Spaces and cults in the Roman house: religion in the social proximity between individual and group

Project as part of the co-opted membership of the DFG research group 'Religious Individualization in Historical Perspective'

In the search for fundamental constants in domestic worship, the pronounced diversity of realized solutions has so far hardly been taken into account. The decisive factor here is not only the variability of the individual elements, but above all the possibility of individual options due to the free combinability of individual basic components. The originality of the ritual activities in the house is particularly evident in the creation of a special ritual topography, i.e. the localization of ritual facilities in the house based on an interplay of individual initiative and group traditions.

Specifically, an analysis of the significant findings in the core zone of the Imperium Romanum (Rome, Ostia, Vesuvius cities) is intended to produce a depiction of individual options for religion in the house based on religious practice. The basis of the study is an examination of the houses according to size, degree of integration and complexity in order to determine control options for access and movement in the space and a gradation of access options in the house context. Due to the location of the permanently installed ritual facilities (lararia, sacella, altars), a gradation of ritual activities with the coordinates 'control' and 'accessibility' is possible. Another important advantage of this approach is that it allows a departure from the strict typologization of Roman residential buildings (atrium house, tenement house, etc.). As a corrective to these results obtained from the architectural findings, the mobile material referring to cults will then be analyzed. In addition, the various options for cult recipients in the house based on the findings and finds (statues, wall paintings) must be taken into account.The individualization of the houses with their cult topographies also makes it possible to historicize the house cults in the sense of a dynamic for which the individual or the small group/family is responsible, which has so far been largely omitted, as an 'Italic basic component' or similar static models were assumed for the house cult.The project 'Space and Cult' examines the religious design of the house as a social environment.  The analysis of the cult topography of individual houses is intended to help locate and visualize the cultic practices in the house between option and routine:As a result of a characterization of the cult facilities according to accessibility and control in the architectural context, the high variability of localization can be represented not only spatially but also functionally.The reasons for the arrangement in the house and its composition are to be seen in the field of tension between individual 'preferences' and various traditions or expectations of the social environment towards the client/owner/organizer.  Due to the decided rejection of a search for ancient Italian or general basic components of the 'house cult' in favor of a historical approach, the potential for changes in all components (spatial, functional, material) can be made visible.The dynamics of individual options can also be traced concretely in the material findings, e.g. on the basis of the frequent structural changes or overpaintings, especially in cult contexts, which must be the result of individual initiative.

Univ. Prof. Dr. Günther Schörner (Guenther.Schoerner@univie.ac.at)