relentless flow of Einzelerklärungen, “explanations of individual problems” (Grafton
1983). Larger perspectives were either neo-Humboldtian (Wilamowitz 1931–2;
Henrichs 1985) or sporadic attempts to utilize comparative material (E. Rohde 1898;
Samter 1901), and these latter predictably (supra) encountered nearly total hostil-
ity. Thus it scarcely seems coincidental that Wilamowitz in his Latin autobiography
placed Usener among those (inter philologos) quibus nihil debeo(Calder 1981: 48),
although Usener received vindication of a kind when Ernst Cassirer utilized his work
in Philosophie der symbolischen Formen (1925). British universities, by contrast,
remained sleepy places until the reforms of Oxbridge in the second half of the
century. The reforms had an intellectual base, but it is scarcely coincidental that they
took place at the time of alarm at the rise of the mighty Prussian intellectual and
industrial-military machine; hence the “endowment of research” at Oxbridge to
counteract the Prussians. The British could not meet them on the grounds of “Big
Scholarship” directly, but with their comparative evolutionary perspectives they felt
they could go where the Prussians refused to tread. Hence it should not surprise
that the British found Usener’s magnum opus congenial (Fowler 1911: 161– 4;
Rose 1913; but cf. Farnell 1907) while the scholars in the USA, largely following
the German model of scholarship, did not (Gildersleeve 1896). The effects of all of
these developments on the study of Roman religion were enormous.
Nineteenth Century and Early Twentieth
Century II: Developments in Germany and Britain
It is not surprising, that given the differences on colonialism and comparative mater-
ial, Darwin, and the role of universities, the study of Greco-Roman religion would
differ greatly in Britain and Germany. Oxford had rapidly become the training-ground
for future colonial administrators. These future administrators imbibed the intellec-
tual ferment of classics and anthropology in Oxford’s “Greats” curriculum, popu-
larly considered to be the curriculum of choice for future civil servants, despite the
introduction at Cambridge of the Special Board of Indian Civil Service Studies (Symonds
1986; Vasunia 2005). After taking degrees, the new colonial administrators often
reported to their erstwhile mentors, reports inevitably colored by the mentors’
theories. Thus Frazer (until recently unpublished; see now Ackerman 2005: 96 –7)
to Tylor, December 4, 1896, of a projected history of Uganda by a Mr. Pilkington,
“a Cambridge man who took good honors in classics and works as the linguist of
the mission in Uganda.” The British were not unappreciative of the German efforts,
but they felt that they could go them one better by way of the comparative ethno-
graphic material, use of which was just as “scientific” (Darwin was, after all, “sci-
entific”) as the Germans’ “Big Scholarship.” Thus Fowler on Wissowa: “I cannot
but think it a pity that this eminent scholar should so absolutely decline to learn
anything from the despised comparative anthropologists” (Fowler 1902: 119).
Despite cooperation between classics and anthropology, the study of Roman reli-
gion remained highly specialized. For example, Fowler never lectured on Roman
religion; nor did Arthur Darby Nock during his brief tenure at Cambridge; Bailey22 C. Robert Phillips, III