title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: Sometimes "hyperspace" is used to refer to the concept of additional coordinate axes. In this model, the universe is thought to be "crumpled" in some higher spatial dimension, and that traveling in this higher spatial dimension, a ship can move vast distances in the common spatial dimensions. An analogy is to crumple a newspaper into a ball and stick a needle straight through: the needle will make widely spaced holes in the two-dimensional surface of the paper. While this idea invokes a "new dimension", it is not an example of a parallel universe. It "is" a more scientifically plausible use of hyperspace. (See wormhole.)


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: While the use of hyperspace is common, it is mostly used as a plot device and thus of secondary importance. While a parallel universe may be invoked by the concept, the nature of the universe is not often explored. So, while stories involving hyperspace might be the most common use of the parallel universe concept in fiction, it is not the most common source of fiction "about" parallel universes.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: Time travel can result in multiple universes if a time traveller can change the past. In one interpretation, alternative histories as a result of time travel are not parallel universes: while multiple parallel universes can co-exist simultaneously, only one history or alternative history can exist at any one moment, as alternative history usually involves, in essence, overriding the original timeline with a new one. As a result, travel between alternative histories is not possible without reverting the timeline back to the original.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: There are exceptions to the above, and an alternate history doesn't necessarily overwrite the old one. There are no rules written in stone regarding this. Modern ideas of time travel pose the idea of branching timelines, such as the 2009 "Star Trek" reboot and "". Technically, if a timeline is not explicitly stated to have been erased, it is still there.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: Parallel universes as a result of time travel can serve simply as the backdrop, or it may be a central plot point. "The Guns of the South" by Harry Turtledove, where the Confederate Army is given thousands of AK-47 rifles and ends up winning the American Civil War, is a good example of the former, while Fritz Leiber's novel "The Big Time" where a war between two alternative futures manipulating history to create a timeline that results in or realizes their own world is a good example of the latter.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: Subscribing to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics, alternative histories in fiction can arise as a natural phenomenon of the universe. In these works, the idea is that each choice every person makes, each leading to a different result, both occur, so when a person decides between jam or butter on his toast, two universes are created: one where that person chose jam, and another where that person chose butter. The concept of "sidewise" time travel, a term taken from Murray Leinster's "Sidewise in Time", is used to allow characters to pass through many different alternative histories, all descendant from some common branch point.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: Often, worlds that are more similar to each other are considered closer to each other in terms of this sidewise travel. For example, a universe where World War II ended differently would be "closer" to us than one where Imperial China colonized the New World in the 15th century. H. Beam Piper used this concept, naming it "paratime" and writing a series of stories involving the Paratime Police who regulated travel between these alternative realities as well as the technology to do so. Keith Laumer used the same concept of "sideways" time travel in his 1962 novel "Worlds of the Imperium". More recently, novels such as Frederik Pohl's "The Coming of the Quantum Cats" and Neal Stephenson's "Anathem" explore human-scale readings of the "many worlds" interpretation, postulating that historical events or human consciousness spawns or allows "travel" among alternative universes.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: Universe 'types' frequently explored in sidewise and alternative history works include worlds whose Nazis won the Second World War, as in "The Man in the High Castle" by Philip K. Dick, "SS-GB" by Len Deighton, and "Fatherland" by Robert Harris, and worlds whose Roman Empire never fell, as in "Roma Eterna" by Robert Silverberg. "Romanitas" by Sophia McDougall, and "Warlords of Utopia" by Lance Parkin.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: The concept of counter-Earth might seem similar to a parallel universe but is actually a distinct idea. A counter-earth is a planet that shares Earth's orbit but is on the opposition side of the sun, therefore, cannot be seen from Earth. There would be no necessity that such a planet would be like Earth in any way, although typically in fiction it is practically identical to Earth. Since Counter-Earth is not only within our universe but within our own Solar System, reaching it can be accomplished with ordinary space travel.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: Convergent evolution is a biological concept whereby unrelated species acquire similar traits because they adapted to a similar environment and/or played similar roles in their ecosystems. In fiction, the concept is extended whereby similar planets will result in races with similar cultures and/or histories. Again, this is not a true parallel universe since such planets exist within the same universe as our own, but the stories are similar in some respects. "" frequently explored such worlds, in episodes including "", "The Omega Glory", and "".


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: The 2017 episode of British science fiction television programme "Doctor Who", "The Doctor Falls", explains the different origins of the Cybermen as parallel evolution, due to the inevitability of humans and human-like species attempting to upgrade themselves through technology; this perspective resolves continuity differences in the Cybermen's history.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: Convergent evolution may also be due to contamination. In this case, a planet may start out differently from Earth, but due to the influence of Earth's culture, the planet comes to resemble Earth in some way. "Star Trek" also frequently used this theory as well, for example, in "" and "".


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: In 1954, Princeton University doctoral applicant Hugh Everett III proposed that parallel universes co-exist with and diverge from our own universe. Everett's Many-Worlds Theory, as it came to be known, wanted to respond to some unanswered inquiries raised in the developing field of quantum material science.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: In 2012 two quantum physicists, Dr S.Haroche and Dr D. Worland, received a Nobel Prize for their experiments which showed that "a particle can be at two locations at the same time."


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: It is common in fantasy for authors to find ways to bring a protagonist from "our" world to the fantasy world. Before the mid-20th century, this was most often done by hiding fantastic worlds within unknown, distant locations on Earth; peasants who seldom, if ever, traveled far from their villages could not conclusively say that it was impossible that an ogre or other fantastical beings could live an hour away. Characters in the author's world could board a ship and find themselves on a fantastic island, as Jonathan Swift does in "Gulliver's Travels" or in the 1949 novel "Silverlock" by John Myers Myers, or be sucked up into a tornado and land in Oz. These "lost world" stories can be seen as geographic equivalents of a "parallel universe," as the worlds portrayed are separate from our own, and hidden to everyone except those who take the difficult journey there. The geographic "lost world" can blur into a more explicit "parallel universe" when the fantasy realm overlaps a section of the "real" world, but is much larger inside than out, as in Robert Holdstock's novel "Mythago Wood".


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: However, increasing geographical knowledge meant that such locations had to be farther and farther off. Perhaps influenced by ideas from science fiction, many works chose a setting that takes place in another, separate reality. As it is now not possible to reach these worlds via conventional travel, a common trope is a portal or artifact that connects our world and the fantasy world together, examples being the wardrobe in C. S. Lewis' "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" or the sigil in James Branch Cabell's "The Cream of the Jest".


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: In some cases, physical travel is not even possible, and the character in our reality travels in a dream or some other altered state of consciousness. Examples include the "Dream Cycle" stories by H. P. Lovecraft or the "Thomas Covenant" stories of Stephen R. Donaldson. Often, stories of this type have as a major theme the nature of reality itself, questioning whether the dream-world is as real as the waking world. Science fiction often employs this theme in the ideas of cyberspace and virtual reality.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: In a few cases, the interaction between the worlds is an important element, so that the focus is not on simply the fantasy world, but on ours as well. Sometimes the intent is to let them mingle and see what would happen, such as introducing a computer programmer into a high fantasy world as seen in Rick Cook's "Wizardry" series, while other times an attempt to keep them from mingling becomes a major plot point, such as in Aaron Allston's "Doc Sidhe." In that story, our "grim world" is paralleled by a "fair world" where the elves live and history echoes ours, where a major portion of the plot deals with preventing a change in interactions between the worlds.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: The idea of a multiverse is as fertile a subject for fantasy as it is for science fiction, allowing for epic settings and godlike protagonists. One example of an epic and far-ranging fantasy "multiverse" is that of Michael Moorcock, who actually named the concept in a 1963 science fiction novel "The Sundered Worlds". Like many authors after him, Moorcock was inspired by the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, saying, "It was an idea in the air, as most of these are, and I would have come across a reference to it in "New Scientist" (one of my best friends was then editor) ... [or] physicist friends would have been talking about it. ... Sometimes what happens is that you are imagining these things in the context of fiction while the physicists and mathematicians are imagining them in terms of science. I suspect it is the romantic imagination working, as it often does, perfectly efficiently in both the arts and the sciences."


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: Unlike many science-fiction interpretations, Moorcock's "Eternal Champion" stories go far beyond alternative history to include mythic and sword and sorcery settings as well as worlds more similar to, or the same as, our own.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: The term 'polycosmos' was coined as an alternative to 'multiverse' by the author and editor Paul le Page Barnett (also known by the pseudonym John Grant), and is built from Greek rather than Latin morphemes. It is used by Barnett to describe a concept binding together a number of his works, its nature meaning that "all characters, real or fictional [...] have to co-exist in all possible real, created or dreamt worlds; [...] they're playing hugely different roles in their various manifestations, and the relationships between them can vary quite dramatically, but the essence of them remains the same."


