nicaea, probably at
the time of the Tetrarchy.41 A certain Aurelius Mannos was still on active
service in Eumeneia, as he does not receive the epithet of “veteran,”which
commonly appears in other inscriptions there.42 Among other professions
and trades attested in the third and early fourth centuries is an armorer
(hoplopoios). All this provides additional corroboration for the participa-
tion of Christians in the equipping and supplying of armies.43
Some Christians practiced lower-status trades, like a certain Antonius
Polliōn, who was a dealer in miscellaneous wares (pantopōlēs) (256 ce).44
he butcher’s trade (makellos) is recognizable because his funerary marker
bears the relief sculpture of a meat cleaver.45 Many of the social values
expressed in funerary inscriptions are predictable in families that owned a
bit of property and stiffly maintained their property rights, even vis-à-vis
their own children. An inscription containing a variation of the Eumeneian
formula illustrates this “bourgeoisie” mentalité (third century?):46
I Phougillianos Auxanōn made the tomb for myself, for my wife Metrodora, and
for the children of my blood as long as they are not fully of legal age, but after
they become of legal age neither they nor anyone else shall do anything to the
bones of their parents. If anyone contravenes this, he shall be accountable to God
the judge.
the language of christian funerary inscriptions

he interpretation of funerary inscriptions is the usual vehicle for identi-
fying Christians, but it is recognized that these documents are frequently
40
Wischmeyer, “M. Iulius Eugenius,” 226. Tabbernee, Montanist Inscriptions, no. 69.
41
Johnson, Christian Epitaphs, no. 3.10.
42
Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics, nos. 210, 212, 213, 218.
43
44
45
Ibid., no. 388.
46
Ibid., no. 394.
coded. Because their cult was legally a religio prava until the edicts of
Galerius (311 ce) and Constantine and Licinius (313 ce) made it a religio
licita, Christians relied on cryptic language and symbols to avert deface-
ment. Recognizable Christian communities emerge in the third-century
funerary epigraphy of Apamea and Eumeneia in Phrygia; some Christians
partially disguised their identities through the use of coded symbols and
terminology.
here are two extraordinary examples at Apamea. he first of them is
likely to be contemporaneous with Abercius’s funerary altar (late second
century ce), and one of the very earliest Christian inscriptions known.47
After the usual commemorations, it concludes, “Farewell, and may those
who pass by offer prayers also for [Artemidorus our son].”48 he offering of
prayers (euchai) for the living is also requested in the Abercius inscription
and seems normally to have been a particularly Christian practice.49 Most
Christian funerary inscriptions of the third century observe the conven-
tions of pagan funerary epigraphy in terms of formulaic language, using
terms like hērōion (lit. “a hero’s temple”) for tomb. hey also made use of a
conventional curse formula against tomb breaking (tymbōrychia), requiring
the payment of fines to the pagan temple treasury or sometimes invoking
the retribution of the gods, as for example, “If anyone harms the tomb, he
shall be accountable to the celestial and subterranean divinities who have
become enraged,”50 whether for reasons of burying another corpse or grave
robbery.51 he formula was clothed in monotheistic guise and has become
known as the Eumeneian formula because of the large concentration of
funerary inscriptions there using the formula “If anyone does this, he shall
be accountable to God.”52 he divinity is sometimes characterized in more
elaborate terms such as “the living God,” “the eternal flail of the immortal
God,” “the great name of God,” “Jesus Christ,” “the hand of God,” “the
justice of God,” and “God the judge.”53 Curses were sometimes appended
such as “may neither earth nor heaven receive his soul.”54 Others examples
47
For the date and identity of the persons named, see Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics, 534, no. 387.
48
Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics, 534, no. 387.
49
Cf. Buckler, “Asia Minor, 1924 I,” no. 24 (fourth to fifth century).
50
51
Ibid., no. 592.
52
MAMA 4, nos. 91, 264, 354–60; Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics, 497–9, nos. 353–62, 364–71, 373–
9, 385–6, 388–92, 394–6, 399, 401, 435, 445–6, 448–51, 455–7, 465–6, 651–2, 660, 684; Anderson,
“Summer in Phrygia: II,” no. 53 bis; Drew-Bear, Nouvelles inscriptions, nos. 44–8; Tabbernee,
Montanist Inscriptions, 144–6, nos. 20, 33. On Jewish use of this formula, see van der Horst, Chapter
12 of this volume.
53
Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics, nos. 353–5, 361, 362, 364, 369, 371, 374, 378, 392, 394, 455–7.
54
Ibid., no. 435.
include “[he tomb-breaker] shall be accursed before God for eternity,”55

and “We adjure God that no one should plunder the tomb of our body.”56
he Christian formula first appears in the third century and was still in use
as late as 349.57 A good example of Christian cryptopoiesis combining these
features is seen in another inscription of Apamea (259 ce):58
In the year 343 (of the Sullan era). I Aurelius Artemas made the tomb for myself
and for my wife Tatia and for my children. No one else shall be buried in it. If
someone does this, he shall be accountable to the immortal [god].
he authorship makes use of an expanded Eumeneian formula; “immortal”
god (athanatos theos) is not necessarily a Christian formulation.59 But in the
Anatolian context it probably is, there being few pagan Greek examples
of it to hand.60 Moreover, the stone has a relief sculpture showing a meat
cleaver, indicating that the deceased was a butcher, and a vase, a common
Christian but perhaps also Stoic symbol.61 A Christian butcher circa 259
ce would have been less likely to handle sacrificial meats. here is another
possible example of Christian encryption at Apamea (third century):62
I Aurelius Auxanon twice made the tomb as a gift for myself and for my brother
Dosityches with his wife. No one else shall be buried in it. If anyone does this, he
shall be accountable to God. Farewell by me, you lovers of the divine and good
men newly caught.
he use of the Eumeneian formula lends a specifically Christian identity to
the “lovers of the divine” and “good men newly caught” (philotheoi kai kaloi
neothēroi), the latter a reference to the newly baptized and catechumens.
Inscriptions confessing the nomen Christianum and avoiding the types
of cryptopoiesis just described were a parallel development. Among these
were the “Christians” and “Christians for Christians” inscriptions and
other simpler examples. here is no particular reason to assign these open
and vivid expressions of belief to Montanist Christians, who for the most
part shared the views of their catholic-orthodox neighbors.63 By the second
half of the fourth century, Christian funerary conventions would change
in a self-conscious way; the use of the Greek cross and Chi-Rho became
55
Ibid., no. 445.
56
Ibid., no. 661.
57
Ibid., 538, no. 399.
58
Ibid., 534, no. 388; Buckler, “Asia Minor, 1924 I,” no. 2.
59
Peterson, ΕΙΣ ΘΕΟΣ, 268–70; see previous note.
60
he word normally appears in the plural.
61
Snyder, Ante Pacem, 16. M. Ant. 3.3 (angeion, “clay vessel” or “pitcher”).
62
Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics, 535, no. 389.
63
Tabbernee, Montanist Inscriptions.
general, and a theologically neutral language was devised to express the

concept of the tomb. hese words reflected local attitudes; in addition to
the very common mnēmeion (“memorial”), one finds thēkē (“cist tomb”)
and sōmatothēkē (“body box”) in the Christian necropolis at Corycus in
Cilicia Tracheia,64 and soros (“cinerary urn”) in parts of the Lycus valley.65
he term hērōon (“hero’s tomb”), and in some instances mnēmeion and
hērōon in combination,66 were gradually displaced by koimētērion (“place
of sleep”).67
christian communities in late antiquity

he Christian communities of Asia Minor become eclipsed in fourth-
century sources. his is partly a consequence of the importance that
Eusebius’s continuators, Socrates, Sozomen, and heodoret, give to the
Arian controversy. he datable Christian inscriptions decrease in number
in Phrygia, but become more widespread in other parts of Asia Minor.
Ancyra in Galatia is a good example of an urban site. It possessed a school
of rhetoric where hemistius taught, and its Christian inscriptions show
a similar preoccupation with the paideia. A fourth-century Christian city
councillor (bouleutēs) seems to have built or repaired bridges and roads
in the second half of the fourth century. An inscription celebrating his
achievement makes use of flowery language borrowed from the Homeric
poems and attests the existence of a Christian sophistic in the provincial
capital of Galatia:68
+ For a blessing. he divine John, a subject of song among the citizens (and) a
bold-hearted man, built a road in front of the city amidst its suburban inhabi-
tants as a man who excelled at wisdom and thought in his decrees. Ancyra found
glory (kleos) with the help of its godlike citizens, and made things easier for all
travellers. + May John, the bridegroom (?) (euparochos) of the fatherland, increase
in power.
Christians belonging to the churches who signed the decrees of the ecu-
menical Councils of Nicaea in 325 and Constantinople in 381 acquired
a sense of independent identity vis-à-vis the dissenting churches of Asia
Minor – among them the Montanists.69 hese “catholic” or “orthodox”
64
MAMA 3, nos. 203, 204, etc.
65
Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics, 416.
66
Ibid., no. 652.
67
Ibid., nos. 375, 376, 379, 400, 445, 447, 654, 659, etc.; Ramsay, “Tekmorian guest-friends,” no. 28;
68
SEG 27, no. 874.
69
Cf. Calder, “Julia-Ipsus and Augustopolis,” no. 21.
Christians became known not only for public works as city councillors, but
for the construction of installations needed by the churches, of which there
is a striking fourth-century example in the western province of Lydia:70
Gennadius son of Helios built this cemetery (koimētērion) of the Christians of the
universal church (katholikē eklēsia (sic)) out of the funds that God gave him. May
peace be with him at the hands of the Lord through all the ages.
he so-called sects and heretical churches were also beginning to assert

distinctive identities by this time: one sees this in another inscription of
perhaps fourth-century date at Nicaea. It is theologically expressive, rather
illiterate in spelling, and peculiar in detail:71
Gerontiōn of godly mind built this tomb for himself out of his own labors, being
of the same name as his father, marking out the foundations and busily com-
pleting the entire building (and) being a father (patēr) of the church of the Pious
(hē tōn Eusebōn ekklēsia), hospitably receiving a shelter (and) resurrection (anas-
tasis) for his mortal body, and for his most faithful Christ-bearing wife Kyradiē
who lived for 28 years, and for his beloved (and) dearest sons Gerontios and also
Leonidas who have Christ in their hearts.
It has been suggested that Gerontiōn was perhaps a member of the clergy of
the Novatian church, but his clerical rank as “father” is unusual. Funerary
inscriptions of presbyters of the churches of Novatian and the Apotactics
are reported at Laodicea Combusta in Phrygia, and the detailed funerary
narrative of a young woman who adhered to Novatian asceticism is known
from the upper Tembris valley in Phrygia.72 It would be valuable to know
the size of the community and whether it possessed ecclesiastical buildings.
One last theologically inspired funerary inscription belongs to the second
half of the fourth century and reflects the final synthesis of the Anatolian
and Judaic ideas of angels with orthodox Christianity in the cult of the
angel Michael, supreme commander or archistratēgos of the heavenly army.
It comes from Yüreme, a place some kilometers from the great church at
Germia in Galatia, where the cult was centered:73
Here lies Sōtērichos, a man worthy of long memory, who considered that God
can raise from the dead and entrusted himself to the archistratēgos (and) who (long
ago) in this place received the ordinance for the beginning of his life.
70
SEG 19, no. 719.
71
Ibid., no. 1323.
72
Buckler, “Asia Minor, 1924. IV,” 51–7.
73
SEG 6, no. 73.
he last clause might provide a reference to Christian baptism. he

inscriptions provide a fragmentary, if revealing, picture of the modes of
theological speculation and ritual of later fourth-century Asia Minor. he
regionally focused biographies of the founders of monastic communities
thereafter become our principal sources of information. hese texts have
documentary value, and are quite consistent with the epigraphy in their
use of vernacular Greek, in the behavioral situations they describe, and in
social and institutional structures they depict.
montanism in asia minor

he problem of Montanism in Asia Minor has occupied scholars since the
beginning of the twentieth century. here are detailed references to the
founders of the “sect,” its beliefs and practices in Eusebius of Caesarea’s
Ecclesiastical History and in the Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis (d.403).
Its agenda is sometimes referred to as the “New Prophecy” because it
claimed revealed status for the pronouncements of its prophets and proph-
etesses. Liturgical innovations developed around the ritual of delivering
prophecies. Montanist clerical structure differed from that of the apostolic
sees and their suffragans, to the extent that women enjoyed the same status
as men in liturgical matters (“gender neutrality”).74 It is true that there was
an early tradition in the apostolic churches of a women’s diaconate, but
the extent to which this entailed ordination to ecclesiastical orders is prob-
lematic.75 here were also the traditions about the prophetic expertise of
daughters of the apostle Philip at Laodicea. Female deacons are in any case
rare in the Christian epigraphy of Asia Minor, and none have been noted
in connection with this study.
he prevailing view is that the existence of “Montanist” inscriptions has
been much exaggerated.76 he indisputably Montanist inscriptions of Asia
Minor are few and of relatively late date, circa fifth to sixth century.77 he
superior of many of these communities was known as the koinōnos, a term
that seems to have the literal sense of “partner” or “participant,” and whose
functions seem to have been similar to those of a bishop, in the sense
that their powers extended over geographically defined districts. Titles
like “patriarch,” “bishop,” and “presbyter” appear also to have been used.78
74
Tabbernee, Montanist Inscriptions, 70–2.
75
PGL, s.v. diakonos.
76
Tabbernee, Montanist Inscriptions, 553–69.
77
Ibid., nos. 84–5, 87.
78
Ibid., nos. 3–8.
hree koinōnoi are named in the inscriptions of Asia Minor, all of them
from later centuries: “holy Paulinus the ‘initiate’ (mystēs) and koinōnos”
(Sebaste, fifth century), “holy Praylios the regional koinōnos (kata topon)”
(Philadephia, 8 March 515), and another with the same title (Bagis, fifth to
sixth century).79 It is of some interest that these clearly Montanist prelates
made use of conventional catholic-orthodox symbols, including divergent
forms of the Chi-Rho and the Latin cross (with serifs). Apart from the
prelates’ titulature, there is nothing to distinguish these stones from “non-
sectarian” Anatolian Christianity. Montanist holy men sometimes bore
the epithet pneumatikos, or “inspired by the Spirit.” It has been proposed
that epigraphic expressions like “holy pneumatikos” and “Christian pneu-
matikos ” may well refer to Montanists,80 but the designation could be a
product of other motives. Elsewhere, onomastics may provide evidence
where the name “Montanus,” a common Anatolian name in earlier centu-
ries, was used. Personal names associated with sectarian leaders may well
have been avoided in the catholic-orthodox consensus. In consequence,
a prōtodiakonos Montanus on a marble slab (fifth century), perhaps of
Pepuza or Tymion, may well have been an adherent of the group.81 We
are probably also on ground with a funerary inscription mentioning the
death of a Stephania who was the leader (hēgoumenē) of five lamp-bearing
virgins (lampadiphoroi (sic) parthenoi) at Ankara. Following Epiphanius
of Salamis, one may well deduce that they were female presbyters who
prophesied at liturgical events. Apart from this, however, the titulature and
epigraphic symbols are identical with those found on catholic-orthodox
inscriptions: hēgoumenē was in use for prioresses of Christian female ascet-
ics and theophilestatos (“most divinely beloved of Christ”) was a normal fea-
ture of ecclesiastical titulature. he symbols are conventional Greek crosses
typical of the later fifth and sixth centuries.82 Assuming that the inscription
reflects a Montanist community in Ankara at this time, one can see that it
used conventional cultural language and symbols to communicate its theo-
logical ideas, and was practically indistinguishable from catholic-orthodox
Christians except for certain differences in hierarchy and liturgy.
here remains the question of whether the Montanists had church
buildings. Before Constantine, their situation was identical with that of
catholic-orthodox Christians. he tomb of Montanus and the prophet-
esses Maximilla and Priscilla lay at Pepuza, where healings were said to
79
Ibid., nos. 80, 84, 85.
80
Ibid., nos. 86, 95; cf. ibid., no. 55.
81
Ibid., no. 77.
82
Ibid., no. 87.
take place. Successive imperial laws imposed disabilities on their freedom

of practice. John of Ephesus definitively looted and destroyed the shrine
at Pepuza in 550.83 he twin sites of Pepuza and Tymion now appear to
have been located. he proposed site of Pepuza is a deep and elongated
ravine called Ulubey canyon. It has been the object of an intensive archi-
tectural and surface survey.84 Pepuza seems to have been part of a large
Roman estate. In its present condition, the site consists of a series of rock-
hewn dwellings for solitary monks in the canyon wall and evidence of
a “Byzantine” Christian basilica.85 hese installations are likely to have
been fitted out after the eradication of the shrine in 550.86 No decisive epi-
graphic or material evidence of the proposed Montanist phase of the site
(pre-550) has come to light. A recently discovered inscription of Septimius
Severus (ca.April 200–209/10) has now given the approximate location of
Tymion.87 Among other things, the stone indicates that this place, prob-
ably an imperial estate, had a population of tenant farmers (coloni), a
characteristic feature of other regions where Christianity arose in second
century Asia Minor. he Montanists supposed that New Jerusalem was to
come into existence in the intervening area between Pepuza and Tymion,
which lie some 10km apart.88
christianity as an expression of anatolian culture:

continuity and innovation
Callinicus of Rufinianae’s life of St. Hypatius contains detailed reports
about Anatolian Christianity in the province of Bithynia located across the
straits opposite Constantinople. he well-constructed internal chronology
of the texts allows us to put many of the reported events in the last few
years of his life (ca.443–46). here is epigraphic evidence as to the location
of the monastery in the rural territory of Chalcedon, a limestone column
naming the place (+ monēs(terion) (sic) Rhouphinianōn) found between
the villages of Kartal and Samandira in the rural territory of Chalcedon
not far from the sea of Marmara near the harbor of Chalka (present-day
Kartal) and a village or estate apparently named Pion.89 he place name
83
Ibid., nos. 1–2.
84
Tabbernee and Lampe, Pepouza and Tymion, 133–265.
85
Ibid., 97–100, 103f.
86
Ibid., 93–100.
87
Ibid., 56–72.
88
Ibid., 102.
89
Cf. SEG 36, no. 1145, 1146.
Rufinianae derives from the name of a landed magnate named Rufinus

who was Praetorian Prefect of Oriens (392–95). he lands were thereafter
neglected, and had reverted to the res privata of the emperor after Rufinus’s
dismissal and execution on 27 November 395.90 Hypatius and a small group
of ascetics occupied the site of an abandoned apostoleion or shrine of Sts.
Peter and Paul, probably as squatters, on 3 April 400, for no landed prop-
erties were attached to it. It lay within the same territorial circumscription
as another institution, a martyr chapel at Bostancı Köprü, located some
12km southeast of Chalcedon, whose inscription names two of the princi-
pal personages who figure in the life of Hypatius:91
he foundations of the martyrion of St. Christopher were laid in the third indiction,
in the month of May, after the consulship of the most splendid Protogenes and
Asturius, in the time of Emperor heodosius and Eulalius, bishop of Chalcedon.
It was built by the most suitably pious Euphenia, wife of the cubicularius. he
act of deposition (katathesis) was completed in the fifth indiction, on the twenty-
second day of the month of September in the consulship of the most splendid
Sphorakios.
he inscription is of considerable interest, because its gives the date of the
laying of the foundations and the deposition of relics and other accou-
trements of the shrine (May 450–22 September 452). It took some two
and a half years to complete the construction work and purchase silver
vessels, marble altar screens, and other accoutrements for the shrine.92 At
Rufinianae, an unnamed Christian matron made financial contributions
to the monastery there, turning it into a going concern after initially dif-
ficult beginnings: the monks earned their money by basket weaving, sack
making, and gardening, then selling their products in Chalcedon some
4–5km distant. Among its later patrons was a certain Aetius, who was a
relative of the cubicularius Urbicius, a man who enjoyed direct access to
the emperor and later rose to the office of praepositus sacri cubiculi.93 he
careful attention to the consular dating formula of the martyrion of St.
Christopher and offices of the donors indicates that the families of senior
public officials in the capital took a serious interest in subsidizing monastic
foundations. he coastlands and mountains of Bithynia were also a ref-
uge for the wealthier element in Constantinopolitan society. Some owned
estates and gardens, but others invested their wealth in asceticism, from
90
Bury, Later Roman Empire 1, 87.
91
SEG 34, no. 1262.
92
Grumel, Chronologie, 243.
93
V. Hypatii §12.8–13.
time to time taking refuge from the burdens of political life by spending
time with the monks.
he life of Hypatius provides important information about the cultural
links between fifth-century Anatolian Christianity and earlier cultural for-
mations such as the worship of Great Mother divinities like Artemis and
Cybele. A festival called the Basket of Artemis was still celebrated in the
hilly hinterlands of the Marmara coast of Bithynia. Hypatius saw it as
his task to visit the solitary monks who for reasons of enhancing their
asceticism had split off from his group and migrated to “inner” Bithynia
along the Rebas river.94 He also came into contact with the local folk, who
warned him about the visitations of Artemis, a deity thought to manifest
herself in groves around the hour of noon and destroy passersby. he great
temple of Artemis at Ephesus had already been transformed into a church,
probably at the beginning of the fifth century. A public official there had
erected an inscription proclaiming this act, which was nearly contempora-
neous with the foundation of the monastery at Rufinianae:95
After tearing down the beguiling image of the daemon Artemis, Demeas set up
this marker of the truth in honor of God, the expeller of idols, and the cross, the
deathless victory-bearing symbol of Christ.
Hypatius’s encounter with Artemis Bendis ought to be seen in light of
this and other events, like the closure of the Serapeum in Alexandria and
Marneion in Gaza. He was susceptible to religious experiences, interpret-
ing natural phenomena sometimes with theistic, at other times with dae-
monic, criteria. He may also have been inclined to embellish them, as a
unique narrative of one of his journeys indicates:96
[Hypatius] went to inner Bithynia where the Rebas river is. here was at that
time . . . the Basket of the defiled Artemis, [a festival] which the countryside keeps
every year, and people do not go out onto the main road for fifty days. When he
wanted to travel, the locals said to him: “Where are you going, man? he daemon
will meet you on the road. Do not travel, for many are caught.” When he heard
this, he smiled and said: “You fear these things, but I have Christ as my travelling
companion.” . . . [He] met a very aged woman with the height of ten men. She
went around spinning and grazed pigs. When he saw [the apparition], he sealed
himself [with the sign of the cross] and stood there praying to God. At once she
became invisible, and the pigs fled with a great rush and Hypatius came through
unharmed.
94
Ibid., §45.1; SEG 36 (1984), no. 1147.
95
Grégoire, IGC-As. Min., no. 104; Guarducci, Epigrafia Greca, 400f.
96
V. Hypatii § 45.
here are no signs of cult in this episode, and the “locals” he consulted
were in all probability Christians. his connects the religious culture
of the mid-fifth century with that of the sixth, when John of Ephesus
claimed to have baptized some 80,000 pagans, and the authors of the lives
of St. Nicholas of Hagia Sion and St. heodore of Sykeon knew of sacred
groves, springs and trees that still have retained their associations with the
pre-Christian belief and ritual. Yet Book 16 of the heodosian Code, pub-
lished in 438, repeated a good many of the laws against sacrifice, notwith-
standing the boast of an earlier law 9 April 423 mentioning “pagans who
have survived, although we believe there are none left.”97 he pre-Christian
theistic beliefs and rituals of Asia Minor are mentioned in later centuries.
he continuity of pagan sacrifice in fifth-century Asia Minor is known
mainly from the life of Hypatius. he author discreetly observes:98
[Hypatius] had zeal for God and converted many places in Bithynia from the
error of idol worship. If he heard that there was a tree or some other such object
that some people worshiped, he went there at once, taking along his disciples the
monks, cut it down and burned it. hus the rustics became Christian in part (kata
meros).
It is difficult to say whether “in part” is intended as a demographic term
indicating that a portion of the population became Christian, or whether
they accepted baptism but retained the etiologies and rituals of the old
faith. In some environments, these cultural variants remained in play for a
long time. As Callinicus puts it, “Christianity is not a chance thing” (ouk
esti to tychon Christianismos).99 Elsewhere, the author paints a more opti-
mistic picture from the standpoint of incipient monotheism:100
At that time [ca.April 403] in Phrygia there was not a [monk], apart from one
or two here or there. If a church could be found somewhere, the clergy were lazy
because of being too close to the land. In consequence the people are catachumens
even until today. When they heard about [Hypatius] and becoming amazed that
such a man came from their land, they all became Christians in as short a time as
necessity required.
If this proposition is taken at face value, it yields the impression that the
movement toward the new monotheism penetrated some parts of the
countryside only gradually, even if it was overwhelmingly successful else-
where. It is otherwise difficult to reconcile the author’s seemingly vague
97
Ch 16.10.22.
98
V. Hypatii §30.1.
99
Ibid., §48.1.
100
Ibid., §1.4–5.
estimates for upper or “inner” Bithynia on the one hand, and Phrygia on
the other. It may well be that upper Bithynia, including Mount Olympus,
proved attractive to ascetics because of its backwardness. he latter will
then have been eager to test their regimen against the gods of the old reli-
gion whom the new dispensation had reclassified as daemons. here are
few firm answers to these questions for the present.
he continuity of sacrifice can be explained for reasons other than
adherence to bygone etiologies. It was associated, for example, with divina-
tion (manteia) and what has been broadly called Greco-Roman magic, but
more properly the curse, most commonly the summoning of a daemon or
familiar spirit to assist in carrying out acts of erotic intrigue. It was known
as the maleficium or pharmakeia. here is an archetypal example of manteia
in the life of Hypatius, an alleged transcription of a conversation he had
with an old man who was reputed to be a diviner:101
Hypatius: “I have heard about you that you can predict the future, and if someone
loses something you tell them who took them (sic). Tell me, please, how you do it,
so that upon learning how, I might worthily honour you.”
he man replied with alacrity: “If someone speaks to me about some [such] mat-
ter, it is revealed to me at once during the night, and I tell them each to go out
and sacrifice a cow, sheep or bird at the idol temple (eidōleion), and furthermore,
if an angel (angelos) tells me something, I tell.”
Hypatius is said to have repaid the compliment by arresting the man and
confining him to a cell in the monastery, to avoid “Satan teaching men
through you to worship idols.” It is striking that some presbyters came
to Hypatius not long after and asked him to release the old man. his
and another incident provide a useful example of the conflicts that fre-
quently arose between ascetics and regular clergy over the most appropriate
response to sacrifice and other questionable ritual. It is said that Hypatius
agreed to release the man only after the latter had sworn a written oath to
eschew all further practice of divination.
he main lines of the development of Christianity in fourth- to fifth-
century Asia Minor are expressed in the epigraphy of the local churches
and their ecclesiastical officials. It follows particular conventions, but
is at the same time varied in the ways it expresses official purpose.
Conversely, many inscriptions have no official purpose at all, but are ver-
nacular documents expressing the aspirations of ordinary people, includ-
ing the monks. he largest number of these texts were cut in the later
101
Ibid., §43.9–15.
fifth or sixth century, but a great many have provisional dates based on
stylistic features.
christian self-expression after constantine

A common theme in the epigraphy is the foundation and furnishing of
churches. A small number of churches were donated by emperors, arch-
bishops of wealthy sees, senior military commanders, and landed aristo-
crats. he martyrion of St. Christopher mentioned above is a good example
of this.102 Another is found in a monastery at Daskalion on the island of
Nesos among the Hekatonesoi, an archipelago in the gulf of Hadramyttion
on the west coast of Asia. Although somewhat later than the other texts
here under discussion, it provides a good example of the patronage of
monastic institutions. Inscription A. appears on lintels, B. on the lower
faces of the architraves:103
A. he consecration of the church of the Anargyroi (took place) through
the zeal and provision of the patrician Solomon and (his wife) Epiphanis
and all the holy fathers in the place. Christ was born of Mary. (cross)
God.
B. In the time of Epiphanius the lay estate manager and [ – ] the humble
monk, protopresbyter and syncellus [ – ]. Athletes of Christ, physicians
of ailments, pray on their behalf!
he holy Anargyroi, “physicians without fees,” were Sts. Cosmas and
Damian, whose intercessory powers were considered safe insurance
against all forms of illness. Solomon combined the offices of Master of
Soldiers and Praetorian Prefect in the recently reconquered provinces of
Africa until he died in battle in 544, evidently a protective service not
covered by the holy Anargyroi. he poor could hardly afford the types of
protection sought by Solomon. More often than not they resorted to the
prophylaxis of amulets (phylaktēria), which were not always sanctioned
by the ecclesiastical authorities. he fourth-century synod of Laodicea
had forbidden clergy to manufacture amulets – metal apotropaic objects
on which syncretistic formulas and the names of unknown angels were
sometimes inscribed.104 heir manufacture and distribution seem to
have been allowed only at ecclesiastically sanctioned Christian pilgrim-
age centers. Bronze amulets contain predictable formulas and plausibly
102
SEG 34, no. 1262.
103
Grégoire, IGC-As. Min., no 47.
104
C. Laodicea, Can. 36.
reflect the concerns of ordinary Christian folk, like two undated objects
acquired in late nineteenthth-century Smyrna. he obverse reads, “+
Seal of Solomon. Expel every evil from the bearer!” he reverse has the
word “envy” (phthonos) inscribed in the center and written round it is
“+ Depart, hated thing! Solomon expels you! Sisinnios Sisinnarios.”105
Another amulet of similar type and the same provenance contains the
name of an apparently Jewish angel: “+ Depart, hated thing, (for) Araaph
expels you! Seal of Solomon. Protect the bearer!”106 Invocations against
the “evil eye” of envy sometimes appear even on churches.107
he less wealthy frequently contributed particular elements to the inte-
rior of church buildings, such as marble fittings, mosaics, and even sections
of the building. A typical donation and its formula come from a church no
longer extant in Smyrna, and the inscription is broken at the end: “+ In
fulfilment of a vow, Glaukos made the door-posts and lintel (perithyron)
of the holy church of God. Lord, remember your servant [ – – ].”108 Such
donors’ motives were similar to those expressed by Solomon in the monas-
tic church at Daskalion.
It can be seen from this analysis that Christianity in Asia Minor reached
a turning point in the decades after Constantine’s unification of the empire.
Vernacular documents in the form of funerary inscriptions suggest that
adherence to the new monotheism was often expressed in muted terms
from earliest times down to the later third century. Expressions like “great
God” and “immortal God” were polyvalent and susceptible to the henothe-
istic and syncretistic constructions common in late Greek Anatolian reli-
gion. he open expression of Christianity embodied in the “Christians for
Christians” inscriptions was an ephemeral phenomenon characteristic of
the new order devised by Diocletian and his colleagues, the Tetrarchy, which
lent freedom of expression to most religious systems except Manichaeism.
With the establishment of Constantine’s rule in Asia Minor after the demise
of Licinius, the vernacular expression of Christian ideas took many different
routes, sometimes influenced by the Greek paideia (which was a continuous
strand running from the late second century onward), at other times influ-
enced by the legal reality that Christians now participated openly in civic
life with the approval of the emperors. his can be seen in pious contribu-
tions to the local churches, in the establishment of privately funded mon-
asteries, and in the increasing use of Christian symbols on public buildings
105
Grégoire, IGC-As. Min., no. 90 bis.
106
Ibid., no. 90 ter.
107
108
Grégoire, IGC-As. Min. no. 73.
and Christian funerary inscriptions. hese tendencies were in full swing by

the second half of the fourth century. hey arose on a parallel trajectory
with the expansion of the local churches and growth of theological litera-
ture. he latter was embodied not only in the writings of the Cappadocian
fathers, but also in the decrees of the provincial synods and ecumenical
councils and in the hagiographic literature, which gave a vernacular inter-
pretation to all this in the languages of the inscriptions.
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 
ITALY, ROMAN GAUL, AND SPAIN

14
RELIGION IN ROME AND ITALY FROM THE LATE

REPUBLIC THROUGH LATE ANTIQUITY
In the year 384 ce, the Roman senator Quintus Aurelius Symmachus sent
this letter to a colleague:
I am intensely distressed, because, despite numerous sacrifices, and these often
repeated by each of the authorities, the prodigy of Spoletum has not yet been
expiated in the public name. For the eighth sacrificial victim scarcely appeased
Jove, and for the eleventh time honor was paid to Public Fortune with multiple
sacrificial victims in vain.1 You know now where we are. he decision now is to
call the colleagues to a meeting. I will make sure you know if the divine remedies
make any progress. Farewell.2
We do not know the nature of the Spoletum prodigy, but communal fears
aroused by natural or manmade disasters, such as earthquakes, drought,
and military defeats, were the most frequent reasons for the kind of rit-
ual response mentioned by Symmachus. Following traditional practice,
Symmachus refers the matter to the colleagues in the senate who, if they
deemed it significant, would then consult with the priestly augures or the
quindecimviri sacris faciundis to determine the appropriate actions to be
undertaken by the priests, magistrates, or people as a whole. It is striking
that Symmachus’s concern as well as the mechanisms to address prodigies
had remained in place in Rome at least into the late fourth century, some
seventy years after the first Christian emperor, Constantine, claimed the
city as his own.3
In light of Symmachus’s letter, it is hard to defend the notion, which
persists in numerous studies on the ancient world, that the Romans lacked
1
Symmachus’s reference to Public Fortune suggests this deity had its own cult at Spoletum.
2
Symmachus, Ep. 1.49, can be dated after 360/365 but before Praetextatus’s death in December 384
ce. For edition, translation, and commentary in English, see now Salzman and Roberts, he Letters
of Symmachus. Book 1, 106–7. On the date of this epistle, see ibid., 1.106–7.
3
Beard, North, and Price, Religions of Rome, Vol. 1, 37–8; North, Roman Religion, 27–8.
371
any “real” emotional attachment to their religion, or that their religion

consisted of orthopraxy devoid of content. Part of the reason for this view
is the nature of the sources, discussed in the following section, and part has
to do with the ways in which the historiography on Roman religion devel-
oped, which will be discussed at the end of this chapter. My aim here is to
challenge these views by considering the key issues raised by Symmachus’s
letter: how and why the cults, rituals, and beliefs of the peoples living in
Rome and Italy thrived, changed, and yet persisted from the late republic
circa second century bce to the Roman empire of the fifth century ce.
his is a long time period, and I can consider it only selectively. I will
focus on the religious experiences of the people who lived in the city of
Rome and whose religious traditions spread throughout Italy and Sicily.
his focus on the religion of Rome is justifiable because by the late first
century bce, Roman political hegemony over the peninsula and Sicily was
secure. Although the Romans did not stipulate strict conformity to their
religious traditions, over the centuries, the cults, practices, and structures
of the religious life of the city of Rome came to dominate Italy.
As the Italians incorporated and transformed certain Roman religious
traditions, the Romans, for their part, simultaneously incorporated and
transformed certain Italic and non-Roman cults and practices (primarily
Greek, Egyptian, and Etruscan). his dynamic interchange helps to explain
how and why Roman religion flourished for centuries. Although this pro-
cess of transformation is comparable to the interchange between Romans
and foreigners in other regions of the empire, it took a particular turn in
Rome and Italy, resulting in a distinctively “Roman” Italic religion.
the sources
We do not have a set body of shared texts or dogma that can elucidate the
religious traditions of Rome and Italy. Instead, we possess a rich array of
texts – hymns, poems, prose, philosophical works, magical papyri, oracular
statements, histories, and antiquarian texts – that complement the mate-
rial evidence – coins, tombs, houses, calendars, inscriptions, and temple
excavations.4 For the period before the first century bce, we depend greatly
on two histories dating from the first century bce to the first century
4
For the most useful sourcebook of Roman religion, see the second volume of Beard, North, and
Price, Religions of Rome. he first volume provides a chronological analysis of Roman religion, focus-
ing on the city of Rome but also including Italy and its provinces, from its archaic origins down to
the Christian empire. his author owes much to this first volume, but does not agree in all respects
on particulars or on the processes of religious change and interaction with local cultures.
Religion in Rome and Italy: Late Republic through Late Antiquity 373
Map 8. Italy
ce – namely, those of Livy and of Dionysius of Halicarnassus; although

based on limited knowledge of the age about which they write, they both
reflect the tendency of their contemporaries to idealize the early Roman
period as an age filled with piety. In his Greek Histories, Polybius (sec-
ond century bce) provides only scant information about Roman religion,
even while acknowledging the central role that it played in Roman society.
Given the limitations of the textual sources, the archaeological evidence

for the pre-first century bce is of special import in showing the growth
of early Rome. From this, scholars have come to believe that as early as
the sixth century bce, Rome was a sophisticated, mainstream city in close
contact with Greeks, Etruscans, and Carthaginians (see Rüpke, Chapter 13
of Volume I).
he last century of the republic is the first period for which we have
enough textual evidence to ground our understanding of the structure
and practices of Roman religion. Yet even the histories of the first cen-
tury bce present challenges for understanding Rome’s religious traditions.
he aforementioned tendency of Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus
to idealize early Rome reflects the perspective of their contemporaries
and inspired some Romans of the first century bce to gather informa-
tion on the customs and traditions of their ancestors. Of special note are
the works on Roman religion by M. Terentius Varro (first century bce),
a scholar whose information has been largely preserved but reshaped by
Augustine in his City of God. For instance, Augustine mocks the func-
tionalist principle of Roman religion by citing a lengthy list of minor
deities, many of whom were recovered by Varro. But the aims of the two
writers are worlds apart. When Varro described the three gods necessary
to guard a house – including Forculus (the door), Cardea (the hinge), and
Limentinus (the threshold) (Augustine, Civ. 4.8) – he did so in a display
of antiquarian erudition. Augustine, on the other hand, described them
as if to mock a contemporary practice. Even so, Augustine’s misrepresen-
tation of Varro’s intent has colored modern accounts of Roman religion,
leading to the tendency, noted earlier, to dismiss Roman religion as con-
cerned solely with orthopraxy and functionalism, empty of deep emotion
or metaphysical meaning.
As John North has observed, Varro’s antiquarianism is emblematic of a
more widespread Roman unwillingness to discuss the nature and mean-
ing of contemporary rituals and the character of the priesthood.5 Roman
writers tend instead to describe the workings of the divine in human mat-
ters only obliquely, via, for example, etymologies or, as in the case of the
historian Livy, by listing prodigies and the state’s response to them, but
without discussing the religious meaning of these prodigies or miraculous
events. he presence of such lists is worth noting; Livy, like the later histo-
rian Tacitus, shared the view that the gods favor those leaders who observe
5
North, Religions in the Roman Empire, 330.
proper religious rituals.6 While Livy is willing to describe the gods or the
ways in which the gods communicate to men, both he and ancient philos-
ophers in general are not interested in “internal exegeses of the character of
pagan religion.”7 It seems likely that this silence is intentional, representing
a more widespread Roman perspective on what is or is not appropriate for
discourse. his tendency has certainly also contributed to the misguided
modern notion that Roman religion was only about orthopraxy.
Some scholars have contended that Roman religionists became will-
ing to engage in discourse on traditional religion only when they faced
challenges from Christian detractors.8 If this is true, then the problem for
historians of traditional Roman religion is even greater, since Christian
sources have to be treated as “hostile witnesses.” he Octavius, for exam-
ple, a dialogue between a defender of Roman religious traditions and a
Christian recounted by the Christian apologist Minucius Felix (130–250
ce?), provides a direct but dismissive discussion of the religious experience
of the non-Christian. Yet even such texts cannot be trusted entirely; the
Christian poet Prudentius (late fourth to early fifth century) misleads with
his exaggerated description of bloody rites of initiation in the cult of Attis
and Cybele.9 Even so, his account has been read by scholars for centuries as
a straightforward narrative of the sacrifice and slaughter of a bull. he con-
tinued production of texts filled with mockery and attacks against past or
imaginary rites rather than contemporary Roman cult practice is in itself
an indicator of the vitality of Roman religious traditions in the Christian
empire. What did these traditions offer?
conceptualizing the divine: roman and italic cults

of the republic and empire
he city of Rome and its public cults
One way to approach Roman religious tradition is to consider the princi-
pal cult sites and deities of the city of Rome in the late republic that sur-
vived into the late empire. Jupiter/Zeus, the principal god of Rome, was
worshipped in the largest temple in the city, placed on the highest hill, the
Capitolium, and flanked by his wife, Juno/Hera, along with the goddess
Minerva/Athena. Lesser deities had smaller cult sites, but each had a role
6
Liebeschuetz, Continuity and Change, 1967; Scott, Religion and Philosophy, 1ff.
7
North, Religions in the Roman Empire, 330.
8
Ibid., 330.
9
McLynn, “he Fourth-Century Taurobolium,” 312–30.
to play in the life of the city. Traditionally, Jupiter/Zeus, as the first god of
the state, was in charge of warfare and the sky, the source of nourishing
rain or damaging lightning, the latter his attribute. His wife, Juno/Hera,
venerated as the protector of childbirth, along with Minerva, goddess of
skilled crafts, assisted him on the domestic front. his Capitoline Triad –
the collective name of the three dominant deities of the city – represents
a central principal of Roman republican religion as well as its politics,
namely the sharing of powers in order to ensure the success of Rome.
Because early Rome was dependent on its abilities to fight and farm,
Mars, protector of the army and a god originally linked with agriculture,
was also a key deity in Rome, especially in the age of Augustus and contin-
uing into the empire. A distinctive female deity was Vesta, the goddess of
the communal hearth. Her flame was tended by a group of seven virgins,
who were connected from earliest times with the survival of the city-state.
his brief discussion serves to introduce the array of cults and dei-
ties that grew to meet contemporary Roman needs (see Table 1). Indeed,
Roman writers noted with pride their ability to absorb new cults and
divinities into their city. Aesculapius, the god of healing, was brought to
Rome from Greece. he historian Livy and the poet Ovid describe how,
at the end of the Second Punic War, the Romans transferred the Great
Mother, an Anatolian goddess whom the Greeks called Cybele, to the
city in the shape of a black stone. Venerated and installed in a temple
on the Palatine Hill in Rome, her cult was adapted to Roman religious
expectations. Because castration was deemed unmanly and hence not fit-
ting for a Roman, the eunuchs who served her cult were required to be
non-Romans (Livy 29.11.7, 14.10–14; Ovid, Fast. 4.317). Perhaps the best-
known instance of Roman adaptation of a foreign cult was occasioned by
the worship of Bacchus in the early second century bce. he arrival of
the cult in Rome and Italy created concern because the rites involved citi-
zens in private meetings with wine present. As in the late fourth-century
prodigy at Spoletum noted by Symmachus, the senate, after consultation
with priests, decided how best to deal with the new cult and also main-
tain the pax deorum, the good will of the gods. he senatorial decree
survives; while imposing restrictions on cultic practice and participation
by Romans and non-Romans alike, it did not prevent worship of Bacchus
from continuing in Italy or Rome.10
10
Livy 39; ILS 18 for the senatorial decree; and for further discussion of the event, see North, “Religious
Toleration,” 1979; de Cazanove, “Some houghts,” 71–6; Ando, “Exporting Roman Religion,” 437.
For the convincing argument that the presence of women was not the key issue, see Schultz, Women’s
Religious Activity, 82–93.
Table 1. Some of the Gods of Rome and heir Greek Equivalents
Latin Name Greek Name Area of Major Activity

Aesculapius Asclepius Curing of illness
Apollo Apollo Reason; prophecy; health
Liber Pater Dionysus Wine and the grape harvest; ecstatic possession
Ceres Demeter Corn and agriculture; mother goddess and protector of
young girls
Dea Dia Obscure
Diana Artemis he hunt; animals; boundaries
Dis Pater Hades he underworld; death
Fortuna Tyche Fortune; luck
Isis Isis In the Roman period, protector of women and marriage;
goddess of maternity and the newborn; guarantor of the
fertility of the fields
Juno Hera Major goddess of the state; protector of childbirth, marriage
Jupiter Zeus Chief god of the state; lightning/weather; warfare
Magna Cybele Fertility; ecstatic dancing
Mater
Mars Ares Agriculture; military matters
Mercury Hermes Business; commerce; communications
Minerva Athena Major goddess of the state; skilled crafts
Neptune Poseidon Water; transport by sea
Quirinus Identified with Romulus
Saturn Cronus Sowing and seed corn; liberation
Sol/Mithras Helios Sun
Venus Aphrodite Physical love; seduction; conduit between humans and
deities
Vesta Hestia he hearth
Vulcan Hephaestus Metalworking; fire
he second-century-bce Bacchanalia decree also highlights the per-

sonnel in Rome typically responsible for public cult practices. As in this
case, the responsibility for maintaining good relations as well as com-
munications between the city-state and its gods fell to the magistrates/
senators, who, in consultation with the colleges of Roman priesthoods,
orchestrated the proper rituals for the gods. he magistrates, and later
the emperors, relied on the priests for the performance of correct ritu-
als. he high state priesthoods were generally held by the leading sena-
tors and magistrates in the city of Rome. Unlike the Christian office of
bishop or monk, there never developed at Rome a distinctly separate
class of priests who held these offices as a full-time job, as it were. Rather,
the same civic elite held the magistracies and the priesthoods; Caesar,
for one, was head priest (pontifex maximus) of the priestly colleges at
Rome, a position that members of the top families of the ruling elite
of the republic often held as a starting point in their political careers.
It is a sign of its continuing prestige that from the reign of Augustus
on, emperors held the office of high priest.11 Nonetheless, Augustus and
subsequent emperors, like the Roman magistrates before them, relied
on the priests of the state’s cult for the organization and performance of
public cult ritual.
he priests of Rome’s state cults, like the deities they served, were given
specialized functions. hey were organized into priestly colleges, the most
important of which were as follows: the pontifices or pontiffs (sixteen under
Julius Caesar), who advised the senate and citizens about religious law
and who were responsible for rituals like animal slaughter; the augures or
augurs, who sought divine approval by divination through birds; the seven
Vestal Virgins, who served the cult of Vesta; the quindecimviri sacris faci-
undis, fifteen priests who were in charge of and consulted the Sibylline
books for divine guidance; and the septemviri epulonum, originally seven
and, after Caesar, ten priests who organized ritual meals for the gods at the
games in honor of Jupiter or of the Capitoline Triad. here were also three
major and twelve minor flamines, priests of specific gods and goddesses, as
well as a college of Arval Brethren, twelve priests who performed rituals for
the Dea Dia goddess in her grove outside Rome.
By the late republic, when we have reliable sources, we know that the
priests presiding over public cult rituals had assistants to perform the more
technical work involved. hese included killing an animal or reading the
signs of nature, such as the flights of birds or the internal organs of a
sacrificed animal. Within each priestly college, membership depended
on cooptation; emperors could intervene, from Augustus on, but they
tended to do so in less public ways. Each college kept records on member-
ship, responsibilities, and finances; some of them, like those of the Arval
Brethren from the imperial period, have survived, providing a rich source
of information for modern scholars.12 However, the priests were not inde-
pendent of state control; the size of the college and changes in their orga-
nization were controlled by senatorial legislation and, in the empire, by
imperial influence. he four major priestly colleges – pontifices, augures,
quindecimviri, septemviri – fell directly under the control of the senate
in the republic and under the eye of the emperor as pontifex maximus in
11
Gordon, “he Veil of Power,” 201–31.
12
For the records of the Arval Brethren, see Scheid, Romulus et ses frères, 1ff.
the empire. his same principle of control elucidates why the four major
colleges oversaw the lesser priestly colleges.
A mere outline of the cults and priesthoods cannot convey the vital-
ity of religion in Rome, even if it indicates quite clearly how religion was
embedded in the political and social institutions of the city. Moreover,
scholars have tended to underestimate the appeal of Roman religious tra-
ditions because of the structuring of Roman ritual; as long as magistrates
and priests performed the rites correctly, the average Roman, citizen or
not, was not required to participate in them. Only recently have scholars
come to appreciate that the rituals, sacrifices, and holidays associated with
the public cults were major civic moments in which the identity of the
city and its inhabitants was performed and reinforced.13 Religious ceremo-
nies and games held for the gods (noted below) were engaging communal
moments and religiously meaningful events, bringing with them material
as well as spiritual and social benefits for the inhabitants of Rome. he
animals sacrificed were then cooked and distributed to participants, one of
the few times that most people ate meat in Antiquity.
To get a better sense of the attraction of the traditional cults of Rome,
we can turn, briefly, to the information provided by the public calendars of
the city. We are extraordinarily fortunate to have a range of calendars from
Rome and Italy, beginning with the pre-Caesarean calendar of Antium (84/55
bce), including multiple first-century calendars from the Julio-Claudian
period, along with the remains of an early third-century calendar from S.
Maria Maggiore, Rome, and a full calendar from the mid-fourth century
ce, the Codex-Calendar of 354; these attest to the rhythms of public cult
life in the city and Italy over a five-century period.14
In the late republican calendar from Antium, the major holidays were
named, along with the days on which the popular assemblies and the sen-
ate could meet, or the courts sit. his calendar itself reveals changes over
time in Roman religious traditions. he oldest holidays, many of which
were to honor deities obscure in the first century, are noted in capital let-
ters. In this way, they are distinguished from holidays added later in the
republican period, which are noted in smaller letters in the calendars and
which often included sets of games (ludi). he games took various forms,
including theatrical performances, circus races, physical contests, or, in
13
Gordon, “he Veil of Power,” 201–31.
14
Augustus’s (29 bce–14 ce) reformulation of the city’s religious life and his intentional commemora-
tions of the achievements of his family in the annual calendars of the city spurred the Roman pen-
chant for public displays of the Roman calendar that partially explains the great number of extant
first-century-ce calendars; see Salzman, On Roman Time, 5–8.
some instances, gladiatorial combat. Games were held in conjunction with

the holidays along with sacrifices and/or banquets performed by priests
and magistrates to honor the deities.
By the first century ce, the games and number of days devoted to their
cult rites enable us to determine the major deities of the city. Held in
honor of Jupiter and the Capitoline Triad, the Ludi Romani, for example,
extended from 5–19 September, and the Ludi Plebeii from 4–17 November.
he symbolic role of Vesta, the goddess of the public hearth, was noted
too on calendars with rites on 9 June (the Vestalia) and 15 June (Q.St.D.F.,
literally Quando stercus delatum fas, or when it was permitted to carry away
the “dung,” interpreted as a ritualized cleansing ceremony of the tem-
ple precinct). Similarly, Augustus’s attention to Mars, especially as Mars
the Avenger, led to days and rites for his celebration in the calendars of
first-century Rome, including the Birthday of Mars on the first day of
March.15
Modern interpretations of Roman religious festivals have depended, to
a large degree, on the testimonies of ancient sources. Of particular value
is the long poem by the Augustan poet Ovid (43 bce–17 ce), describing
Roman holidays for the first six months of the year. Yet his oblique testi-
mony presents problems of interpretation. So, for example, in describing
the rites to Vesta on June 9, he writes:
. . . there is no effigy of Vesta or of the fire [in her temple in the Roman Forum].
he earth stands by its own power; Vesta is so called from standing by power (vi
stando); and the reason for her Greek name may be similar. But the hearth (focus)
is so named from the flames, and because it fosters (fovet) all things . . .
in praying we begin by addressing Vesta, who occupies the first place.
It used to be the custom of old to sit on long benches in front of the hearth
and to suppose that the gods were present at table.
Even now when sacrifices are made to ancient Vacuna,
they stand and sit in front of her hearths.
Something of olden custom has come down to our time:
A clean platter contains the food offered to Vesta.
See, loaves are hung from garlanded mules,
And flowery garlands veil the rough millstones.
Husbandmen used formerly to toast only spelt in the ovens,
and the goddess of ovens has her sacred rites:
he hearth of itself baked the bread that was put under the ashes,
15
See especially Feeney, Caesar’s Calendar, 176–7 on Augustus’s emphasis on Mars Ultor.
And a broken tile was laid on the warm floor.

