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Performing Theology: Imagining the Gods in the Pompa Circensis

While Christianity is assuredlymarked by its emphasis on the discursive articulation of belief (theology), the situation in classical Rome was rather different. As is commonly accepted, ancient Roman civic religion emphasized orthopraxy, the meticulously correct performance of ritual, at the expense of orthodoxy to such an extent that one could argue that the Romans could think whatever they wanted, so long as they did the right thing. The rules, meanings, and interpretations of Roman civic religion seem to have been primarily communicated in practice and performance, rather than a distinct, formal educational setting. Varro, a first-century BCE Roman polymath whose articulation of a threefold theology constitutes one of the most important sources on Roman religious thought, admitted the limited appeal of philosophical theology and the unreliability of poetic theology, whose authority was rather feeble in any case. Nevertheless, judgments about the divine world were formed and