The Altars of Republican Rome and Latium

Sacrifice and the Materiality of Roman Religion

Claudia Moser author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:17th Jan '19

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The Altars of Republican Rome and Latium cover

This book reorients the study of sacrifice, examining the locus of ritual action - the altars of Republican Rome and Latium.

This study assembles the often fragmentary physical evidence (altar placement and orientation, votive and faunal remains, sanctuary architecture) in order to explore the site-specific character of communal animal sacrifice in Republican Rome and Latium over centuries of ritual performance.In this book, Claudia Moser offers a new understanding of Roman religion in the Republican era through an exploration of sacrifice, its principal ritual. Examining the long-term imprint of sacrificial practices on the material world, she focuses on monumental altars as the site for the act of sacrifice. Piecing together the fragments of the complex kaleidoscope of Roman religious practices, she shows how they fit together in ways that shed new light on the characteristic diversity of Roman religion. This study reorients the study of sacrificial practice in three principal ways: first, by establishing the primacy of sacred architecture, rather than individual action, in determining religious authority; second, by viewing religious activities as haptic, structured experiences in the material world rather than as expressions of doctrinal, belief-based mentalities; and third, by considering Roman sacrifice as a local, site-specific ritual rather than as a single, monolithic practice.

'Since the 1990s, it has become conventional to emphasize the 'locative' character of Roman Republican religion; readers of this book will discover how local it really was.' Duncan E. MacRae, Religious Studies Review
'This volume demonstrates the product of mature scholarship richly informed by the best research and masterfully produced in communicating what the reader needs to know about the Gospel of Matthew…' Daniel M. Gurtner, Religious Studies Review

ISBN: 9781108428859

Dimensions: 261mm x 183mm x 17mm

Weight: 650g

220 pages