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{{Short description|Identification of emperors with divine authority}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2024}}{{Use Oxford spelling|date = January 2025}}

{{Ancient Roman religion}}
The '''Roman [[imperial cult]]''' ({{langx|la|cultus imperatorius}}) identified [[Roman emperor|emperors]] and some members of their families with the [[Divine right of kings|divinely sanctioned]] authority (''[[auctoritas]]'') of the [[Roman State]]. Its framework was based on Roman and Greek precedents, and was formulated during the early [[Principate]] of [[Augustus]]. It was rapidly established throughout the [[Roman Empire|Empire]] and its [[Roman province|provinces]], with marked local variations in its reception and expression.

Augustus's reforms transformed Rome's [[Roman Republic|Republican]] system of government to a ''de facto'' monarchy, couched in [[mos maiorum|traditional Roman practices]] and Republican values. The ''[[princeps]]'' (emperor) was expected to balance the interests of the [[Military of ancient Rome|Roman military]], [[SPQR|Senate and people]], and to maintain peace, security and prosperity throughout an ethnically diverse empire. The official offer of ''[[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#cultus|cultus]]'' to a living emperor acknowledged his office and rule as divinely approved and constitutional: his Principate should therefore demonstrate [[pietas|pious respect]] for traditional Republican deities and [[mos maiorum|mores]].

A deceased emperor held worthy of the honor could be voted a state divinity (''[[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#divus|divus]]'', plural ''divi'') by the [[Senate of the Roman Empire|Senate]] and elevated as such in an act of [[apotheosis]]. The granting of apotheosis served religious, political and moral judgment on Imperial rulers and allowed living emperors to associate themselves with a well-regarded lineage of Imperial ''divi'' from which unpopular or unworthy predecessors were excluded. This proved a useful instrument to [[Vespasian]] in his establishment of the [[Flavian dynasty|Flavian Imperial Dynasty]] following the death of [[Nero]] and civil war, and to [[Septimius Severus|Septimius]] in his consolidation of the [[Severan]] dynasty after the assassination of [[Commodus]].

The imperial cult was inseparable from that of Rome's official deities, whose cult was essential to Rome's survival and whose neglect was therefore treasonous. Traditional cult was a focus of Imperial revivalist legislation under [[Decius]] and [[Diocletian]]. It therefore became a focus of theological and political debate during the ascendancy of Christianity under [[Constantine I]]. The emperor [[Julian the Apostate|Julian]] failed to reverse the declining support for Rome's official religious practices: [[Theodosius I]] adopted Christianity as Rome's state religion. Rome's traditional gods and imperial cult were officially abandoned.

==Background==

===Roman===
[[File:Mars Venus Louvre Ma1009.jpg|thumb|Venus and Mars sculpture group reworked to portray an Imperial couple (created 120–140 AD, reworked 170–175)]]

For five centuries, the [[Roman Republic]] (509–27 BC) did not give worship to any historic figure, or any living man, although surrounded by divine and semi-divine monarchies. Rome's legendary kings had been its masters; with their removal, Republican Romans could identify [[Romulus]], the founder of the city, with the god [[Quirinus]] and still retain Republican liberty. Similarly, Rome's ancestor-hero [[Aeneas]] was worshipped as [[Jupiter Indiges]].<ref>It is unclear whether the worship of Aeneas as Jupiter Indiges was an official (and thus, state sponsored) cult.</ref> The Romans worshipped several gods and demi-gods who had been human, and knew the theory that all the gods had originated as human beings, yet Republican traditions ''([[mos maiorum]])'' were staunchly conservative and anti-monarchic. The aristocrats who held almost all Roman magistracies, and thereby occupied almost all of the Senate, acknowledged no human as their inherent superior. No citizen, living or dead, was officially regarded as divine, but the honors<ref>As opposed to offices</ref> awarded by the state—crowns, garlands, statues, thrones, processions—were also suitable to the gods, and tinged with divinity; indeed, when the emperors were later given state worship, it was done by a decree of the Senate, phrased like any other honor.<ref>Gradel, pp. 32–52, as is much of this section.</ref>

Among the highest of honors was the [[Roman triumph|triumph]]. When a general was acclaimed ''[[imperator]]'' by his troops, the Senate would then choose whether to award him a triumph, a parade to the Capitol in which the ''triumphator'' displayed his captives and spoils of war in the company of his troops; by law, all were unarmed. The triumphator rode in a chariot, bearing divine emblems, in a manner supposed to be inherited from the ancient [[kings of Rome]], and ended by dedicating his victory to Jupiter Capitolinus. Some scholars have viewed the triumphator as impersonating or even becoming a king or a god (or both) for the day but the circumstances of triumphal award and subsequent rites also functioned to limit his status. Whatever his personal ambitions, his victory and his triumph alike served the Roman Senate, people, and gods and were recognised only through their consent.<ref>A summary of disparate viewpoints regarding the status of the triumphator (and thus the meaning of the Triumph) can be found in Versnel, 56–93: limited preview via [https://books.google.com/books?id=DswUAAAAIAAJ&dq=%22Within+the+range+of+opinions%22+inauthor%3AVersnel&pg=PA57 Books.Google.com]</ref><ref>Beard, 272-5: the very few accounts of a public slave (or other figure) who stands behind or near the triumphator to remind him that he "is but mortal" or prompts him to "look behind" are open to a variety of interpretations; moreover, they are post-Republican. Nevertheless, they imply a tradition that the triumphator, whatever his kingly appearance, temporary godlike status or divine associations, was publicly reminded of his mortal nature. There is no reason to assume this an innovation of Empire.</ref>

In private life, however, tradition required that some human beings be treated as more or less divine; cult was due from familial inferiors to their superiors. Every [[Pater familias|head of household]] embodied the ''[[genius (mythology)|genius]]'' – the generative principle and guardian spirit – of his ancestors, which others might worship and by which his family and slaves took oaths;<ref>Taylor, p.67</ref> his wife had a [[Juno (mythology)|juno]]. A [[Patronage in ancient Rome|client]] could call his patron "Jupiter on earth".<ref>Gradel, p.46, citing Plautus – this is Plautus' addition to the Greek originals; Gradel also suggests that the ''[[corona civica]]'' began as an acknowledgement by A.A. that N.N. had saved his life – as a god might – by crowning N.N. with the leaves of Jupiter's tree.</ref> The dead, collectively and individually, were gods of the underworld or afterlife (''[[Manes]]''). A letter has survived from [[Cornelia Africana|Cornelia]], the mother of the [[Gracchi]], expecting that when she was dead, her sons would venerate her as ''[[parentalia|deus parens]]'', a parental (or a nurturing) divinity; such piety was expected from any dutiful son.<ref name="Taylor, p. 55">Taylor, p. 55</ref>

A prominent clan might claim divine influence and quasi-divine honors for its leader. [[Death mask]]s (''[[Roman funerals and burial#Imagines ("images")|imagines]]'') were made for all notable Romans and were displayed in the ''[[atrium (architecture)|atria]]'' of their houses; they were used to represent their ghostly presence at family funerals. The mask of [[Scipio Africanus]], Cornelia's father and victor over [[Hannibal]], was stored in the temple of Jupiter; his epitaph (by [[Ennius]]) said that he had ascended to Heaven.<ref name="Taylor, p. 55"/> A tradition arose in the centuries after his death that Africanus had been inspired by prophetic dreams, and was himself the son of Jupiter.<ref>Walbank, 120-37. [https://books.google.com/books?id=ZCA9AAAAIAAJ&dq=Scipio+Africanus+Jupiter&pg=PA120 Books.Google.co.uk], Convenience link</ref>