So the baker honours the hearth, and the mistress of hearths,
And the she-ass that turns the millstones of pumice.16
he narrative of this festival is emblematic of Ovid’s approach to religion.
here is an antiquarian emphasis on etymologies, the significance of which
for understanding the contemporary meaning of the rites is not always
clear. Ovid proudly recites differing views of the rites. While all of them
are valid, some he calls ancient, belonging to Rome or to Italy, as, for
example, the way of sacrificing to the obscure deity Vacuna. Others, like
Vesta’s name, he ascribes to Greek interpretation. Some of the rites seem to
have a rationale. We can easily see, for example, why loaves baked on the
hearth would honor Vesta, the goddess of the hearth. But there is no par-
ticular reason why it is only bread that is the object of ritual attention.
As M. Beard has well argued, the multiplicity of explanations for the
rites of Vesta that Ovid and other Roman authors recount is in itself sig-
nificant. Evidently, the Romans did not expect their festivals to have a
fixed canonical meaning. Numerous interpretations survived, and all were
valid.17 Although Roman authors, like Ovid, give the somewhat mislead-
ing impression that the rituals themselves were never changing, we can
sometimes see changes over time, not just in ritual, but in the meaning
for those experiencing such ceremonies. By way of example, M. Beard
traced how the festival of the Parilia, an early Roman agricultural festival
connected with the shepherds who grazed their flocks on the Palatine Hill,
came to be interpreted as the date of the foundation of the city of Rome
and so celebrated in new ways in connection with building of the temple
of Venus Felix and Roma Aeterna by the emperor Hadrian in the early sec-
ond century ce.18 Both interpretations survived, and both were relevant to
Rome’s citizens.19
Within such a creative system, the local, topographical context of a cult
encouraged multiple interpretations. Introducing a cult to a new site or
city could bring different but equally valid meanings to the same rites or
could facilitate the addition of novel rituals or places of veneration. At one
of Venus’s temples on the slope of the Aventine behind the Circus Maximus
(Serv. Ad Aen. 8.636), this goddess was worshipped as Venus Verticordia
(Venus as the “changer of hearts”) on 1 April; this temple was dedicated on
16
Fasti 6.249–318, trans. J. G. Frazer (LCL; Cambridge, 1956).
17
Beard, “A Complex of Times,” 1–15.
18
Ibid., 1–15.
19
Ibid., 1–15.
that day in 114 bce at the command of the Sibylline books in atonement
for the lack of chastity of three Vestal Virgins. he date, location, and rites
were clearly different from those to celebrate Venus Felix (“Lucky Venus”).
In this aspect, this same goddess was venerated at a likely small temple in
the city, this one on the Esquiline Hill, but also at the large, splendid tem-
ple constructed by Hadrian dedicated to “Venus Felix et Roma Aeterna,”
(“Lucky Venus and Eternal Rome”) whose commemoration on 21 April
was associated with the birthday of Rome.20
he openness of the Romans to new cults and rites helps to explain the
growing number of days set aside for games as recorded by the calendars
of Rome that exist from the first through the fourth centuries ce. he
undeniable appeal of the games has, however, also contributed to the mod-
ern notion that Roman religion had by the mid-fourth century become
nothing more than entertainment; by that time, the calendar recorded
some 177 days devoted to ludi and circenses, including ten days for glad-
iatorial contests.21 hat, however, would be a serious misreading of these
commemorations. Admittedly, ambitious politicians made these games as
novel as possible in order to excite and win favor with the populace, but
the intent of the games was to honor the gods. heir religious meaning,
manifested also by the reenacting of the myths of the gods on stage or
in the amphitheaters, explains why Christian bishops preached so loudly
against them, and continued to do so for centuries. In his sermons on the
days devoted to the Collects, annual collections of alms in Rome, Leo I
(440–61 ce), the fifth-century bishop of Rome, stated that he established
this Christian rite on the same days as the Ludi, likely the Ludi Plebeii to
Jupiter in November, in order to change the behavior of the inhabitants of
Rome who were attending games instead of services in Church.22
Italic cults and Roman religion

As the Romans came into contact with Italic and other new peoples and
religions, they tended to “identify gods very closely with specific locales
and to give them distinguishing epithets that linked them to particular
temples, cities, tribes, or topographical features.”23 Upon encountering
Venus Erycina, whose cult originated on Mount Eryx in western Sicily, the
Romans associated the deity with this place even as they erected temples
20
For more on these temples, see Richardson, A New Topographical Dictionary, 408–10.
21
Salzman, On Roman Time, 120–1.
22
Leo, Sermones 6–11, Concerning the Collections, with specific reference to games in Sermo 8.
23
Rives, Religion, 281.
to her on the Capitoline Hill and outside the Porta Collina at Rome; this
Venus, the embodiment of “impure” love, was the patron goddess of pros-
titutes.24 he Roman willingness to integrate local Italic versions of deities
and venerate them in Rome typifies the absorptive and creative capacities
of traditional Roman religion.
Conversely, the inhabitants of Italy and Sicily assimilated certain aspects
of Rome’s religions. Indeed, the religion of Rome spread in part because
of the establishment of colonies of Roman citizens established in strate-
gic areas in Italy. In the second century ce, Aulus Gellius called colonies
“little images, as it were, a sort of representation [of Rome]” (Noct. att.
16.13.8–9). We can see this physically insofar as each colony duplicated
the positioning of temples and cults to imitate that in Rome. Vitruvius
even stipulated this in his instructions for how to lay out a colony: “For
the sacred buildings of those gods who seem especially to exercise guard-
ianship over the city – to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva – plots should be
assigned in the loftiest location, from which the greatest part of the walls
might be seen” (Vitruvius, De arch. 1.7.1). In Roman colonies we find the
remains of Capitolia – triple temples to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. Even
if this way of laying out colonies is largely an early imperial formulation,
it shows quite concretely the importation of Roman notions of religion
into colonies in Italy and abroad.25 However, and this should be stressed,
even Roman colonies exercised a great deal of local autonomy in religious
matters. So, for example, in the charter of the colony of Urso, near Osuna
in Spain (ILS 6087), founded in 44 bce, we find the institutionalization of
two priesthoods known at Rome, the pontifices and augures, but no stipula-
tions about their duties. Hence, the local elected officials clearly decided
such matters and what their local calendar would look like.26
he same combination of assimilation and autonomy in religious prac-
tice is apparent too in the cities or municipalities (technically, communities
made up of those with partial or so-called Latin citizenship rites, including
foreigners) in Italy and Sicily. After the Social War of the late first century
bce, all communities in Italy that were not colonies received this status.
hese municipalities received charters, one of which, Flavian in date and
from Spain, survives. According to this charter, which likely applied across
the western empire, the worship of certain gods and the performance of
certain religious actions were stipulated by Rome. For example, the oaths
24
For more on her temple, see Richardson, A New Topographical Dictionary, 409–10.
25
Ando, “Exporting Roman Religion,” 435.
26
Ibid., 435.
of magistrates were to be sworn “openly in assembly, by Jupiter, the divine

Augustus, the divine Claudius, the divine Vespasian Augustus, the divine
Titus Augustus, the Genius of Imperator Caesar Domitian Augustus, and
the dei Penates.”27 hese deities and their cults were thus present in the
community, as per the decree of Rome. Nonetheless, as this Flavian charter
indicates, the municipal councils controlled their own calendar and their
own pantheon.28 hey could augment their civic rites and add regional dei-
ties as desired. Over time, those Roman cults and rituals that made most
sense to the inhabitants of the municipia and colonies in Italy were main-
tained, even if the rites and meanings differed from those practiced and
understood at Rome. As Roman religion spread through Italy, it changed
in a process of what Rives has aptly termed particularization and general-
ization; this made the religion of Rome look different in different cities in
Italy, as in other provinces.29
julius caesar and augustus: restoration and

reformulation of public cult in rome and italy
Because the public cults were embedded in the state, the demise of the
republic in the late first century bce that resulted in a government by
one-man rule – either the perpetual dictatorship of Julius Caesar (45–44
bce) or the principate (essentially a monarchy) of Caesar’s adopted son,
Octavian, renamed Augustus (27 bce–14 ce) – had profound implications
for the religious traditions of Rome and Italy. Augustus himself explained
these changes when, in his remarkable statement at the end of his life, the
Res Gestae, he claimed to have restored some eighty-two temples in the city
of Rome in 28 bce (Res Gestae 20.4). It was to his advantage to claim such
acts of piety, even if these restorations involved little more than a new coat
of paint or involved “bogus archaisms.”30 Still, no one man could claim so
much pietas, devotion toward the gods of the city.
Again, the calendars from Rome and Italy attest to these changes. Under
the pressures of the political upheavals of the first century, the Colleges of
Priests had allowed the calendar to fall out of sequence with the natural
cycle; in 44 bce, the New Year (1 January) would have fallen on what was
actually 14 October 45 bce according to the sun. To correct this, Caesar,
once dictator, called in Egyptian astrologers, and in 46 bce, “he [Caesar]
27
Ibid., 440.
28
Ibid., 439.
29
Rives, “Graeco-Roman Religion,” 240–99.
30
Cooley, Res Gestae, ed. 195.
linked the year to the course of the sun by lengthening it to 365 days,
abolishing the short extra month and adding an entire day every fourth
year” (Suetonius, Jul. 40.1). Following one last correction in 8 bce, the
Caesarean calendar thus functioned like a modern calendar, except that an
intercalated day was added every fourth year after 24 February, not after
28 February. his act virtually revolutionized the Roman calendar; “for the
first time [it was] feasible in the Mediterranean world to have the civil and
natural years in harmony under the same standard of representation.”31 His
reform also brought Caesar great glory. As the one who, through his regu-
larization of the times, controlled the cosmos, he was honored by having
his name, Iulius, replace the “fifth month” of the old calendar year (that is,
beginning in March). Every user of the calendar of Rome – which spread
to Italy and the western empire – would be familiar with his name, along
with the commemorations and games in his honor.
Expanding on the revolutionary revision of the calendar’s chronolog-
ical system undertaken by Julius Caesar, Augustus (his adopted son) was
able to complete a reconfiguration of the Roman calendar year. Indeed, as
the republican political institutions, notably the assemblies, continued to
decline in significance, Augustus and subsequent emperors, together with
their families, took up more time in the civic and religious year. In addi-
tion to the annual commemorations of Caesar’s victories, Augustus added
the commemoration of Caesar’s birthday on 12 July.32 his was the first
time that a festival for a human being was incorporated into the public cal-
endar of Rome, an extraordinary accomplishment by the man who com-
pleted Caesar’s reordering of the Roman calendar. As pontifex maximus,
the emperor also decided which cults to support and which to downplay,
directly influencing public religion.33 Augustus appreciated the political
implications of time. In 8 bce, after correcting and celebrating Caesar’s
reformation of the calendar, Augustus accepted the renaming of the month
of August in his honor.34 In 19 bce, the Augustalia of 12 October, the first
Roman festival named after a living human being, and the first new festi-
val incorporated in the calendar as a named holiday, was made an annual
31
Feeney, Caesar’s Calendar, 196.
32
he calendars record the addition of public holidays on the anniversaries of Caesar’s victories at
Munda (17 March), Alexandria (27 March), hapsus (6 April), Ilerda and Zela (2 August), and
Pharsalus (9 August), as well as the birthday of Caesar; see Fraschetti, Roma, 15–16.
33
34
Bennett, “he Early Augustan Calendars,” 221–40. his reformation was timed to coincide closely
with the dedication of a monumental sundial, the Horologium, in the Campus Martius in Rome a
year earlier. he gnomon of this massive sundial was an Egyptian obelisk that Augustus, as Pontifex
Maximus, had brought to Rome and dedicated to the sun; see Buchner, Die Sonnenuhr, 10.
event.35 his commemoration remained in the calendar down through the

fourth century.36
Honors conferred on the living emperor and the members of the impe-
rial family – the birthdays, death days, accessions to priesthoods, comings
of age, dedications of temples, and victories in battle of the princeps or the
princeps’ family – contributed to the development in first-century-ce Rome
of an elaborate ceremonial in honor of the deceased emperor. Orations in
praise of the dead emperor and a parade including members of the elite
of Rome accompanied the procession of his body to a funeral pyre. here,
as his body was cremated, an eagle was released, symbolizing the ascent of
his soul to the heavens. his ceremony only occurred after the senate had
recognized that the deceased emperor had become a god; hence, only those
emperors whom the senate approved of received this honor. Yet, as Gradel
has argued, much of this ceremony was in accord with traditional Roman
religion and honors to the civic elite.37
he city of Rome maintained the distinction between the deified emper-
ors (divi) to whom one offered sacrifice, and the living emperor, whose
genius (guardian spirit) was the object of veneration. he deified emperors
(divi) received the ornate, costly temples and cult honors, whereas worship
of the genius of the emperor was less elaborate. he distinction between
the living emperor’s genius and the deified emperors was not as carefully
maintained outside Rome. Inscriptions that indicate sacrifice for (that is,
on behalf of ) rather than to the emperor, once thought to be an important
indicator of the separation of honors to a divine emperor versus honors on
behalf of a mortal ruler, were not consistently employed across the empire,
nor was there the traditional Roman hesitation to grant universal honors
to the deified emperors and to their living descendants.38 Over time, even
in Rome, the line between veneration of the genius of the emperor versus
that of the living emperor blurred.
he cult of the emperor, often in conjunction with the goddess Roma,
became firmly fixed in the city and in Italy, as in the empire as a whole.
Games, priests, sacrifices, banquets, and processions made real the ben-
efits and powers of the good deified emperors. A clause in a decree from
Pisa (CIL 11. 1420 = ILS 139: ll. 31–33) shows that the religious practices of
the imperial cult followed in Rome provided a model for municipalities
35
Michels, he Calendar, 1967: 141; Taylor and Holland, Janus, 140.
36
his focus on the princeps and his family also explains why no triumphs other than those of Augustus
and his family were celebrated in Rome after that of Cornelius Balbus in 19 bce.
37
Gradel, Emperor Worship.
38
elsewhere in Italy. his did not mean, however, that Rome directly con-
trolled all aspects of Italian or provincial imperial cult. As the lex coloniae
Genetivae indicates, municipalities were able to determine which festivals
and accompanying rites they chose to follow in terms of the imperial cult,
as they did for the state cults as well.39 Diverging localized interpretations
sharpened variations in imperial cult worship.
the individual in roman religion

Public cults, priesthoods, ceremonies, and new cults, as that of the
emperor and his family, did not deprive the individual of the opportunity
and inclination to practice traditional Roman religion in more personal
ways, through private ceremonies and rituals. In early Rome, the family
worshipped the genius (guardian spirit) of the pater familias, just as in the
empire, citizens worshipped the genius of the living emperor. In Roman
houses, we find small shrines for offerings of fruit or incense to the spirits
of the family dead, the lares, whose images adorned these shrines. Rituals
for the lares indicate that the Romans felt the dead needed to be appeased.
Families – at least elite families – also kept alive the memory of dead
ancestors in the form of statues or masks that were kept in full view in
the atria of their family home; at the funerals of nobles, these masks were
worn by actors or family members who, dressed in the appropriate attire
of their dead ancestor, then walked in a procession accompanying the
corpse.40
Even the civic calendar of Rome acknowledged the important role that
individual and family religiosity had in the state. Nine days in February
were set aside for the festival of the Parentalia, when offerings were made
by families at the tombs or gravesides of their ancestors outside the walls
of the city. After this period, a day was devoted to the reunion and rec-
onciliation of the living members of the family. his peaceful ritual to
honor the ancestors was quite the opposite of the Lemuria, the annual fes-
tivals on 9, 11, and 13 May; these rituals aimed to placate the hostile spirits
(Lemures) of the dead, hearkening back (according to Ovid, Fast. 5.419–93)
to Romulus’s expiation of his brother’s murder. On this day, the father
of every family rose at midnight, purified his hands, tossed black beans
39
Fishwick, he Imperial Cult in the Latin West, II.1, 490–1, has argued in favor of direct control of
imperial cult from Rome; but his evidence for Italy suggests that while Rome modeled religious
rituals, municipalities had some degree of independence insofar as they could set their own festivals
and accompanying rites; see the Lex coloniae Genetivae: LXIII (CIL II.5439 = ILS 6087).
40
Polybius 6.53–4.
for the spirits to gather, and recited entreaties for their departure without
harming the living.
Individual religious rituals for the spirits of the deceased suggest that
there was, at least on the part of many Romans, a concern with survival
after death, as does the formulaic tombstone inscription dis manibus, “to
the gods of the underworld.” Yet such rituals seem at odds with tombstones
that proclaim that after death, there is nothing to survive or to be concerned
about; the formulaic “I was not; I am; I was; I am no more” (“non fui;
sum; fui; non sum”) summarizes this attitude. As was the case for Ovid’s
multiple explanations of holidays, Roman opinions about death and the
religious practices associated with it incorporated a range of beliefs. he
so-called mystery cults and religions like Christianity and Manichaeism
further contributed to the development of a multiplicity of Roman views
on the afterlife and on the role of religion in the face of death. Greek phi-
losophers also helped to raise these issues in popular consciousness.
In considering the religious choices of individuals, special attention
should be paid to the rise of the mystery cults that came to Rome and
Italy and existed in the empire as a whole. hese cults offered secret rites
of initiation and the promise of their deities’ power to help the participant
overcome Fate and/or succeed in life, powers that some scholars liken to
the offer of personal salvation; hence modern scholars have grouped these
cults together and called them “mystery cults,” after the Greek word mystēs
(“initiate”).41 Such cults had been in existence in some form in early Greek
society from the sixth century bce on.42 But the spread of these rites in
conjunction with what were perceived as “foreign” cults is attested as early
as the second century bce in Rome and Italy, as the Bacchic decree noted
earlier indicates. hese cults differed among themselves; the centrality of
initiation rites, for instance, varied by cult, as did the meaning and the
message for the worshipper. W. Burkert argued that only in the cults of
Bacchus and Demeter do we have evidence for the promise of personal
salvation and the power to “overcome Fate.”43 But not all scholars have
agreed, arguing that other mystery cults, notably those of Mithras, Cybele,
and Isis, offered “the promise of salvation, or more precisely, their deities’
power to control fate.”44
Given these differences, it is worth looking in brief at the mystery cults
that appealed most in Rome and Italy. Perhaps most distinctive is the cult
41
Alvar, Romanizing Oriental Gods, 26.
42
On the Greek mysteries, see Roller, Chapter 11 of this volume.
43
Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults, 1ff.
44
See, for example, Alvar, Romanizing Oriental Gods, who argues against Burkert’s view.
of Mithras. Although we have no ancient text that conveys the precise

meaning of the initiation to the participant, we do know much about
this cult and its organization from archaeological evidence. his cult likely
excluded women, and appealed mostly to soldiers in the frontier zones
as well as to bureaucrats and freedmen in Rome and Ostia. Based on the
floor decorations in underground rooms or caves where initiates most fre-
quently met, scholars have discerned a series of initiations, all associated
with astrological signs and with the central iconic scene of Mithras’s slay-
ing of the bull. here were seven stages, beginning with the “raven” and
then moving up through the male bride, soldier, lion, Persian, sun run-
ner, and finally father; these stages were linked with the planets, starting
from Mercury and finishing with Saturn, including as well the sun and the
moon. he individual ascent through the seven grades may have reflected
the soul’s progress through the stars. he deity who controls this progress,
Mithras, has a Persian name, but the cult, as it developed in various parts
of the empire, assumed a peculiarly Roman form.45
Among the mystery cults that appears most vibrant in late fourth-century
Rome is that of Attis, the boy-shepherd and consort of the goddess Cybele,
whom the Romans brought to the city in the Second Punic War (218–01
bce) and worshipped as the Magna Mater. he worship of Attis grew with
the approval of Roman authorities. In one Latin version of the myth con-
veyed by the poet Ovid (Fast. 4.221–44), Attis was the lover of the goddess
who, out of jealousy, drove him mad; in his frenzy, he castrated himself.
Variants of this myth appear in Roman sources, but Attis’s self-castration,
death, and rebirth, often through the intervention of Cybele, are consis-
tent elements (see Arnobius, Adv. nat. 5.5–7). Many scholars interpret the
evergreen tree that is carried in processions as part of his public rites as a
symbol of Attis’s rebirth.46 Other scholars have argued that, rather than a
promise of salvation or immortality, the rites and cult myth of Attis, which
in some variants were the result of Cybele’s pleading with Jupiter, demon-
strate the limitations of even the gods over fate.47 How the myth and the
public rites of this cult were linked with private rites of initiation is not
certain, but by the late fourth century, a special bull sacrifice (taurobo-
lium) was included as part of the individual initiation into this mystery
cult. Interestingly, a bull sacrifice was originally performed on behalf of
the emperor, and some of that public element may well have remained
45
Beck, he Religion of the Mithras Cult.
46
Vermaseren, Cybele and Attis.
47
Sfameni Gasparro, Soteriology and Mystic Aspects.
in the elaborate private rites attested in fourth-century Rome.48 Similarly,

the mystery cult of the Egyptian goddess Isis, also popular in Rome and
Italy, included both public rites and private rites of initiation in a cult that
promised its initiates a kind of rebirth in the sacred waters of the Nile.49
hese and other mystery cults took root in Rome and Italy in ways
that reflected their local contexts. Worship of Attis and the Great Mother
in fourth-century Rome was linked to late Roman senatorial aristocrats,
a local situation that was not duplicated in other cities in Italy. Mystery
cults thrived because they met “new spiritual needs that they themselves
encouraged and fostered, by which they were sustained in return.”50 But an
individual’s experiences in mystery cults complemented his/her religious
interactions; mystery cults did not replace the state cults, nor were they at
odds with the civic religious structures. However, the increasing number
of religious options in the Roman empire suggests that the sacred land-
scape of Rome and Italy, as elsewhere, was changing. As more and differ-
ent religions became available, some cults expanded and at times, as in the
case of Bacchus, they came into conflict with Roman authorities intent on
maintaining civic order.
the end of traditional roman religion?

Given this array of religious options and influences, it would be strange
indeed if traditional Roman public cults and priesthoods did not respond.
One issue that arose was the question of one god or many – monotheism/
henotheism versus polytheism. Traditionalists were generally polytheists,
although certain of them, as well as philosophers, came to see the gods as
aspects of a single divine principle, whether it be the Logos of the Stoics
or the heos Hypsistos (highest god) attested in inscriptions in the East.51
he neo-Platonists of the second to fourth centuries, who advanced their
own notions of a central Logos, did much to articulate and advance mono-
theistic tendencies among the educated elites, as Augustine’s Confessions,
Book 7, makes clear. Of course, Christians, like Jews, rejected the notion
of many gods in favor of one deity. Yet these different religions coexisted
in Rome and Italy, generally without incident except for outbursts on
48
See McLynn, “he Fourth-Century Taurobolium,” 312–30.
49
For the Isis cult, see Takács, Isis and Sarapis.
50
Alvar, Romanizing Oriental Gods, 12.
51
Mitchell, “he Cult of heos Hypsistos,” 81–148. On the veneration of heos Hypsistos in Asia Minor
and his assimilation with the god of the Jews and Christians, see Roller in Chapter 11 and van der
Horst in Chapter 12 of this volume.
a local level. he most famous expression of the official Roman policy

toward monotheistic cults is the letter of the emperor Trajan to the sen-
ator Pliny, then acting as a special administrator in Bithynia. In response
to Pliny’s query about this group, Trajan stated that the Christians not be
hunted down and killed; only if denounced and only if they “obstinately”
refused to sacrifice to the gods of the state should Christians be punished
(Pliny the Younger, Ep. 10.97). Neither Pliny nor Trajan were bothered by
Christian monotheism; what was at issue was the disruption of traditional
religious practices that also affected the local economy and potentially dis-
turbed civic order.
In the third century, however, concern about the gods in relation to
the Roman state led to a break with these traditional patterns of religious
laissez-faire. he emperor Decius (249–51 ce) attempted to reinforce his
position by renewing traditional Roman religion and thereby guarantee
the well-being of the state. he edict that he published unfortunately does
not survive; but according to Christian sources (see Eusebius, Hist. eccl.
6.41.9–13), it ordered every inhabitant in the Roman empire to sacrifice,
to taste the sacrificial meal, and to swear that they had always sacrificed. A
special commission of local magistrates supervised the sacrifices and wrote
a libellus, or certificate, as confirmation of the deed. Refusal to sacrifice
entailed a steep fine. Such mandatory sacrifice broke with Roman tradition
on numerous grounds; most ominously, perhaps, it tried to set a universal
policy about individual actions instead of allowing for local and collective
action.52
As far as we know, Decius’s action was not aimed at any one group in
the empire, although later Christian writers interpreted it as an attack on
them in particular. A number of Christians did reject sacrifice and suf-
fered for their choice. Some died as martyrs, in painful circumstances. he
death of Decius in a war against the Goths in 251 brought a reprieve from
this policy. But six years later, in 257, the then emperor Valerian (253–61)
renewed the idea, now targeting Christians.53 hose who refused to sac-
rifice would lose their property and their positions, as well as their lives;
imperial officials and freedmen were to be sent to the mines. he aim of
the state was to reinvigorate traditional religion among the civic elites. In
Rome, the then bishop, Sixtus II, chose martyrdom over sacrifice. Only
Valerian’s defeat put an end to this policy, and his son Gallienus revoked
52
Libelli have been found on Egyptian papyri; see Rives, “he Decree,” 135–54.
53
Valerian’s first edict was aimed at Christian clerics (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 7.11; Acta Proconsularia
Cypriani 1, 4). His second edict was aimed at all Christians.
the edicts in 260/261 (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 7.13). his allowed a return to
the status quo ante.
Although subsequent third-century emperors were eager to support
Roman religion, they did so in more traditional ways. he emperor Aurelian
(270–75 ce), for one, focused attention on the cult of the Invincible Sun,
Sol Invictus, whose aid he believed had helped him to defeat the queen of
Palmyra in 273. In Rome, a magnificent temple and priestly college drawn
from the senatorial elite were established to this deity; and a special set of
games, the agon Solis, held every fourth year, was now made part of the
civic calendar. If Aurelian was concerned about Christians, as was alleged
by the fourth-century Christian bishop Eusebius (Hist. eccl. 7.30.20–1), he
did not implement any persecution against them.
It was not until the later years of the reign of the emperor Diocletian
(284–303) that the idea of an empire-wide persecution of non-traditionalists
reemerged as part of imperial policy. In 297 ce, in response to a request by
a proconsul, Diocletian took aim at the Manichaeans, whose leaders were
to be burned alive, along with their scriptures. As his edict makes clear,
Diocletian associated this group with the enemy, Persia, and considered
them a threat to Roman security.54 After a traditional sacrifice failed, prob-
ably around the year 300, Diocletian came to believe that the presence of
Christians had incited divine anger and so ordered first the members of the
palace and soon all the soldiers and officials to make sacrifices (Lactantius,
Mort. 10; Inst. 4.27.5; Eusebius, Vit. Const. 2.50–1). A series of increas-
ingly harsh edicts aimed at Christians who did not sacrifice followed, and
many died rather than submit. But Diocletian’s attempt to enforce sacrifice
failed due to a combination of political, military, and religious reasons,
not the least of which was resistance to enforcement on the part of Roman
administrators.
In 311, a general edict of toleration was issued by a new emperor,
Galerius. After the defeat of Maxentius at the Milvian bridge near Rome,
Constantine and Licinius promulgated a policy of toleration, the so-called
Edict of Milan; now the victorious emperor Constantine openly embraced
the very religion that had only recently been the object of persecution
and ushered in a century of religious transformation.55 Traditional reli-
gions were allowed to continue, although they came increasingly under
attack as subsequent Christian emperors saw it as their duty to maintain
54
FIRA II, 544–89. On Manichaeism in Sasanian Persia, see De Jong in Chapter 1 of this volume.
55
Drake, Constantine, 35–71, for full discussion, bibliography, and documentation of these events
discussed most fully by Eusebius, Vit. Const. 1.25–41.2.
divine favor by undermining them. Rituals deemed inappropriate for

Christians – notably, animal sacrifice – were the first target of imperial
legislation. Yet as Symmachus’s aforementioned letter, dated before 384,
makes clear, enforcement was not uniform in Italy or Rome. Traditional
religionists persisted in their practices.
he coercive arm of the state, supported by bishops and monks, over
an extended period of time contributed to the demise of the traditional
Roman religions. he state met with some resistance. Some traditional
religionists argued against imperial efforts at cutting state monies for
the public cults and their rituals (with or without animal sacrifice), as
Symmachus’s famous hird State Paper in defense of the maintenance of
the Altar of Victory in the Roman senate in 384 makes clear.56 Only rarely
did such resistance erupt into violence in Rome or Italy, as it did in 397 in
northern Italy.57 In Rome, where the ties between the state institutions and
the civic elites had been cemented over centuries, the task of disengaging
traditional religion from the state extended over the course of the fourth
and early fifth centuries. As in the spread of Roman religions throughout
Italy, so too the disappearance of traditional Roman religions occurred in
different localities at different times, depending on the needs, values, and
views of the local communities.58
conclusion: why did scholars believe that

the romans had no religion?
he nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholars who argued that the reli-
gions of Rome and Italy were either moribund or merely concerned with
orthopraxy were blinded by Judeo-Christian preconceptions that sought
genuine “emotion” or systematic doctrine that fit their modern notion of
religion.59 Many historians were greatly influenced by the works of the
prestigious scholar heodor Mommsen, who dismissed the textual descrip-
tions of Roman rites as mere literary artifice.60
56
For a recent discussion of Symmachus’s hird State Paper and the Altar of Victory controversy, see
Cameron, he Last Pagans, 33–51.
57
For the incident in the Val di Non, an area just north of ancient Tridentum, modern Trento, see
Salzman, “Rethinking Pagan-Christian Religious Violence,” 267–73.
58
Goddard, “he Evolution,” 281–308.
59
Price, Rituals and Power, 7–22, is a brilliant exposition and critique of these historiographical
perspectives.
60
For an excellent discussion of the influence of Mommsen’s History of Rome, 3 Volumes (1854–56) as
the source for this view still, see Scheid, “Polytheism Impossible,” 303–26.
here was, and still remains even in relatively recent scholarship, the
view that Roman religion is synonymous with its political structures, a
perspective termed the polis-religion model.61 Hence, the centralization
of power by the emperor Augustus made traditional Roman religion no
more than an extension of his authority; this emperor’s religious reforms
were viewed as cynical, politically motivated machinations that led to the
establishment of the imperial cult at the expense of traditional religions.62
Consequently, when the political and military troubles of the third century
had undermined the state and changed religious patronage patterns of the
civic elites, the resulting structural changes in the administration of cities
and the weakening of the government brought with it the demise of tra-
ditional Roman religions.63 he only “real” religious experience presenting
individual satisfaction was offered by the mystery cults.64
Such views cannot be sustained. A wide range of evidence provided by
texts and material culture reveal the vitality of traditional religions in the
daily lives of the inhabitants of Rome and Italy into the fourth and early
fifth centuries, some of which I have discussed in this chapter. Moreover,
interpretation of Roman ritual has advanced beyond the perspective of
the individual emotion to require an appreciation of how such rites were
important within a system of constructed meanings.65
he view that traditional Roman religions were already dead before
Constantine’s adoption of Christianity in the fourth century is no longer
viable. As the civic elites reemerged in Rome in this century in the absence
of a resident emperor, they came to play an even greater role in the tra-
ditional public cults.66 Artifacts like the Codex-Calendar of 354 that depict
traditional religious rites do not preserve anachronistic rituals, as was once
believed, but lived realities.67 Despite real changes in the patterns of reli-
gious patronage in Rome and Italy, the public cults remained in place.
In some places, as in Spoletum, civic patronage persisted even as local
leaders turned to wealthy Roman aristocrats like the senator Symmachus
to support it.68 Only because scholars into the latter part of the twentieth
61
See Introduction to Volume I.
62
See, for example, Tripolitis, Religions of the Hellenistic-Roman Age, 2; and the insightful discussion by
63
Rives, Religion and Authority, 250–311.
64
See especially Cumont, Oriental Religions, 31–8, whose 1911 edition was republished in 2006, one
sign of its lasting influence.
65
See especially Price, Rituals and Power, 7–22; Rives, “Greco-Roman Religion,” 240–99.
66
See, for instance, Chenault, Rome without Emperors.
67
68
Goddard, “he Evolution,” 281–308.
century continued to resist attributing meaning to Roman religion were

they unwilling to see in this artifact, as in other evidence, proof of the vital-
ity of traditional Roman religion in Late Antiquity.
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Buchner, Edmund. Die Sonnenuhr des Augustus (Mainz, 1982).
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15
JUDAISM IN ITALY AND THE WEST
giancarlo lacerenza
In the absence of substantial historical and literary records, an overview of

Judaism in the western territories of the Roman empire from the first to
the fifth century necessarily relies on epigraphic and archaeological doc-
umentation. he limits imposed by the fragmentary state of the material
evidence, however, and the random circumstances of its preservation, frus-
trate any attempt – or temptation – to paint a detailed picture of a reality
that must have been internally varied and not always in step with the evo-
lution of rabbinic Judaism in Palestine and Mesopotamia.
From the formative period of the Jewish communities in the West down
to the third and fourth centuries, when the Jewish population of Italy and
the Iberian Peninsula became a significant component of local society, the
western branch of ancient Judaism developed far away from its home-
land. Furthermore, Jewish communities in the West were under continu-
ous pressure from a politically and culturally hegemonic environment that
rejected, at least in principle, any innovation regarded as barbaric or, in any
case, alien. Not surprisingly, Judaism in the West maintained a degree of
independence from Palestinian Judaism, with which it began to conform –
although the trend was not uniform – only from the fifth century onward
and mainly in reaction to the growing success of Christianity.
rome
he date and circumstances of the appearance of the first Jewish com-
munities in Italy – presumably around the middle of the second century
bce – are still shrouded in uncertainty. 2 Macc 4:1 seems to suggest that the
first official contacts between Judea and Rome dated as far back as 174 bce.
However, the earliest securely dated contacts occurred in 161 bce, the year
of the treaties ratified between Rome and the Hasmonean princes and later
398
Judaism in Italy and the West 399
renewed in 142 (1 Macc 8:17–30; 15:15–17). Although no sources mention

a Jewish community in the capital or anywhere else in Italy at this time,
by then groups of Jews must have already settled in Rome. In 139 bce,
the praetor peregrinus Cn. Cornelius Hispalus repatriated them – together
with some astrologers, probably Babylonian – under the accusation of hav-
ing attempted to spread their religious practices. His act suggests that the
local Jewish community was mercantile rather than residential in charac-
ter. Because the episode, related by Valerius Maximus, survives only in two
slightly different epitomes, neither the context nor any other details are
known. But the subsequent sending of delegations to Rome under John
Hyrcanus between 134 and 112 bce may be an indication that by that time
the crisis had abated (Josephus, Ant. 13.260, 266; 14.145–8, 247–55).
he number of Jews in Italy rose suddenly in 63–61 bce, when Pompey
brought back many slaves following his conquest of Judea, including the
former pretender to the throne Aristobulus II and his supporters. After the
Roman conquest, many more Jews were reduced to slavery under several
governors, including Cassius Longinus in 53 (Josephus, J.W. 1.8.9). Once
Judea fell under direct Roman control, deteriorating relations between the
two nations affected even the religious domain. Pompey’s sacrilegious entry
into the Jerusalem temple was long remembered as one of Rome’s most
serious affronts to the Jewish cult. Conversely, the Jews’ attachment to
their traditions and exclusive ritual practices often earned them the accu-
sation of misanthropia among the Romans.1 Given this climate of mutual
hostility, one is hardly surprised by Cicero’s contemptuous description of
a multitude of unruly Roman Jews – apparently an influential lobby –
attending the trial of the governor of Asia, L. Valerius Flaccus, in 59 bce.
Among other things, Flaccus was accused of having prevented the sending
of funds to the temple of Jerusalem. While heaping scorn on the Jews’
barbara superstitio, Cicero also informs us that it was a well-established
custom at the time to send money to the Temple from Italy. Significantly,
in the same period, Varro (quoted in Augustine, Civ. 4.31) bears witness to
a degree of benevolence toward Judaism. In Varro’s case, it was inspired by
the “purity” of the Jews’ aniconic cult, which for Varro represented religio
in all respects.
Having sided with the populares, the Jews were unaffected by Julius
Caesar’s decree banning religious collegia from Rome (except for the ones
established earlier, which were granted the right to assemble, send money
1
Schäfer, Judaeophobia; for deteriorating Jewish perception of Rome, see Hadas-Lebel, Jérusalem con-
tre Rome.
400 Giancarlo Lacerenza
to their homelands, and take their meals in common). Many Jews visited
the dictator’s funeral pyre in gratitude. Octavian later confirmed their reli-
gious privileges (Suetonius, Jul. 42; 84.5; Aug. 32). Judging from the surviv-
ing names, there were at least three synagogues in Rome in Julio-Claudian
times. hey belonged, respectively, to the Herodiani, the Agrippenses, and
the Augustenses. To these we must add the synagogue in Ostia, the only one
that was certainly active in that period.
It is commonly believed that during the early empire, there were only
a few thousand Jews in Rome, out of an estimated population of about
one million inhabitants. he evidence, however, is rather scarce. Flavius
Josephus, for example, mentions 8,000 Roman Jews who mobilized
against Archelaus, heir to Herod the Great (Ant. 17.300). First described by
Tacitus, Tiberius’s expulsion from the city of 4,000 descendants of freed-
men, whom he sent away to Sardinia to fight bandits, probably included
converts, and members of the Egyptian cults, as well as Jews (Tac. Ann.
2.85; Suet. Tib. 36). First-century sources report that the Jews of Rome
were numerous, but of destitute condition and mostly belonging to the
servile class. he Alexandrian philosopher Philo observes that Rome’s
many Jews, most of whom resided in Trastevere, were former war captives
(Legat. 155 [23]). he arrival of captives from the war of 68–71 ce must
have increased their numbers. According to Josephus, 97,000 people were
captured during that campaign. Of these, those under the age of seventeen
were reduced to slavery, and at least 700 were selected and sent to Rome
for Titus’s triumph (Josephus, J.W. 6.417–20). Scholars have proposed
widely diverging approximations of the size of Rome’s Jewish community.
For the first century, the estimates were once rather high, between 10,000
and 60,000 individuals. More recent studies based on reexaminations of
the archaeological record, however, hypothesize an average of only 500
individuals from the first to the fourth century.2 his estimate is based on
quantitative data deduced from some of the five or six surviving Jewish
catacombs. Because it is likely that several more Jewish cemeteries existed,
the accuracy of this figure is subject to question.
he first witness to the presence of Palestinian emissaries in Italy dates
back to 94/95 ce. In that year, according to written sources, a delegation
of four, headed by Gamaliel II, came to Rome, paid a visit to heudas (or
Todos), the capital’s main religious leader, and reproached him for not
scrupulously following the current precepts of Judea (y. Mo‘ed Qat. 3.1,
2
Solin, “Juden und Syrer,” 698–9, n. 240; McGing, “Population and Proselytism”; Rutgers, “Nuovi
dati.”
etc.). he principate of Domitian (81–96 ce) was marked by special hostil-

ity against the Jews. he aversion to Judaism already visible in the writings
of Latin authors such as Quintilian and Martial was in the second century
at least partly a reaction to the rebellions that had spread in North Africa
and the East ever since 116, and especially the increasing attraction exerted
by Judaism on large sectors of Roman society, including the ruling clas-
ses. his attraction apparently went hand in hand with active proselytism;
because Judaism could not be readily integrated into the Roman tradition,
proselytism made the Jewish cult – and Christianity along with it – espe-
cially odious in the eyes of those who defended traditional customs against
all externae superstitiones. he poet Juvenal adopted this attitude, as did the
historian Tacitus, who has left us a very negative portrait of Jewish religious
instituta (Hist. 5.5). Tensions created by the steady growth of the Jewish
population in the capital were aggravated by a concomitant increase in the
number of sympathizers adopting typically Jewish customs – for example,
the Sabbath and dietary restrictions. here must have been even less tol-
erance for the growing number of converts. he latter differed from mere
sympathizers in not shrinking from circumcision, a practice abhorrent to
Roman traditionalists.
he end of the revolt of 132–35 ce probably brought to Italy many other
captives and, according to rabbinic sources, voluntary exiles and scholars as
well. On that occasion, a Mattiah ben Heresh reportedly settled in Rome,
founding there an academy of Jewish studies (b. Sanh. 32b, etc.).3 Modern
scholars have cast doubt on literary traditions about Palestinian sages mov-
ing to and remaining in Rome in the first and second centuries. Although
these doubts may sometimes be excessive, it is undeniable that the rabbinic
account of Roman Judaism in that period is an a posteriori construction.
Nor should it distort our understanding of Judaism in Rome. Although
literary evidence temporarily wanes at the end of the second century, we
begin to see evidence at this time from the Jewish catacombs in Rome.4
heir variety bears witness to the highly heterogeneous character of local
Jewish society. While the complexity of this society’s cultural and spiritual
orientations still largely eludes us, it can neither be denied nor constrained
into halakhic categories unsuitable both to the context and to the period.
Considering the scarcity and ambiguity of written sources, epigraphs
are of primary importance for our knowledge of Judaism in the western
diaspora in the first few centuries of the common era. Fortunately, Italy
3
Bokser, “Todos and Rabbinic Authority”; Segal, “R. Matiah ben Heresh of Rome.”
4
Rutgers et al., “Sul problema.”
has yielded an abundant epigraphic record comprising, outside Rome,

about two hundred inscriptions scattered over the entire national territory.
Within current borders, they are mostly concentrated in southern Italy. he
catacombs of Rome alone (Monteverde, Villa Torlonia, Vigna Randanini,
Conte Cimarra, Via Casilina, and possibly that of Via Appia Pignatelli)
have yielded about six hundred epigraphs – about 30 percent of all Jewish
inscriptions in the entire Mediterranean area.5 Any attempt, however pro-
visional, to define the history and character of Judaism in ancient and
late antique Italy must, therefore, take account of the abundant and still
sometimes overlooked evidence of epigraphic sources. Regrettably, Rome
has thus far yielded almost exclusively funerary inscriptions, which can
rarely be securely dated. And unlike nearby Ostia, there are no epigraphic
or archaeological testimonies about Jewish public life.
he eleven different synagogue communities attested in the city, prob-
ably all active at the same time, reflect the diversity of Roman Judaism.
Each had its own specific designation, the meaning of which in some cases
is uncertain. Several, as we have seen above, were named after illustrious
patrons (as in the case of the synagogues of the Herodiani, the Augustenses,
the Agrippenses, and the Volumnenses); others took their name from their
location in the city (Calcarenses, Campenses, Sekènoí, Suburenses); and others
still were named after the community’s place of origin (Elaei, Tripolitani,
and possibly Vernaculi). he debated meaning of the expression “synagogue
of the Hebrews” (tōn hebreōn) may refer to immigrants from Palestine, or
members who either used Hebrew as their liturgical language or whose
identity was defined by their use of Aramaic. Some funerary inscriptions,
not all of them from Rome, contain the epithet ebreus, which is, however,
even rarer than iudaeus.6
Epigraphs mentioning community offices, whether real or merely
honorific, shed light on the social organization of Italian Jews. Some
inscriptions preserve a detailed titulary, in Greek, of synagogue offices.
Although the titles are sometimes similar to those found in traditional col-
legia, the actual functions of their bearers remain uncertain. hey include
gerusiarchēs and archigerusiarchēs, archisynagōgos, archōn, grammateus, mel-
logrammateus, psalmōdos, patēr sunagōges, presbyteros, prostatēs, frontistēs,
hypēretes, and others. It is still debated whether the feminine form of some
of these titles – archēgissa, archisynagōgissa, mētēr synagōgēs, presbytera, and
5
Lacerenza, “Le iscrizioni giudaiche.”
6
Van der Horst, Ancient Jewish Epitaphs, 68–71; JIWE II.44; Williams, “he Meaning and Function of
Ioudaios.”
others – represents evidence of the participation of women in communal

life, merely honorific designations expressing status, or hereditary titles
(for example, in the case of the priestly titles hiereia and hierissa). All three
possible meanings may have variously applied to Jewish women in Rome.
While some epigraphs apply such titles even to children and youths, it
would be imprudent to assume that the titles borne by women or children
were merely honorific.7
No epigraphic attestation of the term “rabbi” for a Jewish leader in Rome
has yet been discovered. Several inscriptions, however, do mention schol-
ars who apparently exercised the typical functions of the spiritual leader of
a community. JIWE II 68, an inscription dating from the third or fourth
century, is the epitaph of a Eusebius didaskalos, “teacher,” and nomomathēs,
“student of the Law,” a title also appearing in other texts (JIWE II 270, 374,
and possibly 390). Another epigraph mentions a nomodidaskalos, “teacher
of the Law” (JIWE II 307), while the designation mathētēs sofōn, “disciple
of the wise men” (JIWE II 544), is probably a calque of the Hebrew talmid
hakhamim. his evidence, along with other indications we can glean from
the rabbinic tradition, sheds light on a statement by Jerome in 384; he
reports that Roman Jews were wont to spend time studying, and recalls
borrowing scrolls (volumina) of the Hebrew Bible from a hebreus who in
his turn had borrowed them from a synagogue (Jerome, Ep. 32.1; 36.1). It
is not unlikely, as some scholars have suggested, that this was the milieu
in which the Collatio Legum Mosaicarum et Romanarum (Comparison of
Mosaic and Roman Laws) was composed. Indeed, the Collatio is the only
text of this period that has been ascribed to Roman Judaism.8
he extent of conversion to Judaism is still debated. While some schol-
ars have represented it as a mass phenomenon, others have argued against
this on various grounds, mostly owing to the lack of evidence.9 Proselytes
(theosebeis and metuentes) are indeed attested in several inscriptions, but
they are usually women. his is possibly due to Hadrian’s ban on circum-
cision, which made female conversion de facto more tolerable, although in
202 a decree of Septimius Severus, reiterated by Constantine in 329, uni-
versally prohibited conversion. A third- or fourth-century Latin epitaph to
a Veturia Paulla, who had assumed the Jewish name of Sarah, is a remark-
able example both of female proselytism and of a woman office-holder:
“Veturia Paulla, placed in (her) eternal home, who lived 86 years, six
7
Brooten, Women Leaders; Kraemer, “A New Inscription from Malta”; Zabin, “Iudeae benemerenti.”
8
Cracco Ruggini, “Tolleranza e intolleranza”; Rabello, “La datazione della Collatio.”
9
Feldman, Jew and Gentile; Rutgers, “Attitudes to Judaism”; Paget, “Jewish Proselytism”; Rokeah,
“Ancient Jewish Proselytism”; Feldman, “Conversion to Judaism.”
months, (and) 16 years as a proselyte under the name of Sarah, ‘mother

of the synagogues’ of Campus and Volumnius. May she sleep peacefully”
(JIWE II 577). his case, however, does not reflect the usual trend of the
time. At least as early as the third century, people recorded in inscriptions
of the Italian diaspora show a tendency to adopt non-Jewish names, which
in Late Antiquity eventually became more common than Jewish names.
he preference was for local – that is, Latin – names. his trend has been
interpreted as one of the many signs of interaction between Jewish and
non-Jewish milieus in late antique Italy.10
In the epigraphic and archaeological documentation of the western dias-
pora, Jewish religious ideology expressed itself predominantly in a visual
form – that is, in the iconographic repertory used especially in epitaphs
and the decoration of hypogea and catacombs, as well as on a variety of
everyday-use objects such as seals, lamps, and the Jewish gilt glass. he
subjects do not seem to differ from those found in other places of the dias-
pora and in Palestine itself: the Temple/synagogue, the menorah, cases for
sacred scrolls, and ritual objects for the festival of Succoth (ethrog, lulav,
and shofar). Like the formulas of eulogy and hope in future life that appear
in the inscriptions, these signs expressed here an eschatological and soteri-
ological meaning.11
he infrequent use of the biblical text in Roman Jewish epitaphs is strik-
ing. Only three direct quotations are known. Drawing on the Greek ver-
sions of both Aquila and the Septuagint, all three are from Proverbs 10:7:
“the memory of the just shall be for a blessing.” he formula concluding
many epigraphs, “may he/she sleep peacefully,” was possibly inspired by
the Septuagint version of Psalms 4:9. Such citations cast little light on
the liturgical practices of Roman Jews. Originally a bilingual population
speaking Aramaic and Greek, Jews settling in Rome had to learn Latin as
well, which must have gradually become the primary instrument of every-
day conversation. Nonetheless, up until the eve of Late Antiquity, cata-
comb inscriptions were mainly in Greek, which according to some scholars
was, like Latin, regarded as a sacred script. Out of the whole corpus of
known Roman Jewish inscriptions, 78 percent are in (usually unpolished)
Greek, 21 percent in Latin, and only 1 percent in Hebrew or Aramaic.12
Although several are bilingual, scholars regard the use of Hebrew, attested
10
Rutgers, Jews in Late Ancient Rome, 170–5; idem, “Interactions and its Limits.”
11
Goodenough, Jewish Symbols, II, 3–69; Kraemer, “Jewish Tuna and Christian Fish”; Rutgers, “Death
and Afterlife.”
12
Leon, “he Language of the Greek Inscriptions”; Solin, “Juden und Syrer,” 701–11; van der Horst,
Ancient Jewish Epitaphs, 25–34; Rutgers, he Jews, 176–91; Rosén, “he Language of the Jewish
Diaspora of Rome.”
in only thirteen cases and limited to stereotyped formulas such as šalom,

Yiśra’el, or šalom ‘al Yiśra’el, as having had a visual rather than a textual sig-
nificance, reflecting the magical and sacred character traditionally attrib-
uted to Hebrew writing.13
Ostia
Besides the catacombs – which shed light only on a relatively late period –
the most conspicuous archaeological witness to Judaism in Rome and its
surroundings is the synagogue of Ostia. his monumental building, dis-
covered in 1961 outside the town walls, was probably founded around the
middle of the first century and is hence the oldest synagogue of the western
Mediterranean. It remained in use at least until the late fourth century,
when it was still being renovated and expanded. he main room of the
complex originally had three benches along three walls. he ark contain-
ing the Torah stood on a podium leaning against the back wall, which was
half-curved and faced southeast. he most striking feature of the synagogue
is an apsed and raised aedicule with two seven-armed candelabra gracing
the corbels of its architraves. he aedicule, oriented in the opposite direc-
tion to the ancient bimah in the main hall, was only added in the fourth
or possibly the fifth century, after the benches along the wall had been
removed. he gradual evolution of religious ritual and ideology reflected in
this reorientation of the room has only recently begun to draw the atten-
tion it deserves.14 he synagogue contained various structures with social,
religious, and ritual functions built at different times, including rooms for
ablutions, a kitchen, and at least one meeting or study room.
he inscriptions found at Ostia and Porto (JIWE I 113–18), and the
later building phases of the Ostia synagogue, both bear witness to a high
degree of Romanization of the local Jewish community, which may have
been divided into several distinct groups. he individuals mentioned in
the surviving inscriptions (dating from the second and third centuries)
include donors and community leaders and bear impressive-sounding
names: Plotius Fortunatus (with his sons Ampliatus and Secundinus, and
his wife Secunda), Ofilia Basilia, Caius Iulius Iustus, Livius Dionysius,
Mindius Faustus, Marcus Aurelius Pylades (whose father, however, was
called Iudas). A fourth-century inscription from Porto mentions a ‘Ellēl
13
Noy, “‘Peace upon Israel’”; Rutgers, “Death and Afterlife,” 302–5; Bengtsson, “Semitic Inscriptions
in Rome.”
14
Görtz-Wrisberg, “A Sabbath Service in Ostia.”
(Hillel; JIWE I 17). he synagogue was abandoned and the community

gradually dwindled away in the fifth century, when Ostia declined.
southern italy
he inflow of Jewish slaves into Roman Italy, especially after the campaigns
of Pompey, Vespasian, and Titus, boosted the Jewish population both of
Rome and of the vast southern Italian region, for a long time the center of
important, mainly agricultural, production. Ancient literary sources pro-
vide only generic information about this demographic increase, which is
described more precisely in late antique and early medieval sources, such as
the Sefer Yosippon. Various archaeological and especially epigraphic finds,
however, mostly from Campania, Puglia, and Sicily, point to a sizeable
Jewish presence in southern Italy in Roman times.
Campania
Campania has yielded the earliest evidence of a Jewish presence in Italy.
his includes some dubious or fragmentary iconographic and epigraphic
materials from Pompeii that have long been either misinterpreted or decid-
edly overrated. It is beyond doubt, and hardly surprising, that some Jews
inhabited this mercantile town of the Campanian coast, which had an
active river port and housed several foreign cults. In recent years, how-
ever, scholars have cast serious doubts on the reliability, or Jewishness, of
these Pompeian testimonies (mostly graffiti with personal names). hus,
although there are clues pointing incontrovertibly to the presence of Jews
in Pompeii, and more in the Vesuvian area generally, the actual evidence
for this is neither as reliable nor as abundant as once believed.15
here is, on the other hand, unequivocal literary and epigraphic tes-
timony establishing the area of Puteoli (present day Pozzuoli), the large
Roman port northwest of Naples, as the residence of the most important
Jewish community of ancient Campania. Long before Ostia came to the
fore, Puteoli, a major grain port and the principal destination of men and
merchandise from all over the Mediterranean basin, housed eastern cults
and communities even as early as the republican age. Like its counterpart
in Rome, the Jewish community of Puteoli may have initially been orga-
nized as mercantile unions or collegia, as in the case of the Tyrians, whose
15
Lacerenza, “Graffiti aramaici”; idem, “Per un riesame della presenza giudaica a Pompei”; idem, “La
realtà documentaria.”
community in Puteoli even predates the one in the capital. References in

Philo and Josephus confirm the existence of a flourishing Jewish com-
munity in Puteoli by the first half of the first century ce. Philo mentions
visiting Puteoli with other members of the Jewish gerousia of Alexandria,
whence he had set sail in the winter of 38/39 or 39/40, possibly landing at the
Campanian port, where he stayed for some time to meet Caligula (Legat.
185–6). While he does not provide specific information about the local
Jewish community, Philo does mention the discussion that followed the
report about Gaius’s attempt to desecrate the temple of Jerusalem by intro-
ducing his statue into it. he Jews of Puteoli informed their Alexandrian
guests of this event, about which Philo unfortunately provides no fur-
ther information. In his autobiography, Josephus mentions journeying to
Puteoli around the year 64 to ask Nero to free some priests imprisoned by
procurator M. Antonius Felix. During his stay there, he recalls meeting the
Jewish actor Aliturus, who introduced him to Poppaea Sabina. Josephus
alludes here to her theosebeia, which several scholars interpret as sympathy
for Judaism (Life 16).
Other information about the Jews of Puteoli dates from the late
Herodian period, notably from years 4 and 35/36. he episode of the
pseudo-Alexander is especially interesting. After succeeding in fooling
the Jewish communities of Crete and Melos, this imitator of the hom-
onymous son of Herod the Great did the same thing in Puteoli. He then
moved to Rome where Augustus unmasked his imposture (J.W. 2.103–4;
Ant. 17.328–9). Josephus’s story provides several bits of information about
the Puteolan Jewish elite, which evidently included high-ranking figures
who entertained relations with Herod the Great, his sons, and the court.
In another passage (Ant. 18.159–61) referring to the year 36 ce, Josephus
mentions a loan granted to the future king Agrippa I by Alexander, the
wealthy alabarch of Alexandria and brother of the philosopher Philo,
enabling Agrippa to continue his journey to Campania and meet Tiberius
on Capri. Both Philo and Josephus mention locations in the Phlegraean
Fields in connection with other historical circumstances, but neither pro-
vides any further information about the local Jewish community. he adel-
phoi whom the apostle Paul stayed with in Puteoli sometime between 59
and 61 were presumably Jews (Acts 28:13–14).
Epigraphic evidence about Puteolan Jews, while surprisingly meager,
is notable for its antiquity. Apart from a brief inscription in which the
gerusiarch Ti. Claudius Philippus remembers the erection of a wall (JIWE
I 23), the most significant record is the epitaph of a young woman called
Claudia Aster, Hierosolymitana, who arrived from Judea as a slave in the
last quarter of the first century. he inscription (JIWE I 26), found in

what was at the time a suburb of Puteoli bordering on the territory of
Neapolis, is of exceptional importance; it shows that at least a portion of
the slaves captured after the conquest of Jerusalem in 70 ce were brought
to Campania (see Fig. 14).16
he city of Puteoli is also mentioned in some rabbinic sources refer-
ring to the age of Domitian. In the second century ce, the above-cited R.
Mattiah ben Heresh is said to have spent time in Puteoli with some other
scholars before establishing himself in Rome (Sifra Deut. 80). Information
about the subsequent centuries is scarce. It is likely that at the time of the
Vandal incursions, most of the Jewish population of Puteoli left the city to
seek refuge in the nearby, better fortified city of Neapolis. he sinking of
Puteoli under the geological effect known as bradyseism may have been an
additional motivation.
In Neapolis, the origin of the local Jewish community was probably
connected to the flourishing local colony of Alexandrians, whose presence
in the city dates at least as far back as the early empire. he Alexandrians
resided in the Vicus Alexandrinorum along the lower decumanus, in a
neighborhood accordingly called Regio Nilensis. he Jews must also have
lived in this area, more specifically near the stretch of the town walls look-
ing out toward the sea, as indicated by several clues: notably, a passage in
Procopius (Bell. Goth. 1.8.41, 10.24–6), and medieval sources mentioning a
synagogue that seems to have been active for several centuries.
Sporadic finds within the ancient urban perimeter confirm the presence
of Jews in Naples, but the most important evidence for this comes from
inscriptions from an above-ground cemetery found in an area that was
suburban at the time. Although the graves cannot be dated precisely, they
belong to the period from the fourth to the sixth century (JIWE I 27–35).
While the inscriptions – which are all in Latin, except for one in Greek –
draw on a formulaic repertory similar to that of coeval Christian epitaphs,
they also include typical Hebrew expressions such as shalom, shalom ‘al
menuhatekha, amen, sela. In one case, the name of the deceased, Numerius,
is transcribed in Jewish characters. Interestingly, three out of ten of the
individuals mentioned in the epitaphs are qualified as “Jews,” including
the above-mentioned Numerius, ebreus; a Criscentia, ebrea, daughter of
Pascasus; a Flaes, ebreus.
It is also significant that all the deceased have Latin names, except for
the prostatēs Benjamin “of Caesarea,” to whom the only Greek inscription
16
Lacerenza, “L’iscrizione di Claudia Aster Hierosolymitana.”
Fig. 14. Epitaph of Claudia Aster from Jerusalem. Puteoli, first century ce. Naples,
Museo Archeologico Nazionale. Photograph courtesy of G. Lacerenza.
in the group belongs. he use of this language probably means that

“Caesarea” refers here to the Palestinian city of the same name, where,
according to some Talmudic sources (such as y. Ber. 3:1, 6a), the syna-
gogal liturgy was celebrated in Greek. Still, Caesarea in Mauritania cannot
be totally ruled out, considering that the inscriptions indicate, more or

less explicitly, a North African origin for several of the deceased, notably
[Gau?]diosus, civis Mauritaniae, and possibly Erena, a common name at
Cyrene. Others were Italian, but not Neapolitan – namely, Barbarus from
Venafrum, and Hereni and his father helesinus, from Rome. hus, in
spite of its paucity, this late documentation clearly points to a composite
character of the Jewish community of Naples. A few epigraphs from other
archaeological contexts in Naples probably belong to Neapolitan Jews.
One mentions the title “rabbi” (rebbi, in the genitive rebbitis); because of
the contexts in which they appear, some scholars regard this as an honor-
ific title or a sign of social distinction rather than an indication of actual
religious leadership.
he introduction of the laws of the heodosian Code in 438, which dras-
tically curtailed the Jews’ social status, had various effects on conversion
in the western Mediterranean. he presbyter Uranius’s mention, around
the mid-fifth century, of the presence of a great number of neophyti at the
funerary cortege of the bishop of Naples, John I, is plausible in this new
juridical and social climate. However, the Ostrogoth heodoric’s later take-
over of Campania (494–526) marked a reversal of this anti-Jewish trend.
Procopius of Caesarea describes the Neapolitan Jewish community on the
eve of Byzantine conquest (536) as flourishing, influential, and economi-
cally important. Several fourth- and fifth-century documents bear witness
to the presence of Jews in various areas of Campania, such as Capua and
Abellinum, and especially in the Nocera-Sarno plain, which has yielded
several marble epitaphs, all in Greek. One (JIWE I 22, from Brusciano)
mentions a rebbi Abba Mari, probably of Palestinian origin. Two others
found near the ancient town of Nuceria Alfaterna commemorate, respec-
tively, the scribe (grammateus) Pedonius and his wife Myrina, presbytera.
Venosa
Of all the southern Italian sites that hosted Jewish communities, Venosa
(ancient Venusia, in Basilicata) is especially remarkable for its celebrated
Jewish catacombs. Discovered in 1853, they yielded an extraordinary epi-
graphic documentation (JIWE I 42–112). he main cemetery stood next
to the Christian catacombs in an area outside the town. It consisted of
several superimposed tunnels, only a small part of which has been actually
explored. More than seventy epigraphs were found here, mostly painted on
the plaster used to seal the tombs. he only one bearing a date is from the
year 521. he others seem to date from the third or fourth century onward.
Apparently, Venosa was one of the towns in southern Italy with a high
concentration of Jewish inhabitants. he inscriptions from the catacomb
indicate that Jews were well integrated into local society. Many of them
even enjoyed high status, as various references to public offices demon-
strate. he influence of Judaism on local society is confirmed by the pres-
ence of several proselytes – or at least “God-fearers” – in another cemetery,
the so-called Lauridia hypogeum (JIWE I 113–16). he titulary attested at
Venosa is the same as in Rome. he community included presbyters, geru-
siarchs, archisynagogoi, and patres synagogae. A bilingual Greek-Hebrew
epitaph (JIWE I 48) mentions a teacher called Jacob (Iakōb didaskalos).
Several scholars have identified the duo apostuli et duo rebbites (“two apos-
tles and two rabbis”) mentioned in the famous epitaph of Faustina (JIWE
I 86) as envoys of the Jewish Patriarchate to Gothic-Byzantine Italy. he
text, probably dating from the mid-sixth century, is clearly later than the
suppression of the Patriarchate in 425. It thus probably refers to religious
representatives of the local community, whose titulary indeed resembled
those used in Jewish communities in Palestine.17
he Venosa inscriptions bear witness to strong ties with other Jewish
communities, both in southern Italy and throughout the Mediterranean.
hey also provide clear evidence of a gradual rediscovery of Hebrew in reli-
gious contexts and in the liturgical practices of the western diaspora. he
earlier inscriptions are all in Greek, after which there is a gradual shift to
Latin. Hebrew, which initially makes its appearance in the usual stereotyp-
ical formulas, later becomes increasingly common, as the epigraph of the
old presbyter Secundinus, written in Hebrew and Greek in Hebrew char-
acters, demonstrates (JIWE I 75) (Fig. 15). Indeed, Hebrew is, in percent-
age, more frequent at Venosa than in Rome: out of seventy-one epigraphs,
twenty-nine (or 41 percent) contain Hebrew expressions supplementing
the Greek or Latin text, and nine (or 13 percent) are entirely in Hebrew.
Puglia and Calabria

According to an opinion commonly held among medieval Jewish scholars
of southern Italy, the Jewish communities of Puglia were the first to estab-
lish themselves on Italian soil; they consisted mainly of captives whom
Titus brought to Italy after destroying Jerusalem, five thousand of whom
were settled in the Salento peninsula, between Taranto and Otranto. It
is indeed very likely that a Jewish community existed at Brundisium
17
Lacerenza, “Ebraiche liturgie e peregrini apostuli.”
Fig. 15. Venosa, Jewish catacombs. Epitaph of the presbyter Secundinus, Greek in
Hebrew letters, fifth/sixth century ce. Photograph courtesy of G. Lacerenza.
(present-day Brindisi), an important port of trade with the East and

reportedly a destination for ships from Judea. here is no certainly dated
evidence, however, of the presence of Jews in Puglia before 398, when the
emperor Honorius issued a decree requiring the Jews of many towns of
Apulia Calabriamque (at the time, the toponym Calabria designated the
Salento peninsula) to fill the office of decurion. his obligation had been
abolished by Constantine but reintroduced by Valentinian II in 383 (Ch
12.1.158). hus, as had already been the case long before under Septimius
Severus, the Jews were now required to participate in town curiae and
assume all the associated duties, both religious and economic.
Honorius’s decree indicates that in Puglia there must have been towns
where the majority, if not the entirety, of the population was Jewish. It
also attests the presence of Jews among the maiores of several towns of
late antique southern Italy; epigraphic evidence, especially from Venosa,
establishes the same point. However, archaeological and epigraphic sources
from present-day Puglia and Calabria do not reflect the importance of the
Jewish population. Otranto (ancient Hydruntum), at the tip of Salento,
has yielded a single epitaph, dated to the third century and containing the
Hebrew expression mishkavam ‘im tzaddiqim, “may they rest with the just”
(JIWE I 134). At Lupiae (present-day Lecce), the presence of Jews is indi-

rectly attested by the above-mentioned epitaph from Venosa dated to 521;
it remembers the deceased Augusta’s father and her grandfather Simon,
who was from Lecce: nepus Symonatis p(atris) Lypiensium (JIWE I 107). At
Taranto, the necropolis of Montedoro apparently housed both Christian
and Jewish graveyards. Two inscriptions found here, datable between the
fifth and sixth centuries, include typically Jewish names: ‘Azariah, Daudatos
(Natan’el), Elias, Iaakov, and Susannah. he Hebrew text on the verso of
the epitaph of Daudatos son of ‘Azariah (JIWE I 118) is one of the earli-
est and longest-known epigraphs of this kind, containing several eulogies,
including the characteristic “may his soul be bound up in the bundle of
life” (from 1 Samuel 25:29).
he most significant evidence of a Jewish presence in Calabria (ancient
Bruttium), the remains of a synagogue erected around the middle of the
fourth century, was discovered at Bova Marina, near Skyle on the Peutinger
Table. Nothing but the foundations, and fragments of the mosaic decora-
tion of some of the rooms, survive. he symbol of the menorah, oriented
southeast toward Jerusalem, is still visible in the prayer hall. Although the
local Jewish community probably used an adjacent funerary area where
several different forms of inhumation are attested, it has yielded no grave
goods and shows no distinctively Jewish features. he remains of several
glass lamps, however, have been found in the synagogue, which remained
in use until the seventh century. Also discovered were sherds of locally pro-
duced amphorae bearing stamped images of the menorah on the handles,
probably to certify the kashruth of the contents. he discovery of these
amphorae in Rome is evidence of the exportation of local products to
other Jewish communities in the Italian peninsula.18
Sicily and Malta

Although the settlement of Jews in Sicily probably began at an early date,
no documents earlier than the imperial period have thus far come down
to us. As with almost everywhere else in Italy, the most abundant materials
date from late antique times. he earliest testimony, dating from the third
or fourth century, actually originates in the catacombs of Villa Torlonia in
Rome. his is the epitaph of a Justus, also mentioning his father Amachius
from Catania (JIWE II 515). Most of the evidence has been found in east-
ern Sicily, and the island’s most important Jewish communities were
18
Arthur, “Some Observations”; Zevi, “Recenti studi e scoperte di archeologia ebraica.”
apparently those of Syracuse and Catania. he earliest attestation of a

Jewish presence in that area is a reference to Catanian iudaei in the Passio
Sanctae Agathae. Referring to the third century, but actually written at a
much later date, it is an unreliable witness. he only surviving epigraphic
sources are a few inscriptions no earlier than the fourth or fifth century. An
especially interesting epitaph of a certain Aurelius Samohil, precisely dated
to 383, reveals Christian influences and possibly a nonconventional use of
the calendar (JIWE I 145).19 he Jews who settled in that area made ample
use of catacombs and rock cemeteries. Many traces of this custom remain,
especially at Syracuse and Noto, but all are badly preserved. In the interior,
in the south-central part of the island, two epigraphs found at Filosofiana,
on the ancient road from Catania to Agrigento, document the presence of
a small Jewish settlement. here may be a connection between this settle-
ment and evidence of a local glass-manufacturing industry.
Witnesses to Judaism found in Sicily (not just epigraphs, but also seals,
rings, and lamps) include a number of sources that are magical in charac-
ter, such as inscriptions and amulets. Some are actually Jewish, while oth-
ers are Greco-Roman or Christian, with Jewish influence. hese finds are
far more numerous in Sicily than in the rest of Italy, where they only occur
sporadically. More abundant parallels from the eastern Mediterranean sug-
gest that they spread from there to Sicily. he dissemination of these arti-
facts goes hand in hand with the spread and distinctive characteristics of
Jewish communities on the island. he most common amulets, laminas
or small metal plates, are of mixed provenance, form, material, content,
and function. Some are inscribed in Hebrew and/or Aramaic, others –
the most numerous – in Greek; still others bear pseudo-Hebrew inscrip-
tions or magical charaktēres or symbols. he Comiso area has yielded some
rock-carved Greek inscriptions, generally datable between the fourth and
sixth centuries. Here Christian formulas and Jewish names are combined
with a wealth of symbols and pseudo-characters to ensure magical pro-
tection of agricultural land and assets. Such inscriptions are not isolated
occurrences in late antique Sicily; other examples are attested at Akrai
(Palazzolo Acreide), Noto, and Modica, all featuring, more or less promi-
nently, elements of Jewish-influenced magic and angelology.
In the fourth and fifth centuries, on the island of Malta, which in
Roman times was administratively connected to Sicily, a number of Jews
19
Wasserstein, “Calendaric Implications”; Millar, “he Jews of the Graeco-Roman Diaspora”; Stern,
Calendar and Community, 132–6.
were buried inside a Christian cemetery, the so-called catacombs of St.

