Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. Pollution and Religion in Ancient Rome
  • Cited by 15
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
September 2013
Print publication year:
2013
Online ISBN:
9781139795432
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139795432
Subjects:
Ancient History, Classical Studies, Religion, Religion: General Interest
Information

Book description

Pollution could come from any number of sources in the Roman world. Bodily functions, sexual activity, bloodshed, death - any of these could cause disaster if brought into contact with religion. Its presence could invalidate sacrifices, taint religious officials, and threaten to bring down the anger of the gods upon the city. Orators could use pollution as a means of denigrating opponents and obstructing religious procedures, and writers could emphasise the 'otherness' of barbarians by drawing attention to their different ideas about what was or was not 'dirty'. Yet despite all this, religious pollution remained a vague concept within the Latin language, and what constituted pollution could change depending on the context in which it appeared. Calling upon a range of research disciplines, this book highlights the significant role that pollution played across Roman religion, and the role it played in the construction of religious identity.

Reviews

'A sweeping religious and historical study.'

Source: History Today

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

Contents

Contents

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

Book summary page views

Total views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.