Nobody can doubt that rituals of various kinds were a crucial part of the interactions between men and women and gods and goddesses in the religion of Rome. Rituals marked all public events and celebrations: some of these we would classify as religious occasions – annual festivals, the taking and fulfilling of vows, the anniversaries of temple foundations; others as secular – elections, the assembly of legions for warfare, the census of Roman citizens; still others challenge our own criteria – the games, or dramatic performances, which certainly had ritual elements in the programme, even though we are inclined to regard entertainment as their primary purpose. It is important to see that these are our problems of interpretation: we have no reason to believe that the Romans made such distinctions or found the existence of different types of ritual in itself problematic.