The book was a result of many years of research work of E. M. Shtaerman (1914-1991) in the field of religion of the Ancient Rome. The author belonged to the generation of historian of Classical period, which was formed in the reformed and restored Soviet system of education. She was in the first group of students of the newly founded Historical Faculty of the Moscow State University and graduated from it in 1939. The most part of her professional life she worked at the Institute of History of the Ac. of Sc. of the U.S.S.R.
The book gives a survey of the Roman religion as a part of political history, thus, it is divided into the corresponding chapters: ‘The first years of the Republic’, ‘The Principate of Augustus’, ‘The crisis of the third century’, etc., not according the religious phenomena or priests collegia, feasts and so on. The author set the task to formulate the peculiarities of each period in the evolution of the Roman religion on the base of literary and other types of sources. It is a thorough description of religion of the Ancient Rome, which is still actual.