THIRD TO FIRST CENTURIES BCE

Religious iconography permeated daily life in later centuries, through mythological or cultic scenes on ladies’ mirrors and citizens’ votive offerings. By the third century, a broader group, including freedmen, expressed thanks to the gods for such personal goals as healing and the birth of children. They donated terracotta models of infants or human organs, objects of little intrinsic value but illustrative of a new outlook on the process of personal worship and public vows.