14 C. Robert Phillips, III
treatises on lexicography, topography, and politics as well as Roman religion.
Fourth, the range of ancient scholarly debate on an issue remains unknowable, thus
the fauissae and the various fragments on the Novensides (GRF Cincius 22,
Cornificius 8, Stilo 22). Fifth and consequently, much specialist religious informa-
tion lurked in works whose titles did not promise it; consider the late example of
the important opinion lurking in Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ Roman Antiquities
(2.19 –20, late first century bc). Sixth, the works were “armchair”; their authors seem
to have relied on personal libraries, memories, and personal interactions with other
writers. Consider a mid-second century example: Fronto on Anagnia’s cults (Epist.
ad Aurelium4.4 =60 –1 van den Hout^2 ), sole literary evidence of same, arose from
spontaneous detour rather than scholarly determination, although the town lay close
to Rome. Seventh, no known Roman author, Varro included, devoted himself
largely to the study of Roman religion as did, say, St. Augustine for Christianity.
There is also the issue of religious knowledge, and discussion thereof, in legal texts
literary and epigraphic, sometimes anonymous, sometimes not. Consider the case of
“magic.” Malum carmen(“noisome metrical charm”) seems to have appeared in the
XII Tables (Rives 2002), to judge from the host of explicit and implicit quotations,
and it continued to remain a live issue (Seneca,Naturales quaestiones 4.7.2). But on
what terms? Did theorizing about the relation between magic and religion exist in
any form (Phillips 1991b)? The famous decision of the senatede Bacchanalibus(186
bc: ILLRP^2 511) betokens knowledge of and thought about the cult: the rites are
secret (10), but it is recognized that the goddess may require some to participate
(2). What about the much-discussed “Nazareth Decree” (FIRA^2 1.69)? Does it reflect
knowledge of the alleged resurrection of Jesus (Matthew 28.12 –13) or does it rather
reflect an ongoing Roman concern for legal issues in exhumation and reburial (Pliny,
Epist.10.68f.)? We cannot say; the emperor issuing the decree remains anonymous,
while the pontiffs as referenced in Pliny gave rulings advisory rather than binding
(Wissowa 1912: 402, 513). The Lex Lucerina(FIRA^2 3.71b), through its prohibi-
tion on manuring, involves the complexities of what makes a grove sacred (Bodel
1986: 24 – 9), which we know from other evidence could include such arcana as the
legal status of its soil (ILS4915). But given the nature of a polytheistic religious
system founded on local religious knowledge it seems unlikely that the precise reg-
ulations were universally known, let alone observed; regulations in later legal com-
pilations represent juristic ideals rather than actual local practice (Buckland 1963:
183 – 4). Finally, the Arval actaofad 224 mention three Sondergötter(Summanus,
Adolenda, and Coinquenda; Scheid 105v verso) – did the Arvales possess detailed
and archival knowledge of those divinities or, rather, were they merely following mos
maiorum? In all of these cases the circumstances appear not much different from
the other examples we have considered. It is impossible to determine whether the
evidence betokens substantial and specialist study or whether a combination of legal
and religious traditions was simply reused and sometimes modified without signi-
ficant scholarly thought.
Finally, looming large over all considerations of the Romans’ scholarship on and
possession of religious information are the pontifical books. They may have been
physically reconditi(hidden), but a certain fraction of information clearly got out.