ABSTRACT
Much of what we would call religion was so integrated into ancient social and cultural behaviour that its separate treatment here may seem an anachronistic reflection of the role of religion as a distinct sphere in western societies since the Enlightenment. Much has indeed already been said about religious practices in Part IV of this book. Nonetheless, Romans were capable of talking about religio and pietas as important qualities and even (if rarely) of discussing the correct relationship between the human and the divine in abstract terms, and they would have recognized the value of a separate discussion of this aspect of their public and private lives, even if they themselves lacked suitable terminology for its description – thus, for instance, ‘paganism’ is not a word to be found, in any language, in any ancient writings of the Early Roman Empire, for it was a term used and defined only by Christians of later periods, as a way of describing the religious beliefs and practices of the rest of humanity apart from themselves and the Jews. In the first centuries ad pagans themselves had no need of a term to describe the religious beliefs they had in common. For most of them, apart from the minute fraction confronted by Judaism or Christianity or assailed by philosophical doubts, their religious life was as obvious and unchallengeable as the other most basic elements of their society. 1 Atheism was almost unknown. 2
