Spurius Postumius Albinus was a politician of ancient Rome, of patrician rank, of the 2nd century BC. He was praetor peregrinus in 189 BC, responsible for Roman interests in foreign affairs; and consul in 186 BC. [1] In his consulship the Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus was passed, reforming the mystery cult of Bacchus in Rome and among her close allies on the Italian mainland. In Livy's account, this was a reaction to various abominable crimes committed by members of the cult, and its threat to the Roman state. [2] More likely, the legislation represents an attempt by Postumius and the senate to impose traditional Roman values and collective authority over a well organised, unofficial civil and religious association that seemed dangerously popular, widespread and potentially subversive. The legislation followed close after a particularly traumatic and turbulent period in Rome's history; [3] Postumius was also an augur, which gave him a degree of religious authority. He died in 179 BC at an advanced age. [4]
The Roman Republic was the era of classical Roman civilization beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom and ending in 27 BC with the establishment of the Roman Empire. It was during this period that Rome's control expanded from the city's immediate surroundings to hegemony over the entire Mediterranean world.
Jupiter, also known as Jove, is the god of the sky and thunder, and king of the gods in ancient Roman religion and mythology. Jupiter was the chief deity of Roman state religion throughout the Republican and Imperial eras, until Christianity became the dominant religion of the Empire. In Roman mythology, he negotiates with Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, to establish principles of Roman religion such as offering, or sacrifice.
The Bacchanalia were unofficial, privately funded popular Roman festivals of Bacchus, based on various ecstatic elements of the Greek Dionysia. They were almost certainly associated with Rome's native cult of Liber, and probably arrived in Rome itself around 200 BC. Like all mystery religions of the ancient world, very little is known of their rites. They seem to have been popular and well-organised throughout the central and southern Italian peninsula.
Cybele is an Anatolian mother goddess; she may have a possible forerunner in the earliest neolithic at Çatalhöyük, where statues of plump women, sometimes sitting, accompanied by lionesses, have been found in excavations. Phrygia's only known goddess, she was probably its national deity. Greek colonists in Asia Minor adopted and adapted her Phrygian cult and spread it to mainland Greece and to the more distant western Greek colonies around the 6th century BC.
In ancient Roman religion, Ceres was a goddess of agriculture, grain crops, fertility and motherly relationships. She was originally the central deity in Rome's so-called plebeian or Aventine Triad, then was paired with her daughter Proserpina in what Romans described as "the Greek rites of Ceres". Her seven-day April festival of Cerealia included the popular Ludi Ceriales. She was also honoured in the May lustration (lustratio) of the fields at the Ambarvalia festival: at harvest-time: and during Roman marriages and funeral rites. She is usually depicted as a mature woman.
In ancient Roman religion and mythology, Liber, also known as Liber Pater, was a god of viticulture and wine, male fertility and freedom. He was a patron deity of Rome's plebeians and was part of their Aventine Triad. His festival of Liberalia became associated with free speech and the rights attached to coming of age. His cult and functions were increasingly associated with Romanised forms of the Greek Dionysus/Bacchus, whose mythology he came to share.
Numa Pompilius was the legendary second king of Rome, succeeding Romulus after a one-year interregnum. He was of Sabine origin, and many of Rome's most important religious and political institutions are attributed to him, such as the Roman calendar, Vestal Virgins, the cult of Mars, the cult of Jupiter, the cult of Romulus, and the office of pontifex maximus.
Religion in ancient Rome consisted of varying imperial and provincial religious practices, which were followed both by the people of Rome as well as those who were brought under its rule.
In ancient Roman religion, the Flamen Martialis was the high priest of the official state cult of Mars, the god of war. He was one of the flamines maiores, the three high priests who were the most important of the fifteen flamens. The Flamen Martialis would have led public rites on the days sacred to Mars. Among his duties was the ritual brandishing of the sacred spears of Mars when the Roman army was preparing for war.
Paculla Annia was a Campanian priestess of Bacchus. She is known only through the Roman historian Livy's account of the introduction, growth and spread of unofficial Bacchanalia festivals, which were ferociously suppressed in 186 BC under threat of extreme penalty.
