Roman Gods and Private Property: The Invention of State Religion in Cicero's Speech On His House
The transformation of the home of the exiled Marcus Tullius Cicero into a sacred space by his opponent, the pontifex Clodius, sheds light on religious appropriations and demarcations against religion in an urban context. The source situation is peculiar, since it is the person at the heart of the di...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
[2019]
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| In: |
Religion in the Roman empire
Year: 2019, Volume: 5, Issue: 2, Pages: 292-315 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Cicero, Marcus Tullius 106 BC-43 BC, De domo sua ad pontifices
/ Roman Empire
/ State religion
/ Gods
/ Property
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| IxTheo Classification: | AD Sociology of religion; religious policy AG Religious life; material religion BE Greco-Roman religions |
| Further subjects: | B
libri pontificum
B legal sources B Civil Religion B state religion B de domo sua B Dedication B Consecration B Property B Cicero |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Rights Information: | InC 1.0 |
| Summary: | The transformation of the home of the exiled Marcus Tullius Cicero into a sacred space by his opponent, the pontifex Clodius, sheds light on religious appropriations and demarcations against religion in an urban context. The source situation is peculiar, since it is the person at the heart of the dispute who describes his perception of the problem in the two relevant preserved speeches. However, the scope of the speech (De domo sua) given before the responsible religious specialists, the pontiffs, allows for a detailed analysis of the issues. This study takes seriously the fact that the author pursues a clear goal, the restitution of his property. My thesis is that, in order to achieve this goal, Cicero presents and systematises different normative positions and practices as historically verifiable or even already asserted. On this basis he develops a restrictive concept of those religious practices that can claim a generally binding force, that is, that can bind both Roman legal and political institutions as well as individuals in the city of Rome. To make my claim plausible, I follow Cicero's argumentation in its interplay of examples and generalisations. The investigation demonstrates the extent to which this text, which has generally been accepted as an impartial description of the fundamentals of 'Roman religion' as a religious 'system' that is very closely bound to politically legitimised actors, in fact represents only one position in a sharp confrontation (albeit the victorious one in this particular conflict). |
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| ISSN: | 2199-4471 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Religion in the Roman empire
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1628/rre-2019-0016 |