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Roman religion was more than a list of gods

Roman religion was a complex system of gods, priests, traditions,   and sacrifices.

Religio
was the word the Romans used for their believes.  It all had started as a simple animism, but influenced by their neighbors, the Roman religion developed into a state controlled and state serving set of pantheon.

The Roman mythology,
is greatly derived from the Greek mythology with its beautiful stories about their gods on the Olympos. In later days they would bring home strange new gods from Persia and Egypt like Mitrhas and Isis. Probably because of the punic wars the gods from Phoenicia (nowadays Lebanon) never became very popular in Rome.

Supersticious
The word superstitio is derived from superstes (survivor) for people that were praying and sacrifying all day so their children would outlive

Emperor Augustus warned for the dangerous superstitio that was preached by a certain Chrestos. (Not necessarily Jesus Christ.)
But according to our standards the Romans were very superstitious and tried to find out the will of the gods in numerous ways

Religion a way of controling the people
The Roman life was greatly controlled by priests who were initially all patricians

.

Without sacrifices no life
The sacrifices played an important role in the way of life of the Romans.
The idea was you could as it were order things in exchange for a sacrifice.

    Apollo the lyre player    
     

Apollo the lyre player
Glyptothek München

   
 


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