Editing Religion in ancient Rome (section)

== Temples and shrines ==
{{Main|Roman temple}}
[[File:Sanlorenzoinmiranda-rome.jpg|thumb|Portico of the [[Temple of Antoninus and Faustina]], later incorporated into a church]]
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. [[#Sacrifice|Sacrifices]], chiefly [[animal sacrifice|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 [[libation]]s. 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.

The Latin word ''[[:wikt:templum|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."<ref>Clarke, 1, citing Frank E. Brown, ''Roman Architecture'', (New York) 1961, 9.</ref> The Roman architect [[Vitruvius]] always uses the word ''templum'' to refer to this sacred precinct, and the more common Latin words ''[[:wikt:aedes|aedes]]'', ''[[:wikt:delubrum|delubrum]]'', or ''[[:wikt:fanum|fanum]]'' for a temple or shrine as a building. The ruins of temples are among the most visible monuments of ancient Roman culture.

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.<ref>Beard, et al., Vol. 1, 321 – 3</ref> Many temples in the Republican era were built as the fulfillment of a [[votum|vow]] made by a general in exchange for a victory: Rome's first known temple to Venus was vowed by the consul [[Quintus Fabius Maximus Gurges (consul 292 BC)|Q. Fabius Gurges]] in the heat of battle against the [[Samnite Wars#Third Samnite War (298 to 290 BC)|Samnites]], and dedicated in 295 BC.<ref>"The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome", v. 1, p. 167</ref>