Rives does an excellent job of fully introducing the complexities of the Roman divine in just a few short opening pages.  Like we discussed in class, when most people think of the Roman divine they think of the iconic Pantheon of gods: Zeus the God of lightning, his wife Hera, the god of the sea Poseidon, and so on. Rives quickly points out that the number of deities known to the Greaco-Roman world greatly exceeds the original 12-15.  Not only are there several lesser deities, but there can be multiple versions of the same god throughout the lands (15). In addition, the divine did not have to fall under the category of a character with distinct personality.  Many considered the physical sea, sun, moon, and other aspects of nature to be equally divine as the gods.  The divine can also encompass abstract ideas, such as Fortune and Persuasion, or Fear and Panic (17). Furthermore, Rives points to the widely varied uses of the terms daimones, heros , numen, and genius in the Graeco-Roman framework of the divine, and how those terms illustrate the close proximity of the superhuman and human spheres (19).

Though at first the Graeco-Roman concept of the divine seems to be pure Chaos, Rives cautions the modern reader from thinking that there was no order or unity in the Roman religions. The varied approaches to Roman religions allowed for a great deal of flexibility.  Rives states that “people invoked the idea of the divine in very different contexts for very different purposes” (21).  This is seen in the “tripartite theology,” which divides the different ways of approaching the gods and the divine into three spheres: the mythical, the physical, and the civil.  As illustrated by Varro’s writing, these spheres of approach did not always agree with each other. However, consistency was not all important; even though a view from the sphere of myth might be “wrong” from the civic point of view, the mythic view still has its merits within its own sphere.

Rives elaborates this point in his description of the four main spheres of Graeco-Roman approaches to the divine: cult, myth, art, and philosophy.  Each one operates independently, yet at the same time they intersect at numerous points. For example, all four spheres acknowledge in some way the general mythic framework of the divine world.  Myth and art share a very close relationship in this acknowledgment, as art usually takes inspiration straight from the poetic tales.  Cultic practices often involve statues from myths or hymns that reference mythic stories. However, these aspects are not central to the Roman cultic observance.  Similarly, while philosophy has some ties to the other spheres it often tries to subvert and reinterpret myth, art and cult. Each sphere operates independently, yet they all interact and agree varyingly on many beliefs and ideas.