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: There are many examples of the meta-fictional idea of having the author's created universe (or any author's universe) rise to the same level of "reality" as the universe we're familiar with. The theme is present in works as diverse as H.G. Wells' "Men Like Gods", Myers' "Silverlock", and Heinlein's "Number of the Beast". Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague de Camp took the protagonist of the Harold Shea series through the worlds of Norse myth, Edmund Spenser's "The Faerie Queene", Ludovico Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso", and the "Kalevala" – without ever quite settling whether writers created these parallel worlds by writing these works, or received impressions from the worlds and wrote them down. In an interlude set in "Xanadu", a character claims that the universe is dangerous because the poem went unfinished, but whether this was his misapprehension or not is not established.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: Some fictional approaches definitively establish the independence of the parallel world, sometimes by having the world differ from the book's account; other approaches have works of fiction create and affect the parallel world: L. Sprague de Camp's "Solomon's Stone", taking place on an astral plane, is populated by the daydreams of mundane people, and in Rebecca Lickiss's "Eccentric Circles", an elf is grateful to Tolkien for transforming elves from dainty little creatures. These stories often place the author, or authors in general, in the same position as Zelazny's characters in Amber. Questioning, in a literal fashion, if writing is an act of creating a new world, or an act of discovery of a pre-existing world.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: Occasionally, this approach becomes self-referential, treating the literary universe of the work itself as explicitly parallel to the universe where the work was created. Stephen King's seven-volume "Dark Tower" series hinges upon the existence of multiple parallel worlds, many of which are King's own literary creations. Ultimately the characters become aware that they are only "real" in King's literary universe (this can be debated as an example of breaking the fourth wall), and even travel to a world – twice – in which (again, within the novel) they meet Stephen King and alter events in the real Stephen King's world outside of the books. An early instance of this was in works by Gardner Fox for DC Comics in the 1960s, in which characters from the Golden Age (which was supposed to be a series of comic books within the DC Comics universe) would cross over into the main DC Comics universe. One comic book did provide an explanation for a fictional universe existing as a parallel universe. The parallel world does "exist" and it resonates into the "real world". Some people in the "real world" pick up on this resonance, gaining information about the parallel world which they then use to write stories.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: Robert Heinlein, in "The Number of the Beast", quantizes the many parallel fictional universes - in terms of "fictions". A number of fictional universes are accessible along one of the three axes of time which Dr. Jacob Burroughs' "time twister" can access. Each quantum level change - a "fiction" - along this time axis corresponds to a different universe from one of several bodies of fiction known to all four travelers in the inter-universal, time traveling vehicle "Gay Deceiver". Heinlein also "breaks the fourth wall" by having "both Heinleins" (Robert and his wife Virginia) visit an inter-universal science-fiction and fantasy convention in the book's last chapter. The convention was convened on Heinlein character Lazarus Long's estate on the planet "Tertius" to attract the evil "Black Hats" who pursued the main characters of "The Number of the Beast" through space and time in order to destroy Dr. Burroughs and his invention. Heinlein continues this literary conceit in "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls" and "To Sail Beyond the Sunset", using characters from throughout his science-fictional career, hauled forth from their own "fictions" to unite in the war against the "Black Hats".


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: Heinlein also wrote a stand-alone novel, "", whose two protagonists fall from alternative universe into alternative universe (often naked), and after a number of such adventures die and enter a stereotypically Fundamentalist Christian Heaven (with many of its internal contradictions explored in the novel). Their harrowing adventures through the universes are then revealed to have been "destruction testing" of their souls by Loki, sanctioned by the Creator person of the Christian God (Yahweh). The Devil appears as the most sympathetic of the gods in the story, who expresses contempt for the other gods' cavalier treatment of the story's main characters.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: Thus, "" rings in the theological dimension (if only for the purpose of satirizing evangelical Christianity) of parallel universes, that their existence can be used by God (or a number of gods, Loki seems to have made himself available to do Yahweh's dirty work in this novel). It manages also to have a fictional multiverse angle in that references are made to Heinlein's early SF/fantasy short story "They", a solipsistic tale in which reality is constantly being transmogrified behind the scenes to throw the central character off his guard and keep him from seeing reality as it is, which was set in the same Heinlein fictional universe as "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress".


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: Elfland, or Faerie, the otherworldly home not only of elves and fairies but goblins, trolls, and other folkloric creatures, has an ambiguous appearance in folklore.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: On one hand, the land often appears to be contiguous with 'ordinary' land. Thomas the Rhymer might, on being taken by the Queen of Faerie, be taken on a road like one leading to Heaven or Hell.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: This is not exclusive to English or French folklore. In Norse mythology, Elfland (Alfheim) was also the name of what today is the Swedish province of Bohuslän. In the sagas, it said that the people of this petty kingdom were more beautiful than other people, as they were related to the elves, showing that not only the territory was associated with elves, but also the race of its people.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: While sometimes folklore seems to show fairy intrusion into human lands – "Tam Lin" does not show any otherworldly aspects about the land in which the confrontation takes place – at other times the otherworldly aspects are clear. Most frequently, time can flow differently for those trapped by the fairy dance than in the lands they come from; although, in an additional complication, it may only be an appearance, as many returning from Faerie, such as Oisín, have found that time "catches up" with them as soon as they have contact with ordinary lands.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: Fantasy writers have taken up the ambiguity. Some writers depict the land of the elves as a full-blown parallel universe, with portals the only entry – as in Josepha Sherman's Prince of the Sidhe series or Esther Friesner's "Elf Defense" – and others have depicted it as the next land over, possibly difficult to reach for magical reasons – Hope Mirrlees's "Lud-in-the-Mist", or Lord Dunsany's "The King of Elfland's Daughter". In some cases, the boundary between Elfland and more ordinary lands is not fixed. Not only the inhabitants but Faerie itself can pour into more mundane regions. Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" series proposes that the world of the Elves is a "parasite" universe, that drifts between and latches onto others such as Discworld and our own world (referred to as "Roundworld" in the novels). In the young teenage book "Mist" by Kathryn James, the Elven world lies through a patch of mist in the woods. It was constructed when the Elven were thrown out of our world. Travel to and fro is possible by those in the know, but can have lethal consequences.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: Isekai, is a subgenre of Japanese fantasy light novels, manga, anime, and video games revolving around a normal person being transported to or trapped in a parallel universe. Often, this universe already exists in the protagonist's world as a fictional universe, but it may also be unbeknownst to them.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: The most famous treatment of the alternative universe concept in film could be considered "The Wizard of Oz", which portrays a parallel world, famously separating the magical realm of the Land of Oz from the mundane world by filming it in Technicolor while filming the scenes set in Kansas in sepia. At times, alternative universes have been featured in small scale independent productions such as Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo's "It Happened Here" (1964), featuring an alternative United Kingdom which had undergone Operation Sea Lion in 1940 and had been defeated and occupied by Nazi Germany. It focused on moral questions related to the professional ethics of Pauline, a nurse forced into Nazi collaboration.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: Another common use of the theme is as a prison for villains or demons. The idea is used in the first two "Superman" movies starring Christopher Reeve where Kryptonian villains were sentenced to the Phantom Zone from where they eventually escaped. An almost exactly parallel use of the idea is presented in the film "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension", where the "8th dimension" is essentially a "phantom zone" used to imprison the villainous Red Lectroids. Uses in horror films include the 1986 film "From Beyond" (based on the H. P. Lovecraft story of the same name) where a scientific experiment induces the experimenters to perceive aliens from a parallel universe, with bad results. The 1987 John Carpenter film "Prince of Darkness" is based on the premise that the essence of a being described as Satan, trapped in a glass canister and found in an abandoned church in Los Angeles, is actually an alien being that is the 'son' of something even more evil and powerful, trapped in another universe. The protagonists accidentally free the creature, who then attempts to release his "father" by reaching in through a mirror. 1997 film Event Horizon (film) directed by Paul W. S. Anderson tells about a crew of eponymous space ship who are accidentally travelled to another dimension (implied to be hell), turning them insane and ended up killing each other.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: Some films present parallel realities that are actually different contrasting versions of the narrative itself. Commonly this motif is presented as different points of view revolving around a central (but sometimes unknowable) "truth", the seminal example being Akira Kurosawa's "Rashomon". Conversely, often in film noir and crime dramas, the alternative narrative is a fiction created by a central character, intentionally – as in "The Usual Suspects" – or unintentionally – as in "Angel Heart". Less often, the alternative narratives are given equal weight in the story, making them truly alternative universes, such as in the German film "Run Lola Run", the short-lived British West End musical "Our House" and the British film "Sliding Doors".


