Wednesday 12 May

10 AM PDT
1 PM EDT
6 PM BST
7 PM CEST

With Dr. Eireann Marshall

From the state temples and shrines erected in the forum, including the Capitolium, to the household shrines, religion was a part of every facet of life in Ostia. The city provides exceptional evidence for the development of elective cults from the 2nd century AD onwards, particularly the cult of Mithras, which was booming until it was eventually overcome by the rise of Christianity. Although the word ‘religion’ has Latin roots, it wasn’t used in the sense that we use it today.

Indeed they didn’t have a term which encapsulated their veneration of gods carried out by a multiplicity of rites and rituals. Religion was in everything they did and could include both ritual which all citizens took part in, as well as confraternities which worshipped gods such as Bacchus, Isis and Mithras, which gave fellow worshippers hope of an afterlife.