The Religion of Numa And Other Essays on the Religion of Ancient Rome — A Reader’s Guide

Diction of the Legendary Past

Carter's language in the first essay deliberately blurs the line between myth and history. He describes the early kingdom as 'altogether legendary' for Romulus through Ancus Martius, yet treats Numa's religious reforms as a coherent starting point. The author's choice of verbs—'grow by contact,' 'came foreign influence'—emphasizes gradual transformation over sudden rupture. Notably, he avoids attributing agency to individual kings, instead using passive constructions that suggest impersonal forces. This linguistic strategy reinforces his thesis that Roman religion evolved through external stimuli rather than internal revelation.

The preface's metaphor of 'acts or chapters' for the essays further underscores Carter's literary approach: he is crafting a drama, not compiling a chronicle. His diction consistently prioritizes narrative flow over technical precision, as when he refers to 'the coming of the Sibyl' as a character entering a play.

The Sibyl's Voice and the Senate's Silence

In the third essay, Carter's description of the Sibylline books' influence reveals a careful choice of ironic contrast. He juxtaposes the 'infallible oracles' emanating from the temple of Juppiter Optimus Maximus—'the essence of all that was most patriotically Roman'—with the 'simple yes and no answers' of earlier Roman divination. The author's diction here is pointed: the Sibyl's advice seemed 'superior' only in the short term, while its long-term effect was the 'substitution of incantation for devotion.'

Carter's account of the Magna Mater's arrival is particularly vivid. He describes the 'noisy emasculated priests' and the 'rattling of coin in the money box' with a journalist's eye for detail, then draws an explicit parallel to the Trojan horse: 'the Greeks had again come bearing gifts.' This rhetorical choice—using a literary allusion familiar to his audience—makes the foreign cult's acceptance seem both inevitable and ominous. The Senate's later attempts to confine the cult are presented as futile damage control, with Carter noting that the restrictions held for three and a half centuries but were ultimately changed.

Psychological Reality in Ritual Description

Carter consistently privileges the emotional and psychological dimensions of religious practice over mere ritual mechanics. In the preface, he asserts that 'the careful student of the history of the Romans cannot doubt the psychological reality of their religion,' and this conviction shapes his descriptive choices throughout. When recounting the introduction of Cybele, he speculates on the Romans' mindset: 'It may well be doubted whether anything but such a great exigency would ever have induced Rome to accept such an utterly foreign cult.' This use of conditional language ('may well be doubted') invites readers to consider motives without asserting certainty.

The author's treatment of the Sibylline books' decline is similarly psychological. He notes that after the Magna Mater episode, the books 'introduced no new deities' and were consulted 'only occasionally, chiefly for political purposes.' The phrase 'their work was done' carries a double meaning: both that their function had been fulfilled and that their harmful influence had run its course. Carter's closing line of that essay—'Time alone could teach them what the books had really given them'—leaves the judgment suspended, a narrative hook for the next chapter on the decline of faith.

Structure as Argument: The Five-Act Drama

Carter's five-essay structure is itself an authorial choice that shapes the reader's understanding. The preface explicitly compares the essays to 'acts or chapters' that 'forbid their separation,' implying a teleological arc from Numa's religion to Augustus's renaissance. Each essay covers a distinct period, but the transitions are carefully managed: the first ends with the legendary kingdom, the second with Servius's reorganization, the third with the Sibyl's arrival, the fourth with the decline of faith, and the fifth with the Augustan revival.

This progression mirrors the 'dramatic development' Carter promises, with each phase building on the previous one. The author's decision to begin with Numa—a figure of uncertain historicity—rather than with archaeological evidence signals his interest in narrative coherence over empirical certainty. The closing essay on Augustus, meanwhile, provides a resolution that is both historical and thematic: the princeps's religious reforms are presented as a deliberate return to earlier pieties, completing the cycle. Carter's structural choices thus reinforce his central argument that Roman religion was a living, evolving phenomenon best understood through its story.

Carter's essays reward readers who attend to his rhetorical strategies as much as his historical claims. His diction—alternately ironic, vivid, and speculative—reveals a scholar self-consciously shaping a narrative rather than merely reporting facts. The five-act structure, the use of literary allusions, and the emphasis on psychological reality all serve to make Roman religion accessible without oversimplifying it. For those interested in how historians construct their arguments through language, this work offers a case study in the art of scholarly persuasion.

I’ve shelved The Religion of Numa beside my reading chair for years, watching how quiet devotion becomes public ritual. There’s a similar hush in Soliloquies in England, and Later Soliloquies — A Closer Reading, where private thought outlives the age that shaped it. Both books whisper about what remains when the gods—or the empire—step back.