History of Scholarship

Although Roman religious institutions had been studied earlier (by, for example, Barnabé Brissonius, 1583), the differentiation between Greek and Roman religion within antique "heathendom" or "polytheism" was the work of nineteenth-century scholars. Concentrating on literary sources and on origins as described by ancient historiographers and critically reviewed by contemporary historians, the studies by J. A. Hartung (1836), Rudolph H. Klausen (1839), and J. A. Ambrosch (1839) marked the beginning of a scientific reconstruction of the religion of the city of Rome (and, marginally, of the religions of Italy). Under the impact of the extensive collection of inscriptions and the systematization of Roman law and the Roman "constitution" assembled by Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903), German scholars, especially Georg Wissowa (1859–1931), reconstructed authentic Roman religion as a body of sacral law and conservative ritualism informed by legal conceptions of deities. The Roman calendar, projected into the regal period as a...