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The local traditions, gods, rituals, the relationship between divine and human actors—in short, the diversity of micro-regional elements, socio-cultural groups and religious customs—grew in the first centuries A.D. with the expansion of the Roman Empire. However, a religion from above, a state-controlled religious practice in the strict sense did not exist from the beginning, and would certainly not have had a future for a growing community that tried to bring such different traditions, habits, languages and people under one administrative and political roof.³³ In the course of the conquests by Rome in the 3rd to 1st centuries B.C., there were no comprehensive measures in the newly created provinces—neither by the new rulers nor the old elites—to spread in a quasi-missionary manner new deities and places where they were worshipped. Yet, changes, which gods were worshipped or shifts in the spatial design of sanctuaries, and other, often small developments reflect the changed socio-political conditions. Even the Christian religion, which is often regarded as the religion of the Empire, cannot be described as such before the 5th/6th century A.D.

Nonetheless the first centuries A.D. demonstrate a rise in evidence, inscriptions in particular, which tell us about how rituals were to be performed³⁴ and how people needed to behave in order to conduct offerings and other religious acts. The growing diversity, the—sometimes—fast spread of cults, and the adaptability of local societies also called for a higher degree of regulation and description of how to perform rituals correctly and worship the gods in the way that was defined as correct. The increasing interconnectivity between regions, often located far from each other, gave rise to the need for formalising ritual practice through written texts and inscriptions, and most likely also through religious practices and performances. So while no »Reichsreligion« existed, an underlining of the importance of performing religion in the correct way increased. This certainly shows that religion obviously also could be performed in what was perceived as a wrong way. However, such evidence is hardly ever passed on to us, since the enticement to record failed religious practice would not have been high.

Sanctuaries as places where people came together for individual or collective rituals, where memories of groups and different actors gathered, where younger generations acquired identity and self-understanding and where life was regulated with the help of the gods, reflect how a society changed and how its global contexts (in the case of the Roman Mediterranean Empire extending both east and south) shifted. Changes resulted from the development of socio-cultural groups, places and regions that became part of the Roman Empire. Often the local social and economic elites, but also traders and peasants or members of the military were the carriers of change. This plethora of individuals and groups could add to the religious life of a society and furthermore give insight into the complexities of religious life also as it must have been performed in the sanctuaries. In Palmyra, we know that the main sanctuaries of the city, at least both the Sanctuary of Bel and that of Baalshamin, at different points in time were occupied by different groups of priests and even individual priests, who through the financing of religious banquets appropriated these central and important religious spaces at least at a certain point in time.³⁵ At other sanctuaries we also know of groups financing festivals and processions and through such activities claiming ownership of a certain religious activity.

How actively and consciously people pushed developments forward, e.g. by accepting more gods or changing religious customs and rituals, varied. Local interests and circumstances, political circumstances or the individual ideas of religious specialists in the cities and regions could be decisive here.³⁶

The countless landscapes, places and inhabitants that had gradually come under Roman administration (Sicilia, Sardinia, Hispania, Africa, Asia, Graecia) during the time of the Roman Republic on the Italian peninsula and around the Mediterranean brought together great differences not only in languages and economic bases, but also in dedication practice and figures of the gods. According to the Roman-Latin attribution of names to ethnic groups, it was Oscans and Samnites in Campania, Lucanians and Daunians in Puglia and Lucania, Volsicans, Aequans and Marsians in the Abruzzo, as well as Picenians and Umbrians, Etruscans and Celts in the northern parts of the peninsula who made up the diversity.³⁷ The Greek-Punic roots of the southern and western provinces also brought conditions for relations and exchanges with them. People with Italian-Latin roots, Romans and Latins with their concepts of deities and places of worship came into contact with sanctuaries of a completely different design, which, for example followed Punic, Near Eastern or Celtic traditions (Africa, Gallia, Hispania).³⁸

Growing attention to binding gods to places can be noted as an important driver in the development of local religious life. At Gerasa, the Roman period gives us evidence of the city’s society creating their own unique Tyche, namely the Artemis-Tyche-of the Gerasenes, who is mentioned on coins from the 2nd century A.D. onward.³⁹ In this way local societies claimed their gods as belonging to their physical spaces and the elaboration of the physical sanctuary spaces was another way of underlining such belonging through monumentality and visibility in the urban fabric, and also often on the civic city coins, which were the mass media most broadly circulated in this period, and which would have reached beyond the city’s own territory and alerted outsiders to the religious topography/ies of the given city. Sanctuaries and deities of cities were often depicted on coins in this period.⁴⁰