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: More recent films that have explicitly explored parallel universes are: the 2000 film "The Family Man", the 2001 cult film "Donnie Darko", which deals with what it terms a "tangent universe" that erupts from our own universe; "Super Mario Bros." (1993) has the eponymous heroes cross over into a parallel universe ruled by humanoids who evolved from dinosaurs; "The One" (2001) starring Jet Li, in which there is a complex system of realities in which Jet Li's character is a police officer in one universe and a serial killer in another, who travels to other universes to destroy versions of himself, so that he can take their energy; and "" (2004), the main character runs away from a totalitarian nightmare, and he enters into a cyber-afterlife alternative reality. The current "Star Trek" films are set in an alternative universe created by the first film's villain traveling back in time, thus allowing the franchise to be rebooted without affecting the continuity of any other "Star Trek" film or show. The 2011 science-fiction thriller "Source Code" employs the concepts of quantum reality and parallel universes. The characters in "The Cloverfield Paradox", the third installment of the franchise, accidentally create a ripple in the time-space continuum and travel into an alternative universe, where the monster and the events in the first film transpired. This concept has been also been passively depicted in the view of a romantic couple in the Indian Tamil Film Irandam Ulagam.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: In the 2000 film "The Beach," Leonardo DiCaprio's character Richard, while sitting on the beach with love interest Françoís (Virginie Ledoyen). describes the utopia they have found in Thailand as their own parallel universe.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: The Marvel Cinematic Universe heavily features the multiverse. "Doctor Strange" features the Dark Dimension and the Masters of the Mystic Arts, who draw upon mystical energies from other realities. In "", the 2023 Avengers create alternate timelines during the Time Heist. The ramifications of these actions are explored in the television series "Loki", which focuses on the 2012 variant of Loki and the Time Variance Authority. A female variant of Loki, Sylvie, kills the mastermind behind the TVA who kept the Sacred Timeline in order, which leads to the rebirth of the Multiverse. The animated series "What If...?" follows multiple variants of MCU characters and timelines guided by The Watcher. "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" features Ta Lo, a mythical village also set in an alternate universe that houses many Chinese mythological creatures and where the climax of the film takes place. "" has Spider-Man encounter villains from the "Spider-Man trilogy" and "The Amazing Spider-Man series" and prevents their original deaths with help of other variants of himself. "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" features Doctor Strange travelling throughout the multiverse trying to protect America Chavez from the Scarlet Witch, who seeks her power. Along the way, they encounter other variants of Strange, Christine Palmer, and the Illuminati.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: The DC Extended Universe will also bring in the multiverse with its upcoming film "The Flash" (2023), when the title character, played by Ezra Miller, goes back in time to prevent his mother's murder, thus opening the multiverse. The film will feature both Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck both reprising their versions of Batman, with the film also introducing the DCEU version of Supergirl, portrayed by Sasha Calle, and Miller portraying an alternate version of the character from the Keaton Batman universe.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: The idea of parallel universes has received treatment in a number of television series, usually as a single story or episode in a more general science fiction or fantasy storyline.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: Sometimes a television series will use parallel universes as an ongoing subplot. "", "" and "" elaborated on the premise of the original series' "Mirror" universe and developed multi-episode story arcs based on the premise. Other examples are the science fiction series "Stargate SG-1", the fantasy/horror series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Supernatural" and the romance/fantasy "".


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: Following the precedent set by "Star Trek", these story arcs show alternative universes that have turned out "worse" than the "original" universe: in "Stargate SG-1" the first two encountered parallel realities featured Earth being overwhelmed by an unstoppable Goa'uld onslaught; in "Buffy", two episodes concern a timeline in which Buffy came to Sunnydale too late to stop the vampires from taking control; "Lois & Clark" repeatedly visits an alternative universe where Clark Kent's adoptive parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent, died when he was ten years of age, and Lois Lane is also apparently dead. Clark eventually becomes Superman, with help from the "original" Lois Lane, but he is immediately revealed as Clark Kent and so has no life of his own.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: In addition to following "Star Trek's" lead, showing the "evil" variants of the main storyline gives the writers an opportunity to show what is at stake by portraying the worst that could happen and the consequences if the protagonists fail or the importance of a character's presence.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: "Once Upon a Time" often talks about alternative realms or universes in which all different forms of magic, and non-magic may occur, depending on the realm. According to the Mad Hatter (Sebastian Stan), they "touch each other in a long line of lands, each just as real as the last". He referred to our world's tendency to deny such things as arrogant.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: In the season 1 finale of "The Flash", the Reverse-Flash opens a singularity that connects his world to a parallel universe called Earth-2. In the second season, The Flash starts facing villains from that earth who also have doppelgangers on Earth-1 sent by Zoom. The array of Earth-2 villains consists of Atom Smasher, Sand Demon, King Shark, and Dr. Light; all are sent by Zoom to kill The Flash with the assurance of being taken back home. However, they are not the only ones who arrive from the singularity; this also includes the Earth-2 Flash after a close death and loss of speed from a confrontation with Zoom. When the Earth-2 Flash (called Jay Garrick) introduces himself to Team Flash, Barry (The Flash) distrusts him at first and places him in the metahuman pipeline at S.T.A.R. Labs. When The Flash starts having a hard time facing off against Sand Demon, he frees Jay so that he could help him as well as train him in his speed. With a new trick taught by Jay, Barry defeats Sand Demon. Later on, the Earth-2 counterpart of Harrison Wells, arrives on Earth-1 as well. He steals a weapon from Mercury Labs and saves Barry from the Earth-2 King Shark. When Jay confronts and sees Wells again, the argument gets heated between them before Barry intercedes. Up until season 7, a new version of Wells was featured every season.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: The "Alf Stewart Rape Dungeon" series, created by artist Mr Doodleburger, uses footage from the Australian TV drama show Home and Away, but through the use of clever overlaid audio tracks, casts one of the main characters of the show, long running character Alf Stewart as a vicious violent character in a parallel version of Home and Away. "see main article" Alf Stewart Rape Dungeon Series


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: "Time Echoes Trilogy" by Bryan Davis addresses the idea of parallel worlds as it delves into a plot in which the main character travels between three different "earths" each moving at a different speed of time so one earth is 20 years in the past while another one is 10 minutes into the future when compared to the earth from which the character exists.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: "Overstrike" by C. M. Angus features high-functioning schizophrenics with the ability to simultaneously perceive multiple realities.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: Parallel universes in modern comics have become particularly rich and complex, in large part due to the continual problem of continuity faced by the major two publishers, Marvel Comics and DC Comics. The two publishers have used the multiverse concept to fix problems arising from integrating characters from other publishers into their own canon, and from having major serial protagonists with continuous histories lasting, as in the case of Superman, over 70 years. Additionally, both publishers have used new alternative universes to re-imagine their own characters. (See "Multiverse (DC Comics)" and "Multiverse (Marvel Comics)") DC's "Michael Moorcock's Multiverse" collected 12 issues in 1999 with an introduction by Moorcock which offered a sophisticated description of his rationale.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: DC Comics inaugurated its multiverse in the early 1960s, with the reintroduction of Golden Age superheroes the Justice Society of America now located on Earth-Two, and devised a "mirror universe" scenario of inverted morality and supervillain domination of Earth-Three shortly afterwards, several years before "" devised its own darker alternative universe. There was a lull before DC inaugurated additional alternative universes in the seventies, such as Earth-X, where there was an Axis victory in World War II, Earth-S, home to the Fawcett Comics superheroes of the forties and fifties, such as Captain Marvel, and Earth-Prime, where superheroes only existed in fictional forms.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: Therefore, comic books, in general, are one of the few entertainment mediums where the concept of parallel universes are a major and ongoing theme. DC in particular periodically revisits the idea in major crossover storylines, such as "Crisis on Infinite Earths" and "Infinite Crisis", where Marvel has a series called "What If..." that's devoted to exploring alternative realities, which sometimes impact the "main" universe's continuity. DC's version of "What If..." is the Elseworlds imprint.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: DC Comics series "52" heralded the return of the Multiverse. "52" was a mega-crossover event tied to "Infinite Crisis" which was the sequel to the 1980s "Crisis on Infinite Earths". The aim was to yet again address many of the problems and confusions brought on by the Multiverse in the DCU. Now 52 Earths exist and including some Elseworld tales such as "Kingdom Come", DC's imprint WildStorm and an Earth devoted to the Charlton Comics heroes of DC. "Countdown" and "Countdown Presents: The Search for Ray Palmer" and the "Tales of the Multiverse" stories expand upon this new multiverse.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: Marvel has also had many large crossover events which depicted an alternative universe, many springing from events in the X-Men books, such as 1981's "Days of Future Past", 1995's "Age of Apocalypse", and 2006's "House of M" and 2014's "Spider-Verse" storyline involving alternate versions of Spider-Man. In addition, the Squadron Supreme is a DC inspired Marvel Universe that has been used several times, often crossing over into the mainstream Universe in the Avengers comic. Exiles is an offshoot of the "X-Men" franchise that allows characters to hop from one alternative reality to another, leaving the original, main Marvel Universe intact. The Marvel UK line has long had multiverse stories including the Jaspers' Warp storyline of Captain Britain's first series (it was here that the designation Earth-616 was first applied to the mainstream Marvel Universe).


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: Marvel Comics, as of 2000, launched their most popular parallel universe, the Ultimate Universe. It is a smaller subline to the mainstream titles and features Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimate X-Men, Ultimate Fantastic Four and the Ultimates (their "Avengers").


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: The graphic novel Watchmen is set in an alternative history, in 1985 where superheroes exist, the Vietnam War was won by the United States, and Richard Nixon is in his fifth term as President of the United States. The Soviet Union and the United States are still locked in an escalating "Cold War" as in our own world, but as the Soviet Union invades Afghanistan in this world and threatens Pakistan, nuclear war may be imminent.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: In 1973, Tammy published "The Clock and Cluny Jones", where a mysterious grandfather clock hurls bully Cluny Jones into a harsh alternative reality where she becomes the bullied. This story was reprinted in Misty annual 1985 as "Grandfather's Clock."


