Ancient Pagan Temple Found in Italy Shows Religious Continuity Between Roman, Christian World

Archaeologists found a pagan temple that challenges the history of Roman Christianity after they dug a monumental structure that belonged to a Roman temple.

Ancient Pagan Temple Challenges Roman Christianity History

The remains of a pagan temple from the Roman era have been discovered in Italy by a group of researchers. Archaeologists unearthed three massive structure walls that reportedly belonged to a Roman temple.

Academics had long suspected the temple's existence, but experts had not found its exact position until the excavation.

Douglas Boin, a researcher at Saint Louis University, led the dig at Spello. According to him, the monumental building the team found, with foundations as wide as four feet and situated close to an ancient religious sanctuary, perfectly fits the available evidence for being Constantine's temple.

Boin said the discovery was "remarkable."

"It would have remained in use as a site for worship and religious activities for at least the next two generations until Christians outlawed all pagan religion," he said.

"It shows the continuities between the classical pagan world and early Christian Roman world that often get blurred out or written out of the sweeping historical narratives."

Boin and his crew discovered the temple during their excavations this summer. The scholars had chosen to investigate the region based on an inscription from the 4th century ascribed to Emperor Constantine.

Per Boin, there is proof that Christian emperors encouraged the activities of the imperial cult in various parts of the Roman world. However, the evidence for pagan worship at their temples during the 4th century has been sparse and insignificant. Furthermore, it is well known that Christians favored the imperial cult.

"This temple bridges those two landmarks, and in that respect, it is unlike any temple that I know about from the Mediterranean world of the 4th century Roman Empire. Any study of the imperial cult in the 4th century Roman Empire is now going to have to take account of this temple, which is an incredible discovery to make," Boin added.

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Emperor Constantine Reportedly Ordered The Temple

The town hall houses the old inscription discovered in Spello in the early 1700s, indicating that the temple's construction was an "enormous" endeavor.

The emperor announced in an inscription that the settlement's citizens, which was turned into a Roman colony in the first century B.C., would be permitted to celebrate a religious festival in their hometown instead of traveling a considerable distance to attend another celebration.

The emperor ordered the town to build a temple and worship Constantine's heavenly ancestors, the Flavian family. This custom was a component of the centuries-long Roman imperial religion, which saw emperors and some members of their families revered as gods.

Boin noted the lack of separation of religion and state in the Roman world. Worship was reportedly part of the Romans' sense of patriotism.

"In an empire where people spoke multiple languages, lived across three continents, and held on to their own local traditions, the imperial cult brought people together around common ideals," the expert added.