The Imperial Cult

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The Imperial Cult

• Between God and Man

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Reconstruction of Altar of Augustus, Miletus
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The Emperor as Priest
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Temple to Rome Augustus, 2 BCE- 14 CE
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Sacrifice before Imperial Temple, Ephesus
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What was at stake for emperors, governors and
members of civic elites was the whole web of
social, political and hierarchical assumptions
that bound imperial society together. Sacrifices
and other religious rituals were concerned with
defining and establishing relationships of power.
Not to place oneself within the set of
relationships between emperor, gods, elite and
people was effectively to place oneself outside
that mainstream of the whole world and the shared
Roman understanding of humanitys place within
that world.Beard, North, and Price, Religions
of Rome
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Hellenistic Greek Precedents

• Alexander the Great and Zeus Ammon
• Hellenistic Monarchs and the Designation Soter
• Hellenistic Royal Coinage
• Herakles
• Dionysus

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More Mixed Signals

• Augustus Self-Image

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Augustus as Republican Magistrate

• Commission to the Second Triumvirate
  (9/27/43-1/1/32 BCE)
• Restoration of the Republic
• Consul from 31-23 BCE
• From 23 BCE
• Tribunicia potestas (tribunician power)
• Imperium maius consulare (power greater than a
  proconsuls)
• The Negative Example of Julius Caesar

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Though the Roman Senate and people by
unanimous consensus agreed that I should be
elected sole guardian of the laws and morals with
supreme authority, I refused to accept any office
offered me which was contrary to the traditions
of our ancestors.Augustus, Res Gestae, 6
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More Mixed Signals

• Augustus Self-Image

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The Precedent of Julius Caesar

• Divus (a god)
• Augustus as divi filius (son of a god) in 27
  BCE
• Temple to Divus Julius (the Divine Julius) in
  29 BCE
• Temple to Mars Ultor (Mars the Avenger) in 2
  BCE
• Temple of Janus closed in 29 BCE
• Title Augustus in 27 BCE

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Augustus and the Power of Images

• Temple to Palatine Apollo (28 BCE), adjacent to
  Augustus house
• Mausoleum of Augustus (28 BCE)
• Arch of Augustus (19 BCE)
• Ludi Saeculares (Centennial Games)
• May 30-June 3, 17 BCE Horace and Carmen
  Saeculare
• Pontifex Maximus (12 BCE) Solarium Augusti and
  Dedication of Ara Pacis (Temple of Peace)
  foundation July 4, 13 dedication January 30, 9
  BCE
• Augustan Literature Vergil, Horace, Propertius,
  Livy

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Ruins of Augustus Mausoleum
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Reconstruction of Mausoleum
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Solarium Augusti
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Egyptian Obelisk, Rome
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Ara Pacis
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Augustus and PietasI repaired eighty-two
temples of the gods in the city, in accordance
with a resolution of the Senate, neglecting none
which at that time required repair.When I was
victorious I replaced in the temples of all the
communities of the province of Asia the ornaments
which my opponent in the war had seized for his
private use after despoiling the
temples.Augustus, Res Gestae, 19 and 24
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Emperor Worship the Imperial Cult

• Temples to Rome and Augustus
• Eastern Provinces from 29 BCE
• Western Provinces from 12 BCE
• Augustales freedmen who served as ministers of
  the imperial cult
• Rome and Italy vicimagistri, compitalicii, and
  the genius Augusti

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Imperial Priest from Aphrodisias
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Motivations for the Imperial Cult

• Natural Development from Hellenistic East or
  Conscious Imperial Plan?

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Imperial Temple, Side
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Altar to Augustus, After 14 CE
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The culthelped to ensure that the energies of
the subjects of Rome were not directed towards
subversive activities. It was a force for order
rather than disorder, and consolidated the social
and political hierarchies from which it
arose.S.R.F. Price, Rituals and Power
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The Augustan Image

• A Selection of Evidence

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All four swear by Caesar, god, son of
god.Oxyrhynchus Papyrus from Egypt, 12.1453
(30/29 BCE)
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Here is Caesar and the whole progeny of Iulus,
destined to come under the great vault of the
sky. This, this is he, the man you have heard
promised to you so often, Augustus Caesar, son of
a god, who will once again establish the Golden
Age in Latium, in the region once ruled by
Saturn.Vergil, Aeneid 6.789-794 (20s BCE)
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It was decreed by the Greeks in the province of
Asia.Whereas the providence which divinely
ordered our lives created with zeal and
munificence the most perfect good for our lives
by producing Augustus and filling him with virtue
for the benefaction of mankind, blessing us and
those after us with a savior who put an end to
war and established peace and whereas Caesar
when he appeared exceeded the hopes of all who
had anticipated good tidings, not only surpassing
the benefactors born before him but not even
leaving those to come any hope of surpassing him
and whereas the birthday of the god marked for
the world the beginnings of good tidings through
his coming.Paullus Fabius Maximus, proconsul of
the provincesuggested for the honor of Augustus
a thing up until now unknown by the Greeks,
namely, beginning their calendar year with the
gods birthday.OGIS 458 (9 BCE)
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In the consulship of Titus Statilius Taurus and
Lucius Cassius Longinus, September 22. Vow taken
to the divine spirit of Augustus by the populace
of Narbonensis in perpetuityMay it be good,
favorable, and auspicious to the Emperor Caesar
Augustus, son of a god, father of his country,
pontifex maximus, holding the tribunician power
for the 34th year, to his wife, children, and
house to the Roman Senate and people and to the
colonists and residents of the Colonia Iulia
Paterna of Narbo Martius, who have bound
themselves to worship his divine spirit
forever!CIL 12.4.333
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Augustus Legacy God-Men

• Divinity of Later Emperors

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CLAUDIUS
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Nero crowned By a divinity With features Of
Agrippina. Aphrodisias
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Emperor Hadrian as God, Pergamum