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: In 1978, Misty published "The Sentinels". The Sentinels were two crumbling apartment blocks that connected the mainstream world with an alternative reality where Hitler conquered Britain in 1940.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: In 1981, Jinty published "Worlds Apart." Six girls experience alternative worlds ruled by greed, sports-mania, vanity, crime, intellectualism, and fear. These are in fact their dream worlds becoming real after they are knocked out by a mysterious gas from a chemical tanker that crashed into their school. In 1977 Jinty also published "Land of No Tears" where a lame girl travels to a future world where people with things wrong with them are cruelly treated, and emotions are banned.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: The parallel universe concept has also appeared prominently in the "Sonic the Hedgehog" comic series from Archie Comics. The first and most oft-recurring case of this is another "mirror universe" where Sonic and his various allies are evil or anti-heroic while the counterpart of the evil Dr. Robotnik is good. Another recurring universe featured in the series is a perpendicular dimension that runs through all others, known as the No Zone. The inhabitants of this universe monitor travel between the others, often stepping in with their Zone Cop police force to punish those who travel without authorization between worlds.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: In more recent years, the comic has adapted the alternative dimension from the video games Sonic Rush and Sonic Rush Adventure, home to Sonic's ally Blaze the Cat. The continuities seen in various other Sonic franchises also exist in the comic, most notably those based on the cartoon series Sonic Underground and Sonic X. For some years, a number of other universes were also featured that parodied various popular franchises, such as Sailor Moon, Godzilla, and various titles from Marvel Comics. Archie has also used this concept as the basis for crossovers between Sonic and other titles that they publish, including Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Mega Man.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: The various Transformers comics also feature the parallel universe concept, and feature the various continuities from different branches of the franchise as parallel worlds that occasionally make contact with each other. Quite notably, the annual Botcon fan convention introduced a comic storyline that featured Cliffjumper, an Autobot from the original Transformers series, entering an alternative universe where his fellow Autobots are evil and the Decepticons are good. This universe is known as the "Shattered Glass" universe, and continued on in comics and text based stories after its initial release.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: Within the Wires takes place in a parallel universe in which family structures and countries have been abolished after a "Great Reckoning" has killed a large share of the world population.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: In The Gray Area, the seven part serial "Paths Not Taken" takes place in an alternative universe in which Donald Trump has won a second presidential term, gay people are criminalized and arrested, and a violent authoritarian movement known as the "Thanksgiving Cleanse" has swept the nation. In addition, the main universe of the series takes place in a timeline in which Hillary Clinton won the 2016 presidential election.


title: Parallel universes in fiction

text: Victoriocity takes place in an alternative 1887 London, where "Queen Victoria is a cyborg and a real-life architect is worshipped by a legion of laborers."


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: 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.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: The Romans thought of themselves as highly religious, and attributed their success as a world power to their collective piety "(pietas)" in maintaining good relations with the gods. Their polytheistic religion is known for having honored many deities.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: The presence of Greeks on the Italian peninsula from the beginning of the historical period influenced Roman culture, introducing some religious practices that became fundamental, such as the "cultus" of Apollo. The Romans looked for common ground between their major gods and those of the Greeks ("interpretatio graeca"), adapting Greek myths and iconography for Latin literature and Roman art, as the Etruscans had. Etruscan religion was also a major influence, particularly on the practice of augury, used by the state


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: to seek the will of the gods. According to legends, most of Rome's religious institutions could be traced to its founders, particularly Numa Pompilius, the Sabine second king of Rome, who negotiated directly with the gods. This archaic religion was the foundation of the "mos maiorum", "the way of the ancestors" or simply "tradition", viewed as central to Roman identity.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Roman religion was practical and contractual, based on the principle of "do ut des", "I give that you might give". Religion depended on knowledge and the correct practice of prayer, rite, and sacrifice, not on faith or dogma, although Latin literature preserves learned speculation on the nature of the divine and its relation to human affairs. Even the most skeptical among Rome's intellectual elite such as Cicero, who was an augur, saw religion as a source of social order. As the Roman Empire expanded, migrants to the capital brought their local cults, many of which became popular among Italians. Christianity was eventually the most successful of these cults, and in 380 became the official state religion.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: For ordinary Romans, religion was a part of daily life. Each home had a household shrine at which prayers and libations to the family's domestic deities were offered. Neighborhood shrines and sacred places such as springs and groves dotted the city. The Roman calendar was structured around religious observances. Women, slaves, and children all participated in a range of religious activities. Some public rituals could be conducted only by women, and women formed what is perhaps Rome's most famous priesthood, the state-supported Vestals, who tended Rome's sacred hearth for centuries, until disbanded under Christian domination.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: The priesthoods of most state religions were held by members of the elite classes. There was no principle analogous to separation of church and state in ancient Rome. During the Roman Republic (509–27 BC), the same men who were elected public officials might also serve as augurs and pontiffs. Priests married, raised families, and led politically active lives. Julius Caesar became pontifex maximus before he was elected consul.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: The augurs read the will of the gods and supervised the marking of boundaries as a reflection of universal order, thus sanctioning Roman expansionism and foreign wars as a matter of divine destiny. The Roman triumph was at its core a religious procession in which the victorious general displayed his piety and his willingness to serve the public good by dedicating a portion of his spoils to the gods, especially Jupiter, who embodied just rule. As a result of the Punic Wars (264–146 BC), when Rome struggled to establish itself as a dominant power, many new temples were built by magistrates in fulfillment of a vow to a deity for assuring their military success.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: As the Romans extended their dominance throughout the Mediterranean world, their policy in general was to absorb the deities and cults of other peoples rather than try to eradicate them, since they believed that preserving tradition promoted social stability. One way that Rome incorporated diverse peoples was by supporting their religious heritage, building temples to local deities that framed their theology within the hierarchy of Roman religion. Inscriptions throughout the Empire record the side-by-side worship of local and Roman deities, including dedications made by Romans to local gods.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: By the height of the Empire, numerous international deities were cultivated at Rome and had been carried to even the most remote provinces, among them Cybele, Isis, Epona, and gods of solar monism such as Mithras and Sol Invictus, found as far north as Roman Britain. Foreign religions increasingly attracted devotees among Romans, who increasingly had ancestry from elsewhere in the Empire. Imported mystery religions, which offered initiates salvation in the afterlife, were a matter of personal choice for an individual, practiced in addition to carrying on one's family rites and participating in public religion. The mysteries, however, involved exclusive oaths and secrecy, conditions that conservative Romans viewed with suspicion as characteristic of "magic", conspiratorial ("coniuratio"), or subversive activity. Sporadic and sometimes brutal attempts were made to suppress religionists who seemed to threaten traditional morality and unity, as with the Senate's efforts to restrict the Bacchanals in 186 BC. Because Romans had never been obligated to cultivate one god or one cult only, religious tolerance was not an issue in the sense that it is for monotheistic systems. The monotheistic rigor of Judaism posed difficulties for Roman policy that led at times to compromise and the granting of special exemptions, but sometimes to intractable conflict. For example, religious disputes helped cause the First Jewish–Roman War and the Bar Kokhba revolt.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: In the wake of the Republic's collapse, state religion had adapted to support the new regime of the emperors. Augustus, the first Roman emperor, justified the novelty of one-man rule with a vast program of religious revivalism and reform. Public vows formerly made for the security of the republic now were directed at the well-being of the emperor. So-called "emperor worship" expanded on a grand scale the traditional Roman veneration of the ancestral dead and of the "Genius", the divine tutelary of every individual. The Imperial cult became one of the major ways in which Rome advertised its presence in the provinces and cultivated shared cultural identity and loyalty throughout the Empire. Rejection of the state religion was tantamount to treason. This was the context for Rome's conflict with Christianity, which Romans variously regarded as a form of atheism and novel "superstitio", while Christians considered Roman religion to be paganism. Ultimately, Roman polytheism was brought to an end with the adoption of Christianity as the official religion of the empire.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: The Roman mythological tradition is particularly rich in historical myths, or legends, concerning the foundation and rise of the city. These narratives focus on human actors, with only occasional intervention from deities but a pervasive sense of divinely ordered destiny. For Rome's earliest period, history and myth are difficult to distinguish.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: According to mythology, Rome had a semi-divine ancestor in the Trojan refugee Aeneas, son of Venus, who was said to have established the basis of Roman religion when he brought the Palladium, Lares and Penates from Troy to Italy. These objects were believed in historical times to remain in the keeping of the Vestals, Rome's female priesthood. Aeneas, according to classical authors, had been given refuge by King Evander, a Greek exile from Arcadia, to whom were attributed other religious foundations: he established the "Ara Maxima", "Greatest Altar", to Hercules at the site that would become the Forum Boarium, and, so the legend went, he was the first to celebrate the Lupercalia, an archaic festival in February that was celebrated as late as the 5th century of the Christian era.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: The myth of a Trojan founding with Greek influence was reconciled through an elaborate genealogy (the Latin kings of Alba Longa) with the well-known legend of Rome's founding by Romulus and Remus. The most common version of the twins' story displays several aspects of hero myth. Their mother, Rhea Silvia, had been ordered by her uncle the king to remain a virgin, in order to preserve the throne he had usurped from her father. Through divine intervention, the rightful line was restored when Rhea Silvia was impregnated by the god Mars. She gave birth to twins, who were duly exposed by order of the king but saved through a series of miraculous events.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Romulus and Remus regained their grandfather's throne and set out to build a new city, consulting with the gods through augury, a characteristic religious institution of Rome that is portrayed as existing from earliest times. The brothers quarrel while building the city walls, and Romulus kills Remus, an act that is sometimes seen as sacrificial. Fratricide thus became an integral part of Rome's founding myth.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Romulus was credited with several religious institutions. He founded the Consualia festival, inviting the neighbouring Sabines to participate; the ensuing rape of the Sabine women by Romulus's men further embedded both violence and cultural assimilation in Rome's myth of origins. As a successful general, Romulus is also supposed to have founded Rome's first temple to Jupiter Feretrius and offered the "spolia opima", the prime spoils taken in war, in the celebration of the first Roman triumph. Spared a mortal's death, Romulus was mysteriously spirited away and deified.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: His Sabine successor Numa was pious and peaceable, and credited with numerous political and religious foundations, including the first Roman calendar; the priesthoods of the Salii, flamines, and Vestals; the cults of Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus; and the Temple of Janus, whose doors stayed open in times of war but in Numa's time remained closed. After Numa's death, the doors to the Temple of Janus were supposed to have remained open until the reign of Augustus.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Each of Rome's legendary or semi-legendary kings was associated with one or more religious institutions still known to the later Republic. Tullus Hostilius and Ancus Marcius instituted the fetial priests. The first "outsider" Etruscan king, Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, founded a Capitoline temple to the triad Jupiter, Juno and Minerva which served as the model for the highest official cult throughout the Roman world. The benevolent, divinely fathered Servius Tullius established the Latin League, its Aventine Temple to Diana, and the Compitalia to mark his social reforms. Servius Tullius was murdered and succeeded by the arrogant Tarquinius Superbus, whose expulsion marked the end of Roman kingship and the beginning of the Roman republic, governed by elected magistrates.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Roman historians regarded the essentials of Republican religion as complete by the end of Numa's reign, and confirmed as right and lawful by the Senate and people of Rome: the sacred topography of the city, its monuments and temples, the histories of Rome's leading families, and oral and ritual traditions. According to Cicero, the Romans considered themselves the most religious of all peoples, and their rise to dominance was proof they received divine favor in return.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Rome offers no native creation myth, and little mythography to explain the character of its deities, their mutual relationships or their interactions with the human world, but Roman theology acknowledged that "di immortales" (immortal gods) ruled all realms of the heavens and earth. There were gods of the upper heavens, gods of the underworld and a myriad of lesser deities between. Some evidently favoured Rome because Rome honoured them, but none were intrinsically, irredeemably foreign or alien.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: The political, cultural and religious coherence of an emergent Roman super-state required a broad, inclusive and flexible network of lawful cults. At different times and in different places, the sphere of influence, character and functions of a divine being could expand, overlap with those of others, and be redefined as Roman. Change was embedded within existing traditions.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Several versions of a semi-official, structured pantheon were developed during the political, social and religious instability of the Late Republican era. Jupiter, the most powerful of all gods and "the fount of the auspices upon which the relationship of the city with the gods rested", consistently personified the divine authority of Rome's highest offices, internal organization and external relations. During the archaic and early Republican eras, he shared his temple, some aspects of cult and several divine characteristics with Mars and Quirinus, who were later replaced by Juno and Minerva.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: A conceptual tendency toward triads may be indicated by the later agricultural or plebeian triad of Ceres, Liber and Libera, and by some of the complementary threefold deity-groupings of Imperial cult. Other major and minor deities could be single, coupled, or linked retrospectively through myths of divine marriage and sexual adventure. These later Roman pantheistic hierarchies are part literary and mythographic, part philosophical creations, and often Greek in origin. The Hellenization of Latin literature and culture supplied literary and artistic models for reinterpreting Roman deities in light of the Greek Olympians, and promoted a sense that the two cultures had a shared heritage.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: The impressive, costly, and centralised rites to the deities of the Roman state were vastly outnumbered in everyday life by commonplace religious observances pertaining to an individual's domestic and personal deities, the patron divinities of Rome's various neighborhoods and communities, and the often idiosyncratic blends of official, unofficial, local and personal cults that characterised lawful Roman religion.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: In this spirit, a provincial Roman citizen who made the long journey from Bordeaux to Italy to consult the Sibyl at Tibur did not neglect his devotion to his own goddess from home:


