The invention of civil religion in Cicero's speech “On his house” and Georg Wissowa's re-interpretation as sacral law

The speeches about the transformation of the home of the exiled Marcus Tullius Cicero into a sacred space by his opponent Clodius have been used as the crown witness for the reconstruction of Roman “civic religion”. This is based on the interpretation of Georg Wissowa, one of the definers of what is seen as Roman religion today. This article takes seriously the fact that Cicero pursues a clear goal, the restitution of his property. It argues that to achieve this goal, Cicero systematises different normative positions and practices as historically provable or asserted. Thus, he is developing a restrictive concept of those religious practices that can claim overall binding force, that is, bind both Roman legal and political institutions as well as individuals in the city of Rome. The investigation brings out to what extent a text, which since the late nineteenth century towering scholar Wissowa presented as a generally accepted description of the fundamentals of “Roman religion” as a religious “system” very closely bound to politically legitimised actors, represents only one (albeit the victorious in the concrete conflict) position in a sharp confrontation.