There are several cases of unofficial cult directed at men viewed as saviors, military or political. In [[Further Spain]] in the 70s BC, loyalist Romans greeted the proconsul [[Metellus Pius]] as a savior, burning incense "as if to a god" for his efforts to quash the [[Lusitania]]n rebellion led by the Roman [[Sertorius]], a member of the faction which called itself "men of the People" (''[[populares]]''). This celebration, in Spain, featured a lavish banquet with local and imported delicacies, and a mechanical statue of [[Victoria (goddess)|Victory]] to crown Metellus, who wore (extralegally) a triumphator's ''toga picta'' for the occasion. These festivities were organized by the [[quaestor]]<ref>most likely an [[aide-de-camp]] of Metellus, and not a provincial official.</ref> Gaius Urbinus, but were not acts of the state. Metellus liked all this, but his older and pious (''veteres et sanctos'') contemporaries thought it arrogant and intolerable.<ref>Taylor, p.48; she cites [[Macrobius]], ''Saturnalia'', 3.13.9, which is largely an otherwise unknown quotation from [[Sallust]]; ''quasi deo supplicabatur'' is from Sallust. The year is uncertain, possibly 77 BC, after a battle at Saguntum.</ref><ref>This incident is also mentioned by [[Valerius Maximus]], ''Facta et dicta memorabilia'' 9.1.5</ref> After the land reformers [[Tiberius Gracchus|Tiberius]] and [[Gaius Gracchus]] were both murdered by their opponents, their supporters "fell down" and offered daily sacrifice at the statues of the Gracchi "as though they were visiting the shrines of the gods".<ref>Vout, 119: citing Plutarch, Gaius Gracchus, 10, 18.2. Loeb edition available at Thayer: [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Caius_Gracchus*.html Penelope.Uchicago.edu]</ref> After [[Gaius Marius]] defeated the [[Teutones]], private citizens would offer food and drink to him alongside their household gods; he was called the third founder of Rome after Romulus and [[Marcus Furius Camillus|Camillus]].<ref>Taylor, p.48, citing Plutarch's ''Marius'', 27</ref> In 86 BC, offerings of incense and wine were made at [[Compitalia|crossroad shrines]] to statues of the still-living [[Marcus Marius Gratidianus|Marius Gratidianus]], the nephew of the elder Marius, who was wildly popular in his own right, in large part for monetary reforms that eased an economic crisis in Rome during his [[praetor]]ship.<ref>Gradel, 51, citing Cicero, ''De officiis'', 3.80: [http://www.stoics.com/cicero_book.html#Gyges3 Stoics.com] (accessed 2 August 2009).</ref>

===Greek===
[[File:Roman - Pendant with Portrait of Alexander the Great - Walters 57526.jpg|thumb|left|[[Repoussé and chasing|Repoussé]] pendant of Alexander the Great, horned and diademed like [[Zeus Ammon]]; images of Alexander were worn as magic charms (4th-century Roman).]]
When the Romans began to dominate large parts of the Greek world, Rome's senior representatives there were given the same divine honours as were [[Hellenistic]] rulers. This was a well-established method for Greek [[polis|city-states]] to declare their allegiance to an outside power; such a cult committed the city to obey and respect the king as they obeyed and respected [[Apollo]] or any of the other gods.

The cities of [[Ionia]] worshipped the [[Sparta]]n general [[Lysander]], when he personally dominated Greece, immediately following the [[Peloponnesian War]]; according to [[Plutarch]], this was the first instance of [[ruler cult]] in Greek history. There were similar instances of divine cult to humans in the same century, although some rulers, like [[Agesilaus]], declined it.<ref>When the messengers of [[Thasos]] announced to him that the city had declared him a god, he told them that if they could make men into gods, they should make ''themselves'' into gods; he would then believe that they could make him into one. Taylor, p. 12, citing Plutarch, ''Moralia'', 210d.</ref> [[Clearchus of Heraclea|Clearchus, tyrant of Heraclea]], dressed up like [[Zeus]] and claimed godhood; this did not stop the Heracleots from assassinating him. [[Isocrates]] said of [[Philip II of Macedon]] that after he conquered the [[Persian Empire]], there would be nothing for him to attain but to become a god; the city of [[Amphipolis]], and a private society at Athens, worshipped him even without this conquest; he himself set out his statue, dressed as a god, as the thirteenth of the [[Twelve Olympians]].<ref>Taylor, pp. 12–13</ref>

But it was Philip's son [[Alexander the Great]] who made the divinity of kings standard practice among the Greeks. The Egyptians accepted him as [[Pharaoh]], and therefore divine, after he drove the Persians out of Egypt; other nations received him as their traditional divine or quasi-divine ruler as he acquired them. In 324 BC, he sent word to the Greek cities that they should also make him a god; they did so, with marked indifference,<ref>The Spartan decree was "Since Alexander wishes to be a god, let him be a god"; at Athens, [[Demades]] argued against provoking Alexander over this: don't protect Heaven and lose the earth; [[Demosthenes]] said "Let him be the son of Zeus – and Poseidon too, if he likes."</ref> which did not stop them from [[Lamian War|rebelling]] when they heard of his death next year.

His immediate successors, the [[Diadochi]], offered sacrifices to Alexander, and made themselves gods even before they claimed to be kings; they put their own portraits on the coinage, whereas the Greeks had always reserved this for a god or for an emblem of the city. When the Athenians allied with [[Demetrius Poliorcetes]], eighteen years after the deification of Alexander, they lodged him in the [[Parthenon]] with [[Athena]], and sang a hymn extolling him as a present god who heard them, as the other gods did not.<ref>[[Athenaeus]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=A0_lgVLT0lsC&q=Demetrius&pg=RA1-PA398 6.63 Books.Google.com]</ref>

[[Euhemerus]], a contemporary of Alexander, wrote a fictitious history of the world, which showed Zeus and the other established gods of Greece as mortal men, who had [[Euhemerism|made themselves into gods]] in the same way; [[Ennius]] appears to have translated this into Latin some two centuries later, in [[Scipio Africanus]]' time.

The [[Ptolemaic dynasty|Ptolemies]] of Egypt and the [[Seleucid Empire|Seleucids]] claimed godhood as long as they lasted; they may have been influenced in this by the Persian and Egyptian traditions of divine kings – although the Ptolemies had separate cults in [[Ancient Egyptian religion|Egyptian polytheism]], as Pharaoh, and in the Greek. Not all Greek dynasties made the same claims; the descendants of Demetrius, who were kings of [[Macedon]] and dominated the mainland of Greece, did not claim godhead or worship Alexander (cf. [[Ptolemaic cult of Alexander the Great]]).

