SENSORIVM : the Senses in Roman Polytheism

Antón Alvar Nuño is Professor of Ancient History at the University of Málaga. His research is focused on Roman religion, with a special interest in Roman magic, on which he has published two monographs, Envidia y fascinación.

The present collection brings together papers from an international group of researchers all inspired by 'the sensory turn'. Focusing on a wide range of ritual traditions from around the ancient Roman world, they explore the many ways in which smell and taste, sight and sound, separately and together, involved participants in religious performance. Music, incense, images and colors, contrasts of light and dark played as great a role as belief or observance in generating religious experience.