and politics at Rome, the impact of these developments was felt in the religious sphere
as well as the political.
Perhaps most obvious to the inhabitants of Rome, the expansion of hegemony
brought with it an expansion in the Roman pantheon, as new temples to new gods
were erected throughout the city. Greek cults had found a place in Rome since the
fifth century bce, and the Romans on at least one occasion had made use of a
ceremony known as evocatio, whereby they promised a home in Rome to the pro-
tective deity of a military enemy if that deity abandoned the enemy in favor of
Rome (Livy 5.21). But these cults had either come from other towns in Italy or
been mediated through them. The increased contact with the Greek world begin-
ning in the late third century bceled to both an increased number and an increased
pace in the adoption of foreign cults. The Romans had taken possession of Sicily at
the end of the First Punic War in 241, and in 217, at the outset of the Second Punic
War, they brought Venus from Mount Eryx in Sicily and installed her in a temple
on the Capitoline hill, not far from the religious heart of the city (Livy 23.31). Simul-
taneous with that war, the First Macedonian War brought direct Roman involve-
ment in the Greek east, and in 205 the Romans brought the aniconic black stone
representing the Magna Mater from Asia Minor and installed it in the temple of
Victory; in 191 they built a temple for the goddess on the Palatine hill, tradition-
ally the oldest part of the city (Livy 29.10 –11, 36.36). These locations, and the fact
that both these goddesses were brought following a consultation of the Sibylline
Books and hence a vote of the full senate, reveal that these goddesses had broad
support from the ruling elite. Nor did the introduction of foreign cults cease after
the Second Punic War; a second temple was built for Venus Erycina in 181, and
M. Fulvius Nobilior erected a temple to Hercules of the Muses in the following decade.
The expansion in the divine community that the Romans cultivated paralleled the
expansion in the human communities over whom the Romans held power.
These cult introductions and temple constructions present many features charac-
teristic of Roman religion that deserve emphasis. The notion of expanding the
pantheon in response to the expansion of territory is not a necessary one or typical
of the ancient world. The Babylonians brought the worship of their own god Marduk
into conquered lands rather than adopting foreign worship; even the Athenians, who
did introduce new gods into Athens, did so on a much more limited basis than Rome
and never, as best we can tell, from a defeated enemy. The Romans, however, dis-
played an unusual willingness to extend citizenship to others, so here again Roman
religion mirrors Roman politics. The expansion of the pantheon, and especially the
incorporation of foreign divinities, reveals that same willingness to extend the
Roman community beyond the mere walls of the city of Rome. At the same time
as the Romans signaled this openness, they also demonstrated their superiority; while
the Romans did not deprive the local communities of their cults, they indicated their
power over these communities by taking on responsibility for the proper cultivation
of the gods’ favor in Rome. The procedures by which these cults came to Rome
also exemplified the principles of Roman religion. The great bulk of the new tem-
ples resulted from a vow made by a general in the field, a response to a crisis, and
thus provided scope for an individual to parade both his piety to the gods and his
62 Eric Orlin