ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the aims, scope, and parameters of the book as well as some of the key terms that will underpin its extended examination of lived religion in Roman Italy. Beginning with a case study centred on the annual rite of the Argei at Rome, it teases out the need to pay more critical attention to the ways in which Roman rituals caused humans to engage with material things. It begins to present a case for the value of adopting a materially focused approach to the study of Roman lived religion and its connection with different types of religious knowledge. This is set in the context of existing scholarship on Roman religion, especially a recent emphasis on lived ancient religion. The chapter briefly introduces posthumanist and new materialist concepts concerning relational assemblages of human and more-than-human things, as well as the importance of acknowledging the affordances or particular qualities of different material things, before presenting an outline of the present study.
