Divine Institutions

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"How religious ritual united a growing and diversifying Roman Republic. Many narrative histories of Rome's transformation from an Italian city-state to a Mediterranean superpower focus on political and military conflicts as the primary agents of social change. Dan-el Padilla Peralta places religion at the heart of this transformation, showing how religious ritual and observance held the Roman Republic together during the fourth and third centuries BCE, a time when the Roman state significantly expanded and diversified. Blending the latest advances in archaeology with innovative sociological and anthropological methods, this incisive book overcomes many of the evidentiary hurdles that for so long have impeded research into this pivotal period in Rome's history. Divine institutions reconstructs the scale and social costs of these religious practices and reveals how religious obserrvance emerged as an indispensable strategy for bringing Romans of many different backgrounds to the center, both physically and symbolically."--Back cover.