yz2022/T2P-DownstreamNLP huggingface dataset:
Religion_in_ancient_Rome

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.

Question: What forbid harmful  incantations?
Answer: Twelve Tables
Religion_in_ancient_Rome

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.

Question: How was Erichtho portrayed?
Answer: stereotypical witch

Question: From what country did Erichtho come?
Answer: Thessaly

Question: What natural order was Erichtho accused of undermining?
Answer: order of gods
Religion_in_ancient_Rome

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.

Question: What could public rites and magic easily become in some circumstances?
Answer: indistinguishable

Question: What did people seeking the aid of magicians avoid?
Answer: public gaze

Question: Where was magic conducted in Rome?
Answer: outside the sacred boundary
Religion_in_ancient_Rome

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.

Question: What did the patrician electorate keep in spite of a new plebeian nobility? 
Answer: political traditions and religious cults

Question: During what time did the Dionysus cult become popular?
Answer: Punic crisis

Question: With loyalty a necessity, what censorship did not need to be enforced?
Answer: divine hierarchy

Question: To what Roman god was Dionysus similar?
Answer: Bacchus
Religion_in_ancient_Rome

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").

Question: What appointment was the start of Cesar's political rise?
Answer: pontifex maximus
Religion_in_ancient_Rome

Each camp had its own religious personnel; standard bearers, priestly officers and their assistants, including a haruspex, and housekeepers of shrines and images. A senior magistrate-commander (sometimes even a consul) headed it, his chain of subordinates ran it and a ferocious system of training and discipline ensured that every citizen-soldier knew his duty. As in Rome, whatever gods he served in his own time seem to have been his own business; legionary forts and vici included shrines to household gods, personal deities and deities otherwise unknown. From the earliest Imperial era, citizen legionaries and provincial auxiliaries gave cult to the emperor and his familia on Imperial accessions, anniversaries and their renewal of annual vows. They celebrated Rome's official festivals in absentia, and had the official triads appropriate to their function – in the Empire, Jupiter, Victoria and Concordia were typical. By the early Severan era, the military also offered cult to the Imperial divi, the current emperor's numen, genius and domus (or familia), and special cult to the Empress as "mother of the camp." The near ubiquitous legionary shrines to Mithras of the later Imperial era were not part of official cult until Mithras was absorbed into Solar and Stoic Monism as a focus of military concordia and Imperial loyalty.

Question: What person was considered to be "Mother of the camp''?
Answer: Empress
Religion_in_ancient_Rome

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").

Question: What did the claims of officials imply about the nature of the individuals?
Answer: divinely inspired
Religion_in_ancient_Rome

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.

Question: What did many Romans claim in the Republican era?
Answer: divine ancestor

Question: What style of claim did Romans favor as a link to the gods?
Answer: personal claim

Question: Of what were such claims of deity relations the start?
Answer: Imperial cult

Question: What deity did the Julii claim as an ancestor?
Answer: Venus Genetrix
Religion_in_ancient_Rome

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").

Question: How were opportunities limited in the principate for the citizens of Rome?
Answer: by law
Religion_in_ancient_Rome

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.

Question: What cult arrived from southern Italy?
Answer: Dionysus
Religion_in_ancient_Rome

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").

Question: What did the Augustan settlement signify in Rome's classes?
Answer: cultural shift

Question: In what year was Cesar made pontifex maximus?
Answer: 63 BC
Religion_in_ancient_Rome

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.

Question: At the end of the regal period, what class was kept out of the state political and priesthood arenas?
Answer: plebeian

Question: With whom did Rome have alliances at the end of the regal period?
Answer: neighbours

Question: What goddess became a part of the Capitoline triad?
Answer: Minerva

Question: In what style was the temple to Minerva built?
Answer: Etruscan

Question: What gods were in the Capitoline triad?
Answer: Jupiter, Juno and Minerva
Religion_in_ancient_Rome

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".

Question: What was the lowest class of Roman citizens?
Answer: plebeians
Religion_in_ancient_Rome

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.

Question: What author further elaborated on the imperial claim of godhood? 
Answer: Vergil
Religion_in_ancient_Rome

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".

Question: Of what class was more than half of Rome's population?
Answer: slave or free non-citizens
Religion_in_ancient_Rome

Each camp had its own religious personnel; standard bearers, priestly officers and their assistants, including a haruspex, and housekeepers of shrines and images. A senior magistrate-commander (sometimes even a consul) headed it, his chain of subordinates ran it and a ferocious system of training and discipline ensured that every citizen-soldier knew his duty. As in Rome, whatever gods he served in his own time seem to have been his own business; legionary forts and vici included shrines to household gods, personal deities and deities otherwise unknown. From the earliest Imperial era, citizen legionaries and provincial auxiliaries gave cult to the emperor and his familia on Imperial accessions, anniversaries and their renewal of annual vows. They celebrated Rome's official festivals in absentia, and had the official triads appropriate to their function – in the Empire, Jupiter, Victoria and Concordia were typical. By the early Severan era, the military also offered cult to the Imperial divi, the current emperor's numen, genius and domus (or familia), and special cult to the Empress as "mother of the camp." The near ubiquitous legionary shrines to Mithras of the later Imperial era were not part of official cult until Mithras was absorbed into Solar and Stoic Monism as a focus of military concordia and Imperial loyalty.

Question: What type of personnel did every camp have?
Answer: religious
Religion_in_ancient_Rome

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.

Question: How were Augustus's reforms viewed?
Answer: adaptive, restorative and regulatory
Religion_in_ancient_Rome

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.

Question: Who did the Senate select to settle a strike by the lower classes?
Answer: Camillus
Religion_in_ancient_Rome

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.

Question: By the end of the Republic, what offices were increasingly joined?
Answer: religious and political
Religion_in_ancient_Rome

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.

Question: The spread of all things Greek provided what for the interpretation of Rome's religions?
Answer: model

Question: What writer defined the development of the gods?
Answer: Euhemerus
Religion_in_ancient_Rome

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.

Question: The link between what groups was necessary to Rome?
Answer: religious and political