Editing Religion in ancient Rome (section)

==== Absorption of Cults ====
[[File:Fresque Mithraeum Marino.jpg|thumb|left|[[Mithras]] in a Roman wall painting]]
The Roman Empire expanded to include different peoples and cultures; in principle, Rome followed the same inclusionist policies that had recognised Latin, Etruscan and other Italian peoples, cults and deities as Roman. Those who acknowledged Rome's hegemony retained their own cult and religious calendars, independent of Roman religious law.<ref>Pliny the Younger, Epistles, 10.50.</ref> Newly municipal [[Sabratha]] built a Capitolium near its existing temple to [[Liber Pater]] and [[Serapis]]. Autonomy and concord were official policy, but new foundations by Roman citizens or their Romanised allies were likely to follow Roman cultic models.<ref>As at Narbonne and Salona. See Andringa, in Rüpke (ed.), 89.</ref> Romanisation offered distinct political and practical advantages, especially to local elites. All the known effigies from the 2nd century AD forum at [[Cuicul]] are of emperors or [[Concordia (mythology)|Concordia]]. By the middle of the 1st century AD, Gaulish [[Vertault]] seems to have abandoned its native cultic sacrifice of horses and dogs in favour of a newly established, Romanised cult nearby: by the end of that century, Sabratha's so-called [[tophet]] was no longer in use.<ref>Van Andringa, in Rüpke (ed.), 89.</ref> Colonial and later Imperial provincial dedications to Rome's Capitoline Triad were a logical choice, not a centralised legal requirement.<ref>Beard et al. 1998</ref> Major cult centres to "non-Roman" deities continued to prosper: notable examples include the magnificent Alexandrian [[Serapium]], the temple of Aesculapeus at Pergamum and Apollo's sacred wood at Antioch.<ref>Van Andringa, in Rüpke (ed.), 88.</ref>

The overall scarcity of evidence for smaller or local cults does not always imply their neglect; votive inscriptions are inconsistently scattered throughout Rome's geography and history. Inscribed dedications were an expensive public declaration, one to be expected within the Graeco-Roman cultural ambit but by no means universal. Innumerable smaller, personal or more secretive cults would have persisted and left no trace.<ref>Haensch, in Rüpke (ed.), 180–3.</ref>

Military settlement within the empire and at its borders broadened the context of ''Romanitas''. Rome's citizen-soldiers set up altars to multiple deities, including their traditional gods, the Imperial genius and local deities – sometimes with the usefully open-ended dedication to the ''diis deabusque omnibus'' (all the gods and goddesses). They also brought Roman "domestic" deities and cult practices with them.<ref>Kaufmann-Heinimann, in Rüpke (ed.), 200.</ref> By the same token, the later granting of citizenship to provincials and their conscription into the legions brought their new cults into the Roman military.<ref>Haensch, in Rüpke (ed.), 184.</ref>

Traders, legions and other travellers brought home cults originating from Egypt, Greece, Iberia, India and Persia. The cults of [[Cybele]], [[Isis]], [[Mithras]], and [[Sol Invictus]] were particularly important. Some of those were initiatory religions of intense personal significance, similar to Christianity in those respects.