~23 min read • Updated Mar 24, 2026
Introduction
How were these unconquerable Romans made? What institutions gave their character and policy such iron strength? What home and school, what religion and moral code shaped them? How did they rise each day from the soil, and with what economic organization and skill did they forge the wealth needed to equip growing cities and ever-renewed armies? In street and forum, temple and theater, learning and philosophy, old age and death, what was their daily life? Until we know Rome in the early Republic in detail, we can never understand the vast transformation of habits, morals, and ideas that produced at one time the austere and incorruptible Cato and, much later, the Epicurean Nero, and finally turned the Roman Empire into the Roman Church.
The Family
Birth in Rome was a hazardous event. If the child was deformed or a girl, the father, by ancient custom, could kill it. Otherwise the newcomer was welcomed, for although Romans of this period practiced some family limitation, they ardently desired sons. Rural life gave children value and importance; childlessness was severely condemned by public opinion, and religion taught that a Roman who left no son to tend his grave would suffer eternal torment. Eight days after birth the child was solemnly received into the family or clan beside the domestic hearth. The gens was a group of free-born families claiming a common ancestor, bearing his name, united in common religious rites, and bound to mutual aid in peace and war.
A boy’s full name consisted first of a personal name (Publius, Marcus, Gaius), then the clan name (Cornelius, Tullius, Julius), and finally the family name (Scipio, Cicero, Caesar). Women needed only the clan name — Cornelia, Tullia, Claudia, Julia. Since only about fifty personal names were in use, and many were repeated across generations in the same family, the first letter was often enough, and a fourth or even fifth name was added for distinction. Thus P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus Maior, the conqueror of Hannibal, was distinguished from P. Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Minor, the destroyer of Carthage.
The child found himself in the depth of a patriarchal family, the most basic and distinctive institution of Roman society. The father’s authority was almost absolute, as if the family were a small army perpetually at war. Of all members of the family only the father enjoyed certain rights before the law in the early Republic; only he could buy, sell, and hold property or enter into contracts. In that age he was even owner of his wife’s dowry. If she was accused of a crime he had the right to try and punish her and could condemn her to death for adultery or for stealing the keys to his wine cellar. Over his children he held the power of life and death, of sale or enslavement. Whatever a son acquired legally belonged to the father. Marriage of a child was impossible without paternal consent. A married daughter remained under her father’s authority unless he granted her manus marriage, handing her into the power of her husband. Over his slaves his power was unlimited. They, like his wife and children, were in his manus, and remained so, regardless of age or status, until he chose to free or release them. These rights of the paterfamilias were limited to some extent by custom, public opinion, the clan council, and praetorian law; otherwise they lasted until the father’s death and could not be ended even by his madness or his own wish. Their effect was to strengthen family unity as the moral and political foundation of Rome and to establish an order that gave the Roman character its Stoic firmness. In theory harsh, in practice these rights were rarely exercised to the extreme, and the rest were seldom abused. They did not prevent the growth of a deep and affectionate “reverential love” between parents and children. The inscriptions on Roman tombstones are as tender as those of the Greeks or of our own time.
The Status of Women
Woman’s position in Rome must not be judged solely by her legal disabilities, for man’s need of woman always equips her with charms far stronger than any law. She had no right to appear in court, even as a witness. If widowed she had no claim upon her husband’s estate; he could leave her nothing if he wished. At every age she remained under the guardianship of a man — father, brother, husband, son, or appointed guardian — without whose consent she could not marry or use her property. Yet she could inherit, though never more than 100,000 sesterces (about $15,000); there was no limit on the wealth she might acquire. In many cases during the transition from early to later Republic, men registered their property in their wives’ names to escape bankruptcy, indemnity claims, inheritance taxes, and other constant dangers, so that women accumulated great fortunes. In religion she assisted the priest; every flamen had to have a wife; when the priest died his wife lost her office. In the home she was the “honored mistress.” Unlike the Greek woman she was not confined to women’s quarters. She ate with her husband, though she sat while he reclined. She was partly relieved of menial household tasks because almost every citizen had at least one slave. As a sign of housewifery she spun, but her special duty was the management of the household and supervision of the slaves, though she tried to rear her own children herself. Children rewarded their mother’s patience with boundless affection and respect, and the husband would not allow his legal lordship to injure his attachment to her.
