Roman Theologies in Crisis

doi:10.1017/9781009240970.015

Chapter 12 - Roman Theologies in Crisis

Fluctuation and Diversity in Beliefs about Impiety

from Part III - Belief and Experience in Antiquity

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 May 2026

Lindsay G. Driediger-Murphy

Edited by

Ralph Anderson and

Pramit Chaudhuri

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Ralph Anderson: Affiliation:
University of St Andrews, Scotland
Pramit Chaudhuri: Affiliation:
University of Texas, Austin

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Summary

This chapter treats a selection of divine responses to impiety recorded in historiography, oratory, and letters from the late Republic. Considering influential claims for the stability of certain theological tenets regarding divine justice, the chapter examines the question of how and when gods punish individuals rather than communities. In this period, formulaic calls for the gods to punish the guilty individual rather than the state became weaponized. Although such utterances conformed superficially to normative theology, they undermined the traditional perception of the gods as concerned primarily with the welfare of the community as a whole, and as reacting to impiety in a consistent manner. The period of the late Republic thus sees the emergence of perceptions of the gods as being less predictable, stable, or moral than in the traditional scholarly view.

Keywords

impiety divine wrath Roman religion Roman theology Livy Cicero L. Cornelius Merula flamen Dialis

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Type: Chapter
Information: Belief in Greek and Roman Religion , pp. 304 - 334

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009240970.015 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2026

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