Samuel Taylor

Religion in Augustan Rome renovation, innovation or ?

Religion in the later Republican period and during the Principate was not a matter of developing a
coherent belief system so much as a culture which aimed at preserving and strengthening the
Roman community in the present world. As a result, it is not so useful to think plainly in terms of
faith or ideology, but rather to question the role which religion was supposed to play in society and
then to work out the effect which Augustus regime had on that role. There were two key
movements within Augustus religious programme: on the one hand, we see a change in emphasis in
Roman religion from stressing the importance of location to placing significance on the person of
Augustus himself, while on the other, religious activity in Augustan Rome was forced to adapt
around the position of Augustus on the human-divine spectrum. In changes to, or reworking of,
elements of traditional Roman religion such as the pomerium or the priestly colleges, the person of
the emperor became the dominant factor rather than Rome itself, while the process of Octavian
becoming Augustus and being deified represents a cultural shift in which the security of Rome was
seen to increasingly depend on Augustus. These changes represent neither a simple return to
tradition nor a break from it, but actually a careful restructuring of Roman religion which was
deliberately guided by tradition and precedent.

Firstly, it seems to have been the case that Roman religion before Augustus was largely centred on
the city of Rome, whether a divine personification of it or the actual physical city. Colonies and
conquered provinces specifically sent dedications to the deified Goddess Rome, while we have
significant amounts of literature stressing the importance of the city. For example, Livy has Camillus
exhort Romans to avoid abandoning Rome, saying We possess a City which was founded with the
divine approval as revealed in auguries and auspices; in it there is not a spot which is not full of
religious associations and the presence of a god; the regular sacrifices have their appointed places
no less than they have their appointed days (5.52.2). Obviously, Livys history is too late for it to be
taken at face value as an account of Camillus actions, but it can be thought to be indicative of the
attitudes of Livys own time and perhaps the religious importance of the city for Augustan Romans
was something that was longstanding. Roman myths tended to be myths centred on specific
locations. The Ara Maxima was the place where Hercules was supposed to have sacrificed, while the
festivals of the Parilia were a ritualisation of the story of the founding of Rome and the creation of
the sacred boundary of the pomerium. During Augustus reign, we see a trend of these place-specific
myths being adapted to emphasise the religious role of the emperor. For example, the pomerium
had previously defined and limited all civil authority. In particular, popular assemblies were only
allowed to meet inside it, while even Augustus was initially restricted in his tribunal power to the
area up to one Roman mile outside it. However, in 23 BC, with the grant of tribunician powers, the
emperors were no longer restricted by the pomerium in their imperium, while Augustus overrode
the sacred traditions of the pomerium in other ways, such as the unprecedented act of establishing a
temple of Mars inside it in 2 BC.

A process of transferring the religious significance of the city of Rome to Augustus also seems to
have happened in Augustus reorganisation of Rome into regions and vici (Suetonius 30), as well as
replacing the cults of the vici with his own lares and genius. This was closely associated with the
Samuel Taylor
establishment of the temple of Vesta the traditional representation of domestic Rome in
Augustus own house, and as such these developments represent the shift of the imperial family
partly replacing the city of Rome in religion. Augustus building programmes also had a major effect
on this change of emphasis in Roman religion. It must be said that the repair of templa was largely
dictated by tradition, and doesnt seem to have involved a change in function of the places of
worship themselves for instance, the oldest shrines (such as that of Jupiter Feretrius) were
restored first while Augustus temple building was not without precedent, since Pompey had built
at least three temples, while Julius Caesar had built a forum around the temple of Venus Genetrix
and planned a huge temple of Mars. Yet the sheer scale of Augustus religious building programme,
the exclusivity of imperial rights to building within the city itself and the way in which the projects
proclaimed Augustus authority and glory make Augustus the focal point of such religious activity.
The traditional structures of the city-personified being a key concept in Roman religion may have
remained, but over the course of Augustus reign perhaps the emperor came to be so closely
associated with the concept of Rome that the difference between the two was negligible.