Paul and St. Agatha. he inscriptions scratched in the stucco that sealed
the loculi, all in Greek and accompanied by the menorah, confirm the
existence of an organized community on the island (JIWE I 163–8).
sardinia and northern italy

Sardinia
Other than Josephus’s unreliable report about the expulsion of the descen-
dants of freedman devotees of foreign cults from Rome to Sardinia in 19
ce, there are no historical or literary sources about a Jewish presence on
the island before the testimony of Gregorius Magnus (540–604). So far,
the meager archaeological evidence sheds light, although a dim one, only
on a rather late period.
Two Jewish hypogeal cemeteries – which, as in Venosa, adjoined
Christian cemeteries – have been identified on the island of Sant’Antioco,
at the southeast extremity of Sardinia. One, called “of Beronice,” is very
small, consisting of a single sepulchral chamber with graves cut into the
walls and floor, possibly used by a single family group in the fourth or fifth
century. he most significant inscription (JIWE I 170), concerning a young
woman called Beronice, is painted in red at the back of one of the main
arcosolia. It is composed in Latin with some Hebrew formulas also found
on the adjacent, unfortunately poorly preserved arcosolium. Nearby is the
second hypogeum, which is also not very large. At the time of its discovery
in 1920, it still contained an intact burial. he inscription painted on the
plaster was difficult to read and was soon lost. It was composed in Latin
with some conventional Hebrew expressions, uncharacteristically written
from left to right, with some letters reversed or miswritten. he writer
was obviously mechanically reproducing a script with which he or she was
barely acquainted (JIWE I 173). Porto Torres (ancient Turris Libisonis), on
the north versant of the island, has yielded several Jewish lamps datable to
the fifth century, as well as the Latin epitaphs of two children, Gaudiosa
and Anianus, probably from the same period (JIWE I 175–6). Of the few
other Jewish artifacts found on the island, which include some rings and
seals, several appear to be even later.
As is also the case in other areas, the Sardinian evidence parallels coe-
val Christian materials. he Jewish character of the epigraphs is more
often indicated by the addition of figurative elements or eulogies in the
Hebrew script rather than by distinctive features of the text itself or of

the name of the deceased.
Northern Italy
To date, there are no traces of the penetration of Judaism into north-
ern Italy earlier than the fourth century, when evidence of Jewish pres-
ence first appears in some of the most advanced urban centers, such as
Mediolanum (Milan), Brixia (Brescia), Bononia (Bologna), Ravenna, and
Aquileia. here is also some evidence from rural areas, but these – unlike
the southern Italian countryside – have mostly yielded scarce archaeolog-
ical and epigraphic materials. In northern Italy, relations between Jews
and Christians were apparently unstable and insecure, not favorable to the
flourishing of local Jewish culture. he few inscriptions from Mediolanum
(JIWE I 1–3) do not contain significant information. he famous bishop
of Milan, Ambrose, staunchly anti-Jewish, attended the unearthing of
the remains of the Christian martyrs Vitalis and Agricola in the Jewish
cemetery of Bologna, where they had allegedly been buried around 304
(Ambrose, Exhort. 8).
Byzantine Ravenna has yielded more abundant evidence, including a
fifth- or sixth-century amphora sherd bearing the inscription shalom in
Jewish characters (JIWE I 10). In this city there were Jewish bureaucrats,
slave traders, craftsmen, milites classiarii (marines), and shipowners sup-
plying the imperial fleet. As elsewhere in Italy, in late antique times
increasing limitations were imposed on Jews, and episodes of intoler-
ance are recorded. A local law issued in 415 addressed the issue of Jewish
owners of Christian slaves. It explicitly mentioned the didascalus Annas,
evidently the religious leader of the community, and the maiores iudaeo-
rum. A decree of the following year dealt with the case of Jews who had
converted to Christianity in order to benefit, for example, from asylum
rights on church grounds. he Ostrogoth heodoric allegedly buried
Odoacer, the first barbarian king of Italy, near a synagogue of Ravenna
in 493 (Ioh. Ant. frag. 214a [FHG IV.621]). Aquileia, at the northeast-
ern extremity of the Italian coast, yielded a late Republican inscrip-
tion (JIWE I 7) of a L. Aiacius Dama, iudaeus portor. he term portor
has been interpreted as meaning “boatman,” or else as an abbreviation
of portitor, “customs officer.” his inscription is the only testimony so
far from this early period, although various later sources mention the
presence of a rather important Jewish community at Aquileia. While
this tradition once led scholars to identify various archaeological finds
and epigraphs from Aquileia as Jewish, the Jewishness of almost all this
material is now rejected.
gaul and spain

Until the fifth century, the literary, archaeological, and epigraphic sources
attesting a Jewish presence in Gaul are too sporadic to provide even a
sketchy picture. he earliest evidence comes from Avignon, and includes
some lamps graced with the menorah and a fourth-century seal bearing
the name Ianu(arius). Another seal with the name Aster, from Bordeaux,
is only slightly later. his area, too, has yielded lamps with Jewish symbols
(JIWE I 190–2).
he Spanish evidence is more abundant and earlier, although the precise
chronology of the finds is often debated. A first-century amphora from
Ibiza bearing a Jewish stamp attests to early relations between the emporia
of the Balearic Islands and Judea (JIWE I 178). he epitaph of the freed-
man A. Lucius (?) Roscius iudeus, from Villamesías (JIWE I 188), may
date from the first century, but its reading is uncertain. Other epigraphic
materials dated by some scholars to the Roman imperial period are in all
likelihood medieval instead. he most western evidence is a quartz intaglio
with menorah and other symbols found in Ammaia (Lusitania, presently
in Portugal; third century).
hanks to the discovery of funerary inscriptions in various coastal towns,
the evidence from the Iberian Peninsula becomes more substantial from
the third or fourth century onward. Notably, an organized Jewish com-
munity is attested at Ilici (Elche), in southeast Spain, where the remains
of a synagogue were found. Its mosaic floor still carried partially preserved
Greek dedications referring to the synagogue as “prayer house,” and men-
tioning archons and presbyters. Mention of a merchant or traveler in one
text is evidence that local Jews were involved in trading activities (JIWE
I 182). he participation of Jews in the social life of late imperial Spain is
documented by resolutions of the Elvira Council (305/306) seeking a rigid
separation between the Jewish and Christian communities, and notably
strictly forbidding mixed marriages. he forced conversion of about 540
Jews of the town of Mago (Mahón) on the island of Minorca, recounted in
a celebrated epistle by the bishop Severus, is a clear indication of a decline
in the living conditions of the Jews.20 he same source provides valuable
insight into the organization of the local Jewish community, which had a
20
Severus Minoricensis, Epistola ad omnem Ecclesiam de virtutibus ad Iudaeorum conversionem.
synagogue (later transformed into a church) with rich furnishings and libri
sancti. Its most eminent member, named heodorus, held the office of
doctor legis, an indubitably “rabbinic” role which the Jews, Severus tells us,
called pater patrum, a title also attested in several southern Italian inscrip-
tions (notably JIWE I 68, 85, 90, 114, all from Venosa).
he most original epigraphic testimonies, however, are all rather late.
Dating from the Visigoth period, they come from the northeast coast of
the Iberian Peninsula. Several sites have yielded bilingual or trilingual epi-
taphs of the fifth or sixth century featuring Latin side by side not only
with Greek – as in various Christian epitaphs from the same area – but
also with Hebrew: an eloquent witness to the eastern origins of at least
part of the local population. he best known of these epigraphs is the so-
called Tortosa trilingual inscription from southern Cataluna. his epitaph
of a girl, Meliosa, daughter of Rabbi Yehudah and domina (kúra) Maria, is
notable for its nonbanal use of Hebrew (JIWE I 183). An echo of synagogal
liturgy appears in a bilingual Latin-Hebrew inscription, apparently not
funerary, from Tarragona (JIWE I 185). Its Hebrew text contains the expres-
sion shalom ‘al Yiśra’el we-‘alenu we-‘al benenu, amen (“peace on Israel, and
on ourselves and our children. Amen”). he mention of scholars (didascali)
in another epitaph from the same town (JIWE I 186) indicates that at least
some of the members of this community enjoyed a high social status and
cultural standard, and maintained active religious contacts with Palestine.
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16
CHRISTIANITY IN ITALY
dennis trout
here were, of course, no Christians in Italy during the principate of

Augustus (27 bce to ce 14), when the public religion of the Romans was
being recast and revitalized in tandem with the political and social institu-
tions of the emerging imperial system. Some four and a half centuries later,
however, when a bishop of Rome was said to have turned back an invad-
ing Hunnic warlord and successfully negotiated with a Vandal king before
the gates of his defenseless city,1 Christianity was the officially sanctioned
religion of Rome and Italy. Between these two poles lies, it would seem,
a remarkable success story. But the rise of Christianity is a tale marked by
deep continuities as well as spectacular contrasts. Pope Leo I’s (440–61)
alleged victory over Attila and mollification of Gaiseric share certain funda-
mental assumptions with Augustus’s enlistment of the traditional Roman
gods in the project of the reconstituted empire. Like many early imperial
Romans, many late ancient Romans, too, viewed proper cultivation of the
divine as prerequisite to public, as well as personal, welfare. To be sure,
by the mid-fifth century the divine power in question was significantly
different: Augustus’s Rome of Jupiter and Mars and Apollo had become
the Rome of Christ, the apostles, and the martyrs, while churches and the
memorials of saints now defined a cityscape once commanded by temples
and imperial fora. Yet, as Augustus had displayed statues of the heroes of
the legendary and recent past in his new Forum, Leo ordered that Rome’s
churches be decorated with biblical cycles and declared that Peter and Paul
had ousted Romulus and Remus as the city’s guardians.2 And although
by Leo’s day the populace of Rome, like that of most Italian cities, largely
1
Attila: Prosper of Aquitaine, Epitoma Chronicon, a. 452 (MGH AA 9 [1892], 482); Stein, Histoire
du Bas-Empire, 335–6; doubts at Heather, “he Western Empire,” 17. Gaiseric: Prosper, Epitoma
Chronicon, a. 455, 484; Stein, Histoire du Bas-Empire, 365–7; Neil, Leo, 10–11.
2
Krautheimer, Rome, 52; Leo, Sermo 82.1; Neil, Leo, 113–18.
421
422 Dennis Trout
regulated its ceremonial life by an annual cycle of festivals keyed to the life
of Christ and the deaths of the saints, not by holidays linked to the history
and legends of a fading age, those same Christian feast days frequently
coincided with or overwrote earlier celebrations.3
One challenge this chapter faces is to do justice to this deep-seated
tension between continuity and change in Roman religion in Italy during
the first five centuries of the common era. Undoubtedly the success of
Christianity in this period significantly altered the cultural landscape. Just
as surely, Christianity itself, an imported religion that initially took hold
among Greek-speaking inhabitants of the peninsula, was continually nat-
uralized and domesticated across the centuries of this chapter. Moreover,
just as the term “Roman religion” gives a false sense of unity and order to
a set of much less tidy ideals and practices,4 so the term Christianity may
also mislead. From outset to end, even if a kind of orthodoxy eventually
prevailed, Christians debated among themselves the tenets of belief and
the guidelines of practice that might define them as Christian. Finally, if
it is hard for various reasons to write a “history” of pre-Christian imperial
Roman religion, Christianity in Italy lends itself too easily to narratives
that privilege triumph and victory. Because imperial Christianity was an
exclusive and eventually coercive, if not intolerant, religion that moved
from the margins to the center of power,5 its history would be construed
even by contemporaries as the victory of true piety over false. he retreat
of paganism in town and countryside was at once both the means and the
proof of Christianity’s truth and success. Even now such triumphal narra-
tives are seductive, for by the later fourth century not only much political
and social leadership but also literary and artistic initiative had come to
reside in Christian hands. Indeed, by Leo’s day bishops were often the
most influential civic authorities in Italy, and Latin literature was largely a
Christian enterprise, even if it rested on an educational system and literary
culture common to elite pagans and Christians alike.6
early imperial italy

Is it possible to write a history of Christianity in Italy during the early impe-
rial age? he difficulties are many. Outside Rome there is very little reliable
3
Markus, he End of Ancient Christianity, 97–135.
4
Rives, Religion in the Roman Empire, 4–7.
5
Kahlos, Forebearance and Compulsion.
6
Neil, Leo, 4–8; Young, Ayres, and Louth, Early Christian Literature; Cameron, “Poetry and Literary
Culture”; Cameron, Last Pagans of Rome.
Christianity in Italy 423
evidence before the early fourth century. hus the study of Christianity
in early imperial Italy cannot be pursued without recourse to compara-
tive material drawn from other parts of the empire. Furthermore, the very
notion of “Italy” masks physical, historical, and cultural boundaries that
militate against any attempt to produce a general narrative of the history
of pre-Constantinian Christianity on the Italian peninsula. Northern Italy
(Gallia Cisalpina), for example, was not fully enfranchised until Caesar
granted the Transpadani Roman citizenship in 49 bce. Even in the early
imperial period many peoples of this area maintained closer links with
areas north of the Alps than with those south of the Apennines.7 Likewise,
although Augustus may have regularized the administration of the penin-
sula by dividing Italia into eleven regions, non-Latin Italic dialects, Greek,
and pre-Roman traditions long remained vital to civic identity. Indeed,
despite the impulse toward homogeneity of language and civic life that
came with Romanization, early imperial Italy was still characterized by
influential regional (and intraregional) differences. If Christianity, for
example, arrived and spread early in Latium and Campania, it apparently
made little headway in the north before the mid-third century, while diffu-
sion in the south appears to have been equally slow and uneven.8 Moreover,
though Rome, home to an ethnically diverse population of several hun-
dred thousand people that included many Greeks, Jews, and other eastern
Mediterranean peoples, supplies the bulk of our evidence for Christianity
in the nearly three centuries between Paul’s letters and Constantine’s con-
version, few scholars would deem developments at Rome typical of other
parts of Italy.
Still, it is possible to discern developments that parallel wider trends
and suggest the outlines of a history that might span the regions of Italy.
Missionary origins, intracongregational wrangling, doctrinal debate, and
institutional definition may characterize the expansion of Christianity
here as in other parts of the empire. Likewise, of course, suspicion, ani-
mosity, and sometimes violence are among the more evident responses to
Christianity (or alleged Christians) by non-Christians. In Italy, as elsewhere,
Christians were quickly potential targets of scapegoating and persecution
often locally inspired but eventually imperially sanctioned. Nevertheless,
documented moments of persecution are relatively rare and Christian
congregations grew and expanded despite this environment (though in
7
Humphries, Communities of the Blessed, 22–44.
8
Otranto, Italia meridionale e Puglia paleocristiane, 21–42; Humphries, Communities of the Blessed,
101–4.
424 Dennis Trout
numbers and proportions impossible to determine), suggesting that the

celebrated outbursts of anti-Christian violence were offset by acceptance if
not sympathy for men and women who were also neighbors and friends.
Finally, in this period in Italy, Christianity began to produce a literature in
Latin as well as Greek and to create a visual vocabulary now best preserved
in the older sections of the Roman catacombs.9 In every way, it is clear
that practitioners of Christianity moved within the wider cultural hori-
zons of the cities that were the most fertile ground for development and
that the religion evolved in dialogue not only with its Jewish background
but increasingly with its polyglot Italian milieu. It is thus to be expected
that Christianity long drew its adherents from the same social strata and
neighborhoods that provided worshipers of Isis, Serapis, Cybele, and sim-
ilar nonexclusive cults.
Apostolic origins and persecution shaped Christian self-understanding
at Rome nearly from the outset and would continue throughout antiquity
to be among the most powerful components of Christian communal iden-
tity and self-legitimization in Italy at large. he validity of this view is var-
iously vouched for even if still imprecisely understood. Missionary work
by both Peter and Paul at Rome is attested, more securely perhaps for the
latter but with no condemning doubt for the former.10 Even before Paul’s
arrival in Italy about 61 or 62, a Christian community already existed at
Rome (as one apparently also did at Puteoli on the Bay of Naples, where
Paul disembarked [Acts 28:13–14]). Paul’s letter to the Roman community,
written from Corinth in 56/57, makes that much clear as it also, espe-
cially in the list of greetings with which it ends (chapter 16), attests to the
Greek roots and eastern connections of many members of the apostolic
Roman church. he Neronian persecution, however, following upon the
great fire of July 64, soon weighed heavily on this community. In this con-
text apparently falls the martyrdom of Peter, while Paul’s execution may
have occurred then or a few years later.11 More than a half century on both
Tacitus (Ann. 15.44) and Suetonius (Nero 16) document the ferocity of
Nero’s pogrom, while the slightly earlier (ca.95–100) so-called First Letter
of Clement alludes to the deaths of the two apostles in Rome in “our
own times” (5–6). he reasons are surely no less complex than obscure:
Tacitus credits Neronian scapegoating facilitated by widespread distrust of
people known for their “hatred of the human race”; Clement’s references
9
Heine, “Beginnings.” Novatian’s mid-third-century De Trinitate is the earliest theological treatise
written in Latin at Rome (Heine, “Cyprian and Novatian,” 158).
10
Bowersock, “Peter and Constantine,” 210–12; for doubts see Zwierlin, Petrus in Rom.
11
Légasse, “Paul et l’universalisme chrétien,” 144–6; idem, “Les autres voies de la mission,” 176–8.
to “rivalry and envy” may hint at friction with Rome’s Jews as well as
intragroup squabbling. Whether these events in Rome had corollaries in
other Italian towns in the later first century is impossible to determine, but
in later centuries, as we will see, mission and martyrdom would be dom-
inant themes in the historical memory of many communities throughout
the peninsula.
As elsewhere, the language of Rome’s Christians remained predomi-
nantly Greek well into the third century and outsiders often associated
Christians with Jews. Suetonius records that the emperor Claudius (41–
54) expelled the Jews from Rome because of disturbances instigated by
“Chrestus” (Claud. 25.4), a remark that despite its lateness may preserve a
memory of Jewish debate at Rome over Christ.12 Paul’s letter to the Roman
community, of course, assumes a mixed church of gentiles and Jews; for
many decades to come the Roman Christian community apparently drew
its membership as well as its inspiration from the Jewish as well as Greek
enclaves of the city. Most Roman Christians probably belonged to the
ranks of artisans and small traders, though congregations may also have
included the destitute.13 Most, as well, may have been concentrated in the
crowded suburban quarters of Trastevere, along the Via Appia beyond the
Porta Capena, and near the Via Lata in the Campus Martius.14 It is rea-
sonable to assume that by the late first century some Christian groups
included people of at least moderate means, but evidence of elite member-
ship is elusive. he often-cited case of the former consul Flavius Clemens
and his wife Domitilla, who were according to a third-century source exe-
cuted and exiled respectively by the emperor Domitian (81–96) on charges
of “atheism and Jewish sympathies” (Cass. Dio 67.14), is simply too fragile
to support claims of Christian allegiance.15 During the second century,
however, the number of “socially elevated” Christians surely increased,
though in part this change may reflect broader demographic currents in
prosperous Italy.16 All in all, Christian social life in this period runs largely
below our radar.
If details of persecution after Nero are hard to find, animosity is not.
Tacitus (Ann. 15.44), writing in the early second century about Nero’s
actions, charged Christians with misanthropy and saw their religion as
12
Légasse, “Les autres voies de la mission,” 174–5.
13
Meeks, he First Urban Christians, 51–73; with Green, Christianity in Ancient Rome, 23–59, for a rel-
atively early separation of Christianity and Judaism at Rome.
14
Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus, 19–66.
15
Légasse, “Les autres voies de la mission,” 179–80.
16
Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus, 139.
426 Dennis Trout
a “deadly superstition (exitiabilis superstitio).” Similar sentiments were

expressed by two of Tacitus’s contemporaries: for Suetonius Christianity
was a “new and wicked superstitio” (Nero 16) while Pliny’s famous interro-
gation of Christians in Bithynia revealed to him nothing but “a depraved
and excessive superstitio” (Ep. 96.8). his may stand as evidence that,
nearly a century after the execution of Jesus, the Roman aristocracy still
saw Christianity not only as impious and ill-conceived but also as a threat
to the social order. his distaste as well as popular prejudice must underlie
the vague assertions of pressure and danger that filter through the extant
literature, though the persistence of such (mis)judgments may rest to some
degree on the reluctance or inability of Christians to make their ideas clear
to outsiders in these years.17
he simplicity of this external point of view, of course, belies the com-
plexity of Christianity in Italy in this period. Rome was a city of immigrants,
travelers, and sojourners. New ideas arrived continually. Institutional unity
was slow to emerge. At least through the later second century, the city’s
house-church communities were still administered by collegial presbyters
and not a monarchic bishop, a condition recently dubbed “fractionation.”18
he prestige of the visionary Shepherd of Hermas, composed at Rome during
this period (dating varies between ca.90 and 150) attests to the continuing
viability of charismatic or prophetic voices. he Shepherd also makes clear
the competition between docetic or gnostic Christianities and other forms
of practice and belief. Indeed, the First Apology of Justin Martyr, written (in
Greek) at Rome and addressed to Antoninus Pius (138–61), acknowledges
the confusion that then surrounded the identity of Christians, crediting in
particular the disruptive presence and teaching of the “heretic” Marcion
(26). Consequently, in his Against Heresies (3.4), Irenaeus of Lyon, who
spent time in Rome, sought to expose the false teaching of such “apostates”
as Valentinus and Cerdo as well as Marcion. Some recent scholars, there-
fore, prefer to speak of Rome as a city of Christian “cells” or house-churches
and deem it misguided to envision Rome’s Christians forming a unitary
community. Although the proto-orthodoxy of Justin and Irenaeus ulti-
mately obscured and silenced other points of view, including tolerance,
their works still reveal the ferment of ideas that blurred the boundaries of
loosely affiliated Christian identities in second-century Rome.19
17
Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus, 379–80.
18
Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus, 397–408; Légasse, “Les autres voies de la mission,” 182–3.
19
Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus; Vinzent, “Rome,” 410–11; Bowes, Private Worship, Public Values,
63–5; Green, Christianity in Ancient Rome, 60–119.
he material evidence for early Christianity in Italy is welcome but lim-

ited. It is axiomatic that early Christians are archaeologically unidentifiable
before the end of the second century. Even long thereafter it is primarily
outside the city proper that Christianity becomes visible, in burial con-
texts associated with cemeteries and venerated tombs. Many of Rome’s
major fourth-century catacomb complexes, for example, emerge from late
second- or early third-century nuclei. his is notably the case at the memo-
ria apostolorum on the Via Appia (over which the Basilica Apostolorum
would arise in the early fourth century), where third-century graffiti signal
both the celebration of funerary banquets (refrigeria) and the veneration
of Peter and Paul.20 At the Catacomb of Priscilla on the Via Saleria, the
oldest sections preserve important third-century frescoes whose subjects
include a Good Shepherd, Old Testament scenes, and a veiled orant fig-
ure. Across the city, the first sure stages of the monumental development
of the Vatican cult of St. Peter, associated with the apostle’s memoria, date
between the mid-second and mid-third centuries.21 Such evidence docu-
ments the definition of burial areas and cult sites by Christians, with cor-
responding implications for the construction of a distinct social identity.
Yet Christians also still employed traditional motifs – the shepherd, the
orant, and the grape vine – whose universality made them suitable vehicles
for bearing new Christian meaning while also obscuring difference.22
Intramural assembly places are difficult to identify. It can be assumed
that Christian cells would initially have gathered for the Eucharist, prayer,
study, and singing (Justin, 1 Apol. 66–7) in private “house churches”
fashioned out of unmodified (and thus archaeologically silent) domes-
tic space: in the account of his martyrdom, Justin Martyr claims to have
lived and worshipped with his fellow Christians above a bath (Martyrdom 3
[Musurillo]).23 Gradually domestic space, as at Dura-Europos, should have
been altered to accommodate larger numbers and liturgical needs, but no
undisputed evidence for a pre-Constantinian domus ecclesiae (house of the
church) remains at Rome.24 Already in the later third century, some of these
assembly places may have been corporately owned. But apart from the
post-Constantinian, fourth-century confessio complex underlying the early
fifth-century titulus Pammachi on the Caelian (SS. Giovanni e Paolo), no
20
Bisconti, “La Memoria Apostolorum,” 63–8; Mazzoleni, “Pietro e Paolo nell’epigrafia cristiana,” 67;
Spera, “he Christianization of Space”; Holloway, Constantine and Rome, 146–54.
21
Bowersock, “Peter and Constantine,” 211–12; Holloway, Constantine and Rome, 154–5.
22
Snyder, Ante Pacem, 19–20; Jensen, “Towards a Christian Material Culture,” 572–3.
23
White, Building God’s House, 103–10.
24
Brandenburg, Ancient Churches of Rome, 12; Sessa, “Domus Ecclesiae,” 106–8.
428 Dennis Trout
known later titulus (community or parish church) in Rome can be shown

to have arisen over a previous place of Christian worship. Indeed, the con-
cept of the titular foundation itself appears to be a post-Constantinian
phenomenon.25
he Christian archaeological record for pre-Constantinian Rome, like
the city’s literary residue, is remarkably rich in comparison to the rest of
Italy. Nevertheless, it is impossible to match the pluralistic Christian pres-
ence revealed by the literary sources with the evidence of archaeology. To
be sure, even as the Christian population increased over time, congrega-
tional unity remained elusive. It is doubtful, for example, that (despite
later traditions) a “monarchical bishop” emerged as a recognized leader at
Rome much before the mid-third century; it has been suggested that the
earliest evidence for this office may only appear in the context of the schism
between Cornelius and the rigorist Novatian that followed the martyrdom
of Fabian under Decius (250).26 At the same time, this schism, driven by
the problem of reintegrating the lapsed in the wake of persecution, illus-
trates how the pressure of persecution often forced further definition of the
boundaries of identity as well as doctrine.27
In sum, though so much of early Roman Christianity remains beyond
our reach, internal diversity, tolerance and rivalry, undercurrents of dis-
trust, and evolution toward institutional unity are primary themes of
its social history. But however much Rome’s early Christians differed
in practice and belief among themselves and with their non-Christian
neighbors, their apparent tendency for local affiliation and action may
have closely conformed to patterns discernible in the loose associations of
other socio-religious and study groups in metropolitan Rome. Christian
house-church communities, Lampe has suggested, would have looked
familiar to others as “schools,” mystery cults, or domestic cultic groups,
while Humphries has noted parallels between the distribution patterns of
cults of Isis and the dissemination of Christianity in northern Italy.28
But outside Rome our view is dim. In the south, pre-Constantinian
Christian burial areas are manifest at Naples (the catacomb of S. Gennaro),
at Nola (Cimitile), and in Sicily (especially at Syracuse), for example, while
inscriptions, such as a third-century text from Cluviae in the Abruzzo (ICI
3.1) and an assembly of texts from the catacombs of Syracuse, attest to
25
Brandenburg, Ancient Churches of Rome, 156; Bowes, Private Worship, Public Values, 65–71;
MacMullen, Second Church, 87.
26
Vincentz, “Rome,” 411.
27
Heine, “Articulating Identity,” 214–18; see also Jensen in Chapter 10 of this volume.
28
Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus, 373–80; Humphries, Communities of the Blessed, 99–101.
Christianity’s clear presence at these places by the early fourth century.29

Nevertheless, neither this scattered material nor a luxuriant but untrust-
worthy late antique hagiographic dossier can underwrite narrative
reconstruction. In the north, it is primarily the evidence of early and mid-
fourth-century church building, such as the sumptuous Constantinian-
age basilica of Bishop heodore at Aquileia, that suggests the existence of
pre-Constantinian Christian communities in some of that region’s more
important economic and administrative centers. he paucity of earlier evi-
dence, however, makes it impossible to access the lives of those communi-
ties – although, as in the south, later martyrologies, passiones, and saints’
lives often highlight the themes of apostolic origins, episcopal succession,
and martyrdom that are prominent in the Roman material. Outside these
northern urban centers, especially in the countryside, Christianity had
apparently made little progress, and persecution had little impact prior to
the Tetrarchic period.30 What we have, then, stops short of satisfying the
requirements of a history of Christianity in early imperial Italy. Toleration
and imperial favoritism, however, alter the situation.
from persecution to privilege

In October of 312, Constantine defeated a rival claimant for power,
Maxentius, on the outskirts of Rome at the battle of the Milvian Bridge
(or Saxa Rubra), setting in motion a train of events that would bring
Christianity from the edges to the center of Roman history. he inscrip-
tion on the triumphal arch dedicated in 315 by the senate and Roman
people to commemorate Constantine’s victory was studiously vague if not
evocatively pagan, crediting his defeat of the “tyrant” to “the inspiration of
divinity and greatness of mind (instinctu divinitatis mentis magnitudine)”
(ILS 694). But Constantine had already begun to give sharper definition to
the source of that inspiration.31 Early in 313, for reasons political and per-
sonal, together with his imperial ally Licinius, Constantine had endorsed
the so-called Edict of Milan, a proclamation of religious freedom and
property restitution for Christians.32 In the same year, to handle the fallout
from the recent persecutions in North Africa, where churches were split
29
Otranto, Italia meridionale e Puglia paleocristiane, 21–42; Stevenson, he Catacombs, 131–47; Testini,
Archeologia cristiana, 499–501; Agnello, Silloge; Ferrua, Note e giunte.
30
Humphries, Communities of the Blessed, 72–105, 227; Sotinel, Identité civique et christianisme,
65–89.
31
Constantine’s arch: Lenski, “Evoking the Pagan Past”; Van Dam, Remembering Constantine, 124–32;
Bardill, Constantine, 222–30; Constantine in Rome: Barnes, Constantine, 61–89.
32
Drake, Constantine and the Bishops, 193–8.
430 Dennis Trout
over the treatment of traditores (clergy who had surrendered sacred texts
and objects during the recent persecution), he paid the expenses for bish-
ops to meet first in Rome, then in Arles in 314 (Eus. Hist. eccl. 10.5.18–24),
foreshadowing the great council he would summon to Nicaea in 325 in
an attempt to resolve a different, but no less intractable, internal division.
Apparently in 313 as well, Constantine granted Christian clerics the immu-
nity from compulsory services legally claimed by the priests of certain other
cults (Eus. Hist. eccl 10.7.1–2; Ch 16.2.1).33 Finally, if it was indeed in 315
that Lactantius composed his account of the dream in which Constantine,
before his battle with Maxentius, was admonished to set the sign of Christ
(perhaps a Chi-Rho) upon his soldiers’ shields (Mort. 44.5), then it can be
assumed that Constantine had announced his personal allegiance to the
Christian god relatively soon after his seizure of Rome in 312.
While it is true, as some have noted, that Constantine’s favoritism
continued a third-century trend toward close association of the emperor
with a specific divinity and that Maxentius had shown himself tolerant of
Rome’s Christians after he gained control of the city in 306, Constantine’s
reversal of Christianity’s fortunes will nonetheless have seemed as abrupt
to some as its impact would prove long lasting.34 here are indications that
the Christians of Rome had known relative peace and even a measure of
prosperity under the Severan emperors and their immediate successors.
Eusebius, for example, reports a claim made by Cornelius, bishop from
250 to 253, that the Roman church then numbered forty-six presbyters,
seven deacons, seven subdeacons, and a host of minor officials (Hist. eccl.
6.43.11). But in the mid-third century a storm of persecution had bro-
ken over the city’s Christian groups. Cornelius’s predecessor, Fabian, as
noted above, was one victim. Moreover, the persecutions associated with
the names of Decius (249–51) and Valerian (253–60) – and then Diocletian
and Galerius (305–11) – were unlike the locally inspired anti-Christian vio-
lence of the early empire. In the mid-third century, for reasons bound up
with the empire’s military and administrative difficulties, Christians and
other apparent religious nonconformists were caught up in novel, centrally
directed programs meant to ensure general participation in the public and
imperial cults but eventually targeting clerics and church property.35 While
enforcement of these programs was uneven, Rome’s Christian commu-
nities, like others elsewhere, were left disrupted by the harsh actions of
33
Rapp, Holy Bishops, 238.
34
Drake, “he Impact of Constantine on Christianity”; Cameron, “Constantine and the ‘Peace of the
Church,’” 540–5; Van Dam, Roman Revolution, 9–10.
35
Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians, 450–62; Rives, “he Decree of Decius.”
Decius and Valerian, which led some to witness and others to lapse, as
well as unbalanced by the competing claims for leadership that followed in
their immediate wake.36 Although the impact of the “Great Persecution” of
Diocletian, which flared up in 303, fell most heavily upon the eastern prov-
inces and Rome and Italy apparently escaped relatively unscathed, later
sources often portray the effects as severe. Any anguish, however, was soon
relieved, in Rome at least, by the usurpation of Maxentius in 306, who
(though he would be subsequently demonized) suppressed the persecution
and overturned the enabling legislation.37 Even so, his unpopular fiscal
and social policies left Maxentius vulnerable to Constantine’s propaganda
as well as his arms – and further facilitated the subsequent perception of
Constantine as Christianity’s champion.
Although Constantine quickly positioned himself as the liberator of
the city, the full story of his Christian allegiances emerges slowly. Because
he was the emperor of all Romans, the vast majority of whom (perhaps
ninety percent) were still non-Christian in 312, it will always seem some-
what ambiguous.38 Nevertheless, the impact of his decisions is nearly ines-
timable. By the time of his death in 337, Roman society as well as the
church and the imperial office had begun to be reconfigured. Christianity’s
new-found respectability encouraged conversion, and with the impetus
provided by Constantine’s legislation bishops embarked on the journey
that would eventually transform them into the later empire’s leading civic
officials.39 he emperor himself, summoning and addressing the Council
of Nicaea (325), assumed a prominent role in the regulation of doctrine
and church order.40 As pontifex maximus, he was responsible for ensuring
proper worship of those divinities who secured the empire’s defense and
prosperity. If Christian pluralism might be acceptable, discord and schism
were not.
But perhaps the most immediately visible sign of the changing tide in
Italy was Constantine’s engagement with the Roman cityscape. To be sure,
within the city Constantine presented himself as had numerous emper-
ors before him, erecting statues, accepting a triumphal arch, claiming and
modifying the great basilica of Maxentius near the Via Sacra, building
baths on the Quirinal, celebrating his decennalia, and triumphing in 315
36
Frend, Martyrdom and Persecution, 304–23; Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital, 35–41; Green,
Christianity in Ancient Rome, 120–69.
37
Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital, 63–5.
38
Van Dam, Roman Revolution.
39
Rapp, Holy Bishops, 235–60.
40
Barnes, Eusebius and Constantine, 212–19.
432 Dennis Trout
(though perhaps forgoing the traditional sacrifice on the Capitoline). It

was on the edges of the city, however, that the future was being sketched.
Here Constantine and members of his family sponsored building projects
whose gravitational pull would slowly reshape the image of the classical
city. On the Caelian atop the castra of the equites singulares, Maxentius’s
now-disbanded elite horse guard, Constantine erected the Lateran basilica;
over the Vatican necropolis where St. Peter was venerated soon appeared
a vast basilica with central nave, side aisles, atrium forecourt, and apse;
outside the Aurelian walls on the Via Labicana at a spot known as ad duas
lauros, Constantine sponsored a large U-shaped or ambulatory funerary
basilica and built the grand, circular mausoleum that would eventually
receive the remains of his mother Helena; on the Via Appia, at the memo-
ria of Peter and Paul appeared the similarly designed Basilica Apostolorum
(S. Sebastiano); similar but perhaps somewhat later churches were erected
on the Via Tiburtina at the tomb of Lawrence and on the Via Nomentana,
where another imperial mausoleum arose (Sta. Costanza) adjacent to the
ambulatory basilica of the martyr Agnes.41 Here, in the city’s mural zone,
Constantine and his kin redirected imperial patronage from temples to
churches and from the historic city center to an area then largely given
over to cemeteries and suburban estates. Meanwhile, in unison with these
changes, other less dramatic ones were underway as the Roman bishops of
the Constantinian age, most notably Julius (337–52), joined by lay elites
now built more modest basilicas or titular churches on the Esquiline, near
the imperial fora, and in Trastevere.42 In the process, Christianity acquired a
monumental presence it had never known, and the cityscape was reshaped
in ways that would only become more pronounced in time, providing a
new index for charting the “growth” of the religion. Surely then Rome’s
Christians were prominent among those who so grievously lamented the
news of Constantine’s death and, echoing if not restaging the traditional
consecratio ceremony that marked the divinization of earlier emperors,
honored him with paintings depicting him at home “in an aetherial resort
above the vaults of heaven” (Eus. Vit. Const. 4.69).43 It is an image whose
appeal should not be underestimated.
41
Pietri, Roma Christiana, 3–69; Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital, 70–115; Bowersock, “Peter
and Constantine”; Brandenburg, Ancient Churches of Rome, 16–108; MacMullen, Second Church,
80–4; Bardill, Constantine, 237–51.
42
Pietri, Roma Christiana, 21–5; Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital, 117–27; Brandenburg,
Ancient Churches of Rome, 110–13; Bowes, Private Worship, Public Values, 72.
43
Translation and commentary at Cameron and Stuart, Life of Constantine, 345–6; MacCormack, Art
and Ceremony, 93–121.
italia christiana
About the year 390, the Roman senator and Christian grandee Sextus
Petronius Probus was laid to rest in a magnificent mausoleum attached
to the apse of the Vatican basilica of St. Peter. Probus’s body, clothed in
gold-spun fabric, was placed in a marble sarcophagus sculpted with an
image of Christ’s missionary dispatch of the apostles. His verse epitaph,
apparently set out on an interior peristyle, proclaimed Probus’s new life
among the stars as well as the maturation of aristocratic Christian culture
in Italy.44 In these same years, other nobles appear no less confident about
the rewards of baptism into the Christian faith. At Milan, the sepulcher
of Manlia Daedalia, probably wife or daughter of the Christian intellec-
tual and consul of 399 Mallius heodorus, announced her return to Christ
“through the lofty stars.”45 During Daedalia’s lifetime, Milan, home to other
Christians who shared her presumed Neoplatonic sympathies, had risen to
prominence not only as an imperial capital but also as the see of the ambi-
tious bishop Ambrose, whose writings and sermons elevated considerably
the stock of Christian exegesis and preaching in the West.46 To the south of
Rome, Christianity had made similar headway across the social spectrum.
In the mid-390s, the former Roman senator from Bordeaux, Meropius
Pontius Paulinus, relocated his household from Spain to Campania, where
he had once served as governor, in order to settle at the tomb of the con-
fessor Felix, already the focus of local veneration and papal patronage.47
By the opening years of the fifth century, widespread changes that go far
to explaining the public authority wielded by Leo I at Rome some two
generations later were well underway throughout Italy.
he challenge in making sense of Christianity in Italy after Constantine
is no longer that presented by the paucity of source material for earlier peri-
ods. Literary, documentary, and archaeological evidence now abounds and
illuminates regions of Italy and areas of Christian life and practice previ-
ously inaccessible. Conversion to Christianity accelerated across the fourth
and into the fifth centuries, particularly within the cities and towns, while
private wealth and public resources were devoted in increasing measure
to devotional and ecclesiastical ends. Although doctrinal and ecclesiolog-
ical controversies long continued to undermine the unity of Christians in
Italy, nevertheless imperial and episcopal leadership began to forge a more
44
CIL 6.1 (1876) ad nos. 1751–56 (= CIL 6.8.3 [2000] 4752–53). Trout, “Verse Epitaph(s).”
45
CIL 5.6240 = ILCV 1700; PCBE 2.1 (Italia), 528.
46
McLynn, Ambrose of Milan.
47
Trout, Paulinus of Nola, 161–3.
434 Dennis Trout
monolithic Christian church in these same years. he ideals of Christian

asceticism found an ever-wider audience; the cult of the martyrs claimed
an almost unassailable position in the articulation of piety; and Christian
literary, artistic, and building activity began to transform elite culture as
well as public memory and the cityscape. he Christianization of Roman
society and the Romanization of Christianity are the dominant leitmotivs
of the age.
It is agreed that across the social spectrum, the percentage of Christians
rose significantly in the fourth and fifth centuries. Nevertheless, the rate of
change varied with place and social circumstances, and there were always
some whose religious allegiances were partially if not fully directed else-
where. Tracking these phenomena is complicated both by the continuing
absence of fully reliable quantitative data and by problems of definition. To
ask who qualifies as Christian raises questions not only about the lines that
might seem to separate orthodox and heterodox Christianities (including
Manichaeism), but also the messy realities of conversion experiences. But
even scholars who prefer an earlier dating overall for the conversion of the
imperial aristocracy typically concede that the senatorial elite of Rome was
relatively slow to adopt Christianity.48 One recent study concludes that
the aristocracy of Rome and Italy was “predominantly pagan well into
the last decades of the fourth century,” while a new study of Aquileia sup-
ports the impression given by evidence from other north Italian towns
that elite conversion there, despite the precocious achievements of the
early fourth century, was also a protracted process.49 Determining the
rate of nonelite conversion is even more difficult, but the epigraphic rec-
ord offers a rough guide: the number of dated Christian epitaphs from
Rome increases sharply across the fourth century, from forty-one in the
first quarter of the century to 550 in the last with a significant spike in the
third quarter.50 his boom in epigraphic funerary commemoration but-
tresses the impression of the Roman church’s rapid expansion given as well
by the spate of catacomb construction and church building in the second
half of the fourth century. Other parts of Italy – mountainous zones, the
promontory of Gargano, the Adriatic coast of the Abruzzo and Molise, for
examples – surely lagged behind Rome, as apparently did other regions
of the West whose epigraphic curves rise somewhat later.51 Yet, although
absolute numbers remain impossible to determine, it seems safe to say that
48
Barnes, “Statistics and the Conversion of the Roman Aristocracy,” 144.
49
Salzman, Making of a Christian Aristocracy, 77–80; Sotinel, Identité civique et christianisme, 99–104.
50
Galvao-Sobrinho, “Funerary Epigraphy.”
51
Otranto, Italia meridionale e Puglia paleocristiane, 85–6; Galvao-Sobrinho, “Funerary Epigraphy.”
by 400 – subsequent to the strident imperial legislation of the 380s and

390s that again criminalized non-Nicene Christianities as well as many
traditional cult practices (for example, Ch 16.5.6; 16.10.10)52 – some form
of Christianity was the religion of the majority of the inhabitants of Italy’s
towns and cities.
he most celebrated examples of the tardy acceptance of Christianity
may be found among such conservative Roman families as the Symmachi
and Nicomachi or in the grandiose epitaph of the learned Vettius Agorius
Praetextatus, who died in late 384 while Praetorian Prefect and consul
designate (CIL 6.1779).53 Other evidence, however, reveals the complex
interplay of resistance to and assimilation of Christianity in the country-
side in this period. In 397, for example, Vigilius of Trent attempted to
abolish lustral sacrifices in the partially Christianized Alpine Val di Non
north of his city. His efforts provoked the murder of his three clerical
agents and the immolation of their bodies before an idol of Saturn on
a pyre made from the debris of their missionary church.54 In contempo-
rary Nola, on the other hand, Paulinus encouraged farmers and husband-
men from the surrounding region to bring to the tomb of St. Felix the
vows, prayers, and (sacrificial) offerings for the health and fertility of their
herds and fields that they had so long made to the gods and spirits of the
pre-Christian countryside.55 his particular cultural logic is equally evident
at Marcellianum in south Italian Lucania. Here, by the sixth century, an
ancient festival honoring the sea goddess Leucothea had become a fair of
St. Cyprian, the goddess’s sacred spring had been turned into a miraculous
baptismal pool, and the hand-fed fish once sacred to the goddess were now,
Cassiodorus observed, the wards of the Christian God.56 hough perhaps
less spectacular than the plea for the restoration of the Altar of Victory
to the Roman Senate House forwarded in 384 to the emperor at Milan
by the Urban Prefect Q. Aurelius Symmachus’s petition (Rel. 3)57 or the
lists of pagan priesthoods and cult initiations of Praetextatus and his wife
Fabia Anconia Paulina (CIL 6.1778, 6.1780),58 the events that unfolded in a
secluded Alpine valley, at a cemetery outside Nola, and around a fishpond
52
Joannou, La legislation imperiale, 43–8.
53
Matthews, Western Aristocracies, 203–11, 238–46; Salzman, Making of a Christian Aristocracy, 74–7;
Cameron, Last Pagans of Rome.
54
Lizzi, Vescovi e strutture ecclesiastiche, 59–70; Lizzi, “Ambrose’s Contemporaries,” 169–72; Humphries,
Communities of the Blessed, 181–4.
55
Paulinus, Carm. 20; Trout, “Christianizing the Nolan Countryside.”
56
Cassiodorus, Variae 8.33; Barnish, “Religio in stagno.”
57
Matthews, Western Aristocracies, 205–11; Sogno, Symmachus, 45–57.
58
PLRE 1.772–24 (Praetextatus); 1.675 (Paulina).
436 Dennis Trout
in Lucania are reminders that Christianity’s triumph in late ancient Italy

was neither simple nor complete.
No wonder then that the changes that Christianization did entail defy
easy categorization. With Christianity’s permeation of society came new
expectations for the conduct of public and private life, new modalities
of civic leadership and civic identity, altered cityscapes, and the revision
of historical memory. Moreover, by the later fourth century, the preem-
inence of the bishops of Rome ensured that most of the doctrinal and
ecclesiastical controversies of this formative but contentious age sooner or
later resonated in Rome – as well as in the imperial capitals of Milan and
Ravenna. Indeed, the story of the gestation of the papacy merits more con-
sideration than can be given here. By the end of the fourth century, both
an imperial law of 380 and the third canon of the general council held at
Constantinople in 38159 had added legal support to the authority Rome’s
bishops had long been accorded as the successors of Peter residing in the
ancient capital of the empire. Across the fourth century, Rome’s bishops
reinforced to their own advantage their connections to the cult and legacy
of Peter and Paul.60 And when Rome’s position was threatened both by
imperial claims to ecclesiastical leadership and the rise of Constantinople
as the “new Rome,” Damasus (366–84) and his successors Siricius (384–99)
and Innocent I (401–17) elaborated the latent Petrine doctrine. Christ’s
words to Peter at Matthew 16:18–19, now supplemented by Rufinus of
Aquileia’s translation of a pseudonymous letter of Clement I, would pro-
vide the crucial juristic, but extra-imperial, basis for Roman primacy.
he decretals issued by Roman bishops would crystallize their claim to
a divinely sanctioned constitutional authority over other churches.61 his
“primatial monarchic theme,” variously accepted and contested even in the
West (though carrying relatively little weight in the East), would receive
its “final theoretical stamp” during the pontificate of Leo (440–61). No
less skilled in ecclesiastical politics than barbarian diplomacy, Leo deftly
employed the resources of Roman law to distinguish further the office
(rather than the person) of the bishop of Rome as the heir of the legal
status and powers of St. Peter.62
Commensurate with these ambitions, Rome’s bishops were seldom
aloof from the challenges that came with the Christianization of Roman
society. Indeed, what may be the earliest surviving papal decretal reveals
59
Ch 16.1.2; Hefele, Histoire des conciles, 2.1, 24–7.
60
Pietri, “Concordia Apostolorum”; Donati, Pietro e Paolo.
61
Ullmann, A Short History, 9–18; Schimmelpfennig, he Papacy, 24–8.
62
Ullmann, A Short History, 19–21; Neil, Leo, 39–44.
Siricius offering Himerius, bishop of Spanish Tarragona, counsel on a

wide range of issues, including regulation of the lives of male and female
ascetics (monachi and monachae).63 he decriminalization of Christianity
in the early fourth century had fundamentally changed the relationship
between most Christians in Italy and the imperial government. As the age
of persecution faded into an age of heroes, with implications to be con-
sidered below, asceticism offered Christians a striking means for asserting
the depth of their commitment and delineating their religious and social
identity in an age of Christian expansion. Rooted in eastern practices,
monastic ideals were disseminated in fourth-century Italy by eastern visi-
tors such as Athanasius and Peter of Alexandria, both resident for a time
in Rome; by texts, especially the Life of Anthony, available in Latin as well
as Greek by the 370s; and eventually by returning westerners like Jerome
and later Rufinus and Melania the Elder.64 As the ideals of celibacy, die-
tary restriction, and the renunciation of wealth and office found an audi-
ence among some of Italy’s elite families, asceticism emerged as one of
the leading forces “shaping the contours of church and society in the
late ancient world.”65 he writings of Jerome, who during his sojourn in
Rome from 382 to 385 promoted himself along with his vision of ascetic
piety and scriptural study, reveal most of what we know of the house-
hold asceticism of such notable aristocratic women as Marcella, Paula,
and Eustochium.66 In roughly these same years, in Milan, Augustine was
led, in part by the example of Ambrose, to abandon his high-profile
teaching post and aspirations for marriage and a political career in favor
of ascetic otium, sexual continence, and baptism.67 Soon enough some
Roman senators were prepared to adopt ascetic ways as a mark of their
determination to win the kingdom of God. Before he declared his secular
renunciation and retired with his wife, herasia, to a necropolis on the
outskirts of Nola in the mid-390s, Paulinus of Bordeaux had served as
suffect consul at Rome and then governor of Campania in the 380s.68 He
knew other aristocrats, like Turcius Apronianus and Valerius Pinianus,
the husband of Melania the Younger, who also preferred to be senators
and consuls for Christ.69 When the senator Pammachius’s wife Paulina
63
Siricius, Ep. 1.7 (PL 13.1137); Shotwell, Loomis, he See of Peter, 697–708. Earlier may be ad Gallos
(Damasus): see Pietri, Roma Christiana, 764–72; Reutter, Damasus, 192–247.
64
Rousseau, Ascetics, Authority and the Church, 79–95. On Christian monasticism in Egypt and Syria,
see Griffith, Chapter 5 and van der Vliet, Chapter 8 of this volume.
65
Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy, 1–2.
66
Kelly, Jerome, 91–103; Williams, he Monk and the Book, 52–62; Cain, Letters of Jerome, 68–98.
67
Brown, Augustine, 108–20; O’Donnell, Augustine, 59–61.
68
Trout, Paulinus of Nola, 78–103.
69
Trout, Paulinus of Nola, 208–9. PCBE 2.1: 171–3 (Apronianus); 2.2: 1798–1802 (Pinianus).
438 Dennis Trout
died in 396, he staged a massive meal for the poor and a distribution of
alms at St. Peter’s basilica.70 hereafter, Pammachius adopted an ascetic
lifestyle and further diverted his vast treasure to heaven with the con-
struction of a hostel (xenodochium) at Portus, a narthex at St. Peter’s, and
a titular church on the Caelian (subsequently SS. Giovanni e Paolo).71
While these cases bear some resemblance to former examples of philo-
sophical retreat from public life and municipal philanthropy, they are
also marked by unusual physical rigors and informed by such scriptural
admonitions as Christ’s call to perfection at Matthew 19:21 and Luke’s
tale of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19–31).
Yet these individuals represent exceptional responses to scriptural pre-
cepts. Most Christians lived far more conventional lives, and opposition
to asceticism was, it seems, widespread.72 Ambrose, who preached the new
asceticism in Milan,73 predicted a rough welcome in Rome for the news
that Paulinus had, it was said, abandoned the senate and his patrimony.74
he Life of Melania the Younger recounts the staunch resistance that met
her abnegation of an aristocratic Roman woman’s traditional roles and
her rejection of a family’s vast wealth.75 Meanwhile, the same epitaph that
proclaimed Petronius Probus’s privileged afterlife in the heavenly court of
Christ boasted of his many secular offices and vast wealth. Probus’s seam-
less transition from terrestrial to heavenly potentate was an implicit rejec-
tion of ascetic claims that might seem to undermine the traditional social
and family values of the Roman elite. Other critics were more direct. he
Roman monk Jovinian, though celibate himself, refused to admit any bib-
lical foundation for basing distinctions of merit solely on degrees of sex-
ual renunciation. His teaching unleashed a firestorm of rebuttals in the
mid-390s. Although he was condemned by a Roman synod and savaged
by Jerome, he attracted considerable support among the Roman aristoc-
racy. In the aftermath, the ideals of ascetic renunciation were assimilated
into elite Christian culture and provided a new idiom for the expression
of aristocratic competition and civic munificence. Even so, anxieties about
wealth and sexuality informed debates about Christian identity through-
out Late Antiquity.76
70
Paulinus of Nola, Ep. 13.
71
PLRE 1:663; PCBE 2.2: 1576–81.
72
MacMullen, “What Difference Did Christianity Make?”; Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy,
51–74.
73
Brown, Body and Society, 341–65.
74
Ep. 6.27.3 (CSEL 82).
75
Yarbrough, “Christianization,” 155–6; Salzman, Making of a Christian Aristocracy, 166–77.
76
Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy, 15–50, 74–83.
It is unlikely that asceticism’s strictures resonated very far along the

socio-economic scale, but other changes were public to a degree that
affected the lives and routines of almost all Christians. In fact, funerary
banquets and annual commemorations of the dead, now staged in mon-
umentalized suburban cemeteries and often replicating pre-Christian
practices with little clerical oversight, may have served many “ordinary”
Christians as the primary enactment and expression of their Christianity
in this age.77 Closely linked both to such funerary rituals and to contempo-
rary reconfigurations of urban life and public memory are the burgeoning
cult of the saints and the restructuring of civic time and space that had
begun to take shape in the Constantinian age. With persecution’s recession
into the past and new sources of wealth and patronage available, the mon-
umentalized tombs of the martyrs attracted veneration and prayer while
the anniversaries of the martyrs’ deaths provided a list of feast days to fill
out the calendar of Christian holidays. As the tombs of the martyrs were
isolated in martyria and churches and as, in the course of the later fourth
and fifth centuries, the pre-Christian festivals of the towns and cities of
Italy were either forgotten or transformed, the image of the late Roman
city was remade.78 Along with these changes came a revised sense of civic
identity rooted in new myths of origin.
his phenomenon is evident throughout Italy as bishops joined emper-
ors and aristocrats as builders and donors.79 At Rome, although the
homes of the aristocracy may have continued to serve as centers for wor-
ship well into the fourth century,80 by the fifth century’s end there were
within the Aurelian walls twenty-five or twenty-six parish churches (tituli),
Constantine’s two foundations at the Lateran and the Sessorian palace (S.
Croce), and at least nine other basilicas (including S. Maria Maggiore and
S. Stefano Rotondo).81 Outside the walls, the catacombs rapidly expanded
in the later fourth century while the suburbs blossomed with martyria
and cemetery churches, as many as sixteen of the latter by the end of the
fourth century alone.82 A similar pattern of intra- and extramural church
construction unfolded at contemporary Milan and Aquileia and remapped
Ravenna in the first half of the fifth century.83 hough not all north Italian
77
Rebillard, “he Church, the Living, and the Dead”; MacMullen, he Second Church.
78
Salzman, “Christianization of Time and Space”; Yasin, Saints and Church Spaces.
79
Ward-Perkins, From Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, 51–84; Bowes, Private Worship, Public
Values, 65–71.
80
Bowes, Private Worship, Public Values, 73–103.
81
Reekmans, “L’implantation,” 866–8; Guidobaldi, “L’organizzazione dei tituli.”
82
Reekmans, “L’implantation,” 902–7; Pergola, “Dai cimiteri ai santuari martiriali.”
83
Humphries, Communities of the Blessed, 187–202; Sotinel, Identité civique et christianisme, 262–70;
Deliyannis, Ravenna in Late Antiquity, 41–105.
440 Dennis Trout
cities kept pace in this environment where paganism and Judaism long
retained their vitality, by the mid-fifth century church building had sub-
stantially reformed the Italian cityscape.84
Moreover, these topographical changes were linked with forms of vener-
ation of the martyrs that distinctly characterize late ancient Christianity.85
When Ambrose dedicated a new church just outside Milan’s walls, he read-
ily complied with his congregation’s demand that the basilica be fortified
with the earthly remains of thaumaturgic martyr-heroes (who in the event
would be the Milanese Gervasius and Protasius).86 In the course of the
next decade, Paulinus transformed the site of Felix’s tomb into a com-
plex of ornate basilicas and other structures that impressed visitors from
around the empire.87 No city, however, could rival Rome in the number of
its saints and martyrs: by one count the number of feast days for Rome’s
martyrs and bishops rose from forty-three in the mid-fourth century to 111
by the seventh, paralleling the urbanization of the Roman suburbs in these
years.88 hroughout Italy, rich and poor brought their prayers and gifts to
the martyrs’ tombs, carried away contact relics, and sought out burial ad
sanctos. And as episcopal ceremonial incorporated the topography of the
saints, these heroes of the age of persecution gradually absorbed or effaced
pre-Christian divine and legendary city founders. he narratives of their
passiones and acta filled the reservoir of public memory, displacing older
and now irrelevant versions of civic history. Like the rancorous Jovinianist
controversy, the honorific elogia installed by Damasus in the Roman mar-
tyria and Ambrose’s relic acquisitions are vivid indices of Christianity’s
centrality in late ancient Italy.89
By the time, then, of Leo’s negotiations with Gaiseric before the walls
of Rome, the Christianization of society had indeed brought considerable
change to Italy. As churches came to define the cityscape and the cult of
the martyrs to establish the rhythms of civic time, Christian themes domi-
nated the literary and the visual arts.90 Christianity had now been the reli-
gion of Rome’s emperors for more than a century. he church had acquired
vast wealth from imperial favor and private benefaction and wielded sig-
nificant public authority. In the days of Damasus, Praetextatus was said
to have quipped, “Make me bishop of Rome and I will be a Christian
84
Humphries, Communities of the Blessed, 202–15.
85
Brown, Cult of the Saints; Markus, he End of Ancient Christianity, 139–55.
86
McLynn, Ambrose, 209–15.
87
Trout, Paulinus of Nola, 160–97; Lehmann, Paulinus Nolanus.
88
Saxer, “La liturgie,” 922–3; Pergola, Valenzani,Volpe, Suburbium.
89
Trout, “Damasus and the Invention of Early Christian Rome”; Brenk, “Il culto delle reliquie.”
90
Elsner, Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph, 138–43.
at once,”91 while shortly thereafter the historian Ammianus Marcellinus

caustically condemned the ostentation of those same bishops (27.3.14). In
consequence, possession of the episcopal cathedra of Rome was several
times contested by violent schisms while at Milan Ambrose faced down the
imperial authorities on more than one occasion.92 hroughout late Roman
Italy, bishops were power brokers as well as de facto municipal magistrates,
a development that prepared them to assume much of the administration
of Italy when in the later sixth century the peninsula reverted to a patch-
work of separate regions.93 By then, however, a common religion, trans-
planted to Italian soil more than five hundred years before, bridged the
political boundaries separating Lombards, Romans, and Byzantines.
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17
RELIGIONS AND CITIES IN ROMAN GAUL

