Religio Romana is the modern neopagan religious practice based on reconstruction of ancient Roman pre-Christian polytheistic paganism. Other names for this religious system are Italo-Roman neopaganism, cultus deorum romanorum, camino romano a los dioses, and via romana agli dei, the latter two both translating "Roman way to the gods." These labels are all virtually interchangeable, and their use largely depends on the speaker's native language.
A majority of cultores deorum live in European countries where Romance languages are spoken natively; the next two largest populations are the North American and Eastern European membership of Nova Roma, an online organization of individuals who identify strongly with ancient Roman mores, Latin language, Roman religion, and the philosophy and cultural ideas central to ancient Roman society. As with any reconstructed religious tradition, the degree of reconstruction and historicity varies substantially from one to another practitioner. Some cultores attempt to accurately reconstruct religious praxis directly from the writings of ancient Romans; others have a much less strenuous praxis, and may combine multiple religious traditions together, including components of Roman paganism.
Nova Roma takes pride as an organization in the accessibility of Roman paganism to other religions, for simultaneous praxis: Religio Romana doesn't explicitly forbid worship of non-Roman gods, and if anything it encourages such interlocking faith. Religio Romana also does not require any practicioner have a religious relationship to all Roman gods; a Roman neopagan may venerate one specific personal patron deity, or a group of related deities such as the Capitoline Triad, or all twelve of the Dii Consentes. Furthermore, the degree of veneration or religious investment is not mandated by the religion with any specificity: one may enthusiastically worship Roman deities, or less intensely venerate them, or merely respect what they represent, without actually entirely believing in them. Many cultores deorum are agnostic or deistic, rather than gnostically theistic, regarding the Dii, and this is completely accepted within Nova Roma and other groups within the cultus. It is also considered both normal and encouraged for cultores to have separate "public gods" and "private gods," governing separate spheres of the individual's life. One's public faith may in fact be one's openly known beliefs, but it can also be a privately held belief system pertaining to one's public life, or to the well-being of the nation one inhabits. It would be considered appropriate, for example, for a Roman neopagan to subscribe to a Christian denomination and to attend a local Christian church as an expression of public faith, if Christianity is the state religion where that person lives. One's private faith pertains to the well-being of one's household and oneself, and if it features deities not commonly venerated by local society, this private faith would be kept entirely separate from one's public life, and not flaunted or displayed visibly, out of respect for the faith of the state.
While syncretic parallels are popularly drawn between Hellenic and Roman deities, and while ancient Romans themselves are among the first people responsible for this syncretism and interfaith assimilation, Religio Romana is not to be confused with Hellenismos, the modern reconstruction of ancient Greek paganism. Both are polytheist traditions originating in Mediterranean cultures, and Rome obtained several of her gods directly from Greece, including Apollo, but each religion takes a different approach to its gods, its mores and philosophy, and its attitudes toward syncretism. Hellenismos is hard polytheism, meaning most Hellenic polytheists believe that commonly-syncretized deities are completely discrete entities, and that it is inappropriate, for example, to worship Artemis and Diana as a single unified entity. Cultores deorum, on the other hand, tend to be more comfortable with syncretism: while there are still hard polytheists in the movement, Religio Romana overall follows the soft polytheism common to ancient Romans, and Roman deities are considered identical to their Greek "equivalents," along with any "equivalent" syncretic deities assimilated through Rome's contact with other regions.
Like Hellenismos, Religio Romana may include any amount of ancestor veneration, veneration of local genii loci, and praxis directed at countless other numina and anima pertaining to places, objects, people, and abstract ideas such as justice, victory and harmony.
Religio Romana holds that religion and philosophy can inform one another, but that philosophy pertains chiefly to how human beings interact with one another, and that this is altogether a separate matter from how humans interact with divinity. Cultores may subscribe to stoicism, epicureanism, neoplatonism, or any personal philosophy without regard to how it might relate to their religion; cultores typically do not consider any philosophy intrinsically mutually exclusive with Roman paganism, due both to the flexibility of the religion itself, and to this attitude of division between personal philosophy and religion. Likewise, morality is considered entirely separate from religion; the cultus is not thought to represent any kind of moral or ethical model, and is preferably held to be altogether independent from personal morality. Because of these attitudes of separation, it is pointless to compile a list of cardinal virtues to which most or all cultores subscribe, or a list of actions which most cultores would consider sinful or inappropriate. There are no formal commandments, no formal credo or maxims, no manifesto or declaration of faith. Religio Romana is primarily a solitary and personal praxis, customized to one's own beliefs, values, and circumstance, with a shared civic identity.
Iron Noder 2015, 16/30