Jörg Rüpke
Author of Pantheon: A New History of Roman Religion
About the Author
Jörg Rüpke is Professor of Comparative Religion at the University of Erfurt. His previous books include Religion of the Romans, A Companion to Roman Religion and Fasti Sacerdotum: A Prosopography of Pagan, Jewish, and Christian Religious Officials in the City of Rome, 300 BC to AD 499.
Works by Jörg Rüpke
A Companion to the Archaeology of Religion in the Ancient World (Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World) (2015) — Editor — 16 copies
Public and Private in Ancient Mediterranean Law and Religion (Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche Und Vorarbeiten) (2015) — Editor — 8 copies
Religiöse Erinnerungskulturen : Formen der Geschichtsschreibung in der römischen Antike (2012) 5 copies
Fasti Sacerdotum: A Prosopography of Pagan, Jewish, and Christian Religious Officials in the City of Rome, 300 BC to AD 499 (2008) 4 copies
Reflections on religious individuality Greco-Roman and Judaeo-Christian texts and practices (2012) — Editor — 3 copies
Naming and mapping the gods in the ancient Mediterranean : spaces, mobilities, imaginaries (2022) — Editor — 2 copies
Seeing the God: Image, Space, Performance, and Vision in the Religion of the Roman Empire (Culture, Religion, and Politics in the Greco-Roman World) (2018) — Editor — 2 copies
Römische Geschichtsschreibung : Eine Einführung in das historische Erzählen und seine Veröffentlichungsformen im antiken Rom (2015) 2 copies
Empires and Gods: The Role of Religions in Imperial History (Imperial Histories: Eurasian Empires Compared, 1) (2024) 1 copy
Associated Works
The Religious History of the Roman Empire: Pagans, Jews, and Christians (2011) — Contributor — 17 copies
The Impact of Imperial Rome on Religions, Ritual and Religious Life in the Roman Empire: Proceedings of the Fifth Workshop of the International Network ... June 30 - July 4, 2004… (2006) — Contributor — 15 copies
Panthée: Religious Transformations in the Graeco-Roman Empire (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World) (French and English Edition) (2013) — Contributor — 8 copies
Moribus antiquis res stat Romana: romische Werte und romische Literatur im 3. und 2. Jh. v. Chr. (2000) — Contributor — 6 copies
La raison des signes : présages, rites, destin dans les sociétés de la Méditerranée ancienne (2011) — Contributor — 5 copies
Martyrdom and Persecution in Late Antique Christianity: Festschrift Boudewijn Dehandschutter (Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium) (2010) — Contributor — 3 copies
Ritual and the Poetics of Closure in Flavian Literature (Trends in Classics - Supplementary Volumes, 147) (2023) — Contributor — 3 copies
Individuals and materials in the Greco-Roman cults of Isis : agents, images, and practices (2018) — Contributor — 2 copies
Arethusa (vol 39 no 3): Ennius and the Invention of Roman Epic — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Rüpke, Jörg
- Birthdate
- 1962-12-27
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- Germany
- Associated Place (for map)
- Germany
Members
Reviews
The translation is bad, as others have said, but one quickly adapts and becomes immersed in the strange world of Roman religion. Rüpke uses a wide range of sources, archaeological, architectural, and literary.
Roman religion is quite distinct from the Greek, being more based on Etruscan models. It's weird and heterogeneous. It was also massively co-opted by Augustus as a tool for establishing the empire. He systematized its rituals and invented traditions to augment his legitimacy. show more Inevitably, later emperors lost control and religion because diverse and localized.
Christianity appears as a natural extension Roman religious practices, which in this case incorporated Jewish traditions. There's none of the pagan vs. Christian dichotomy here. In fact, Julian gets barely a paragraph. show less
Roman religion is quite distinct from the Greek, being more based on Etruscan models. It's weird and heterogeneous. It was also massively co-opted by Augustus as a tool for establishing the empire. He systematized its rituals and invented traditions to augment his legitimacy. show more Inevitably, later emperors lost control and religion because diverse and localized.
Christianity appears as a natural extension Roman religious practices, which in this case incorporated Jewish traditions. There's none of the pagan vs. Christian dichotomy here. In fact, Julian gets barely a paragraph. show less
A scholarly, German text on Roman religion--so, not what you'd call well written. But also packed with information and very smart. The theory seems fair, and as far as I'm able to judge, his approach to Roman religion(s) is astute.
Reviewed for the Bryn Mawr Historical Review.
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Statistics
- Works
- 38
- Also by
- 21
- Members
- 414
- Popularity
- #58,865
- Rating
- 3.8
- Reviews
- 3
- ISBNs
- 94
- Languages
- 3











