Roman Religion

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The Roman Religion
Delving into the ancient Roman religion does not clearly bring out a sense of spiritualism that people have come to expect from religious groups such as Christianity, Islam or Hinduism. The ancient Romans did not really believe in a central being that would be considered all-powerful. Instead, they had a collection of several gods and goddesses, some of which they could not even tell why they were being worshipped or whether they were male or not. Such was the confusion back in the days, around the 1st century AD (Rüpke 24). However, after a while, people who sought spiritualism took up other faiths such as Christianity that gained a lot of prominence throughout the Roman Empire after the death of Jesus. In the traditional Roman societies, religion took a practical aspect and the leaders were expected to perform sacrifices and prayers in ceremonies to honor the gods. In a family setting, this responsibility was left to the father. The initial Roman religion is referred to as Polytheistic. The name resulted from the many gods that the Romans worshipped. The array of gods traced their origins to the Greek culture and ancient cults from the East. However, as Christianity grew in influence, the Roman Empire slowly embraced it. Embracing the Christian culture has been blamed for the fall of the great Roman Empire (Garnsey and Richard 1). This paper seeks to discuss the Roman religion and the various transf…