===Romans among the Greeks===
The Roman magistrates who conquered the Greek world were fitted into this tradition; games were set up in honor of [[Marcus Claudius Marcellus]], when he conquered Sicily at the end of the [[Second Punic War]], as the Olympian games were for Zeus; they were kept up for a century and a half until [[Verres|another Roman governor]] abolished them, to make way for his own honors. When [[Titus Quinctius Flamininus]] extended Roman influence to Greece proper, temples were built for him and cities placed his portrait on their coinage; he called himself godlike (''isotheos'') in an inscription at [[Delphi]] – but not in Latin, or at Rome. The Greeks also devised a goddess [[Roma (mythology)|Roma]], who was worshipped with Flamininus (their joint cult is attested in 195 BC); she would become a symbol of idealised ''[[romanitas]]'' in the later Roman provinces, and a continuing link, whereas a Marcellus or Flamininus might only hold power for a couple years.<!--consulate and proconsulate together-->

When King [[Prusias I of Bithynia]] was granted an interview by the Roman Senate, he prostrated himself and addressed them as "Saviour Gods", which would have been etiquette at his own court; [[Livy]] was shocked by [[Polybius]]' account of this, and insists that there is no Roman source it ever happened.<ref>Taylor, pp. 40–41, citing Polybius 30.16, Livy, 45.44; also, as a parallel case, [[Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum|CIL]] VI 374, from the [[Laodicea (Arcadia)|Laodicea]]ns to the Roman people.</ref>

Worship and temples appear to have been routinely offered by Greeks to their Roman governors, with varied reactions. [[Cicero]] declined a temple proposed by the city officials of [[Roman Asia]] to [[Quintus Cicero|his brother]] and himself, while the latter was proconsul, to avoid jealousy from other Romans; when Cicero himself was Governor of [[Cilicia (Roman province)|Cilicia]], he claimed to have accepted no statues, shrines, or chariots. His predecessor, [[Appius Claudius Pulcher (consul 54 BC)|Appius Claudius Pulcher]], was so pleased, however, when the Cilicians built a temple to him that, when it was not finished at the end of Claudius' year in office, Claudius wrote Cicero to make sure it was done, and complaining that Cicero was not active enough in the matter.<ref>In general, see Price, 48; Fishwick, Vol 1, 1, 6–20; for details, Taylor, Chapter 2 and 3, ''passim''. Attested statuary of Roman magistrates in Rome may well have been largely commissioned by Greek allies, unaware of the potential for controversy aroused by public display of "Hellenised" images of the Roman military aristocracy. See Christopher Hallett, ''The Roman Nude'', Oxford University Press, 2005. (limited preview available) [https://books.google.com/books?id=-CZ4n3HOeAIC&dq=Flamininus&pg=PA150 Books.Google.co.uk], citing descriptions in Plutarch, ''Lives'', Flamininus, & Cicero, ''Rabiurus Postumus,'' 10.26</ref>

===Intermediate forms===
The Romans and the Greeks gave religious reverence to and for human beings in ways that did not make the recipients gods; these made the first Greek [[Apotheosis|apotheoses]] easier. Similar middle forms appeared as [[Augustus]] approached official divinity.

[[Image:Sagalassos - Heroon.jpg|thumb|Ruins of a hero-shrine or [[heroön]] at [[Sagalassos]], Turkey]]
The Greeks did not consider the dead to be gods, but they did pay them homage and gave them sacrifices, using different rituals than those for the gods of Olympus. The Greeks called the extraordinary dead – founders of cities and the like – [[hero]]es; in the simplest form, [[Greek hero cult]] was the burial and the memorials which any respectable Greek family gave their dead, but paid for by their City in perpetuity.<ref>Taylor, p. 8</ref> Most heroes were the figures of ancient legend, but some were historical: the Athenians revered [[Harmodius and Aristogeiton]] as heroes, as saviours of Athens from tyranny; also, collectively, those who fell at the [[Battle of Marathon]].  Statesmen did not generally become heroes, but [[Sophocles]] was the hero Dexion ("the Receiver") – not as a playwright, nor a general, but because when the Athenians took [[Asclepius]]' cult during the Peloponnesian War, Sophocles housed an image of Asclepius until a shrine could be built.  The Athenian leader [[Hagnon, son of Nikias|Hagnon]] founded [[Amphipolis]] shortly before the Peloponnesian War; thirteen years later, while Hagnon was still alive, the Spartan general [[Brasidas]] liberated it from the Athenian Empire, and was fatally wounded in the process. The Amphipolitans buried him as a hero, declaring him the second founder of the city, and [[damnatio memoriae|erased]] Hagnon's honors as much as they could.

The Greeks also honored founders of cities while they were still alive, like Hagnon. This could also be extended to men who did equally important things; during the period when [[Dion of Syracuse|Dion]] ruled in [[Syracuse, Sicily|Syracuse]], the Syracusans gave him "heroic honors" for suppressing the tyrants, and repeated this for [[Timoleon]]; these could also be described as worshipping his good spirit (''agathos daimon'', [[agathodaemon]]; every Greek had an agathodaemon, and the Greek equivalent of a toast was offered to one's agathodaemon).<ref>Taylor, Appendix II, citing [[Athenaeus]], Book 10, ''passim''.</ref> Timoleon was called ''savior''; he set up a shrine to Fortune (''Automatia'') in his house; and his birthday, the festival of his ''daimon'', became a public holiday.<ref>Taylor, pp. 9–10, citing [[Diodorus]], 16.20; [[Cornelius Nepos]], ''Timoleon'' 5, [[Plutarch]], ''Moralia'' 542 E, ''Dion'' 46 and ''Timoleon'' 36,39; Timoleon is the first Greek whose birthday is recorded.</ref>

Other men might claim divine favor by having a patron among the gods; so [[Alcibiades]] may have had both [[Eros]] and [[Cybele]] as patrons;<ref>Mark H. Munn,  ''The School of History: Athens in the Age of Socrates'', pp. 11,172</ref> and Clearchus of Heraclea claimed to be "son of Zeus". Alexander claimed the patronage of Dionysus and other gods and heroes;<ref>Chiefly Zeus, as identified with Ammon, and his ancestors [[Achilles]] and [[Hercules]].</ref> he held a banquet at [[Bactra]] which combined the toast to his ''agathos daimon'' and [[libation]]s to Dionysus, who was present within Alexander (and therefore the celebrants saluted Alexander rather than the hearth and altar, as they would have done for a toast).<ref>Taylor, Appendix 2; this was the ritual in which [[Callisthenes]] declined to take part, one of the offenses for which Alexander killed him.</ref>

It was not always easy to distinguish between heroic honors, veneration for a man's good spirit, worship of his patron deity, worship of the Fortune of a city he founded, and worship of the man himself. One might slide into another: In Egypt, there was a cult of Alexander as god and as founder of Alexandria; [[Ptolemy I Soter]] had a separate cult as founder of [[Ptolemais Hermiou|Ptolemais]], which presumably worshipped his ''daimon'' and then gave him heroic honors, but in [[Ptolemy II Philadelphus|his son's reign]], the priests of Alexander also worshipped Ptolemy and [[Berenice I of Egypt|Berenice]] as the Savior Gods (''theoi soteres'').<ref>Taylor, 31-2. A papyrus survives which has a man swearing by the ''daimones'' of Ptolemy II and his queen.</ref>

Finally, a man might, like Philip II, assume some prerogatives of godhood and not others. The first [[Attalid]] kings of [[Pergamum]], were not gods, and supported a cult of Dionysus Cathegemon, as their ancestor; they put the picture of [[Philetaerus]], the first prince, on the coins, rather than their own. Eventually, like the Seleucids, they acquired an eponymous priest, and put themselves on the coinage; but they still were not called gods before their deaths. Pergamum was usually allied with Rome, and this may have influenced the eventual Roman practice.<ref>Taylor, p. 33</ref>

==End of the Republic==
In the last decades of the Roman Republic, its leaders regularly assumed extra-constitutional powers. The ''mos majorum'' had required that magistrates hold office collectively, and for short periods; there were two [[consul (Roman)|consul]]s; even [[colonies in antiquity|colonies]] were founded by boards of three men;<ref>Taylor, p. 57</ref> but these new leaders held power by themselves, and often for years.

