Bibliography
| Title: Thea Rhome: the Worship of the Goddess Roma in the Greek World Type: Book Year: 1975 Abstract: As the title implies, Mellor's (hereafter M.) book deals with the cult of the goddes Roma. It is particularly valuable (and almost unique) in that it deals specifically with worship of the goddess Roma, whom he defines as the personified civitas Romana, rather than with the much more commonly studied imperial cult. M. begins by looking for the origins of the goddess Roma and her cult, which he finds in the Greek east. He accepts the claims of the Smyrnean envoys to Rome in 26 CE, as reported by Tacitus (Annales 4.56), that their city had been the first to establish a cult of Roma (in 195 BCE). The immediate models for the cult of Roma were similar cults of Hellenistic kings, and the cults of the Athenian Demos and the godess Rhodos that were to be found in communities under the control of Athens and Rhodes respectively. His thesis that the cult of Roma was an evolution of these cults meant to help Greeks deal with the “reality of Roman power” informs the rest of his book (19). M.'s second chapter is by far his longest (pages 27-110), and it offers a catalogue, organized by region, of all the evidence relating to the worship of the Goddess Roma in the Greek world. This chapter is supplemented by an appendix which collects the relevant inscriptions in the same order. Chapter three (pages 111-133) offers a cultural history of Roma, approaching the Greek conception of this goddess by looking at the epithets attached to her, her use in literature, and the divinities with whom she is commonly associated. Chapters four, five, and six deal with the honours accorded to Roma (material honours, festivals, and priesthoods respectively), and are always alive to similarities and differences with earlier cults of the kings and Rhodos. A final, brief chapter (pages 195-8) deals with the survival of the cult of Roma after the advent of the imperial cult. |