The second way in which Augustus restructured Roman religion was the effect he had on the ritual
and sacred aspects of the religious culture. It seems that these changes were always made with a
view towards restoration of old traditions, since Augustus regime was committed to the
perception that religious neglect and moral decline had precipitated Romes struggles in the mid-
first century BC. As a result, Suetonius relates that He restored the calendar, which had been
corrected by Julius Caesar, but through negligence was again fallen into confusion, to its former
regularity He likewise revived some old religious customs, which had become obsolete; as the
augury of public health, the office of high priest of Jupiter, the religious solemnity of the Lupercalia,
with the Secular, and Compitalian games (31). Augustus changed the ritual of Roman religion both
to accommodate the new element of the emperor and imperial family, but also as an instrument of
social control. For example, the Secular Games of 17 BC had leading roles played by Augustus and
Agrippa, breaking with custom in Agrippas case since he did not hold the usually required priestly
rank. Augustus would read prayers but end each one with for me, my house and my family
1
. Fairly
obviously, this emphasis on the imperial family even more pertinent since in the same year
Augustus adopted Gaius and Lucius as his heirs was a new dimension within Roman religion.
Religion was also the means by which Augustus offered political participation to those who did not
normally have the right to it. The Lares Compitales had largely been lower class cults, beforehand,
and often were outlets for civil unrest. By merging the genius of Augustus with them, he actually
turned their role into one of social stability. Similarly, the Augustales (whom Augustus did not found
but clearly approved of) were mostly made up of wealthy freedmen, and Augustus granting them
privileges such as allowing them to be vicomagistri meant that they were tied to him but also an
instrument promoting civil stability.

It was Augustus ownership of many priestly positions that partly gave him the influence and
authority to make these changes. This tendency towards accumulating many priesthoods is
something that was started by Julius Caesar but then taken even further from a relatively early time
by Augustus. He became pontifex in 48BC, augur in 41, XVvir sacris faviundis in 37, VIIvir epulonum
in 16, and so on. The significance of Augustus holding the membership of so many colleges and cults,

1
Cambridge Ancient History p. 834
Samuel Taylor
especially when he was voted pontifex maximus after Lepidus death, was that it was another way in
which he gained power and influence, but also that all of Roman religion came to be embraced by
the emperor, who then had the responsibility of preserving the essence of Rome. His involvement in
priestly colleges underpinned and legitimated his religious programme, especially when he was
portrayed as akin to Numa, whose reforms had enabled Rome to realise the success for which
Romulus' organisation of a military society had laid the groundwork. There were some ways in which
Augustus did modify the cults and priesthoods themselves. He removed the Sibylline Books from the
Temple of Capitoline Jupiter to the Palatine Apollo Temple and edited them (Suetonius 31) in order
to give more prominence to the peace of Apollo. In joining the Fratres Arvales, Augustus not only
took part in a symbolic process of fraternal reconciliation but also modified the cult itself the ranks
of the members became more aristocratic and the functions of the cult became more explicitly
related to the welfare of the emperor. It does seem that religion was personally important to
Augustus, and he is depicted as taking his religious duties very seriously. He was often portrayed
veiled in a toga in the stance of a sacrifice, and from his period onwards virtually no-one except the
emperor was depicted in that manner. Nevertheless, even if he was sincerely religious, religion and
the priestly cults were another tool which he could use to cement his rule. Thanks to his presidency
in the major colleges of priests, Augustus controlled priestly appointments and was able to use them
to involve aristocrats in demonstrations of loyalty to him and to reward his successors. While there
were some significant changes in the area of ritual and priesthoods, they cannot be said to be truly
innovative, and were always invoked as a re-establishment of the old ways.

