Description
Book SynopsisA timely and up-to-date account of religion in Roman Britain. Two thousand years ago, the Romans sought to absorb into their Empire what they regarded as a remote, almost mythical island on the very edge of the known world - Britain. The expeditions of Julius Caesar and the Claudian invasion of AD 43, and the continuing Roman presence up to the 5th century AD, brought fundamental and lasting changes to the island. Not least among these was the introduction of a new pantheon of Classical deities and religious systems, along with a clutch of exotic Eastern cults including Christianity. But what of Britannia and her own home-grown deities? What cults and cosmologies did the Romans encounter, and how did they react to them? Under Roman rule, the old gods and their adherents were challenged, adopted, adapted, absorbed and reconfigured. In Britain no inscriptions predate the Roman period, apart from brief coin-legends, and the divine imagery that adorned temples in the Roman world wa
Trade Review'A treasure-house of learning and a pleasure to read' - History Today
'Lively and engaging as ever, Miranda Aldhouse-Green provides a completely fresh picture of the variety of religious life in Roman Britain … this welcome book has a strong contemporary resonance in its challenging insights about cultural identity and religious diversity' - Rowan Williams
'Rarely has a book about the ancient world felt as relevant to our present times' - Current Archaeology
'A very good overview of religion in the province of Britain' - Archaeological Journal
