In ancient Roman religion

Religion in ancient Rome

Religion in ancient Rome encompassed the religious beliefs and cult practices regarded by the Romans as indigenous and central to their identity as a people, as well as the various and many cults imported from other peoples brought under Roman rule. Romans thus offered cult to innumerable deities...

, sacra (Latin, neuter plural, "sacred [matters]") were thel transactions relating to the worship of the gods, especially sacrifice and prayer. They are either sacra privata or publica. The former were undertaken on behalf of the individual by himself, on behalf of the family by the pater familias

Pater familias

The pater familias, also written as paterfamilias was the head of a Roman family. The term is Latin for "father of the family" or the "owner of the family estate". The form is irregular and archaic in Latin, preserving the old genitive ending in -as...

, or on behalf of the gens

Gens

In ancient Rome, a gens , plural gentes, referred to a family, consisting of all those individuals who shared the same nomen and claimed descent from a common ancestor. A branch of a gens was called a stirps . The gens was an important social structure at Rome and throughout Italy during the...

by the whole body of the people.

Sacra privata

The centre of the domestic service of the gods is formed by the worship of the Penates and Lares

Lares

Lares , archaically Lases, were guardian deities in ancient Roman religion. Their origin is uncertain; they may have been guardians of the hearth, fields, boundaries or fruitfulness, hero-ancestors, or an amalgam of these....

. In particular cases recourse was also had to certain specified deities. Besides this, private sacra were attached to particular families; these passed to the heir with the succession and became a burden on him. Hence an inheritance without sacra [hereditas sine sacris] proverbially signified an unimpaired piece of good fortune. If a patrician wished to become a plebian he had to renounce his familial sacra, his gens and his curia

Curia

A curia in early Roman times was a subdivision of the people, i.e. more or less a tribe, and with a metonymy it came to mean also the meeting place where the tribe discussed its affairs...

. As the family had sacra, so also had the gens, which had arisen out of the family by expansion. These were performed by a sacrificial priest flamen

Flamen

In ancient Roman religion, a flamen was a priest assigned to one of fifteen deities with official cults during the Roman Republic. The most important three were the flamines maiores , who served the three chief Roman gods of the Archaic Triad. The remaining twelve were the flamines minores...

 appointed from among the gentiles, the celebration taking place in his own house or in a special sacellum

Sacellum

In ancient Roman religion, a sacellum is a small shrine. The word is a diminutive from sacer . The numerous sacella of ancient Rome included both shrines maintained on private properties by families, and public shrines...

 in the presence of the assembled gentiles.

Sacra publica

The sacra publico were undertaken pro populo, i.e., collectively, (1) by the curia, pagi, or vici, into which the community was divided, whence such sacrifices were called sacra popularia; or (2) by the individual gentes and societies, i.e., the sodalitas, to which the superintendence of a particular cult had been committed by the State; or (3) by the magistrates and priests of the Roman State. The sacra of the gentes were with few exceptions performed in public, though the multitude present remained silent spectators; only in a few cases they took part in the procession to the place of worship or in the sacrificial feast.