This book examines the organization of religion in the Roman empire from Augustus to Constantine. Although there have been illuminating particular studies of the relationship between religious activity and socio-political authority in the empire, there has been no large-scale attempt to assess it as a whole. Taking as his focus the situation in Carthage, the greatest city of the western provinces, J.B. Rives argues that the traditional religion, predicated on the
structure of a city-state, could not serve to integrate individuals into an empire. In upholding traditional religion, the government abandoned the sort of political control of religious behaviour characteristic of the Roman Republic, and allowed poeple to determine their own religious identities. The
importance of Christianity was thus suited to the needs of the increasingly homogeneous Roman empire.
- ISBN10 0198140835
- ISBN13 9780198140832
- Publish Date 23 February 1995
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Oxford University Press
- Imprint Clarendon Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 348
- Language English