The same men were often given extraordinary honors. Triumphs grew ever more splendid; [[Gaius Marius|Marius]] and [[Sulla]], the rival leaders in Rome's first civil war, each founded cities, which they named after themselves; Sulla had annual games in his honor, at Rome itself, bearing his name; the unofficial worship of Marius is above. In the next generation, [[Pompey]] was allowed to wear his triumphal ornaments whenever he went to the [[Circus (building)|Games at the Circus]].<ref>Taylor, p.57, citing Cicero, ''To Atticus'', 1.18.6; [[Velleius Paterculus]], 2.40.4. He only exercised the privilege once, and was attacked for it.</ref> Such men also claimed a special relationship to the gods: Sulla's patron was Venus Felix, and at the height of his power, he added Felix to his own name; his opponent Marius believed he had a destiny, and that no ordinary man might kill him. Pompey also claimed Venus' personal favour, and built her a [[Theatre of Pompey#Temples|temple]]. But the first Roman to become a god, as part of aiming at monarchy, was [[Julius Caesar]].

===Divus Julius===
Caesar could claim personal ties to the gods, both by descent and by office. He was from the ''[[Julia (gens)|gens Julia]]'', whose members claimed to be "descended from [[Aeneas]] and his mother [[Venus (mythology)|Venus]]". In his eulogy for his aunt [[Julia (wife of Marius)|Julia]], Caesar also indirectly claimed to be descended from [[Ancus Marcius]] and the kings of Rome, and so from [[Mars (mythology)|Mars]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-0EtPxT_z4gC&q=caesar+Ancus+Marcius&pg=PA4|title=The Caesars|last1=Suetonius|last2=Hurley|first2=Donna W.|year=2011 |publisher=Hackett Publishing|isbn=978-1603846134|pages=4|language=en}}</ref> Moreover, when he was a teenager, Marius had named him ''[[flamen Dialis]]'', the special priest of [[Jupiter (mythology)|Jupiter]]. Sulla had cancelled this appointment; however, relatively early in his career, Caesar had become ''[[pontifex maximus]]'', the chief priest of Rome, who fulfilled most of the religious duties of the ancient kings.<ref>Taylor, 58–60</ref> He had spent his twenties in the divine monarchies of the eastern Mediterranean, and was intimately familiar with [[Bithynia]].<ref>And [[Nicomedes IV of Bithynia]] was intimately familiar with Caesar, or so rumor sang about the streets of Rome. [[Suetonius]], ''Divus Julius'' 49</ref> Caesar made use of these connections in his rise to power, but not more than his rivals would have, or more than his other advantages. When he [[Laudatio Iuliae amitae|spoke at the funeral]] of his aunt [[Julia (wife of Marius)|Julia]] in 69 BC, Julius Caesar spoke of her descent from the Roman kings, and implied his own; but he also reminded his audience she had been Marius' wife, and (by implication) that he was one of the few surviving Marians.

When, however, he defeated his rivals in 45 BC and assumed full personal control of the Roman state, he asserted more. During the [[Caesar's Civil War|Roman Civil War]], since 49 BC, he had returned to the Eastern Mediterranean, where he had been called god and savior, and been familiar with the Ptolemaic Egyptian monarchy of [[Cleopatra]], called ''Cleopatra Thea'' because of the weight she placed on her own divinity. Also, he had a new Senate to deal with. Most of the more resolute defenders of the Senate had joined with Pompey, and – one way or another – they were not sitting in the Senate. Caesar had replaced them with his own partisans, few of whom were committed to the old Roman methods; some of them were not even from Italy. It was rumoured that Caesar intended a despotic removal of power and wealth from Rome eastwards, perhaps to Alexandria or [[Troy|Ilium]] (Troy).<ref>Isaac, B., (2006), "The invention of racism in Classical antiquity", Princeton University Press, p. 304 [https://books.google.com/books?id=jfylyRawl8EC&dq=Rajak+roman+charter&pg=PA447 Books.Google.co.uk],</ref>

During the Civil War, he had declared Venus his patron goddess: he vowed to erect a temple for Venus Victrix if she granted him the [[battle of Pharsalia]], but he had built it, in 46 BC, to [[Temple of Venus Genetrix|Venus Genetrix]], which epithet combined her aspects as his ancestress, the mother of the Roman people, and the goddess invoked in the philosophical poem ''[[De rerum natura]]''. The new Senate had also put up a statue of Caesar, with an inscription declaring him a demi-god, but he had it effaced, as not the claim he wished to make.<ref>This statue showed him standing on the globe: the dedication is offered by Cassius Dio in Greek: ''hēmitheos'' ([[demigod]]), Dio 43.14.6 & 21.2. This may be Dio's late, anachronistic and approximate equivalent of ''divus''. Gradel, 61–69 reconstructs the original Latin inscription as ''Senatus populusque Romanus Divo Caesaris'' but Taylor suggests Dio's form as an accurate rendition, with no strict Latin equivalent.</ref> Granted the same extension of rights to triumphal dress as Pompey had been given, Caesar took to wearing his triumphal head-wreath "wherever and whenever", excusing this as a cover for his baldness. He may also have publicly worn the red boots and the ''[[toga picta]]'' ("painted", purple toga) usually reserved to a triumphing general for the day of his triumph; a costume also associated with the ''[[rex sacrorum]]'' (the priestly "king of the sacred rites" of Rome's monarchic era, later the ''pontifex maximus''), the ''Monte Albano'' kings, and possibly the statue of ''[[Jupiter Capitolinus]]''.

[[File:Julius Caesar & C. Cossutius Maridianus, denarius, 44 BC, RRC 480-19.jpg|thumb|right|Denarius of C. Cossutius Maridianus, 44 BC, with the head of [[Julius Caesar]] on the obverse. The legend mentions PARENS PATRIAE]]
When the news of his final victory, at the [[battle of Munda]], reached Rome, the [[Parilia]], the games commemorating the founding of the city, were to be held the next day; they were rededicated to Caesar, as if he were founder. Statues were set up to "[[Libertas|Caesar's Liberty]]", and to Caesar himself, as "unconquered god."<ref>Taylor, p.65; this was in the temple of [[Quirinus]].</ref> He was accorded a house at public expense which was built like a temple; his image was paraded with those of the gods;<ref>For instance, at the ''[[pompa circensis]]'', the procession held before games presented at the [[Circus (building)|circus]].</ref> his portrait was put on the coins (the first time a living man had appeared on Roman coinage). Early in 44 BC, he was called ''[[parens patriae]]'' (father of the country);<ref>An honorific also granted Cicero during his consulship and comparable to Romulus' title as ''parens urbis Romanae'' (parent of the Roman city)</ref> legal oaths were taken by his Genius; his birthday was made a public festival; the month Quinctilis was renamed July, in his honor (as June was named for [[Juno (mythology)|Juno]]). At last a special priest, a [[flamen]], was ordained for him; the first was to be [[Mark Antony]], Caesar's adjutant, then consul. To be served by a flamen would rank Caesar not only as divine, but as an equal of Quirinus, Jupiter, and Mars. In [[Cicero]]'s hostile account, the living Caesar's honours in Rome were already and unambiguously those of a full-blown god (''deus'').<ref>Price, in Cannadine and Price, 71, 85: in particular Cicero's speech to the Senate some months after Caesar's death: "...couch, image, pediment, priest" refer to Caesar's divine honours while living. Cicero, ''Philippic'' ii.110.</ref>

