Roman Religion
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Roman religion was very important in the empire because it played a very big role in the culture of the Romans. The Roman religion was ultimately centered on the gods. Since, the Romans thought that Roman gods controlled their lives; temples were built to worship them and dedications in the temples were a dominant part of their daily lives. However, not everybody in the Roman Empire worshiped the gods and the emperor.
At times the Romans considered the emperor as a god. In some areas such as Eastern part of the Roman Empire, in Egypt, and West Asia, people worshiped the emperors as gods. In the western part of the Roman Empire people only worshiped the emperors guardian angel, not the emperor himself. Whenever the Romans took over the Jews; they continued to worship their own god according to the Jewish bible the Torah. The Roman religion was moderately like the Greek religion, but in other ways it was different. Romans believed if you sacrificed to the gods they would do good things in return. As the Roman Empire expanded the Romans began to adopt the gods of other conquered countries. For example, the Egyptian goddess Isis and the Syrian god Mithra. The Romans disagreed with the Jews and the Christians; because most of them did not worship the traditional Roman gods. The Romans assumed that the gods controlled different sections of the world such as storms, marriage, blacksmiths, and many more. Eventually, with the emperor Constantine he converted the Roman religion to Christianity. For a while the Roman government tolerated the Jewish and the Christian religion; but there were conflicts. In the beginning the Roman believed in Indo- European gods and they were similar to the Greek religious beliefs. Both cultures were in competition because both of them believed that their religion was the right religion. As the Etruscan's and Greeks mingled more and more with the Romans the Greek culture was adopted into Roman society. The Romans began to claim the Greek gods as their own and worshiped them. An example are the twin gods Castor and Pollux. It is almost impossible to understand the Roman Empire without referencing their history of religions. Romans mainly based their lives on religion. The religion of the Roman Empire was based on culture, imaginations, and even the religion of the modern Western world. Here is a list of some Roman gods: |