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: I wander, never ceasing to pass through the whole world, but I am first and foremost a faithful worshiper of Onuava. I am at the ends of the earth, but the distance cannot tempt me to make my vows to another goddess. Love of the truth brought me to Tibur, but Onuava's favorable powers came with me. Thus, divine mother, far from my home-land, exiled in Italy, I address my vows and prayers to you no less.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Roman calendars show roughly forty annual religious festivals. Some lasted several days, others a single day or less: sacred days ("dies fasti") outnumbered "non-sacred" days ("dies nefasti"). A comparison of surviving Roman religious calendars suggests that official festivals were organized according to broad seasonal groups that allowed for different local traditions. Some of the most ancient and popular festivals incorporated "ludi" ("games", such as chariot races and theatrical performances), with examples including those held at Palestrina in honour of Fortuna Primigenia during Compitalia, and the Ludi Romani in honour of Liber. Other festivals may have required only the presence and rites of their priests and acolytes, or particular groups, such as women at the Bona Dea rites.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Other public festivals were not required by the calendar, but occasioned by events. The triumph of a Roman general was celebrated as the fulfillment of religious vows, though these tended to be overshadowed by the political and social significance of the event. During the late Republic, the political elite competed to outdo each other in public display, and the "ludi" attendant on a triumph were expanded to include gladiator contests. Under the Principate, all such spectacular displays came under Imperial control: the most lavish were subsidised by emperors, and lesser events were provided by magistrates as a sacred duty and privilege of office. Additional festivals and games celebrated Imperial accessions and anniversaries. Others, such as the traditional Republican Secular Games to mark a new era ("saeculum"), became imperially funded to maintain traditional values and a common Roman identity. That the spectacles retained something of their sacral aura even in late antiquity is indicated by the admonitions of the Church Fathers that Christians should not take part.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: The meaning and origin of many archaic festivals baffled even Rome's intellectual elite, but the more obscure they were, the greater the opportunity for reinvention and reinterpretation – a fact lost neither on Augustus in his program of religious reform, which often cloaked autocratic innovation, nor on his only rival as mythmaker of the era, Ovid. In his "Fasti", a long-form poem covering Roman holidays from January to June, Ovid presents a unique look at Roman antiquarian lore, popular customs, and religious practice that is by turns imaginative, entertaining, high-minded, and scurrilous; not a priestly account, despite the speaker's pose as a "vates" or inspired poet-prophet, but a work of description, imagination and poetic etymology that reflects the broad humor and burlesque spirit of such venerable festivals as the Saturnalia, Consualia, and feast of Anna Perenna on the Ides of March, where Ovid treats the assassination of the newly deified Julius Caesar as utterly incidental to the festivities among the Roman people. But official calendars preserved from different times and places also show a flexibility in omitting or expanding events, indicating that there was no single static and authoritative calendar of required observances. In the later Empire under Christian rule, the new Christian festivals were incorporated into the existing framework of the Roman calendar, alongside at least some of the traditional festivals.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Public religious ceremonies of the official Roman religion took place outdoors, and not within the temple building. Some ceremonies were processions that started at, visited, or ended with a temple or shrine, where a ritual object might be stored and brought out for use, or where an offering would be deposited. Sacrifices, chiefly of animals, would take place at an open-air altar within the "templum" or precinct, often to the side of the steps leading up to the raised portico. The main room "(cella)" inside a temple housed the cult image of the deity to whom the temple was dedicated, and often a small altar for incense or libations. It might also display art works looted in war and rededicated to the gods. It is not clear how accessible the interiors of temples were to the general public.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: The Latin word "templum" originally referred not to the temple building itself, but to a sacred space surveyed and plotted ritually through augury: "The architecture of the ancient Romans was, from first to last, an art of shaping space around ritual." The Roman architect Vitruvius always uses the word "templum" to refer to this sacred precinct, and the more common Latin words "aedes", "delubrum", or "fanum" for a temple or shrine as a building. The ruins of temples are among the most visible monuments of ancient Roman culture.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Temple buildings and shrines within the city commemorated significant political settlements in its development: the Aventine Temple of Diana supposedly marked the founding of the Latin League under Servius Tullius. Many temples in the Republican era were built as the fulfillment of a vow made by a general in exchange for a victory: Rome's first known temple to Venus was vowed by the consul Q. Fabius Gurges in the heat of battle against the Samnites, and dedicated in 295 BC.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: All sacrifices and offerings required an accompanying prayer to be effective. Pliny the Elder declared that "a sacrifice without prayer is thought to be useless and not a proper consultation of the gods." Prayer by itself, however, had independent power. The spoken word was thus the single most potent religious action, and knowledge of the correct verbal formulas the key to efficacy. Accurate naming was vital for tapping into the desired powers of the deity invoked, hence the proliferation of cult epithets among Roman deities. Public prayers ("prex") were offered loudly and clearly by a priest on behalf of the community. Public religious ritual had to be enacted by specialists and professionals faultlessly; a mistake might require that the action, or even the entire festival, be repeated from the start. The historian Livy reports an occasion when the presiding magistrate at the Latin festival forgot to include the "Roman people" among the list of beneficiaries in his prayer; the festival had to be started over. Even private prayer by an individual was formulaic, a recitation rather than a personal expression, though selected by the individual for a particular purpose or occasion.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Oaths—sworn for the purposes of business, clientage and service, patronage and protection, state office, treaty and loyalty—appealed to the witness and sanction of deities. Refusal to swear a lawful oath "(sacramentum)" and breaking a sworn oath carried much the same penalty: both repudiated the fundamental bonds between the human and divine. A "votum" or vow was a promise made to a deity, usually an offer of sacrifices or a votive offering in exchange for benefits received.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: In Latin, the word "sacrificium" means the performance of an act that renders something "sacer", sacred. Sacrifice reinforced the powers and attributes of divine beings, and inclined them to render benefits in return (the principle of "do ut des").


