romikgosai/squad_modified_2 huggingface dataset:
Excessive devotion and enthusiasm in religious observance were superstitio, in the sense of "doing or believing more than was necessary", to which women and foreigners were considered particularly prone. The boundaries between religio and superstitio are perhaps indefinite. The famous tirade of Lucretius, the Epicurean rationalist, against what is usually translated as "superstition" was in fact aimed at excessive religio. Roman religion was based on knowledge rather than faith, but superstitio was viewed as an "inappropriate desire for knowledge"; in effect, an abuse of religio.

Q1: What was excessive religious fervor in Rome's religions?
A1: superstitio
Q2: What was excessive religio equated with in Rome?
A2: superstition
Q3: What was the basis of Roman religion?
A3: knowledge
Q4: Doing what type of actions were considered to be wrong in Rome?
A4: more than was necessary
Q5: What type of knowledge seeking was superstitio considered to be?
A5: inappropriate
In the everyday world, many individuals sought to divine the future, influence it through magic, or seek vengeance with help from "private" diviners. The state-sanctioned taking of auspices was a form of public divination with the intent of ascertaining the will of the gods, not foretelling the future. Secretive consultations between private diviners and their clients were thus suspect. So were divinatory techniques such as astrology when used for illicit, subversive or magical purposes. Astrologers and magicians were officially expelled from Rome at various times, notably in 139 BC and 33 BC. In 16 BC Tiberius expelled them under extreme penalty because an astrologer had predicted his death. "Egyptian rites" were particularly suspect: Augustus banned them within the pomerium to doubtful effect; Tiberius repeated and extended the ban with extreme force in AD 19. Despite several Imperial bans, magic and astrology persisted among all social classes. In the late 1st century AD, Tacitus observed that astrologers "would always be banned and always retained at Rome".

Q1: What type of diviners were suspect in Rome?
A1: private diviners
Q2: What was the purpose to be discovered by state sanctioned diviners?
A2: will of the gods
Q3: What action was not to be sought by state diviners?
A3: foretelling the future
Q4: What group of people were several times expelled from Rome?
A4: Astrologers and magicians
Q5: What had an astrologer predicted to warrant from Rome by Tiberius?
A5: death
In the Graeco-Roman world, practitioners of magic were known as magi (singular magus), a "foreign" title of Persian priests. Apuleius, defending himself against accusations of casting magic spells, defined the magician as "in popular tradition (more vulgari)... someone who, because of his community of speech with the immortal gods, has an incredible power of spells (vi cantaminum) for everything he wishes to." Pliny the Elder offers a thoroughly skeptical "History of magical arts" from their supposed Persian origins to Nero's vast and futile expenditure on research into magical practices in an attempt to control the gods. Philostratus takes pains to point out that the celebrated Apollonius of Tyana was definitely not a magus, "despite his special knowledge of the future, his miraculous cures, and his ability to vanish into thin air".

Q1: What word was used by the Romans for practitioners of magic?
A1: magi
Q2: To what did the term magi originally refer?
A2: Persian priests
Q3: Who wrote a skeptical work outlining magic and its use?
A3: Pliny the Elder
Q4: What was the title of Pliny's work on magic?
A4: "History of magical arts"
Q5: Who was a noted magician who could vanish into thin air?
A5: Apollonius of Tyana
Lucan depicts Sextus Pompeius, the doomed son of Pompey the Great, as convinced "the gods of heaven knew too little" and awaiting the Battle of Pharsalus by consulting with the Thessalian witch Erichtho, who practices necromancy and inhabits deserted graves, feeding on rotting corpses. Erichtho, it is said, can arrest "the rotation of the heavens and the flow of rivers" and make "austere old men blaze with illicit passions". She and her clients are portrayed as undermining the natural order of gods, mankind and destiny. A female foreigner from Thessaly, notorious for witchcraft, Erichtho is the stereotypical witch of Latin literature, along with Horace's Canidia.