Roman Religion
The Roman family was a bond not only between persons and things but between persons, things, and gods. The family was the hearth and source of religion as well as of morals, economics, and government; every part of its property and every aspect of its existence was linked by a sacred chain to the spiritual world. The symbol of this principle was the undying fire on the domestic hearth, the sign and very essence of the household goddess — that sacred flame which represented the life and continuity of the family. This the child learned in speechless but clear language. The fire must never be allowed to go out but must be tended with religious care and fed with a portion of every daily meal. Above the hearth the child saw small images crowned with flowers, representing the household gods or spirits: the Lares, who guarded the fields, buildings, property, and fortune of the family, and the Penates, the gods of the interior, who preserved the family’s stores in its barns, chests, and stables. At the threshold the invisible and awe-inspiring Janus spread his wings; he was the god with two faces, not to deceive but to see clearly all who entered or left the house. The child learned that the father was the guardian spirit or genius of the household, whose power did not perish with the body but must be fed forever at the family tomb. The mother too was a divine symbol and worthy of worship like the gods. Every mother had within her a Juno, a spirit representing the power of childbirth, just as the father had within him a genius, the spirit and power of begetting. The child also had both a male and a female genius (Juno and Genius), who were at once his guardian angel and his own soul, a divine nucleus in a mortal shell. He learned with awe that the “kindly shades,” the ancestors whose grim death-masks hung on the walls of the house, were everywhere around him, watching him, warning him against deviation from ancestral ways, and reminding him that the family consisted not only of those alive in his day but also of those who had once been or would one day be members of it; each was a part of the great host of family spirits and of its beginningless and endless unity.
As the child grew, other spirits came to his aid: Cuba watched over his sleep, Abeona guided his first steps, Fabulina taught him to speak. When he left the house he found himself again in the presence of gods everywhere. The earth itself was divine. Sometimes it was called Telus or “Mother Earth”; sometimes Mars, the soil under his feet and the embodiment of its divine fertility; sometimes Bona Dea, the “Good Goddess,” who gave women fruitful wombs and fields abundant harvests. In the countryside a god or helpful spirit attended every task: Pomona for orchards, Faunus for flocks, Pales for pastures, Sterculinus for manure, Saturnus for sowing, Ceres for the harvest, Fornax for baking grain in the oven, and Vulcanus for kindling fire. On the boundaries the great god Terminus kept watch, imagined and worshipped in the form of stones or trees that marked the limits of fields. Other religions might look to the sky, and the Roman too believed that gods were there, but his purest prayers and most ungrudging offerings were made to the earth, the ultimate source and mother of life, the grave of the dead, and the magical nurse of his growing seed. Every year in December the Lares, the guardians of the soil, were worshipped at the cheerful festival of the crossroads; in February, with lavish offerings to Telus, abundance of crops was asked; in April the priests of the Arval Brotherhood led a procession of singers along the boundaries of the joined fields and prayed to Mars (the earth) to make them fruitful. Thus religion sanctified ownership, calmed quarrels, dignified labor in the fields with poetry and drama, and strengthened body and soul with faith and hope.
Unlike the Greeks, the Romans did not imagine their gods in human form; they called them spirits or numina. Sometimes the gods were abstract concepts such as Health, Youth, Memory, Fortune, Shame, Hope, Fear, Virtue, Chastity, Concord, Victory, and Rome itself. Some, like the Lemures or ghosts, were spirits of disease and were appeased with difficulty. Others were spirits of the seasons, such as Maya, the spirit of May. Still others were water spirits like Neptune, or woodland fairies like Silvanus, or gods who lived in trees. Some dwelt in the bodies of sacred animals, such as the sacrificial horse or ox, or in the bodies of the sacred geese whose pious playfulness saved the Capitol from harm. Others were spirits of reproduction: Tutunus presided over conception; Lucina watched over menstruation and childbirth. The Greek god of fertility, Priapus, soon found a home in Rome; according to St. Augustine, who was much distressed by the custom, girls and matrons sat upon the phallus of his statue to ensure pregnancy. His obscene images adorned many gardens; simple folk wore small phallic amulets to promote fertility and good luck or to ward off the evil eye. No religion ever had so many gods. Varro counted the Roman gods up to thirty thousand, and Petronius complained that in some Italian towns there were more gods than men. But to the Romans deus meant both saint and god.
Beneath the surface of these basic conceptions lay a colorful popular belief in animism, fetishism, totemism, magic, miracle, spell, superstition, and taboo, most of which were survivals from the prehistoric inhabitants of Italy and perhaps from their Indo-European ancestors in their ancient Asian home. Many things, places, or persons were “unclean” and therefore untouchable, i.e., forbidden to touch or approach: among them newborn infants, menstruating women, and condemned criminals. Hundreds of amulets or mechanical devices were used to achieve natural ends by supernatural means; almost every child wore a golden amulet around the neck. Small images were hung on seas or trees to drive away evil spirits. Spells or incantations were employed to prevent accidents, cure diseases, bring rain, defeat an enemy army, destroy his crops, or ruin him. Pliny says: “We are all afraid that spells and incantations may wither us on the spot.” In Horace, Virgil, Tibullus, and Lucian there are many witches. It was believed that witches ate snakes and flew at night; they made poisons from mysterious plants, killed children, and raised the dead. Except for a few skeptics, everyone believed in miracles and omens, in speaking or sweating statues, in gods who came down from Olympus to fight for Rome, in lucky odd days and unlucky even days, and in foretelling the future by strange events. Livy’s history is full of hundreds of such omens reported with philosophical gravity; and Pliny the Elder’s volumes contain so many that his work might also be entitled “A History of the Supernatural.” By announcing that a soothsayer had seen an abnormal liver or heard thunder in a clear sky, the most important business, governmental, or military actions could be suspended or postponed.
