This collection of 24 essays, written by a group of international scholars who specialise in the religious, political and social history of ancient Rome, explores the relationship between priests and State in the Roman world. Attention is devoted to a number of interconnected problems: the nature and scope of priesthoods in the Roman world, the rules governing access to them, the role that priests played in the various levels of government, from the imperial court to the cities on the fringes of the empire, the different development of priesthoods across the empire, and more generally the relationship between religion and power. The outcome is a diverse and comprehensive collection that seeks to do justice to the complexity of the interaction between priests and State by presenting the reader with a wide set of problems and sources, ranging from early Rome to the late Empire.

James H. Richardson is Lecturer in Classics at Massey University.

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