[[File:S0484.4.jpg|thumb|left|A [[denarius]] minted circa 18 BC. Obverse: CAESAR AVGVSTVS; Reverse: DIVVS IVLIV(S), with [[Caesar's Comet|comet]] of eight rays, tail upward]]
Caesar's name as a living divinity – not as yet ratified by senatorial vote – was ''Divus Julius'' (or perhaps ''Jupiter Julius''); ''divus'', at that time, was a slightly archaic form of ''deus'', suitable for poetry, implying some association with the bright heavens. A statue of him was erected next to the statues of Rome's ancient kings: with this, he seemed set to make himself King of Rome, in the Hellenistic style, as soon as he came back from the expedition to [[Parthia]] he was planning; but he was betrayed and killed in the Senate on [[Ides of March|15 March 44 BC]].<ref>Multiple references:{{Bulleted list|Dio 43.45.3: Brutus and his party saw Caesar's "kingly" statue as confirmation of despotic intent which justified his assassination.|Stefan Weinstock, ''Divus Julius'', Oxford 1971, 297; Alexander Del Mar, ''The Worship of Augustus Caesar'', 1899, p. 305 sq.|Weinstock, 324 finds the evidence for the living Caesar's aspirations and divine status equivocal in some details, but Fishwick, vol 1, 1, 68–9, argues that acceptance of divine honours while living seems to herald some form of divine monarchy.|[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Perseus:abo:phi,0474,057:8:16:1 Perseus.tufts.edu], Cicero, ''Atticus'' 8.16.1: Latin text at [[Tufts University]]}}</ref>

An angry, grief-stricken crowd gathered in the [[Roman Forum]] to see his corpse and hear [[Mark Antony]]'s funeral oration. Antony appealed to Caesar's divinity and vowed vengeance on his killers. A fervent popular cult to ''divus Julius'' followed. It was forcefully suppressed but the Senate soon succumbed to Caesarian pressure and confirmed Caesar as a ''divus'' of the Roman state. A comet interpreted as Caesar's soul in heaven was named the [[Caesar's Comet|"Julian star"]] (''sidus Iulium'') and in 42 BC, with the "full consent of the Senate and people of Rome", Caesar's young heir, his great-nephew [[Octavian]], held ceremonial apotheosis for his adoptive father.<ref>Fishwick, Vol. 1, 1, 65, 73.</ref> In 40 BC Antony took up his appointment as [[Flamen Divi Iulii|''flamen'' of the ''divus Julius'']]. Provincial cult centres (''caesarea'') to the ''divus'' Julius were founded in Caesarian colonies such as [[Corinth]].<ref name="Fishwick, Vol I, 108">Fishwick, Vol I, 108.</ref> Antony's loyalty to his late patron did not extend to Caesar's heir: but in the last significant act of the long-drawn civil war, on 1 August 31 BC, Octavian defeated Antony at [[Battle of Actium|Actium]].

==Caesar's heir==
[[File:Statue of the Emperor Octavian Augustus as Jupiter 1.jpg|thumb|Augustus as Jove, holding scepter and orb (first half of 1st century AD)<ref>The imperial cult in Roman Britain-Google docs</ref>]]
In 30–29 BC, the ''[[Koinon|koina]]'' of [[Asia (Roman province)|Asia]] and [[Bithynia]] requested permission to worship Octavian as their "deliverer" or "saviour".<ref>Fishwick, Vol 3, part 1, 3: citing Cassius Dio, 51, 20, 6–7.</ref> This was by no means a novel request but it placed Octavian in a difficult position. He must satisfy popularist and traditionalist expectations and these could be notoriously incompatible. [[Marcus Marius Gratidianus|Marius Gratidianus]]'s popular support and cult had ended in his public and spectacular death in 82 BC, at the hands of his enemies in the Senate; likewise Caesar's murder now marked an [[hubris]]tic connection between living divinity and death.<ref name="Fishwick, Vol I, 108"/> Octavian had to respect the overtures of his Eastern allies, acknowledge the nature and intent of Hellenic honours and formalise his own pre-eminence among any possible rivals: he must also avoid a potentially fatal identification in Rome as a monarchic-deistic aspirant. It was decided that cult honours to him could be jointly offered to ''dea Roma'', at cult centres to be built at [[Pergamum]] and [[Nicomedia]]. Provincials who were also Roman citizens were not to worship the living emperor, but might worship ''dea Roma'' and the ''divus Julius'' at precincts in [[Ephesus]] and [[Nicaea]].<ref>Suetonius, ''Lives'', Augustus, 52: Tacitus, Annals, 4, 37.</ref><ref>Fishwick, Vol 1, book 1, 77 & 126–30.</ref><ref>Nevertheless, cult offered to ''divus'' Julius implies loyalty to his adopted son and heir. See Friesen, 21. [https://books.google.com/books?id=en-URyPm66gC&q=imperial+cult Books.Google.co.uk]</ref>

In 29 BC Octavian dedicated the [[Temple of Caesar|temple]] of the ''divus Julius'' at the site of Caesar's cremation. Not only had he dutifully, legally and officially honoured his adoptive father as a ''divus'' of the Roman state.  He "had come into being" through the Julian star and was therefore the ''divi filius'' (son of the divinity).<ref>That is, through the manifest [[numen]] of his adoptive father the ''divus Julius''.</ref> But where Caesar had failed, Octavian had succeeded: he had restored the ''pax deorum'' (lit. peace of the gods) and re-founded Rome through "August augury".<ref>Rosenstein, 57-8.</ref> In 27 BC he was voted – and accepted – the elevated title of ''[[Augustus (honorific)|Augustus]]''.<ref>In Florus' epitome, the name ''Augustus'' signaled Octavian's divine status outright. Apparently, "Romulus" had also been considered and turned down: see Florus, 2, 34, 66 at Thayer's website – [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Florus/Epitome/2I*.html#XXXIIII Penelope.Uchicago.edu] (accessed 27 July 2009). For most of Augustus' contemporaries, however, the name would have been a quite obscure and somewhat modest synonym for ''divinus'' (divine).</ref>

