Reviving Roman religion : sacred trees in the Roman world / Ailsa Hunt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hunt, Ailsa, author.

Series:

Cambridge classical studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Rome--Religion.

Rome.

Rome (Empire).

Religion.

Trees--Religious aspects.

Trees.

Physical Description:

xii, 333 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, United Kingdom : Cambridge University Press, 2016.

Summary:

Sacred trees are easy to dismiss as a simplistic, weird phenomenon, but this book argues that in fact they prompted sophisticated theological thinking in the Roman world. Challenging major aspects of current scholarly constructions of Roman religion, Ailsa Hunt rethinks what sacrality means in Roman culture, proposing an organic model which defies the current legalistic approach. She approaches Roman religion as a 'thinking' religion (in contrast to the engrained idea of Roman religion as orthopraxy) and warns against writing the environment out of our understanding of Roman religion, as has happened to date. Moreover, the individual trees showcased in this book have much to tell us which enriches and thickens our portraits of Roman religion, be it the subtleties of engaging in imperial cult, the meaning of numen, the interpretation of portents, or the way statues of the Divine communicate.

Contents:

Rooting in: why give time to sacred trees?

A brief history of tree-thinking: the enduring power of animism

How arboreal matter matters: rethinking sacrality through trees

Arboriculture and arboreal deaths: rethinking sacrality again

Confronting arboreal agency: reading the divine in arboreal behaviour

Imagining the gods: how trees flesh out the identity of the divine

Branching out: what sacred trees mean for Roman religion.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781107153547

1107153549

OCLC:

948339060