5 - Religion

Summary

This chapter deals with women’s roles in the religious life of their cities, both as cult officials and as devotees. Apart from the Vestals, Roman cities had priestesses of a few, mostly female, deities, such as Ceres, Venus, Tellus and Juno, but also Isis, Cybele and Bona Dea. Priestesses of the imperial cult are amply attested accross the Roman West (but not in Rome) serving both the living and the deified empresses. They were mostly fromwealthy families of the local elite. Apart from priesthoods, a wide range of lesser religious functions were open to women of lower rank, most of them paid. For the performance of religious ceremonies, we find female musicians, dancers, basket-bearers and sacrificial attendants, as well as magistrae and ministrae, female temple-wardens and keepers of sacrificial animals. The last part of the chapter offers a sample of their dedications to male and female deities, both Roman and local, thus giving an impression of their religious allegiancies and their participation in rituals.