The Pantheon Across Generations Between Tradition and Religious Mobility
A Case Study from Dacia Porolissensis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.20318/arys.2025.9243Keywords:
Ciumăfaia, Roman Dacia, Roman Religion, VillaAbstract
The aim of this paper is to analyse the religious pantheon of a family in the province of Dacia. In the villa rustica at Ciumăfaia, the owner - Aelius Iulius, veteranus ex centurione - erected six votive altars dedicated exclusively to Greco-Roman deities. Another altar in the same place was dedicated by Publius Aelius Maximus, son of the veteran Aelius Iulius, to a Germanic deity worshipped by the soldiers of the troops stationed in Germania Inferior or recruited in the area. This is a family with different religious preferences. While the father preferred the classical pantheon, the son's votive offerings differed from the family tradition, leading to the assumption that the familiarisation with the Germanic deities took place while he was performing militia equestris somewhere on the Rhine. The diversity of the family's religious pantheon opens up a discussion on the individual destiny of the dedicators in relation to the gods worshipped, more specifically the "inherited" and "borrowed" gods, in an attempt to define, from the particular to the general, some specific aspects of provincial religion.
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