FIRST TO FOURTH CENTURIES ce 
william van andringa

(translated by william adler)
“Roman domination imposed on Gaul both foreign masters and new styles of
governance. Among its habitants, it brought about changes in their way of life,
of work, and of material advancement; with the appearance of towns, roads, and
monuments, it reshaped the land. But it did even more than that: it altered the
beliefs of the people, their language, ways of thinking, and customs. In addition to
material transformations of the country, it brought about a revolution in morals.”
(Jullian, Histoire de la Gaule, vol. 2, 133)
introduction: territorial and religious diversity

At the outset, we must clarify our terminology and the geographic area
under consideration. Even if the Romans speak readily of “Gaul” and
the “Gauls” to describe the territories extending from the Pyrenees to the
Rhine, this generic terminology, as recent studies of the Iron Age have
demonstrated, masks great local and regional diversity, the evolution of
which was shaped in various ways by the Celtic migrations. In effect, the
“Gauls” did not exist apart from the reductionist mentality of the conquer-
ing Romans. he Romans could not entirely overlook the diversity, how-
ever. In the interior of “long-haired Gaul” (Gallia Comata), Caesar clearly
differentiates the Belgae from the Celts and the Aquitani: “All these peo-
ple,” he states, “differ from one another in speech, customs, and laws.”
Beginning with the reign of Augustus Caesar, the Tres Provinciae
Galliae (as the delegates of the cities assembled at the altar of the Lyon
Confluence signed their decree) ultimately became the official designa-
tion of the three new provinces of Aquitania, Lugdunensis (Lyonnaise),
and Belgica. Gallia Transalpina, which was conquered in the second cen-
tury bce and which merged the regions of the Midi, received the name
Gallia Narbonensis (Narbonnaise). A land of colonies and Latin civitates,
446
Religions and Cities in Roman Gaul 447
Map 9. he Cities of the hree Gauls and Narbonensis
the Midi, stretching from Narbonne to the Alps, was integrated into
the empire at an earlier date. Geographically close to Italy, the Midi did
not share the same history as the interior of Gaul conquered by Caesar
between 58 and 51 bce. (See Map 9.)
In the Roman period, Narbonensis and Galliae were divided up into
provinces and organized into cities composing a mosaic of autonomous
448 William van Andringa
states, each engaged in its own distinctive religious practices. It is thus

impossible to study this region as a religious unity. he Bituriges of
Bordeaux, the Pictons of Poitiers, the Parisii of Paris, the Ambiani of
Amiens, the Vocontii of Vaison, and the Volques Arecomiques of Nîmes
fashioned their pantheons in accordance with community needs and their
own special history, the result of which is invariably reflected in the pres-
ervation of certain ancestral gods. Within the context of this network of
city-states, the local populace forged relationships with Rome. Indeed, the
gods were indispensable for protecting the community, just as they were in
securing the ties between the autonomous city, Rome, and the emperor.
cults in their historical context: provincialization

and rapprochement with rome
In the majority of studies of “Gallo-Roman” religion – a term that presup-
poses a “national” dimension that never existed – the cults are rarely con-
ceived in their community setting. For a long time, research focused on
the permanence of Gallic deities in the imperial period, on the interpretatio
Romana, or on the overall religiosity of the peoples of Gaul. Other long-
standing topics concerned the distinctive architectural and monumental
features of Gallo-Roman sanctuaries and the meaning of votive offerings,
which were understood as the central expression of an essentially popular
and local religion.
When we examine these studies, commonly conceived strictly from the
“Gallo-Roman perspective,” it becomes clear that in many cases hypoth-
eses are generated by culturally determined and modernizing interpreta-
tions, which generally fail to recognize the profound uniqueness of ancient
religions. Beginning with Camille Jullian, the prevailing image of Gaul is
that of harmony between the native and Roman deities, a product of the
religious tolerance of the conquerors. hus, in his study of the “pagan cults
in the Roman Empire,” Jules Toutain claimed that this Roman tolerance
went hand in hand with the favorable reception extended to the Roman
gods by the local peoples.1 In short, the local populations were allowed to
“believe and practice as they liked, apart from the State, which built for
itself the patchwork character of Gallo-Roman religion.”
his representation, which has shaped the studies of the religion of the
provinces of Gaul, poses two kinds of problems, both related to the under-
standing of ancient religious practices. he first of them has to do with
1
Jullian, Histoire de la Gaule; Toutain, Cultes païens, 1, 134.
terminology. he concept of “tolerance,” which originated with the history

of modern states, is ill-suited to defining religious phenomena associated
with the ancient city. he cities of the Roman period were by definition
autonomous; this is what makes it possible to refer to the “freedom” of the
cults. But the autonomy of communities was defined and circumscribed
by Rome. It naturally follows from this that religious change, promoted
by the cities themselves, occurred within the framework of the religious
ideology of Rome. Integration was inseparable from Roman control over
the provinces.2
Another problem has to do with the place traditionally assigned to
religion in the history of Gaul. Because the study of religious behavior
is commonly linked to the spiritual realm, detached from any political
context, it becomes a subject of study in isolation, decontextualized, and
suspended in a void. As a result, the cults of Roman Gaul have almost
always been studied in terms of a personal belief system, detached from
their community and institutional setting. Recent analysis of the function
of Greco-Roman religions has shown, however, that in Antiquity religious
practices cannot be divorced from the political and social context in which
they developed, and from which they derived their meaning.
In the provinces of Gaul, as in the empire as a whole, religion was
principally community centered. While participation in religious cults
was of course contingent upon one’s membership in the city, it was
also a function of one’s membership in a subdivision of the city (the
vicus or the pagus), as well as one’s connection to a collegium or a family
grouping. In other words, if piety played an essential role in maintain-
ing the daily well-being of every individual – witness the thousands of
votive offerings of every stripe deposited in the sanctuaries – it played an
equally fundamental role in defining societies as a system of communi-
ties. Harmony between individuals, as well as the existence of individu-
als in their communities, was at stake. Among the many examples of
this are the public tauroboliums of Lectoure (CIL XIII, 520, city of the
Lactorates) instituted for the preservation of the city, an altar dedicated
by the butchers of Périgueux (CIL XIII, 941, city of the Petrocores) to reli-
gious representations of the Roman regime in the form of Jupiter and the
genius of the emperor Tiberius, and the altar of a house in Autun (CIL
XIII, 11227, city of the Aedui) erected for the guardian (Tutela) of the
domus. Indeed, repeated vows to familiar deities were as crucial to com-
munity and individual preservation as was participation in ceremonies or
2
Cf. Beard, North, and Price, Religions, 313f.
Fig. 16. Altar of the butchers of Périgueux. he butchers of the urban area gathered
together in veneration of Jupiter in the company of the genius of Tiberius.
sacrifices, which were believed to guarantee civic harmony or the social

stability of the group to which one belonged (Fig. 16).
hese principles are as applicable to the civic religions of Greece and
Rome as they are to the Gauls after the Roman conquest, when the Gallic
peoples were organized into cities. Aside from the unique case of the Greek
settlements of the Midi, which had been established for a long time on the
Mediterranean coast, the indigenous peoples were increasingly settled in
cities. Notable examples of this policy, which essentially began at the time
of Caesar, include the colonies established in Gallia Transalpina (Arles and
Béziers, for example), and in Gallia Comata (Lyon, Nyon, and Augst).
During the Augustan era, the system was extended from the Pyrenees
to the Rhine. From the beginning of the imperial period, political and
religious life was everywhere regulated within the civilized framework of
the city-state and the social organization that defined it. he available
sources from this period, notably the epigraphic material, require us to pay
close attention to the urban context and the evolution of the city from the
first to the third centuries ce. Nor should we neglect the connection of the
great sanctuaries to a polis-based organization of the territories based on
new realities such as the vici or small towns in general. he result of these
fundamental community-based realignments was the creation of new reli-
gious systems. Obviously, they did not completely efface the past – the
retention of some local deities under the empire demonstrates this.3 hey
were, however, adapted to the new times, namely that of autonomous cit-
ies incorporated into an empire under the leadership of one ruler.
religion and integration into the empire:

the transformation of the gods and the
recomposition of sacred spaces
Because the gods of the Greek provinces, clad for a long time in togas, were
already integrated into civil life, they could remain essentially unchanged
in the imperial period. he situation was different in the West, however.
Archaeological and epigraphic records demonstrate that in Gaul the gods
evolved and adapted in response to changes brought about by the new
organization of the Gauls, beginning already with Augustus. here were
of course exceptions. In regions that had been conquered at a much earlier
time or in Roman colonies, places where the populace had been Roman
for a long time, the cults were for the most part Roman, notwithstanding
local variation tied to the history of each community. his is clearly the
case with the pantheon of the colony of Narbonne: in the imperial period,
the gods venerated were Hercules, the Augustan Lares, Magna Mater, the
numen Augusti, Pax Augusta, and Vulcan.
he situation was much the same in the private domain. he cults
attested in the same town are the genii of patrons, fathers and mothers of
the family (those last under the form of Iunones); as at Rome, the deceased
were represented by the divi manes. Similarly, in the colony of Vienne, also
in Narbonensis, the Roman gods won the day, without having to share
power with native deities. Side by side in the capital city are Apollo, Castor
and Pollux, Diana, Fortuna, Hercules, Juno, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury,
3
See Van Andringa, Les dieux indigènes.
Pluto, Proserpina, Silvanus, Sucellus, Tutela, Venus, and Victoria. With

the exception of the presence of some local deities such as the goddess
Coriotana or the god Limetus, the gods of the outlying territory belong
to the Roman pantheon: Aesculapius, Apollo, Ceres, Diana, Fortuna,
Isis, Juno, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Maia, Minerva, Saturn, and Silvanus.
At Saint-Laurent-du-Pont, there is even a temple dedicated to Quirinus
Augustus, the archaic god of Rome.
As demonstrated in recent studies, these practices are in sharp contrast
with the majority of the cities of Gaul.4 For the most part, the pantheons,
organized during the reign of Augustus, are an amalgamation of indige-
nous and Roman deities. In addition to Mercury and Minerva, inscrip-
tions from Bourges-Avaricum, the capital of Bituriges Cubes, mention
Mars Mogetius, Mars Rigisamus, Mavida, and Solimara. In the outlying
territory, the register of deities is no different. We encounter Jupiter in
Saint-Ambroix and Magna Mater, Mercury, and Minerva in Argenton;
but Ibosus, Nerius, Magna Mater, and the Iunones appear in Neris, Apollo
Bassoledulitanus in Allichamps, Elvontios in Genouilly, Naga in Gièvres,
Apollo Atepomarus in Mauvières, Souconna in Sagonnes and Adacrius at
Vernais. hese motley pantheons, the product of community reorganiza-
tion within the civitates and the inevitable rapprochement with Roman
power, attest to a progressive and ongoing reconstitution of local religious
systems.
It is in this context that we can explain the transformation of local dei-
ties by means of the interpretatio romana. he naturalization of indigenous
deities who had assumed a Roman name ultimately depended on finding a
common link based on perceived similarities in physical appearance or in
the realm in which they operated. Caesar and Tacitus’s translation of the
names of certain Gallic and Germanic deities shows that the identification
with Roman gods could be a strictly personal choice (Julius Caesar, Bell.
gall. VI, 17; Tacitus, Germ. 43). From epigraphic evidence from the Treveri
and the Redones (Gallia Belgica and Lugdunensis), however, we can see that
the process became official once the name was used in a city’s public cults.
he ancient tribal deity of the Treveri thus became Lenus Mars and his
cult was registered in the city’s calendar. he organization of a flaminate
and the construction of a great temple some 500m from the city during
the first century ce completed the transformation of the cult.5 At Rennes,
4
For example, Häussler, Pouvoir et religion; Lavagne, Les dieux de la Gaule Narbonnaise; Van Andringa,
La religion en Gaule romaine.
5
On this material, see Scheid, Sanctuaires et territoire.
Fig. 17. Base of a statue discovered at Rennes-Condate, mentioning the god Mars
Mullo CIL XIII, 3149. Source: Museum of Bretagne, Alain Amet, in À la rencontre des
dieux gaulois, 44.
inscriptions from the reign of Hadrian show that there existed in this city
or on its outskirts a temple dedicated to Mars Mullo (AE 1969/70 a). It is
likely that the naturalization of this local deity, whose name appears in the
patronage of three of the four pagi, occurred over the course of the first
century, perhaps in connection with the acquisition of Latin legal standing
(ius Latinum) (Fig. 17).
Composing a name by combining the indigenous epithet Mullo with
a Roman divine name should not mislead us. It does not indicate that
the deity was hybrid, part Roman and part Gallic – to the contrary, the
religious language is marked by its exactitude. It means rather that Lenus
Mars and Mars Mullo were municipal deities and that their authority was
specific to the regions with which they were connected. Indeed, this is
implicit in the Gallic names Lenus or Mullo (whatever the exact meaning
of those terms – an ancient god’s name or a Gaulish attribute). he process
Fig. 18. Stele from Reims showing the Gallic god with stag’s horns accompanied by
two Roman or Romanized gods, Mercury and Apollo. Source: Museum of Saint-Rémi
de Reims, R. Meulle in À la rencontre des dieux gaulois, 120.
was decisive once an indigenous deity had adopted a Roman name. his
was more than a matter of fusion, syncretism, or simple attire; these gods
had changed their name and identity.
Several deities did, to be sure, maintain their local name. his could
have been because an equivalent Roman name did not exist. A notable
example of this is a god with the horns of a stag, named Cernunnos, on a
bas-relief from Paris, whose image is well attested in the Celtic provinces
(Fig. 18). he other possible reason is that the deity in question had a
native local dimension. In the city of the Convenae, the variety of deities
with local names that have been counted – a good sixty in all – is very
well suited to the division of the lands and communities distinctive of the
mountainous regions of the Pyrenees Piedmont.
Another point worth stressing concerns the place of these deities in the
city pantheons. At Nuits-Saint-Georges, a vicus of the city of the Aedui
Fig. 19. Stele of Nuits-Saint-Georges. Source: Museum of Nuits-Saint-Georges,

Fasquel, in E. Planson, C. Pommeret, Les Bolards, 1 (cover page).
(Eduens), a stele representing three deities has been discovered in the pre-
cinct of a great sanctuary of the urban area (Fig. 19).6 his monument
and the gods represented on it have been immediately recognized as “a
perfect example of syncretism in Gaul.” From left to right, the gods are
typically Gallic: a mother goddess, a continuation of a very ancient cult of
the mother goddess, source of fertility; a bisexual Cybele (or a genius); and
above all the three-headed horned god, purveyor of wealth.
6
Planson and Pommeret, Les Bolards, 52f.
Informing this reading of the bas-relief is a deep conviction about the

permanence of an ancient and native religious substratum, a sentiment
supported in this case by the presence of the horned god. However, if
we take into account the historical and religious context of this stele, we
arrive at another reading. he composition is centered on a god wearing
the cornucopia. In our judgment, this can only be a representation of
the genius of the urban area or its inhabitants, the vicani.7 he genius
is not here an indigenous deity, but rather the religious expression of
an urban area, the vicus, which is legally defined as an urban quarter
detached from a capital city.8 he deity represented to the right of the
genius would appear to be the goddess Fortuna holding the cornucopia
and the patera in her right hand.9 he only deity of indigenous appear-
ance is finally the three-headed god with the stag-horns. While he does
live on, we now find him in the company of gods who express new civic
realities.
he grouping of these gods conveys this religious meaning: while
accommodating an ancient ancestral god, the combination points to new
realities and new divine relationships. We should also recognize that the
stele is not a cult statue; rather, this modestly sized monument doubtlessly
commemorated a ceremony celebrated in the great temple of the vicus.
Beginning in the middle of the first century ce, the sanctuary acquired a
monumental appearance, adhering at that time to a classical design. As the
epigraphic evidence attests, the god to whom the sanctuary was dedicated
was either Apollo or Mars Segomo, namely the major deities of the city
of the Aedui.10 he stele and the triad of gods therefore sit enthroned in a
secondary position in the sanctuary (Fig. 20).
he notion of a harmonious coexistence between the ancient Gallic
gods and the newcomers should be abandoned, because it masks the
essential reality: rather than coexistence, we should speak of new religious
combinations. hese do include some of the ancient ancestral gods and
mythological figures; in polytheism in Antiquity it could not be otherwise.
But the “Pillar of the Nautae” of Paris and the stele of Nuits-Saint-Georges
would seem to indicate that in the new combinations created in the impe-
rial period, these gods have either changed their appearance or assumed a
secondary position. To decide on the permanence of the gods or the cults
is only to return to a practice perfectly consonant with pietas, to something
7
Cf. LIMC , VIII, 1997, s.v. genius [I. Romeo], 599–607.
8
Cf. CIL , XIII, 1375; 5967; 6433; 7655; 8838. On the meaning of vicus, see further in this chapter.
9
Cf. LIMC , VIII, 1997, s.v. Tychē [L. Villard], 115–25 ; ibid., s.v. Tychē/Fortuna [F. Rausa], 125–41.
10
Pommeret, Le sanctuaire des Bolards.
Fig. 20. Plan of the sanctuary of Nuits-Saint-Georges. Source: C. Pommeret, Le sanc-

tuaire antique des Bolards à Nuits-Saint-Georges, fig. 7 (24).
obvious. On the other hand, it is fundamental to elucidate the historical

context in which these cults had been redefined: Has there been a reformu-
lation of rites? Was a new altar installed? Is there evidence of the construc-
tion of a new sanctuary? Of a change in the god’s name and standing? Can
we observe an association of an ancestral or local cult with new cults? And
finally, was there a formation of new pantheons?
he possibilities are numerous, and the witnesses to this development
are in most cases meager. One example concerns the sacrifices of horses
and dogs in Vertault brought to light by P. Meniel.11 Although they were
local practices, it is noteworthy that such rituals seemed to disappear by
the middle of the first century ce, the date of the construction of a temple.
Quite obviously, the cult had undergone a change in both form and sig-
nificance, presumably in connection with the evolution of Vertault, which
11
Jouin and Méniel, Le fanum de Vertault.
had become a vicus under the empire. his is not to say that the god or the
site of the cult had vanished. Although sacrifice of horses and dogs ceased
after 50 ce, the site remained a sanctuary, and the name of the god was
able to continue unchanged – this is hardly surprising. In the final analysis,
the problem has more to do with the form of the sacrifice than with the
continuing sacredness of the site.
Of course, the ancestral gods did not uniformly assume a subordinate
place in the pantheon. his is shown by the various forms of Mars in the
cities of Gaul.12 Lenus Mars among the Treviri, Mars Mullo among the
Aulerci Cenomani and the Redones, and Mars Caturix among the Helvetii
are some examples of great local deities established as municipal gods. But
in the period to which they belong, these gods are no longer Gallic; they
have been officially interpreted and organized in the Roman way. Attesting
to this are the flaminates created at Trier and Rennes as well as the con-
struction of new sanctuaries.
In this context – namely, pantheons distinctive of the imperial period
and adapted to the history of individual cities of the provinces of the three
Gauls and Narbonensis – the categories once proposed by Jules Toutain
lose their explanatory value.13 In distinguishing the indigenous gods from
the gods of Rome and the so-called Oriental gods, rigid categorization
like this fails to take account of the evolution both of the cities and the
peoples, ultimately masking the harmony that these gods collectively were
thought to represent for each community at a given moment in its exis-
tence. Rather than “indigenous” or “Roman” gods, it was a matter of
worshipping gods closely linked to the people, whose power was guaran-
teed by a municipal investiture. hese were gods who had forged a link
with Rome, adapted to their time, to the situation of the people, and to
their place in society. In this way, we can explain how naturalization of
deities and their integration into the Roman empire took place in many
cities. It also explains the wealth of combinations that helped to keep the
gods in touch with their time.
Reconstitution of religious systems in communities of Roman Gaul
went hand in hand with the recasting of sacred spaces, which was inevita-
ble, despite the presence of temples architecturally both unique and par-
ticular to these regions. Numerous archaeological specimens (more than
six hundred have been located or excavated) reveal in fact a main room
enclosed by a surrounding gallery. he design on a vase discovered in
12
Cf. Brouquier-Reddé, et al., Mars en Occident.
13
Toutain, Les cultes païens.
Fig. 21. Vase from Sains-du-Nord (city of the Nervii) representing a Gallo-Roman
sanctuary. Source: Cliché de A. Broëz/from Van Andringa, Archeologie des Sanctuaires,
2000, p.28.
Sains-du-Nord (city of the Nervii), representing a sectional Gallo-Roman

temple, confirms that the main room of the temple, elevated in relation to
the gallery, was the cella containing the cult statue (Fig. 21). his unique
layout, once construed as a vestige of an older Celtic design, has long sup-
ported the notion of the steadfast perseverance of the religious traditions
of the Gallic period. However, excavations of Gallic sanctuaries, which are
now numerous, have thus far failed to reveal the expected Celtic model.14
It is therefore possible that the so-called Gallo-Roman temple is a creation
of the Roman period, perhaps adapted to a distinctive liturgy.15
14
For an assessment, Arcelin and Brunaux, Cultes et sanctuaires.
15
See Van Andringa, Archéologie des sanctuaries, 14.
Conceivably more important than the architecture of the “Gallo-Roman”

temple are the transformations to be observed in the rituals that were per-
formed from the first century ce. Archaeological work shows that, in a
general way, and despite occasional local variations, Roman forms of sac-
rifice gradually began to dominate. In an evocative passage, M. Henig has
reconstructed the ceremony of a temple in the province of Roman Britain,
which could rightly be adapted to the provinces of Gaul:16 a procession
commences in the sanctuary, leading animals, invariably the three major
domestic species (oxen, goats, and pigs), to the sacrificial altar. he gates
of the temple are thrown open, making it possible to make out the silhou-
ette of the cult statue in local limestone. he Latin of the prayer is a bit
peculiar, and the god has a local epithet. But for the praefatio, the patera
and oenochoe are used, filled with a local wine (Gaul had already become a
great producer of wine!). Within the temple precinct, formulaic vows are
recited; others are paid by sacrifices and offerings. Undoubtedly, this scene
is pure fiction; no account of a ceremony has come down to us. Even so,
archaeological and epigraphic evidence confirms the architectural frame-
work and the account of the activities that took place in and around the
temple. We should also note that in the same forms of the cult, the tableau
is not much different from the one that Pliny the Younger draws in con-
nection with the sanctuary of Ceres erected on his domain (Ep. 9.39).
he discussion that follows will explain the historical context of the
religious transformations we have already described. We shall then
return to the conceptual language of the city, which will allow us to sit-
uate religious change within the framework of institutional and political
transformations.
urbanization and religious life

he organization of Gallic peoples into cities began with the birth of
new towns, designed according to the Roman model of town planning
and satisfying the criteria of urbanitas.17 When we speak of Roman town
planning, we are reminded, first, that organization into cities arose out of
Roman involvement, and, second, that municipal autonomy was defined
16
Henig, Religion in Roman Britain, 39–41.
17
he existence of a “town” in the Gallic period is not at issue here; underlying the Greek or Roman
city is a specific cultural context and a different set of standards. When Caesar refers to a town (urbs
or oppidum) in the Gallic states, he has of course adapted his translation to the usage of his readers.
On the Roman city in Gaul, see Goudineau, Histoire de la France urbaine, vol. 1; Woolf, Becoming
Roman, 106f.
from the outset in relationship to the imperial regime. Tacitus confirms

these principles in his description of the conduct of Agricola, governor
of the province of Britain. Agricola extended his program of pacification
in the winter of 78–79 by supporting the establishment of capital cities
defined by features borrowed from Roman town planning – temples, a
forum and domus: “In order, through the charms of luxury, to accustom
to peace and tranquility a population scattered and barbarous and there-
fore inclined to war, Agricola gave private encouragement and public aid
to the building of temples, forums, and homes, praising the energetic,
and reproving the indolent” (Agr. 21). hese new towns were meant to
promote a civilized and peaceful style of life. What cults were then woven
into the fabric of these fully developed urban centers? What deities were
invited into the new capital cities and ultimately connected with this new
collective enterprise? What role did they play in the design of a network of
orthogonal roads, in development of a site set aside for “temples, a forum,
and domus,” to use Tacitus’s terminology?
For the Roman government, a city came into existence only when a suffi-
cient number of decurions could guarantee municipal autonomy (in other
words, fund the public coffers). he formation of a local senate required,
therefore, the concentration of the elites in an urban center and, from the
outset, the establishment of a place for them to gather and administer the
government under the guardianship of deities adapted to a new context
and capable of forging a connection with Rome. he forum was created for
assembly and the administration of the government (Fig. 22).18 It was only
fitting, then, that the public space of towns should accommodate deities
embodying the political reality of the new civitas: an altar dedicated to the
genius civitatis as in Bordeaux (CIL XIII, 566) or in Bavay (AE 1969/70,
410), and an altar to Jupiter, as, for example, in Jublains (CIL XIII, 3184).
Nor should we overlook the vital role played by the cults dedicated to the
imperial regime in shaping the space of the forum. Especially illuminat-
ing here are the altars of the Caesares discovered in Reims (CIL XIII, 3254
and AE 1982, 715), in Sens (CIL XIII, 2942) and Trier (CIL XIII, 3671).
Moreover, at Nîmes, a temple dedicated to the two grandsons of Augustus
was erected in the public space.
We have, of course, to acknowledge that the paucity of the archaeo-
logical evidence at our disposal impedes the identification of sanctuaries
dedicated to the emperor in the fora of Roman towns of Gaul. While there
18
On the meanings of the forum in the Roman provinces, see above all Gros, L’architecture romaine,
207f.
Fig. 22. Plan of the forums of Feurs and Nyon. Source: F. Rossi, in E. Gros,
L’architecture romaine, 223.
are remains of the podium of temples that dominate the esplanade, con-
clusive epigraphic evidence identifying the occupants of the sanctuaries is
invariably lacking. Despite this, certain epigraphic and iconographic clues,
highlighted by P. Gros in Narbonensis, suggest the existence of an altar or a
temple erected to Roma and Augustus in the space allotted to the forum of
many of the new towns. Elsewhere, the diffusion of the public priesthood
of Roma and Augustus, documented from the Augustan era, as, for exam-
ple, at Rodez-Segodunum (Ruteni), allows us to connect it to the temple of
the forum (AE 1994, 1215 a-b). We might even view the dedication of such
a monument as the birth certificate of the town in Gaul, marked by the
recognition of Roman authority and thus of the community’s integration
into the empire.
In the forum, the various cults dedicated to the imperial regime (Roma
and Augustus, numen Augusti, genius Augusti) could be connected both
with the genius of the municipality (as for example in Bordeaux), but
especially with Jupiter “best and the greatest,” the Roman political god
par excellence. Jupiter is also ubiquitous in the public space of Lugdunum

Convenarum (Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges, AE 1941, 155; AE 1997,
1110–12). An altar discovered in what is presumably the forum of Jublains
(Noviodunum) pairs Jupiter, the highest-ranking god, with Augustus, the
highest-ranking man. Equally suggestive is the discovery of an altar before
the main entrance of the forum of Bavay (Bagacum); dedicated to Jupiter,
it shows him in company with the genius of Augustus.19 Here the two rep-
resentatives of the official religion who constitute it are joined together:
Jupiter Optimus Maximus, the supreme god of the Roman state, and the
ruling establishment, divinized in the form of the genius of Augustus. In
city fora and sanctuaries, they embody, as indissolubly linked partners, the
Roman civic ideal. hey ratify the institution of an established order: the
Roman government, an authority that every community integrated into
the empire – a city, vicus, or collegium – was obliged to recognize.
he future of provincial communities was henceforth anchored to that
of the Roman state, symbolized by the association between the emperor
and the father of the gods. While the cults established in the city center
did take account of the selection by local authorities, the evidence compels
us to conclude that indigenous or Gallic deities were barred from the civic
space. Indeed, the location for deities particular to the urban community
was from the very outset situated on the outskirts of the city – hence the
creation of suburban sanctuaries attested in most of the towns, for example
at Augst (Augusta Rauricorum), Jublains (Neodunum), Poitiers (Limonum),
Meaux (Iatinum), Beauvais (Caesaromagnus), Sens (Agedincum), and
Chartres (Autricum). Sometimes there are veritable religious districts,
important remains of which survive at Avenches (Aventicum) and Trier
(Augusta Treverorum) (Figs. 23 and 24). At Limoges (Augustoritum), there
is in fact an example of a sanctuary of an indigenous tradition set up in
the very heart of the town during its construction, but its swift lapse into
disuse would seem to confirm that a specific location, at the margins of the
urban area, was accorded to community deities in the course of its forma-
tion (Fig. 25).20
In Roman towns of Gaul, we can therefore speak of coexistence and
complementarity between two types of sacred space, each adapted to
community ceremonies and each with a distinctive meaning. he first,
located in the forum, was intended for cults embodying the new munic-
ipal organization, for example, Roma and Augustus, the genius of the
19
hollard, et al., Bavay antique, 57f.
20
Loustaud, Limoges antique, 311f.
Wall
Enclosure
FORUM
Derrière
la Tour
Ampitheater The Cigognier
SANCTUARIES
Theater
Au Lavoëx
Western Gate
Fig. 23. Plan of Aventicum with the site of the religious quarter of the Grange-des-
Dîmes. Source: Musée Romain d’Avenches.
Eastern Gate
Fig. 24. Plan of Augusta Treverorum with the site of the sanctuaries from the urban area.
Source: E. Gose, Der gallo-römische Tempelbezirk im Albachtal zu Trier, 1972.
civitas, and Jupiter. he second, located at a distance from the city cen-
ter or in the outskirts, was dedicated to deities intended for the recently
settled urban population. he majority of these latter gods, at least at
the beginning of the period, were indigenous and unassimilated deities,
some of whom had arrived with the groups of people relocated at the
site of the new town. he names of the deities attested in the suburban
sanctuaries of Trier and Avenches, two towns founded at the same time,
appear to indicate this practice. he gods bearing a local name there
are in fact at least as numerous as the gods with a Roman name. At the
Altbachtal at Trier, Aveta, Intarabus, Ritona, Vorio, and the Dii Casses
counter-balance Jupiter, Mercury, and Minerva.21 At Avenches, in the
district of Cigognier, Anextlomara, and Aventia offset Romanized deities
21
Gose, Altbachtal.
Pavement of decumanus D VI
Limit of the island
20
0 5
Pavement of cardo maximus

18
19
17 A
A’
F2 F3
16
F1 Modern sewer
21
15 14
13
12
22
11
10
9
8 7 4
6 F1 à F3 Trenches from the sacred platform

5 4 à 20 Walls trenches, and ritual trenches
Post-holes, now the exterior embankment
Post-holes, from the sacred platform
Remains of the peripheral embankment
Fig. 25. Indigenous sanctuary of Limoges. Source: J.-P. Loustaud, Limoges antique,
fig. 1 (312).
such as Mars Caisivus, Mars Caturix, Mercury Cissonius, and deities

with a Roman name, such as Apollo, Jupiter, Mercury, Neptune, and
Silvanus.22 Arrangements like this also appear in Narbonensis. he sub-
urban sanctuary of the Fountain at Nîmes, dedicated to Nemausus, the
god of the spring, is a well-known example. But one could also cite the
illustrative case of the Plateau of Poets at Béziers.23 At this location, sit-
uated on the outskirts of the colony, a series of inscriptions mentioning
the god Mars along with local deities such as the Digenes, Menmandutes,
22
Bögli, Aventicum; Castella and Meylan Krause, Topographie sacrée.
23
Christol, Les dieux du Plateau des Poètes.
and Ricoria suggest the existence of a suburban sanctuary presided over

by Mars and frequented by the inhabitants of the urban area.
territory and civic life: the organization

of cults in the city
he religious organization of a city closely parallels the complex relations
existing between the capital city and its territory.24 What records are more
suggestive of this than the inscriptions of the temple of Mars Mullo at
Rennes? During the reign of Hadrian, the ordo ratified the installation of
statues of patron deities of the various territorial zones of the city (the pagi)
in a temple of the capital city, namely the temple of Mars Mullo, chief
deity of the Redones (AE 1969/70, 405 a, b, c). he event is of consequence
because it signifies that the pagi of the city, through the intermediary of
tutelary deities, were from that time represented in a public sanctuary
belonging to an urban center. he same organization is documented in
the colony of the Treviri. What this suggests is that the traditional view
proposed some time ago by Camille Jullian – namely, that antagonism
between the Gallic civitas and its pagi continued under the empire – needs
to be reevaluated. By relocating the population of Gaul in cities, Rome
implemented a carefully crafted model of spatial organization in which the
town (in the Roman sense of the word) controlled a territory.
When cities had very large territories, or when a capital city did not
develop, the countryside did retain some sway. But the available evidence
seems to demonstrate that as a rule the different communities constitutive
of the cities were little by little organized around common cults repre-
sented in the new capital city or in its outskirts; that is to say, the bond
between them was very close. his would explain why, among the Treviri,
for example, the great gods of the territory were also the great urban gods,
with Mars, Mercury, and Jupiter continuing to be most popular both in
the town and the countryside. Again, this reciprocity reflects the organi-
zation of a city. Indeed, the majority of the indigenous gods of Treviran
origin are to be found in Augusta Treverorum, as we have seen, in the great
suburban sanctuaries of the Altbachtal and Irminenwingert. 25 hey had, as
it were, followed the inhabitants who were increasingly taking up residence
in this town, founded in the Augustan era. Included among these gods was
Lenus Mars, who was promoted as patron deity of the colony. He then
24
Cf. Scheid, Sanctuaires et territoire and the observations in Woolf, Polis-Religion.
25
Scheid, Sanctuaires et territoire; idem, Les temples de l’Altbachtal.
received a sanctuary in a suburban location as well as a cult organized and

practiced on behalf of the city as a whole.
Conversely, when the authorities of the colony decided to introduce a
new god, it appears that the territorial communities, notably the vici, sim-
ilarly recorded the establishment of the new divinity when they erected an
altar or a chapel in their own sanctuary. his is clearly the case for Jupiter,
a deity widely attested in Trier and patron of numerous urban areas in
the surrounding territory, notably, Idenheim, Oberzerf, St-Wendel, Altrier,
Bitburg, Dalheim, and Wederath (the last four of which had the standing
of vicus). In the city of the Helvetii, Jupiter, Mercury, and Apollo are the
preeminent deities in the chief city, Avenches (Aventicum), and in the dif-
ferent vici of the city. In Vienne in Narbonensis, Mercury emerges as the
best-documented deity, both in the town and in the territory. In this city,
Mars, who had a public sanctuary in the capital city – we know of a flamen
of Mars – was worshipped both at Grenoble and in an important territorial
sanctuary, at Passy (Les Outards). An analogous diffusion of the Mars cult
is found among the Sequani.26
A comparison between the cults found in the capital city and in its
territory underscores the importance of suburban sanctuaries. Some of
them have left impressive remains, for example at Autun-Augustodunum
(sanctuary of La Genetoye), at Jublains-Noviodunum, at Meaux-Iatinum
(sanctuary of Bauve), at Sens (sanctuary of La Motte du Ciar), at Nîmes
(sanctuary of Jardin de la Fontaine), and of course at Trier-Augusta
Treverorum (Altbachtal and Irminenwingert), and Avenches-Aventicum
(district of the Cigognier).27 he position of these last ones, in the loca
suburbana, made them public places closely dependent on the town.
Sometimes, as at Jublains, the new town was deliberately founded in close
proximity to a sanctuary presumably of pre-Roman origin. Although the
patron deity is not known, the centrality of the sanctuary and its location
certainly suggest a public deity of the Aulerci Diablintes.28 As an ancient
tribal god or guardian of a Celtic pagus, he henceforth presided over the
newly interdependent urban center and the territorium civitatis. he align-
ment of the temple with the different public monuments of the new urban
area demonstrates that this interdependence was also liturgical. he main
road in fact united the sanctuary and the forum, where an altar dedicated
to Jupiter and Augustus was erected, along with the theater (Fig. 26).
26
Van Andringa, Villards d’Héria.
27
hese various sanctuaries are discussed in Van Andringa, La religion en Gaule romaine, 64f.
28
Naveau, Recherches sur Jublains.
sanctuary
thermal
baths
theates
fortress
Fig. 26. Plan of Jublains. Source: Naveau, Jublains.
At Trier, the status of the sanctuary of the Altbachtal leaves no question

about this relationship. Set up at the same time as the town and under
public guardianship, it was increasingly populated with gods introduced
by the urban community (Fig. 27). Its origin self-evidently accounts for
the presence of the principal deities of the Treviri. he connection with
the territory is even more pronounced in the sanctuary of Lenus Mars,
located 500m from the city wall, on the left bank of the Moselle (Fig. 28).29
Both the inscriptions and the furnishings (triclinia and an altar) demon-
strate that the various pagi of the city were represented in the sanctuary of
Lenus Mars and that they had access to a site dedicated to their particular
god, situated on the exterior of the enclosure of the sanctuary (Fig. 29). By
involving the pagani in the public religion of the colony, this arrangement
expressed in religious terms the integration of the territorial districts into
the municipal system.
29
Gose, Lenus Mars.
Fig. 27. Sanctuary of the Altbachtal at Trier. Source: E. Gose, Der gallo-römische
Tempelbezirk im Altbachtal zu Trier, 1972.
At specific times, the tutelary deities of different pagi (Intarabus and

the Mars-Ancamna pair) were part of community ceremonies arranged for
Lenus-Mars, the chief god of the city. he sacrifices suggest that the prayers
were made on behalf of the imperial house, the guarantor of the municipal
building, during ceremonies in which the authorities of the colony and
the representatives of the pagus jointly participated. his collective celebra-
tion took place at the time of the staging of ludi in the theater, when the
delegates of the pagi occupied seats reserved next to the city magistrate and
the flamen of Lenus Mars. he integration of the pagi into the municipal
structure was not the only act of the city settling the standing of a col-
ony. he aforementioned epigraphic record of Rennes-Condate describes
an organization of the cults of the pagi that corresponds exactly to the
latter. Indeed, the decree of 135 ce already cited makes it possible to locate
precisely the installation of bases dedicated to different numina pagorum.
he statues of the deities were arranged in the basilica of the temple of
Mars Mullo – that is, in an annex to the sanctuary. Just as at Trier, the pagi
were thus represented, by means of their guardian deities, in a sanctuary
of the main city that was both public and dedicated to the chief deity of
the Redones.
he appearance of gods of the pagus in some of the great sanctuaries
of the civitas capital raises the question of the religious practices of the
pagi in the territory of cities. As we have seen, pagus is a Roman concept,
Fig. 28. Sanctuary of Lenus Mars at Trier. Source: E. Gose, Der Tempelbezirk des Lenus
Mars in Trier (Taf. 37; Abb. 71).
Fig. 29. Cult places of the pagi located on the exterior of the sanctuary of Lenus
Mars at Trier. Source: E. Gose, Der Tempelbezirk des Lenus Mars in Trier (Abb. VII,
p. 98).
denoting a territorial subdivision of the city. he meaning is thus the same

in Gaul as it is in Capua or in the plain of the Po river. What Caesar calls
a pagus in independent Gaul denotes autonomous districts, the framework
of the Gallic population’s social, military, and religious existence. he con-
centrated minting of coins that took place at the end of the Gallic epoch
extended also into these sanctuaries of the pagi, and not only in the oppida
of the main cities. Because these outlying districts were integrated into
the construction of cities, they underwent a change both in standing and
character as a result. his is why in most cases the invocation was not to
an ancestral god, but rather to the genius pagi. he genius pagi is nothing
other than a Roman religious idea, a way to designate the guardian deity
of a territorial division of the city.
he placement of the gods of the pagus is another indication of change.
In the vicus of Wederath-Belginum among the Treviri, the dedication of
the scaenae frons of the theater includes the divine house in company with
the god Cretus and the genius of the pagus (Fig. 30). he same scenario is
found in the vicus of Arlon, among the Treviri, as well as in other cities:
for example, Soulosse, the vicus of the Mediomatrici, and at Eu-Bois l’Abbé
(possibly attached to the Ambiani). In each case, the dedications belong
to a theater that was assuredly a site adapted for an assembly of pagani.
And the theater was established in the vicus, precisely the site for a natu-
ral expression of urbanitas. his does not imply, however, that we should
speak of sanctuaries of the pagus erected in the vici and thus characterize
the vicus as the capital of the pagus. he two terms denote distinct parts of
the city. he pagus is in fact a territory, the vicus an urban neighborhood
association that was integrated into the territory as a community of the
Fig. 30. Inscription from Wederath mentioning the genius pagi. Source: H. Cüppers,
La Civilisation romaine de la Moselle à la Sarre (Mainz, 1983), 241.
district. As a result, each community had access to its own cult places. For
example, in the colony of Narbonne in Moux, overseers of a pagus (magis-
tri pagi) authorized the construction of a temple to the local god Larraso,
presumably one of the official gods of the outlying areas (CIL XII, 5370),
outside the reach of any known vicinal structure.
he vicani constitute an urban community that for this reason sheltered
many types of cults. he inhabitants of the vicus would first provide for
the needs that devolve on every collective authority – namely, to celebrate
a cult for the appropriate deities, those that were either part of the frame-
work of the capital city (the vicus is then a district of the town) or as an
urban area within the territory of the city. In Metz-Divodurum, capital
Fig. 31. Plan of the vicus of Vendeuvre of the Pictons: the urban area is built around a
great sanctuary. Source: Bulletin de la Société des Antiquaires de l’Ouest, 19, 1986.
of the Mediomatrici, the urban districts bearing the names of districts of

Rome erected monuments to Mercury, Maia, and Jupiter. In the sanctuary
of the vicani, there was also an altar to Jupiter as well as one on the forum.
Also among the Mediomatrici, but in this case in the territory, at Marsal,
the vicani erected a statue of Claudius on the occasion of the dies natalis
of Augustus, quite obviously reflecting a religious festival that had taken
place at the capital, in the forum. To be sure, the pantheons of vici were
varied, a medley of local deities and deities introduced for community
needs. But certain cults, which for the most part involved Jupiter or the
honors accorded the imperial house, recur in one small town to the next.
In a sense, the vicus organized its cults as the city did, because it was a sub-
division of it and because it made up one part of the populus. Its members
were thus full-fledged citizens and the notables played roles as benefactors
there, just as they did in the capital city: hence the monumental character
of these urban clusters. Membership in a vicus was also membership in a
city, as an article of the Digest also suggests (50,1,30).
One further observation pertains to the archaeological remains. he
vici have their own individual pantheon, as did any community. In
the important urban areas, these gods could be quite numerous, which
accounts for the great number of so-called Gallo-Roman temples some-
times observed in the planning of these towns, as, for example, at Gué-
de-Sciaux or Vendeuvre-en-Poitou among the Pictons (Fig. 31). Properly
speaking, therefore, these were not, as is sometimes imagined, “urban
areas intended for a religious function” in the cities of Roman Gaul, but
simply areas in which the temples of patron gods of the community were
established.
A vicus could also accommodate a city’s great public sanctuary. One
noteworthy example of this is the urban area of Vendeuvre-en-Poitou, situ-
ated a score of kilometers to the north of Poitiers-Limonum. he urban area
was in fact centered on an enormous sanctuary (120m in front), extended
by a wide esplanade leading to a theater. Fragments from a monumental
inscription discovered in the temple inform us about the standing of this
urban area; it is actually a vicus of the city of Pictons. he dedication of
the theater, which is also partially preserved, suggests that the building
had been consecrated [usibus re]i publicae P[ictonum et vicanorum] and
financed by the city’s public priest. his inscription demonstrates that the
public monuments of a vicus – the temple, basilica, and theater – were also
those of the res publica, the city. What we further learn from this record
is that a great temple of the civitas, with a public cult, was erected in the
vicus, at the time of the founding of this small town. he same scenario is
attested at Ribemont-sur-Ancre, among the Ambiani. here appears here a
great sanctuary that served as the focus of the urban complex. In Villards
d’Heria, in the Jura mountains, a great sanctuary to Mars, located 80km
to the south of the capital city of Besançon, served as the basis for the
development of an urban area, if one can believe an inscription possibly

mentioning a vicus.30
We can infer from these various examples how the ancient sanctuar-
ies of Gallic pagi had been assimilated by this means into the religious
domain of cities. hat is to say, these Gallic sanctuaries became cult centers
managed by the city or the vicus and its notables. his was a momentous
development. It meant that starting in the middle of the first century, in
many cities of Gaul, the pagus was no longer considered, as it once had
been, a political entity in possession of a degree of autonomy. Rather, it
constituted a territorial subdivision of the city. In religious terms, the cult
of the tutelary god of a pagus henceforth figured among the principal cults
of the civitas: the obvious examples are Mars Mullo among the Redones,
a deity of the polis and member of the numina pagorum, as well as Lenus
Mars among the Treviri. In the urban territory, the vici, integral parts of
the res urbana of cities, undeniably played the leading role in the organi-
zation of cults.
As always, there were exceptions or, rather, special cases that need to be
explained. Some native communal structures were in fact able to fashion dif-
ferent organizational schemes, as, for example, in the territory of Carnutes,
where the only attested subdivision is the curia. Although a Roman word,
the curia in this city is only a veneer covering forms of suprafamilial associa-
tion of local origin (CAG 45, 35, and 38). he cults attested in these group-
ings show nevertheless that, following the lead of vici, the curiae integrated
the Jupiter cult or cults associated with the imperial house. Occasionally,
a few inscriptions, originating from the cities of Convenae (Gomferani of
Saint-Béat), Lemovici (Andecamulenses of Rancon), and Carnutes (Mocetes
of Orléans) do attest the existence of native communities practicing a cult
apart from any reference to a Roman structure, a pagus, vicus, or curia. We
can thus suppose that at the time of the composition of these texts (which
as far as we can tell belong to the first century ce), some communities in the
countryside had not yet satisfied the conditions necessary for assimilation
into a subdivision of the city. Even so, the evolution was well underway, as
is suggested by the case of the Andecamulenses and the Mocetes (CIL XIII,
1449 and 11280); a reference here to a public and official cult of the imperial
god confirms their integration and identity within the city and the empire.
he formulation of the religious language according to various subdivisions
leads us into familiar territory, that of the ancient city. he evolution that
we have delineated shows that the cities of Roman Gaul were gradually
30
Cf. Van Andringa, Villards d’Héria.
organized in accordance with classical relationships, distinctive of the sys-

tem of a city, and joining the town to the countryside.
conclusion
his evolution underscores the advent of the “individual as citizen” in
Gaul, acquired by virtue of urbanitas and the Pax Romana. It is indeed the
fundamental change. In the daily life of the Gallic state, warfare was both
unceasing and imminent and the bond of political behavior. It explains
why so many of the great community gods of the Gallic state had been
gods of war, assimilated from the very beginnings of the city to Hercules in
the provinces of lower Germania, and to Mars in the provinces of Gaul.31
If the ancient god of Gaul had lived on after a fashion, it is because he
had become a peaceful god, acclimated to civic existence. In the impe-
rial period, Lenus Mars, Mars Mullo, and Mars Cicolluis essentially pro-
claimed the peaceful existence of people within the framework of the city.
Civic existence was thus increasingly based on the indissoluble partner-
ship between Augustus and the gods of the city, a connection that sancti-
fied the foundations of municipal autonomy. For example, in the second
and third centuries ce, the proliferation of religious inscriptions linking a
form of the imperial cult to the cult of the gods suggests that adherence
to the imperial system was unanimous. Does this then attest to a “false
exuberance,” a sign of a decline of paganism?32 Assuredly, the exuberance
was here a manifestation of political maturity. On 8 December 241 ce, the
city of Lectoure held a celebration with a Magna Mater procession (CIL
XIII, 511–19). It was the occasion for the Lactorates of Aquitania to issue
a corporate restatement of their approval of the established order closely
linking the fate of the civitas to the welfare of the emperor and the imperial
household. Between 15 May and 13 June of 253, in an urban area of Trier, a
benefactor marked the inauguration of a public monument with a sacrifice
to the genius of the vicus and to the numen of Augustus, thereby reaffirm-
ing its participation in a system linking the city to the emperor and the
gods. Again, in 263, the festival of Magna Mater is observed in the colony
of Narbonne (Narbo Martius).
While these last epigraphic witnesses are from the imperial religion in
Gaul, the official entrance (adventus) of Constantine into Autun at the very
beginning of the fourth century shows that the religious landscape of cities
31
Derks, Gods, Temples.
32
In the words of Peter Brown, he Making of Late Antiquity, 76.
was again in place after the political troubles of the second half of the third
century (Pan. Lat. VIII, 5). To be sure, the archaeological evidence from
the fourth century reveals some signs of the neglect of the sanctuaries here
and there. But the late witnesses from Ausone would appear to confirm
observations well documented for the African provinces. In spite of the
closing of temples and the gradual suppression of sacrifices, the conduct of
the city, even in this period, points to the survival of religious language that
was formulated in the Augustan period, four centuries before.
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18
CHRISTIANITY IN GAUL
william klingshirn
Christianity, as Sulpicius Severus observed circa 400, “was taken up rather

late across the Alps” (Chron. 2.32.1). Indeed, it was not until the reign of
Marcus Aurelius that Gallic Christians entered the literary record. heir
first appearance, however, was spectacular, both literally and figuratively,
for it occurred in the vivid narrative of persecution that opened book five
of Eusebius’s Church History and both followed and illustrated a prominent
statement of historiographical intent. Eusebius based his account on a let-
ter written in Greek by “the servants of Christ sojourning in Vienne and
Lyon” to “the churches in Asia and Phrygia” whose purpose was to supply
a biblical and theological frame for events that had occurred at Lyon circa
177.1 Excerpted for the purpose of the narrative and significantly redacted,2
the letter must be read with caution, but even so, like other documents
used by Eusebius, it supplies credible details not available elsewhere.3
Despite the arrest of some Christians from Vienne (Hist. eccl. 5.1.13),
notably “Sanctus, the deacon” (5.1.17) – probably because they were in
Lyon at the time4 – the persecution appears to have arisen from local
conditions. As metropolitan capital of Gallia Lugdunensis, site of the
altar of Rome and Augustus, and federal capital of the hree Gauls,
Lyon was not only an obvious venue for early Christian missionary
activity,5 but also a likely place for confrontation over the state reli-
gion. Suspected of atheism and impiety (5.1.9), perhaps in connection
with their refusal to participate in celebrations of imperial victory,6
1
For doubts about the traditional date, see Barnes, “Eusebius and the Date.”
2
Löhr, “Der Brief der Gemeinden,” 135–6.
3
Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 140.
4
Jullian, Histoire de la Gaule, 4:494, n. 3.
5
Humphries, “Trading Gods,” 221.
6
Le Glay, “Le culte impérial,” 20.
484
Christianity in Gaul 485
Christians were barred from public places (5.1.5), denounced to the local
authorities (5.1.8), and brought before the governor.7 He condemned to
death those who admitted to being Christians and released those who
denied it. Having so far followed the precedent set by Trajan (Pliny the
Younger, Ep. 10.97), he then went beyond it by affirmatively searching
for Christians (Hist. eccl. 5.1.14).8
In the investigation that followed, some slaves were arrested who charged
that their Christian masters practiced what the letter calls “hyestean feasts
and Oedipean intercourse” (5.1.14), a learned insult that may have come
from a recent speech by M. Cornelius Fronto.9 his accusation prompted
the governor to detain even those who denied being Christians and to
write to the emperor for advice (5.1.44). he emperor’s rescript directed
the governor to put professed Christians to death, but to release those who
recanted (5.1.47), thus dismissing the charges of cannibalism and incest.
Some Christians had already died in prison (5.1.27), most prominently
the aged Pothinus of Lyon, the first bishop known in Gaul (5.1.29–31). Of
those who remained, after one last chance to recant (5.1.47), the governor
ordered Roman citizens to be beheaded and noncitizens to be tortured
to death at a public festival in the amphitheater. he only exception was
Attalus, who despite his citizenship was sent to the amphitheater with the
others (5.1.52). he bodies of the martyrs were then put on display for a
period of days (5.1.59), burned, and left unburied, their ashes swept into
the Rhône (5.1.62). By these acts of public humiliation, the authorities
sought to refute claims of a resurrection from the dead and to demonstrate
that the god and “strange new cult” for which the Christians had died were
powerless to save them from death (5.1.63).
It has often been supposed, from the names of the martyrs in Eusebius’s
account, that the churches of Lyon and Vienne were composed largely of
Greek-speaking immigrants from the East, and that they maintained close
ties to their home churches, for instance in Asia and Phrygia. But this view
does not seem justified by the evidence.10 Although the presbyter Irenaeus
of Lyon was probably a native of Smyrna, it is difficult to identify the
birthplaces of most of the other members of the community. he only two
martyrs whose origin is explicitly indicated are Attalus, from Pergamum
in the province of Asia, and Alexander, a physician from Phrygia, and this
7
Löhr, “Der Brief der Gemeinden,” 143–4.
8
Sordi, “La ricerca d’ufficio.”
9
Champlin, Fronto, 64–6.
10
Bowersock, “Les églises de Lyon et de Vienne.”
486 William Klingshirn
information may have been supplied only because it was unusual.11 he