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Offerings to household deities were part of daily life. Lares might be offered spelt wheat and grain-garlands, grapes and first fruits in due season, honey cakes and honeycombs, wine and incense, food that fell to the floor during any family meal, or at their Compitalia festival, honey-cakes and a pig on behalf of the community. Their supposed underworld relatives, the malicious and vagrant Lemures, might be placated with midnight offerings of black beans and spring water.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: The most potent offering was animal sacrifice, typically of domesticated animals such as cattle, sheep and pigs. Each was the best specimen of its kind, cleansed, clad in sacrificial regalia and garlanded; the horns of oxen might be gilded. Sacrifice sought the harmonisation of the earthly and divine, so the victim must seem willing to offer its own life on behalf of the community; it must remain calm and be quickly and cleanly dispatched.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Sacrifice to deities of the heavens ("di superi", "gods above") was performed in daylight, and under the public gaze. Deities of the upper heavens required white, infertile victims of their own sex: Juno a white heifer (possibly a white cow); Jupiter a white, castrated ox ("bos mas") for the annual oath-taking by the consuls. "Di superi" with strong connections to the earth, such as Mars, Janus, Neptune and various "genii" – including the Emperor's – were offered fertile victims. After the sacrifice, a banquet was held; in state cults, the images of honoured deities took pride of place on banqueting couches and by means of the sacrificial fire consumed their proper portion ("exta", the innards). Rome's officials and priests reclined in order of precedence alongside and ate the meat; lesser citizens may have had to provide their own.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Chthonic gods such as Dis pater, the "di inferi" ("gods below"), and the collective shades of the departed "(di Manes)" were given dark, fertile victims in nighttime rituals. Animal sacrifice usually took the form of a holocaust or burnt offering, and there was no shared banquet, as "the living cannot share a meal with the dead". Ceres and other underworld goddesses of fruitfulness were sometimes offered pregnant female animals; Tellus was given a pregnant cow at the Fordicidia festival. Color had a general symbolic value for sacrifices. Demigods and heroes, who belonged to the heavens and the underworld, were sometimes given black-and-white victims. Robigo (or Robigus) was given red dogs and libations of red wine at the Robigalia for the protection of crops from blight and red mildew.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: A sacrifice might be made in thanksgiving or as an expiation of a sacrilege or potential sacrilege ("piaculum");


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: a "piaculum" might also be offered as a sort of advance payment; the Arval Brethren, for instance, offered a "piaculum" before entering their sacred grove with an iron implement, which was forbidden, as well as after.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: The same divine agencies who caused disease or harm also had the power to avert it, and so might be placated in advance. Divine consideration might be sought to avoid the inconvenient delays of a journey, or encounters with banditry, piracy and shipwreck, with due gratitude to be rendered on safe arrival or return. In times of great crisis, the Senate could decree collective public rites, in which Rome's citizens, including women and children, moved in procession from one temple to the next, supplicating the gods.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Extraordinary circumstances called for extraordinary sacrifice: in one of the many crises of the Second Punic War, Jupiter Capitolinus was promised every animal born that spring (see "ver sacrum"), to be rendered after five more years of protection from Hannibal and his allies. The "contract" with Jupiter is exceptionally detailed. All due care would be taken of the animals. If any died or were stolen before the scheduled sacrifice, they would count as already sacrificed, since they had already been consecrated. Normally, if the gods failed to keep their side of the bargain, the offered sacrifice would be withheld. In the imperial period, sacrifice was withheld following Trajan's death because the gods had not kept the Emperor safe for the stipulated period. In Pompeii, the Genius of the living emperor was offered a bull: presumably a standard practise in Imperial cult, though minor offerings (incense and wine) were also made.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: The "exta" were the entrails of a sacrificed animal, comprising in Cicero's enumeration the gall bladder ("fel"), liver ("iecur"), heart ("cor"), and lungs ("pulmones"). The "exta" were exposed for litatio (divine approval) as part of Roman liturgy, but were "read" in the context of the "disciplina Etrusca". As a product of Roman sacrifice, the "exta" and blood are reserved for the gods, while the meat "(viscera)" is shared among human beings in a communal meal. The "exta" of bovine victims were usually stewed in a pot ("olla" or "aula"), while those of sheep or pigs were grilled on skewers. When the deity's portion was cooked, it was sprinkled with "mola salsa" (ritually prepared salted flour) and wine, then placed in the fire on the altar for the offering; the technical verb for this action was "porricere".


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Human sacrifice in ancient Rome was rare but documented. After the Roman defeat at Cannae two Gauls and two Greeks were buried under the Forum Boarium, in a stone chamber "which had on a previous occasion [228 BC] also been polluted by human victims, a practice most repulsive to Roman feelings". Livy avoids the word "sacrifice" in connection with this bloodless human life-offering; Plutarch does not. The rite was apparently repeated in 113 BC, preparatory to an invasion of Gaul. Its religious dimensions and purpose remain uncertain.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: In the early stages of the First Punic War (264 BC) the first known Roman gladiatorial "munus" was held, described as a funeral blood-rite to the "manes" of a Roman military aristocrat. The gladiator "munus" was never explicitly acknowledged as a human sacrifice, probably because death was not its inevitable outcome or purpose. Even so, the gladiators swore their lives to the gods, and the combat was dedicated as an offering to the "Di Manes" or the revered souls of deceased human beings. The event was therefore a "sacrificium" in the strict sense of the term, and Christian writers later condemned it as human sacrifice.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: The small woollen dolls called "Maniae", hung on the Compitalia shrines, were thought a symbolic replacement for child-sacrifice to Mania, as Mother of the Lares. The Junii took credit for its abolition by their ancestor L. Junius Brutus, traditionally Rome's Republican founder and first consul. Political or military executions were sometimes conducted in such a way that they evoked human sacrifice, whether deliberately or in the perception of witnesses; Marcus Marius Gratidianus was a gruesome example.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Officially, human sacrifice was obnoxious "to the laws of gods and men". The practice was a mark of the barbarians, attributed to Rome's traditional enemies such as the Carthaginians and Gauls. Rome banned it on several occasions under extreme penalty. A law passed in 81 BC characterised human sacrifice as murder committed for magical purposes. Pliny saw the ending of human sacrifice conducted by the druids as a positive consequence of the conquest of Gaul and Britain. Despite an empire-wide ban under Hadrian, human sacrifice may have continued covertly in North Africa and elsewhere.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: The "mos maiorum" established the dynastic authority and obligations of the citizen-"paterfamilias" ("the father of the family" or the "owner of the family estate"). He had priestly duties to his "lares", domestic "penates", ancestral "Genius" and any other deities with whom he or his family held an interdependent relationship. His own dependents, who included his slaves and freedmen, owed cult to his "Genius".


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: "Genius" was the essential spirit and generative power – depicted as a serpent or as a perennial youth, often winged – within an individual and their clan (gens (pl. "gentes"). A "paterfamilias" could confer his name, a measure of his "genius" and a role in his household rites, obligations and honours upon those he fathered or adopted. His freed slaves owed him similar obligations.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: A "pater familias" was the senior priest of his household. He offered daily cult to his "lares" and "penates", and to his "di parentes"/"divi parentes" at his domestic shrines and in the fires of the household hearth. His wife ("mater familias") was responsible for the household's cult to Vesta. In rural estates, bailiffs seem to have been responsible for at least some of the household shrines (lararia) and their deities. Household cults had state counterparts. In Vergil's "Aeneid", Aeneas brought the Trojan cult of the "lares" and "penates" from Troy, along with the Palladium which was later installed in the temple of Vesta.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Roman "religio" (religion) was an everyday and vital affair, a cornerstone of the "mos maiorum", Roman tradition and ancestral custom. It was ultimately governed by the Roman state, and religious laws.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Care for the gods, the very meaning of "religio", had therefore to go through life, and one might thus understand why Cicero wrote that religion was "necessary". Religious behavior – "pietas" in Latin, "eusebeia" in Greek – belonged to action and not to contemplation. Consequently religious acts took place wherever the faithful were: in houses, boroughs, associations, cities, military camps, cemeteries, in the country, on boats. 'When pious travelers happen to pass by a sacred grove or a cult place on their way, they are used to make a vow, or a fruit offering, or to sit down for a while' (Apuleius, "Florides" 1.1).


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Religious law centered on the ritualised system of honours and sacrifice that brought divine blessings, according to the principle "do ut des" ("I give, that you might give"). Proper, respectful "religio" brought social harmony and prosperity. Religious neglect was a form of atheism: impure sacrifice and incorrect ritual were "vitia" (impious errors). Excessive devotion, fearful grovelling to deities and the improper use or seeking of divine knowledge were "superstitio". Any of these moral deviations could cause divine anger ("ira deorum") and therefore harm the State. The official deities of the state were identified with its lawful offices and institutions, and Romans of every class were expected to honour the beneficence and protection of mortal and divine superiors. State cult rituals were almost always performed in daylight and in full public view, by priests who acted on behalf of the Roman state and the Roman people. Congregtions were expected to respectfully observe the proceedings. Participation in public rites showed a personal commitment to the community and its values.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Official cults were state funded as a "matter of public interest" ("res publica"). Non-official but lawful cults were funded by private individuals for the benefit of their own communities. The difference between public and private cult is often unclear. Individuals or collegial associations could offer funds and cult to state deities. The public Vestals prepared ritual substances for use in public and private cults, and held the state-funded (thus public) opening ceremony for the Parentalia festival, which was otherwise a private rite to household ancestors. Some rites of the "domus" (household) were held in public places but were legally defined as "privata" in part or whole. All cults were ultimately subject to the approval and regulation of the censor and "pontifices".