===Religion and ''Imperium'' under Augustus===
Augustus appeared to claim nothing for himself, and innovate nothing: even the cult to the ''divus'' Julius had a respectable antecedent in the traditional cult to ''[[parentalia|di parentes]]''.<ref>Fishwick, vol 1, 1, 51: .</ref> His unique – and still traditional – position within the Senate as ''[[princeps]]'' or ''[[primus inter pares]]'' (first among equals) offered a curb to the ambitions and rivalries that had led to the recent civil wars. As censor and ''pontifex maximus'' he was morally obliged to renew the ''mos maiores'' by the will of the gods and the "Senate and People of Rome" (''[[SPQR|Senatus Populusque Romanus]]''). As [[tribune]] he encouraged generous public spending, and as ''princeps'' of the Senate he discouraged [[Ambitus|ambitious extravagance]]. He disbanded the remnants of the civil war armies to form new legions and a personal imperial guard (the [[Praetorian Guard]]): the patricians who still clung to the upper echelons of political, military and priestly power were gradually replaced from a vast, Empire-wide reserve of ambitious and talented equestrians. For the first time, senatorial status became heritable.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=jJwOAAAAQAAJ&dq=Augustus+just+another+senator&pg=PA131 Books.Google.co.uk], Wiedemann, 131-2: limited preview available at Google Books</ref>

Ordinary citizens could circumvent the complex, hierarchic bureaucracy of the State, and appeal directly to the emperor, as if to a private citizen. The emperor's name and image were ubiquitous – on state coinage and on the streets, within and upon the temples of the gods, and particularly in the courts and offices of the civil and military administration. Oaths were sworn in his name, with his image as witness. His official ''[[Res Gestae Divi Augusti|res gestae]]'' (achievements) included his repair of 82 temples in 28 BC alone, the founding or repair of 14 others in Rome during his lifetime and the overhauling or foundation of civic amenities including a new road, water supplies, Senate house and theatres.<ref>Howgego, in [[Christopher Howgego|Howgego]] ''et al''., 4–6: coinage celebrating state deities conspicuously features the restorer of their temples. ''Ibid'' 53: Imperial themes, including the Imperial family, dominate Roman coin issues from Augustus to Claudius.</ref> Above all, his military pre-eminence had brought an enduring and [[Ara Pacis|sacred peace]], which earned him the permanent title of ''[[imperator]]'' and made the triumph an [[Roman triumph#Imperial era|Imperial privilege]].<ref>See [[Clifford Ando|Ando]], 46 ff, for discussion of Augustan ideology.</ref> He seems to have managed all this within due process of law through a combination of personal brio, cheerfully veiled threats and [[self-deprecation]] as "just another senator".<ref>Beard et al, Vol. 1, 196–7.</ref><ref>Ando, 163, gives 82 temples in the city of Rome: limited preview available at Google Books [https://books.google.com/books?id=BXqIG1NIU2IC&dq=Imperial+cult+decius&pg=RA1-PA209 Books.Google.co.uk]</ref>

In Rome, it was enough that the office, munificence, ''[[auctoritas]]'' and ''[[gens]]'' of Augustus were identified with every possible legal, religious and social institution of the city. Should "foreigners" or private citizens wish to honour him as something more, that was their prerogative, within moderation; his acknowledgment of their loyalty demonstrated his own moral responsibility and generosity; "his" Imperial revenue funded temples, amphitheatres, theatres, baths, festivals and government. This unitary principle laid the foundations for what is now known as "imperial cult", which would be expressed in many different forms and emphases throughout the multicultural Empire.{{citation needed|date=April 2021}}

===Eastern provinces===
[[File:Augustus-in-Kalabsha.jpg|thumb|left|Augustus in Egyptian style, on the temple of Kalabsha in Egyptian [[Nubia]].]]
In the Eastern provinces, cultural precedent ensured a rapid and geographically widespread dissemination of cult, extending as far as the Augustan military settlement at modern-day [[Najran]].<ref>The ''[[caesareum]]'' at Najaran (in what is now south-west Saudi Arabia) was possibly later known as the "Kaaba of Najran": جواد علي, المفصل في تاريخ العرب قبل الإسلام (Jawad Ali, ''Al-Mufassal fi Tarikh Al-'Arab Qabl Al-Islam''; "Commentary on the History of the Arabs Before Islam"), Baghdad, 1955–1983</ref> Considered as a whole, these provinces present the Empire's broadest and most complex syntheses of imperial and native cult, funded through private and public initiatives and ranging from the god-like honours due a living patron to what Harland (2003) interprets as privately funded communal mystery rites.<ref>Harland, 2003, 91–103, finds among these examples a privately funded local, traditional Graeco-Asian civil association offering cult to Demeter and the emperor as a form of mystery cult: ''contra'' Price, 1986, 7–11, who believes that emperors lacked the requisite fully divine status.</ref><ref>See also Harland, 1996.</ref> The Greek cities of [[Asia (Roman province)|Roman Asia]] competed for the privilege of building high-status imperial cult centres ([[neocorate]]s). [[Ephesus]] and [[Sardis]], ancient rivals, had two apiece until the early 3rd century AD, when Ephesus was allowed an additional temple, to the reigning Emperor [[Caracalla]]. When he died, the city lost its brief, celebrated advantage through a religious technicality.<ref>Llewelyn, S.R. (Editor), ''New documents illustrating early Christianity: Volume 9, A Review of the Greek Inscriptions and Papyri Published in 1986–87,'' Macquarie University, 2002, pp.28 – 30. [https://books.google.com/books?id=5_skkE21eTsC&dq=Ephesus+Artemis+Imperial+cult&pg=PA29]</ref>

The Eastern provinces offer some of the clearest material evidence for the imperial ''domus'' and ''familia'' as official models of divine virtue and moral propriety. Centres including Pergamum, [[Lesbos]] and Cyprus offered cult honours to Augustus and the Empress Livia: the Cypriot calendar honoured the entire Augustan ''familia'' by dedicating a month each (and presumably cult practise) to imperial family members, their ancestral deities and some of the major gods of the Romano-Greek pantheon. Coin evidence links ''Thea'' Livia with [[Hera]] and [[Demeter]], and [[Julia the Elder]] with Venus Genetrix ([[Aphrodite]]). In Athens, Livia and Julia shared cult honour with [[Hestia]] (equivalent to [[Vesta (mythology)|Vesta]]), and the name of [[Gaius Caesar|Gaius]] was linked to [[Ares]] (Mars). These Eastern connections were made within Augustus' lifetime – Livia was not officially consecrated in Rome until some time after her death. Eastern imperial cult had a life of its own.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=SBRN6HW8xEIC&dq=Mellor+Thea+Roma&pg=PA114 Books.Google.co.uk], Severy, 114-5. Limited preview available at Google Books</ref> Around 280, in the reign of the emperor [[Probus (emperor)|Probus]] and just before the outbreak of the [[Diocletianic persecution]], part of the [[Luxor Temple]] was converted to an imperial cult chapel.<ref name="madaincultchapel">{{cite web |title=Chapel of Imperial Cult |url=https://madainproject.com/chapel_of_imperial_cult |website=Madain Project |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201108125550/https://madainproject.com/chapel_of_imperial_cult |archive-date=8 November 2020 |access-date=8 November 2020 }}</ref>