The First Celtiberian was the first of three major rebellions by the Celtiberians against the Roman presence in Hispania. The other two were the Second Celtiberian War and the Numantine War. Hispania was the name the Romans gave to the Iberian Peninsula. The peninsula was inhabited by various ethnic groups and numerous tribes. The Celtiberians were a confederation of five tribes, which lived in a large area of east central Hispania, to the west of Hispania Citerior. The eastern part of their territory shared a stretch of the border of this Roman province. The Celtiberian tribes were the Pellendones, the Arevaci, the Lusones, the Titti and the Belli.
Aulus Postumius Albus Regillensis was an ancient Roman who, according to Livy, was Roman dictator in 498 or 496 BC, when he conquered the Latins in the great Battle of Lake Regillus and subsequently celebrated a triumph. Many of the coins of the Postumii Albi commemorate this victory of their ancestor, as in the one pictured. Roman folklore related that Castor and Pollux were seen fighting in this battle on the side of the Romans, whence the dictator afterwards promised a temple to Castor and Pollux in the Roman Forum.
The gens Postumia was a noble patrician family at ancient Rome. Throughout the history of the Republic, the Postumii frequently occupied the chief magistracies of the Roman state, beginning with Publius Postumius Tubertus, consul in 505 BC, the fifth year of the Republic. Although like much of the old Roman aristocracy, the Postumii faded for a time into obscurity under the Empire, individuals bearing the name of Postumius again filled a number of important offices from the second century AD to the end of the Western Empire.
Aulus Postumius Tubertus was a Roman military leader in the wars with the Aequi and Volsci during the fifth century BC. He served as Magister Equitum under the dictator Mamercus Aemilius Mamercinus in 434 BC, and was dictator himself in 431.
The gens Carvilia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome, which first distinguished itself during the Samnite Wars. The first member of this gens to achieve the consulship was Spurius Carvilius Maximus, in 293 BC.
The vocabulary of ancient Roman religion was highly specialized. Its study affords important information about the religion, traditions and beliefs of the ancient Romans. This legacy is conspicuous in European cultural history in its influence on later juridical and religious vocabulary in Europe, particularly of the Christian Church. This glossary provides explanations of concepts as they were expressed in Latin pertaining to religious practices and beliefs, with links to articles on major topics such as priesthoods, forms of divination, and rituals.
The Aventine Triad is a modern term for the joint cult of the Roman deities Ceres, Liber and Libera. The cult was established ca. 493 BC within a sacred district (templum) on or near the Aventine Hill, traditionally associated with the Roman plebs. Later accounts describe the temple building and rites as "Greek" in style. Some modern historians describe the Aventine Triad as a plebeian parallel and self-conscious antithesis to the Archaic Triad of Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus and the later Capitoline Triad of Jupiter, Minerva and Juno. The Aventine Triad, temple and associated ludi served as a focus of plebeian identity, sometimes in opposition to Rome's original ruling elite, the patricians.
Roman mythology is the body of myths of ancient Rome as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans. One of a wide variety of genres of Roman folklore, Roman mythology may also refer to the modern study of these representations, and to the subject matter as represented in the literature and art of other cultures in any period. Roman mythology draws from the mythology of the Italic peoples and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European mythology.
In ancient Roman religion, the devotio was an extreme form of votum in which a Roman general vowed to sacrifice his own life in battle along with the enemy to chthonic gods in exchange for a victory. The most extended description of the ritual is given by the Augustan historian Livy, regarding the self-sacrifice of Decius Mus. The English word "devotion" derives from the Latin.
Gaius Furius Pacilus Fusus was a Roman statesman of the early Republic. He was a descendant of the ancient patrician house of the Furii, which filled the highest offices of the Roman state from the early decades of the Republic to the first century AD. He was probably closely related to Quintus Furius Pacilus Fusus, whom Livy mentions as Pontifex Maximus in 449 BC, and was likely the father of Gaius Furius Pacilus, consul in 412 BC.