The social identity of Roman freedmen probing the religious evidence

Abstract

Aceptando la estrecha relación entre status social y actos religiosos, el autor defiende, sin embargo, la inexistencia de cultos exclusivos de una determinada clase social, a excepción de los cultos estatales, debido a que el sistema religioso romano prestaba mayor atención a la distinción entre religión pública y privada que entre la gradación de las divinidades. Centrándose en la figura del liberto, el autor explica que se trataba de un grupo social que intentaba autoafirmarse como colectivo, separándose de los esclavos, a la vez que debían conquistar un lugar individual en la sociedad. Dos aspectos de la religiosidad de los libertos son discutidos: las asociaciones con la divinidad y los cultos que permiten la promoción social.__________________________The author believes the close relationship between social status and religious acts. He sujects, however, the lack of cults for a specific social class, except the oficial religion, because in the roman religious system distinction between public and private religiosity was more relevant than that between inferior and superior deities. He focuses on freedmen to explain that it was a social group that adopted in their ways of self-representation a double perspective, seeking to segregated themselves of slaves and the other on the community in which they had to conquer a proper. Two subjects are discussed: the relationship with the divine and the upwards cults.