Q1: What witch was reputed to be able to stop the rotation of the heavens?
A1: Erichtho
Q2: Who consulted a witch before the battle of Pharsalus?
A2: Sextus Pompeius
Q3: What natural order was Erichtho accused of undermining?
A3: order of gods
Q4: How was Erichtho portrayed?
A4: stereotypical witch
Q5: From what country did Erichtho come?
A5: Thessaly
The Twelve Tables forbade any harmful incantation (malum carmen, or 'noisome metrical charm'); this included the "charming of crops from one field to another" (excantatio frugum) and any rite that sought harm or death to others. Chthonic deities functioned at the margins of Rome's divine and human communities; although sometimes the recipients of public rites, these were conducted outside the sacred boundary of the pomerium. Individuals seeking their aid did so away from the public gaze, during the hours of darkness. Burial grounds and isolated crossroads were among the likely portals. The barrier between private religious practices and "magic" is permeable, and Ovid gives a vivid account of rites at the fringes of the public Feralia festival that are indistinguishable from magic: an old woman squats among a circle of younger women, sews up a fish-head, smears it with pitch, then pierces and roasts it to "bind hostile tongues to silence". By this she invokes Tacita, the "Silent One" of the underworld.

Q1: What forbid harmful  incantations?
A1: Twelve Tables
Q2: What deities were on the edge of Roman religious community?
A2: Chthonic
Q3: What could public rites and magic easily become in some circumstances?
A3: indistinguishable
Q4: What did people seeking the aid of magicians avoid?
A4: public gaze
Q5: Where was magic conducted in Rome?
A5: outside the sacred boundary
Archaeology confirms the widespread use of binding spells (defixiones), magical papyri and so-called "voodoo dolls" from a very early era. Around 250 defixiones have been recovered just from Roman Britain, in both urban and rural settings. Some seek straightforward, usually gruesome revenge, often for a lover's offense or rejection. Others appeal for divine redress of wrongs, in terms familiar to any Roman magistrate, and promise a portion of the value (usually small) of lost or stolen property in return for its restoration. None of these defixiones seem produced by, or on behalf of the elite, who had more immediate recourse to human law and justice. Similar traditions existed throughout the empire, persisting until around the 7th century AD, well into the Christian era.

Q1: What science has confirmed the existence of magic use from early times?
A1: Archaeology
Q2: What was the term for binding spells in the Roman world?
A2: defixiones
Q3: What did the elite use instead of spells and potions to redress a wrong?
A3: law and justice
Q4: Until what era did spells persist in the empire?
A4: 7th century AD
Q5: What era produced a decline in the use of spells?
A5: Christian era
Rome's government, politics and religion were dominated by an educated, male, landowning military aristocracy. Approximately half Rome's population were slave or free non-citizens. Most others were plebeians, the lowest class of Roman citizens. Less than a quarter of adult males had voting rights; far fewer could actually exercise them. Women had no vote. However, all official business was conducted under the divine gaze and auspices, in the name of the senate and people of Rome. "In a very real sense the senate was the caretaker of the Romans’ relationship with the divine, just as it was the caretaker of their relationship with other humans".

Q1: What male group dominated all aspects of Rome?
A1: aristocracy
Q2: Of what class was more than half of Rome's population?
A2: slave or free non-citizens
Q3: What was the lowest class of Roman citizens?
A3: plebeians
Q4: How many adult males were able to vote in Rome?
A4: Less than a quarter
Q5: What organization was Rome's official caretaker?
A5: the senate
The links between religious and political life were vital to Rome's internal governance, diplomacy and development from kingdom, to Republic and to Empire. Post-regal politics dispersed the civil and religious authority of the kings more or less equitably among the patrician elite: kingship was replaced by two annually elected consular offices. In the early Republic, as presumably in the regal era, plebeians were excluded from high religious and civil office, and could be punished for offenses against laws of which they had no knowledge. They resorted to strikes and violence to break the oppressive patrician monopolies of high office, public priesthood, and knowledge of civil and religious law. The senate appointed Camillus as dictator to handle the emergency; he negotiated a settlement, and sanctified it by the dedication of a temple to Concordia. The religious calendars and laws were eventually made public. Plebeian tribunes were appointed, with sacrosanct status and the right of veto in legislative debate. In principle, the augural and pontifical colleges were now open to plebeians. In reality, the patrician and to a lesser extent, plebeian nobility dominated religious and civil office throughout the Republican era and beyond.

