आगमे विश्वासटिप्पन्यः

Motivations

Openness: For Romans, deities were ones who had to serve their purpose. If the purpose wasn’t served even if you gave sacrifices, they would try their luck from another deity or the manifestation of the same deity. This is one of the reasons why many foreign deities and cults were popular.
Romans would also implement deities of people they were in war with. This was done in order to attract deities on their side, so they can leave their enemies and be victorious. Good example from this is accepting the Juno from the Etruscan city of Veii when they were in war.

With the foreign influence, Roman religion slowly changed from animism to the anthropomorphized version of deities which prevailed in the Mediterranean world. Romans had a view on religion which can be explained as animism, for every action there was an attribute of deities for it.
From the early stages of the Roman world, in the “religion of Numa”, different deities would start being implemented in the pantheon. This process happened first when deities from surrounding italic tribes were accepted and later on it was from Greeks and other cultures. Because of this, some deities that are interpreted as purely Roman, were actually implemented in the pantheon in the early stages of the religion.

It’s believed that the Etruscan kings were the first ones to build the temples and statues of gods. Building of the temple of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva on the Capitoline Hill marked a big change in the Roman religion – from that time the gods are slowly anthropomorphized.
In the early stages, Roman religion was animistic but with interpretatio romana, foreign influences started being implemented and it changed their religion. Under the influence of the Etruscans, Romans had triads of gods. Relatively early it was Jupiter, Mars, Quirinus… …and later on arose triad of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva. Until the Etruscan domination Romans didn’t build temples – deities were represented only symbolically. So the stone was the place of Jupiter, where spear was thrown was the place of Mars, fire was Vesta and so on…

From the early stages of the Roman world, Greeks had an influence on Roman religion. Greek deities, rituals and religious views were taken from the Greek cities in Campania and south Italy. Many Roman gods were identified with Greek gods, which then was a common practice.
Roman pantheon was, in the end, practically identified with the Greek pantheon so the Greek legends and myths had a Roman variant. The most important influence of the Greeks was the anthropomorphization of the Roman gods and the change in religious perspective. With time, Greek influence dominated, especially in the Hellenistic era, when the temples and sculptures started being very much alike the ones from the Greek world. Romans brought in Rome, after the conquest of Greek cities, Greek sculptures of gods which were placed in temples.
The cult of Cybele entered Rome during the war with Hannibal, becoming an official cult. During the war with Cimbri, a priest of Cybele from Pesinunt was staying in Rome which made Cybele extremely popular with people. Even Gaius Marius visited Pesinunt after ending the “revolt”.

From Sulla’s time the Egyptian cults of Isis and Osiris, Serapis, Harpocrates and Anubis started being popular. In this time astrology and fortune telling started being popular – Lucius Tarutius calculated the date of birth of Romulus and building of Rome using Egyptian astrology.

There were opponents to all of this, people who thought that accepting foreign influences is degrading the Roman religion. One of them was Lucius Paullus, consul in 50 BCE, who said the temple of Isis inside of pomerium has to be destroyed.
But, the cult of Isis was so strong in Rome that no worker dared to desecrate the temple of Isis. Lucius Paullus took the axe himself and started destroying the temple while people around him looked in horror.