The government tried as far as possible to restrain these excesses and rightly called them “superstition,” i.e., what stands above. But it shrewdly used popular religiosity for the stability of society and state. It adapted the rural gods to urban life, built a national shrine for the goddess Vesta, and appointed a college of Vestal Virgins to guard the fire of the city; from the gods of the family, field, and village it created the local gods of the state and, in the name of all citizens, established a splendid and impressive ritual for their worship.
The National Gods
Among these ancient national gods, Jupiter or Jove, though he had not yet risen to the kingship like Zeus, was the most beloved. In the early centuries of Roman history he still had a non-human aspect — the vast expanse of the sky, the light of sun and moon, the roar of thunder, or (as Jupiter Pluvius) a downpour of blessing rain were his manifestations. Even Virgil and Horace sometimes used the word Jove as synonymous with rain or sky. In time of drought the richest matrons of Rome would walk barefoot from the Capitol to the temple of Jupiter Tonans — Jove the Thunderer — to pray for rain. Perhaps the name was a modified form of Diespater or Dispater, Father of the Day. Perhaps in the beginning Janus — originally Dianus — was one with him; Janus was first the two-faced spirit of huts, then of city gates, and later the spirit of every opening or beginning, such as the day and the year. The doors of his temple were opened only in time of war so that he could accompany the Roman armies in subduing the gods of the enemy. The god who enjoyed almost as much popular reverence as Jupiter was Mars (Mavors). At first the god of sowing, then the god of war, and finally the very symbol and emblem of Rome; every tribe in Italy named one of the months of the year after him. Another of these ancient gods was Saturnus, the national god of “fresh sowing.” In legend he was described as a king in prehistoric times who united all the tribes under one law, taught agriculture, and established peace and communal life in the Golden Age of “Saturn’s reign.”
The Roman goddesses were less powerful but more beloved than these. Juno Regina was queen of heaven and the twin guardian of womanhood, marriage, and motherhood; her special month, June, was considered the most auspicious for marriage. Minerva was the goddess of wisdom or memory, of handicrafts and guilds, of actors, musicians, and scribes; the Palladium, whose preservation was thought to be the foundation of Rome’s security, was an image of Pallas Minerva, armed from head to foot, which was said to have been brought from Troy to Rome by Aeneas through the power of love and war. Venus was the spirit of desire, mating, and fertility; her sacred month, April, was called the month of “bursting buds.” Poets such as Lucretius and Ovid saw her as the life-giving essence of all living things. Diana was the goddess of the moon, of women and childbirth, of the hunt, of forests and their wild inhabitants, and a tree spirit who, when Latium came under Roman rule, was taken from the cult of the district of Aricia in that region. Near Aricia lay the lake and grove of Nemi, and in that grove a magnificent temple of Diana was built, which became a place of pilgrimage for all who regarded this goddess as once the bedfellow of Virbius, “king of the woods.” The successors of Virbius, the priests and husbands of the hunting goddess, in order that Diana and the earth might remain fertile, each in turn gave way to a slave who, after cutting a bough from the sacred oak (or golden bough) to make a talisman, attacked the king and killed him; this custom lasted until the second century AD.
These were the great gods officially worshipped by the Romans. There were also lesser national gods who rivaled them in popularity: Hercules, the god of joy and wine, who once gambled lightheartedly with the treasurer of his own temple over a courtesan; Mercury, the guardian god of merchants, orators, and thieves; Ops, the goddess of wealth; Bellona, the goddess of war; and many others. As the Roman dominion expanded, new gods appeared. Sometimes a god from a conquered city was brought to the public shrine of the Roman gods as a sign and guarantee of victory, as Juno from Veii was brought captive to Rome. Conversely, when people from any community came to the capital they brought their own gods with them lest their psychological and moral roots be suddenly torn up; just as modern immigrants bring their gods to America. The Romans did not doubt the existence of these foreign gods; most of them believed that every god accompanied his own image; many thought that the god was the image itself.