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Rome had no separate priestly caste or class. The highest authority within a community usually sponsored its cults and sacrifices, officiated as its priest and promoted its assistants and acolytes. Specialists from the religious colleges and professionals such as "haruspices" and oracles were available for consultation. In household cult, the "paterfamilias" functioned as priest, and members of his "familia" as acolytes and assistants. Public cults required greater knowledge and expertise. The earliest public priesthoods were probably the "flamines" (the singular is "flamen"), attributed to king Numa: the major "flamines", dedicated to Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus, were traditionally drawn from patrician families. Twelve lesser "flamines" were each dedicated to a single deity, whose archaic nature is indicated by the relative obscurity of some. "Flamines" were constrained by the requirements of ritual purity; Jupiter's "flamen" in particular had virtually no simultaneous capacity for a political or military career.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: In the Regal era, a "rex sacrorum" (king of the sacred rites) supervised regal and state rites in conjunction with the king ("rex") or in his absence, and announced the public festivals. He had little or no civil authority. With the abolition of monarchy, the collegial power and influence of the Republican "pontifices" increased. By the late Republican era, the flamines were supervised by the pontifical "collegia". The "rex sacrorum" had become a relatively obscure priesthood with an entirely symbolic title: his religious duties still included the daily, ritual announcement of festivals and priestly duties within two or three of the latter but his most important priestly role – the supervision of the Vestals and their rites – fell to the more politically powerful and influential "pontifex maximus".


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Public priests were appointed by the "collegia". Once elected, a priest held permanent religious authority from the eternal divine, which offered him lifetime influence, privilege and immunity. Therefore, civil and religious law limited the number and kind of religious offices allowed an individual and his family. Religious law was collegial and traditional; it informed political decisions, could overturn them, and was difficult to exploit for personal gain.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Priesthood was a costly honour: in traditional Roman practice, a priest drew no stipend. Cult donations were the property of the deity, whose priest must provide cult regardless of shortfalls in public funding – this could mean subsidy of acolytes and all other cult maintenance from personal funds. For those who had reached their goal in the "Cursus honorum", permanent priesthood was best sought or granted after a lifetime's service in military or political life, or preferably both: it was a particularly honourable and active form of retirement which fulfilled an essential public duty. For a freedman or slave, promotion as one of the Compitalia "seviri" offered a high local profile, and opportunities in local politics; and therefore business.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: During the Imperial era, priesthood of the Imperial cult offered provincial elites full Roman citizenship and public prominence beyond their single year in religious office; in effect, it was the first step in a provincial "cursus honorum". In Rome, the same Imperial cult role was performed by the Arval Brethren, once an obscure Republican priesthood dedicated to several deities, then co-opted by Augustus as part of his religious reforms. The Arvals offered prayer and sacrifice to Roman state gods at various temples for the continued welfare of the Imperial family on their birthdays, accession anniversaries and to mark extraordinary events such as the quashing of conspiracy or revolt. Every 3 January they consecrated the annual vows and rendered any sacrifice promised in the previous year, provided the gods had kept the Imperial family safe for the contracted time.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: The Vestals were a public priesthood of six women devoted to the cultivation of Vesta, goddess of the hearth of the Roman state and its vital flame. A girl chosen to be a Vestal achieved unique religious distinction, public status and privileges, and could exercise considerable political influence. Upon entering her office, a Vestal was emancipated from her father's authority. In archaic Roman society, these priestesses were the only women not required to be under the legal guardianship of a man, instead answering directly to the Pontifex Maximus.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: A Vestal's dress represented her status outside the usual categories that defined Roman women, with elements of both virgin bride and daughter, and Roman matron and wife. Unlike male priests, Vestals were freed of the traditional obligations of marrying and producing children, and were required to take a vow of chastity that was strictly enforced: a Vestal polluted by the loss of her chastity while in office was buried alive. Thus the exceptional honor accorded a Vestal was religious rather than personal or social; her privileges required her to be fully devoted to the performance of her duties, which were considered essential to the security of Rome.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: The Vestals embody the profound connection between domestic cult and the religious life of the community. Any householder could rekindle their own household fire from Vesta's flame. The Vestals cared for the Lares and Penates of the state that were the equivalent of those enshrined in each home. Besides their own festival of Vestalia, they participated directly in the rites of Parilia, Parentalia and Fordicidia. Indirectly, they played a role in every official sacrifice; among their duties was the preparation of the "mola salsa", the salted flour that was sprinkled on every sacrificial victim as part of its immolation.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: One mythological tradition held that the mother of Romulus and Remus was a Vestal virgin of royal blood. A tale of miraculous birth also attended on Servius Tullius, sixth king of Rome, son of a virgin slave-girl impregnated by a disembodied phallus arising mysteriously on the royal hearth; the story was connected to the "fascinus" that was among the cult objects under the guardianship of the Vestals.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Augustus' religious reformations raised the funding and public profile of the Vestals. They were given high-status seating at games and theatres. The emperor Claudius appointed them as priestesses to the cult of the deified Livia, wife of Augustus. They seem to have retained their religious and social distinctions well into the 4th century, after political power within the Empire had shifted to the Christians. When the Christian emperor Gratian refused the office of "pontifex maximus", he took steps toward the dissolution of the order. His successor Theodosius I extinguished Vesta's sacred fire and vacated her temple.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Public religion took place within a sacred precinct that had been marked out ritually by an augur. The original meaning of the Latin word "templum" was this sacred space, and only later referred to a building. Rome itself was an intrinsically sacred space; its ancient boundary "(pomerium)" had been marked by Romulus himself with oxen and plough; what lay within was the earthly home and protectorate of the gods of the state. In Rome, the central references for the establishment of an augural "templum" appear to have been the Via Sacra (Sacred Way) and the pomerium. Magistrates sought divine opinion of proposed official acts through an augur, who read the divine will through observations made within the "templum" before, during and after an act of sacrifice.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Divine disapproval could arise through unfit sacrifice, errant rites ("vitia") or an unacceptable plan of action. If an unfavourable sign was given, the magistrate could repeat the sacrifice until favourable signs were seen, consult with his augural colleagues, or abandon the project. Magistrates could use their right of augury ("ius augurum") to adjourn and overturn the process of law, but were obliged to base their decision on the augur's observations and advice. For Cicero, himself an augur, this made the augur the most powerful authority in the Late Republic. By his time (mid 1st century BC) augury was supervised by the college of "pontifices", whose powers were increasingly woven into the magistracies of the "cursus honorum".