===Western provinces===
The Western provinces were only recently "Latinised" following Caesar's [[Gallic Wars]] and most fell outside the Graeco-Roman cultural ambit. There were exceptions: Polybius mentions a past benefactor of [[Cartagena, Spain|New Carthage]] in Republican Iberia "said to have been offered divine honours".<ref>Polybius, The Histories, 10.10.10: written circa 150 BC. The honorand is named as Aletes, who supposedly discovered the silver mines there. One of the hills of the city is named after him. Others are named after Aesculapius, Vulcan and Saturn. English version (Loeb) available from Thayer [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Polybius/10*.html Penelope.Uchicago.edu]</ref> In 74 BC, Roman citizens in Iberia burned incense to [[Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius|Metellus Pius]] as "more than mortal" in hope of his victory against [[Sertorius]].<ref>Taylor, 56: See Macrobius 3.13.6–9 – ''"ultra mortalium morem"''.</ref> Otherwise, the West offered no native traditions of monarchic divinity or political parallels to the Greek ''koina'' to absorb the imperial cult as a romanising agency.<ref>Fishwick, Vol 1, 1, 92–3. In the reign of Tiberius, [[Tarraco]] requested permission for cult to Augustus but this is one of only two known Western provincial initiatives to inaugurate the imperial cult – both were Iberian, and had long-standing ties with Rome. See also Tacitus, Annals, 1.78. [http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/txt/ah/tacitus/TacitusAnnals01.html Posc.mu.edu]</ref> The Western provincial ''concilia'' emerged as direct creations of the imperial cult, which recruited existing local military, political and religious traditions to a Roman model. This required only the willingness of barbarian elites to "Romanise" themselves and their communities.<ref>Fishwick, vol 3, 1, pp7 & 230.</ref>

[[File:10 ARA - Isère - Vienne - Temple Romain de Auguste et de Livie (2012-09-03 12-44-54).jpg|thumb|left|[[Temple of Augustus and Livia]], [[Vienne, Isère|Vienne]] (modern France). Originally dedicated to Augustus and [[Roma (mythology)|Roma]]. Augustus was deified on his death in 14 AD: his widow Livia was deified in 42 AD by [[Claudius]].]]
The first known Western regional cults to Augustus were established with his permission around 19 BC in north-western ("Celtic") Spain and named ''arae sestianae'' after their military founder, [[Lucius Sestius Albanianus Quirinalis|L. Sestius Albanianus Quirinalis]].<ref>Fishwick, vol 3, 1, 7: see also Pliny the Elder, ''Historia Naturalis'', 4.111; Ptolemy, ''Geographia'', 2.6.3; Pomponeus Mela, 3.13.</ref> Soon after, in either 12 BC or 10 BC, the first provincial imperial cult centre in the West was founded at [[Lugdunum]] by [[Nero Claudius Drusus|Drusus]], as a focus for his new tripartite administrative division of [[Gallia Comata]]. Lugdunum set the type for official Western cult as a form of Roman-provincial identity, parcelled into the establishment of military-administrative centres. These were strategically located within the unstable, "barbarian" Western provinces of the new [[Principate]] and inaugurated by military commanders who were – in all but one instance – members of the imperial family.<ref>Fishwick, vol 1,1, 97–149.)</ref>

The first priest of the Ara (altar) at Lugdunum's great [[Sanctuary of the Three Gauls|imperial cult complex]] was [[Caius Julius Vercondaridubnus]], a Gaul of the provincial elite, given [[Roman citizenship]] and entitled by his priestly office to participate in the local government of his provincial ''[[Concilium Plebis|concilium]]''. Though not leading to senatorial status, and almost certainly an annually elected office (unlike the traditional lifetime priesthoods of Roman ''flamines''), priesthood in imperial provinces thus offered a provincial equivalent to the traditional Roman ''[[cursus honorum]]''.<ref>Fishwick vol 1, 1, 101 & vol 3, 1, 12–13: Fishwick determines the lower age limit at 25 years for these priesthoods. With minor exceptions, provincial priesthoods – whether described as ''sacerdos'' or ''flamen'' – appear to have been annual, but an elected priest remained influential within the ''[[Monastic order|ordo]]'' beyond his term of office. Female cult divinities were served by priestesses, who may have been the wives of the cult priests.</ref> The rejection of cult spurned ''[[romanitas]]'', priesthood and citizenship; in 9 AD [[Segimundus]], imperial cult priest of what would later be known as [[Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium]] (sited at modern [[Cologne]] in Germany) cast off or destroyed his priestly regalia to join the rebellion of his kinsman [[Arminius]].<ref>Tacitus, ''Annals'', 1.57.</ref>

===Western provinces of Roman Africa===
In the early Principate, an altar inscribed ''Marazgu Aug(usto) Sac(rum)'' ("Dedicated to Marazgu Augustus"), identifies a local [[Ancient Libya]]n ([[Berbers|Berber]]) deity with the supreme power of Augustus. In the senatorial province of [[Africa (Roman province)|Africa Proconsularis]], altars to the ''Dii Magifie Augusti'' attest (according to Potter) a deity who was simultaneously local and universal, rather than one whose local identity was subsumed or absorbed by an Imperial ''divus'' or deity.<ref>Potter, 26-7.</ref>
Two temples are attested to Roma and the divus Augustus: one dedicated under Tiberius at [[Leptis Magna]], and another (Julio-Claudian) at [[Mactar]].<ref>Mellor, 1003.</ref> A [[Altar of the Gens Augusta|third]] at [[Carthage]] was dedicated to the ''Gens Augusta'' in the very early empire.<ref>Mohamed Yacoub, Le musée du Bardo : Départements antiques, Tunis, Agence nationale du patrimoine, 1993, p.111</ref>

==The Imperial succession==

===Julio-Claudian===
[[File:Temple of Divus Augustus in Rome (1).jpg|thumb|[[Temple of Divus Augustus]], a major temple built to commemorate the deified [[Roman emperor]] Augustus.]]
Even as he prepared his adopted son Tiberius for the role of ''[[princeps]]'' and recommended him to the Senate as a worthy successor, Augustus seems to have doubted the propriety of dynastic ''[[imperium]]''; this, however, was probably his only feasible course.<ref>Ando, 31–33, provides the constitutional and personal background to this dilemma.</ref> When Augustus died, he was voted a ''divus'' by the Senate, and his body was cremated in a sumptuous funeral; his soul was said to have ascended to the heavens, to join his adoptive father among the Olympians; his ashes were deposited in the Imperial Mausoleum, which tactfully identified him (and later, his descendants) by his Imperial names, rather than as ''divus''.<ref>Price, in Cannadine and Price, 70.</ref> After Augustus, the only new cults to Roman officials are those connected to the Imperial household.<ref>Beard et al, 360-63</ref><ref>Potter, 6–7.</ref><ref>See also Tacitus, ''Annals'', 1.9–10 for appraisals of compuAugustus' motives in his rise to power, his opaque complexity of character, evaluation of his success and the exchange of constitutional freedoms for peace and prosperity during and after his reign.</ref> On his death, the Senate debated and passed a ''lex de imperio'' which voted Tiberius ''princeps'' through his "proven merit in office", and awarded him the honorific [[Augustus (title)|Augustus]] as name and title.<ref>Well into the third century AD, the merit of each imperial candidate would be debated as basis for a new ''lex de imperio''. In most cases this simply confirmed his possession of imperial power, acquired through dynastic inheritance or acclamation by the soldiers but its legality was Republican in form, "probably a continuation of the old Republican tradition, of the ''[[Lex curiata de imperio]]'' which conferred ''imperium'' on the higher Roman magistrates." [[Justinian]]'s law later refers to a ''[[Lex regia (imperial)|Lex regia]]'', consistent with Byzantine conceptions of Imperial power as "kingship". The same association is precisely avoided under the early ''[[Lex de imperio Vespasiani]]'' of 69–70 AD. See Berger, A., Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law, Philadelphia: (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society; New Series, Volume 43, Part 2, 1953, p551). Reprint, The Lawbook Exchange Ltd., 2002. {{ISBN|1-58477-142-9}}. Preview from googlebooks; [https://books.google.com/books?id=iklePELtR6QC&dq=lex+de+imperio+lex+regia+candidate&pg=PA551]</ref>