But some of these new gods were not conquered but conquerors; they entered Rome through commercial, military, and cultural contacts with Greek civilization. The Romans first came into contact with Greek civilization in Campania, then in southern Italy, then in Sicily, and finally in Greece itself. The official gods of Roman religion were cold and inhuman; they accepted gifts and sacrifices as bribes but could rarely comfort or inspire. In contrast, the Greek gods, like human beings, were full of adventure, zest, and poetry. The Roman populace welcomed these gods, built temples for them, and gladly learned their ritual. The official priests accepted the Greek gods as helpers in maintaining order and contentment and, wherever possible, identified them with their own. In 496 BC Demeter and Dionysus entered Rome and were identified with Ceres and Liber (the god of the vine). Twelve years later it was the turn of Castor and Pollux to become guardians of Rome; in 431 a temple was built for Apollo at the healing spring in the hope of preventing plague. In 294 Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine, was brought from Epidaurus in the form of a huge serpent, and a temple and hospital were erected for him on an island in the Tiber. Cronus was identified with Saturnus, Poseidon with Neptune, Artemis with Diana, Hephaestus with Vulcanus, Heracles with Hercules, Hades with Pluto, and Hermes with Mercury. With the help of the poets, Jupiter rose to the rank of another Zeus, the stern witness of oaths and aged judge of morals, guardian of laws and god of gods; gradually the educated Romans were prepared to accept the monotheistic religions of Stoicism, Judaism, and Christianity.
The Priests
Italy had capable priests to appease these gods and to seek their help. In every house the father was himself a priest; but the leadership of public worship lay with several colleges or associations of pontifices, each independent in its own sphere but all directed by one chief priest, the pontifex maximus, who was chosen by the Centuriate Assembly. No special qualification was required for membership in these colleges. Any citizen could join or leave them. They did not form a separate caste or class and had no political power except as instruments of the government. They received income from certain state lands for their expenses and had slaves for their service, and they grew rich from the legacies that pious generations left them.
In the third century BC the college of the pontifex maximus had nine members who prepared the calendar, recorded the laws, took the auspices, offered sacrifices, and purified Rome from sin in a five-year ceremony of atonement. The pontifices had fifteen assistants called flamines whose task was to kindle the sacrificial fire. Smaller colleges had special duties: the Salii (literally jumpers or dancers) announced the arrival of each new year by performing a ritual dance before Mars; the Fetiales or herald-priests authenticated treaties and declarations of war; the Luperci or “wolf brothers” performed the strange rite of the Lupercalia. The college of Vestal Virgins guarded the national hearth and sprinkled it daily with water from the sacred spring of Egeria. These white-robed and white-veiled priestesses were chosen from girls six to ten years old and remained virgins for thirty years, devoting themselves to the service of the people, but in return they enjoyed many public honors and privileges. If one of them was accused of unchastity she was scourged and burned alive; Roman historians record twelve such executions. After thirty years the Vestals could retire and marry, but few took the opportunity.
The most influential priestly body was the college of nine augurs who in ancient times observed the flight of birds and later examined the entrails of sacrificial animals to discover the will or intention of the gods. Before any important political or governmental action or the beginning of a war, the magistrates took the auspices, and the augurs or haruspices interpreted them; the art of these haruspices had come to Rome from Etruria and beyond, from Chaldea. Because the augurs sometimes accepted bribes, they occasionally adjusted their pronouncements to the needs of their clients; for example, by announcing that the omens were unfavorable they could prevent the passage of unwelcome laws, or conversely, by reporting favorable signs they could encourage the assembly to vote for a declaration of war. In major crises the government consulted the “Sibylline Books,” the recorded prophecies of the Sibyl, the priestess of Apollo at Cumae, to learn the will of the gods. By these means and by missions sent to the Delphic oracle, the aristocracy could lead the people in any direction toward any goal.
Festivals
If the ritual of worship was tedious and rigid, the festivals made up for this defect and showed both men and gods in a more cheerful light. In every year more than a hundred days were holy, including the first and sometimes the ninth and fifteenth of each month. Some of these days were devoted to the dead or to the spirits of the underworld. These spirits in their own ceremonies were “avertors of evil” and their purpose was to appease the departed and ward off their anger. On the eleventh to the thirteenth of May families celebrated the Lemuria or festival of the dead with solemnity. The father spat black beans from his mouth and cried: “With these beans I redeem myself and you … Depart, ye shades of my ancestors!” The Parentalia and Feralia in February were similarly efforts to appease the anger of the terrifying dead. But the festivals, especially among the common people, were more often an occasion for joy and indulgence mixed with release from sexual restraints. The hero of one of Plautus’s plays says that on these days “you may eat whatever you like, and go wherever you like … and love whoever you please, provided you keep away from married women, widows, maidens, and freeborn boys.” Apparently the speaker thought that even after excluding these categories a good many people would still be left for love-making.
On the fifteenth of February came the turn of the Lupercalia, a strange festival dedicated
Written & researched by Dr. Shahin Siami