Among gods and men - The cults and the population of Roman Dalmatia according to the votive inscriptions

Roman religion in the province of Dalmatia has never been studied comprehensively. Discussions of various cults were mostly focused either on limited geographical areas, or on individual aspects of this complex phenomenon. In most cases they comprised iconographic issues, less so onomastic characteristics of the worshippers, and very rarely their broader social background, while epigraphic analyses were conducted occasionally, but never comprehensively. In spite of a relatively large body of relevant publications, no systematization of thus compiled knowledge has yet been attempted. As a result, researchers are faced with difficulties in using dispersed data, not always readily accessible. The most important contribution of the proposed research will be in the holistic approach to the study of the entire votive epigraphic and figural evidence, focusing on both the gods and worshipers. This should result in an overall and more complete picture of the developments and distribution of cults in the province of Dalmatia. The ultimate goal of the research is a thorough reassessment of the votive epigraphic evidence and its systematization, resulting in an extensive insight into social aspects of religious beliefs, traditions and practices, and their impact on the evolution of cultural identities. By using modern methodologies and operational tools, this project will bring home an integrated study of the religion in Roman Dalmatia to the wider academic community. It will further improve our knowledge of various disciplines of Roman studies (religion, prosopography, history) through a synthesis of the existing data with those anticipated through the planned research. This will fill gaps in the present knowledge of Roman religion in Dalmatia, caused by the previous lack of all-inclusive research of its various components. The planned results will thus have a potential for becoming referential for further studies of this theme not only in Dalmatia, but generally.
The project is financed by Croatian Science Foundation with 377,000 HRK (76,500 AUD).