rest of the martyrs, whether their names were Greek (Alcibiades), Latin
(Sanctus, Maturus), or both (Vettius Epagathus), were likely natives of
Gaul. heir status varied. Some were free; others, like Vettius Epagathus,
were probably freed;12 and still others, such as Biblis, Ponticus, and
Blandina, were slaves. his is a striking feature of the letter, at least part
of whose appeal for Eusebius was precisely its demonstration that earthly
identity did not matter to the power of Christ, who suffered equally in
the male body of the deacon Sanctus (5.1.20–4, 37–9) and in the female
body of the slave Blandina (5.1.17–19, 40–2, 53–6). Indeed, her torture in
the shape of a cross made identification with Christ absolutely explicit,
“in order to persuade believers in him that everyone who suffers for the
glory of Christ has eternal fellowship with the living God” (5.1.41).13 All
Christians must have sought such fellowship, but to judge from the letter’s
concern with the lapsed (5.1.11–12, 25–6, 32–5, 45–6, 48) and especially how
to treat them afterward (5.2.6–8), many found vicarious suffering through
the martyrs preferable to their own.
With the death of Pothinus and the succession of Irenaeus as bishop of
Lyon, the history of Christianity in Gaul enters a much more poorly docu-
mented phase. Between the end of Marcus Aurelius’s reign in 180 and the
beginning of Constantine’s in 306, the Christians of Gaul are nearly invisi-
ble. Irenaeus’s writings, although illuminating on a wide range of subjects,
contain virtually no information about the city and region over which he
presided, described by Eusebius as “the dioceses of Gaul” (5.23.4). Instead,
what intermittently surfaces during this period are links between the bish-
ops of Lyon and their colleagues abroad. Irenaeus, for instance, had been
absent from Lyon during the persecution because he was visiting Bishop
Eleutherus of Rome (5.4.1–2). Later he corresponded with Eleutherus’s suc-
cessor Victor and other bishops over the proper date of Easter (5.24.11–18).
In the middle of the next century, Bishop Faustinus of Lyon complained
to Cyprian of Carthage that Bishop Marcianus of Arles had associated
himself with the rigorist theologian Novatian (Cyprian, Ep. 68). Cyprian’s
assertion that this association was opposed by other bishops in Gaul makes
it clear that there were other bishops by this point, and that it was thought
important that they share the same beliefs about church order, but the
location of their sees is unknown.
11
Wierschowski, “Der Lyoner Märtyrer Vettius Epagathus,” 442.
12
Ibid., 448–51.
13
he translation and interpretation are based on Goodine and Mitchell, “he Persuasiveness of a
Woman.”
In the dispute over Easter, Irenaeus had argued that the bishop of Rome
should tolerate and not excommunicate the bishops of Asia for celebrat-
ing Easter on a different day from that in other regions (Eusebius, Hist.
eccl. 5.24.13). here is perhaps no better index of how much had changed
by the reign of Constantine than the first canon of the first council held
in Gaul, which ruled that Easter should be celebrated “by us on one day
and at one time throughout the whole world” (CCL 148:9). Constantine
had convened this council at Arles in August 314, not even two years after
his victory over Maxentius, to resolve the Donatist controversy (Eusebius,
Hist. eccl. 10.5.21–4). Although its efforts in that regard were unsuccessful,
the council did pass several measures of immediate interest to the emperor.
Its decision on Easter advanced his Christian, ecumenical, and anti-Jewish
priorities,14 and its third canon, by excommunicating “those who laid
down their weapons in peace” (probably deserters15), brought church
teaching in line with military realities or, from a civilian perspective, secu-
rity needs.16 Canons 7 and 8 likewise reflected the new political situation.
hey permitted Christian governors and other office-holders to remain in
the church under the supervision of the local bishop, instead of recusing
themselves from church membership during their term in office, as canon
56 of the Spanish Council of Elvira (ca.300) required.17 he remaining
canons, in addition to regulating the movements, ambitions, and activities
of deacons, priests, and bishops, treated numerous lay matters. Unseemly
employment – chariot racing and acting – was banned for Christians (can.
4, 5), and Christian girls (puellae fideles) who married pagans (gentiles) were
temporarily excommunicated (can. 12). Christian men were told that they
could not remarry if they discovered their wives to be adulterers (can. 11).
Nonbelievers who were ill were permitted to be admitted to the church
by a laying on of hands rather than a more formal entry into the catechu-
menate (can. 6), and apostate Christians who became ill were required to
perform penance before being readmitted (can. 22).
hough in no way comprehensive or definitive, this assortment of regu-
lations does suggest what kinds of membership problems and moral chal-
lenges the church in Gaul faced in the early fourth century, not only in
the mind of the emperor, but also for the thirty-three bishops and fifty
other clerics who attended the council and subscribed to its resolutions.
14
Eusebius, Vit. Const. 3.17–20, with the commentary in Cameron and Hall, eds., Eusebius, Life of
Constantine, 268–72.
15
Gaudemet, Conciles gaulois du IVe siècle, 48, n. 1.
16
Mehat, “Le concile d’Arles (314).”
17
Concilios visigóticos, ed. Vives, 11.
With twelve bishops, four priests, twelve deacons, six exorcists, and one
lector representing sixteen dioceses, Gaul supplied over a third of the del-
egates, and we can see in their record of attendance an emerging pattern of
Christian geography. he oldest centers of Christianity were represented
(Lyon, Vienne, Arles), as was Autun, where there may also have been a sub-
stantial Christian community in the third century.18 Also attending were
bishops and clergy from smaller dioceses close to Arles (Marseille, Vaison,
Orange, Nice, Apt, Javols), as well as from provincial capitals located at
some distance: Eauze and Bordeaux in the southwest, and Cologne, Trier,
Reims, and Rouen in the north. Where Christianity was not yet much in
evidence, at least to judge by the cities represented at the council, was along
the upper Rhine, in the Alpine regions, and especially in central Gaul, west
of the Rhône and south of the Seine. his pattern changed over time as con-
gregations became large enough to require and recruit a bishop. By the late
fourth century, when imperial officials drew up the detailed list of provinces
and city-districts known as the Notitia Galliarum,19 it has been estimated
that between 70 and 80 of the 113 cities on the list probably had bishops.20
It was also at the same time and in part for the same reasons that
Christianity in Gaul began to be monumentalized by an imperial architec-
ture suitable to its new public status.21 his can first be seen in the impe-
rial capital of Trier, where excavations conducted in the present church of
St. Mary, adjoining the cathedral, have revealed a three-aisled basilica (I)
dated by coin finds to the 320s.22 Measuring 24.6 by 27.5m and capable of
accommodating hundreds of worshippers, it was almost certainly the orig-
inal cathedral church of Trier. he date indicates that it was built under
Bishop Agritius, who had represented Trier at the council of Arles. In the
330s and 340s, three additional basilicas (II, III, and IV) were joined to
this structure, probably by Bishop Maximinus, Agritius’s successor. At the
center of the enormous H-shaped complex stood a baptistery. It would
have been this (unfinished) construction project that Bishop Athanasius
of Alexandria saw in Trier, probably during his exile there from 335 to 337
(Apol. Const. 15).
But churches in the fourth century were more than a practical necessity
for Christian communities growing in size and an imperial government
18
Young, “Sacred Topography,” 169–72.
19
Harries, “Church and State.”
20
Pietri, “Les grandes églises missionnaires,” 834, which counts 114 cities. Ammianus Marcellinus sur-
veys the geography of Gaul at this period (Res gestae 15.10–11).
21
Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, 39–41.
22
Weber, “Neue Forschungen,” 227–8.
determined to express its new religious identity through architecture. hey

were also perceived as places of holiness and power. his can be illustrated,
for Trier, by a collection of 136 graffiti written at two different periods in the
fourth century. Located in basilica II, east of basilica I, these inscriptions
were scratched into two walls near the altar.23 Many are too fragmentary
to read, but some are relatively complete, such as, from the second quarter
of the fourth century, “Verna, may you live in Christ” (RICG I.235e), and
from the third quarter of the fourth century, “Martius, may you live in
God, Christ, always” (RICG I.236f ).
On one level, such inscriptions serve as a tangible expression of basic
Christian beliefs: the divinity of Christ, the efficacy of prayer, and the
promise of eternal life.24 But in their number, location, and variety they
also testify to the holiness of the site itself. By placing the believer in prox-
imity to this holiness, the personal names they contain raise expectations
of special access to divine power. Parallels to similar graffiti at St. Peter’s
in Rome have raised the suggestion that this spot in Trier was made holy
by relics – of a martyr perhaps or even the Cross.25 But it is also possible –
indeed more likely – that the altar itself was the locus of the holy, the place
where Christ’s sacrifice was performed over and over again for the faithful.
hat we cannot answer this question satisfactorily is in part due to a lack
of evidence, but more importantly to a debate in the fourth century itself
about where holiness was located and how the individual Christian could
and should partake in its power. horoughly bound up in this question
was the continuity of the church with its pre-Constantinian past, espe-
cially its martyrs,26 as well as the continuity of pre-Christian ideas about
the holiness of place.27
Before the end of the fourth century, Christian pilgrimage in Gaul
meant pilgrimage somewhere else, since there were no Christian pilgrim-
age sites in Gaul. Late in the reign of Constantine an anonymous author
from Bordeaux traveled through southern Gaul to Constantinople by way
of Milan, and then spent the second half of the year 333 on a pilgrimage
to the Holy Land before returning to Milan by way of Rome. he pil-
grim’s account of the journey is fascinating from many points of view,
especially in its Constantinian context,28 but what is noteworthy from
23
Binsfeld, “Graffiti der frühchristlichen Kirchenanlage,” 241.
24
Ibid., 244.
25
Ibid., 247–52.
26
Markus, “How on Earth.”
27
MacCormack, “Loca Sancta.”
28
Elsner, “Itinerarium Burdigalense.”
a Gallic perspective is its keen interest in the pools, baths, and rivers of
Palestine where healing, miracles, and baptism took place. Gaul too had its
sacred waters, where healing cults had long flourished,29 and the Bordeaux
pilgrim’s observations seem to hint at a new Christian logic for that ancient
practice.
But at the same time theological controversy and the cessation of mar-
tyrdom under Constantine were helping to shape and support a Christian
logic for two new avenues of holiness that would eventually lead to pil-
grimage in Gaul itself. With the rise of monasticism and the cult of the
saints, Christians could draw close to the holiness of an ascetic way of life
and to the power contained in relics of “the very special dead.”30
We can see hints of both movements in Gaul as early as the career
of Hilary, a well-educated local aristocrat and the first known bishop of
Poitiers (ca.350–67). Best known for his theological and exegetical writ-
ings, his opposition to Arianism, and his exile to Phrygia by Constantius
II, Hilary was the first Latin author in Gaul to make use of the example
of the martyrs for theological and polemical ends, especially against oppo-
nents who did not share his new-found support for the Council of Nicaea.31
Hilary was also invoked by Sulpicius Severus as an important mentor for
Martin, a discharged Roman soldier from Pannonia with awesome heal-
ing powers and a yearning for the monastic life. Ordained an exorcist by
Hilary, Martin lived as a monk for several years on the outskirts of Poitiers
before being elected bishop of nearby Tours in circa 371 against significant
episcopal opposition.32 here, he established himself as an advocate both of
monasticism and of veneration for saints’ relics.33 While at Tours, Martin
maintained his reputation as a holy man, performing so many miracles
that when he died, according to Gregory of Tours, his body was claimed by
the Christians of Poitiers and Tours alike (Hist. 1.48). he latter won, and
his burial place west of the city walls reportedly became the focal point for
further miracles (Hist. 2.14).
here were not many men in Gaul like Martin, however, and the future
of the cult of the saints in the region lay not in the actual tombs of healing
saints, confessors, or martyrs, but in small pieces of their bodies or cloth-
ing transmitted by reputable authorities with appropriate ceremonies and
narratives of power. In 386, when Bishop Ambrose of Milan discovered
29
See Rousselle, Croire et guérir, esp. 31–6, 65–73.
30
Brown, Cult of the Saints, ch. 4.
31
Ibid., 56–8.
32
Sulpicius Severus, VMartini; Fontaine, “Hilaire et Martin.”
33
Rousselle, Croire et guérir, 172–4.
the bodies of the martyrs Gervasius and Protasius, he sent fragments to

a number of prominent Gallic Christians, including Martin of Tours,
Victricius, bishop of Rouen, and Paulinus of Bordeaux, the future bishop
of Nola. With the right kind of promotion, such relics, like the buried
bodies of martyrs or holy men, could transform any place into a venue
for miracles. In the earliest sermon known in Gaul, delivered circa 396,34
Victricius explains how. “If the hem of the Savior’s garment cured when
lightly touched (Luke 8:42–48), it is beyond doubt that the dwelling places
of martyrdom (domicilia passionum) will cure when we take them in our
arms.”35 Yet it was not just anywhere that Christians could encounter these
holy objects. In a sign of what was to come, Victricius built a church for
his relics: “Rightly, dearest brothers, did I, a zealous builder, seize a place
for the basilica. he arrival of the saints excuses my eagerness. hey them-
selves . . . ordered a court to be prepared for them.”36
he very existence of this sermon alerts us to the controversy raised by
Victricius’s actions. At issue was not only the illegal disinterment and dis-
memberment of corpses,37 but also the profound theological problem of
endowing bodies other than Christ’s with divine power. In this debate, as
David Hunter has argued, the majority of Gallic clergy may have agreed
with the criticisms of the priest Vigilantius of Calagurris. Once a close
associate of Paulinus of Nola and Sulpicius Severus, this cleric from a small
Gallic town near the Spanish border held that the veneration of relics was
“almost a ritual of pagans” (prope ritum gentilium, Jerome, Vigil. 4) and
that instead of being scattered everywhere “the souls of the apostles and
martyrs” were with God and unable to leave their tombs and be present
where they wished (Vigil. 6). Easter, he argued, should be the only time
when vigils and the Alleluia were permitted, not feasts of the saints (Vigil.
1, 9). For what power could the light of candles have in comparison with
the splendid majesty of the Lamb of God? (Vigil. 4).
Closely related to Vigilantius’s opposition to the cult of relics was his
criticism of a special holiness for asceticism and monasticism. According
to Jerome, Vigilantius argued that it was wrong for monks to withdraw
into solitude, for women to shun marriage and children, and for clergy
to be celibate, or if married to be required to live apart from their wives
after ordination (Vigil. 2, 15). What was at issue in these interlocking pro-
tests was above all the means of access to divine power. Did it emanate
34
Hunter, “Vigilantius of Calagurris,” 422.
35
De laude sanctorum 2, trans. Clark, 378.
36
De laude sanctorum 12, trans. Clark, 399.
37
For a survey of the laws, see Rebillard, “Violations de sépulture.”
exclusively from Christ – freely available to Christians everywhere and at

any time – or was it, like secular power, achieved through a combination
of hard work and the cultivation of patrons with special access, “friends”
not of the emperor, but of God?
here is, as it happens, a Gallic setting for just this concept of the ascetic
life, which is relevant whether fictional or not. In his Confessions, Augustine
relates a story told to him by a high-ranking government official (Conf.
8.6.15, trans. Chadwick). When stationed in Trier, “he and three of his col-
leagues” were at leisure one day while the emperor attended games in the
circus. Two of them wandered “into the gardens adjacent to the city wall,”
probably on the eastern side of the city near the circus. here they dis-
covered the house, or small estate, (casa) of some monks. he location of
the house in gardens, its ease of discovery, and the fact that its inhabitants
were described not as “poor,” but as “poor in spirit,” suggest an aristocratic
milieu. After discovering and reading Athanasius’s Life of Antony in the
house, one of the men began to question his pursuit of a secular career:
Can we hope for any higher office in the palace than to be Friends of the Emperor?
And in that position what is not fragile and full of dangers? How many haz-
ards must one risk to attain to a position of even greater danger? And when will
we arrive there? Whereas, if I wish to become God’s friend, in an instant I may
become that now.
his story has an important role to play in the plot of the Confessions, but
it also nicely demonstrates the nexus between patronage and saintliness
in the late fourth century. At the same time, the status of the participants
shows how asceticism, like the cult of the saints, flourished at the high-
est levels of the Gallic aristocracy. he most spectacular example remains
Meropius Pontius Paulinus. Educated at Bordeaux by the grammarian,
rhetor, and poet Ausonius, this Roman senator, suffect consul, and gov-
ernor of Campania renounced his wealth and career, and in 395 moved to
Nola (Campania) with his Spanish wife herasia, where he devoted the
rest of his life to asceticism, the local cult of St. Felix, and service to the
church.38 His friend Sulpicius Severus led a similarly ascetic lifestyle on his
estate at Primuliacum in southwestern Gaul, where he made Martin his
local saint.39
A more dangerous ascetic path was taken by followers of the Spanish
holy man Priscillian. His emphasis on “moral regeneration emphasizing
38
Trout, Paulinus of Nola, is now the standard study.
39
Stancliffe, St. Martin and His Hagiographer.
homogeneity and equality”40 and promotion of extensive fasting, praying,

and reading attracted significant support from pious clergy and laity, but
also fierce opposition from bishops who felt their authority challenged.41
Attacked by twelve bishops at the council of Saragossa in 380 and subse-
quently consecrated bishop of Avila by two of his episcopal supporters,
Priscillian was banished by the emperor Gratian in 381. Efforts to vindicate
his name and teachings culminated in an appeal to Magnus Maximus, who
had become western emperor in 383 after overthrowing Gratian. Convicted
not of heresy (a church matter) but of magic (an imperial crime), Priscillian
was put to death in circa 386 (Sulp. Sev. Chron. 2.51.3), along with several
clerical and lay supporters, including Euchrotia, the widow of a promi-
nent rhetor of Bordeaux (Ausonius, Prof. Burd. 5), and the Spanish poet
Latronianus (Jerome, De vir. ill. 122).
It was a chilling moment in the history of Gallic Christianity, with
long repercussions in ascetic aristocratic circles. But most aristocrats found
less demanding ways to take advantage of the power of a holy man. One
woman from Vienne, for example, was not only baptized by St. Martin,
but received further privileges in death. In an early example of inhumation
ad sanctos in Gaul, Foedula was buried near the relics of Gervasius and
Protasius outside the city walls of the city,42 as her metrical epitaph records:
“But now, the martyrs having granted her a fitting place, she venerates
saint Gervasius and Protasius. . . . She has borne witness, who lies associ-
ated with the saints” (RICG 15.39).
Long before this kind of “privileged inhumation”43 caught on more
widely, in the later fifth and sixth centuries, the wealthiest aristocrats of
southern Gaul could afford another medium of saintly association in
death: carved marble sarcophagi, occasionally made locally but more often
imported from Rome.44 Vividly illustrated with scenes from Jewish and
Christian history, these “prayers in stone”45 were meant to introduce the
deceased, above all, to God, in the company of those already saved.46
On one of three sarcophagi found together in Arles in 1974, Marcia
Romania Celsa, wife of Flavius Januarinus, ordinary consul of the year
40
Van Dam, Leadership and Community, 99.
41
See further Chadwick, Priscillian of Avila, and Burrus, he Making of a Heretic.
42
Topographie chrétienne des cités de la Gaule 3:27.
43
Duval and Picard, eds., L’Inhumation privilégiée.
44
Immerzeel and Jongste, “Les ateliers de sarcophages,” 234–5.
45
he phrase was originally used in a funerary context: Jane Taylor, “he Squire’s Pew” (1816), line 48,
ed. Paula R. Feldman, British Women Poets of the Romantic Era: An Anthology (Baltimore/London,
1997), 746.
46
Caillet, “Le message de la sculpture funéraire.”
328, is depicted praying in the center, flanked on her right by scenes from
the life of Peter and on her left by three miracles of Christ, including the
raising of Lazarus.47 Two scenes on the cover represent the proper wor-
ship of the one God by groups of three: on the left the three men in the
fiery furnace, together with the angel who rescued them (Dan. 3:25), and
on the right the three wise men bearing gifts (Matt. 2:11). Inside the sar-
cophagus was found the skeleton of a woman aged about forty years – the
epitaph lists her age as thirty-eight – whose wrists and hands had been
surgically removed, perhaps to be placed in a cenotaph.48 he excavation
report mentions no grave goods, but does note a rectangular opening in
the undecorated side of the sarcophagus.49 he same feature appears on
a second sarcophagus from the site; it held the body of a woman about
twenty-five years old and a newborn child. he openings may have been
used to introduce substances into the tomb, such as perfume50 or liba-
tions,51 as in traditional burial practice, but their exact function remains
unknown.52 he most elaborately decorated sarcophagus found on the site,
dated circa 330/40, depicts an aristocratic couple in the center surrounded
by biblical scenes of, among other themes, marriage and children (Fig. 32).
Inside were found the remains of a man fifty to sixty years old and of a
woman about fifty.53 heir burial together and the iconography by which
they chose to be remembered recalls a similar celebration of conjugality in
the Laudes Domini, the earliest Christian Latin poem from Gaul.54 Dating
between 317 and 326, this anonymous work commemorates a miracle that
took place at Autun when a pious Christian couple was reunited at death.
he wife, who had died first, was buried in their common tomb, and when
it was reopened at her husband’s death she was found to have extended her
left hand to welcome him “in a gesture of living love” (line 31). he poem
then goes on to celebrate Christ’s power and good gifts to humans and
ends with a prayer for Constantine and his dynasty.
During the fourth century, at the same time as aristocrats in Trier,
Arles, and other Gallic cities were publicly converting to Constantine’s
religion, in higher proportions than in Italy,55 Christianity was still far
47
Rouqette, “Trois nouveaux sarcophages,” 257–63.
48
Griesheimer, “Le sarcophage de Marcia Romania Celsa,” 170.
49
Rouqette, “Trois nouveaux sarcophages,” 261.
50
Ibid., 261.
51
Griesheimer, “Le sarcophage de Marcia Romania Celsa,” 170.
52
Rouquette, “Sarcophage de Marcia Romania Celsa.”
53
Rouqette, “Trois nouveaux sarcophages,” 265–73.
54
Opelt, “Das Carmen De Laudibus Domini,” 159.
55
Salzman, he Making of a Christian Aristocracy, 86–90.
Fig. 32. Sarcophagus of the Spouses (Sarcophagus of the Trinity). Second quarter of
the fourth century ce. Marble. Arles, Musée de l’Arles antique. Photo: Musée dépar-
temental Arles antique. Cl. M. Lacanaud.
from commanding the allegiance of the majority of the population. Jews

certainly lived in Gaul at this time, especially at Narbonne, Arles, and
Marseille, but the evidence for other areas is sparse and difficult to eval-
uate.56 Worshippers of Mithras can be identified throughout the century
by coin deposits at mithraea in frontier zones and rural areas.57 In cities,
traditional Gallo-Roman sanctuaries continued to be attended for much
of the fourth century, even when it was no longer legal for animal sacri-
fice to be conducted there. he massive temple complex of the Altbachtal
at Trier, for example, remained active until the last quarter of the fourth
century when it was “deliberately destroyed,” presumably under Gratian
(r.375–83).58 Sacred sites in the countryside received worshippers even
longer, as coin evidence demonstrates.59 his may have been especially true
for shrines located at sacred springs, because of their healing functions,60
but it also applied to other cult places as well, and not only in central and
northern Gaul, but in southern Gaul as well. he sanctuary of Chastelard
de Lardiers, excavated between 1961 and 1967, was built in the middle of
56
Toch, “Jews in Europe,” 552–3; Blumenkranz, “Premières implantations de Juifs.”
57
Sauer, he End of Paganism, with Gordon, “he End of Mithraism.”
58
Wightman, Roman Trier, 229.
59
Rousselle, Croire et guérir, esp. 31–75.
60
Ibid., 72–3.
the first century ce on the foundations of an abandoned oppidum in the

foothills of Mt. Lure (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence), and received ex-votos
and coins until the end of the fourth century.61 About 35km to the south-
west, at Lioux on the southern slope of the Vaucluse mountains, a sanctu-
ary of Mars was excavated between 1983 and 1985. It consisted of four small
buildings dating to the first century ce and surrounded by a wall, and an
additional building outside the wall that was constructed at the beginning
of the fourth century. he 317 coins found inside date mainly from the
fourth century and suggest that the sanctuary was used until the early fifth
century.62
he persistence of traditional practices is also suggested by literary evi-
dence. Martin of Tours was famously depicted by his hagiographer in
confrontations with local priests, engaged in the violent destruction of
temples, idols, and even a tree – most sacred of all – not only in the vicin-
ity of Tours but at Autun as well (Sulpicius Severus, VMartini 12–15).
hat these militant tactics, backed up by the power of Christ, were not
matched by other Gallic bishops is due not only to the unusual character
of Martin’s authority,63 but also to the low level of active interest in con-
version on the part of the clergy. Indeed, Martin’s fellow bishops appear
to have had their hands full eliminating the last traces of “paganism” from
their own congregations. In an early example of what would prove to be
a very long series of such pronouncements, the twenty-one bishops who
attended the council of Valence in 374 (not including Martin) ordered
a lifetime of penance for “people who after the one holy bath [of bap-
tism] were stained either with the profane sacrifices of demons or sinful
washing” (can. 3). he incesta lavatio of which the bishops spoke could
have meant the use of water at Gallic sanctuaries for purification or for
healing; the two uses were quite distinct.64 Aline Rousselle has cited this
canon as evidence of the continuing popularity of healing waters among
Christians,65 for which we may also attest the observations of the Bordeaux
pilgrim, but the pointed reference to the purification of baptism (also
noted by Rousselle) suggests that the bishops clearly had in mind this (far
more common66) function as well.
61
Barruol, “Lardiers.”
62
Bellet and Borgard, “Plan: Le sanctuaire gallo-romain de Verjusclas,” 120–1.
63
Van Dam, Leadership and Community, 132.
64
Van Andringa, La religion en Gaule, 112–14.
65
Rousselle, Croire et guérir, 185.
66
Derks, Gods, Temples, and Ritual Practices, 196–8.
In fact, the lines of division between what was “pagan” and what was
“Christian” were very hard to draw, in Gaul or anywhere else, and most
Christians, it seems, had no interest in rejecting the large body of custom-
ary practices and beliefs that assisted and guided their everyday lives. his
is well illustrated by the treatise De medicamentis (“Prescriptions”) written
by the Christian aristocrat Marcellus, one of heodosius’s Gallic supporters
and his master of offices in 394/5.67 Drawing upon earlier medical writers
and physicians (including the father of Ausonius) and upon information
gathered, apparently firsthand, “from peasants and common people” (pref.
2), Marcellus’s book offers remedies for a wide variety of ailments, from
headaches (chapter 1) to the gout (chapter 36). Prescriptions generally con-
sist of a list of ingredients, instructions for their preparation, and, in many
cases, Greek, Latin, or Gaulish incantations to be recited when ingredients
were collected or used, or written on amulets to be worn by the patient.
Only one of his prescriptions invokes the name of Christ – an interpola-
tion, to judge by its interruption of the meter68 – but the remedy is in other
respects typical:
Remedy for sciatica. Gather the herb called “British” [probably a variety of
sorrel69] on the day of Jupiter when the moon is waning and the tide is receding.
Dry it and put it away because it does not appear in winter, though it also works
when green. Grind it with three grains of salt and five or seven grains of pepper,
and add both a large full spoon of honey and a good draft of wine, and if you
want you can pour in a little warm water, and in this way administer it as a drink.
But while you are holding it, before you gather this herb, you should chant three
times as follows:
I hold the earth, I collect the herb, in the name of Christ.
May it benefit [the ailment] for which I gather you.
With your thumb and ring finger (medicinalibus digitis) you should cut it without
iron or pull it out (Marcellus, De medicamentis 25.13, following the German trans-
lation of Kollesch and Nickel).
Just as traditional medications, traditionally collected and used, remained
important to Gallic Christians like Marcellus, so did other means of con-
trolling for life’s uncertainties. It was probably in the fourth century that a
Latin divinatory text entitled he Lots of Saint Gall (named after the mon-
astery where the manuscript now resides) began to circulate in Gaul with
67
For his career, see Matthews, “Gallic Supporters of heodosius,” 1083–7.
68
Zander, Versus italici antiqui, 47.
69
For its name and identity, see Fitzpatrick, “Ex Radice Britanica.”
definite Christian elements. Loosely adapted from a Greek text of the first
or second century ce, this manual provided users with answers to ques-
tions such as whether to take on a business partner or whether a fugitive
slave would be discovered.70 Another Latin divinatory text available in the
late fourth or early fifth century, and also based on an earlier Greek version,
was he Lots of the Saints, condemned circa 465 at the Council of Vannes
(CCL 148:156).71 It provided reassuring but generally vague answers, such
as “God will help you in what you desire; ask God, and you will quickly
arrive at what you desire.”72 For these to work effectively, a diviner was
probably required.
Christians who wanted to supplement a knowledge of unseen things
with concrete protection against danger could wear or carry a variety of
objects. Fourth-century examples from Trier include rings, brooches, fib-
ulae, lamps, and gaming pieces (or counters) decorated with crosses or
Christograms.73 On one small bronze sculpture in Trier, a boy wears a Chi-
Rho as his bulla (Fig. 33).74 For those who wanted to take more aggressive
measures, magical texts were an option, such as the lead defixio written
against thieves in the fourth or fifth century and found at Dax in 1976,75
or the spells found in excavations of the amphitheater in Trier in 1908.76
Although these magical objects give no indication of religious identity, it
would be surprising if none of them was used by a Christian.
During the fourth century, Gaul enjoyed a relatively high degree of
imperial attention. Constantius I, Constantine, Constantine II, Constans,
Julian, Valentinian I, and Gratian all spent time in the region, as did
Magnus Maximus before his defeat by heodosius at Aquileia in 388, and
Valentinian II before his death at Vienne in 392. Trier remained both an
imperial capital and the headquarters of the praetorian prefecture, and by
its proximity to the Rhine frontier ensured Roman military control of the
northern provinces.77 All that changed with the death of heodosius in
395. he offices of the praetorian prefect were moved to Arles in 395 or a
few years later (the exact date is unknown), and western emperors ruled
from Milan, and later Ravenna. Without a significant imperial presence,
Gaul was subject to usurpation and invasion, and both occurred in the first
70
Klingshirn, “Christian Divination in Late Roman Gaul.”
71
Klingshirn, “Defining the Sortes Sanctorum.”
72
Sortes Sanctorum 6.6.4, eds. Montero Cartelle and Alonso Guardo, 70.
73
Förster, “Katalog der frühchristlichen Abteilung,” 77–83 (cat. nos. 59–64).
74
Ibid., 76 (cat. no. 58).
75
Marco Simón, Velázquez, “Una nueva defixio.”
76
Schwinden, “Verfluchungstäfelchen aus dem Amphitheater.”
77
Wightman, Gallia Belgica, 211–17.
Fig. 33. Boy wearing a Christian bulla. Fourth century ce. Bronze. Trier, Rheinisches
Landesmuseum. C. 4685. Photo: Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier.
decade of the fifth century.78 Although the situation was stabilized by 418,
with arrangements that included the permanent settlement of the Goths
in Aquitaine, it was only southern and southeastern Gaul that remained
firmly under imperial control. Territories north of the Loire, although
78
Drinkwater, “he Usurpers.”
notionally part of the empire and still subject to Roman military initia-
tives, for the most part reverted to control by local aristocrats and barbar-
ian warlords.79
In this increasingly decentralized environment, even in areas still under
imperial control, it was most often bishops who were in the best position
to speak and act for their cities. Predominantly drawn from aristocratic
families, they acted as local patrons for their communities, much as their
ancestors had done. hey put their wealth to civic use, intervened with
imperial officials, and mobilized help in times of crisis. At the same time,
as religious officials, bishops also offered access to divine power and a theo-
logical reinforcement of the moral and social order. heir claims to author-
ity – subject to challenge at any time – were strengthened by alliances
with fellow bishops and clergy; networks of aristocratic support; displays
of literary and rhetorical prowess; and, in Gaul particularly, the acquisition
of ascetic credentials at illustrious monasteries, for instance Martin’s foun-
dation at Tours, Honoratus’s at Lérins, or Cassian’s at Marseille.80
An illuminating example is Rusticus, bishop of Narbonne from 427 to
circa 460, who celebrated his career and accomplishments on an inscrip-
tion for the cathedral he rebuilt in the city.81 he son of one bishop and
nephew of another (a not uncommon episcopal genealogy in Gaul),
Rusticus had spent time in an unnamed monastery in Marseille (perhaps
Cassian’s) before becoming a bishop himself. here he was in good com-
pany: his fellow priest and friend in the monastery was Venerius, who later
became bishop of Marseille. Dated 29 November 445, Rusticus’s inscrip-
tion records the stages of reconstruction and the names of the priest, dea-
con, and subdeacon who managed the work. It also specifies the generous
donors who made the work possible, including Venerius of Marseille, who
contributed one hundred solidi (or more – the exact number is uncertain),
and Marcellus, praetorian prefect of Gaul, who contributed 2,100 solidi.
At the same time as it illustrates the possibilities of episcopal
self-promotion, Rusticus’s inscription also serves as a reminder that,
despite their prominence in the literary and material record, bishops were
not the only Christians who counted in fifth-century Gaul. he rebuilding
of the church in Narbonne clearly required a joint effort, not unrelated
to the consensus of clergy and laity that (ideally at least) elected a bishop
to his lifetime monarchy in the first place and gave him the continuing
79
Halsall, Settlement and Social Organization, 7–8.
80
Mathisen, Ecclesiastical Factionalism, offers an excellent analysis of the political aspects. On the role
that asceticism itself played, Rousseau, Ascetics, Authority and the Church, remains fundamental.
81
Marrou, “Le dossier.”
capacity to act in the best interests of his city. It is no accident that the
clearest expression of this idea occurs in the reform proposal known as the
Ancient Regulations of the Church. “When having been examined in these
[doctrinal] matters he has been discovered fully prepared, then by the con-
sent of the clergy and laity . . . let him be ordained bishop. When he has
taken up the episcopacy in the name of Christ, let him attend not to his
own pleasure or motives but to these regulations of the Fathers” (Statuta
ecclesiae antiqua, pref., CCL 148:166). Compiled after 475 by an ascetic
priest in southern Gaul, probably Gennadius of Marseille,82 this collection
of 102 canons vigorously argues, as do the writings of numerous other
fifth-century Gallic Christians, for the vital role of priests, monks, and
learned laymen in the definition of true belief and correct practice.83
Indeed, an even wider participation was required in the main enterprise
of the Gallic church: the erection of a religious infrastructure of protec-
tion against the spiritual (and therefore root) causes of disorder. For it was
not secular officials, aristocrats, and local clergy, but rather ordinary men
and women who collaborated most fully in the ritual activity that made
sacred places sacred, holy people holy, and released the divine blessings that
healed and saved. As the dangers were spiritual, so too were the weapons.
In the words of an anonymous fifth-century preacher, “his man fights by
vows, that one by fasts; this one by prayers and heavenly desires, that one
by vigils and labors” (Eusebius Gallicanus, Hom. 54.6, CCL 101A:632).84
For their part, in harnessing the piety of individual Christians, the bish-
ops of Gaul took three main steps. hey built up the religious landscape
with saints’ shrines,85 baptisteries,86 and churches;87 they created and sys-
tematized the rituals held in these places; and they began to assemble a
professional clergy to operate them. he initiatives of Perpetuus of Tours
(458/9–88/9) can serve as an example. As metropolitan of an ecclesiastical
province located in one of the most troubled regions in Gaul, Perpetuus
built six parish churches and a new basilica over Martin’s tomb. He created
a schedule of fasts to be observed by all, and vigils to be celebrated on differ-
ent feast days at the cathedral, baptistery, and churches of the apostles and
82
Munier, Les Statuta Ecclesiae Antiqua, 242.
83
For the entire context of Christian Latin writing in fifth-century Gaul, see above all Vessey,
“Peregrinus Against the Heretics,” and idem, “he Epistula Rustici.”
84
On this sermon and the role of communal asceticism in spiritual protection, see Bailey, “Monks and
Lay Communities,” 325.
85
Beaujard, Le culte des saints, 126–41.
86
Guyon, Les premiers baptistères.
87
For cathedrals, see Loseby, “Bishops and Cathedrals.” For parish churches, see Stancliffe, “From
Town to Country.”
saints (Gregory of Tours, Hist. 10.31.6). He further extended this umbrella

of divine protection by convincing his suffragan bishops to observe the same
order of service (sacrorum ordo) and custom of singing psalms (psallendi . . .
consuetudo) throughout the province, just as they shared the same belief in
the Trinity (Council of Vannes, can. 15, CCL 148:155).
Around the same time, the liturgy was also being systematized in
southern Gaul. At the request of Venerius of Marseille, the priest Musaeus
(d.457/61) created a “selection of readings from the holy scriptures suit-
able for feast days of the whole year” as well as psalm responses “appro-
priate to the season and the readings” (Gennadius, De viris illustribus
80). Later he produced a sacramentary for Venerius’s successor Eustasius.
It was divided according to the parts of the Mass and seasons of the year,
and “suitable in its entirety for making petitions to God and testifying
to his blessings” (Gennadius, De vir. ill. 80). Although it is probably not
by Musaeus,88 a surviving lectionary in a late fifth-/early sixth-century
palimpsest from Wolfenbüttel gives some hint of what his work may
have been like. It contains biblical readings and psalm responses for
feasts of the church year and special liturgical events.89 One of its larg-
est groups of readings is for the Rogations, a three-day series of prayers,
fasting, sermons, and processions meant to ward away plague, siege, hail,
famine, and other calamities. Established by Bishop Mamertus of Vienne
in the third quarter of the fifth century, this ceremony joined the bishop
and his community (including slaves, women, and children) in a ritual
of purification that translated the communal remission of sin into pro-
tection for all.90
Activated by the liturgy and tied to the land by buildings and their
clergy, protection was organized in a series of rings around episcopal cit-
ies. he innermost circle was defended by the cathedral, baptistery, and
urban basilicas. Outside the city walls the graves of martyrs and confessors
provided “a second spiritual ring of defenses, larger and all-embracing.”91
Beyond that were parish churches and privately built villa churches, which
formed not a continuous perimeter, but a series of sanctified outposts at
strategic locations in the landscape. Each sector was attended by a dif-
ferent group of clergy: at the center, the bishop and his cathedral clergy;
in the suburban basilicas, staffs of clergy headed by high-ranking priests
later called “abbots of the basilica” (although they were neither monks
88
Vogel, Introduction aux sources, 25, 259–60, 290.
89
Dold, Das älteste Liturgiebuch, xc–civ.
90
Nathan, “Rogation Ceremonies.”
91
Pearce, “Processes of Conversion,” 71.
nor heads of monastic communities); and in the countryside, lower-level

priests attached to parishes or villas.92 Although they were denied official
status as clergy (Nimes 394/6, can. 2, CCL 148:50; Orange 441, can. 25,
CCL 148:84), the deaconesses (diaconae) who assisted in the instruction
and baptism of female catechumens and in other forms of ministry to
women must also be considered part of this cadre of ministers, along with
widows, nuns, and the wives of bishops, priests, and other clergymen.93
How this army of clergy should conduct itself was a matter of debate.
Many clerics in the fifth century would not have lived or thought that
they should live much differently from the laity to whom they ministered.
Although some clerics were celibate, a large number were married, had
children, and to judge by the number of times this was condemned by
church councils, did not think it necessary to abstain from relations with
their wives. Notions of clerical purity were still very much under construc-
tion. he Council of Vannes, for instance, ordered priests, deacons, and
subdeacons – the grades of subepiscopal clergy prohibited from marrying
after ordination – to avoid others’ weddings as well, so as not to pollute
their performance of the sacred mysteries with the contagion of obscene
love songs and suggestive dancing (can. 11, CCL 148:154). he council also
warned clergy to avoid eating with Jews, because the obvious rigor of Jewish
food laws could suggest that Christian purity was inferior (can. 12, CCL
148:154). he Statuta ecclesiae antiqua reinforces the impression that clerics
often lived like laymen, singing at feasts (can. 75, CCL 148:178), wear-
ing fancy clothes and shoes (can. 26, CCL 148:171), and walking around
the market with no intention of buying anything (can. 34, CCL 148:172).
Ascetic reformers wanted to change this, but it is difficult to see much of
a difference in ideals of clerical behavior or standards of pastoral care – the
logical corollary of clerical professionalization – until the sixth century,
when the work of Caesarius of Arles made this a pressing issue.94
hese developments in the church, of course, took place in the con-
text of the complete dissolution of imperial control over Gaul. By 476,
when Odoacer deposed the emperor Romulus Augustulus in Ravenna, the
Visigothic king Euric (466–84) controlled Aquitaine, the Auvergne, and
lower Provence; the sons of the Burgundian king Gundioc (d.ca.474) quar-
relled over the middle and upper Rhône, and the Frankish king Childeric
(d.481) battled Roman and barbarian warlords in northwest Gaul.
92
Godding, Prêtres en Gaule mérovingienne, 209–60; Griff, La Gaule chrétienne, 3:283–98.
93
Barcellona, “Lo spazio declinato al femminile.”
94
Klingshirn, Caesarius of Arles; Leyser, Authority and Asceticism, 65–100.
Although there were protests from some aristocrats, such as Sidonius,

bishop of Clermont,95 for the most part the disappearance of imperial con-
trol was not the result of warfare, betrayal, or invasion, but rather of a shift
in Gallo-Roman loyalties from a distant and largely ineffective imperial
army and government to nearby barbarian armies and leaders long used to
serving as imperial allies. Not only were the cultural, economic, and social
effects of the “fall of the Roman empire in the West” therefore minimized,
but the “catholic” identity of the population was potentially strength-
ened. As references to heretics in the Statuta ecclesiae antiqua remind us,
Visigoths and Burgundians identified themselves as Arian Christians; most
Franks only converted to Christianity after Childeric’s son Clovis. hose
who wanted to differentiate themselves on a religious basis had the means
to do so. But this did not lead to religious persecution, and for their part,
like good subjects, the Catholic Christians of Gaul prayed for their kings,
as at the council convened by Caesarius in 506. “In the name of the Lord
by permission of our master the most glorious, magnificent, and pious
king [Alaric II] a holy synod has convened in the city of Agde. . . . We pray
to the Lord on behalf of his kingdom, his long life, and his people that the
Lord might extend his kingdom with happiness, govern it with justice,
and protect it with virtue” (CCL 148:192). It is with this council in the
kingdom of the Visigoths, the Council of Orléans (511) in the kingdom
of the Franks, and the Council of Epaone (517) in the kingdom of the
Burgundians that we can definitively mark the end of the imperial phase
of Christianity in Gaul.
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19
RELIGIONS OF ROMAN SPAIN
michael kulikowski
Dramatic regional differences within the Iberian Peninsula were always

characteristic of the religious history of ancient Spain. Although long pre-
dating the Roman conquest, these differences are accessible to the modern
scholar only as a result of the Roman conquest.1 Roman conquest brought
with it religious practices, chief among them the habit of inscription,
which have left traces in the material record. he religious diversity of
Iberia followed directly from the enormous cultural differences between
the coasts and the interior, the river valleys, the mountain chains, and the
vast plateaus of the central peninsula. his cultural diversity was never
wholly erased, not even with the spread of Christianity in the fourth and
later centuries.
Nonetheless, the arrival of Roman armies in the peninsula, and there-
after the slow and bloody process by which Spain was made part of the
empire, caused very significant changes to the peninsula’s religious life. For
many years, these changes were intermittent and highly regional, but three
periods of accelerated change affected the whole peninsula. he first of
these took place during and immediately after the long reign of Augustus
(r.27 bce–14 ce), who had taken a personal interest in the final conquest of
the peninsula and its incorporation into the empire. he Augustan reorga-
nization of Spain placed every corner of the peninsula within a framework
of Roman government in which Roman religious practices could spread
rapidly. he second period of intense religious change began under the
Flavian emperors, when Vespasian (r.69–79) extended the Latin right, a
subordinate form of Roman citizenship, to every municipality in Spain
1
Richardson, Romans in Spain, is the best general account of Spanish history through the early third
century ce. Here and throughout, I cite useable English references where they exist, even where less
accessible Spanish publications might be more up to date.
510
Religions of Roman Spain 511
that had previously lacked status under Roman law. his had the effect of
giving every city in Spain a stake in the Roman system; as a result, both
the cult of the Roman emperors and other Roman modes of public reli-
gious practice became universalized. he final period of accelerated change
came with the imperial conversion to Christianity, as the new religion of
the Roman state transformed the religious life of the Spanish provinces
just as it did elsewhere. A diachronic perspective on the religious diversity
of ancient Spain will perhaps be more useful than a synchronic catalogue
of the religions, cults, and divinities of the peninsula, particularly given
the necessary superficiality of such surveys. In the first instance, however,
it will be worth sketching the broad differences among the various regions
of the peninsula.
Despite its long, if not always hospitable, coastlines and its several large
river systems, which create swathes of fertile agricultural land, much of
the Iberian Peninsula is mountainous and indifferently fertile (see Map
10). Mountain chains, which for the most part run along an east-west axis,
have the effect of compartmentalizing the cultural zones of the peninsula
both from one another and from ready access to the outer world. What is
more, four of the peninsula’s five main river systems – the Guadalquivir,
Guadiana, Tajo, and Duero – flow from east to west into the Atlantic,
away from the heartland of the ancient world. Only the Guadalquivir,
which debouches just beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, and the Ebro, which
flows from west to east into the Mediterranean itself, were really connected
to the archaic Mediterranean. Indeed, long after the first Romans had
appeared in Spain, the interior was inaccessible wherever the river valleys
did not penetrate, and particularly as one moved further north and west.
By the same token, however, the eastern and southeastern coasts of the
peninsula were very early incorporated into the broader world of archaic
Mediterranean trade and colonization, while the northern coast, along the
Bay of Biscay, seems always to have had connections with the Celtic world
of the North Atlantic. Yet it was not until the Romans impinged upon this
world that the interior and the north began to be systematically linked to
the more sophisticated civilizations of the coasts and the river valleys.
Broadly speaking, scholars divide pre-Roman Spain into three major
cultural zones. A vast arc of culturally Celtic territory ran in a crescent
from southern Portugal and Spanish Extremadura, through Galicia and
León-Castile, to the Pyrenees and into Gaul. he Celtiberian zone occu-
pied large parts of the central Meseta and the Ebro valley, while along the
lower Ebro valley, parts of Castile-La Mancha, Valencia, and Catalonia,
and down into Andalucía, one finds the indigenous Iberian culture. In
Map 10. Roman Spain
512
the south, the Iberian civilization, known to the Greeks as the kingdom
of Tartessos, ranged alongside, and was heavily influenced by, Phoenician
colonies that had been planted around the straits of Gibraltar in the eighth
century bce. hose Phoenician colonies, in turn, were more closely linked
to the colonial Phoenician culture of Carthage than to the Levant, and
Carthaginian influence on the southern coastal regions of what is now
Andalucía was quite heavy.2 On the northeastern coast of Spain, Greek
traders had more influence, both directly and indirectly. hough the only
permanent Greek colony on the Iberian Peninsula was Emporion (the
Roman Emporiae, modern Ampurias), founded from Massilia in Gaul,
the impact of Greek culture on the eastern coast of the peninsula should
not be underestimated, because local Iberian sites changed in imitation of
Greek models: to take just one example, votive statuettes showing dedi-
cants in Greek poses are known from the third century bce at indigenous
sites like Saguntum.
More than anything else, what separated the Celtic and Iberian inte-
rior from the coasts, with their Punic and Hellenic cultural models, was
a familiarity with Mediterranean styles of urbanism. he interior of the
peninsula had its hilltop sites and refuges, some of them grand enough
to be classed as oppida by Roman invaders. he closer one came to the
coasts, however, the more the indigenous sites looked like archaic settle-
ments or poleis anywhere in the Mediterranean. An important feature of
all such urban settlements was, naturally enough, sites of public cult. he
Greek vision of anthropomorphic deities to whom communities offered
public cult in the form of sacrifice was broadly familiar throughout the
coastal regions of Spain from an early date, as was the aniconic represen-
tation of divinities associated with Syrian cults – like Hercules Gaditanus,
the Phoenician Melqaart, whose temple at Gades (Cádiz) was perhaps the
most famous cult site in Roman Spain.3 In the interior, Mediterranean
modes of worship, let alone Mediterranean divinities, seem to have made
no impact until well into the Roman period. On the other hand, and at
first sight paradoxically, it is equally not until well into the Roman period
that we begin to have intelligible evidence for the religious life of the inte-
rior at all.
2
Harrison, Spain, though dated, is the only reliable English introduction to early Spain. Fear, Rome
and Baetica, is an accessible introduction to the Punic legacy.
3
García y Bellido, “Hercules Gaditanus.” he temple was described by many authors of the imperial
period: Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 2.33.2, 5.4–5; Silius Italicus 3.14; Arrian, Anab. 2.16.4; Appian, Bell.
civ. 6.2, 6.65; Arnobius, Adv. nat.1.36; Mela 3.46.
514 Michael Kulikowski
hat point is worth stressing, because it underscores how Roman

intervention in the peninsula brought its different parts together in ways
that had never before been possible. Roman conquest created an overarch-
ing framework within which different cultural practices could be exchanged
on a constant, rather than sporadic, basis; as a result, cult practices already
commonplace on the coasts were exported to and absorbed by the inte-
rior. Still more significant was the fact of recording religious activities in
a way that makes them accessible to the modern scholar. We know that
pre-Roman habits of worship survived in remarkably un-Mediterranean
forms well into the Roman period; but the reason we know about
them is either because Roman authors tell us or because enough of the
Mediterranean religious praxis had been absorbed that the forms of cult
become accessible to us – that is to say, coins with images of divinities,
votive offerings, or cult sites with forms analogous to those known in the
Mediterranean world, and particularly, though at a later date, the habit of
inscription. In other words, we gain access to the indigenous religion of the
peninsula only as a result of Roman conquest.
hat conquest was a very slow process. he first Roman armies
appeared in Spain in 218 bce at the beginning of the Second Punic War
(218–02 bce). he decade of warfare between Romans and Carthaginian
forces entangled Roman troops in the peninsula so thoroughly that
the Senate could never have countenanced disengagement even had its
members wished to do so. hey did not, of course, because Spain was an
excellent proving ground for generals on the lookout for tribal victims
whose chastisement would lend luster to a political career at Rome.
What is more, the Punic wars had brought local Spanish obligations
with them: not just treaties with a host of local allies, but also the first
permanent Roman settlement, Italica; the first Spanish colonia, Carteia;
and later more permanent establishments for imperial officials, Corduba
(modern Córdoba) in the Guadalquivir valley and Tarraco (Tarragona)
on the Catalonian coast. In 197 bce, the peninsula was organized into
two provinces, Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior. he next hun-
dred years witnessed more or less continuous campaigning from these
bases further into the peninsular interior, with stretches of desultory
annual fighting punctuated by more intense violence, as during the
Celtiberian wars of the 130s. he process of acculturation, which we
may or may not want to describe as Romanization, began in this period,
though it was neither as systematic nor as thoroughgoing as it would
become in the last century bce.
What this meant in terms of the history of religion can be seen most
clearly in the south and the east, that is to say, the parts of the penin-
sula in which there was already an urban tradition, one in which Punic
and Hellenic models of cult and inscription were familiar to the indige-
nous population. Capitolium-style temples are known from the republi-
can period at both Roman sites like Italica and native sites like Saguntum.
he Greek colony at Emporion remade itself as a Roman city in the first
century bce, not least with a temple long believed, perhaps incorrectly, to
have been a Serapeum.4 Even at an interior site like Azaila, moreover, one
can see the free adaptation of Greco-Roman temple forms in the later sec-
ond and first centuries bce.5 Azaila was a wholly indigenous site, lacking
in Roman colonists and at a considerable distance from settlements with
large Roman populations. It had nevertheless adopted Roman modes of
housing native gods, suggesting the kind of influence that the impact of a
successful new foreign presence in the peninsula was clearly having. By the
Augustan era, when Strabo was writing, he could claim that in the more
civilized parts of Spain, by which he meant the Guadalquivir valley, the
natives had forgotten their indigenous language and culture, replacing it
with Latin and Roman culture.6
Strabo’s statement gives some idea of what Romanization entailed, but it
also introduces us to one of the more difficult evidentiary problems we face
in trying to understand ancient religion in Spain. Most of what we know
comes from writers of, or who refer to, the last century bce and the first
century ce, and there are a few important obstacles to our applying their
evidence. he fact that it imposes an interpretatio Graeca or Romana on the
indigenous religious scene is too obvious to need belaboring, but it is worth
stressing that what we learn tends to focus almost exclusively on those peo-
ples or groups who posed the greatest difficulties for Roman authorities.
Even the famous case of the republican rebel Sertorius fits into that
category. Sertorius, who opposed the Italian government in the 70s bce,
based himself in Lusitania. We are told that he conspicuously consulted
a white deer before acting, and that the deer’s oracular abilities helped
him retain the trust and support of his native followers.7 Does this
4
Sanmartí, Castañer, and Tremoleda, “Emporion,” for the site; Ruiz de Arbulo, “Santuario,” for com-
pelling doubts.
5
Mierse, Temples, 39–44, but in general Ramallo, “Templos,” is more reliable on the republican
period.
6
Strabo 3.2.151.
7
Valerius Maximus 1.2.5; Plutarch, Sert. 11; Appian, Bell. civ. 1.110; Aulus Gellius, Noct. Att. 15.22;
Frontinus, Strat. 1.11.13.
represent the Roman general’s exploitation of local animal worship or an

indigenous tradition of divination through the movements of animals? If
the Lusitanians saw a native god behind Sertorius deer, what god was it?
Plutarch refers to Artemis, Gellius to Diana, but no attempt at identify-
ing the indigenous version thereof has been successful. In a similar vein,
Strabo reports that the Lusitanians examined the viscera of prisoners as
a means of divination, but whether this represents part of the same cult
exploited by Sertorius, a different Lusitanian cult, or even mere hostile
Roman propaganda, is impossible for us to tell.8 Other Roman sources
are equally opaque. Both Horace and Silius Italicus report equine sacrifice
among the mountain peoples of the north, while Juvenal mentions that
the Celtiberians worshipped the Celtic horse goddess Epona. But here,
too, there is an interpretative problem. Because Epona was widely enough
diffused across the Roman empire (the only Celtic divinity of whom this
was true), Juvenal’s attestation may be describing not an old indigenous
cult but rather an import into Spain from neighboring Gaul.9
As the foregoing will have suggested, our understanding of the religious
life of republican Spain is haphazard and limited, though general regional
differences can be discerned without too much difficulty. Even at the very
end of the republic, when the end of the civil wars brought really sub-
stantial Italian and Roman settlement and the legal status of many urban
sites was improved, the peninsula remained very much more a collection
of territories than a single place. he reign of Augustus, however, trans-
formed the religious face of the peninsula, as it did so many other things.
Augustus, bent on confirming his claim to have brought peace to the whole
world, was determined to complete the piecemeal conquest of Spain after
two centuries of Roman intervention. What is more, he determined to do
so personally, residing in Spain while his generals subjugated the far north-
west – the lands of Astures and Cantabri, among other recalcitrant tribes.
Resettling those tribes in the lowlands where they could be more readily
controlled, he established new administrative centers in the northwest –
Asturica Augusta (Astorga), Bracara Augusta (Braga), and Lucus Augusti
(Lugo). hese foundations illustrate an important point about Augustan
policy more generally. Augustus quite deliberately used urbanism as a sys-
tematic means of controlling and administering the Iberian Peninsula in a
way that was never attempted with the same regularity anywhere else in the
Latin West.
8
Strabo 3.3.6.
9
Horace, Carm. 3.4.34; Silius Italicus 3.360; Juv. Sat. 8.156.
For Augustus, it was cities and their dependent territories that were to
organize peninsular space.10 Augustus undertook a provincial reorganiza-
tion that divided the old Hispania Ulterior into a new southern province
of Baetica, centered on Corduba and recognizing the difference between
the civilized, urban south on the one hand and, on the other, the Guadiana
valley and points west, which had not yet been absorbed into Roman pro-
vincial culture. his western region was now turned into the province of
Lusitania, with a rather grand new city, the veteran colony of Emerita
Augusta, as its capital. Citerior, now more generally known as Tarraconensis
after its capital, covered much of the peninsula, and encompassed the great
cultural divide between the already Romanized coasts, the long-pacified
Celtiberian regions, and the distant, just-conquered northwest, where
Roman armies would remain stationed for many decades. In all these
provinces, and despite the major cultural differences among and within
them, it was cities that structured the territory, even if, at the start of the
Augustan period at least, they looked nothing like what a Mediterranean
person would recognize as a polis.
Yet that fact does nothing to diminish the importance of this Augustan
innovation. It meant that, more than any other factor, the setting in which
the peninsula would be integrated into the empire was through the city.
he privileging of the urban center as the focus of administrative life
meant that even in places that had no special status in Roman law, there
was a strong impetus to look and behave as Romans. his mimetic impulse
struck members of peninsula elites everywhere, and it led to a furious burst
of changes to the peninsular landscape. hat phenomenon affected reli-
gious praxis as it did other spheres of life, beginning in the urban centers
themselves – and hence in those regions with the best-established urban
traditions – but spreading from there throughout the peninsula. It is thus
no surprise that in the Augustan period, many characteristic aspects of
pagan religion – from public temples with organized priesthoods, to the
universal spread of votive dedications, to the raising of prominent memo-
rials to the dead – either appear in Spain for the first time, or become vis-
ible to the modern scholar for the first time.
In part, this is a matter of the spreading of the epigraphic habit, a
major part of the phenomenon of Romanization more broadly. he
epigraphic corpus of Roman Spain is dramatically larger than that of
most other western provinces, and large parts of it are, broadly speaking,
10
Richardson, Romans in Spain, 134–78; Kulikowski, Late Roman Spain, 5–16, with references to the
extensive Spanish literature.
religious – commemoration of religious donations, vows fulfilled, grave-

