This document provides information about religious beliefs in Emerita Augusta, the capital of Roman Hispania (modern day Merida, Spain). It discusses the survival of the Roman pantheon in the city, including gods like Venus, Ceres, Mercury, Bacchus, and Asclepius. It also examines evidence of Oriental cults, such as those of Isis and Mithras, found in archaeological sites like the House of Mithraeum. The document utilizes objects from the Roman Museum of Merida to illustrate different gods and their iconography.

1. Arce Program
“Knowing and sharing the Roman Hispania”
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS
IN
EMERITA AUGUSTA.
Roman and Oriental Cults in
the capital of Lusitania.
DIDACTIC UNIT: 4º ESO.
SUBJECT: LATÍN.

2. UNIT CONTENTS.
• Introduction of a Roman city.
• Survival of the pantheon of Roman gods in Emerita
Augusta.
• Oriental Cults in the same city.
• Analysis and interpretation of sculptures and mosaics on
religious themes.
• Seek from a variety of sources and media for data
collection.

3. Objectives.
• Identify elements of Romanization in the
colony of Augusta Emerita according to
religion.
Roman gods.
Oriental deities.

4. Materials.
• Use of the evidence preserved in the
Roman Museum of Merida through its
website.
http://museoarteromano.mcu.es/

5. Brief history of the colony.
• The Roman city was founded in the year 25 B.C. It was
named Augusta Emerita because it would serve as
withdrawal for Emeriti soldiers, veterans.
• It soon became the capital of the Roman province of
Lusitania.

6. ROMAN PANTHEÓN.

7. ROAN CULTS IN MÉRIDA
It is proved that the gods of the Roman
pantheon were worshiped in the old
Merida.
Proof of this is the testimony offered by
the Roman museum in Merida.

8. THE GODDESS VENUS.
The classical representation of the
goddess of love, mother of the Trojan
Aeneas, hero of the epic Roman, has
different manifestations, so collected in
the museum.

9. THE GODDESS VENUS.
• The goddess and y her tracks of sculptural
representation.
Figura 1 Figura 2

10. Iconography of the Goddess in
Merida.
• Figure 2 refers to the famous Aphrodite of Knidos.
The goddess drops the cloths in her hands after having
held a ritual bath.
Clothes that the venus of Merida wears too.

11. The goddess of agriculture: Ceres.
Ceres is the mother of Proserpina,
who according to mythology was
abducted by the god Pluto. This Myth
served to explain the cycle of
vegetation.
The Roman Ceres, Demeter to the
Greeks, was worshiped in different
parts of the empire.

12. Ceres in the museum of Mérida.
The goddess Ceres is represented as a Roman matron, as a
mature woman. In her hands she usually carries a bunch of
ears of wheat and a torch.
The museum displays a figure of a seated Ceres with no arms.

13. Representation of the goddess
Ceres in the Parthenon, by
Phidias.(British Museum)
• Demeter and Persephone, mother and
daughter were represented on the east
pediment of the Parthenon.The goddess is
also sitting as the emeritense sculpture.

14. MERCURIO
HERMES
• In classical representations of the god his distinctive elements appear:
Petaso (hat) on his head, clámide (cloak) attached to his left
shoulder, bag, caduceus, tortoiseshell lyre and wings on his ankles
• Mercury, the Greek Hermes is the messenger of god. In the western
provinces of the Roman Empire he will become the God who will guard
the roads, related to trade and in some areas it has got a quite salutary
character related to thermal water sources.

15. MERCURY
IN THE ROMAN MUSEUM OF
MERIDA
This sculpture was found in the house of Mitreo in
Merida. This dates from the II c. A. C. and Mercury is
represented with its own iconography, the lyre, a
stringed musical instrument very important for poets.
(Recall the origin of the word lyric)
According to mythology, Mercury was the inventor of the
instrument.

16. BACCHUS AND ARIADNE.
Bacchus, the Greek
Dionysus, is the god of
wine and theater.
In classical performances,
the god is crowned with
vine leaves and bare-
chested.
Mythology tells us the
union of the God with the
princess Ariadne,
daughter of Minos.

17. MOSAIC BACO Y ARIADNA.
The mosaic of the city of Merida tells the
story of Bacchus with Ariadne (who had
been abandoned by Theseus on the
island of Naxos).
The Romans built the mosaics with small
pieces called tiles, hence they referred to
them also as tessellatum opus.
It is signed by the workshop where it was
made: EX OFFICINA ANNIBONI. Late V
century a.C.
In the representation there are lovers and
slaves so as the animals that drew the
chariot of God, the tigers. According to the OVIDIO:”Ya el dios, encima de su
myth, the god returned from India, when carro que aparecía repleto de uvas,
aflojaba las riendas doradas a los
he met Ariadne tigres que lo llevaban.”

