Drawing widely on original material (all of it quoted in translation), he tells us how the Romans prayed, what happened at a sacrifice, what sort of gods they believed in, and how seriously they took their religion - a religion in which actions, , not dogma, was paramount.
The concern for religion went deep into Roman society, and if we are to understand the history of the late first century B.C. and of the first century A.D., we must try to get under the skin of the Romans, see how their religion worked, and appreciate how they thought about it.