Ancient Roman Religion

In ancient Rome, there are gods for almost everything: thunder, love, war, wisdom… even the sewer! Worshipping not just one but many gods makes the ancient Romans a polytheistic people. Ancient Rome begins in the 700s BCE as a small town on Italy’s Tiber River but over hundreds of years, the Romans spread out across more and more land... including land belonging to the ancient Greek people. Many of the Roman gods are based on gods the Greeks worshipped.

The Romans replace the gods’ Greek names with names in their own language: Latin. There are three main Roman gods. The first comes from the king of the Greek gods, Zeus. He is the Roman god Jupiter. Like Zeus, Jupiter is god of the sky and oversees every part of life.

From the Greek goddess Hera, comes Jupiter’s wife and sister: Juno. Juno keeps a careful watch over women. And from the Greek goddess of wisdom and craft, Athena, comes the Roman goddess Minerva. Minerva watches over school children, carpenters, and stonemasons. The Romans also have some of their own gods and goddesses, not drawn from the Greeks’.

Janus is a god with two faces who represents the spirit of doorways and gates — of transitions. Janus’ son is Tiberinus, god of the river Tiber. Some leaders of the Roman Empire, emperors, are also declared gods. Emperor Julius Caesar is the first to gain god-status on his death. From then on, the promotion of emperors to gods becomes a way for these leaders to gain even more power over their people.

The Romans believe their gods control every aspect of day-to-day life, from the weather, to relationships, to the journey of their waste! So it’s important to try and keep the gods in a good mood. The Roman gods aren’t impressed by a moral lifestyle or good deeds; instead, they demand people honour and celebrate them. One way people do this is through rituals. In every Roman home is a shrine, called a lararium.

Here, the household performs rituals to the gods and goddesses responsible for protecting the home. These rituals involve pouring milk, oil, or wine on a small sacrificial fire. The Romans also build temples to their gods. Usually, a temple honours a single god or goddess. It houses a statue of them in the centre — like the Temple of Jupiter located on Capitoline Hill.

Unlike other temples, the nearby Pantheon honours all the Roman gods Polytheism is the main belief system in ancient Rome for hundreds of years. But in the early 300s, Emperor Constantine converts to a new religion: Christianity. Slowly, the Romans’ beliefs begin to change…