Divine Institutions: Religions and Community in the Middle Roman Republic

Description

How religious ritual united a growing and diversifying Roman Republic Many narrative histories of Rome's transformation from an Italian city-state to a Mediterranean superpower focus on political and military conflicts as the primary agents of social change. Divine Institutions places religion at the heart of this transformation, showing how rel

Dan-el Padilla Peralta is associate professor of classics at Princeton University. He is the author of Undocumented: A Dominican Boy's Odyssey from a Homeless Shelter to the Ivy League and the coeditor of Rome, Empire of Plunder: The Dynamics of Cultural Appropriation. Twitter @platanoclassics

"Finalist for the Best First Book in the History of Religions, American Academy of Religion" "Winner of the CAMWS First Book Award, Classical Association of the Middle West and South" "Winner of the Herbert Baxter Adams Prize, American Historical Association" "Powerful. . . . Divine Institutions is impressively wide-ranging, covering everything from ancient enslavement to pilgrimage, techniques of healing to fire-management. . . . An essential read."---Mary Beard, Times Literary Supplement "This book is, simply, a wonderful work of ancient history. . . . [A] seminal contribution not just to the study of the Roman Republic, but to the writing of ancient history more generally. "---James Corke-Webster, Greece & Rome