Salvete,
In "Les bas-fonds de l'antiquité" ("The slums of antiquity") Catherine Salles, professor at the university of Paris, writes :
"It is a long time ago already (in Nero's age - Atticus) that the educated nobility, the Roman intellectual, believed anything about the many gods of the pantheon. Out of political considerations however, the Romans conscientiously continued to execute their sacred ceremonies, ritual purifications, offerings and other religieus manifestations..." (ch. II.12, my translation)..."
I'm curious whether atheism and scepticism were indeed as widespread in Nero's days as Salles proclaims and, if so, whether it was only among the educated elite or among the commoners as well.
I myself tend to think (although I don't have any tangible sources to prove my point) that the religious reality of the early empire was not as unambiguous as Salles describes it : while many senators and equites must've openly or secretly mocked the old religion, I also think "old-fashioned", traditionalist nobles still worshipped the gods sincerely, perhaps even more sincerely than ever, as a sort of reaction against a more or less general disbelief and (what they saw as) moral degradation.
I think this 'mixed' situation also existed among the common people : while many of them must've lived for no more than "panem et circenses", as Juvenal describes it, I also think that, certainly among the plebs rustica (the country folk) but also in the cities, old religous customs and superstitions persisted until the end of the pagan world.
Any opinions on this ?
Valete,
Q. Pomponius Atticus