Where the lightning strikes, when the gods intervene. Divine agency and space sacralisation in Roman Dacia

Abstract

Following new trends in the historiography of Roman religious studies, which focus primarily on atomising religious experience, this study proposes an approach to the different forms of religious experiences in natural environments through the specific case of the places of manifestation of Jupiter as a celestial lord, god of lightning and thunder. Through the analysis of inscriptions mentioning Jupiter Fulgurator in Dacia and the comparative study of certain scenes on Trajan’s Column in Rome and on that of Marcus Aurelius, we can detect the sacralisation of the concrete space in which the phenomenon of lightning strike happened, to maintain the spatial memory of the prodigium. But we can also detect the conversion into prodigia publica of a collective religious experience of the intervention of a powerful divine agency and in which a charismatic religious leader is present. This sudy should contribute to a deeper knowledge of religious experiences in Roman Dacia around epiphanies related to the direct intervention of the gods.