ever-presence and almightiness within the world. Consequently, divine figures could
serve as extra-world referees taking the part of the faithful in social procedures of
negotiation and legitimization. Relationships with the divine realm were defined within
a strictly ritualistic frame. Ritualism does not go necessarily with a utilitarian, cynical
relationship, as the comic author Plautus depicted that of some devotees in order
to make the audience laugh. Nor does it imply a “cold” or “blasé” relationship,
as dominant historiography portrayed it for long, because it was influenced by a
spiritualistic experience (e.g. R. Turcan 1989: 23–31). Ritualism is therelational
procedure that goes coherently with the way Romans conceived the respective places
of men and gods within the world. In that respect, becoming a devotee in so-called
oriental cults did not signify a mental “revolution.” It was another, supplementary
way of living one’s relationship with the gods (Veyne 1986). If some of these cults
might have proposed a life of beatitude post mortem, fear of death is first a reality
for hic et nunclife, as Burkert calls it (1992: 32) after Plato (Res publica330b).
Cumont, who still stands as an authoritative scholar for historians of religions, ana-
lyzed the diffusion of “oriental religions” as filling a psychological gap and satisfy-
ing new spiritualistic needs (1929: 24 – 40). Closer investigation of a later generation
has brought many corrections to that picture. In an Apuleius novel, Lucius was so
curious about magical practices that he was changed into an ass. The greater profit
he gets when joining Isis’ cult is to be rendered to his human form, as if he was
born again: “Verily, he is blessed and most blessed that by the innocence of his for-
mer life hath merited so great grace from heaven” (Apul. Met.11.16). Theories on
religion or gods concerned speculative issues. Cicero attests to the fact when, in his
treatise On divination, he explores the two different ways of considering divination:
from a political point of view and from a conceptual one. Intimate attitudes, exis-
tential questions, or ethical preoccupations, like those of Cicero in his philosophical
works, Seneca in his Letters to Lucilius, Marcus Aurelius’ Thoughts for himself, or later
authors, belong to intellectual and philosophical thinking, and not to religion.
FURTHER READINGA general account of the importance of ritual in ancient religion is given by Scheid (2005c);
see also Veyne (2005). A shorter account of domestic religion is given by Orr (1978); Bakker
(1994) lists and analyzes the findings for the city of Ostia; Steuernagel (1999) adds the reli-
gious activities of associations; see Veyne (1989) for the private use of the public religious
infrastructure. Magic as a technique for the problems of everyday life is described by Graf
(1997a) and – with ample evidence – by Mirecki and Meyer (2002); Lane Fox (1986) demon-
strates that such findings are valid for Christians, too. The mentality of the conditional gift
to the gods, the vow, is analyzed by Pleket (1981) and van Straten (1981).
Religious Actors in Daily Life 291