stones, and so on. he distribution of Spanish inscriptions follows a pat-
tern similar to that in many of the other Latin regions of the empire: a
gradually rising number of inscriptions in the first century, a peak in the
second century, and a fairly precipitous decline from the mid-third cen-
tury onwards.11 As always in Spain, however, there are intense regional
variations to this overall pattern. Regions with longer experience of
Mediterranean traditions saw a much earlier flowering of inscription,
but equally witnessed a much earlier dropping off of public commem-
oration in stone. hus, while the epigraphic corpus of an ancient city
like Carthago Nova (Cartagena) is concentrated in last century of the
republic and the Augustan and Julio-Claudian decades, that of a north-
western town like Aquae Flaviae peaks at the turn of the second to the
third century.12 here is, in other words, a close connection between the
spread of Roman habits of urban society and the spread of the epigraphic
habit.13 Epigraphy is thus a strong index of the wider adoption of Roman
values, and that, in turn, is significant for our understanding of cult in
the peninsula. It is, after all, almost entirely through epigraphy that we
can establish which gods were worshipped there, and it is possible to
compile a list of well over two hundred theonyms from the inscribed
evidence.14
Some of these theonyms are very common. We possess, for example,
nearly a hundred inscriptions to Endovellicus from all over the region that
is now central Portugal. Many, however, are hapaces, and heated debate
among scholars suggests that some cryptic inscriptions that have been read
as votive dedications may have nothing to do with cult at all.15 Still more
problematic than the technical difficulties of the epigraphic evidence is
the almost total lack of context for understanding the indigenous cults of
Spain. Many of the gods whose names survive on inscriptions are charac-
terized by scholars on the basis of the location in which their cult objects
were found: the divinity named in a votive altar found near a stream must
11
Edmondson, “Epigraphy and History,” is an excellent orientation.
12
Cf. Abascal, Ramallo, Documentación; and Rodríguez Colmenero, Aquae Flaviae.
13
See the Spanish essays in Beltrán Lloris, Roma.
14
here is a vast literature on the pre-Roman religions of the peninsula; most multivolume histories
of Spain contain useful short chapters on the subject. For Iberian cults, Moneo, Religio ibérica, is
indispensable. he attempt at a comprehensive catalogue in Crespo and Alonso, Manifestaciones,
is laudable and could usefully be extended to the whole peninsula. Blázquez, Diccionario, remains
valuable.
15
he only way to remain abreast of the changing interpretations of the Spanish epigraphic evidence
is via the periodical Hispania Epigraphica, now published annually, and currently in its twelfth
volume.
be a river god; an altar near a cave belongs to a chthonic deity; the votive
statues of bulls and cows that are commonplace in Extremadura and parts
of Portugal are fertility offerings for flocks. All of these interpretations are
plausible enough, but their tenuousness must be recognized.
he larger point is that the medium through which we learn about these
gods is fundamentally Roman. When a second-century dedicant named
Veicius dedicated an altar to Deo Bodo at a site near León, he did so with
the impeccably Roman formula of votum solvit libens merito.16 Nothing can
illustrate the adoption of a Roman technology of worship to a new situa-
tion better than that. Even if theonyms of presumably indigenous gods are
vastly more numerous in the west, northwest, and north of the peninsula,
the technology of worship – ex votos, inscribed dedications, votive altars,
and so on – is the same throughout the peninsula, and thus a testament
to the normative patterns established by the Roman metropolitan model
of cult. One might worship one’s own god, but one did so according to
Roman models. In that light, it is interesting to find that even a popular
indigenous deity like Endovellicus, with a widespread regional cult, seems
not to have had an organized cult site until the Roman period.
his key interpretative point is most visible in the north, northwest, and
west, where the very phenomenon of inscription was new, arriving with
Augustus’s legions and cities. hus, the adoption of inscription was in and
of itself symbolic of the new Roman order. he same process is at work in
the south and the east, but there, the adoption of explicitly Roman gods,
rather than the technology of worship, served to indicate Romanization.
For that reason, although indigenous divinities and Punic baals may hide
behind some of the Jupiters and Venuses of Baetica, we cannot really find
them there: by the late republican period, these regions expressed their
integration into the Roman world not by the adoption of Roman tech-
nologies of worship, but by assimilation to metropolitan tastes and cults,
thoroughly obscuring earlier layers of cultic expression.17
In looking at the religions associated with the urbanized regions of the
peninsula, it may be helpful to make the distinction, recently stressed by
Rives, between emigrant gods, attested because individual immigrant wor-
shippers are present in a region; diaspora cults, imported and supported
by large immigrant communities; and assimilated cults, widely adopted
by local or indigenous populations even though they may have arrived
16
CIL II: 5670 = IRPL 53.
17
It is only on the rarest occasions that we find an indigenous theonym in Baetica, for example, CIL
II2/5: 309 (near Igabrum).
initially as imports from elsewhere.18 Apart from the cult of Isis, whose
attestations are concentrated in the second century and in the main cities,
only the chief gods of the Roman pantheon fit into the latter category in
Spain.19 Which Roman gods predominated in which cities and territoria
may have something to do with the earlier history of a particular place. he
Greek Asclepius illustrates such patterns of cultic stratigraphy. Healing dei-
ties were perfectly well known in the pre-Roman world of Spain. Indeed,
there is little doubt that the cult of Endovellicus – of whom more than
seventy inscriptions are attested, mainly in the inland parts of Lusitania –
included a strong element of healing ritual and possibly, by the imperial
period, even incubation in temple precincts.20 But the concentration of
cult to Asclepius in the cities of the Catalonian coast and the Levant, from
Emporiae to Carthago Nova, is striking and undoubtedly reflects the long
Greek influence on these regions.21 If Pliny the Elder is to be believed, the
Artemis of Ephesus had been worshipped at Saguntum since before the
arrival of the Romans. Like so many of the cults of the classical deities that
were not imperially sponsored, cult to Diana-Artemis, Venus-Aphrodite,
and indeed a lesser god like Cupid-Eros was very much concentrated in
Baetica and the eastern and southeastern parts of Tarraconensis – which
is to say those parts of the peninsula which might plausibly be described
as cosmopolitan.22 At Saguntum, Diana was Diana Maxima, and there
was a collegium of cultores Dianae to look after her worship.23 Other syn-
cretistic versions of Diana, however, were able to spread much farther;
Diana Venatrix can be found in a wide stretch of the west and northwest,
as can cult of Diana, which has been interpreted as syncretistic with the
old indigenous cult of the moon. A more classical Diana is diffused in the
coastal regions of Catalonia, where it is even found combined with impe-
rial cult.24 Occasionally, peninsular cult to deities of the Roman pantheon
throws up intriguing oddities, like the cult of Liber Pater. his very Roman
god is largely invisible in the peninsula, but had an old and concentrated
cult at the site of Montaña Frontera, just outside Saguntum. Nearly twenty
votive inscriptions to him have been found there alongside the remains of
a building that is presumed to have been his temple.25 he inscriptions run
18
Rives, Religion, 132–57.
19
See Balil, “Culto de Isis”; Alvar, “Culto a Isis,” with epigraphic references.
20
For example, CIL II: 129, 138; 5201–2 (Villaviçosa).
21
For example, CIL II: 2407; CIL II2/14: 1, 2 (Valentia); 291 (Saguntum).
22
Pliny the Elder, Nat. 16.79.
23
CIL II2/14: 292–4 (Saguntum). Cf. cultores Iovis at Segobriga: HEp. 9: 315.
24
IRC I: 31 (see also CIL II: 4618 = IRC I: 30).
25
See Corell, “Culto a Liber Pater.”
from the first to the third centuries ce with a heavy concentration in the
early part of that period. he interesting point, however, is the preponder-
ance of indigenous names among dedicators of inscriptions, suggesting
an intense but localized commitment to the cult of Liber that may dimly
reflect pre-Roman, Iberian devotions in the region.
Liber Pater would seem to have had a temple at Montaña Frontera, and
hundreds of temples are known either archaeologically or epigraphically
from the peninsula. In virtually none of these can the sponsorship of the
Roman state be discovered; presumably they sprang up as a result of the
euergetism that local elites began to engage in as part of the process of
becoming Roman. his underscores how important Augustan urbanism
was to the religious transformation of Spain; city elites, following metro-
politan models of patronage and largesse, introduced not just new cults,
but new settings for old cults in their home towns. In Spain, where the epi-
graphic record gives us substantial evidence for euergetism of various sorts,
temples are the commonest privately constructions on record. In fact, fifty
temples built on private initiative are known from Spain, substantial num-
bers in each province.26 We would expect such donations in large cities like
Emerita, and duly find them, for instance, the Vettilla Paculi who built a
temple of Mars.27 Vettilla and her husband belonged to the senatorial elite,
and were not natives of Emerita. In the cases of other major donations –
for instance, a temple of Jupiter put up at Malaca (Málaga) by a man with
a Greek cognomen – we cannot be sure whether the donor was a local
noble or a foreign patron.28 Nonetheless, we also find this sort of religious
euergetism at smaller places like Ulisi, Munigua, or Liria, where the donors
are probably locals.29 Smaller-scale donations, small aediculae to the lares
and genii for instance, blur the distinction between private chapel and
public temple, and are as characteristic of the big cities as of small sites.30
hat said, the private dedication of temples is overwhelmingly centered on
the main privileged cities. What is more, in the northwest, even in the big
cities, most private religious patronage seems to have come from members
of the imperial administration rather than from locals.31
26
Recent survey in Andreu Pintado, “Comportamiento munificente,” with references to earlier
studies.
27
CIL II: 468.
28
CIL II: 1965.
29
Ulisi: CIL II2/5: 718 (templum Herculis); Munigua: CILA 2/4: 1058–9 = HEp. 7: 916 (Munigua,
with very different readings); Liria: CIL II: 3786 (templum Nympharum), for which cf. HEp. 9: 585
(Valentia).
30
See, for example, CIL II: 1980 (Abdera, conv. Malacatensis).
31
See table at Andreu Pintado, “Comportamiento munificente,” 123.
If cult to the gods of the Roman pantheon, and the euergistic construc-
tion that supported it, are two important signs of the peninsula’s integra-
tion into Roman modes of religious behavior, the spread of Roman-style
burial in the first century is equally significant. his transformation is most
visible among the elite families of urban centers, although there is some
reason to believe that it took place at the lower end of the social scale as
well. We find Italianate grave monuments at Tarraco from the very end
of the second century bce, and from Corduba a century later, some of
them no doubt the work of immigrants. Likewise at Emerita Augusta,
and indeed from very shortly after its foundation, the road leading east
out of the city was lined with grave markers in exactly the same way as
was the Via Appia in Italy. Local variations on the elaborate tomb-markers
favored by Roman elites are a marker of regional styles at play: at Baelo, for
instance, tall, cubelike monuments capped with pyramids have no parallels
in Spain or Italy, but rather in North Africa.32 Along with the introduction
of Roman-style grave monuments came Roman forms of commemorating
the dead. he standard vocabulary of death and burial – the inscriptions
dis manibus, or the exhortations of sit tibi terra levis – are omnipresent in
peninsula, and in chronological terms follow the general pattern of each
local region’s epigraphic habit.
he religious trends outlined in the foregoing all have their roots in
the Augustan period – they are, indeed, a direct result of his adminis-
trative reforms – but they continue under the Julio-Claudians. In many
places, in fact, cult sites and urban landscapes that began to be developed
under Augustus were completed under his successors. A second period
of accelerated change in the religious and cultural life of the peninsula
came under the Flavian emperors. Vespasian had to justify his position,
and ultimately that of his dynasty, in a way that none of his Julio-Claudian
predecessors had found necessary, for the simple reason that he lacked any
familial connection to the deified Augustus or even to the nobility of the
old Republic.
Just as Vespasian needed to specify his own imperial powers with more
precision than had his predecessors, so did the imperial cult receive new
impetus under a dynasty that could use emperor worship as a means of
emphasizing its legitimacy. he imperial cult did, of course, exist in the
peninsula from the time of Augustus onwards, beginning with the obscure
and controversial evidence of the three altars, raised in the northwest by
32
Von Hesberg, “Römische Grabbauten” and Beltrán Fortes, “Monumentos,” are the basic
introductions.
one Sestius and thus called arae Sestianae, though our ancient sources
disagree about precisely where he put them up.33 A municipal altar at
Tarraco, known from circa 26 bce, was a local initiative, not the start of
the city’s public cult to Augustus; however, in 15 ce Tiberius permitted the
city to erect a temple to divus Augustus, soon commemorated on the local
coinage.34 A decade later, by contrast, the same emperor famously refused
the request of an embassy from Baetica to erect a temple to himself and his
mother Livia.35 he provincial cult of the emperors in Spain would thus
remain restricted to the divi, at least until the major changes of the Flavian
period.
In the northwest, Vespasian instituted cult at the level of the conven-
tus and either invented, or perhaps merely extended and developed, pro-
vincial cult in Baetica. he effects of Flavian efforts in Tarraconensis are
equally impressive. For one thing, Vespasian seems to have resolved the
problem of worship of a living emperor by allowing for flamines divorum
et Augustorum, so that both dead and living emperor(s) could be wor-
shipped simultaneously in one place.36 More dramatically, the Flavian
emphasis on imperial cult in the peninsula’s great cities could produce
massive construction projects and consequent transformation of how reli-
gion functioned within the confines of the city.37 he case of Tarragona is
most striking: Roman Tarragona was built at the base of a tall hill several
hundred meters from the seashore. he city was walled in the republican
period, but under the Flavians, the hill was transformed into the site of
an enormous imperial precinct that dominated the old republican colonia
at its foot.38 Built on three terraces, this complex included a temple of the
imperial cult, a forum in which the council of the provincia Tarraconensis
met, and a vast circus. his large complex was accessible only through the
vaults of the circus, separated from the rest of the city by the passage of the
Via Augusta through the town at this point.39 Within the city but separate
from it, Tarragona’s imperial complex was undoubtedly the grandest mon-
ument of the pax Romana in all of Spain, and it was very much a religious
monument, centering as it did on the cult of the Roman emperors. Yet in
33
Ptolemy, Geogr. 2.6.6; Mela 3.13; Pliny the Elder, Nat. 4.20.111. Étienne, Culte impériale and Fishwick,
Imperial Cult, are the main studies, but see Delgado, “Flamines,” for Lusitania, and idem, Elites y
organización.
34
Tacitus, Ann. 1.78; Mierse, Temples, 135–41, for the coins.
35
Tacitus, Ann. 4.37.
36
CIL II: 4217 = RIT 316. See Alföldy, Flamines, 46–9.
37
Garriguet Mata, “Culto imperial.”
38
here is a good historical sketch in Carreté, Keay, and Millett, Roman Provincial Capital.
39
For the forum, see generally TED’A, “Foro provincial.”
providing a central meeting place for the display of imperial cult, it is only
a hypertrophied example of a phenomenon that was nearly universal in the
cities of Spain.
Imperial cult, more than anything else, functioned to tie the different
parts of each province together, and to provide a single focus for commu-
nal activity amid the great diversity of Spanish cities. Priesthoods of the
imperial cult seem to have attracted those members of the Spanish elite
who were most willing to participate in other key aspects of Roman aris-
tocratic behavior, for instance, by way of euergistic display. Priests of the
imperial cult, not just those who had reached the apex of their local civic
careers, but also freedmen whose access to power was especially mediated
via imperial cult, were among the many prominent donors of religious
foundations in Spanish cities,40 both to the imperial cult itself and to other
deities whose worship they especially favored.41 For the freedman popula-
tion, the sevirate represented the apex of the public career to which they
could aspire, and we find quite a lot of inscriptions by sevirs from most of
the main cities of the peninsula, though with a noticeable concentration
in Baetica.42 Imperial cult often went along with other forms of religious
worship. Cult to Jupiter and the Capitoline triad, or the personified Roma,
is to be expected,43 but there was also cult to a wide variety of other divin-
ities, particularly universalizing ones, whose rites might be performed pro
salute of the reigning emperor. hus, a marble altar at Colares (Sintra,
Portugal) is dedicated to Sol Aeternus and Luna, but for the well-being of
the emperor Septimius Severus.44 From Córdoba, half a peninsula away,
we find taurobolia being conducted for the same purposes.45 his focus
on the emperor is something that affected Spain just as it affected the rest
of the Roman world: with the rise and consolidation of imperial govern-
ment, and particularly after the years of experimentation under the early
Julio-Claudians, the centrality of the emperor’s person and image was itself
a transformative force in religious life. For that reason, the giving of impe-
rial attributes to various intangible and impersonal characteristics spreads
across the peninsula in the second and third centuries, for instance, in cult
to Bonus Eventus Augustus.46
40
CIL II: 35 = IRCP 184 (Salacia Imperatoria); CIL II 1934 = ILMM 8 (Lacippo); CIL II: 3279
(Castulo).
41
For example, CIL II2/7: 240 (Corduba); CIL II: 964 (Arucci); CILA 2/4: 1056 (Munigua).
42
See Rodríguez Cortés, Sociedad y religión.
43
For example, HEp. 1: 391. Roma: for example, CIL II: 3279.
44
CIL II: 259 (Olisipo).
45
CIL II2/7: 233–6 (Corduba).
46
CIL II: 4612 = IRC I: 97 (Mataró).
Just as the Flavian period underscored the importance of imperial

cult in the peninsula, so too did it emphasize the importance of the
cities and their governments to the organization and practice of pub-
lic cult. Vespasian’s tenure of the censorship granted Latin rights (ius
Latii) to every community in the peninsula that had previously lacked
them, effectively transforming civitates into municipia.47 his revolution
is nowadays known to us in detail thanks to the discovery of multiple
fragments of Flavian municipal laws, the actual bronze tablets on which
municipal charters were inscribed and posted for the regulation of the
new municipalities.48 While substantial fragments of two such laws were
well known already in the nineteenth century,49 the recovery in the 1980s
of the larger part of the constitution of Irni, the so-called Lex Irnitana,
shows us how a hierarchy of local magistrates presided over the life of
local cities and their dependent territories. Chance finds since then have
demonstrated that the Lex Irnitana is, with its cognates, just one exam-
ple of a model constitution that was applied with minor modifications
to newly constituted municipia across the peninsula. hese municipal
laws give us some insight into the religious role of urban magistrates and
the religious life of the cities. We learn, for instance, that the temples
and other sacred places were to be maintained by the aediles, who could
use public slaves for this purpose.50 he duumvirs of the municipality
were to oversee the religious festivals of the town, with the approval of
a majority of the curia, and public funds could be used to support such
ceremonies.51 And festival days, both imperial and local, were similarly
under the control of the duumvirs and, through them, the curia.52 he
Flavian municipal laws – which went along with the reinscription and
modest revision of older colonial charters like that of the Caesarian col-
ony of Urso (Osuna), with their own religious provisions – show very
clearly how urbanism and the transformation of the peninsula’s religious
life went hand in hand.53
Second only to the cities in its effect on peninsula religion was the
army; its religious role has been studied far more intensively than has
47
Richardson, Romans in Spain, 179–213.
48
See González Fernández, “Lex Irnitana”; idem, Bronces jurídicos; idem, “Lex Villonensis”; idem,
“Nuevos fragmentos.”
49
ILS 6088, 6089 and now González Fernández, Bronces jurídicos, 101–26.
50
Lex Irn. 19. Edition in either González Fernández, “Lex Irnitana” or idem, Bronces jurídicos, 51–99.
51
Lex Irn. 77, 79.
52
Lex Irn. 92.
53
E.g. Lex Urson. 66–7, 72, edited at ILS 6087 and now González Fernández, Bronces jurídicos, 19–49.
See Mangas, “Financiación,” for religious financing in the Lex Ursonensis.
that of urbanism.54 his is perhaps surprising, given that the military

establishment of Spain was considerably smaller than that of other west-
ern provinces: the peninsula housed several legions during the Augustan
period, no more than three under the Julio-Claudians, until, with the
success of the Flavians, only a single legion remained. his Legio VII
Gemina survived into the fourth or perhaps even the fifth century, giving
its name to the medieval and modern city of León, where it was head-
quartered. A number of auxiliary units were also stationed in the pen-
insula, many of them recruited locally. In the first and second centuries,
quite a lot of Spaniards enlisted in auxiliary units for service elsewhere
in the empire as well.55 It is unsurprising then, that we find a process of
synthesis taking place in the vicinity of legionary and auxiliary camps.
On the one hand, we find evidence for the full panoply of military gods
and cult that were a standard part of army life across the empire – cults
of the signa, dedications to the genii of various bases or units, Mars in
any number of forms, and an omnipresent Jupiter.56 Given the exclu-
sive concentration of the Spanish army in the peninsular north, it seems
clear that this military worship of Jupiter formed the basis for his cult’s
wide diffusion in the three conventus of the northwest, whence derive
more than half the known peninsular dedications to Jupiter Capitolinus.
Alongside such dedications, we find cult to Jupiter Optimus Maximus
Anderon, Jupiter Cadamius, and Jupiter Ladicus.57 hese local syncretic
Jupiters are probably the result of the army and its favored cults hav-
ing served as the primary model of Roman behavior and practice in the
north. It is a reminder that the role played by cities, with their imperial
and provincial cults, in the south and east, was more often played by the
army in the north.
In the same way that the soldiers influenced the religious behavior
and even the actual gods worshipped in the Spanish north, so too did
the local gods of the interior enter the legions and the auxiliaries, unsur-
prisingly given the number of locals who joined the standards. We have
a substantial corpus of indigenous theonyms commemorated in votive
inscriptions set up by soldiers, including some to important peninsular
divinities like Ataecinae, Cossue, Larocuo, and Naviae, whose cults are
54
Most recently Andrés Hurtado, Aproximación and Moreno Pablos, Religión, cover much the same
ground, the former rather more thoroughly, both with extensive bibliographies.
55
Le Roux, L’armée; Roldán Hervas, Hispania y el ejército.
56
Domaszewski, “Religion,” is still basic; see also Helgeland, “Roman Army Religion,” and Andrés
Hurtado, Aproximación, 426–95, for a corpus of military votive inscriptions.
57
Respectively CIL II: 2598 (prov. unknown); 2695 (Asturia, prov. unknown); 2525 = HEp. 2: 578
(civitas Limicorum).
equally well attested in civilian contexts in the interior.58 his interchange

between army and civilian life in the interior is entirely what one would
expect, and for the same reasons, we find soldiers donating temples to the
civilian settlements that grew up beside the camps.59 he officers in charge
of these units, and imperial administrators more generally, provide some
of our most significant evidence for the introduction of foreign religions
into Spain. One third-century procurator, Julius Silvanus Melanion, com-
memorated at Legio his own personal pantheon; consisting of Serapis, Isis,
Kore, Apollo Granius, and Mars Sagatus, they reflect nobody’s religious
inclinations but his own.60 While it has always been presumed that soldiers
were mainly responsible for spreading mystery cults throughout the pen-
insula, there is evidence for Mithraic cult at Can Modolell in which one
of the dedicatees is an aliarius, or garlic merchant.61 his example is a use-
ful caution against overconfident generalizing. Indeed, it would seem that
the influence of the army on Spain was, in some respects, less significant
than in others of the Latin provinces. It is surely noteworthy that the cult
of Mithras, which spread so widely and so rapidly with the Roman army
from the later first century onward, should be dramatically less common
in Spain than in Britain, Pannonia, or Dacia. Likewise, and even in the
northwest, there are many varieties of syncretism that cannot be traced
directly to the army. hus we find in the three northwestern conventus a
very widespread popular cult to lares viales (augustales). his must have
been a Romanized form of a particularly significant local belief in the pro-
tective spirits of roads; as late as the sixth century ce, we find Martin of
Braga specifically condemning the habit of lighting tapers at crossroads in
a region where high imperial dedications to lares are most numerous.62
By the later second century, we have evidence of more or less every
cult ever attested in Roman Spain, including Christianity. While in the
long term the spread of Christianity constitutes the next major transfor-
mation in the religious history of the peninsula, as throughout the empire,
this transformation was slow in coming. Spain did not, during the third
century, witness the sort of crisis evoked in traditional historical accounts
of the period. Although the great building projects of the second cen-
tury slackened considerably, this was in part because every city of any size
already had a full complement of large, Roman-style public buildings,
58
Andrés Hurtado, Aproximación, 217–67, lists all the evidence.
59
E.g., CIL II: 2915 (Segisamo); CIL II: 2660 (León).
60
Alvar, “Cultos mistéricos,” 32.
61
IRC I: 85.
62
De corr. rust. 16.4–5. For the cult, Portela Filgueiras, “Dioses Lares,” to which add HEp. 1: 78; 4: 67,
341, 342; 5: 189; 6: 747.
temples very much among them. It was the fourth century, far more than
the third, that really altered the textures of life in Roman Spain. he tetrar-
chic reorganization of the peninsula into five provinces, and the increased
imperial supervision of local government that additional layers of bureau-
cracy brought with it, created real changes to the urban life of Spain. By
the end of the fourth century, cities without imperial patronage had ceased
to be maintained, and their infrastructures, temples, and fora included,
began to deteriorate in ways that we can still detect in the archaeological
record. By the time this happens, Christianity has become much the most
visible religion in the literary record of the peninsula.
he earliest genuine evidence for Spanish Christianity is a letter of
Cyprian of Carthage adjudicating a dispute brought on by the Decian
persecution, in which two Spanish bishops who had compromised with
imperial authorities were deposed by their communities and then objected
to this treatment.63 From the reign of Valerian, we possess the indisput-
ably authentic acta of Fructuosus, bishop of Tarragona, but Christianity
as a larger social phenomenon is for the most part invisible.64 By the time
of the Diocletianic persecutions, by contrast, faint traces of Christian cult
can be discovered archaeologically. While many martyr stories relate to
Diocletian’s persecution and suggest a substantial Christian community,
very few of these can be proved to be authentic: the great Spanish martyr
cults – those to Felix of Gerona, Vincentius of Valencia, or Eulalia of Mérida,
for instance – are not attested in the literary record until Prudentius’s early
fifth-century Peristephanon. Only the acta of Marcellus, a legionary of
Legio VII Gemina who had thrown away his insignia because a Christian
ought not to bear arms, are clearly authentic; the fact that Marcellus was
executed in Tingitania, a province that Diocletian had attached to the
Spanish diocese, helps corroborate them.65 he canons of Elvira, which
must date to just before the outbreak of Diocletian’s persecution, are a rich
source of evidence for the difficulties faced by observant Christians liv-
ing in a still-vibrant urban culture suffused with non-Christian gods and
their rites.66 By the middle of the fourth century, by contrast, our literary
sources imply that non-Christian cult was nothing but a marginal aberra-
tion to be stamped out by devoted bishops like Pacianus of Barcino.67
63
Cyprian, Ep. 67.
64
See Musurillo, Acts, 176–85.
65
See Musurillo, Acts, 250–9.
66
Best edition of the canons in Martínez Díez, Colección, 235–68. Despite continued assertions of a
Constantinian date for Elvira, Duchesne, “Concile,” long ago proved that the absence of any refer-
ence to persecution must place the council before 303.
67
See in particular Pacianus, De paenitentia.
But the physical landscape of the cities shows this literary evidence to be
misleading. Most datable evidence for church building in Spain comes from
the second half of the fourth century at the earliest. he great Christian
cemetery at Tarragona was excavated too early in the twentieth century to
provide any reliable evidence about its origin, let alone the date of its basil-
ica. By contrast, the exemplary excavations at the church of Santa Eulalia
at Mérida show that several early fourth-century mausolea became the core
of a pilgrimage and burial site around which a sixth-century basilica was
later constructed.68 More significant, however, is the date at which church
buildings began to penetrate the core of the old Roman cities – the fora,
the cult sites, and the public spaces more generally. Intramural Christian
cult sites in general are rarely visible before the later fourth century, as
at Barcino, and then they are on the peripheries of the walled zone. By
contrast, churches begin to appear in the fora and around the old temple
precincts only when those areas have ceased to possess any social meaning
for local communities. At Tarragona, for instance, while the old imperial
precinct of the upper town began to deteriorate from the 440s, it was not
until the turn of the fifth to the sixth century that a Christian church and
probable episcopium were put up where the temple of the imperial cult
had once stood.69 What is more, we can see the same regional differences
in the spread of Christianity that had always existed within the penin-
sula: the north and west are much slower to develop a visibly Christian
culture, despite the fact that Gallaecia provides – in the shape of Orosius
and Hydatius – two of the earliest Christian writers from Spain. In other
words, the physical Christianization of Spain is the last stage in the Roman
phase of the peninsula’s religious life. he process of becoming Christian
was long and slow, set in motion by the Roman government, but lasting
well into the medieval period – as long and slow, in fact, as the original
acculturation of Spain to the Roman conquest itself.
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SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING
i. religions of iran
Boyce, Mary, and Frantz Grenet. A History of Zoroastrianism 3: Zoroastrianism under
Macedonian and Roman Rule. HO. Abt. 1: Der Nahe und der Mittlere Osten. Bd. 8
(Leiden, 1991).
Be Duhn, Jason, ed. New light on Manichaeism: Papers from the Sixth International Congress
on Manichaeism (Leiden, 2009).
Yarshater, Ehshan, ed. he Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 3 (1): he Seleucid, Parthian and
Sasanian Periods (Cambridge, 1983).
ii. religions of the near east

Ball, Warwick. Rome in the East: he Transformation of an Empire (London, 2000).
Butcher, Kevin. Roman Syria and the Near East (London, 2003).
Eliav, Yaron Z., Elise A. Friedland, and Sharon Herbert, eds. he Sculptural Environment of
the Roman Near East: Reflections on Culture, Ideology, and Power (Leuven, 2008).
Healey, John F. he Religion of the Nabataeans: A Conspectus. RGRW 136 (Leiden, 2001).
Kaizer, Ted, ed. he Variety of Local Religious Life in the Near East in the Hellenistic and
Roman Periods (Leiden, 2008).
Sartre, Maurice. he Middle East under Rome (Cambridge, Mass., 2005).
Judaism in Judea and the Near East

Primary Sources
Frey, Jean-Baptiste. Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaicarum (Rome, 1936).

Naveh, Joseph, and Shaul Shaked. Amulets and Magic Bowls: Aramaic Incantations of Late
Antiquity ( Jerusalem, 1985).
Magic Spells and Formulae: Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity ( Jerusalem, 1993).
Noy, David, and Hanswulf Bloedhorn. Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis. Vol. 3: Syria and
Cyprus. TSAJ 102 (Tübingen, 2004).
Reinach, héodore. Textes d’auteurs grecs et romains relatifs au judaïsme (Paris, 1895; repr.
Hildesheim, 1963).
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Stern, Menahem, ed. Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism. 3 vols. ( Jerusalem,
1974–84).
Secondary Sources
Cotton, Hannah M., Robert G. Hoyland, Jonathan J. Price, and David J. Wasserstein,
eds. From Hellenism to Islam: Cultural and Linguistic Change in the Roman Near East
(Cambridge, 2009).
Fonrobert, Charlotte Elisheva, and Martin S. Jaffee, eds. he Cambridge Companion to the
Talmud and Rabbinic Literature (Cambridge, 2007).
Hezser, Catherine. he Oxford Handbook of Jewish Daily Life in Roman Palestine (Oxford,
2010).
Kalmin, Richard. Jewish Babylonia between Persia and Roman Palestine (Oxford, 2006).
Linder, Amnon. he Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation (Detroit, 1987).
Syriac Christianity
Baarda, Tjitze. he Gospel Quotations of Aphrahat the Persian Sage. 2 vols. (Meppel, 1975).
Brock, Sebastian. he Syriac Fathers on Prayer and the Spiritual Life (Kalamazoo, Mich.,
1987).
“Eusebius and Syriac Christianity.” In Eusebius, Christianity and Judaism, eds. Harold W.
Attridge and Gohei Hata (Detroit, 1992): 212–34.
Brock, Sebastian, et al., eds. Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage
(Piscataway, N.J., 2011).
Garsoïan, Nina G., ed. East of Byzantium: Syria and Armenia in the Formative Period
Mansour, Tanios B. La pensée symbolique de Saint Ephrem le Syrien (Kaslik, 1988).
Reinink, G. J. Syriac Christianity under Late Sasanian and Early Islamic Rule (Aldershot,
Hampshire, 2005).
Richardson, Christine T., Anti-Judaism and Christian Orthodoxy: Ephrem’s Hymns in
Fourth-century Syria. NAPSPMS 20 (Washington, D.C, 2008).
Voobus, Arthur. History of the School of Nisibis (Louvain, 1965).
Zetterholm, Magnus. he Formation of Christianity in Antioch: A Social-Scientific Approach
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iii. religions of egypt

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(Peterborough, Ont., 2000).
GENERAL INDEX
Abercius of Hieropolis, 347–8 Agricola, Roman governor of Britain,

funerary inscription, 351 urbanization policy of, 461
Abercius Marcellus, bishop of Hierapolis, 140 Agrippa I, king of Judea (r. 41–44), 205, 407
Abgar the Great (VIII), king of Edessa, 12 Agritius, bishop of Trier (early fourth
Abraham of Nathpar, 156 cent.), 488
Abraham Qîdûnāyâ, 152 Agros on the River, bathhouse at, 348
Achaemenid dynasty, 26, 38, 39 Ahriman, destructive spirit in Zoroastrianism,
administrative practices, 23–4, 89 38, 44
dealings with Jews, 89 Ahura Mazdā (Aramazd, Ohrmazd), highest
religious practices, 30, 33 deity of Zoroastrian pantheon, 25, 36,
Acmonia, Phrygian city, Jewish inscriptions 38, 44
from, 326–7, 344–5 Aion, divine personification of time and
Acrocorinth, acropolis of ancient Corinth, 299 eternity,
Acropolis, Athens, 298, 299, 312 in Egyptian religion, 181
Acta Pionii, Christian martyrology, 335–6 in Palymrene pantheon, 73–4
Actium, battle of, 311 Aither, primordial Greek deity of the
Acts of the Apostles, air, 314
conversion to Judaism, 122 Aizanoi, city in Phrygia, temple of, 314
God-fearers, 328–9 Akitu festival, Babylonian New Year’s festival,
Jewish/Christian relations, 343 74, 76
Jewish communities in Asia Minor, 325 Akoris, Egyptian deity, 4, 182
synagogues, 127, 202, 343 Alexander, alabarch of Alexandria, 407
Acts of Judas homas, 141 Alexander, Christian martyr of Gaul (second
Adacrius, Gallic deity, 452 cent.), 486
Adelphius, monk of Edessa, 153 Alexander the Great, 1, 24, 64, 192
Adiabene, 34, 61, 121 conquest of Near East, 87, 91
Adōn, name of Punic high god, 239–40 cult, 169, 296, 309, 310
Aedui (Eduens), vicus of, stele from, 454–6 Alexander Jannaeus, Hasmonean high priest
Aemilius Paullus, Lucius (ca. 229–160 bce), 308 (103–76 bce), 94
Aesculapius, See Asclepius Alexander Polyhistor, Greek grammarian (first
Aetius, patron of monastery of Rufinianae, 358 cent. bce), 195
Africa Proconsularis, Catholic bishops in, 279 Alexander (pseudo-), Herodian impostor, 407
Agileus, St., shrine of, 280 Alexandria, 4, 176–9, 183, 211
Aglibol, Palmyrene lunar deity, 78, 79 religious and ethnic conflict, 6, 176–7, 185–6,
Agora, Athens, 298, 312 205–6
cult center, 299, 315 religious pluralism, 176–8
543
544 General Index
Alexandria, Christianity, 12, 211, 227 Ancyra, in Galatia, 353

catechetical school, 16, 216, 220–1, 346 Christian community, 353
institutional authority, 220–1 Andania, town of Messenia, mystery cults at,
theology, 216–17, 218 305–6
Alexandria, Jewish community, 5, 130, 176, 192–3 Andecamulenses, Gallic tribe, 478
burial inscriptions, 192 Anderson, J. G. C., 341
community organization, 193, 198–9 Andragoras, Greek satrap of Parthia (third cent.
in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, 176–7, bce), 28–30
192–3 Andromeda, 72
legal standing of, 193 Anextlomara, Gallo-Roman deity, 466
origins, 192 Antinoë, oracle tickets, 228
religious conflict, 196–7, 205–6 Antinoopolis, Jewish marriage contract, 207
size, 193 Antinous, favorite of Hadrian, 304
synagogue, 201–2 Antioch, Pisidian, sanctuary to Men at, 314
Aliturus, Jewish actor from Puteoli, 407 Antioch of Syria, 62, 143
Allat, Palmyrene temple of, Jewish religious Christianity, 120, 139, 335
objects in, 124 God-fearers, 329
allegorical interpretation, 197, 216 Antiochus I, king of Commagene (r. 70–36 bce),
Allichamps, Gallic town, 452 dexiōsis relief, 59–60 and Fig. 3
Altar of Peace (Ara Pacis), 250 tomb sanctuary of, 59–61
Altar of Victory, 393, 435 Antiochus III, Seleucid king (r. 222–187 bce), 93
Altbachtal, Gallo-roman temple complex at cult, 310, 311
Trier, 466, 468–70 resettlement of Jews in Asia Minor, 71, 323–4
destruction, 495 Antiochus IV Epiphanes (r. 175–164 bce),
Ambiani, sanctuaries of, 477–8 decrees against Judaism, 92, 93, 101
Ambrose, bishop of Milan (ca. 337–397), 416, support of temple of Zeus Olympios, 298–9
433, 438, 440–1, 490 Antipater, Idumean ruler of Judea, 104
Amenebis (Amon of Hibis), temple of, 171 Antium, calendar of (84/85 bce), 379–80
Amenhotep, son of Hapu, Egyptian priest and Antonine altar, at Ephesus, 313
scribe, 211 Antoninus Pius, Roman emperor (r. 138–161),
Amenophis III, 189 168, 171
Ammianus Marcellinus, 441 divine cult, 312
Amon, Egyptian deity, 171, 182 Antonius Polliōn, Christian merchant of
amulets, Eumeneia (third cent. ce), 350
in Christianity, 362–3 Antony, Egyptian ascetic, 153, 154, 218, 223, 224
in Egyptian religion, 174 Vita Antonii (Life of Antony), 155, 218, 224,
in Jewish practice, 125 437
Anahit, Armenian goddess of fertility, 36 Anubis, 181, 184, 302
Ananias, Jewish merchant and friend of Izates of Apamea, Phrygian city,
Adiabene, 121 called Kibôtos (“ark”), 327–8
Anargyroi (“physicians without fees”), 362 Christian funerary inscriptions, 351–3
Anat-Bethel, Anat-Yahu, Egyptian deity(ies), at Jewish burial inscription, 328
Elephantine, 191 Noah coins, 327–8
Anath, village on the Euphrates, 82 Apamea, Syrian city on the Orontes, 72–4
Anatolia, traditional religion in, 313–15 deities, 62
post-Christian survival, 357–62 mosaics, 72–4
Anatolian mother. See Magna Mater synagogue inscription, 128
Ancamna, Gallo-Roman deity, 471 Aparnians, Scythian tribe, 30
Ancient Regulations of the Church, Christian Aper-El, vizier of Amenophis III, 189
reform proposal of Gaul, 501 Aphlad, god of Anath, 81–2
Ancyra (Ankara), temple of Augustus and at Dura-Europos, 81–2 and Fig. 9
Rome, 313 origins of name, 82
General Index 545
Aphrahat, Syriac Christian author (ca. 270–ca. Arcadia, region of the central Peloponnese,
345), 143–4, 152 mystery cults in, 304
Aphrodisias, city in Caria of Asia Minor, Archelaus, son of Herod the Great, 104, 400
God-fearers, 328–9 archisynagogai, 126
Jewish community, 9, 328, 336 Ardashir I, Sasanian king, 37–9, 48
Jewish inscription, 328–9, 331–2 “Book of the Deeds of Ardashir, son of
Aphrodite, 72, 177, 179, 299, 520 Pabag,” 38
in Egyptian religion, 177, 179 coinage, 37, 38
in Greece and Asia Minor, 299, 303 religious policies, 37–8, 48
in Near Eastern religion, 56, 58 Ares, temple in Athens, 299, 315. See also Mars
Apis bull, 174, 177, 182. See also Ptah, Serapis Argenton, Gallic city, gods of, 452
apocalyptic literature, Jewish, 90, 101–4, 106–7 Arianism, Arians, 144, 264, 277–8, 353
Apocryphon of John, Sethian gnostic work, 215 in Egypt, 185, 218–19, 224
Apollo, 62, 181, 308 in North Africa, 279–80, 282, 284
Atepomarus, 452 in Roman Gaul, 504. See also Arius
Bassoledulitanus, 452 Aristeas (pseudo-), epistle to Philocrates, 195, 198
Granius, 527 Aristobulus, Alexandrian Jewish author, 195
in Greece and Asia Minor, 299–301, 303, Aristobulus II, Hasmonean high priest
307–9, 314–15, 489 (r. 66–63 bce), 104, 399
Karneios, 306 Arius, presbyter of Alexandria (ca. 256–336),
oracular sanctuaries, 301, 307–9, 314–15, 334 218–19. See also Arianism, Arians
Patroos, 312 Arles,
Ptoios, 307 Christian community, 48–7, 498
in Roman Gaul, 451, 452. See also Delphi, Jewish community, 495
Didyma, and Claros Armenia, Armenians, 11, 28
Apollonius, Ptolemaic official (third cent. bce), conversion to Christianity, 35–6
87 Zoroastrianism, 11, 27, 35–6, 44, 48
Apollos, Alexandrian Jewish Christian, 213 Arsaces, collective name of Arsacid rulers, 30–1
Apophthegmata Patrum, 155 Arsaces I, founder of Arsacid dynasty, 28–30
Apostolic Constitutions, 127, 129 Arsacid dynasty, 27–31, 33–5, 36, 47
“Apotactics,” Christian sect, 354 origins, 27–8
Appian of Alexandria, 206 religious policies, 10–11, 47–8.
Appius Claudius Pulcher, 304 See also Parthia
Apuleius, author of Metamorphoses, 247 Arsinoe, city in the Fayyum, 175
Aquae Flaviae, Roman town of northwestern Arsinoe II, Ptolemaic queen (316–ca. 270 bce),
Spain, 518 177, 305
Aquila, Greek translation of Jewish scriptures, Artabanus V, Parthian king, 30
404 Artapanus, Jewish author (second cent. bce),
Aquileia, Jewish community at, 416 196
conversion to Christianity, 434 Artemis, 76–7, 359
Arad, Israelite temple at, 95 festivals, 359
Arae Sestianae, Roman altars in northwestern in Greece and Asia Minor, 300, 303, 312, 359
Spain, 523 in Near Eastern religion, 58, 76–7, 79
Aramaic, 26, 64, 89, 138, 141 in Roman Spain, 520
in Achaemend Persia, 23–4 temples, 77, 300, 308, 312, 359
dialects, 64, 139 “Artemisia, Oath of,” Greek papyrus from
inscriptions, 59, 323 fourth century bce, 177
Jewish use, 106, 207, 404 Arval Brethren, 378
scribes, 23–4. See also Palmyrenean, Syriac asceticism,
Aramaic Levi Document, 90, 96, 106 in Christianity, 151–6, 354, 358–9, 437–9,
messianism, 102 492–3
Aramazd, See Ahura Mazdā in Judaism, 99, 124–5. See also monasticism
546 General Index
Asclepius (Aesculapius), god of healing, 5, on African religion, 270

177–8, 182, 276, 300 on Arianism, 278
cult, 520 debates with Pelagius, 277
in Greece and Asia Minor, 300 and Manichaeism, 275
introduction to Rome, 376 on Roman religion, 374
in Roman Africa, 240, 247 Augustus Caesar, Roman emperor (r. 27 bce –14
in Roman Gaul, 452 ce), 7, 167, 211, 446
in Roman Spain, 520 administration of Italy, 423
Aslanapa, city in Cotyaeum, Christian building projects in Athens, 299
inscription from, 346–7 calendrical reforms, 385–6
Asklepieion, sanctuary in Pergamum, 301, 312 divine cult, 250, 311–12, 462, 523
Aspendos, city in Pamphylia, private Jewish altar Greek mysteries, 304
at, 330 Judaism, 400
Astarte, Near Eastern deity, 79 reformulation of public cults in Rome, 378,
Aster, Claudia, Jewish captive from Judea, 384–6, 421
epitaph in Puteoli, 407–8 religious policies in Gaul, 451–2
Astures, tribe of Spain, 516 religious policies in Spain, 7, 510, 516–17
Asturica Augusta (Astorga), Roman city of religious reforms in Roman Africa, 7,
Spain, 516 244–5
Ataecinae, indigenous deity of Spain, 526 Res Gestae, 384
Atar-ate, See Atargatis Aulerci Cenomani, deities of, 458
Atargatis (Atar-ate), Syrian deity, 56, 58–9, 89 Aulus Gellius, Latin writer and grammarian
Athamas, mythic Greek king, 71 (second cent.), 383
Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria (313–398), 216, Aurelian, Roman emperor (r. 270–275), 392
218–19, 221–2, 230, 437, 488 Aurelios Satorneinos, funerary inscription of
Christology, 216, 218–19 (242/43 ce), 347–8
and monasticism, 222, 225 Aurelius, bishop of Carthage (fifth cent.), 276
On the Incarnation of the Word , 216 Aurelius Mannos, Christian soldier of
Vita Antonii, 155, 218, 221, 223–4, 437, 492 Eumeneia, 349–50
Athena, 58, 315 Aurelius Messalas, Christian official of Phrygian
in Greece and Asia Minor, 298–9, 300, 315 Sebaste, 349
in Near Eastern religion, 72 Aurelius Phrontōn, Christian citizen of
“Polias,” 300 Eumeneia, 349
Athens, civic cults of, 298–9, 312 Ausonius, Decimius Magnus, Roman
Attalids, Hellenistic rulers of Pergamum, 301, 315 grammarian and poet (fourth cent.), 492
Attalus, Christian martyr of Gaul (second Autun (Augustodunum),
cent.), 485 altar, 449
Attalus I, Pergamene king (269 bce –197 bce; r. Christianity, 488, 494, 496
241–197 bce), 308 sanctuary, 469
Stoa of, 312 Avenches (Aventicum), suburban religious
Atticus, friend of Cicero, 304 districts and sanctuaries, 463, 466, 469
Attila, 421 Aventia, Gallo-Roman deity, 486
Attis (Attis-Men), 300–2, 348 Avesta, sacred texts of Zoroastrianism, 24–5,
mystery cult, 375, 389–90 46–7, 48
Augst (Augusta Rauricorum), suburban codification, 46–7
sanctuaries of, 463 language, 24
augures, augurs, 371, 378, 383 recitation, 25
Augusta Treverorum, Roman imperial city, 468. Avestan, Old Eastern Iranian language, 24
See also Trier Aveta, Gallo-Roman deity, 466
Augustalia , Roman festival, 385–6 Avignon, Jewish community at, 417
Augustine, theologian and bishop of Hippo Azaila, town in Spain, Romanization
(354–430), 265, 276, 390, 437, 492 of, 515
General Index 547
Ba , theological concept in Eyptian religion, 174 Bavay, altar at, 461

Ba’al Hammon (BL HMN), chief god of Beard, M., 381
Carthage, 239–41, 248 Beauvais (Caesaromagnus), suburban sanctuary
blood sacrifices, 240–3 at, 463
identified with Saturn, 242, 248, 276 Beer Sheba, Jewish altar from, 95
Baalbek, 70–1 Behbeit el-Hagar, Egyptian village in the central
Baal-Shamin, Palymyrene deity, 56, 62, 80 Delta, sanctuary of Isis at, 167
Babai the Great, Syriac Christian theologian, Bel, Mesopotamian high god, 62, 65, 74,
150, 155 78–80
Babylonia, Babylonians, 23, 28, 33–4, 42–3, 47, coinage, 78–9
48 cult, 62
Bacchanalia, festival for Bacchus, 377 Marduk-Bel, 74
Bacchus (Liber Pater), temples, 56, 65, 72, 74, 76, 78–9, 124
arrival in Rome, 5, 376 “triad of Bel,” 78
cult, 252–3, 376, 388, 390. See also Dionysus Belisarius, Byzantine general (500–565), 282
Bactria, Belti, Syrian goddess, 61
archive (fourth cent. bce), 24 Bendis, hracian deity,
secession from Seleucid rule, 28 cult, 302, 316
Baelo Claudia, Roman town of Spain, 522 identified with Artemis, 359
Baetica, Roman province of Spain, 517 Benebdjedet, Egyptian god of Mendes, 174
cults, 519–20, 523 Benjamin “of Caesarea,” Jewish prostatēs of
Baga (Roman Vaga), 238 Neapolis, 408–9
Bahram V (r. 420–438), Sasanian king, 44 Berenice, city of Cyrenaica, Jewish community
Balmarcod, Near Eastern deity, 70–1 of, 198
Balty, Jean-Charles, 73 Beroea, city of Coele-Syria, 125
barbara superstitio, accusation against Judaism, Beronice, Jewish epitaph of, 415
399 Berytus, coins from, 71–2
Bar Dāysan, Syriac Christian theologian, 12, 14, Bes, Egyptian guardian deity, 174, 181
17, 140–2, 143 images, 174, 181
Bar Kokhba, Simon (Bar Kosiba), revolt of Beth-Shean, See Scythopolis
(132–135), 104, 120, 401 Biblis, Christian martyr of Gaul, 486
Bar-Maren, deity of Hatra, cult, 80. Bickerman, E., 330–1
See also Maren, Marten Bithynia, province of northwest Asia Minor,
Barsauma, bishop of Nisibis (d. ca. 496), 149 Christianity in, 357–61
Basil of Caesarea (ca. 330–379), 154 Blandina, Christian martyr of Gaul, 486
Basilica I, “of Bellator,” 276 Boiotia, oracle of Apollo Ptoios at, 307
Basilica Celerina, 278 Bonchor, African deity, 238
Basilica Fausti, 279 Boniface, African governor (fifth cent.), 277
Basilica Honoriana, former temple of Caelestis, Bonifatius, bishop of Carthage (sixth cent.), 280
276 Bonus eventus Augustus, cult to, 524
Basilica Maiorum, 278 Book of the Dead , 183
Basilica Novarum, 278 Book of Passing through Eternity, Egyptian
Basilica Restituta, 273, 279 funerary text, 183–4
Basilides, Alexandrian Gnostic teacher (second Books of Respirations, Egyptian funerary text,
cent.), 13, 214, 215, 220 183–4
“Basket of Artemis,” Anatolian festival, 359 Bordeaux, altar at, 461
Bastet, Egyptian feline goddess, 175 Bostanci Köprü, Turkish city near Chalcedon,
Batanaea, area northeast of Jordan river, Jewish inscription from martyr chapel at, 358
community in, 117 Bourges-Avaricum, gods of, 452
“Battle-relief,” from temple of Bel at Palmyra, Bowersock, Glen, 64
74–6 and Figs. 7, 8 Bracara Augusta (Braga), Roman city
Bauer, Walter, 143 of Spain, 516
548 General Index
Brouzos, Phrygian city, funerary inscription fall to Arabs, 288

from, 346 refounding as a Roman colony, 244, 245–6
Brundisium (Brindisi), 411–12 sacrificial cult, 240–1
Buchis bull, 174. See also Montu Carthago Nova (Cartagene), 518
Buckler, W. H., 341 cartouche, hieroglyphic symbol enclosing royal
Burgundians, 504 or divine name, 167, 169, 185
Burkert, W., 388 Cassiopeia, mythic queen of Ethiopia, in Near
Byrsa, hill of ancient Carthage, 245, 250 Eastern mosaics, 72–3
Byzacena, Roman province of North Africa, 247 Cassius Longinus, Roman quaestor (first cent.
bce), 399
Cadmus, 71 Castor and Pollux, 451. See also Dioscuri
Caecilian, bishop of Carthage (fourth cent.), Catacomb of Priscilla, 427
272–3 catacombs at Rome, 427
Caelestis, Carthaginian deity, 246, 248–9, 276, Catalonia, cults of, 520
281. See also Tinnit Catania, Jewish community of, 413–14
Caesarea, city of Mauretania, 250, 409–10 Caunos, city of Caria, Samaritan (?) inscription
Caesarea, city of Palestine, 409 from, 337
Caesares, altars of, 461 Celsa, Marcia Romania, sarcophagus of, 493–4
Caesareum, in Alexandria, 211 Cerberus, 178
Caesarius, bishop of Arles (468–542), 503 Cerdo, Syrian Christian (second cent.), 426
Calabria, Jewish communities of, 413 Cereres, Roman grain goddesses, 246
Calder, W. M., 341, 345 cult in Roman Carthage, 251
calendars, Ceres, 251, 452
Athenian, 299 Cernunnos, Celtic deity, 454
Babylonian, 90 Chalcedon, monastery in rural territory of, 357
Christian, 228 Chartres (Autricum), suburban sanctuaries at,
Egyptian, 26, 172 463
Jewish, 90, 96, 117, 130, 191 Chastelard de Lardiers, sanctuary (first cent. ce)
luni-solar, 90 of, 495–6
Roman, 379, 382, 384–6, 387–8 Chi-Rho, Christian symbol, 352–3, 356
Zoroastrian, 26, 32 Childeric, Frankish king (d. 481), 503–4
Caligula, Gaius, Roman emperor (r. 37–41 ce), chiton, Greek article of clothing, 56, 269
Jewish embassy to, 198 “Christians for Christians,” inscriptions, 342,
Callinicus of Rufinianae, biographer of St. 347, 352, 363. See also Montanism
Hypatius, 357, 360. See also Hypatius, St. Christopher, St., martyrion of, 358, 362
Canopus, Egyptian town of the Nile Delta, 177 Chrysostom, John, bishop of Antioch (fourth
temple of Serapis, 173, 178 cent.) on Judaizing in Antioch, 120, 335
Cantabri, tribe of Spain, 516 Cicero, Roman orator and statesman (106–43
Cape Zephyrion, temple to Aphrodite at, 177 bce),
Capitoline temples, and Greek mystery cults, 304, 307
in Roman colonies, 245–6, 383 on Judaism, 325, 399
in Rome, 375–6 Cigoginier, district of Avenches, Gallo-Roman
triad deities, 246–7, 375, 380, 383, 524 gods of, 466–7
Cappadocian fathers, 364 Cirta, Roman city of North Africa, 238, 241, 278
Cardea, Roman deity, 374 Circumcellions, militant African Christians, 274
Carnutes, civic cults of, 478 Claros, site in southwest Asia Minor, oracular
Carteia, Roman city of Spain, 514 sanctuary at, 308–9, 314–15, 334
Carthage, 239, 250, 282 Claudius, Roman emperor (r. 41–54), dealings
Byzantine conquest, 282 with Judaism, 176–7, 193, 205, 425
Capitolium, 245–6, 250 Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150–215), 212, 214,
Donatists, 273–4 216–17
General Index 549
Clement of Rome, Elvira (ca. 300), 349, 417, 487, 528