Q1: The link between what groups was necessary to Rome?
A1: religious and political
Q2: Where was the basic power in Rome to be found?
A2: patrician elite
Q3: What group was excluded from high offices ?
A3: plebeians
Q4: Who did the Senate select to settle a strike by the lower classes?
A4: Camillus
Q5: To whom was a temple dedicated at the settlement of the strike?
A5: Concordia
While the new plebeian nobility made social, political and religious inroads on traditionally patrician preserves, their electorate maintained their distinctive political traditions and religious cults. During the Punic crisis, popular cult to Dionysus emerged from southern Italy; Dionysus was equated with Father Liber, the inventor of plebeian augury and personification of plebeian freedoms, and with Roman Bacchus. Official consternation at these enthusiastic, unofficial Bacchanalia cults was expressed as moral outrage at their supposed subversion, and was followed by ferocious suppression. Much later, a statue of Marsyas, the silen of Dionysus flayed by Apollo, became a focus of brief symbolic resistance to Augustus' censorship. Augustus himself claimed the patronage of Venus and Apollo; but his settlement appealed to all classes. Where loyalty was implicit, no divine hierarchy need be politically enforced; Liber's festival continued.

Q1: What did the patrician electorate keep in spite of a new plebeian nobility?
A1: political traditions and religious cults
Q2: What cult arrived from southern Italy?
A2: Dionysus
Q3: During what time did the Dionysus cult become popular?
A3: Punic crisis
Q4: To what Roman god was Dionysus similar?
A4: Bacchus
Q5: With loyalty a necessity, what censorship did not need to be enforced?
A5: divine hierarchy
The Augustan settlement built upon a cultural shift in Roman society. In the middle Republican era, even Scipio's tentative hints that he might be Jupiter's special protege sat ill with his colleagues. Politicians of the later Republic were less equivocal; both Sulla and Pompey claimed special relationships with Venus. Julius Caesar went further, and claimed her as his ancestress. Such claims suggested personal character and policy as divinely inspired; an appointment to priesthood offered divine validation. In 63 BC, Julius Caesar's appointment as pontifex maximus "signaled his emergence as a major player in Roman politics". Likewise, political candidates could sponsor temples, priesthoods and the immensely popular, spectacular public ludi and munera whose provision became increasingly indispensable to the factional politics of the Late Republic. Under the principate, such opportunities were limited by law; priestly and political power were consolidated in the person of the princeps ("first citizen").

Q1: What appointment was the start of Cesar's political rise?
A1: pontifex maximus
Q2: What did the Augustan settlement signify in Rome's classes?
A2: cultural shift
Q3: What did the claims of officials imply about the nature of the individuals?
A3: divinely inspired
Q4: In what year was Cesar made pontifex maximus?
A4: 63 BC
Q5: How were opportunities limited in the principate for the citizens of Rome?
A5: by law
By the end of the regal period Rome had developed into a city-state, with a large plebeian, artisan class excluded from the old patrician gentes and from the state priesthoods. The city had commercial and political treaties with its neighbours; according to tradition, Rome's Etruscan connections established a temple to Minerva on the predominantly plebeian Aventine; she became part of a new Capitoline triad of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, installed in a Capitoline temple, built in an Etruscan style and dedicated in a new September festival, Epulum Jovis. These are supposedly the first Roman deities whose images were adorned, as if noble guests, at their own inaugural banquet.

