CHAPTER 31
Ethnicity in Roman Religion
Jörg Rüpke
Entertaining Diversity
Approaching ethnicity from the point of view of religion is a difficult undertaking in the
context of Roman urban society. To be sure, religious practices were an integral part of
political communication, and hence were a part of those procedures intended or at least
functioned so as to create identities that might include an ethnic dimension. However, on
the surface, at least, what we most often encounter is an interest in social differentiation,
in social and legal status, which typically reinforced each other. Take, for example, the
ranks in the theaters and amphitheaters (temporary structures only down to the end
of the republic!), which were allotted to senators, priestesses and priests, equestrians,
free citizens, women, and slaves, thereby communicating social differences and political
power within (and occasionally outside) Roman society (Hekster 2005). This is nicely
captured in the prologue of Plautus’ comedyPoenulus:
Let no well-ripened wanton take seat upon the stage, nor lictor murmur, or his rods, nor
usher ramble around in front, or show a seat, while an actor is on the boards. Those who
have stayed too long at home in idle sleep should now stand in patience, or else sleep in
moderation. Let no slaves crowd in, but leave room here for free men, or else pay cash for
manumission; in case they cannot, let them go home and shun a twofold catastrophe—rod
welts here and whip welts there, if their masters come back home to find their work undone.
And nurses, let nurses attend to their tiny brats at home, let not one bring them to this play,
for the nurses may get dry and the children starve to death, or go maamaaing here for food
like so many young goats. Matrons are to view this play in silence, laugh in silence, temper
here their tuneful chirping, take their prittle-prattle home, and not be a nuisance to their
husbands here as well as there. (Plautus,Poenulus18–36, translation by Paul Nixon, Loeb
Library, London: Heinemann, 1916)A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean, First Edition. Edited by Jeremy McInerney.
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.