Sanctuaries, which had a certain fame and material wealth,⁴¹ ran the risk in this period when the Roman Empire expanded rapidly that Roman commanders took statuary or other valuable objects as booty for their legions and for their reputation, which could be enhanced by showing the objects during the triumphal processions in Rome.⁴² This procedure literally left some holy places in Greece (Delphi, Athens, Epidauros) or in Lower Italy and Sicily (Taranto) empty, since sanctuary furnishings were brought to Rome as symbols of victory and dominance in order to decorate Roman temples before the eyes of the Roman population. The triumphator was able to build a new temple with the money from the spoils and set it up in gratitude towards the gods to whom he often had pledged a personal connection. Q. Lutatius Catulus who offered a temple to Fortuna huisuque diei is one example of an individual using sacred spoils to further his own relations with the Roman gods.⁴³ Or the commander had an already existing temple re-equipped, such as the temple for Apollo Sosianus, where classical, i.e. centuries-old, sculptures from an Apollo temple in Eretria in Greece decorated the pediment.⁴⁴ This looted sacred art was used to negotiate the Roman religious values, demonstrate superiority and show respect for the Roman gods; at the same time, these newly laid out or furnished sanctuaries in Rome were places where the identity of the Romans was realigned, adapting to a growing empire and new influences. The general Lucullus (Felicitas sanctuary) as well as Fulvius Nobilior (Hercules Musagetes) donated temples surrounded by porticoes in Rome in order to set up sculptures of deities which they had carried with them in their triumphs.⁴⁵ An action in the opposite direction could then be a return, as Augustus arranged for it, in order to give back the property of the gods to the sites of Asia Minor.⁴⁶

However, some sanctuaries in the conquered provinces were completely destroyed by the Roman legions. One such example is the Demeter sanctuary of Corinth, which was put out of service in 146 B.C. under Lucius Mummius in such a way⁴⁷ that it was only used as a colonia, again as a sacred place, over a century later with the reestablishment of the city.⁴⁸ Shrines as places of remembrance through which people and communities defined their identity through recurring celebrations, rites and meetings were particularly suited to demonstrate and materialise power relations through the destruction or translocation of honoured objects.

Conversely, temple buildings and sanctuary districts, together with their furnishings and their religiously connoted objects, are the places in the provinces where new political structures were negotiated in interaction with local actors and new social and cultural contexts about the buildings, rituals, festivals, personnel and the deities present.⁴⁹ The Hekataion in Lagina in Caria in Asia Minor is one such example in which political changes in the 2nd and 1st centuries B.C. are expressed by Roman interests and are thus available as a basis for political discourses and position determination.⁵⁰ On the frieze of the temple the Olympic gods and goddesses, local Carian deities and heroes, were depicted. In the central scene stands a magistrate holding out his hand to an Amazon-like figure, probably the Dea Roma. The responsible local elites with the pledge of the sanctuary sealed a contract with Rome from the end of the 2nd century B.C., which was renewed again under Sulla in 81 B.C.⁵¹

The expansion of the city of Rome further into the Mediterranean region also brought about the import of new deities into Rome. The best known are Asklepios, Venus Erykina or Magna Mater, which were »fetched« or »called« with great diplomatic effort in moments of political and military crises.⁵²

In the Roman imperial period, not least through the efforts of Augustus to reestablish religious piety in the Roman world throughout his reign, all these traditions were brought together, not merged or homogenised, but linked by the inclusiveness and elasticity of Roman religion, which proved to be capable of embracing wide-ranging religious traditions, as long as these did not interfere with the basic structure of Roman religious practice, namely offering to the gods through ritual practice. The problems which the Roman administration had with for example the Jews and more specifically their monotheistic religion are well-known, and the Jewish resistence and unwillingness to acknowledge the Roman gods was part of a profoundly complex process that led to the First Jewish Wars, which devastated not only Jerusalem, but also other parts of the region beyond the diaspora.⁵³ The same goes for early Christianity and the massive problems with fitting into the religious system of the Roman Empire. Much could be embraced by Roman religion but insistence on a monotheistic faith was not one of them.⁵⁴