Rome and the mediterranean: a religious laboratory

CYCLE: Rome, Italy, and the Mediterranean
SPEAKER: Corinne Bonnet
DATE: Thursday, November 12, 6:00 PM

Rome's expansion across the Mediterranean during the final centuries of the Republic, and especially throughout the first centuries of the Empire, had the effect, among others, of fostering mobility processes involving people, goods, ideas, and even deities. The capital, Rome, with particular intensity, but also the provinces in Italy, the East, North Africa, Gaul, and even the Danubian regions, were transformed into vast religious laboratories characterized by the coexistence of gods from diverse horizons. What happens when Jupiter meets Ammon or Bel? How does Isis establish herself in Pompeii or on Rome’s Campus Martius? Who are the actors in these cultic laboratories, and how do they transform the mos maiorum so central to the Romans? This lecture will attempt to evaluate the impact of introducing foreign gods into the urban fabric, ritual practices, the production of artifacts, and the overall representation of the divine world.

Corinne Bonnet is currently Full Professor of History of Religions and Dean of the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Previously, she taught Ancient History at the University of Toulouse for twenty years. Between 2017 and 2023, she directed a European research project on the names of gods in Greek and Semitic languages across the Mediterranean. She is the author of numerous books and articles on ancient religions (including several published in Italian by Carocci and Il Mulino).