Ethnicity in Roman Religion 475Dealing with Ethnic Diversity
Ifinterpretatio Romanais the strategy to deal with ethnic and linguistic diversity in
matters religious across the Roman Empire, forcefully starting with Caesar, one of the
founding figures of this territorial expansion, the center developed another strategy in
the crucial phase of the mid-first centuryBC. This was a much more powerful strategy:
the historicization of religion (in general, see Rüpke 2011c), a process whereby writers
treated religion as a phenomenon in the present but with roots deep in the past. At the
same time, it is much more subtle and hence much easier overlooked. Its functioning and
forms can best be seen in M. Terentius Varro’sAntiquitates, consisting ofAntiquitates
rerum humanarum(Antiquities of Things Human) in 26 books, and theAntiquitates
rerum divinarum(Antiquities of Things Divine) in 16 books (Rüpke 2014, extensively
used in the following). Most of his antiquarian works are fragmentary (see Cardauns
1976; 1978; more general: Cardauns 2001), and this forces us to rely on quotations by
later, frequently polemical authors, Augustine of Hippo taking pride of place, Tertullian
being second. Varro is the towering figure in the systematization of religious traditions
and practices at Rome, basically transforming a religion consisting of performance into a
system of knowledge.
In his works, Varro is attentive to historical change as related to language, institutions,
buildings, or clothing. Given the deplorable state of theAntiquities of Things Human,
we rely on another work,De gente populi Romani(On the Roman People)toformanidea
of theAntiquities, which it follows sequentially. The loss of knowledge about gods, the
loss of memory forms the starting point of the whole enterprise (fr. 2a Cardauns=Aug.
civ. 6.2.5):
He was afraid that the gods might perish, not by attack by enemies, but by the citizens’
negligence. He says that they were liberated from ignominy by him, and that the gods would
be stored and preserved in the memory of good men (memoria bonorum) by books of this
kind. This was a zeal more valuable than that for which Metellus was praised when he rescued
the sacred things of Vesta from fire, or when Aeneas saved the Penates from the destruction
of Troy.The passage stresses the change of conditions, of problems and solutions, in a very force-
ful opposition of negligence and the composing of books against war and fire. For the
life of the gods, the human factor is decisive. Religion is chronologically and logically
secondary to the foundation of society. This is why the books on divine matters follow
those on human affairs, despite the higher dignity of the former’s subject (see the text
that follows). Religious institutions, thus, are historic data, even if contingency does not
rob them of their obligatory character for all those posterior to the founders’ decisions,
as Varro states in another fragment of the introductory book (fr. 12 Cardauns=Aug.
civ. 4.31). History does not stop at the end of the founding phase. The introduction of
divine images is such a step, chronologically related to the building of the large Capito-
line temples. It is a major step in itself, marking the transition from the regal into the
early republican period. Again, such contingent steps are consequential. Images are nice
to see, but introduce harmful change. Varro deplores the fact that this innovation ended