One of the defining aspects of an idol was its positioning in the focal point of a temple. Roman temples were homes in which the gods, as idols, lived and were encountered by the community.The podium temples of the Mediterranean only rarely leave traces their interior arrangements, but the Romano-Celtic temple, a standard form of a temple for most of the western provinces, has often left evidence for the placement of idols and their bases, as well as the placement of other cult images. This chapter explores the staging of idols in these temples. In some Romano-Celtic temples, idols were positioned in the centre of a square cella, perhaps to accommodate rites of circumambulation. Other cult images were given less prominent positions in the temple and sanctuary site. Some idol bases were constructed before the floors of temples, indicating that the temple was built with a specific idol in mind. A few bases incorporated older statue fragments and spolia, stressing continuity with past forms of the temple and idol. The arrangements of Mithraic sanctuaries allow for much more intimate interactions with the Mithraic idol, or tauroctony.

This chapter reconstructs how temple visitors engaged with idols, and the daily lives of idols. Some Roman reliefs represent encounters with statues in terms of epiphanies, and accounts of personal interactions with idols suggest that proximity to the idol itself was desirable. Varro, Ovid, and other writers describe interactions such as anointing, adorning, cleaning, bathing, and feeding idols, suggesting they had the same needs and pleasures of a human body. The veracity of these accounts, too often dismissed by historians of ancient religion, are confirmed by finds on the floor of a temple at Thun-Allmendingen. Idols could also accept gifts, such as coins, or pieces of jewelry to add to their wardrobes, and worshipers placed these offerings as close as possible to the idol. Sometimes, idols, or representative cult images, left their temples in processions, participating in public events. After examining the concept of darshan in contemporary India, it is suggested that Roman interactions with idols are understandable if the idol was regarded as an elite member of local society, endowed with agency, who participated in the life of the community. Idols made the gods accessible by allowing worshipers to interact with them in a human way.

The final chapter returns to the distinction between idols and other cult images that was proposed in the introduction. In each of the book’s main sections, clues have been observed that confirm a functional distinction between idols and other cult images. The status of both idols and cult images was also found to be flexible, with new images existing side-by-side with old ones in virtually all Roman temples. Since it was largely human interactions that transformed a cult image into an idol, it is rarely possible to identify individual objects as an idol on the basis of archaeological or art historical evidence alone. We never have the full biography of any surviving cult image, just glimpses and hints into particular moments in its life. The fact that idols were continually created, used, and destroyed in the ways discussed in this book for hundreds of years is itself an indication of their important role in Roman religion. So too is the continued use of specific strategies to retain agency for idols. The encounter with a temple’s idol was surely the most important reason for individuals to visit Roman temples.

Roman historians often claimed that their ancestors did not have images of the gods, but a closer look at both the archaeological and textual evidence suggests that images of the gods were venerated at Rome at a very early date. Similarly, both ancient and modern writers have claimed that Iron Age European religion was entirely aniconic. This chapter surveys Iron Age statues in stone, metal, and wood to provide evidence that the gods were worshipped in the form of images prior to the Roman conquest. The stone images include important and recent finds from the Glauberg and Vix, a large series of buste-socles from Paule, Nîmes, and elsewhere, while metal representations include statues from Bouray and St. Maur. Surviving wooden images, including those known as Holzidole from northern Europe, finds from Pforzheim, Villeneuve, and Yverdon-les-Bains, all suggest that wood was a common medium for depicting the gods in the Iron Age. These early images possessed a degree of iconographic variety that allowed the divinity represented to be identified. More importantly, the context of these artworks confirms that they were the focus of ritual, the recipients of offerings and sacrifices, and not just funerary markers or representations of local aristocrats.

When idols lost their sense of agency, they effectively died. While this could happen at any time, this chapter focuses on the end of idols in the late third century AD through to the early medieval period. It examines three main agents of cult image destruction: Germanic barbarians, Christian iconoclasts, and ‘rituals of closure’ conducted by pagans themselves. For the Germanic tribes who raided Roman territory for plunder starting in the third century AD, the destruction of cult images could intimidate prisoners intended to become slaves. Numerous Christian hagiographies describe the destruction of idols from the fourth to seventh centuries AD. At some sites, destructive attention was focused on specific images and parts of images, affirming a distinction between idols and other cult images. The careful burial of certain monuments, statues, and statue fragments suggest that some cult images were intentionally disposed of by those who venerated them. Similar rituals of closure in other world cultures prevent ritually charged material from being occupied by dangerous spirits, as well as being a fitting way of disposing of holy objects. In each instance, these actions only makes sense if idols are perceived of as possessing real power.

Images of the gods were omnipresent in the Roman world. Cult images served many functions, but some were the focal point of ritual activity in temples and are termed ‘idols’ in this book. After exploring both the ancient and modern terminology of cult images, this chapter turns to evidence for belief in the divinity of idols. Many ancient writers, including Arnobius of Sicca, give a sense that many Romans perceived idols to be divine, or at least endowed with agency. It is suggested that this aspect of Roman religion can be understood through cross-cultural comparisons and anthropological theories of agency in religious art. To help us build a complete picture of the place of Roman cult images in Roman religion, and to avoid the problem of the so-called museum effect, the book adopts a biographical approach, exploring the births, lives, and death of cult images. It focuses on cult images and temples in the western Roman Empire, including Rome, Gaul, and Germany, from the Roman Republican period, or the pre-Roman Celtic and Germanic Iron Age, to late antiquity and the early medieval period.

The realization that cult images existed in the Iron Age has profound implications for our understanding of Romano-Celtic art. These earlier images likely served as the basis for later provincial representations of native divinities, which are not, as often proposed, later imperial period inventions. This chapter opens with an exploration of the continued use of Iron Age idols in the Roman period. Wooden images probably served as the main vehicle of transmission of iconography from the Iron Age and first century AD to the more abundant Roman stone representations of native divinities of the second and third centuries AD. The chapter considers monuments that contain purely native or combined native and Roman iconography, including depictions of Cernunnos, the mother goddesses, and Jupiter columns, before turning to the varied style and distribution of images of the gods with conventional Roman iconography. A final section examines how Mithraic cult images differed in form from earlier more static representations of the gods. We should envisage cult images as being continuously born throughout the Iron Age and Roman imperial period, existing side-by-side and in competition with older and newer images, with iconography following current and local trends and demands.