18. the Maenads .
The Maenads are female followers of
Bacchus.
They were attributed a wild life and an
irrational behavior.
In the mythical story of the death of
Orpheus, the Maenads tear him to
pieces because he rejects the cult of
Dionysus in favor of the cult of Apollo,
identified with the sun

19. MAENADS
In Merida Roman museum
preserves a sculptural
representation of a Maenad (pic.2)
It has common characteristics with
the Prado Maenad (pic1)
The treatment of the folds of her
dress, her profile representation,
the thyrsus in her right hand and
her dance attitude.
Maenad in the Prado Maenad in the Roman
Museum museum of Merida
Fig.1 Fig.2

20. AESCULAPIUS.
• Asclepius is the Greek Asclepius, god of
medicine and healing.
In Greece HE enjoyed a major shrine, the
sanctuary of Asclepius in Epidaurus, a place
of pilgrimage throughout antiquity.
The Romans adopted the cult of this god and
built a shrine in his honor on the Tiber Island
and he was taken to different provinces.
Traces of the cult in Spain are in Ampurias
(brought by the Greeks), in Cartagena and in
Merida.

21. Iconography of Asclepius.
The two figures
presented the god with
with a bare chest and a
mantle
(Greek himation),
that
in the representation of
Ampurias has
taken the form of the
Roman toga.
Asclepius. Ampurias. Asclepius. Mérida.

22. THE GODDESS DIANA.
Diana was the virgin goddess of the hunt and
protector of nature. Its equivalent is Greek goddess
Artemis, the twin sister of Apollo.
This goddess has a temple in Mérida that bears his
name: Temple of Diana in Merida.
This title was applied by the resemblance that the
building shows with the temple of Artemis at Éfeso. It
is located in the center of town, which fully
corresponds with the Emerita Augusta Decumanus
Maximus
(the thistle and decumanus are the two main streets of the Roman city).

23. THE TEMPLE OF DIANA
Reconstruction of the temple of
Artemis at Ephesus. Temple of Diana in Merida.

24. THE PROTECTIVE GENIE OF
THE FAMILY.
MANES, PENATES Y LARES.
The geniuses Manes are old family genie, which
protect the souls of the ancestors, protecting the
house, along with the Lares and Penates. They
covered the primitive domestic cult.
The gods Penates are also geniuses protective
of home and family and more specifically, of the
larder (penus in Latin).
The gods Lares are protective genius of the
hearth fire.

25. REPRESENTATIONS OF THE
PROTECTIVE GENIE
Pompeian house genius. Merida Museum Genius.
The genius is represented in the form of a snake or a young
man frequently with a cornucopia.

26. DEIFICATIÓN OF EMPERORS.
The deification of the emperors after death was something
usual, from the first of them, Augusto, from whom a
famous museum effigy in Meridades is preserved.

27. ORIENTAL CULTS
​
The Roman Empire was always open to the cults of conquered provinces,it made
that in places like the Lusitania testimonies of Eastern religious cults appeared.
During the Roman period, contacts with religious ideas developed in the eastern
Mediterranean and the lands of the ancient Near East are intensified.
The sculptures kept in the museum of Mérida are standing proof, so as the
emergence of an important shrine dedicated to oriental divinities in the area near the
archaeological site known as the "House of MyTreo“

28. GODDESS ISIS.
Isis (Ίσις ancient Greek) is the Greek name of a goddess of
Egyptian mythology. Its Egyptian name was Ast, meaning
throne. It was called "Grand Magus", "Great Mother
Goddess", "Queen of the Gods", "fertilizing force of nature",
"Goddess of motherhood and birth."
The Romans assimilated the worship of the goddess Isis,
bringing it closer to local deities. It was specifically the
emperor Caligula who officially introduced the worship of this
goddess in Rome.
Anthropomorphic representations of this divinity present it as
a woman in tight dress crowned with the throne.
ISIS
MÉRIDA

29. GOD MITHRAS.
Mithras was a god known in antiquity, mainly in
Persia and India. Mithra was the god of the sun, of
Persian origin that became part of the Roman Empire.
Various sculptures are preserved, for the most part of
the third century. He is depicted as a young man with a
Phrygian cap, killing a bull with his hands.
The cult of Mithras was developed as a mystery
religion, and was organized in secret societies,
exclusively male, esoteric in nature. He enjoyed
particular popularity in military enviroments.
CRONOS O
MITRA.

30. HOUSE OF MITREO.
It is known as the "House of Mitreo" a domus or
manor house located in a place near the site where
remains have been found associated with the cult of
Mithras, a cosmological mosaic and underground rooms.
The house, located outside the walls of the Roman town,
was built in the late l century or early second A. C.
The cosmological mosaic represents the conception
of the world and the forces of nature that govern it, along
with some human activity.

31. Mosaic
Cosmological
Of the house
of Mitreo.