first epistle of, 424–5 Epaone (517), 504
pseudonymous epistle of, 436 Ephesus (431, 449, 475), 148, 212, 219, 225
Cleopatra VII, 167, 169 Laodicea (363–364), 334
Clovis, Frankish king, 504 Lateran synod (649), 288
Codex-Calendar of 354, 379, 394 Nicaea (325), 14, 150, 218–19, 342, 353, 430–1,
Codex Iustinianus, 131 490
coinage, Roman, in the Roman Near East, 76–9 Orléans (511), 504
Colares (Sintr, Portugal), marble altar at, 524 Saragossa (380), 493
Collatio Legum Mosaicarum et Romanorum, Seleucia (358), 278
403 Seleucia-Ctesiphon (410), 150
Collouthos, St., Egyptian healer saint, 228 Valence (374), 496
Cologne Mani Codex, 41 Vannes (ca. 465), 498, 502–3
Commagene, Hellenistic kingdom of Asia “Creation of the Potter’s Wheel,” Egyptian
Minor, 59 festival, 172
concilium provinciae, in Roman Africa, 251 Crocodilopolis, city of the Fayyum, Jewish
Concordia, cult of, 245 community of, 193
Constans, Roman emperor (r. 337–350), 273, 498 Cronus, 303, 377. See also Saturn
Constans II, Byzantine emperor (r. 641–68), 287 cultores Dianae, 520. See also Diana
Constantine I, Roman emperor (r. 306–337), 217, Cupid, cult in Spain, 520
226, 342, 348, 351, 363, 412, 429–32, 487 Cybele, Anatolian goddess, 276, 359, 389, 455
building projects, 431–2 cult, 376, 388. See also Magna Mater
religious policies, 125, 273, 392–3, 429–31 “cycles,” literary genre in Egyptian Christianity,
Constantine II, Roman emperor (r. 337–340), 230
498 Cyprian, bishop of Carthage (200–258), 265–6,
Constantinople, 436 268, 274, 486
Constantius I, Roman emperor (r. 293–306), 498 on the “lapsi,” 271, 528
Constantius II, Roman emperor (r. 337–361), Cyril, bishop of Alexandria (ca. 376–444),
348, 490 148–50, 212, 219
Convenae, cities of, 454, 478
Coptic, 17, 212–13, 223–4 daemon, 346, 361
Corcyrus, town of Cilicia, 353, 505 Dakhla oasis, 167, 171, 182, 186, 223
Corduba (Córdoba), 514, 517, 522, 524 Damascus, city of Syria, God-fearers in, 329
Coriatana, Gallic deity, 452 Damascus Document, 97
Corinth, Damasus, bishop of Rome (366–384), 440
civic cults, 4, 299–300, 312 Damian, St., Christian physician (third cent.
refounding as a Roman colony, 245, 299–300 ce), 362
Corippus, Flavius Cresconius, North African Daniel, biblical prophet and courtier, 89
poet (sixth cent.), 285 Daphne, Syrian garden site, Jewish shrine
Cornelius, bishop of Rome, 428, 430 at, 125
Cosmas St., Christian physician (third cent.), Daskalion, monastery at, 362
362 Daskyleion, city of Asia Minor, Jewish
Cossue, indigenous deity of Spain, 526–7 settlement in, 323
Councils and synods (Christian) Daudatos, Jewish epitaph of, 413
Agde (506), 504 deaconesses, in Gaul, 503
Ariminum (359), 278 Dea Dia, Roman goddess, 377
Arles (314), 430, 487 Dead Sea Scrolls, 90, 93, 96–9, 106–7.
Carthage (256, 525, 550), 266, 280, 286 See also Qumran
Chalcedon (451), 148, 212, 219, 225, 228 Decius, Roman emperor (r. 249–251)
Constantinople (381, 553), 148, 155, 286, cartouche, 167, 185
353, 436 and Christianity, 185, 270–1, 391, 428, 430
550 General Index
Deir el-Bahari, Egyptian temple complex, 186, Diodore of Tarsus, bishop and monastic (d. ca.
211 390), 149
Deir el-Hagar, at the Dakhla Oasis, temple at, Diodorus Siculus, 167
171, 182 Diodotus I, Greek ruler of Bactria, (third cent.
Deir el-Medina, 189 bce), 28
Deir el-Qala, deities of, 70–1 Dionysia, festival of, 336
Delos, Greek island, 302 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman historian
Delphi, oracle and sanctuary at, 296, 301, 307–8, and rhetor (ca. 60 bce –after 7 bce), 373
315 Dionysus, 71, 77, 79, 177
Demeter, on coinage, 77, 79
in Egyptian religion, 177 cult, 5, 196, 300, 303
in Greece and Asia Minor, 299–300, 303, in Greece and Asia Minor, 300, 303, 310–12
306, 471 in Hellenistic Egypt, 177, 196
Hymn to, 307 in Near Eastern religion, 71, 77–9
mysteries, 304, 306, 388. See also Eleusinian in Roman North Africa, 252–3
mysteries, hesmophoria Dioscorus, bishop of Alexandria (d. 454), 148,
Demetrianus, Christian offical of Claudiopolis, 219, 225
349 Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux), 4, 177, 182
Demetrius, the “chronographer,” Dioscurides, officer in the Ptolemic court
Greek-speaking Jewish historian, 91, 196 (second cent. bce), 175–6
Demetrius I Poliorcetes (337–283 bce; r. Dirven, Lucinda, 74
294–288 bce), 304, 308, 310 dis manibus, inscription on Roman tombstones,
Demotic, Egyptian language, 5, 173, 176, 227 388, 522
dên, Pahlavi term for religion/revelation, 25 divi, cult of, 386, 523
Dendara, town on west bank of Nile, divi manes, 451
temple, 167, 171–3 divus Augustus, 523. See also Augustus, divine cult
texts, 172 Djebel Oust, village of North Africa, 276
Dēnkard , compendium of Zoroastrian Doctrina Addai, 139
theological works, 46 Dodona, oracle of Zeus at, 302, 307
Deogratias, bishop of Carthage (453–457), 279 Domitian, Roman emperor (r. 81–96), 313, 401,
Deuteronomy, curse formulae on Jewish burial 425
inscriptions from (Deut 28), 326–7, 336 domus divina , 250
Diana, goddess, 451–2, 520. See also Artemis Donatists, schismatic followers of Donatus
Diatessaron, gospel harmony of Tatian, 140–1 Magnus,
Dido, queen of Carthage, martyr prototype, 270 and Constantine, 487
Didyma, site in southwest Asia Minor, oracular demographics, 273–4
sanctuary to Apollo, 308–9, 314–16, 334 martyrs, 14, 274–5
Didymus the Blind, head of Alexandrian in Roman Africa, 14, 264, 272–5, 278, 286–7
catechetical school (ca. 313–398), 216 suppression, 275, 286–7
Dii Casses, Gallo-Roman deities, 466 Donatus Magnus, bishop of Carthage, (fourth
Dii Magifae, five Africanus deities, 239 cent. ce), 272
Dii Mauri (“Gods of the Moors”), 258 Dositheus, Egyptian Jewish courtier (third cent.
Dikaios. See Hosios bce), 8, 192–3
Dio Chrysostom, Greek rhetor (ca. 40–ca. 120), Dura-Europos, town on the Euphrates, 35, 80–2
301, 306 house-church, 427
Diocletian, Roman emperor (r. 284–303), 185, relief of Aphlad, 80–2 and Fig. 9
217, 528 synagogue, 127–8
consultation of Greek oracles, 309 Dusares, Near Eastern deity, 61
persecutions of Christians, 185, 230, 272, 309, Dush (ancient Kysis), village at Kharga Oasis,
335, 392, 430–1, 528 174
persecutions of Manichees, 275, 363, 392 temple of Osiris, 171, 182
General Index 551
Easter, controversies over dating, 14, 487 authority of, 220–1, 225–6, 271–2, 428, 436–7,
Edessa, Syrian city of northern Mesopotamia 500–2
Christianity, 12, 14–15, 138–40, 145, 149 Epona, Celtic horse goddess, 516
deities, 62 epopteia, stage in mystery cult initiation rite, 307
Edfu, Egyptian city on west bank of Nile, 168, Eratosthenes of Cyrene, Greek scholar and
174–6 mathematician (third cent. bce), 196
temple, 167, 171 Ermant (ancient Hermonthis), city of upper
temple texts, 172 Egypt, religious associations at, 186
Edict of Milan (313), 217, 429 Eshmûn, Punic deity, 240
Eissfeldt, Otto, 65 Esna, city on west bank of Nile, 167, 172, 278
El, Semitic high god, 239 Essenes, 96–9. See also Dead Sea Scrolls,
El Elyon (“God most high”), biblical divine Qumran
name, 202. See also heos Hypsistos Euchrotia, Priscillianist (fourth cent.), 493
Elam, 23 Eudocia, daughter of Valentinian III, 279–80
“Elders,” African magistrates, 237 Eugene (Awgîn, Aones), Syriac Christian monk,
Elephantine, island in Nile, 264 153–4
Jewish garrison, 93, 95, 190–1, 203 Eugenius, bishop of Carthage (481–84), 279–80
Eleusinian mysteries. See Eleusis, mystery cult Eulalia of Mérida, martyr cult of, 528–9
Eleusis, town of Attica, Eumeneia, city of Phrygia,
mystery cult, 177, 304–5, 307, 311, 315–16 Christian community, 345, 349–50
sanctuary, 296, 304 verse inscription from, 344–5
Eleutherus, bishop of Rome (174–189), 486 “Eumeneian formula,” funerary inscription type,
“Eleven Men,” African magistrates, 237 335, 345–6, 350–2
Elijah, in Jewish eschatological speculation, 103 Eumenes II, Pergamene king (r. 197–159 bce), 308
Elkasaites, Jewish-Christian group, 142 Eupolemus, Jewish historian (second cent. bce),
Elqonera (“El the creator”), deity of Palmyra, 73 105
Elvontios, Gallic deity, 452 Euric, Visigothic king (466–84), 503
Emerita Augusta, Roman capital of Lusitania, Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 263–339), 118, 139,
517, 521–2 141, 195
emperor, cult of, on Christianity in Asia Minor, 341, 343
in Greece and Asia Minor, 299, 301, 312 on Christianity in Gaul, 484–6
in Roman Africa, 250 Ecclesiastical History, 11, 15, 343, 355
in Rome, 386–7 on Jewish uprising in Egypt and North
in Spain, 523–4 Africa, 206
Emporion, Greek colony in Spain, 515 on persecutions of Christianity, 391–2, 484–6
Encratism, 141 Eustasius, bishop of Marseille (fifth cent.), 502
Endovellicus, indigenous Lusitanian deity, Evagrius of Pontus (345–399 ce), 155, 217, 224
518–20 Exaltation of Nabu, ancient Mesopotamian
Enoch, biblical patriarch, 90 text, 76
Enoch, Book of (1 Enoch), 90–1, 96, 101, 103, 106 Extremadura, province of Spain, 519
Enuma Elish, Babylonian creation epic, 74 Ezekiel, Jewish dramatist (second cent. bce),
Ephesus, 105, 196
civic cults, 300, 313, 359
Christian community, 343, 359 Fabian, bishop of Rome (236–250), martyrdom
Ephraem, Syriac theologian (ca. 306–373), 14, of, 428, 430
141, 144–7, 151–2, 154 Facundus, bishop of Hermiane (sixth cent.),
Epikteta (third cent. bce Greek woman), 285–6
religious bequest of, 303–4 author of he Defence of the hree Chapters,
Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis (ca 315–403), 125, 286
141, 355–6 Fates, the, 58
episcopacy, 13, 18, 126, 272–3 Faustina, Jewish epitaph of, 411
552 General Index
Faustina, wife of Antoninus (ca. 100–140), 304, Gabris (Gièvres), Gallo-Roman town, gods of,
312 452
Faustinus, bishop of Lyon (third cent.), 486 Gades (Cadíz), 513
Feeney, Denis, 71 Gaifman, Milette, 70
favissae, deposits of ritual objects, 89 Gaiseric, Vandal king (389–477), 277–9, 421,
Fayyum, 171 440
papyri, 172 Gaius, tradesman from Eumeneia, epitaph of,
temples, 173–4 344–5
Felix, M. Antonius, Roman procurator (first Gaius (Caligula),
cent. ce), 407 dealings with Judaism, 197–8, 407
Felix, Marcus Minucius, Latin Christian divine cult, 312
apologist and author of Octavius (130–250 Galerius, Roman emperor (r. 305–311), 351, 430
ce?), 265, 268, 270, 375 Galla Comata (“long-haired Gaul”), 446, 450
Felix of Aptunga, bishop and traditor (early Galla Placidia, Roman empress (392–450), 277
fourth cent.), 272–3 Galilee, 105, 117
Felix of Gerona, martyr cult of, 528 Gallia Lugdunensis, 484
Ferrandus, bishop of Hermiane and biographer Gallia Narbonensis (Narbonnaise), 446
of Fulgentius, 280, 285–6 Gallia Transalpina , 446, 450
Fitzwilliam Museum, 54–6, 58, 80 Gallienus, Roman emperor (r. 253–260,
Flaccus, A. Avilius, Egyptian prefect (first cent. 260–268), 391–2
ce), Jewish embassy to, 205 Gamaliel II, chief rabbi (first cent. ce), 400
Flaccus, L. Valerius, Roman proconsul of Asia Gamalielide patriarchs, 127
Minor (first cent. bce), 325, 399 Gathas, collection of Zoroastrian hymns, 44
fl amen Augusti, 251 Gaul, territorial divisions of, 446–7
fl amines, Roman priests assigned to specific Gelimer, Vandal king (r. 530–534), 281
gods, 378 Genesis Apocryphon, 106
fl amines divorum et Augustorum, 523 genii, cults of, 451, 455, 521, 526
Flavia Domitilla, wife of Flavius Clemens, 425 genius, of Roman emperor, 386
Flavian dynasty, 7, 251 Augusti, 462
imperial cult, 250–1 genius civitatis, 461, 463
religious program in Spain, 522–4 genius pagi, 474
Flavius Clemens, Roman consul exiled by Geniza, in Cairo, 97
Domitian, 425 Gennadius, Lydian Christian, dedicatory
Foedula, Christian woman of Gaul, inhumation inscription of, 354
of, 493 Gennadius, exarch of Africa (sixth cent.), 286
Forculus, Roman god of the doorway, 374 George, bishop of Alexandria (fourth cent.), 185
Fortuna, 451–2, 456 George the Monk (seventh cent.), biographer of
Augusta, 246 heodore of Sykeon, 345. See also heodore
Fortunatus, Manichee, 275 of Sykeon
Fountain at Nîmes, suburban sanctuary Gerasa, city of the Decapolis,
at, 468 coinage, 76–7, 79
“Fourth Philosophy,” Jewish revolutionary party, cults, 79
105. See also Zealots temples, 77
fravashis, Zoroastrian cult of, 33 Gerizim (Garizim) Mt., site of Samaritan
Fronto, M. Cornelius, Roman rhetor (ca. temple, 100–1, 337
100–170), 485 Germia, city of Galatia, church at, 354
Fructosa, Ennia, wife of a tribune at Lambaesis, Gerontiōn, Christian clergyman of Nicaea
victim of magical curse, 254–5 (fourth cent.), funerary inscription of, 354
Fructuosus, bishop of Tarragona, acta of, 528 Gervasius, Christian martyr of Gaul (second
Frugifer, North African deity, 246 cent.), 491, 493
Fulgentius, bishop of Ruspe (sixth cent.), 280 Giddaba, North African deity, 238
General Index 553
Gildo, Mauretanian prince (fourth cent.), 274 Hadad, Semitic deity, 56, 61
Gnomon of the Idios Logos, 168 Hadaran, Syrian deity, 62
Gnosticism, Hadrian, Roman emperor (r. 117–138), 3–4,
in Egypt, 213–17, 220, 224 76–7, 207, 305, 312, 381
in North Africa, 269 dealings with Judaism, 205–6, 403
self-legitimating strategies, 13, 220. dedication of temples, 381
See also Sethianism divine cult, 312
“God-fearers,” non-Jewish sympathizers with participation in Greek religions, 304–5, 308,
Judaism, 316
in Asia Minor, 9, 328–31, 343–4 urban re-organization in Roman Gaul, 468
connections with cult of heos Hypsistos, Hadrumetum, Phoenician colony of North
333–4 Africa, 244, 256
religious practices, 329–31 Hagne. See Kore
in Rome, 403 Hapy, Egyptian demigod of the Nile, 181
Goeleon, village of Asia Minor, Jews of, 335 Harnack, A. von, 119
Gog and Magog, war of, 103 Haroeris, Egyptian deity, 172
Gonyklisia, bubbling spring of, 348–9 Harpocrates, son of Isis, 174, 181
Christian shrine, 348–9 Harran, Mesopotamian city, 62
Gordian III, Roman emperor (r. 225–244), Hasideans, Jewish religious party (second cent.
39, 77 bce), 94
gosans, professional ministrels of Iran, 24 Hasmoneans, Jewish high priestly dynasty, 94
Gospel of Judas, 214, 220 decline, 104
Gospel of Philip, 214 political policies, 94, 118
Gospel of homas, 141, 214, 220 treaties with Rome, 398–9
Gradel, I., 386 Hathor, Egyptian goddess, 179
Gratian, Roman emperor (r. 375–383), 15, 493, temple at Dendara, 173
495, 498 Hatra, ancient city of Mesopotamia, 34, 47,
Great Mother. See Magna Mater 79–80
“Great Sabbath,” 336 gods, 65–6, 80
Greek, language, temple complex, 79–80
Christian use, 139, 212 Hatrean, Aramaic dialect, 64
in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, 5, 173, Hatshepsut, mortuary temple of, 211
175–6 conversion to a monastery, 211
Jewish use, 92, 105, 192–5, 197, 207, 404 Hauran, region of Syria,
as lingua franca , 64 judgment of Paris relief, 72
Gregory, exarch of Africa (seventh cent.), statue of military deity, 54–6 and Fig. 1
287–8 Hebrew, language, 10, 106, 207, 404, 411, 418
Gregory I, bishop of Rome (590–604), Hekhalot literature, esoteric/mystical Jewish
suppression of Donatism by, 286–7 texts, 124
Gregory of Nazianzus, Christian theologian and Helen, wife of Menelaus, 4, 182
bishop of Constantinople (329–ca. 390), Heliopolis, city of ancient Egypt, 174, 203
description of Hypsistarians by, 333 Helios, 314
Gregory haumaturgus, Christian bishop of depicted in synagogues, 123
Neocaesarea (ca. 213–ca. 270), 346 Hellenistic culture
Gregory of Tours, Christian historian and and Christianity, 16, 17, 214–17
bishop (ca. 538–594), 490 and Egyptian religion, 4–5, 175–81
Gulia Runa, presbyterissa of North Africa, 281 and Judaism, 91–2, 94
Gunderic, Vandal king (379–428), 277 and the Near East, 4, 65, 91
Gundioc, Burgundian king (d. ca. 474), 503 Helvetii, gods of, 458, 469
Gunthamund, Vandal king (r. 484–496), 280 Henig, M., 460
Gurzil, Berber deity, 285 Hephaestus, 300
554 General Index
Hera, 58, 71, 72 Honorius, Roman emperor (r. 393–423), 276–7

Heracleopolis, Egyptian city of the Fayyum, decrees affecting the Jews, 412
Jewish politeuma in, 198–9, 201 measures against Donatism, 272
Heracles (Hercules), 65, 70, 177, 240, 246, 303, Hopkins, Keith, 119
451, 513 Horace, on religious practices in Spain, 516
ancestor of the Lagids, 177 Hormizd I, Sasanian emperor, 38
cult site in Roman Spain, 513 horses, sacrifices of, in Roman Gaul, 458
iconography, 65, 70 Horus, 172, 174–5, 184, 229
identified with Melqaart, 513 representations, 174, 181
Heracleum, Egyptian town of the Delta, Hosios (Hosia) and Dikaios, Anatolian cult of,
port of, 181 314
Heraclius, Byzantine emperor (r. 610–614), 287 “house church,”
hērbed, Zoroastrian scholar-priests, 46 in Asia Minor, 347
hērbedestān, Zoroastrian priestly school, 46 in Rome, 427–8
Hermes, 56, 72, 306 Humphries, M., 428
Hermnothis (Armant), ancient Egyptian Huneric, Vandal king (r. 477–484), 279–80
town, 211 Arianism of, 279–80
Hermogenes, early Christian Platonist, 269 Hunter, David, 491
Hermopolitan cosmogony, 181 Husraw I, Sasanian monarch (r. 531–539), 45, 46
Herod the Great, 104, 117 Hydatius, bishop of Aquae Flaviae, 529
Herodes Atticus, Greek aristocrat and statesman Hymn of the Pearl , portion of Acts of homas,
(101–177), 303 141
Herodotus, on Egyptian religious practices, 172, Hymn to Demeter, Homeric hymn, 307
182–3 Hypatius, St., Bithynian monk (d. ca. 450),
Hesiod, 72 357–61
Hierapolis, city of Asia Minor, Jewish Hyperides, Athenian orator (ca. 390 bce –322
community of, 337 bce), 310
Hierapolis (Mabog), city of northern Syria, 58–9 Hypsistarians, members of cult of heos
Hieropolis, city of Asia Minor, Christian Hypsistos, 332–5
worship in, 347
Hierothesion, tomb sanctuary of Antiochus of Iamblichus, Syrian Neoplatonist (ca. 245–ca.
Commagene at Nimrud Dag, 59 325), on the oracle at Claros, 309
Hijaz, region of western Arabian peninsula, Iasos, city of Asia Minor, 310
Jewish community of, 117 Ibas, bishop of Edessa (fifth cent.), 285
Hilarion, St. (ca. 291–371), 154 Ibiza, Jewish community at, 417
Hilary, bishop of Poitiers (ca. 350–367), 490 Ibosus, Gallic deity, 452
Hilderic, Vandal king (523–530), 280–1 Idumea, Idumeans, 89, 104
Hillel the Elder, Jewish religious leader, 200 conversion to Judaism, 94
himation, garb of Serapis, 178 Iesdan, African deity, 239
Himerius, bishop of Tarragona (fourth cent.), Ignatius of Antioch, bishop of Antioch (early
437 second cent.), 345
Hippolytus of Rome, Christian theologian Ilici (Elche), Jewish community at, 417
(170–235), on the Essenes, 97 Imhotep, ancient Egyptian sage, 211
Hispalus, Cn. Cornelius, praetor peregrinus “incantation bowls,” 42–3, 126
(second cent. bce), repatriation of Jewish incesta lavatio, in Gaul, 496
community in Rome by, 399 incubation, in Egyptian religion, 173
Hispania Citerior, Roman province of Spain, Ino, daughter of Cadmus, 71. See also Leucothea
514, 517 Intarabus, Gallo-Roman deity, 466, 471
Hispania Ulterior, Roman province of Spain, interpretatio Graeca , 65, 94
514, 517 interpretatio Romana , in religions of Roman
Homer, 72 Gaul, 452
Homoeanism, Christological system, 278 Iobacchi, cult association of, 303
General Index 555
Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon (second cent.), 426, John the Almsgiver, bishop of Alexandria
485–7 (610–619), 226
Irminenwingert, Gallo-Roman temple complex, John the baptist, 103–4
468–9 martyrium of, 227
Isaac of Antioch, Syriac Christian and poet (fifth John Troglita, Byzantine general (sixth cent.),
cent. ce), 152 285
Isaac of Nineveh (Isaac the Syrian), Syriac Joseph, biblical patriarch, 92, 189, 196
homilist (d. ca. 700), 156 Joseph and Aseneth, 122, 196
Isidorus, Egyptian priest (second cent. ce), Josephus, Flavius, Jewish historian (37–ca.
insurrection led by, 169 100), 87, 91, 118–19, 121, 127, 198, 202–5,
Isidorus, gnostic teacher (second cent. ce), 220 399–400, 415
Isidorus, gymnasiarch of Alexandria (first cent. Alexandrian Judaism, 192
ce), 205 delegation to Rome, 407
Isis, 174, 185, 229, 236, 301, 452, 527 Jewish Antiquities, 94
cult, 300, 302, 315–16, 388, 428, 520 Jewish communities of Italy, 407
identified with Aphrodite, 179 Jewish parties and sects, 97–9, 105, 108
in North Africa, 247–8 Judaism in Asia Minor, 321, 323–5, 328–9,
“Pharia,” 179 333, 336
representations, 179 Josiah, religious reforms of, 204
roles, 179–80 Jovinian, Roman monk, 438, 440
temples, 167, 171 Jubilees, Qumran copies of, 96
Italica, Roman settlement in Spain, 514 Jublains (Neodunum, Noviodunum),
Iunam, African deity, 238 altar to Jupiter, 461
Iunones, 451, 452 suburban sanctuaries, 463, 469
iwan, Parthian architectural style, 80 Judah b. Ilai, on the synagogue of Alexandria,
Izates II, king of Adiabene (first cent. ce), 201
Jewish proselyte, 121 Judah the Zealot (first cent. ce), 105
Julia Severa, priestess of Acmonia (first cent. ce),
Jacob of Baradaeus (ca. 500–578), 149 support of Jewish community by, 9, 326
Jacob, bishop of Nisibis (d. 338), 143, 145 Julian, Roman emperor (r. 355–360), 145, 273,
Jacob of Serugh (ca. 451–521), Syriac theologian 498
and poet, 150, 152 Julian Saba, Syrian monastic (d. 367), 152
On the Fall of the Idols, 62 Julius, bishop of Rome (337–352), 432
“Jacobites,” followers of Jacob of Baradaeus, Julius Africanus, Christian author and courtier
149, 151 (ca. 160–240), 214
James, St., the Persian (d. 421), translatio of Julius Caesar (r. 49–44 bce), 446, 452
relics of, 343 calendrical reforms, 384–5
Jebel Chettaba, Latin inscriptions from, 238 and the Jews of Rome, 399–400
Jebel Taya (Jebel Taïa), pilgrimages to cave at, 238 priestly role, 377–8
Jerome, St., Christian priest and scholar public cults, 384–5
(ca. 347–420), 155, 438 Julius Silvanus Melanion, procurator of Spain
on Jewish Christianity, 125 (third cent.), personal pantheon of, 527
on Jews in Rome, 403 Jullian, Camille, 448, 468
on monasticism, 154, 437, 491 Juno, 71, 276, 383, 451
Jewish Christianity, in Beroea, 125 Caelestis, 276
John II, bishop of Rome (533–535), 284 in Roman pantheon, 375. See also Hera
John of Apamea (fifth cent.), 239 Jupiter, 247, 382
John of Ephesus (ca. 507–586), 357, 360 in Roman Gaul, 449, 451, 461, 462–3, 466,
John Hyrcanus I, Hasmonean high priest 468–9, 476, 478
(r. 135–104 bce), 94, 199 in Roman pantheon, 246, 375, 383
John Hyrcanus II, Hasmonean high priest in Roman Spain, 520–1, 524, 526.
(r. 67 bce), 104 See also Zeus
556 General Index
Jupiter, epithets of, Lachish, Jewish temple at, 95

Cadamius, 526 Lactantius, 430
Capitolinus, 526 Lactorates, Gallo-Roman people of Aquitania,
Dolichenus, 80 479
Ladicus, 526 Lagids. See Ptolemies
Optimus Maximus, 463 Lambafundi, settlement in Numidia, 242
Optimus Maximus Anderon, 526 Lampe, P., 428
Optimus Maximus Balmarcod, 71 Lampo, Alexandrian registrar (first cent. ce), 205
Optimus Maximus Dolichenus, 71 Lane Fox, R., 336
Optimus Maximus Heliopolitanus, 71 Laodicea, Jewish burial inscription from, 327
Justin Martyr (100–ca. 165 ), First Apology of, Laodicea Combusta, city of Phrygia, 350, 354
427 Laodike III, wife of Antiochus III, (d. ca. 191
Justinian (r. 527–565), bce), cult of, 310–11
conquest and rule of North Africa, 281–5 lapsi, 13, 221, 271–2, 428
religious policies, 131, 148, 285, 287, 342 Larasso, Gallo-Roman deity, 475
Justus, Sicilian Jew, epitaph of, 413 Lares, 451, 521
Juvenal, Roman poet (first to second cent. ce), lares viales, 527
333, 401, 516 Larocuo, indigenous deity of Spain, 526
Lateran palace, 439
Ka’ba-i Zardusht, inscription at, 38–9 Latin language,
Kalabsha, temple at, 179 in Christian Roman Africa, 266, 285
kalathos, divine head-dress, 78, 80, 178 Jewish use of, 404–5
Karanis, town of the Fayyum, 171, 174 Latin right (ius Latii), 7, 383, 525
Kasios, Mount, hilltop of Syria, 73 Latronianus, Spanish poet and Priscilliniast
Kaukon, Messenian hero, 305 (fourth cent.), 493
Kawād, Sasanian monarch (r. 488–531), 46 Laudes Domini, Christian Latin poem from
Kellis, settlement in Dakhla oasis, Gaul, 494
Manichaean community, 223 Lazarus and the rich man, parable of, 438
monastic communities, 223 Learchus, son of Athamas, 71
temple of Tutu, 186 Lecce (Lupiae), Jewish community of, 413
Kerdīr, Zoroastrian priest, 39–40 Legio VII Gemina, 526
inscriptions, 39–40 Lemovici, civic cults of, 478
persecutions of religious minorities, 40 Lemuria , Roman festival, 387
Kerkeosiris, Egyptian village of the Fayyum, Lenus Mars, deity of Roman Gaul, 452–3, 458,
temples of, 171 468, 479
ketubah, Jewish marriage contract, 207 cult, 478
Kharga Oasis, 167, 183 sanctuary, 470–4. See also Mars
Khirbet el-Kōm (biblical Makkedah), ostraca Leo I, bishop of Rome (440–61), 287, 382,
from, 89, 95 421–2, 433, 436, 440
Khnum, Egyptian deity, 172, 174 Leontopolis, Jewish settlement in Egypt, 199
Khwarezmian, East Iranian language, 24 Jewish temple, 93, 95, 196, 203–4
Kibôtos (“ark”). See Apamea Lepcis Magna, 239, 250
koinōnos, Montanist official, 355 Leto, 308
Kolophon, Ionian Greek city, sanctuary of Leucothea, name of deified Ino, 71
Apollo at, 308 lex coloniae Genetivae, 387
Kom esh-Shugafa, burial site in Alexandria, 181 lex Irnitana , 525
Kom Ombo, town on the Nile, temple texts libellus, Roman document to certify
from, 172 performance of sacrifice, 391
Kore, 527 Liber Genealogus, Donatist world chronicle
cult, 299, 303–4, 306 (fifth cent.), 274–5, 278, 287
Hagne (“the Pure One”), 306 Liber Graduum (“Book of Steps”), 153
sanctuaries, 229 Liber Pater, 247, 252
Kushanas, Indo-European peoples, coins of, 31 cult in Spain, 520–1. See also Dionysus
General Index 557
Liberatus, archdeacon of Carthage (sixth cent.), Maccabees,

285 image in early Christianity, 36, 275
Licht, Jacob, 105 revolt, 8, 92–3, 101
Licinius, Roman emperor (r. 308–324), 351, 363, Maccabees, books of
429 1 Maccabees, 105, 106
Lightfoot, J., 59 2 Maccabees, 398
Lilybaeum, 241 3 Maccabees, 8, 92, 192, 196–7
Limentinus, Roman god, 374 4 Maccabees, 321
Limestone Massif, highlands of northwest Syria, Macedonians,
temples on, 68–70 and Fig. 5 administration of Idumea, 89
Limetus, Gallic deity, 452 conquest of Egypt, 165
Limoges (Augustoritum), location of temples rule in Iran, 24
at, 463 Macurgam, African deity, 238
Lioux, village of the Vaucluse, sanctuary of Mars Macurtam, African deity, 238
at, 496 madrāshē, 141–2, 145, 152
Liria, town of Spain, 521 Magna Mater, 5, 246, 276, 316
Livy (Titius Livius), Roman historian (59 cult, 5
bce –17 ce), on Roman religion, 373–6 in Greece and Asia Minor, 300–1
Lixus, ancient Phoenician city of North Africa, introduction into Rome, 308, 376, 389
239 worship in Gaul, 451–2, 479
Logos, theology of, 216–18, 390 Magnus Maximus, Roman emperor in the West
Longinus, Cassius, critic and rhetor (213–273), (r. 383–388), 493, 498
74 Mago (Mahón), town of Minorca, Jewish
“Lord of Dances,” Near Eastern deity, 70–1 community at, 417–18
Lots of Saint Gall , Latin divinatory text, 497–8 magus, Zoroastrian priest, 32
Lots of the Saints, Latin divinatory text, 498 Maia, Roman deity, 476
Lucian of Samosata, 58–9 Malaca (Malága), 521
On the Syrian Goddess, 58–9, 61, 65 Malagbel, Syrian deity, 257–8
Lucretia, legendary Roman figure and martyr maleficium (harmful magic), 361
prototype, 270 Malikat, 56–7
Lucus Augusti (Lugo), Roman city of Spain, 516 shrine, 56–7 and Fig. 2
ludi, 382 Malta, Jewish community of, 414–15
Ludi Plebeii, 380, 382 Mamertus of Vienne, litanies of, 502
Ludi Romani, 380 Mamre, religious festival at, 125
Lugdunum Convenarum (Saint-Bertrand-de Mandaeans, 42–3
Comminges), cult of Jupiter at, 463 Mandracium, monastery in Carthage, 286
Luna, Roman deity, 524 Mandulis, Nubian god, 181
Lusitania, 515–17 Mani, founder of Manicheaism, 14
cults, 516 Manichaeism, 2, 40–2, 121, 128, 146, 388
Luxor, temple at, 185 doctrines, 142–3, 275
Lycaonia, region of Asia Minor, Christian in Egypt, 213, 223–4
funerary inscription from, 346 origins, 40–2, 142
lychnis, worn by Atargatis, 58 in Roman Africa, 275
Lycurgus, Spartan law-giver, 197 Sasanian empire, 11, 41–2
Lydia, scribal activity, 224
Christian dedication inscription, 354 suppression, 275, 363, 392
Jewish population, 323–4 and Syriac Christianity, 145–6
Lyon, Christians in, 484–6, 488 Manlia Daedalia, Christian aristocrat, 433
Lyon Confluence, altar of, 446 Manual of Discipline, Qumran document, 96–7
manteia (divination), 361
Maat, Egyptian goddess and symbol, 170 Maphrian, 151
Mabog, Syrian city, 61–2 Mar Aba, 149–50
Macarius Notaras, 156 Mar Sabas, 156
558 General Index
Marcellianum, city in southern Italy, religious Marten, deity of Hatra, cult of, 80.
festival in honor of Leucothea at, 435–6 See also Maren and Bar-Maren
Marcellus, Christian aristocrat of Gaul (late Martial, 401
fourth cent. ce) and author of De Martin, Christian holy man of Gaul, 490–1
medicamentis, 497 Martin I, bishop of Rome (640–655), 288
Marcellus, Christian Roman legionary, acta of, Martin of Tours, bishop of Tours (fourth cent.),
528 490–3, 496
Marcia Romania, fourth century Christian acts against traditional religion, 496
noblewoman of Gaul, sarcophagus of, monastic foundations, 500
493–4 martyrs, Christian, 12, 226–9, 243, 265, 269–71,
Marcian, 148 439–40
Marcianus, bishop of Arles (mid-third cent.), authority, 221, 269–71
486 cult, 12, 18, 212, 221, 227–9, 270, 439–40
Marcion of Sinope (ca. 86–160), 14, 140, 146, Donatist, 274–5
426 glorification, 14, 269–71
Marcionites, followers of Marcion, 13, 140, 146, intercessory role, 270–1
269 martyria , 226–7, 439–40
Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor (r. 161–180), martyrologies, 227
169, 304, 484 relics, 18, 221, 227–9, 439–40, 490–1
Marcus Iulius Eugenius, Christian soldier of Maruta of Tagrit (d. 649), 151
Pisidia, 350 Masada, 104–5, 108
Marcus Turbo, Roman general (second cent. Masiden, African deity, 239
ce), 206 Massidicca, African deity, 239
Marduk-Bel, Babylonian high god, battle with Matar. See Meter
Tiamat, 74. See also Bel Mater Matuta, Latin goddess, identified as
Maren, deity of Hatra, cult of, 80. Leucothea, 71
See also Marten, Bar-Maren Matilam, African deity, 238
Mari, Syriac bishop, 149 Matthew, gospel according to, 200, 438
Mark, St., 227 Matthias, apostle, 13, 220
Acts of, 227 Mattiah ben Heresh, 401, 408
and Egyptian Christianity, 13, 213, 221 Mauretania, 247
Mark Antony (83–30 bce), divine cult of, 312 Mauretania Tingitana, 248
Marneion, temple to Zeus Marnas in Gaza, Mauri, uprisings in North Africa by, 285
closure of, 359 Mauricius, Byzantine emperor (582–602), 286
Mars, 247, 380, 451–2, 468 Mauvières, inscriptions from, 452
cult, 299 Maxentius, Roman emperor (r. 306–312), 392,
rites, 380 429–2, 487
in Roman Africa, 257 Maximilla, Montanist prophetess, 356–7
in Roman Gaul, 451–2, 458, 467–8, 479, 496 Maximinus, Arian bishop (fifth cent.), 278
in Roman Pantheon, 376 Maximinus, bishop of Trier, 488
in Roman Spain, 521, 527. See also Ares, Maximus the Confessor, Byzantine theologian
Lenus-Mars (580–662), 287–8
Mars, epithets of Maximinus Daia, Roman emperor (r. 270–313),
Caisivus, 467 decrees against Christians, 221, 350
Caturix, 458, 467 Mazdak, movement of, 45–6
Cicollius, 479 Meaux (Iatinum), suburban sanctuary at, 463, 469
Mogetius, 452 Medea, children of, shrines to, 299
Mullo, 453, 458, 468, 471, 478–9 Mediomatrici, gods of, 474
Rigasimus, 452 Megaloi heoi, at Samothrace, 304–6
Sagatus, 527 diffusion of cult, 305
Ultor, 380 Melania the Elder, Christian ascetic (fourth
Marseille, Jewish community at, 495 cent.), 437
General Index 559
Melania the Younger, Life of, 438 Mithraism, 257, 388–9

Melchizedek, biblical king of Salem, 102–3 Mnevis bull, 174
Melicertes, son of Athamas, 71. Mocetes, Gallo-Roman people, 478
See also Palaemon molk (molk ‘immor, molchomor, morchomor,
Melitian schism, 221–2, 228 mochomor), Punic “regal sacrifice,”
Melitius, bishop of Lycopolis (fourth cent.), 221 240–1, 243
Melqart, Punic deity, 240 monasticism, Christianity, 15, 17–18, 151–5,
identified with Hercules, 240 212–13, 217–18, 222–6, 437–8
temple at Gades, 513 ecclesiasticalization, 224–6
memoria apostolorum, 427 forms, 222–3
Memoria Cypriani, burial site of Cyprian, 279 rules, 222–4
Memphis, 174, 177 social functions, 222–4, 229–30
temple of Serapis, 173 “Monophysites,” 149, 287–8
Men, Anatolian deity, cult of, 314, 345 Monotheletism, Christological doctrine, 287–8
Menas, St., sanctuary of, 228 Montanism, 15, 355
Menmandutes, Gallo-Roman deities, 467 in Asia Minor, 13–14, 342, 352–3, 355–7
menorah, 337 church buildings, 356–7
Menouthis, city of the Nile Delta, 186 clerical structure, 355–6
Mensa Cypriani, Christian sanctuary of North female leadership, 355–6
Africa, 278 inscriptions, 13–14, 355–6
Mercury, 246–7 problems in identification, 355–7
in Roman Gaul, 451–2, 466–9, 476. in Roman Africa, 269–70, 275
See also Hermes suppression, 357
Messalianism, Syrian ascetic movement, 153 teachings, 269
Messenia, southwest region of the Peloponnese Monte Sirai, city of Sardinia, sacrificial rites
mystery cults of, 305–6 at, 241
Meter (Matar), Phrygian goddess, 302, 313–14. Montu, Egyptian deity, 174
See also Cybele, Magna Mater Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua , 341
Metroon, temple of Rhea, 301, 312 Moses, 125, 196, 197
Metz-Divodorum, pantheon of, 475–6 Motya, city of Sicily, 241
mezuzah, 124 mummification, 174–5, 182–3
Michael, archangel, cult of, 354 adoption by Greeks, 183
Midas City, city in Phrygia, 313 of animals, 174–5
Midi, 6, 446–8 Mummius, Lucius, Roman general (second
Greek settlements in, 450 cent. bce), 299
Mihr. See Mithra Munigua, religious euergetism at, 521
Mihr-Narseh, fifth century Sasanian theologian Musaeus, priest of Marseille, lectionary and
and politician, 44–5 sacramentary of, 502
Milan, 433, 498 Muses, cult of, 303–4
Miletus, Greek city of southwestern Asia Minor, Myra, city of Lycia, 348
308 mystery cults, 6, 304–7, 388–90
Jews and Hypsistarians in, 9, 334
Millar, F., 64, 68 Nabatean, Aramaic dialect, 64
Milvian Bridge (Saxa Rubra), 392, 429 Nabu (Nebu), Syrian deity and son of
Minerva, 375–6, 383, 452, 466. See also Athena Marduk-Bel, 61–2, 74, 76
misanthropia , accusation against Judaism, 399 Exaltation of Nabu, 76
Mishnah, rabbinic text (ca. 200 ce), 129 Palmyrene temple, 74, 76
Mitchell, S., 332–4 Nag Hammadi, gnostic manuscript finds, 214,
Mithra (Mithras, Mihr), 36, 237, 247–8, 388–9, 218
495, 527 Naga, Gallo-Roman town,
Mithradates I (r. 171–132 bce), 31, 33 gods, 452
Mithraeum, at Dura-Europos, 128 nahîote, itinerant rabbis, 126–7
560 General Index
nakoros, synagogue official, 202 Nile, Egyptian god, 180–1

Nanaia, Sumerian goddess, 32 depiction, 180–1
Naqloun, monastic communities of, 223 Nîmes, site of temple dedicated to Augustus’s
Naqsh-i Rustam, 38, 39 grandsons, 461
Achaemenid remains, 39 sanctuary, 469
rock relief, 38. See also Ka’ba-i Zardusht Nisa, Parthian capital city,
Narbonensis (Narbonne), 446–8 excavations, 31
cults, 451 texts and osctraca, 31–3
Jewish community, 495 Nisibis, 144, 145
pantheon, 451, 467, 475 Christian school, 150
Narmuthis, metropolis of the Fayyum, Greek Nitria (Nitriai), region of lower Egypt,
temple hymns from, 179–80 Jewish community, 193
Narsai, Syriac poet and theologian (ca. 399–503), Noah, biblical patriarch,
150 Book of Noah, 90
Naviae, indigenous deity of Spain, 526–7 on coins from Apameia, 327–8
Nawe (Nawa), Syrian city, Jewish community priestly role, 90
of, 118 Nora, 241
Neapolis (Naples), Jewish comunity of, 408–10 North J., 374
Christianity at, 428 Notitia Galliarum, 488
Nebu. See Nabu Novatian, Christian theologian and schismatic
Nehemiah, book of, on the Tobiads, 87 (ca. 200–ca. 258), 428, 486
Nemausus, Gallo-Roman god of spring, 467 Novatianism, 15
Nemrud Dag, tomb sanctuary at, 59 in Asia Minor, 335, 342, 354–5
Neo-Platonism, 216, 390 celebration of Passover, 335
influence on Near Eastern art, 73 Nubia, 167
in Palmyrene religion, 73 Christianity in, 212
Neptune, Nuits-Saint-Georges, stele of, 454–7
in Roman African religion, 237, 247, 258–9 numen Augusti, in Roman Gaul, 451, 462, 479
in Roman Gaul, 467 Numidia, 247
Nereids, 72 Donatists in, 273–4
Neris, Gallic town, gods of, 452 Nysa. See Scythopolis
Nerius, Gallic deity, 452 Nysa, nymph, 77–8
Nero, Roman emperor (r. 54–68), 76, 407
persecutions of Christians, 424 Obadiah, book of, 323
Nestorianism, 147–8, 149–50, 219 Octavia, wife of Mark Antony, divine cult of, 311
Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople (ca. 386–ca. Octavian. See Augustus
452/3), Christology of, 147–9, 219 Odaenathus, Lucius Septimius, Palmyrene ruler
New Paphos, coastal city of Cyprus, mosaic (third cent.), 76
from, 72 Odes of Solomon, 141
“New Prophecy,” 355. See also Montanism Oenoanda, city of northern Lycia, oracular
Nicaea, city of northwest Asia Minor, 350, 353–4 inscriptions from, 309, 314–16, 334
Nicaean creed, 219 Ohrmazd. See Ahura Mazdā
Nicenes, Vandal persecution of, 279–81 Olympia, sanctuary at, 296
Nicholas, St., of Hagia Sion (sixth cent. ce), Olympic Games, 301
348, 360 Olympus, Mount, 361
Life of, 360 Oniads, Jewish priestly family, 87, 93
Nicholls, D., 54–6 Onias IV, Jewish high priest (second cent. bce),
Nicivibus (N’gaous), sacrificial cult at, 243 93
Nickelsburg, G., 101 temple, 93, 95, 203, 204. See also Leontopolis
Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain, 156 Optatus, bishop of Melevis (fourth century
Nikè, 78 ce), 273
of Samothrace, 305 Optatus, Donatist bishop of Timgad, 273–4
General Index 561
opus Africanum, architectural style, 282 Pantaleo, prefect of Africa (sixth cent.), 286
oracle tickets, Paradise of the Fathers, 155
Christian appropriation, 228 Parentalia, Roman festival, 387
in Egyptian religion, 173, 176 Parilia, Roman agricultural festival, 381
Oration of Melito the Philosopher, on ancient Paris, judgment of, 72
cult practices, 61–2 Parsis, Zoroastrians of India, 26
orgeones, cult associations, 302 Parthia (Parthava, Pahlav), empire of 27–37, 39,
Origen, Christian theologian (ca. 184–ca. 253), 47–8, 119–20, 123
16–17, 155, 214, 217–18, 221 coins, 30–1, 33
christology, 216 geography, 27–8
controversies, 224–5 influence of Greek religion, 34–5
ideology of martrydom, 221 influence on Near Eastern religion, 65
Orosius, Christian historian of Spain, 529 multi-ethnicity, 33
Orpheus, 62 origins, 31
Osiris, 171–2, 177–8, 184 political structure, 34
cult in Greece and Asia Minor, 302–3, 316 relations with Rome, 34
festivals, 172 religious beliefs and practices, 10, 30, 31–6,
temples, 171, 182 39, 47–8
Osrhoene, Mesopotamian kingdom, 34, 140 temple architecture, 80. See also Nisa, texts
Ostia, synagogue at, 400, 405–6 from. Arsacid dynasty.
Ostrogoths, 277, 280 Parthian, language, 24, 31
Otranto (Hyrdruntum), Jewish community Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity, 268, 270
of, 411 Passover,
Ovid, 72, 376, 389 Christian celebration, 335
on Roman rites and holidays, 380–1, 387 observance at Elephantine, 191
Oxyrhynchus, 206 “Passover papyrus,” from Elephantine, 191
temples, 178, 186 pater familias, genius of, 387
Patriarchate, Palestinian, 131
Pabag, father of Ardashir, 37 Paul, apostle, 13, 122, 343, 358, 407, 424–5, 427
Pachomius, Egyptian monastic (ca. 292–348), Paul of Nisibis, student of heodore of
153 Mopsuestia, 286
monastic movement, 223–5 Paulinus, Meropius Pontius, bishop of Nola,
Rule of, 155 433, 435, 492
Pacianus, bishop of Barcino, 528 Paulinus of Bordeaux, Roman official and
pagus, in Roman Gaul, 449, 453 Christian ascetic, bishop of Nola (ca.
Pahlavi, Zoroastrian scriptures in, 44 354–431), 437–8, 440, 491–2
Palaemon (name of deified Melicertes), 71, 303 Pausanias, Greek geographer (second cent. ce),
Palladius of Hellenopolis (fourth cent.), 153–5 on the Greek mystery cults, 305–6
Lausiac History, 155 Pax Augusta , 451
Palmyra, pax deorum, 376
coinage, 78–9 Peace of Apamea (188 BC), 311
inscriptions, 72 Pelagia, Vandal wife of Boniface, 277
mosaic, 72–4 Pelagius, British monk (ca. 354–ca. 435), 277
pantheon, 62, 65, 72–6, 78–9 Pepuza, town in Phrygia and center of
temples, 56, 65, 72–6 Montanism, 356–7
Palmyrenean, Aramaic dialect, 64 Pergamum, Greek city of Asia Minor,
Pammachius, Roman senator, 437–8 civic cults, 300–1, 313, 315
Pan, 177 Jewish private altar, 330
Panathenaia, Greater, 298 Périgueux, altar at, 450
Panathenaic Procession, 315 Perpetua, early Christian martyr, 268, 270.
Panium, Battle of, 93 See also Passion of Saints Perpetua and
Panopolis, Egyptian city, 223 Felicity
562 General Index
Perpetuus of Tours, bishop of Tours (458/9– Phoibammon, St., monastery, 211

488/9), 501–2 Phrygia,
Peshitta, Syriac version of the Bible, 141, 151 Christian celebration of Passover, 335
Pessinous, city in Galatia, 313 Christian inscriptions, 343
Peter, apostle, 424, 427 Jewish and Christian epitaphs, 335
apostoleion, 358 Jewish population, 323–4
basilica in Rome, 438 Phrygian Mother. See Magna Mater
Petrine authority, 436 Phua, town of North Africa, 238
Peter, bishop of Alexandria (fourth cent.), 221, phylaktēria (amulets), 362–3
437 pilgrimage, Christian, 228–9, 362, 489–91
Pharisees, 92, 94, 99–100, 129 “Pillar of the Nautae,” 456
beliefs, 99–100 Pionius, St., Christian saint of Smyrna (third
influence, 100, 107 cent.), martyrdom, of, 335, See Acta Pionii
oral tradition, 99 Piraeus, port city of Athens, cults of, 302–3
pharmakeia (witchcraft), 361 Pisa, religious decree from, 386–7
Pharos, temple of Isis at, 179 Pisentius, bishop of Coptos (569–632), 225
Philae, island on the Nubian frontier Placidia, daughter of Valentinian III, 279
diocese, 222 Plato, 195
inscriptions, 173, 179 on the festival of Bendis, 302
temple of Isis, 167, 171, 179–80, 185–6 Pliny the Elder (23–79 ce),
Philip, apostle, 355 on the gods of the Near East, 58
Philip II, Macedonian ruler (382–336 bce; r. on the gods of Spain, 520
359–336), 301, 305 Pliny the Younger (61–ca. 112 ce),
Philip V, Macedonian ruler (238 bc –179 bc), 310 on Christian worship, 347
cult, 311 correspondence with Trajan, 16, 347, 391,
Philippeion, memorial at Olympia, 301 426, 485
Philippus, Ti. Claudius, Jewish gerusiarch of on the sanctuary of Ceres, 460
Puteoli, 407 Plotina, wife of Marcus Aurelius, 348
Philo of Alexandria, Jewish philosopher (first Plotinus, Platonic philosopher
cent. ce), 16, 93–5, 118, 176, 195, 197–8, (250–270), 216
200, 202, 205, 207 Plutarch, 178
biblical interpretation, 197 on Egyptian religion, 178
delegation to Rome, 407 on the oracle at Delphi, 308
on divorce, 200 Pluto, 246, 452
influence, 197–8, 216 Poitiers (Limonum), holy places and santuaries,
on Jewish communities in Asia Minor, 325 477, 490
on Jewish sects 97, 197 polis, religion model, 394
on Jews in Italy, 400, 407 and religion in Roman Gaul, 451
Philo of Byblos, Phoenician History, 61 politarch, leader of the politeuma, 199
Philo the Elder, Jewish epic poet (second cent. politeuma , Jewish community structure in
bce), 196 Egypt, 193, 198–200
Philocalia , collection of ascetic homilies, 156 Pollux. See Castor
Philoponus, John, Aristotelian Christian Polybius, Greek historian (ca. 200–118 bce), on
(ca. 490–575), 219 Roman religion, 373
Philoxenus of Mabbug, Syriac Christian author Polycarp, of Smyrna, bishop and martyr
(d. 523), 150, 153, 155 (69–155), martyrdom of, 343
Phoenician, language, 89. See also Punic Pompeii, Jewish presence in, 406
language Pompey the Great, 104
Phoenicians, 266 violations against Jerusalem temple, 399
colonization, 237, 239, 513 Ponticus, Christian martyr of Gaul (second
religion in Africa, 237, 239–43 cent.), 486
General Index 563
Pontifex Maximus, chief priest of Roman state, Punic language, 266

378–9, 385 Punic religion. See Phoenician, religion
pontifices, 378, 383 Punic Wars, 5, 307–8, 514
Poppaea Sabina, wife of Nero, 407 Purim, celebration in Smyrna, 336
Poseidon, 71–3, 303 Puteoli (Pozzuoli),
Possidius, biographer of Augustine (fifth Christian community, 424
century), 277–8 Jewish community, 406–8
Pothinus of Lyon, bishop in Gaul (second other religious communities, 406
cent.), 485–6 Pyrrhus, patriarch of Constantinople (seventh
Praetextatus, Vettius Agorius, Roman aristocrat cent.), 288
(ca. 315–384), 440–1
Priestly Case Book, Egyptian legal compilation, Qasr el-Zayyan, settlement at Kharga Oasis,
Greek translation of, 194 temple at, 171
Priscilla, Montanist prophetess, 356 Quando stercus delatum fas (Q. St. D. F.), 380
Priscillian, Spanish ascetic and bishop of Avila Quietus, Lucius, Roman general (second cent.),
(d. 385), 15, 492–3 206
Probus, Petronius Sextus Claudius, Christian quindecimviri sacris faciundis, 371, 378
aristocrat of Rome (fourth cent.), 438 Quintilian, Roman rhetor (35–100), 401
Proconsularis, province of North Africa, 247 on the statue of Zeus at Olympia, 301
Procopius, Byzantine historian (ca. 500–565), Quirinus Augustus, ancient Roman deity, 452
277, 408 Qumran, community of 94, 96–100, 106–7.
on the Byzantine conquest of North Africa, See also Essenes. Dead Sea Scrolls
282 Qûnâ, bishop of Edessa (ca. 289–313), 143
Proserpina, 452 Quodvultdeus, bishop of Carthage (fifth cent.),
prostatēs, synagogue director, 202 249, 279
Protasius, Christian martyr of Gaul (second on traditional African religion, 249, 276
cent.), 491, 493 Qur’an, on Judaism, 124, 131
Proteurythmus, Greek deity, 303
Prudentius, Aurelius, Christian poet of Spain Rabbinic Judaism, 92–3, 97–8, 100, 116, 122–6,
(348–ca. 413) 128–32, 204
on Christian martyr cults, 528 influence, 116, 129–31
on Roman religion, 375 literature, 90–2, 123–6, 129
Psalms of Solomon, 102, 106 origins, 129–30
Ptah, chief deity of Memphis, 174 on post-70 sacrifices, 330–1
Ptolemaia, festival in Alexandria, 177 rabbinization, 129–31
Ptolemies, 6, 87 Rabbula, bishop of Edessa (d. 435), 149
religious policies, 165–7, 169–70, 177–8 Ramsay, William Mitchell, 341, 344–5
Ptolemy I Soter (r. 305–ca. 283 bce), 166, 169, 192 Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia , 341
and Serapis cult, 178 Ramses II (r. ca. 1279–1212 bce), 190
Ptolemy II Philadelphus (r. 283 bce –246 bce), Ravenna, 439, 498
87, 169, 171, 177, 192, 305 Jewish community at, 416
and Egyptian Judaism, 194–5 Re, Egyptian sun god, 170, 174
Ptolemy III Euergetes (r. 246–222 bce), 192 “Red Hall,” sanctuary to Isis and Serapis, 301
Ptolemy IV Philopator (r. 221–205 bce), 196 Redones,
adept of Dionysus, 177 deities, 468, 471
Ptolemy V Epiphanes (r. 204–181 bce), 93, 170 public cults, 452, 478
Ptolemy VI Philometer, 195, 204 Regulus, Marcus Atilius, Roman general (third
Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II (r. 170–163, 144–116 cent. bce), 270
bce), 195, 203 Reims,
Ptolemy XII, 167 altar of the Caesares, 461
Puglia, Jewish communities of, 411–12 Christian community, 488
564 General Index
Renentutet-hermuthis, 179 Samaritans,

Rennes (Condate), temple inscriptions from, in Asia Minor, 337
452–3, 468, 471 religious beliefs, 100–1, 124
Reparatus, bishop of Carthage (sixth cent.), 286 sects, 101
Rhea, 58 split with Judeans, 95
Rhodocles Samaritas, inscription from Rhodos, Samothrace, island of, mystery cult at, 305
337 Sanballat, Samaritan leader and official (fifth
Ritona, Gallo-Roman deity, 466 cent. bce), 87, 93
Rives, J. B., 384, 519 Sanballat, Samaritan ruler (fourth cent. bce), 94
Roma, goddess, Sanctus, Christian martyr of Gaul, 486
Aeterna, 381 Saqqara, burial ground south of Cairo, 175
cult, 311–12, 386, 524 Sarapis. See Serapis
temples, 462 Sardinia, Jewish community at, 415–16
Romulus, 387 Sardis, capital city of Lydia,
Romulus Augustulus, Roman empire Christian community, 331–2
(r. 475–476), 503 Jewish community, 9, 95, 323, 331–2, 336, 343
Rostovteff, M., 64 synagogue, 331–2, 343
Rousselle, A., 496 temple of Artemis, 312
Rufinianae, estate in the territory of Chalcedon, Sartre, M., 64
Christian monastery at, 358, 359 Sasanian empire, 1, 36–43
Rufinus, Flavius, Praetorian Prefect of Oriens consolidation of Zoroastrianism, 10–11, 37–9,
(392–395), 358 48–9, 120
Rufinus of Aquileia, Christian monk and religious communities, 41–4, 48, 117–18, 143
historian (fourth cent. ce), 436–7 religious policies, 10–11, 36–43, 48–9
on Egyptian religion, 186 sources, 43
Historia Monachorum, 155 Saturn,
Rule of the Community, Qumran document, depictions, 249
96, 98 Dominus, 249
cosmological dualism in, 98. See also Manual Frugifer, 249
of Discipline, Dead Sea Scrolls identified with Ba’al Hammon, 248–9
Rusticus, bishop of Narbonne (427–460), in Roman Africa, 242–3, 248–9, 270
building projects, 500 in Roman Gaul, 452
Senex, 249. See also Cronus
Sabbath observance, 191, 336 Saturninus, proconsul of North Africa (second
Sabina, Roman empress (83–137), 304 cent.), 266
Sabratha, city of Tripolitania, 244 Scillitan martyrs, 12, 266
Sadducees, Jewish religious party, 92, 94, 99 basilica, 278
Sadiq, son of Eleazar, Jewish priest, inscription scribes, Aramaic, 23
in temple of Bel, 124 Scythopolis (Nysa, Beth-Shean), city of the
Saguntum, 515 Decapolis, 77–8
cults, 520 coinage, 77–9
Sahdona, Syrian monk and theologian (fourth cults, 77–8
cent.), 156 temples, 77–9
Sains-du-Nord (city of the Nervii), vase from, Sebaste, city of Phrygia, 349, 356
459 and Fig. 21 Sebastoi, cult of, in Ephesus, 313.
Saint-Ambroix, Gallic city, gods of, 452 See also Emperor cult
Saint-Laurent-du-Pont, temple of Quirinius Second Punic War, 514
Augustus at, 452 Second Sophistic, 78, 247
Sakas, Scythian tribe(s), 30, 32 Secundus, Titus Flavius, official of Roman
Salome, Hasmonean queen (first cent. bce), 100 Africa (first cent. ce), mausoleum of, 253–4
Salvian, Gallican historian (ca. 400–480), 276, Sefer Yosippon, 406
281 Selamanes, Semitic deity, 69
General Index 565
Seleucids, dynasty of Shepherd of Hermas, 426

rule in Iran, 24 Sibylline oracles, 5, 308, 321, 382
rule of Judea, 87, 93 Sicily, Jewish communities of, 413–15
Seleucus I Nicator (r. 305–281 bce) , 138 Sidonius, bishop of Clermont (fifth cent.), 504
Sens (Agedincum), Sigiswulf, Gothic general (fifth cent.), 278
altars of the Caesares, 461 Sikimitai, as a designation of Samaritans, 337
suburban sanctuaries, 463, 469 Silius Italicus, Roman orator and poet (first cent.
Sepharad, 323 ce), on religious practices in Spain, 516
identified as Sardis, 323 Silvanus, Roman deity, 247, 452, 467
Sepher harazim (Book of Mysteries), 126 Simeon b. Gamaliel, on the Septuagint, 194
septemviri epulones, 378–9 Simitthu (Chemtou), city of Roman Africa,
Septimius Severus, Roman emperor (145–211; r. 266
193–211), 140, 357, 524 Simois, Syrian river-god, 56
Septuagint, 193–5, 207, 404 Simon, Hasmonean high priest (r. 142–135 bce),
Christian use of, 343 94
judicial function, 8, 194, 199 Simon, M., 335–6
origins of, 193–4 Simplex, L. Marcius, temple at hugga built
standing of, 194–5 by, 246
Serapeum (Serapeion), temple in Alexandria, Sin, Mesopotamian moon-god, 62
227 Sinope, 178
closure, 186, 226, 359 Siricius, bishop of Rome (384–399), 437
Serapis (Osor-Hapi, Oserapis), 527 Siwah, oasis in Egypt, 310
in Alexandria, 177–8 Sixtus II, bishop of Rome (257–258), 391
cult in Greece and Asia Minor, 300–2, 315 Smith, William Robertson, 64–5
cult in Roman Africa, 257 Smyrna,
depictions, 173, 177–8, 181–2 Christian amulets, 362–3
polieus, 178 Christian community, 343
roles, 177–8 Church, 363
temples, 173, 186, 301 Jewish community, 335–6
Sertorius, Roman military leader in Spain (ca. Sobek, Egyptian crocodile god,
126 bc –73 bc) , 515–16 temples, 172
Servus, St. Church of, basilica in Sufetula, 276 wearing solar crown, 181
Sessorian palace, 439 Socnopaei Nesus, Egyptian village of the
Sethianism, Gnostic group, 215 Fayyum, 176
Settae (Saettae), city of Lydia, inscription from, Socnopaeus, Egyptian crococile god, 176
345 Socrates of Constantinople, ecclesiastical
Severan dynasty, 16, 185 historian (b. ca. 380), 353
seviri Augustales, 251, 524 Sogdian, Middle Iranian language, 24
Severus, bishop of Antioch (512–518), 148, 150, Soknebtunis, Egyptian crocodile god, temple
225–6 of, 171
Severus, bishop of Minorca, 417 Sol Aeternus, 524
Severus Alexander, Roman emperor (r. 222–235), Sol Invictus, 247, 392
17 agon Solis, 392
Seyrig, H., 56 Solimara, Gallic deity, 452
Shadrapha (Shadrapa), Punic deity, 240, 252 Solomon, 196
Shapur I, Sasanian emperor (r. ca. 240–ca. 270), name in amulets, 362–3
38–9 Solomon, Byzantine general (sixth cent. ce),
Shechem, holy city of Samaritans, 101 285, 362
Shema (Deut 6:4–9), apotropaic understanding Solon, Athenian law-giver, 197
of, 124 “Son of man,” Jewish redeemer figure, 103
Shenoute, Egyptian monastic leader (d. ca. 466), Songs of Sabbath Sacrifice, Qumran document,
223–5, 228–9 99
566 General Index
Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem (634–639), tabellae defixionum (curse tablets), from Roman
287 Africa, 255–6
Souconna, Gallic deity, 452 Tacitus, 374–5, 460–1
Sozomen, ecclesiastical historian (ca. 400–ca. on Christianity, 424–6
450), 153–4, 353 on Gallic religion, 452
Spain, geography of, 511 on Judaism, 400–1
cultural zones, 511–14 Taffeh, Egyptian village south of Aswan, temple
Greek colonies, 513 at, 186
Spoletum, city of central Italy, prodigy at, 371, Talmud, Babylonian, 26, 117–18, 123, 125, 129–30
376, 394 Tanit. See Tinnit
Srir, sanctuary and reliefs at, 68 Tansar (Tosar), Zoroastrian high priest, Letter
Stakhr (Istakr), principality in southwest Iran, of, 37
37 Taranto, Jewish community of, 413
Stark, Rodney, 119 targum, translation/paraphrase of Jewish
Statuta ecclesiae antiqua, Christian canons of scriptures, 116, 194
discipline, 503–4 Tarraconensis, Roman province of Spain, 514
Stephania, funerary inscription from Ankara, imperial cult, 520, 523–4
356 Tarragona (Tarraco), 514, 522–4
Story of Satni, world of the dead described in, Christian community, 529
184 imperial cult, 523–4, 529
Strabo, Greek geographer, 58, 175, 193, 327, Tarsus, city of Asia Minor, Samaritan synagogue
515–16 in, 337
Sucellus, Gallic deity, 452 Tatian, Syrian Christian (ca. 120–180), 17, 140.
Suda, Byzantine encyclopedia, 73 See also Diatessaron
Suetonius, 424 taurobolium, bull sacrifice, 389, 449, 524
Sufetula, city of Roman Africa, 276, 288 Taxo, Levitical figure in Testament of Moses, 105
Suggan, African deity, 239 “Teacher of Righteousness,” leader of Qumran
Sulcis, tophet at, 241 community, 100
Sulpicius Severus (ca. 363–ca. 425), Christian Teachings of Silvanus, Nag Hammadi text, 217
chronicler and hagiographer from Gaul, Tébessa (heveste), 239
484, 490–2 Tebtunis, ancient Egyptian city of the Fayyum,
on Martin of Tours, 496 temple at, 171
Symmachus, Quintus Aurelius, Roman Telephos, mythical founder of Pergamum, cult
statesman (ca. 340–402), 371–2, 376, to, 300
393–4, 435 Telesterion, great hall at Eleusis, 304–5
synagogue(s), 122–3, 126–9, 201–3, 331, 343 Tell el-Yahudiyeh, archaeological cite
for asylum-seekers, 203 in the eastern Delta, 176, 203.
decoration of, 123, 413 See also Leontopolis
dedicatory inscriptions, 128, 201–2 Temple, in Jerusalem, 93, 95–6, 100, 191, 399
donations to, 328 centrality, 10, 95–6, 104, 108, 127–8, 190–1,
epigraphic evidence for, 336, 413 329–31
liturgy, 129 destruction, 1, 10, 95, 108, 124–5, 127
non-Jewish support of, 9, 326, 328–9 monetary support, 127, 325, 336, 399
offices of, 336 Temple Scroll , Qumran document, 90
worship, 202. See also Sardis, synagogue at Teos, city of Asia Minor, Hellenistic ruler cult
Syracuse, in, 310–11
Christian community, 428–9 Tertullian, Quintus Septimius Florens
Jewish community, 413–14 Tertullianus (ca. 155–230), Christian writer
Syriac (language), 17, 138–9, 156 of North Africa, 12, 16–17, 61, 242, 246,
translations of Christian Greek writings, 265, 266–70
146–8, 155–6 Testament of Moses, 105
General Index 567
tetragrammaton, name of the God of Israel, Tiamat, chaos monster of Babylonian epic, 74
190, 202 Tiberius, Roman emperor (r. 14 ce –37 ce), 165,
harros, ancient city of Sardinia, 241 400, 449, 523
heater of Dionysus, 312 Tiberius Julius Alexander, prefect of Egypt,
hemistius, Greek rhetor (ca. 317–385), 353 nephew of Philo (first cent. ce), 205
heodore of Aquileia, basilica of, 429 Tiberius Julius Lupus, Egyptian prefect (first
heodore of Mopsuestia (ca. 350–428), 148–50, cent. ce), 204
285–6 Timgad, Donatist community at, 273
heodore of Sykeon, St. (d. 613), 335, 345–6, 360 Tingitania, Roman province of North Africa,
heodoret of Cyrrhus, Christian theologian 528
and historian (ca. 393–ca. 460), 149, 153–4, Tinnit (Tinnit Pene Ba’al; TNT PN BA’AL,
285, 353 Tanit), consort of Ba’al Hammon, 239–41,
heodoric, Ostrogothic king (496–523), 280, 249, 276
410, 416 Tir, scribe of the gods in Zoroastrianism, 36
heodosius, Roman emperor (r. 379–395), 498 Tiridates, Parthian king (third cent. bce), 30
religious edicts, 186, 276, 360, 410 Tithoes. See Tutu
heodotus, inscription of, 202 Titus, Roman emperor (r. 79–81 ce), 400, 411
heophanes Confessor, Byzantine chronicler (ca. Tobiads, prominent Jewish family (third cent.
758–ca. 817), on Christian celebration of bce), 87–8, 91–3
Passover, 335 Tobit, book of, matrimonial practice in, 200
heophilus, bishop of Alexandria (385–412), 186, tophet, Punic sacrificial site, 241, 243–4
224–5 Torah,
heos Balmarkōs, Near Eastern deity, 70. authority, 89, 99
See also “Lord of Dances” in synagogue service, 202
heos Hypsistos, 390 translation into Greek, 130, 193–6.
cult, 9, 314, 332–3 See also Septuagint
divine name in Jewish usage, 202, 332. Tosepta, third century rabbinic text, 124
See also Hypsistarians Tours, city of Gaul, Christian community of,
heosebeis, heoseboumenoi. See God-fearers 490
heotokos, 147–8 Toutain, Jules, 458
cult in North Africa, 284 traditores, 430
hera, Greek island, inscription from (third Trajan, Roman emperor (r. 98–117), 16, 119–20,
cent. bce), 303 171, 347
herapeutae, Egyptian Jewish ascetic sect, 98 cult, 301, 313, 316
herasia, wife of Paulinus of Bordeaux, 492 Jewish uprisings, 120, 177, 205–7
hesmophoria, festival in honor of Demeter, 177 policy toward Christianity, 391, 485
heudas (Todos), leader of Jewish community Transpadani, enfranchisement of, 423
in Rome (first cent. ce), 400 Trastevere, Jewish population in, 400
heveste. See Tébessa Tres Provinciae Galliae, 446–7
thiasoi, cult or funeral associations, 203, 302 Treveri,
hibilis, Roman town in east-central Algeria, deities, 458, 468, 474
ritual pilgrimages, 238 public cults, 452, 468–9
homas, apostle, 139 Trier (Augusta Treverorum), 466 and Fig. 24
hoth, Egyptian deity, 175, 184 altar of the Caesares, 481
hracians, religious practices in Attica, 302 bulla, 498–9 and Fig. 33
hrasamund, Vandal king (496–523), 280 Christian community, 488–9, 493–4, 498
“hree Chapters,” Christological controversy gods, 468
over, 285 suburban religious districts, 463, 466, 469.
huburbo Maius (mod. Tebourba), 247, 251, 276 See also Altbachtal
hugga (mod. Dougga), Roman city of North Tripolitania, 239, 244, 247–8, 250
Africa, 246, 251 private support of religious shrines, 252
568 General Index
Turronius Cladus, “archisynagogus,” 326 Verticordia, 381. See also Aphrodite

