Pompeii: Religion and Temples
Pompeii was a polytheistic city that believed in many types of gods for many different purposes and had a god for just about anything. The gods the people of Pompeii believed in were the main gods that were worshipped throughout the Roman Empire. These Gods that were worshipped throughout Pompeii included Jupiter, who was a leader of the gods, who threw thunderbolts from the sky when up set. His wife was Juno, who was a god that was commonly associated with fertility just like the goddess Venus who was also associated with fertility but also of beauty and love that the people of Pompeii placed as their patron goddess of their city. Another god who was considered as fearful as Jupiter was Mars, the god of war.
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These temples were dedicated to an individual deity or in some case several deities that was represented in the form of a statue. Worshippers were forbidden from entering these sacred temples and the only people who were allowed to enter were priests. The priests would perform various rituals and sacrifices to on an altar located outside of the temple in order to please the god or goddess associated with the temple. The way the priests would know if these rituals and sacrifices have worked would have been through divination. One of the methods that the priest would have used to determine if the deity was satisfied was by watching how an animal ate. Another method used by these priests would have been to watch the birds flying in the sky and another was to look at an animal’s liver that was …show more content…
In most of the homes in the city of Pompeii, a shrine called a lararium was set up in dedicated to the lares, who were the household’s gods. The people of Pompeii performed rituals and ceremonies themselves, in order to please these gods in order to have them protect, and watch over their property and their family. The members of the household would place wine and food on the shrine to please these gods. These lares have their own temple in the city, which was built after the earthquake in 62 A.D. as a way to thank them for surviving