Urban Religion in the Middle and Late Republic 59the Romans did not believe in their gods or that they did not concern themselves
with morality. The Romans did have a well-developed sense of what constituted appro-
priate behavior, but they did not believe that moral standards emanated from divine
pronouncements; for reasons we shall explore below, divine revelation in the form
of specific commands played a very limited role in Roman religion. In regard to belief,
such questions are exceedingly difficult to answer at all times, even more so for an
ancient society that has left us limited records. The evidence available from Rome
dates mostly from the middle of the first century bce, which makes it virtually impos-
sible to know what Romans of an earlier period may have believed. This evidence
suggests that late republican Rome may have been largely similar to modern soci-
eties; some members of the community, such as Cicero, can be found expressing
some skepticism, but there is no reason to think that the overall level of belief was
any greater or lesser than today. Romans performed religious actions on a regular
basis in different contexts – in public as citizens, in their houses as members of their
family, and perhaps on their own – but for the Romans these formed a continuum
of religious activity. While the following remarks concentrate on the public religious
system, that focus is not intended to privilege that sphere as more important, but
acknowledges it as the most visible manifestation of religion in Rome, in terms of
both the surviving evidence and its impact on the city as a whole.
Religious Authority
Undoubtedly the most salient feature of Roman republican religion lies in the fact
that religious authority and religious institutions were tightly interwoven with polit-
ical authority and the political institutions of the res publica. The political system
during the republic operated on the principles of collegiality and cooperation, as the
system succeeded by balancing the needs of numerous different actors. On the one
hand Polybius noted that the populusretained the final authority to enact laws or
decide whether or not to go to war, but he also noted that the aristocracy in the
senate maintained control over Roman policy through its management of finances
and foreign affairs (Polybius 6.13–14). Within the ruling elite, a balance needed to
be maintained between the desires of individuals to take initiative and to win glory
for themselves, and the desire of the ruling elite to share collective power and thus
to prevent any one individual from gaining a position of dominance. Political
authority was thus diffused throughout the ruling elite, as two consuls jointly held
the highest executive authority for a single year, which allowed scope for individual
accomplishment while not allowing any one individual to obtain an excess of power.
The senate as an institution played a pivotal role in this balancing act; comprised
exclusively of members of the aristocracy, it set priorities and articulated policies in
the crucial areas of foreign relations and financial affairs that the popular assemblies
ultimately approved. As the collective authority of the ruling elite, it also could check
the ambitions of individual members of the aristocracy. The ability to manage these
balances – between mass and elite authority, and between individual and collective
authority – served as an important element in the success of the Romans, and the