Q1: At the end of the regal period, what class was kept out of the state political and priesthood arenas?
A1: plebeian
Q2: With whom did Rome have alliances at the end of the regal period?
A2: neighbours
Q3: What goddess became a part of the Capitoline triad?
A3: Minerva
Q4: In what style was the temple to Minerva built?
A4: Etruscan
Q5: What gods were in the Capitoline triad?
A5: Jupiter, Juno and Minerva
Rome's diplomatic agreement with her neighbours of Latium confirmed the Latin league and brought the cult of Diana from Aricia to the Aventine. and established on the Aventine in the "commune Latinorum Dianae templum": At about the same time, the temple of Jupiter Latiaris was built on the Alban mount, its stylistic resemblance to the new Capitoline temple pointing to Rome's inclusive hegemony. Rome's affinity to the Latins allowed two Latin cults within the pomoerium: and the cult to Hercules at the ara maxima in the Forum Boarium was established through commercial connections with Tibur. and the Tusculan cult of Castor as the patron of cavalry found a home close to the Forum Romanum: Juno Sospita and Juno Regina were brought from Italy, and Fortuna Primigenia from Praeneste. In 217, Venus was brought from Sicily and installed in a temple on the Capitoline hill.

Q1: Whose cult appeared from Africa at the time of the Latin League?
A1: Diana
Q2: To whom was a new temple dedicated on the Alban Mount?
A2: Jupiter Latiaris
Q3: What cult was formed at the ars maxima in the Forum Boarium ?
A3: Hercules
Q4: For what group was Castor a patron?
A4: cavalry
Q5: From where was Venus brought and lodged on the Capitoline Hill?
A5: Sicily
The introduction of new or equivalent deities coincided with Rome's most significant aggressive and defensive military forays. In 206 BC the Sibylline books commended the introduction of cult to the aniconic Magna Mater (Great Mother) from Pessinus, installed on the Palatine in 191 BC. The mystery cult to Bacchus followed; it was suppressed as subversive and unruly by decree of the Senate in 186 BC. Greek deities were brought within the sacred pomerium: temples were dedicated to Juventas (Hebe) in 191 BC, Diana (Artemis) in 179 BC, Mars (Ares) in 138 BC), and to Bona Dea, equivalent to Fauna, the female counterpart of the rural Faunus, supplemented by the Greek goddess Damia. Further Greek influences on cult images and types represented the Roman Penates as forms of the Greek Dioscuri. The military-political adventurers of the Later Republic introduced the Phrygian goddess Ma (identified with Roman Bellona, the Egyptian mystery-goddess Isis and Persian Mithras.)

Q1: What cult appeared from Pessinus in 206 BC?
A1: Magna Mater
Q2: What cult was brought in to Rome after the Great Mother cult?
A2: Bacchus
Q3: In what year did the Senate declare the Bacchus subversive?
A3: 186 BC
Q4: In what year was Diana  brought into the pomerium?
A4: 179 BC
Q5: What god was introduced in Rome in 138 BC?
A5: Mars
The spread of Greek literature, mythology and philosophy offered Roman poets and antiquarians a model for the interpretation of Rome's festivals and rituals, and the embellishment of its mythology. Ennius translated the work of Graeco-Sicilian Euhemerus, who explained the genesis of the gods as apotheosized mortals. In the last century of the Republic, Epicurean and particularly Stoic interpretations were a preoccupation of the literate elite, most of whom held - or had held - high office and traditional Roman priesthoods; notably, Scaevola and the polymath Varro. For Varro - well versed in Euhemerus' theory - popular religious observance was based on a necessary fiction; what the people believed was not itself the truth, but their observance led them to as much higher truth as their limited capacity could deal with. Whereas in popular belief deities held power over mortal lives, the skeptic might say that mortal devotion had made gods of mortals, and these same gods were only sustained by devotion and cult.

Q1: The spread of all things Greek provided what for the interpretation of Rome's religions?
A1: model
Q2: What writer defined the development of the gods?
A2: Euhemerus
Q3: At the end of the Republic, who read the Stoic interpretations of Roman gods and religion?
A3: literate elite
Q4: What factors sustained the beliefs in gods according to Varro?
A4: devotion and cult.
Q5: What theory claims that popular belief was based on fiction?
A5: Euhemerus' theory
Just as Rome itself claimed the favour of the gods, so did some individual Romans. In the mid-to-late Republican era, and probably much earlier, many of Rome's leading clans acknowledged a divine or semi-divine ancestor and laid personal claim to their favour and cult, along with a share of their divinity. Most notably in the very late Republic, the Julii claimed Venus Genetrix as ancestor; this would be one of many foundations for the Imperial cult. The claim was further elaborated and justified in Vergil's poetic, Imperial vision of the past.

