The CULTUS project draws on exciting new discoveries in the Colli Albani area, and offers an unprecedented opportunity to explore the role of religion in the competition, identity creation and state ideology among the Roman élite, from the perspective of its actual practice, agency and integration into daily activities and more mundane physical surroundings. The identification of the famous sacrarium of Bona Dea at the ‘Villa of Clodius’, Castel Gandolfo, and a reassessment of the villa of Secciano in Albano, have filled important gaps in our knowledge of the Colli Albani’s sacred landscape, and have paved the way for the successful application of an innovative approach that moves away from still-prevailing paradigms of normative and static concepts of religion, and binaries such as public/private or official/popular.
Focus
The study focuses on the much-neglected semi-public cult sites on private property, and aims to identify the patrons of these initiatives (male and female private individuals; emperors), and the reasons for their actions (self-promotion and socio-political ‘cultural capital’) over four centuries of extensive change in Roman political and social history (2nd century BCE to 2nd century CE).
Key Concepts
Key concepts to be developed, as suggested by recent approaches are:
- the ‘mapping of social history’ that proposes a study of human action and interaction from the perspective of their spatial interconnectedness
- ‘lived ancient religion’ that emphasises individuals, instead of institutions, cities or ethnic groups, as religious agents
- gender studies, which explore how women used their involvement with (semi-) public cults for self-promotion