could afford to fight on horseback instead of on foot.
Like their Etruscan counterparts, they presided over
elaborate networks of clientage in which mutual obliga-
tion was enforced by religious and legal sanctions.
When the monarchy fell, the Senate remained to advise
the two governing magistrates, who would eventually
be known as consuls,and the senatorial families became
the core of the patrician order.
The patricians were the hereditary aristocracy of
the Roman republic. While other citizens could vote,
only the patricians could hold office as magistrates or
serve in the Senate. The plebeians, who were free citi-
zens even though many of them were bound by ties of
clientage, resisted this situation from the start. Some of
them had grown rich during the years of expansion un-
der the monarchy and resented being excluded from
public life.
The majority of plebeians had grown poorer. Their
farms, which had never been large, were divided and68Chapter 4
omens before virtually every act, public or private, and
performed sacrifices to assure its success. The sacrifices
might involve the burnt offering of an animal, which
was usually then eaten, or a libation of wine or oil.
Gods and spirits alike had to be appeased. The Romans
were not, however, a priest-ridden people. Priests of
both sexes specialized in the care of temples or in fore-
telling the future. They were never a separate caste. At
home, the father presided over religious rites and was
responsible for making sure that the family did not
offend the gods. No concept of personal salvation is
evident, and ethical concepts were largely unrelated
to divine will.
Some Romans were richer than others. The source
or extent of their greater wealth is hard to determine,
but at an early date the Etruscan kings identified one
hundred men of substance and appointed them to an
advisory body known as the Senate. The senators rep-
resented families that owned land, held slaves, andDOCUMENT 4.3
St. Augustine: Animistic Spirits in Roman Religion
St. Augustine (A.D. 354–430) was born Aurelius Augustinus in the
Roman province of Numidia in north Africa, the son of a Christian
mother and pagan father. Augustine moved to Rome, where he taught
rhetoric and continued to accept traditional Roman religious practice.
He converted to Christianity in his thirties and became a priest, return-
ing to Africa, where he served as bishop of Hippo. His writings, espe-
cially his autobiographical Confessionsand The City of God,
were extremely influential in shaping early Christianity. The following
excerpt from The City of Goddescribes the polytheistic Roman re-
ligion of his youth.
But how is it possible to mention in one part of this book
all the names of gods or goddesses, which the Romans
scarcely could comprise in great volumes, distributing
among these divine powers their peculiar functions con-
cerning separate things? They did not even think that the
care of their lands should be entrusted to any one god; but
they entrusted their farms to the goddess Rumina, and the
ridges of the mountains to the god Jugatinus; over the hills
they placed the goddess Collatina, over the valleys, Vallo-
nia. Nor could they even find one Segetia so potent that
they could commend their cereal crops entirely to her
care; but so long as their seed grain was still under the
ground, they desired to have the goddess Seia watch over
it; then, when it was already above ground and formed
standing grain, they set over it the goddess Segetia; and
when the grain was collected and stored, they entrusted it
to the goddess Tutilina, that it might be kept safe. Who
would not have thought the goddess Segetia sufficient to
protect the standing grain until it had passed from the first
green blades to the dry ears? Yet she was not enough for
men who loved a multitude of gods.... Therefore they set
Proserpina over the germinating seeds; over the joints and
knobs of the stems, the god Nodutus; over the sheaths en-
folding the ears, the goddess Volutina; when the sheaths
opened and the spikes emerged, it was ascribed to the god-
dess Patelana; when the stems were of the same height as
new ears, because the ancients described this equalizing by
the term hostire,it was ascribed to the goddess Hostilina;
when the grain was in flower, it was dedicated to the god-
dess Flora; when full of milk, to the god Lacturnus; when
maturing, to the goddess Matuta; when the crop was “run-
cated”—that is, removed from the soil—to the goddess
Runcina.
St. Augustine. The City of God,books 4, 8, from Roman Civilization:
Third Edition: 2 Vol. Set,Naphtali Lewis and Meyer Rheinhold, eds.
Copyright © 1990, Columbia University Press. Reprinted with permis-
sion of the publisher.