Q1: What did many Romans claim in the Republican era?
A1: divine ancestor
Q2: What style of claim did Romans favor as a link to the gods?
A2: personal claim
Q3: Of what were such claims of deity relations the start?
A3: Imperial cult
Q4: What deity did the Julii claim as an ancestor?
A4: Venus Genetrix
Q5: What author further elaborated on the imperial claim of godhood?
A5: Vergil
Towards the end of the Republic, religious and political offices became more closely intertwined; the office of pontifex maximus became a de facto consular prerogative. Augustus was personally vested with an extraordinary breadth of political, military and priestly powers; at first temporarily, then for his lifetime. He acquired or was granted an unprecedented number of Rome's major priesthoods, including that of pontifex maximus; as he invented none, he could claim them as traditional honours. His reforms were represented as adaptive, restorative and regulatory, rather than innovative; most notably his elevation (and membership) of the ancient Arvales, his timely promotion of the plebeian Compitalia shortly before his election and his patronage of the Vestals as a visible restoration of Roman morality. Augustus obtained the pax deorum, maintained it for the rest of his reign and adopted a successor to ensure its continuation. This remained a primary religious and social duty of emperors.

Q1: By the end of the Republic, what offices were increasingly joined?
A1: religious and political
Q2: What Roman figure was given wide and lifeime powers?
A2: Augustus
Q3: How many priesthoods was Augustus given?
A3: unprecedented number
Q4: How were Augustus's reforms viewed?
A4: adaptive, restorative and regulatory
Q5: As a return to what did Augustus portray the Vestals in his reforms?
A5: Roman morality
The Roman Empire expanded to include different peoples and cultures; in principle, Rome followed the same inclusionist policies that had recognised Latin, Etruscan and other Italian peoples, cults and deities as Roman. Those who acknowledged Rome's hegemony retained their own cult and religious calendars, independent of Roman religious law. Newly municipal Sabratha built a Capitolium near its existing temple to Liber Pater and Serapis. Autonomy and concord were official policy, but new foundations by Roman citizens or their Romanised allies were likely to follow Roman cultic models. Romanisation offered distinct political and practical advantages, especially to local elites. All the known effigies from the 2nd century AD forum at Cuicul are of emperors or Concordia. By the middle of the 1st century AD, Gaulish Vertault seems to have abandoned its native cultic sacrifice of horses and dogs in favour of a newly established, Romanised cult nearby: by the end of that century, Sabratha’s so-called tophet was no longer in use. Colonial and later Imperial provincial dedications to Rome's Capitoline Triad were a logical choice, not a centralised legal requirement. Major cult centres to "non-Roman" deities continued to prosper: notable examples include the magnificent Alexandrian Serapium, the temple of Aesculapeus at Pergamum and Apollo's sacred wood at Antioch.

Q1: From what were countries in the empire free?
A1: Roman religious law
Q2: What were Rome's policies in regards to foreign peoples?
A2: inclusionist policies
Q3: What was Rome's policy towards government?
A3: Autonomy and concord
Q4: What did foreign cults gradually begin to display in similarity to Roman cults?
A4: Romanised
Q5: What was Rome not demanding of in religion of foreign areas of the empire?
A5: centralised legal requirement
Military settlement within the empire and at its borders broadened the context of Romanitas. Rome's citizen-soldiers set up altars to multiple deities, including their traditional gods, the Imperial genius and local deities – sometimes with the usefully open-ended dedication to the diis deabusque omnibus (all the gods and goddesses). They also brought Roman "domestic" deities and cult practices with them. By the same token, the later granting of citizenship to provincials and their conscription into the legions brought their new cults into the Roman military.

Q1: What style of religious dedication was not uncommon for outer border areas?
A1: diis deabusque omnibus
Q2: What type of household gods and cults did soldiers bring to outer areas?
A2: domestic
Q3: To whom did Roman soldiers set up alters?
A3: traditional gods
Q4: What act  of provincials brought new gods into the military?
A4: conscription
Q5: What did Rome typically award to provincial members of the empire?
A5: citizenship