<P> The devotio was the most extreme offering a Roman general could make, promising to offer his own life in battle along with the enemy as an offering to the underworld gods . Livy offers a detailed account of the devotio carried out by Decius Mus; family tradition maintained that his son and grandson, all bearing the same name, also devoted themselves . Before the battle, Decius is granted a prescient dream that reveals his fate . When he offers sacrifice, the victim's liver appears "damaged where it refers to his own fortunes". Otherwise, the haruspex tells him, the sacrifice is entirely acceptable to the gods . In a prayer recorded by Livy, Decius commits himself and the enemy to the dii Manes and Tellus, charges alone and headlong into the enemy ranks, and is killed; his action cleanses the sacrificial offering . Had he failed to die, his sacrificial offering would have been tainted and therefore void, with possibly disastrous consequences . The act of devotio is a link between military ethics and those of the Roman gladiator . </P> <P> The efforts of military commanders to channel the divine will were on occasion less successful . In the early days of Rome's war against Carthage, the commander Publius Claudius Pulcher (consul 249 BC) launched a sea campaign "though the sacred chickens would not eat when he took the auspices ." In defiance of the omen, he threw them into the sea, "saying that they might drink, since they would not eat . He was defeated, and on being bidden by the senate to appoint a dictator, he appointed his messenger Glycias, as if again making a jest of his country's peril ." His impiety not only lost the battle but ruined his career . </P> <Dl> <Dd> See also Women in ancient Rome: Religious life </Dd> </Dl> <Dd> See also Women in ancient Rome: Religious life </Dd>

What was the name of the religion of ancient rome