Documenting Roman religion

The first part of this article focuses on the archives and other forms of writing generated by the administrative and economic activities of Roman priestly college ; it tests the hypothesis that priestly writing must have extended far beyond the ritual sphere of the long studied «priestly books» and on the basis of some fragmentary surviving inscription attempts to reconstruct the principles that lay behind the membership list of certain colleges. The second part examines the Roman temple as a storehouse and generator of writing, and suggests that the contrast conventionally drawn between the model Eastern temple, as complex social, cultural and political institution, and the model Roman temple, as merely «space» to house a deity, is too sharp.Beard Mary. Documenting Roman religion. In: La mémoire perdue. Recherches sur l’administration romaine. Actes des tables rondes de Rome (mai 1994 - mai 1995) Rome : École Française de Rome, 1998. pp. 75-101. (Publications de l'École française de Rome, 243