Turronius Rapo, priest of the Roman imperial Verethraghna. See Vahagn
cult (first cent. ce), 326 Vernais, pantheon of, 452
Tutela, Gallo-Roman deity, 452 Vertault, sacrificial rites at, 457–8
Tutu (Tithoes), sphinx god, 174, 181 Vespasian, Roman emperor (r. 69–79), 204, 510,
temple at Kellis, 186 522, 525
Tychē, goddess of fortune, 77, 179 reorganization of imperial cult, 251, 522–3
Tymion, town in Phrygia and center of Vesta, Roman goddess of the communal hearth,
Montanism, 357 377, 380–1
Typhon, monstrous creature of Greek Vestal Virgins, 376, 378, 382
mythology, 74 Vestalia , Roman festival in honor of Vesta, 380
Vettilla Paculi, financing of temple of Mars in
Ulisi, town of Roman Spain, 521 Emerita, 521
Urbicius, Roman cubicularius (fifth cent.), 358 Vettius Agorius Praetextatus, Praetorian Prefect
Ûrhāy, 138. See Edessa (fourth cent.), epitaph of, 435
Urso (Osuna), ancient Iberian city, Charter of, Vetius Epagathus, Christian martyr of Gaul
383, 525 (second cent.), 486
‘Uzayr (biblical Ezra), in the Qu’ran, 124 Veturia Paulla, Jewish proselyte in Rome, 403
Vetus Latina (Old Latin Bible), 266
Vacuna, ancient Roman deity, 381 Victor, bishop of Rome (188–199), 486
Vahagn, Zoroastrian god of victory, 36 Victor, bishop of Tunnuna (sixth cent.), 281
Valens, Roman emperor (r. 364–378), 277 Victor of Vita, African bishop (fifth cent.),
Valentinian I, Roman emperor (r. 364–375), 498 278–9, 281, 287
Valentinian II, Roman emperor (r. 375–392), Victory (Victoria), 246, 452
412, 498 altar in Rome, 393, 435
Valentinian III, Roman emperor (r. 425–455), Victricius, bishop of Rouen (ca. 330–ca. 407),
279 491
Valentinus, Gnostic teacher, 214, 215, 426 vicus, in Roman Gaul, 449, 451, 478
Valentinianism, 269 Vicus Alexandrinorum, Alexandrian community
Valerian, Roman emperor (r. 253–260) of Neapolis, 408
defeated by Shapur, 39 Jewish presence in, 408
persecution of Christianity, 185, 391 Vienne,
Valerius Maximus, Roman historian and Christian community, 484, 488, 493
moralist (first cent. ce), 399 Gallo-Roman cults, 452
Valerius Paulinus, Egyptian prefect (first cent. Vigilantius of Calagurris, Christian priest of
ce), 204 southern Gaul (fl. ca. 400), 491
Vandals, 265, 285, 408 Vigilius, bishop of Rome (537–555), 286
Arian leanings, 277–8 Vigilius, bishop of Trent (fourth cent.), 435
invasion of North Africa, 277–82 Vihinam, African deity, 239
Varro, M. Terentius, Roman scholar and Vincentius of Valencia, matryr cult of, 528
antiquarian (116 bc –27 bc), Vishtaspa, patron king of Zarathustra, 40
on Judaism, 399 Visigoths, 277, 503, 504
on Roman religion, 374 Vitruvius, Roman writer and architect (first
Varsissima, African deity, 238 cent. bc), 383
Venerius, bishop of Marseille (431–452), 500, 502 Volubilis, North African Roman settlement, 239
Venosa (Venusia), city of southern Italy, Jewish Vorio, Gallo-Roman deity, 466
community in, 410–11 Vulcan, 451
Venus, 6, 300, 377, 381–2, 452, 520
Erycina, 382 Wadi Daliyeh, papyri collection, bulla from, 94
Felix, 381–2 Wederath-Belginum, deities of, 474
temples of, 381–3 Western Oasis, 167
General Index 569
Wiraz, book of, Zoroastrian religious text, 40 cult in Asia Greece and Minor, 299, 301,
Wisdom of Jesus ben Sira, Jewish sapiential 313–14
text, 106 iconography, 72, 301
“Worm, the,” evil creature defeated by in Near Eastern religion, 56, 58, 67, 68–9,
Ardashir, 37 72, 76–9
oracle at Dodona, 302, 307
Xenephyris, Egyptian town of the Nile Delta, temples of, 68, 77–9, 288–9, 312, 314, 316
Jewish community of, 193 Zeus, epithets of, 67, 68–9, 313
“Agoraios,” 299
Yarhibol, Palmyrene solar deity, 78, 79 “Akraios,” 77, 79
Yemen, Jewish communities in, 117, 129 “Ammon,” 310
Yüreme, site in Galatia, Christian funerary “Baitokēkē,” 67
inscription from, 354 “Bōmos,” 68–9 and Fig. 5
“Damaskēnos,” 67
Zadokites, Jewish priestly family, 100, 102 “Madbachos,” 69
Zand, corpus of Zoroastrian sacred texts, 25, “Olympios,” 288–9, 312, 316
45–7 “Philios,” 301, 316
Zealots, Jewish militants, 104, 105 “Tourbarachos,” 68
Zechariah, biblical prophet, 102 Zoroaster (Zarathustra, Zaradusta), 25, 40, 62
Zeno, Byzantine emperor (r. 474–475, 476–491), Zoroastrianism, 24–7, 34–40, 45–9
149, 279 calendar, 26–7, 32
Zeno, third century BCE Jewish functionary, religious rites, 25–6, 38, 45
87, 91–2 sacred texts, 24–5, 46–7
Zenobia, queen of Palmyra (240–ca. 274), 74, sources for, 25–8. See also Parthia, empire of.
76, 78 Sasanian empire. Mazdak, movement of.
Zephyrion, cape of, 177 Zurvanism
Zerubbabel, governor of Persian province of Zrangiana (Drangiana, mod. Seistan), province
Judah (sixth cent. bce), 89 of eastern Iran, 34
Zeus, 67, 74, 79, 177, 182, 301, 303, 312–13 Zurvāndād, son of Mihr-Narseh, 44–5
coinage, 79 Zurvanism, variety of Zoroastrianism, 44–5, 98
INDEX OF CITATIONS
Section I (“Literary Sources”), which includes legal texts, is subdivided into the following categories:
Greek and Roman, Biblical, Jewish, Christian, Manichaean, and Arabic. Section II (“Non-literary
Sources”) encompasses, among other things, coins, epitaphs, inscriptions, monuments, and amulets.
Citations of works in individual chapters may occasionally depart from the conventions used in the
index. Abbreviations are enclosed in parentheses.
i. literary sources
Greek and Roman
Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae Cassius Dio, Historia Romana (Cass. Dio)
(Amm. Marc.) 57.10 165
22.11.3–10 185 67.14 425
27.3.14 441 Cicero
Apollodorus, Bibliotheca (Bibl.) De legibus (Leg.)
2.4.3 72, n. 40 2.14.26 307
Appian Pro Balbo (Pro Balb.)
Bella civilia (Bell. civ.) 43 241, n. 22
1.110 515, n. 7 Pro Flacco (Flac.)
2.90 206 28.68 325
6.2 513, n. 3 Clearchus
6.65 513, n. 3 ap. Jos. Ag. Ap. 1.179–82 323, n. 8
Hannibalica (Hann.) Cornelius Labeo, De oraculo Apollinis
5.27 308, n. 46 Clarii, ed. Mastandrea
Arrian, Anabasis (Anab.) fr. 18 334, n. 60
2.16.4 513, n. 3
Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae (Deipn.) Damascius, Life of Isidore
6.253 310, n. 60 ap. Photius, Bibliotheca, cod. 242
Augustus, Res Gestae (348a–b) 69, n. 30
20.4 384 Dio Chrysostom
Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights Or. 12.25 301
(Noct. att.) Or. 12.33 306
15.22 515, n. 7 Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca
16.13.8–9 383 1.21.7 167
571
Duris, in FGrHist 76 Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Meditations

F 71 309, n. 55 (M. Ant.)
F 76 309, n. 55 3.3 352, n. 61
Fontes Iuris Romani Anteiustiniani (FIRA) Oracula Sibyllina (Or. Sib.)

II, 544–89 392, n. 54 I–II 321, n. 4
Frontinus, Strategemata (Strat.) Ovid, Fasti (Fast.)
1.11.13 515, n. 7 4.221–44 389
4.317 376
Herodotus, Histories (Hdt.) 5.419–93 387
2.61 172 6.249–318 381, n. 16
2.86–9 183
6.38 309, n. 55 Panegyrici Latini (Pan. Lat.)
8.144 296, n. 2 VIII, 5 480
Horace, Carmina (Carm.) Paulus, Julius, Sententiae
3.4.34 516, n. 9 5.22.3–4 119, n. 15
Hyperides, Epitaphios Pausanias, Graeciae descriptio (Paus.)
8.21–2 310, n. 59 1.44.7–8 71, n. 36
2.1.3 71, n. 36
Iamblichus, On the Mysteries 2.3.7 300, n. 12
3.11 309, n. 50 4.1.5–8 305, n. 42
Isocrates, Panegyricus (Paneg.) 4.33.4–6 306, n. 43
28–31 304, n. 34 5.20.9 312, n. 70
Philostratus, Vita Apollonii (Vit. Apoll.)
Julian, Against the Galileans (Gal .) 2.33.2 513, n. 3
305D–306A 124, n. 25 5.4–5 513, n. 3
351D 124, n. 25 Plato, Republic
Julius Caesar, Bellum gallicum 1 302
6.17 452 Pliny the Elder, Natural History (Nat.)
Justin, Epitome of the Philippic History of 4.20.111 523, n. 33
Pompeius Trogus 5.15.73 97
41.5.6 31, n. 22 5.19.81 58–9, n. 6
Juvenal, Satirae (Juv. Sat.) 5.29.106 327, n. 24
8.156 516, n. 9 16.79 520, n. 22
14.96–106 333 Pliny the Younger, Epistles (Ep.)
9.39 460
Livy, Ab urbe condita 10.97 391, 485
29.11.5–6 308, n. 46 96.8 426
29.11.7 376 Plutarch
29.14.10–14 376 Alexander (Alex.)
39 376, n. 10 2.2 305, n. 40
Ps. Longinus, On the Sublime De Iside et Osiride (Is. Os.)
9,9 194 361F–362E 178
Lucian Demetrius (Demetr.)
Bis accusatus (Bis. acc.) 13 308, n. 47
27 62, n. 12 26 304, n. 35
De dea Syria (Syr. d.) Fabius Maximus (Fab.)
31 65 18.3 308, n. 46
32 58, n. 5 Obsolescence of Oracles
5.408–38 308, n. 48
Macrobius, Saturnalia (Sat.) Sertorius (Sert.)
1.18.19–20 334, n. 60 11 515, n. 7
Polybius, Histories Nero

6.53–4 387, n. 40 16 424, 426
Pomponius Mela, De Situ Orbis (Mela) Tiberius (Tib.)
3.13 523, n. 33 36 400
3.46 513, n. 3 Symmachus, Quintus Aurelius
Ptolemy, Geographia (Geogr.) Epistle (Ep.)
2.6.6 523, n. 33 1.49 371, n. 2
Relationes (Rel .)
Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria (Inst.) 3 435
12.10.9 301
Tacitus
Scriptores Historiae Augustae (SHA) Agricola (Agr.)
Hadrian 5.8 120, n. 18 21 461
Servius, Commentary on the Aeneid Annales (Ann.)
(Serv. ad Aen.) 1.78 523, n. 34
8.636 381 2.85 400
Silius Italicus, Punica (Sil. Ital.) 4.37 523, n. 35
3.14 513, n. 3 4.55–6 312, n. 69
3.360 516, n. 9 15.44 424, 425
Statius, hebaid (heb.) Germania (Germ.)
9.330 71, n. 36 43 452
Strabo, Geographica Historiae (Hist.)
3.2.151 515, n. 6 5.5 401
3.3.6 516, n. 8 hucydides, Historiae (huc.)
12.8.13 327 5.11 309, n. 55
16.1.27 58, n. 6
16.2.7 74, n. 46 Valerius Maximus, Facta et dicta memorabilia
17.38 175 (Val. Max.)
ap. Jos. Ant. 14.117 193 1.2.5 515, n. 7
Suetonius Varro,
Divus Augustus (Aug.) ap. Augustine, Civ. 4.8 374
32 400 ap. Augustine, Civ. 4.31 399
Divus Claudius (Claud.) Vitruvius, De Architectura (De arch.)
25.4 425 1.7.1 383
Divus Julius (Jul.)
40.1 385 Xenophon, Hellenica (Hell .)
42 400 6.3.4–6 304, n. 34
84.5 400
Biblical
Old Testament (with apocryphal/ Leviticus (Lev)

deutero-canonical books) 25:35–37 201
Genesis (Gen) Numbers
1:3 194 24:17–20 102
9:27 194 Deuteronomy (Deut)
14:18–20 102, 202 6:4–9 124
Exodus (Exod) 7:14 124
3:14 330, n. 38 7:15 124
22:24 201 22:23–29 (LXX) 199
Deuteronomy (Deut) (cont.) 3:25 494

23:20–21 201 3:28 92, n. 24
24:1 (LXX) 199 4:31–34 92, n. 24
28:5 124 6:27–28 92, n. 24
28:22 327 7 103, 106,
28:28–29 327 n. 87
Joshua (Josh) 7:9 103
10:10,16,21 89, n. 4 7:22–28 103
12:16 89, n. 4 Obadiah
15:41 89, n. 4 20 323
1 Samuel Zechariah
25:29 413 4:16 102
2 Samuel 5:1–4 336, n. 74
7:13 102 6:11–12 102
1 Kings Malachi
3:16–28 196 3:23 103
2 Kings 1 Esdras
17 95 3:1–5:6 89
23:9 204 1 Maccabees (1 Macc)
25 117 2:29–42 94
Nehemiah 7:12–17 94
2 87 8:7–30 399
2:10 93 15:15 324
2:19 93 15:15–17 399
4 87 15:17 324
4:1 93 15:23 324
6 87 3:11 92, n. 11
6:1 93 4:1 398
6:2 93 14:6 94
13 87 1:3 192
13:28 93 Tobit
Psalms 7:13–14 200
4:9 404 18–28 106
110:4 102 Wisdom of Solomon (Wisdom)
Proverbs 9:15 98
10:7 404
Isaiah New Testament
11 102 Matthew (Matt)
Jeremiah 1:18–25 200
44:7 191 2:11 494
52 117 5:13 280
Ezekiel (Ezek) 12:9 127, n. 48
38 103 13:54 127, n. 48
Daniel (Dan) 16:18–19 436
1 92 16:13–20 220
2:47 92, n. 24 19:21 438
2–6 89 Mark
2–7 106 1:21 127, n. 48
3 227 3:1 127, n. 48
3:5 91, n. 17 6:1 127, n. 48
Luke 13:14 325

4:16 127, n. 48 14:1 325
4:16–22 202 16:1–3 325
4:33 127, n. 48 18:24–28 213
6:6 127, n. 48 19:17 325
7:4 127, n. 48 28:13–14 407, 424
7:5 326 Romans
8:42–48 491 16 424
13:13–16 202 1 Corinthians (1 Cor)
16:19–31 438 1:12 213
John 3:6 213
6:49 127, n. 48 4:6 213
Acts of the Apostles (Acts) 16 424
2:9–10 325 16:12 213
6:9 127, n. 48 Hebrews (Heb)
9:1 127, n. 48 7:1–17 102
9:20 127, n. 48 Revelation (Rev)
11:26 139 3:9 325
13:5 127, n. 48 16:16 103
13:13–16 202
Jewish
Aramaic Levi Document (ALD) 12.148–53 324

5:8 90, n. 12 12.156–222 92
7:4 90, n. 12 12.228–36 92
10:10 90, n. 12 12.287 203
ps. Aristeas, Letter of 12.387–8 93, n. 28
12.310 198 13.62–73 93, n. 28
1 Enoch 13.73 203
6–11 91 13.171 97
14 91 13.260 399
22 91 13.266 399
26–7 91 13.387–8 208
33–6 91 14.117 193
46:1 103 14.145–8 399
2 Enoch 14.185–267 324, n. 11
71:33–37 102 14.247–55 399
71:37 102 14.259–61 95, 336
71:79 102 14.260 124, n. 25
Josephus 16.160–78 324, n. 11
Against Apion (Ag. Ap.) 16.161 325
1.179–82 323, n. 8 16.163–4 325, n. 24,
2.42f. 192 336
2.282 333, n. 54 17.23–31 117, n. 4
Jewish Antiquities (Ant.) 17.300 400
7.420–36 93 17.328–9 407
11.133 118 18.4–10 104, n. 75
12.2.13 198 18.11 97
12.4.157–236 87 18.23–5 104, n. 75
12.147–53 117, n. 4 18.159–61 407
Josephus (cont.) Quod omnis probus liber sit (Every good man
19.278–312 324, n. 11 is free)
20.34 121 75–91 97
20.38 121 Psalms of Solomon
20.41 121, 122 17:23–51 102
Jewish War (J.W.) Qumran and related texts
1.8.9 399 CD I:18 100, n. 56
1.33 93, n. 28 1QHa X:15.32 100, n. 56
1.190 203 1QpHab II:1–10 100
2.103–4 407 1QpHab VII:3–5 100
2.117–119 104, n. 75 1QpNah, frgs. 3–4 I:2 100, n. 56
2.119 97 1QS 3:13–4:26 98
2.285–92 127, n. 48 4ApNah, frgs. 3–4 Col. 1:2 98
2.433 104, n. 75 4Q255–264 96, n. 41
2.433–6 124, n. 25 4Q266–273 97, n. 47
2.461–80 119, n. 16 4QpNahum 100
2.487 192 5Q12 97, n. 47
2.490–97 205 6Q15 97, n. 47
2.560 329 11QMelchizedek 102
3.490–97 205 Rabbinic (m. = Mishnah; t. = tosepta;
6.417–20 400 b. = Babylonian Talmud; y = Jerusalem
7.41–2 119, n. 16 Talmud)
7.43–5 329 m. Abot
7.44 127, n. 48 1.3 92, n. 21
7.54–62 119, n. 16 1.10–11 92, n. 21
7.110–15 119, n. 16 b. ‘Abodah Zarah (b. ‘Abod. Zar.)
7.323–88 105, n. 81 43b 123
7.420–36 204 52b 204
7.426–30 204 b. Baba Qamma (b. B. Qam)
Life 59b 125, n. 37
16 407 b. Berakot (b. Ber.)
277 127, n. 48 33b 98, n. 50
280 127, n. 48 57b 125
293 127, n. 48 m. Berakot (m. Ber)
Megillat Ta’anit 1:3 92, n. 21
12 (scholion to) 120, n. 18 t. Berakot (t. Ber.)
Philo 3:25 125, n. 27
De providentia (Prov.) y. Berakot (y. Ber.)
2.64 95 3:1,6a 409
De specialibus legibus (Spec). 9:1,12d 125
3.72 200 t. Be ṣah
De vita contemplative (Contempl.) 2:15 124, n. 25
1–90 98 y. Demai (y. Dem.).
Hypothetica 2:1, 22d 118, n. 7
11.1–18 97 y. Ḥagigah (y. Ḥag.)
In Flaccum (Flacc.) 1:8, 76c 126, n. 44
46 118 t. Ḥullin (t. Ḥul.)
Legatio ad Gaium (Legat.) 2:13 124, n. 25
134 201 t. Ketubbot (t. Ketub.)
155 400 4,9 200
185–6 407 Massekhet Soferim, 7–10 195
245 325 b. Mena ḥot (Mena ḥ.)
281 325 109b 204
b. Megillah (b. Meg.) 98, n. 50 b. Sanhedrin (b. Sanh.)

8b-9b 194 32b 401
25a 98 t. Shebi
t. Megillah (t. Meg.) 4:8 118, n. 7
2:5 323, n. 4 y. Shebi
b. Mo’ed Qa ṭan (b. Mo’ed Qa ṭ.) 4:2, 35a-b 120, n. 18
26a 323, n. 4 Sifra Deut.
y. Mo’ed Qa ṭan (y. Mo’ed 80 408
Qa ṭ.) Sipra
3:1 400 Perek 10:5, 99d 120, n. 18
3:1, 81c 126, n. 44 m. So ṭah (m. So ṭ)
y. Nedarim (y. Ned.) 15:11 125
10:8, 42b 126, n. 44 t. So ṭah (t. So ṭ)
b. Niddah (b. Nid .) 15:11–12 125, n. 37
16b 98, n. 50 y. Sukkah
m. Pesah9im (m. Pes.) 5.1.55a 201, 206
10:4–5 124, n. 25 12–13.75–91 97
Pesiqta Rabbati (Pes.Rab.) Sefer Ha-Razim, ed. Margulies
34.2,3 125, n. 37 4.61–3 126, n. 43
b. Rosh Hashanah (Rosh Hash.) Testament of Abraham
24b 123 13:2 103, n. 72
Christian
Acta Pionii Confessions (Conf.)

2 336 1.23.36 276, n. 40
13–14 335 3.10 275
Acta Proconsularia Cypriani 7 390
1, 4 391, n. 53 8.6.15 492
Agathangelos, History of the Armenians, ed. 10.2 277
homson Contra adversarium legis et prophetarum
§§784–90 (323–31) 36, n. 39 (Contra adv. leg. et proph.),
Ambrose ed. Daur
Epistulae (Ep.) (CSEL 82) 2.1.2 131, n. 64
6.27.3 438 Contra duas epistolas Pelagianorum ad
Exhortatio virginitatis (Exhort.) Bonifatium (C. du. ep. Pelag.)
8 416 4.4–5 275, n. 37
Aphrahat, Demonstrations, ed. Parisot Contra epistulam Parmeniani (Parm.)
VI 144 1.10.16 274, n. 33
XIV 144 3.24 274, n. 30
Apologia ad Constantium (Apol. Const.) Contra Gaudentium Donatistarum episcopum
15 488 (Gaud.)
Apostolic Constitutions 1.28.32 274, n. 33
7.33–8 129 Contra litteras Petiliani (C. litt. Petil .)
Arnobius, Adversus nationes (Adv. nat.) 1.10 274, n. 30
1.36 513, n. 3 1.11 274, n. 30
5.5–7 389 1.24.26 274, n. 30
Athanasius, Apologia ad Constantium (Apol. 2.83.184 274, n. 30
Const.) 2.92.202 274, n. 32
15 488 De baptismo contra Donatistas (Bapt.)
Augustine 2.11.16 274, n. 30
De civitate Dei (Civ.) 11 127, n. 47

2.4 276 11.1.34 245, n. 39
2.26 276 12.1.158 412
4.31 399 14 127, n. 47
4.48 374 15 127, n. 47
7.26 270, n. 17, 16.1.2 436
276, 276, 16.2.1 430
n. 40 16.5.6 435
18.54 276, n. 42 16.8.8 127, n. 47,
De haeresibus (Haer.) 131, n. 66
46 275, n. 35 16.8.18 336, n. 71
69 274, n. 33 16.8.29 131, n. 66
86 275, n. 35 16.10.2.1–2 276, n. 43
De praedestione sanctorum (Praed.) 16.10.10 435
2.53 277, n. 45 16.10.16–25 274, n. 31,
Enarrationes in Psalmos (Enarrat. Ps.) 276, n. 42
Ps. 80 273, n. 25 16.10.22 360, n. 97
Epistulae (Ep.) 17 127, n. 47
53.3.6 274, n. 30 22 127, n. 47
139.1 273, n. 25 29 127, n. 47
185.1.1 278 Council of Arles (314)
185.3.12 274, n. 33 can. 1 (CCL 148:9) 487
In Evangelium Johannis tractatus (Tract. Ev. can. 4 487
Jo.) (CCL 46) can. 5 487
8.11 256, n. 77 can. 6 487
Sermones (Serm.) can. 7 487
19 273, n. 24 can. 8 487
29 273, n. 24 can. 11 487
90 273, n. 24 can. 12 487
112 273, n. 24 can. 22 487
163 276 Council of Elvira (ca. 300)
277 273, n. 24 can. 56 487
Tractatus in Iohannis Evangelium (Tract. Ev. Council (synod) of Laodicea
Jo.) can. 29 335, n. 64
8.11 (CCL 46:89) 256, n. 77 can. 35 335, n. 64
Ausonius, Commemoratio professorum can. 36 362, n. 104
Burdigalensium (Prof. Burd .) can. 37 335, n. 64
5 493 can. 38 335, n. 64
Council of Nimes (394/6)
Breviculus Collationis cum Donatistis can. 2 (CCL 148:50) 503
(Brev. Coll.) Council of Orange (441)
3.13.2.5 272, n. 18 can. 25 (CCL 148:84) 503
Council of Valence (374)
Cassiodorus, Variae Epistulae (Variae) can. 3 496
8.33 435, n. 36 Council of Vannes
Chronica Minora, ed. Guidi can. 11 (CCL 148:154) 503
1, 2–3 140, n. 9 can. 12 (CCL 148:154) 503
Clement of Rome, Epistulae (Ep.) can. 15 (CCL 148:155) 502
1.5–6 424 Cyprian
Codex heodosianus (Ch) De lapsis (Laps.) (CCL 3)
2.1.10 131, n. 66, 8 246, n. 40
237, n. 47 Epistulae (Ep.) (CCL 3C)
59.13.3 246, n. 40 5.4.1–2 486

67 528, n. 63 5.23.4 486
68 486 5.24.11–18 486
71.1 268, n. 5 5.24.13 487
Sententiae episcoporum de haereticis 6.21.3 17
baptizandis (Sent.) 6.41.9–13 391
77 268, n. 5 6.43.11 430
7.11 391, n. 53
Ephraem 7.13 392
Hymns against Heresies, ed. Beck 7.30.20–1 392
1.11 141, n. 20 10.5.18–24 430
1.16 142, n. 23 10.5.21–4 487
1.17 141, n. 20 10.7.1–2 430
14.8 142, n. 24 Onomasticon (Onom.), ed. Klostermann
53.6 141, n. 20 136.1 118, n. 7
Prose Refutations of Mani, Marcion and Praeparatio Evangelica (Praep. evang.)
Bardaisan, ed. Mitchell 8.15.11–11.18 97
2.225 141, n. 19 9.27.1–6 196
Epiphanius, Panarion (Pan.), ed. Holl 13.12.1 195
15.2.1 131, n. 64 Vita Constantini (Vit. Const.)
29.7.7 125, n. 41 1.25–41.2 392, n. 55
33.9.3–4 131, n. 64 2.50–1 392
56 141, n. 18 3.17–20 487, n. 14
Eusebius 4.69 432
Historia ecclesiastica (Hist. eccl .) Eusebius Gallicanus, Homiliae (Hom.)
4.2.1–5 206 54.6 (CCL 101A:632) 501
5.1.5 485 Evodius. De fide
5.1.8 485 40 275, n. 37
5.1.9 484
5.1.11–12 486 Ferrandus, Vita Fulgentii
5.1.13 484 26–7 280, n. 65
5.1.14 485
5.1.17 484 Gennadius, De viris illustribus (De vir. ill.)
5.1.17–19 486 80 502
5.1.20–4 486 Gesta apud Zenophilum
5.1.25–6 486 2–5 272, n. 18
5.1.27 485 Gesta collationis Carthagine habitae (Gest. coll.
5.1.29–31 485 Carth.)
5.1.32–5 486 411, 3.5 273, n. 25
5.1.37–9 486 411, 3, 22 274, n. 32
5.1.40–2 486 Gospel of Judas
5.1.41 486 34:22–36:9 220
5.1.44 485 Gospel of homas
5.1.45–6 486 logion 13 220
5.1.47 485 Gregory I, Epistulae (Ep.)
5.1.48 486 1.74–7 286
5.1.52 485 2.48 286
5.1.53–6 486 4.34 286
5.1.59 485 6.37 286, n. 81
5.1.62 485 6.65 286
5.1.63 485 Gregory of Nazianzus, Orations
5.2.6–8 486 Or. 18.5 (PG 35.989–91) 333, n. 55
Gregory of Tours, Historiae (Hist.) 66–7 427

1.48 490 Justin Martyr, Martyrdom
2.14 490 3 427
10.31.6 502 Justinian,
Digesta (Dig.)
Ignatius (Ign.) 48.8.1 119, n. 15
To the Ephesians (Eph.) 50.1.30 477
7.2 345, n. 17 Novellae
To the Magnesians (Mag.) 146 131, n. 64
8.2 345, n. 17
Ioannes Antiochenus, Fragmenta historiae (Ioh. Lactantius
Ant. Frag.) De morte persecutorum (Mort.)
214a (FHG IV.621) 416 10 392
Irenaeus, Against Heretics 11.7 309, n. 54
3.4 426 44.5 430
Isidore of Charax, Parthian Stations, ed. Shoff. Laterculus regum Wandalorum et Alanorum
§11 30, n. 30 (Laterculus reg. Wand.)
A.16 280, n. 65
Jacob of Sarug, On the Fall of the Idols, ed. Laudes Domini, ed. Opelt
Martin l. 31 494
110, ll. 42–11 62, n. 12 Leo I
Jerome Epistulae (Ep.)
Adversus Joannem Hierosolymitanum liber 168.18 287
(Jo. Hier.) Sermones
8 441, n. 91 6–11 382, n. 32
Adversus Vigilantium (Vigil.) 8 382, n. 32
1, 9 491 82.1 421, n. 2
2, 15 491 Lex coloniae Genetivae
4 491 LXIII (CIL II:5439 = ILS 6087) 387, n. 39
6 491 Lex Irnitana (Lex Irn.)
Commentary on Isaiah (Comm. Isa.) (CCL 73) 19 525, n. 50
3 (Is. 8:11–5) 131, n. 64 77 525, n. 51
Commentary on Matthew (Comm. Matth.) 79 525, n. 51
(CCL 77) 92 525, n. 52
22:23 131, n. 64 Lex Ursonensis (Lex Urson.)
De viris illustribus (Vir. ill .) 66–7, 72 (ILS 6087) 525, n. 53
3 125, n. 41 Liber Genealogus (Lib. Gen.)
53 268, n. 6 618F 278
122 493
Epistulae (Ep.), ed. Hilberg (CSEL) Marcellus, De medicamentis
32.1 403 pref. 2 497
36.1 403 1 497
112.15 124, n. 25 25.13 497
121.10 131, n. 64 36 497
Vita S. Hilarionis eremitae (Vit. Hil.) (PL 23) Martin of Braga, De correctione rusticorum
23.29–54 154, n. 77 (De corr. rust.)
John Chrysostom, Adversus Judaeos (Adv. Jud .) 16.4–5 527, n. 62
1.6.2 (PG 48.852) 125 Martyrdom of Justin Martyr
Julius Africanus, Cesti, ed. Vieillefond 3 427
1.20.39–53 140, n. 10 Martyrdom of Polycarp (Mart. Pol.)
Justin Martyr, 1 Apol. 5–7 343, n. 8
26 426 12:2 335, n. 69
Maximus, Disputatio cum Pyrrho (PG 91) 10.24–6 408

91.288–353 288, n. 85 Bellum Vandalicum (Vand.)
Minucius Felix, Octavius (Oct.) 1.21.18–19 279, n. 54
9–10 269, n. 12 3.3.22 277, n. 47
30.3 270, n. 17 3.3.25–34 277, n. 47
Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores 3.9.6–26 281, n. 68
Antiquissimi (MGH AA) De aedificiis (Aed.)
9.154–96 275, n. 34 6.5.8–11 282
9.482 421, n. 1 Prosper of Aquitaine, Epitoma Chronicon (in
MGH AA 9)
Nicephorus, Breviarium 482 (a. 452) 421, n. 1
39 288, n. 86 484 (a. 455) 421, n. 1
Optatus, Against the Donatists (Don.) Quodvultdeus

7.1 273, n. 23 De symbolo (Symbol.)
10 273, n. 22 2.3.1 276, n. 41
170–80 272, n. 20 De tempore barbarico (Temp. bar.)
Oration of Melito the Philosopher, in Cureton, 11 278, n. 53
Spicilegium Syriacum 12 278, n. 53
24.15–25.23 62, n. 22 Liber promissionum et praedictorum Dei (Lib.
Origen, Adversus Celsum (Cels.) prom.) (CCL 60)
3.38 249, n. 54
Palladius, Dialogus de vita S. Joannis 3.38.44 276, n. 43
Chrysostomi (Dial. de vita Joh. Chrys.)
20 (PG 47.73) 337, n. 78 Res Gestae Divi Augusti, ed. Cooley
Passio Sanctorum Perpetuae et Felicitatis (Passio 20.4 384
Perp.) Rufinus, Historia ecclesiastica (Hist. eccl.)
1 270 2.22–3 186
2.1 268 2.26 186
4 270
7 270 Salvian, De gubernatione Dei (Gub. Dei.)
8 270 6.12 281
11–14 270 7.13 281
17 270 7.22 281
Paulinus of Nola 8.2 276, n. 41,
Carmina (Carm.) 281
20 435, n. 55 Siricius, Epistulae (Ep.)
Epistulae (Ep.) 1.7 (PL 13.1137) 437, n. 63
13 438, n. 70 Sortes Sanctorum (Lots of the Saints)
Photius, Bibliotheca 6.6.4 498, n. 72
cod. 242 (348a-b) 69 Sozomen, Historia ecclesiastica
Possidius, Vita S. Augustini (Vita) (Hist. eccl.)
6 275, n. 39 2.4 125, n. 39
7 273, n. 23 6.33.4 154, n. 75
28 277, 278, 7.38 125
n. 52 Statuta ecclesiae antiqua (CCL)
30 277, n. 46 pref., 148:166 501
Procopius can. 12, 148:154 503
Anecdota can. 26, 148:171 503
18.5–10 282 can. 34 148:172 503
Bellum Gothicum (Bell. Goth.) can. 75, 148:178 503
1.8.41 408 CCL 148:192 504
Suda, Lexicon (Suda) Vita Abercii (V. Abercii), ed. Nissen

s.v. Κασσιέπεια 71, n. 44 §65 348, n. 32
Sulpicius Severus §75 348, n. 31
Chronica (Chron.) Vita Hypatii (V. Hypatii)
2.32.1 484 §1.4–5 360, n. 100
2.51.3 493 §12.8–13 358, n. 93
Vita S. Martini (VMartini) §30.1 360, n. 98
12–15 496 §43.9–15 361, n. 101
§45.1 359, n. 54
Tatian, Oratio ad Graecos (Orat.), ed. §45 359, n. 96
Whittaker §48.1 360, n. 99
42 17, 140, n. 11 Victor of Tunnunu, Chronicle (Chron.)
Tertullian 52 280, n. 61
Ad Martyras 78–9 280, n. 66
4 270 141 286, n. 79
Ad Scapulam (Scap.) 145–152 286, n. 80
2.10 266 523.2 280, n. 65
Adversus Judaeos (Adv. Jud.) 535 280, n. 65
1.1 169 Victor of Vita, Historia persecutionis
Apologeticum (Apol.) Africanae Provinciae (Hist.)
1.1 246, n. 41 1.9 279
1.7 268 1.15 278, n. 53,
9.2 242, 270, 279, n. 54
n. 17 1.15–16 278, n. 52
16.11 269 1.16 279, n. 54
18 268, n. 10, 1.24–9 279
269 1.25 279
19 269 1.41 279, n. 56
21 269 2.1 279, n. 56
24 276, n. 40 2.2–6 279, n. 57
24.7 61, n. 11 2.8–9 279, n. 58
37.4 16 2.18 279, n. 57
39 268, n. 8 2.23–37 279
42.5 270, n. 16 2.39 279, n. 56
De baptismo (Bapt.) 2.47–51 279, n. 57
1 269 3.4 279, n. 56
17 268 3.5 278, n. 49
Scorpiace (Scorp.) 3.7–14 280, n. 59
6 270, n. 25 3.17–21 280, n. 60
7 270 3.34 279, n. 57
heophanes, Chronographia, ed. 3.71 287
de Boor Victricius, De laude sanctorum
62.17–19 335 2 491, n. 35
343.24–9 288, n. 86 12 491, n. 35
Manichaean
Cologne Mani Codex 91–3 (ed. Gardner and Lieu) 41, n. 53

50–51 (ed. Cameron and Dewey) 142, n. 28
Arabic sources
Ibn Hishaq, tr. Guillaume 3:79 131, n. 64

Sīra 1, 12–24 122, n. 25 5:44 131, n. 64
Sīra 1, 287 124, n. 36 5:63 131, n. 64
Sira 1, 352 124, n. 36 9:30–1 131, n. 64
Sīra 1, 383 124, n. 36 al-Tabari, History, tr. Bosworth
Sīra 1, 387 124, n. 36 1, 901–6 122, n. 25
Sīra 1, 659 124, n. 36 1, 919–20 122, n. 25
Qu’ran 1, 924–6 122, n. 25
Zoroastrian
Gathas
Y. 30.3 44
ii. non-literary (coins, epitaphs, inscriptions,

monuments, amulets, etc.)
Aegyptische Urkunden aus den königlichen 1917: 227–38 nos. 227–38 238, n. 8
(staatlichen) Museen zu Berlin,
Griechische Urkunden, I-IV (BGU ) Carte archéologique de la Gaule (CAG )
V, 1210 168, n. 3 35 478
Amulets and Magic Bowls: Aramaic Incantations 38 478
of Late Antiquity, ed. Naveh and Shaked 45 478
Amulet 13 126, n. 42 Catalogue of Greek coins in the British Museum,
Amulet 15 126, n. 42 Phoenicia (BMC Phoenicia), ed. Hill
Bowl 5.5, 6 126, n. 42 No. 11 71, n. 34
Anatolia. Land, Men, and Gods in Asia Minor, A Catalogue of the Greek and Roman
ed. Mitchell Sculptures, ed. Budde and Nicholls
No. 233 (= SEG 27 no. 933) 334 No. 126 56, n. 2
L’Année epigraphique (AE ) Le Chettaba et les grottes à inscriptions latines de
1901: 54 238, n. 8 Chettaba et du Taya, ed. J. and
1941: 155 463 P. Alquier
1969: 70 a 453 Nos. 1–70 238, n. 8
1969/70: 405 a,b,c 468 he “Christians for Christians” Inscriptions
1969/70: 410 461 of Phrygia , ed. Gibson
1982: 715 461 No. 42 (116–19) 347, n. 29
1984: 933 256, n. 76 he Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, ed. Ramsay
1994: 1215 a, b 462 No. 209 349, n. 38
1997: 1110–12 463 No. 210 350, n. 42
“Asia Minor, 1924 I,” Buckler No. 212 350, n. 42
No. 2 352, n. 58 No. 213 350, n. 42
Augustus, Res Gestae No. 218 350, n. 42
20.4 384 No. 232 344, n. 11
No. 353–5 351, n. 53
Bulletin archéologique du Comité des travaux No. 353–62 351, n. 52
historiques et scientifiques (BCTH ) No. 359 349, n. 34
he Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia (cont.) No. 654 353, n. 67

No. 361 349, n. 34, No. 659 353, n. 67
351, n. 53 No. 660 351, n. 52
No. 362 351, n. 53 No. 661 352, n. 56
No. 364 349, n. 35, No. 684 351, n. 52
351, n. 53 No. 689 363, n. 107
No. 364–71 351, n. 52 Coins of the Decapolis, ed. Spijkerman
No. 368 349, n. 34 194–5, no. 23 77, n. 55
No. 369 351, n. 53 198–9, no. 32 77, n. 55
No. 371 351, n. 53 202–3, nos. 46–8 77, n. 55
No. 372 349, n. 39 208–9, nos. 60–1 77, n. 55
No. 373–9 351, n. 52 Corpus de inscripciones latinas de
No. 374 351, n. 53 Andalucía (CILA)
No. 375 353, n. 67 2/4: 1058–9 (= HEp 7:916) 521, n. 29
No. 376 353, n. 67 Corpus inscriptionum judaicarum (CIJ ), ed.
No. 378 349, n. 35, Frey
351, n. 53 2, 1440 128, n. 49
No. 379 353, n. 67 Corpus inscriptionum latinarum
No. 385–6 351, n. 52 (CIL)
No. 387 351, n. 48 II:35 (= IRCP 184) 524, n. 40
No. 388 350, n. 45, II:129 520, n. 20
352, n. 58 II:138 520, n. 20
No. 388–92 351, n. 52 II:259 524, n. 44
No. 389 352, n. 62 II:468 521, n. 27
No. 392 351, n. 53 II:964 524, n. 41
No. 394 350, n. 46, II:1420 386
351, n. 53 II:1965 521, n. 28
No. 394–6 351, n. 52 II:1934 (= ILMM 8) 524, n. 40
No. 399 351, n. 52, II:1980 521, n. 30
352, n. 57 II:2407 521, n. 21
No. 400 353, n. 67 II:2525 (= HEp. 2:578) 526, n. 57
No. 401 351, n. 52 II: 2660 527, n. 59
No. 435 351, n. 52, II:3279 524, n. 40
351, n. 54 II:3786 521, n. 29
No. 445 352, n. 55, II:2407 520, n. 20
353, n. 67 II: 2915 527, n. 59
No. 445–6 351, n. 52 II:4217 (= RIT 316) 523, n. 36
No. 447 353, n. 67 II:4612 (=IRC I:97) 524, n. 46
No. 455–7 351, n. 53 II:4618 (= IRC I:30) 520, n. 24
No. 448–51 351, n. 52 II:5201–2 520, n. 20
No. 449 350, n. 44 II:5439 387, n. 39
No. 451 349, n. 36 II:5670 (= IRPL 53) 519, n. 16
No. 455–7 351, n. 52 II:2598 526, n. 57
No. 465–6 351, n. 52 II:2660 527, n. 59
No. 534 349, nn. II:2695 (= HEp. 2.578) 526, n. 57
50,51 II:2915 527, n. 59
No. 562–4 344, n. 11 II2/5:309 519, n. 17
No. 592 346, n. 22, II2/5:718 521, n. 29
351, n. 51 II2/7:233–6 524, n. 45
No. 635 346, n. 21 II2/7:240 524, n. 41
No. 651–2 351, n. 52 II2/14:1,2 520, n. 21
No. 652 353, n. 66 II2/14:291 520, n. 21
II2/14:292–4 520, n. 23 Counting the People in Ptolemaic Egypt

V:6240 433, n. 45 (P. Count), ed. Clarysse and hompson
VI:6249 433, n. 45 2, 147–8 192, n. 7
VI:1.1751–56 433, n. 44
VI:8.3.4752–53 433, n. 44 Early Christian Epitaphs, ed. Johnson
VI:1778 435 No. 3.1 349, n. 37
VI:1779 435 No. 3.3 349, n. 34
VI:1780 435 No. 3.4 349, n. 35
VIII:2648 248, n. 52 No. 3.9 349, n. 39
VIII:2756 255, n. 72 No. 3.10 350, n. 41,
VIII:12511 255, n. 74 353, n. 67
VIII:6267–302 238, n. 8 No. 3.11 350, n. 43
VIII:16749 239, n. 11 Curse Tablets, ed. Gager
VIII:19249–81 238, n. 8 No. 12 (65–67) (= CIL VIII:12511) 255, n. 74
XI:1420 386 no. 36 (112–15) 255, n. 75
XII:5370 475 no. 136 (= CIL VIII:2756) 255, n. 72
XIII:511–19 479 Enteuxeis: Requêtes et plaintes addressées au
XIII:520 449 Roi d’Égypte au IIIe siècle avant J.-C.
XIII:566 461 (P. Ent.)
XIII:941 449 P. Ent. 23 200, n. 31
XIII:1375 456, n. 8 P. Ent. 30 202
XIII:2942 461 “Epitaphs in Phrygian Greek,” ed. Petrie
XIII:3149 453 No. 11 345, n. 19
XIII:3184 461 Excavations at Dura Europos, ed. Rostovtzeff
XIII:3254 461 No. 416 82, n. 71
XIII:3671 461 No. 418 82, n. 72
XIII:1449 478 No. 118 82, n. 73
XIII:5967 456, n. 8 “ Explorations in Lycaonia and Isauria, 1904,”
XIII:6433 456, n. 8 Callander
XIII:7655 456, n. 8 No. 73 346, n. 25
XIII:8838 456, n. 8
XIII:11227 449 Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge, Principal
XIII:11280 478 Acquisitions 1979–83, ed. Nicholls
Corpus inscriptionum semiticarum (CIS ) No. 224 54, n. 1
ii.3.1.4029 124, n. 34
A Corpus of Magic Bowls: Incantation Texts in he Greek Inscriptions from the Synagogues in
Jewish Aramaic from Late Antiquity, ed. Eretz-Israel, ed. Roth-Gerson (Heb.)
Levene No. 1 128, n. 52
156.7 126, n. 42 No. 4 128, n. 52
Corpus papyrorum judaicarum (CPJud ) , ed. No. 7 128, n. 52
Tcherikover, Fuks, and Stern No. 17 128, n. 52
I 127a-d 192, n. 9 Greek Papyri in the British Museum (P. Lond.)
I 127 (= P.Ent 23) 200, n. 31 P.Lond. VI 1912 193
I 129 (= P.Ent. 30) 202
I 132 (= P. Paris 63) 204 Hispania Epigraphica (HEp.)
I 139 203 1:78 527, n. 62
II 151 193 1:391 524, n. 43
II 153 (= P. Lond. VI 1912) 193 2:578 (= CIL II:2525) 526, n. 57
II 450 (= P. Oxy. IV 705) 207 4:67 527, n. 62
Corpus papyrorum Raineri 4:341 527, n. 62
(CPR) 4:342 527, n. 62
XVIII, no. 9, l.180 200, n. 31 5:189 527, n. 62
Hispania Epigraphica (HEp.) (cont.) II 174–95 335, n. 69

6:747 527, n. 62 II 175 336, n. 74
7:916 (= CILA 2/4:1058–9) 521, n. 29 II 176 336, n. 74
9:315 520, n. 23 II 179 327
9:585 521, n. 29 II 184 336, n. 73
II 196, 7 336
Inschriften von Erythrai, ed. Engelmann and II 213 327
Merkelkbach II 218 330
no. 201 (287–327) 298, n. 4 II 243 337
Inscrições romanas do conventus Pacensis (IRCP ), II 458–61 330, n. 35
ed. d’Encarnaçao III 76 124, n. 33
184 524, n. 40 III 78 124, n. 33
Inscripciones latinas del Museo de Málaga III Cyp 1 131, n. 64
(ILMM ), ed. Serrano Ramos and III Syr 5 126, n. 45
Atencia Paez III Syr 23 128, n. 53
8 524, n. 40 III Syr 34–41 118, n. 6
Inscripciones romanas de la provincia de León III Syr 35 118, n. 52
(IRPL), ed. Diego Santos III Syr 35–36 118, n. 7
53 (= CIL II:5670) 519, n. 16 III Syr 36 131, n. 64
Inscriptiones Christianae Italiae (ICI ) III Syr 44–7 124, n. 33
3.1 428 III Syr 48 124, n. 33
Inscriptiones Graecae (IG ), ed. Johannes III Syr 53 124, n. 52
Kirchner III Syr 53–71 124, n. 53
ii2 1134 304, n. 34 III Syr 54 126, n. 45,
ii2 1283 302, n. 24 128, n. 52
ii2 1325 303, n. 29 III Syr 61–6 128, n. 53
ii2 1326 303, n. 29 III Syr 71 128, n. 53
ii2 1367 303, n. 28 III Syr 83 128, n. 52
ii2 1368 303, n. 30 III Syr 84 128, n. 52
Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis (IJO), ed. Noy III Syr 90–92 128, n. 52
and Bloedhorn Inscriptiones Latinae Christianae Veteres (ILCV )
I Ach51 127, n. 47 1700 (= CIL V.6240) 433, n. 45
I Mac1 127, n. 47 Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae (ILS ), ed. H.
II 5a 337, n. 76 Dessau
II 11 337 18 376, n. 10
II 14 326, 328, 328, 139: ll, 32–33 386
n. 29, 336, n. 694 429
73 6087 383, 387, n.
II 14, 2–5 336 39, 525, n. 53
II 24 337 6088 525, n. 49
II 25 336, n. 73 6089 525, n. 49
II 36 336, n. 73 Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie (IGLS )
II 37 334 II,I, no. 4028 67, n. 26
II 43 336, n. 73 XIII.1, no. 9013 67, n. 26
II 131 336 XVII.1, no. 318 73, n. 45
II 149 336, n. 72 Inscriptions latines de I’Algerie (ILAlg)
II 168 326 2.2, 407–21 (nos. 4502–85) 238, n. 8
II 171 328 2.3, 968–76 (nos. 8907–70) 238, n. 9
II 172 327, 331, n. 44 Inscriptions romaines de Catalogne (IRC )
II 173 327, I: 30 (= CIL II: 4618) 520, n. 24
331, n. 44 I: 31 520, n. 24
II 174 327 I: 85 527, n. 61
Iscrizioni greche e latine per lo studio della I 185 418

Bibbia (IGLBibbia), ed. Boffo I 186 131, n. 64,
24 198 418
31 202 I 188 417
I 190–2 417
Jewish Inscriptions from Graeco-Roman Egypt, II 44 402, n. 6
ed. Horbury and Noy II 68 403
9 202 II 270 403
13 202 II 307 403
22 201 II 374 403
24 193, 202 II 390 403
25 193 II 515 413
27 193, 202 II 544 403
28 202 II 577 404
38 203 he Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation,
105 202 ed. Linder
116 202 No. 1 119, n. 15
117 193, 201 No. 6 119, n. 15
125 203 No. 20 127, n. 47,
Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe 131, n. 66
(JIWE ), ed. Noy No. 24 127, n. 47
I 1–3 416 No. 27 127, n. 47
I7 416 No. 28 127, n. 47,
I 10 416 131, n. 66
I 17 406 No. 30 127, n. 47
I 22 410 No. 32 127, n. 47
I 23 407 No. 34 127, n. 47
I 26 408 No. 41 127, n. 47
I 27–35 408 No. 53 127, n. 47
I 48 411 No. 66 131, n. 64
I 42–112 410 “ Julia-Ipsus and Augustopolis,” Calder
I 68 418 No. 21 353, n. 69
I 75 411
I 85 418 Kanaanäische und aramäische Inschriften (KAI ),
I 86 411 ed. Donner and Röllig
I 90 418 260 323
I 107 413
I 113–16 411 Lois sacrées des cités grecques, ed. Sokolowski
I 113–18 405 No. 51 303, n. 30
I 114 418 No. 52 303, n. 28
I 118 413 No. 65 306, n. 44
I 134 413 No. 135 303, n. 31
I 145 127, n. 47,
327, n. 22, Magic Spells and Formulae: Aramaic
414 Incantations of Late Antiquity, ed.
I 163–8 415 Naveh and Shaked
I 170 415 Amulet 22 126, n. 42
I 173 415 Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua
I 175–6 415 (MAMA)
I 178 417 3, no. 203 353, n. 64
I 182 417 3, no. 204 353, n. 64
I 183 418 4, no. 228 344, n. 13
Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua (cont.) No. 2779 73, n. 45

4, no. 91 345, n. 16, Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-Empire
351, n. 52 (PCBE )
4, no. 264 351, n. 52 2.1:171–3 437, n. 69
4, no. 354–60 352, n. 52 2.1:528 433, n. 45
10, no. 275 346, n. 26 2.2:1576–81 438, n. 71
Montanist Inscriptions, ed. Tabbernee 2:2:1798–1802 437, n. 69
Nos. 1–2 357, n. 83 Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire
Nos. 1–4 343, n. 7 (PLRE ), ed. A.H.M. Jones, et al.
Nos. 3–8 355, n. 77 1.663 438, n. 71
No. 20 351, n. 52 1.675 435, n. 38
No. 33 51, n. 52 1.722–24 435, n. 38
No. 55 356, n. 80
No. 69 350, n. 40 Recueil des inscriptions chrétiennes de la
No. 77 356, n. 81 Gaule antérieures à la Renaissance
No. 80 356, n. 79 carolingienne (RICG )
No. 84 356, n. 79 1.235e 489
Nos. 84–5 355, n. 77 1.236f 489
No. 85 356, n. 79 15.39 493
No. 86 356, n. 80 Recueil des inscriptions Grecques Chretiennes
No. 87 355, n. 77, d’Asie Mineure, ed. Gregoire (IGC -As.
356, n. 82 Min.)
No. 95 356, n. 80 No. 47 362, n. 103
Mosaïques antiques de Syria, Balty No. 73 363, n. 108
No. 36–8 72, n. 41 No. 90 bis 363, n. 105
No. 90 ter 363, n. 106
Notices et textes des papyrus du Musée du Louvre No. 104 359, n. 95
et de la Bibliothèque Impériale (P. Paris) Die römischen Inschriften von Tarraco (RIT ),
P. Paris 63 204 ed. Alföldy
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The Cambridge History of Religions in The Ancient World: Volume 1, From The Bronze Age To The Hellenistic Age.

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The Cambridge History of Religions in The Ancient World: Volume 1, From The Bronze Age To The Hellenistic Age.

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THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS

IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

From the Bronze Age to the Hellenistic Age

he Cambridge History of Religions in the Ancient World provides a compre-

Michele Renee Salzman is University of California Presidential Chair (2009–

Marvin A. Sweeney is Professor of Religion at the Claremont School of

Cambridge University Press

© Cambridge University Press 2013

his publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

First published 2013

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data

isbn 978-0-521-85830-4 Volume I Hardback

List of Figures and Maps page vii

Introduction to Volumes I and II 1

Part I. Mesopotamia and the Near East

Part II. Egypt and North Africa

Part III. Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean

Part IV. he Western Mediterranean and Europe

Suggestions for Further Reading 387

18. Seated goddess receiving oﬀerings from lion-creatures under

Gary Beckman is Professor of Hittite and Mesopotamian Studies at

Agora he Athenian Agora: Results of the Excavations Conducted by

KAI H. Donner and W. Röllig, Kanaanäische und aramäische

michele renee salzman

defining ancient religion

Any eﬀort to deﬁne religion in the ancient Mediterranean world is con-

one meaning of the word, namely, the observance of duties in human

In contrast to the modern American ideal of the separation of church

approaching ancient religion

divinity through a reconstruction of very diverse evidences in his chapter

ideas of religious identity and community. Judaism, for example, appears

on the private manifestations of religious commitment. Religious ritual in

elucidate what some scholars have considered as key to investigating reli-

the separation between classics and theology was eﬀectively established in

in these pages. Moreover, although we encouraged the contributors to con-

some terms of analysis

organization of the volumes: beginnings and endings

and regional religious traditions explain why some contributors ended

including traditional religions in these areas, as well as essays on Judaism

he conquest of the ancient Near East by Alexander the Great of Macedonia

powerful nations, religions, or cultures would challenge the validity of

Numerous issues emerge in the contemporary comparative study of

Volume I treats a very complex religious world in the Mediterranean

Isaac, Benjamin. he Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity (Princeton, 2004).

MESOPOTAMIA AND THE NEAR EAST

status, divine patronage thus stimulating and reinforcing socio-economic

from literacy to language-death

cities in the plain

Rainfall on the plain is insuﬃcient to support farming. Proﬁting from

from prehistory to history

patron deity, Marduk, to a position as head of the pantheon. Analysis of

the first writing

enabling a wider range of words to be written, and the particular form of

household, his family, advisors, servants, and sacred possessions, in partic-

he inscriptions themselves also provide examples of royal participa-

references to religious literature preserved on eighteenth-century sources.

the puriﬁcation that is one of the incantations’ primary concerns. As such

he instructions is another of the few instances of literature attested in

redistributive mechanism followed an institutionalized principle of hierar-

Cunningham, Graham. “A Catalogue of Sumerian Literature (Based on Miguel Civil’s

ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN RELIGIONS

Modern scholarly understanding of what constituted ancient Assyrian and