Finally, religion in Augustan Rome was defined by the journey of deification which Augustus was
making in the public imagination. In being honoured as a divi filius after Julius Caesars death, being
represented as the saviour of Rome and in being associated with various divinities, Augustus was
approaching divinity himself duly leading to being anointed a divus on his death. To begin with, the
adopted son of Julius Caesar could not be divine himself without Julius being deified as well. Julius
had been strongly associated with the gods before his death, and in addition there was a long
tradition in Rome of associating prominent figures with divinity. Pompey had had cults in his name,
albeit in the East, but Romans as well were used to thinking of individuals as something more than
human even though excessive aspirations of being a divus while still alive was deeply frowned on
and there was no sense in which a human could be elevated to the status of the official gods of
mythology, the dei. As well as being treated as a divine being, association with actual deities also
made Augustus a godlike individual. He was represented as Neptune in various references to
winning the battle of Actium, while also being portrayed as having attributes of Apollo, Mercury and
Jupiter. On the Prima Porta, he was being identified with Mars by the fact that his feet were bare
and that Cupid was sitting on a helmet next to him. On the Ara Pacis, that the flamen, or priest, of
Julius Caesars cult was present was a reminder of the divinity achieved by Julius. In non-object
material, the Genius Augusti received bull sacrifices at the communal altars of the vici rather than
incense or flowers
2
. Augustus household gods were therefore placed on a par with the state gods
themselves. Every temple which Augustus repaired or built in a sense was his own personal stamp
on Roman religion, increasing the prominence of a particular god. Augustus choice of Apollo as his
personal god was a fairly unusual one as Apollo had been a fairly minor god before Augustus reign,
but then Augustus built a major temple to Apollo as part of his own personal household complex.

2
Ryberg p. 55
Samuel Taylor
This combined with Augustus absorption of the cult of Vesta gives us two interesting strands of
Augustan religion. The emphasis of the peace of Apollo and the newfound identity of the Roman
hearth with the hearth of Augustus household shows the key aims of Augustan religious policy to
establish and preserve the Augustan peace, and to establish the Caesars as an imperial family with a
mandate to rule Rome.

In conclusion, we have seen that Augustus religious activity was neither a simple restoration of
traditional religion after a period of decline nor an innovative building of religious structures from
scratch. Rather, Augustus aimed at restructuring Roman religion both to establish the security of the
Principate, and his family as the rightful rulers of that government. He seems to have been fairly
successful in doing this through changing the object of religion to be himself rather than an abstract
personification of the city of Rome, through manipulating Roman ritual and religious office-holding
and through elevating himself above his peers in the spectrum of statuses from mortality to divinity.
However, the final issue which must be addressed is the question of Augustus divinity and why the
Romans would accept that he would be divine. On the one hand, a degree of scepticism is useful and
we should not dismiss the political advantages of being deified which Augustus would have made
the most of. Yet there was more to this aspect of Roman religion than a Machiavellian desire to
secure power. Relating back to Roman fears that moral decline had been a cause of the disastrous
upheaval of the first century BC, the progress towards divinity of Augustus actually represented both
an attempt to avoid such upheaval in the future and a means of making sense of Augustus position.
Augustus became almost an intervening layer between men and gods
3
, and as such, peace depended
on piety towards him. For Augustus, divinity represented a chance for him to solidify the fragile
peace which he had established with values which were derived from a common, Roman, tradition,
and also to place himself at the centre of those values, therefore both justifying his rule and the
legitimacy of passing his power onto his imperial family.


Bibliography
Res Gestae Divi Augusti
Suetonius, Augustus
Virgil, Georgics
Horace, Carmen Saeculare and Odes
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Augustan Rome (Bristol Classical Press 1993)
Inez Scott Ryberg, Rites of the State Religion in Roman Art (American Academy in Rome, Volume 22,
1955)
Mary Beard and John North (ed.s), Pagan Priests (Duckworth 1990)
C. Pelling and J.A. Crook, Cambridge Ancient History (Cambridge University Press 1996)
Mary Beard, John North and Simon Price, Religions of Rome (Cambridge University Press 1998)
Karl Galinsky, Augustan Culture (Princeton University Press 1996)
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Augustan Rome (Bristol Classical Press 1993)
Denis Feeney, Literature and Religion at Rome (Cambridge University Press 1998)
David Cannadine and Simon Price (ed.s), Rituals of Royalty (Cambridge University Press 1987)
JHWG Liebeschuetz, Continuity and Change in Roman Religion (Clarendon Press 1979)

3
Wallace-Hadrill p. 90