Religious toleration in Republican Rome

Abstract

It is a familiar fact that the religious tradition of Republican Rome did not depend on overt coercion of the citizen to maintain itself and its rituals. The censor did have powers to discipline those he found wanting in dutifulness towards the sacra; Cato once removed the public horse from one Veturius partly on religious grounds, though partly because he was too fat to ride it. In the courts, irreligion on the defendant's part was one of the most familiar themes of abuse; Cicero never underestimated the emotional impact of religious prejudice in his day. But the only formal charge of irreligion we hear of is that of incestum with a Vestal Virgin and, with that uncommon exception, there is nothing at Rome which corresponds even to the Greek asebeia proceedings, let alone to the persecutions or inquisitions of later Christian Europe. This does not prove that religious obligations were not felt or imposed through other forms of social pressure, but the apparatus of the State and the State's religious authorities seem not to have been directly concerned.