Eastern Religions in the Roman World

Roman religion, both by native instinct and deliberate policy, was widely inclusive, comprised of different gods, rituals, liturgies, traditions, and cults. Romans, considered by Cicero as the religiosissima gens (the most religious peoples), not only worshipped their own traditional Latin gods and associated divinities imported from the culturally respectable and authoritative world of their Greek neighbors, but often acknowledged the gods of peoples they otherwise considered to be quite alien. They even annexed the gods of despised enemies, such as Carthage’s Tanit-Caelestis, in a process of evocation that assigned foreign gods Latin names.

The Roman pantheon presented a wide range of cults and gods with different functions, but foreign cults promised something different, something the traditional Roman cults could not—change, both in everyday life and even, at times, in the afterlife. Romans were particularly receptive to foreign cults at times of social upheaval, when old beliefs no longer provided answers to new uncertainties and fears. Between the late third century B.C. and the third century A.D., some eastern cults, such as those of Cybele (also known as Magna Mater), Isis, and Mithras, permeated the Roman world.

The Cult of Cybele (Magna Mater)

In 204 B.C., during the Second Punic War, the Romans consulted the Sibylline Oracles, which declared that the foreign invader would be driven from Italy only if the Idaean Mother (Cybele) from Anatolia were brought to Rome. The Roman political elite, in a carefully orchestrated effort to unify the citizenry, arranged for Cybele to come inside the pomerium (a religious boundary-wall surrounding a city), built her a temple on the Palatine Hill, and initiated games in honor of the Great Mother, an official political and social recognition that restored the pax deorum.

After Cybele and the foreign ways of her exotic priesthood were introduced to Rome, she became a popular goddess in Roman towns and villages in Italy. The popularity of the goddess persisted, especially in the Imperial period, when the ruling family, eager to emphasize its Trojan ancestry, associated itself with and publicly worshipped Cybele, a goddess whose epithet, Mater Idaea, designated her as Trojan and whose cult was deeply connected with Troy and its origins. However, the enthusiasm was often followed by suspicion; for instance, the eunuch priests (galli) that attended Cybele’s cult were confined in the sanctuary, and Roman men were forbidden to castrate themselves in imitation of them.

The Egyptian Mother Goddess Isis

Worship of the Egyptian mother goddess Isis was a popular alternative to the cult of Cybele. By the middle of the first century A.D., with the political integration of the many lands bordering the eastern Mediterranean, the cult of Isis was transformed from a secret rite popular among the lower classes of Rome but not permitted within the sacred confines of the city, to a highly structured public cult closely associated with the emperors. During the reign of Vespasian, Isis was officially welcomed into the Roman pantheon, and a public temple within the sacred walls of the city was erected for her.

Although the cult of Isis, with its distinctive maternal and female characteristics, principally attracted women, the annual spring and autumn festivals held in her honor drew both sexes, of all classes, people celebrating different occasions and customs—springtime renewal, grief and joy.

Comparative Context of Eastern Cults

These exotic cults captivated Roman citizens with intriguing rituals and the promise of spiritual renewal in this world and salvation in the next. Below is a summary of the characteristics of prominent eastern religious influences in the Roman world based on the historical record:

Religion/Cult	Origin	Key Characteristics and Status
Cybele (Magna Mater)	Anatolia	Introduced in 204 B.C. to restore pax deorum; associated with Trojan ancestry and exotic rituals.
Isis	Egypt	Transformed from a secret rite to a public cult under Vespasian; focused on maternal characteristics and spiritual joy.
Mithras	Eastern Mediterranean	One of the cults that permeated the Roman world, offering spiritual renewal and salvation.
Judaism	Judea	Rites were "sanctioned by their antiquity"; flourished through the Babylonian Captivity and Roman diaspora.

As history shows, these traditions differed from Judaism, another eastern religion, whose rites were "sanctioned by their antiquity" (Tacitus, Histories V.5) and which flourished throughout the Mediterranean world from the time of the Babylonian Captivity through the Roman diaspora and after.