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Haruspicy was also used in public cult, under the supervision of the augur or presiding magistrate. The haruspices divined the will of the gods through examination of entrails after sacrifice, particularly the liver. They also interpreted omens, prodigies and portents, and formulated their expiation. Most Roman authors describe haruspicy as an ancient, ethnically Etruscan "outsider" religious profession, separate from Rome's internal and largely unpaid priestly hierarchy, essential but never quite respectable. During the mid-to-late Republic, the reformist Gaius Gracchus, the populist politician-general Gaius Marius and his antagonist Sulla, and the "notorious Verres" justified their very different policies by the divinely inspired utterances of private diviners. The Senate and armies used the public haruspices: at some time during the late Republic, the Senate decreed that Roman boys of noble family be sent to Etruria for training in haruspicy and divination. Being of independent means, they would be better motivated to maintain a pure, religious practice for the public good. The motives of private haruspices – especially females – and their clients were officially suspect: none of this seems to have troubled Marius, who employed a Syrian prophetess.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Omens observed within or from a divine augural templum – especially the flight of birds – were sent by the gods in response to official queries. A magistrate with "ius augurium" (the right of augury) could declare the suspension of all official business for the day ("obnuntiato") if he deemed the omens unfavourable. Conversely, an apparently negative omen could be re-interpreted as positive, or deliberately blocked from sight.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Prodigies were transgressions in the natural, predictable order of the cosmos – signs of divine anger that portended conflict and misfortune. The Senate decided whether a reported prodigy was false, or genuine and in the public interest, in which case it was referred to the public priests, augurs and haruspices for ritual expiation. In 207 BC, during one of the Punic Wars' worst crises, the Senate dealt with an unprecedented number of confirmed prodigies whose expiation would have involved "at least twenty days" of dedicated rites.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Livy presents these as signs of widespread failure in Roman "religio". The major prodigies included the spontaneous combustion of weapons, the apparent shrinking of the sun's disc, two moons in a daylit sky, a cosmic battle between sun and moon, a rain of red-hot stones, a bloody sweat on statues, and blood in fountains and on ears of corn: all were expiated by sacrifice of "greater victims". The minor prodigies were less warlike but equally unnatural; sheep become goats, a hen become a cock (and vice versa) – these were expiated with "lesser victims". The discovery of an androgynous four-year-old child was expiated by its drowning and the holy procession of 27 virgins to the temple of Juno Regina, singing a hymn to avert disaster: a lightning strike during the hymn rehearsals required further expiation. Religious restitution is proved only by Rome's victory.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: In the wider context of Graeco-Roman religious culture, Rome's earliest reported portents and prodigies stand out as atypically dire. Whereas for Romans, a comet presaged misfortune, for Greeks it might equally signal a divine or exceptionally fortunate birth. In the late Republic, a daytime comet at the murdered Julius Caesar's funeral games confirmed his deification; a discernible Greek influence on Roman interpretation.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Most of Rome's mystery cults were derived from Greek originals, adopted by individuals as private, or were formally adopted as public. Mystery cults operated through a hierarchy consisting of transference of knowledge, virtues and powers to those initiated through secret rites of passage, which might employ dance, music, intoxicants and theatrical effects to provoke an overwhelming sense of religious awe, revelation and eventual catharsis. The cult of Mithras was among the most notable, particularly popular among soldiers and based on the Zoroastrian deity, Mithra.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Some of Rome's most prominent deities had both public and mystery rites. Magna Mater, conscripted to help Rome defeat Carthage in the second Punic War, arrived in Rome with her consort, Attis, and their joint "foreign", non-citizen priesthood, known as Galli. Despite her presumed status as an ancestral, Trojan goddess, a priesthood was drawn from Rome's highest echelons to supervise her cult and festivals. These may have been considered too exotically "barbaric" to trust, and were barred to slaves.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: For the Galli, full priesthood involved self-castration, illegal for Romans of any class. Later, citizens could pay for the costly sacrifice of a bull or the lesser sacrifice of a ram, as a substitute for the acolyte's self-castration. Magna Mater's initiates tended to be very well-off, and relatively uncommon; they included the emperor Julian. Initiates to Attis' cult were more numerous and less wealthy, and acted as assistant citizen-priests in their deity's "exotic" festivals, some of which involved the Galli's public, bloody self-flagellation.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Rome's native cults to the grain goddess Ceres and her daughter Libera were supplemented with a mystery cult of Ceres-with-Proserpina, based on the Greek Eleusinian mysteries and Thesmophoria, introduced in 205 BC and led at first by ethnically Greek priestesses from "Graeca magna". The Eleusinian mysteries are also the likely source for the mysteries of Isis, which employed symbols and rites that were nominally Egyptian. Aspects of the Isis mysteries are almost certainly described in Appuleius' novel, The Golden Ass. Such cults were mistrusted by Rome's authorities as quasi-magical, potentialy seductive and emotionally based, rather than practical.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: The wall-paintings in Pompeii's "Villa of the Mysteries" could have functioned equally as religious inspiration, instruction, and high quality domestic decor (described by Beard as "expensive wallpaper"). They also attest to an increasingly personal, even domestic experience of religion, whether or not they were ever part of organised cult meetings. The paintings probably represent the once-notorious, independent, popular Bacchanalia mysteries, forcibly brought under the direct control of Rome's civil and religious authorities, 100 years before.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: A common theme among the eastern mystery religions present in Rome became disillusionment with material possessions, a focus on death and a preoccupation with regards to the afterlife. These attributes later led to the appeal to Christianity, which in its early stages was often viewed as mystery religion itself.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Roman beliefs about an afterlife varied, and are known mostly for the educated elite who expressed their views in terms of their chosen philosophy. The traditional care of the dead, however, and the perpetuation after death of their status in life were part of the most archaic practices of Roman religion. Ancient votive deposits to the noble dead of Latium and Rome suggest elaborate and costly funeral offerings and banquets in the company of the deceased, an expectation of afterlife and their association with the gods. As Roman society developed, its Republican nobility tended to invest less in spectacular funerals and extravagant housing for their dead, and more on monumental endowments to the community, such as the donation of a temple or public building whose donor was commemorated by his statue and inscribed name. Persons of low or negligible status might receive simple burial, with such grave goods as relatives could afford.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Funeral and commemorative rites varied according to wealth, status and religious context. In Cicero's time, the better-off sacrificed a sow at the funeral pyre before cremation. The dead consumed their portion in the flames of the pyre, Ceres her portion through the flame of her altar, and the family at the site of the cremation. For the less well-off, inhumation with "a libation of wine, incense, and fruit or crops was sufficient". Ceres functioned as an intermediary between the realms of the living and the dead: the deceased had not yet fully passed to the world of the dead and could share a last meal with the living. The ashes (or body) were entombed or buried. On the eighth day of mourning, the family offered further sacrifice, this time on the ground; the shade of the departed was assumed to have passed from the world of the living into the underworld, as one of the "di Manes", underworld spirits; the ancestral "manes" of families were celebrated and appeased at their cemeteries or tombs, in the obligatory Parentalia, a multi-day festival of remembrance in February.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: A standard Roman funerary inscription is "Dis Manibus" (to the Manes-gods). Regional variations include its Greek equivalent, "theoîs katachthoníois" and Lugdunum's commonplace but mysterious "dedicated under the trowel" "(sub ascia dedicare)".


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: In the later Imperial era, the burial and commemorative practises of Christian and non-Christians overlapped. Tombs were shared by Christian and non-Christian family members, and the traditional funeral rites and feast of "novemdialis" found a part-match in the Christian "Constitutio Apostolica". The customary offers of wine and food to the dead continued; St Augustine (following St Ambrose) feared that this invited the "drunken" practices of Parentalia but commended funeral feasts as a Christian opportunity to give alms of food to the poor. Christians attended Parentalia and its accompanying Feralia and Caristia in sufficient numbers for the Council of Tours to forbid them in AD 567. Other funerary and commemorative practices were very different. Traditional Roman practice spurned the corpse as a ritual pollution; inscriptions noted the day of birth and duration of life. The Christian Church fostered the veneration of saintly relics, and inscriptions marked the day of death as a transition to "new life".


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Military success was achieved through a combination of personal and collective "virtus" (roughly, "manly virtue") and the divine will: lack of "virtus", civic or private negligence in "religio" and the growth of "superstitio" provoked divine wrath and led to military disaster. Military success was the touchstone of a special relationship with the gods, and to Jupiter Capitolinus in particular; triumphal generals were dressed as Jupiter, and laid their victor's laurels at his feet.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Roman commanders offered vows to be fulfilled after success in battle or siege; and further vows to expiate their failures. Camillus promised Veii's goddess Juno a temple in Rome as incentive for her desertion "(evocatio)", conquered the city in her name, brought her cult statue to Rome "with miraculous ease" and dedicated a temple to her on the Aventine Hill.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Roman camps followed a standard pattern for defense and religious ritual; in effect they were Rome in miniature. The commander's headquarters stood at the centre; he took the auspices on a dais in front. A small building behind housed the legionary standards, the divine images used in religious rites and in the Imperial era, the image of the ruling emperor. In one camp, this shrine is even called Capitolium. The most important camp-offering appears to have been the "suovetaurilia" performed before a major, set battle. A ram, a boar and a bull were ritually garlanded, led around the outer perimeter of the camp (a "lustratio exercitus") and in through a gate, then sacrificed: Trajan's column shows three such events from his Dacian wars. The perimeter procession and sacrifice suggest the entire camp as a divine "templum"; all within are purified and protected.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: Each camp had its own religious personnel; standard bearers, priestly officers and their assistants, including a haruspex, and housekeepers of shrines and images. A senior magistrate-commander (sometimes even a consul) headed it, his chain of subordinates ran it and a ferocious system of training and discipline ensured that every citizen-soldier knew his duty. As in Rome, whatever gods he served in his own time seem to have been his own business; legionary forts and "vici" included shrines to household gods, personal deities and deities otherwise unknown.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: From the earliest Imperial era, citizen legionaries and provincial auxiliaries gave cult to the emperor and his "familia" on Imperial accessions, anniversaries and their renewal of annual vows. They celebrated Rome's official festivals "in absentia", and had the official triads appropriate to their function – in the Empire, Jupiter, Victoria and Concordia were typical. By the early Severan era, the military also offered cult to the Imperial "divi", the current emperor's "numen", "genius" and "domus" (or "familia"), and special cult to the Empress as "mother of the camp". The near ubiquitous legionary shrines to Mithras of the later Imperial era were not part of official cult until Mithras was absorbed into Solar and Stoic Monism as a focus of military "concordia" and Imperial loyalty.


title: Religion in ancient Rome

text: The "devotio" was the most extreme offering a Roman general could make, promising to offer his own life in battle along with the enemy as an offering to the underworld gods. Livy offers a detailed account of the "devotio" carried out by Decius Mus; family tradition maintained that his son and grandson, all bearing the same name, also devoted themselves. Before the battle, Decius is granted a prescient dream that reveals his fate. When he offers sacrifice, the victim's liver appears "damaged where it refers to his own fortunes". Otherwise, the haruspex tells him, the sacrifice is entirely acceptable to the gods. In a prayer recorded by Livy, Decius commits himself and the enemy to the "dii Manes" and Tellus, charges alone and headlong into the enemy ranks, and is killed; his action cleanses the sacrificial offering. Had he failed to die, his sacrificial offering would have been tainted and therefore void, with possibly disastrous consequences. The act of "devotio" is a link between military ethics and those of the Roman gladiator.