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3.1

3.1.1 Forum of Pompeii
3.1.2 Public Worship
3.1.3 Lares and Lararia

3.1.1 Forum of Pompeii

Historical background

All Roman cities had a forum, around which public buildings associated with commerce, religion and administration clustered. This was the main meeting and trading place in the town.

The public square acted as a marketplace, along with shops and covered walkways which might be used for open stalls. Around the forum you would also find the law courts and other key administrative buildings. There were temples to important gods, candidates in elections would use the steps of these to make their election speeches, and there were statues of prominent local citizens.

Pompeii’s forum was typical in that the majority of the most important civic buildings could be found in and around it. These included the municipal offices, the basilica (court-house), and important temples such as that to the Capitoline Triad (Jupiter, Juno and Minerva protectors of the state, women and craftsmen respectively) and the temple to the Genius (divine spirit) of the Emperor. The market specialised in fish, meat and vegetables.

Evidence

Key to plan of forum: green – shops; orange – temples; red – political/administrative

An important feature of Roman religion was its central place in public and political life. Priesthoods were political appointments, and citizens had a duty to take part in religious rituals to ensure the state and its people were favoured by the gods. This relationship between civic and religious life is very clearly shown in Pompeii's forum.

Three of the most important gods for Roman state religion – the 'Capitoline Triad' – were Jupiter (who looked after the state), Juno (protector of women), and Minerva (goddess of craftsmen). A temple dedicated to these three dominated Pompeii's forum (number 1 on the plan) and games were held in their honour every year on the first day of September. Also in the forum was a temple (2) to the 'Genius of Augustus' (the worship of the Emperor). These two temples would have been symbols of Rome's power in Pompeii.

One of the most important religious buildings in Pompeii was the Temple of Apollo (3). Worship of Apollo seems to have been happening in Pompeii since the 6th Century BC, before Pompeii was conquered by Rome.

Finally, temple (4) is the Sanctuary of the public Lares. As there is little evidence of its furniture or inscriptions, historians aren't sure exactly what happened here. We can be sure that this was a place for public worship however, because of its position in the forum.

3.1.2 Public Worship

Historical background

Roman religious rituals consisted of festivals, offerings (often of food or wine) and animal sacrifices and had to be carried out correctly in order to keep the gods happy. Typically these rituals were not performed inside the temples, unlike modern churches, mosques or synagogues  temples were not places for people to worship. They instead housed a statue of the god, and only priests went inside. The temple was far too important for everyday worshippers to go in.

Sacrifices therefore generally took place on an altar in front of the temple. The offering of a sacrificial animal to the gods was done according to a strict ritual; there could not be any mistakes or you risked angering the god(s)! Generally, the priest in charge would kill the animal – following very precise rules – and the entrails were burned on the altar as an offering to the god. The rest of the flesh was divided up between the participants according to their status. Priests and magistrates sat apart from the public and got the better meat.

Evidence

This fresco (dating from around 62 to 79 AD) is from the Temple of Isis in nearby Herculaneum, not Pompeii. It shows a public ritual including sacrifice. Whilst this is an example from a specific and exotic cult – that of the Egyptian goddess Isis – it can still provide excellent evidence for how such rituals may have happened and what it might have been like to attend a public sacrifice. Both images are thought to represent different stages of the same ritual.

The building in the background of the images may be a representation of the temple itself. Public rituals took place outside temples, not inside them. In the foreground is an altar, which contains a fire and is decorated with garlands of leaves and possibly flowers. Another example of an altar out the front of a temple like this can be seen outside the Temple of the Genius of Augustus on the 'Forum of Pompeii' evidence page for this session. The altar fire would have been used to burn offerings to the gods.

The figures wearing long white robes are priests who are performing the ceremony. One is bringing a jar to the altar, another is reading the ritual formula from a scroll. 

On either side of the temple's staircase are worshippers who would have gathered to take part in the ritual. The smaller figures in each image are probably slaves, and we can also see women present. This implies that at least some public rituals were open to everyone.

For more details of the worship of Isis specifically see the evidence page 'Isis worship' in session 3.2.

3.1.3 Lares and Lararia

Historical background

Personal or household religion was far more flexible than state or public religion. There is a great deal of variety when it comes to household or neighbourhood shrines and different people would have had different gods that they preferred or felt particularly close to. For example, whilst whilst Jupiter (king of the Roman gods) was a very important part of public Roman religion – he has lots of temples – he barely ever appears on household shrines in Pompeii. Much more popular are shrines featuring pictures of Hercules, Venus and Bacchus, each of which had been very popular in Pompeii since before it became a Roman colony in 80 BC.

Other important elements of household or personal religion were the lares (protective household spirits) and the honouring of ancestors who were thought to live on after death.

Family ceremonies were held when a newborn child was accepted officially into the family, when a girl was to be married, and on the death of a family member.

Evidence

Lares were the protectors of a Roman household, usually depicted as a pair of young men dancing and holding a drinking horn and dish or wine bucket. They were believed to protect everything that happened within the boundaries of their particular location. As well as households, other places or things such as roads, agriculture, cities, the state, and the military were all under the protection of their own lares. They may not have been as powerful as the main gods, but they appear to have been central in Roman religious life.

Every home had a shrine to the lares called a lararium. This might be a small niche in a wall, a minature model temple, or a wall painting of a minature temple. The blessing of the lares seems to have been an important part of all important family events. Each day, and on special monthly celebrations, the head of the household (paterfamilias) would lead the family and slaves in making offerings of a wreath or portion of a meal to the lares. Any crumbs dropped on the floor were also left for the lares, and on very special occasions a lamb might be sacrificed.

The lares that protected local neighbourhoods were housed in the crossroad shrines, which were the focus of the religious, social, and political lives of the local community. 

 

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