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Much of the evidence for the religious affiliations of pagan aristocrats comes from inscribed dedications—more indeed than most people probably realize. In simpler times it was taken for granted that inscriptions provided a peculiarly uncomplicated sort of evidence, bare facts not mediated by human art or bias. However, few facts are bare. This chapter examines what sort of monuments these dedications were inscribed on, where they were erected, by whom, and with what purpose. Topics discussed include Roman priesthoods, “oriental” cults, Bloch's thesis that it was oriental rather than state cults that inspired political resistance to Christianity, the taurobolium, and the decline of the priestly colleges.

In the mid-340s, Firmicus Maternus, a pagan astrologer turned Christian polemicist, became the first-known author to ask the emperors to abolish traditional cults. This chapter sets On the Error of Profane Religions in the context of Constantinian legislation and of the urban Roman religious milieu to which Firmicus had previously belonged. Often (and too quickly) dismissed as a self-serving work by an ill-tutored convert, Firmicus’ polemic aims not just to spur Constantine’s sons towards greater zeal but to end the Devil’s dominion over mankind. In the work’s first half, Firmicus targets the cults most popular in the city of Rome. Dismissing philosophical allegories, he argues that traditional rites teach their worshippers immorality. Juxtaposing Christian scripture and pagan ritual formulas in the work’s second half, he depicts polytheistic cults as a unified religious system counterfeited by the Devil from the Christian truth—a major departure from earlier polemicists’ conceptions of polytheism. Firmicus’ appeals to the emperors were rooted in the fundamental Christian conviction that idolatry would someday be abolished; that victory had, however, come much closer to realisation, in the years after Constantine’s endorsement of Christianity, than Lactantius had thought possible.

This chapter addresses the issues related to the reorganization of sacred space in Eastern Thessaly, following the foundation of Demetrias under Macedonian rule (293 BC). Demetrias was first established by synoecism of the local Thessalian and Magnesian communities, controlling the Pagasetic port and the Magnesian peninsula respectively. It was subsequently ruled by the local Magnesian Koinon, while Macedonians returned briefly before relinquishing permanent control to the Koinon and to the Romans. As a result, this Macedonian basileion, being concurrently an international port and a trading centre, was inhabited by Macedonians, local populations relocated from their original communities, and individuals from all over Greece and the entire Mediterranean. Eventually, the ethnic diversity of these post-Classical groups, expressing a series of changing and competing claims, had a serious impact on the reorganization of Demetrias’ sacred space in terms of continuity and change.