ABSTRACT
Prior to the decree of Theodosius in 391 which made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, the state religion was decidedly polytheistic. We saw briefly in Chapter 5 that religion for the Romans was a kind of contract between the deities and the citizens, in which gods would protect and bless the empire so long as they were respected and appeased in the proper ways by the citizenry. But the necessity for appeasement extended beyond political matters; the Roman world was filled with gods for just about every occasion.