Tiberius accepted his position and title as emperor with apparent reluctance. Though he proved a capable and efficient administrator, he could not match his predecessor's extraordinary energy and charisma. Roman historians described him as morose and mistrustful. With a self-deprecation that may have been entirely genuine, he encouraged the cult to his father, and discouraged his own.<ref>[[Tacitus]] interprets Tiberius' repeated refusal of provincial cult as a shirking of his moral responsibilities to empire, and therefore a dishonour to his high office and Rome.</ref> After much wrangling, he allowed a single temple in [[Smyrna]] to himself and the ''[[Genius (mythology)|genius]]'' of the Senate in 26 AD; eleven cities had competed – with some vehemence and even violence – for the honour.<ref>Gradel, 15: the collective ''genius'' of the Senate was usually personified as a bearded, elderly man – this is an exceptional ''genius'' type. Most individual ''genii'' are portrayed as youthful.</ref> His lack of personal ''[[auctoritas]]'' allowed increasing praetorian influence over the Imperial house, the Senate and through it, the state.<ref>Klose, in Howgego ''et al'', 127.</ref> In 31 AD, his praetorian prefect [[Sejanus]] – by now a virtual co-ruler – was implicated in the death of Tiberius' son and heir apparent [[Drusus Julius Caesar|Drusus]], and was executed as a public enemy. In Umbria, the imperial cult priest (''[[Sodales Augustales|sevir Augustalis]]'') memorialised "the providence of Tiberius Caesar Augustus, born for the eternity of the Roman name, upon the removal of that most pernicious enemy of the Roman people". In Crete, thanks were given to "the ''[[numen]]'' and foresight of Tiberius Caesar Augustus and the Senate" in foiling the conspiracy, but at his death the Senate and his heir [[Caligula]] chose not to officially deify him.<ref>Ando, 170-1: see also 170, note 187.</ref>

[[Caligula]]'s rule exposed the legal and moral contradictions of the Augustan "Republic". To legalise his succession, the Senate was compelled to constitutionally define his role, but the rites and sacrifices to the living ''genius'' of the emperor already acknowledged his constitutionally unlimited powers. The ''princeps'' played the role of ''[[primus inter pares]]'' only through personal self-restraint and decorum. It became evident that Caligula had little of either. He seems to have taken the cult of his own ''genius'' very seriously and is said to have enjoyed acting the god – or rather, several of them. However, his infamous and oft-cited impersonations of major deities may represent no more than his priesthood of their cults, a desire to shock and a penchant for triumphal dress<ref>cf Caesar's "kingly" regalia, though as ''princeps'' Caligula was also "permanent ''triumphator''".</ref> or simply mental illness.<ref>Suetonius, ''Life of Caligula''</ref> Whatever his plans, there is no evidence for his official cult as a living ''divus'' in Rome or his replacement of state gods, and none for major deviations or innovations in his provincial cult.<ref>Neither [[Josephus]] nor [[Philo]] imply Caligula's elevation as a state deity in Jerusalem.</ref> His reported sexual relations with his sister [[Drusilla (sister of Caligula)|Drusilla]] and her deification after death aroused scorn from later historians; after Caligula's death, her cult was simply allowed to fade. His reported extortion of priesthood fees from unwilling senators are marks of private cult and personal humiliations among the elite. Caligula's fatal offense was to willfully "insult or offend everyone who mattered", including the senior military officers who assassinated him.<ref>Gradel, 142–158.</ref> The histories of his reign highlight his wayward impiety. Perhaps not only his: in 40 AD the Senate decreed that the "emperor should sit on a high platform even in the very Senate house".<ref>Cassius Dio, (in [[John Xiphilinus (historian)|John Xiphilinus]]' epitome), 59, 26, 3. Both [[Suetonius]] and Philo offer Caligula as a suspiciously perfect example of how not to be emperor. The Senate remains a vague figure of superior values and morality, against which Caligula's offenses are meticulously detailed.</ref> Claudius (his successor and uncle) intervened to limit the damage to the imperial house and those who had conspired against it and had Caligula's public statues discreetly removed.<ref>Cassius Dio, [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/60*.html LX.3.5–6]</ref>

[[File:CdM, apoteosi di claudio, sardonice attr. a skylax, roma, 54 dc. circa.JPG|thumb|[[Cameo (carving)|Cameo]] depicting the apotheosis of Claudius (mid-1st century CE)]]
[[Claudius]] was chosen emperor by Caligula's [[Praetorian Guard]] and consolidated his position with cash payments (''[[donativa]]'') to the military. The Senate was forced to ratify the choice and accept the affront. Claudius adopted the cognomen Caesar, deified Augustus' wife, Livia, 13 years after her death and in 42 AD was granted the title ''[[pater patriae]]'' (father of the country), but relations between emperor and Senate seem to have been irreparable.<ref>A cult dedication to Livia as ''diva'' Augusta appears in [[Lusitania]], dated to 48 AD.</ref> Claudius showed none of Caligula's excesses. He seems to have entirely refused a cult to his own ''genius'': but the offer of cult simultaneously acknowledged the high status of those empowered to grant it and the extraordinary status of the ''princeps'' – Claudius' repeated refusals may have been interpreted as offensive to Senate, provincials and the imperial office itself. He further offended the traditional hierarchy by promoting his own trusted [[freedmen]] as imperial [[Procurator (Roman)|procurators]]; those closest to the emperor held high status through their proximity.<ref>Gradel proposes that had Claudius employed those of higher rank within his ''[[domus]]'', it would have imputed their clientage as his servants. He may have underestimated the complexity of the problems inherent in his own status as ''princeps''.</ref>

It has been assumed that he allowed a single temple for his cult in [[Roman Britain|Britain]], following his conquest there.<ref>This surmise is based on a combination of [[Seneca the Younger|Seneca]]'s satirical ''[[Apocolocyntosis]]'', Suetonius' sneering "Life" and Tacitus's sharp observations of Julio-Claudian failings.</ref> The [[Temple of Claudius, Colchester|temple]] is certain – it was sited at [[Camulodunum]] (modern [[Colchester]]), the main ''[[colonia (Roman)|colonia]]'' in the province, and was a focus of British wrath during the [[Boudicca]]n revolt of 60 AD.<ref>Tacitus, Annals, 13, 3.</ref> But cult to the living Claudius there is very unlikely: he had already refused Alexandrine cult honours as "vulgar" and impious and cult to living emperors was associated with ''arae'' (altars), not temples.<ref>Fishwick, Vol. 3, 1, 75–6: cf the [[Lyons Tablet]] and Claudius' modesty (or fear of seeming arrogant).</ref> The British worship offered him as a living ''divus'' is probably no more than a cruel literary judgment on his worth as emperor. Despite his evident respect for republican norms, he was not taken seriously by his own class, and in [[Apocolocyntosis|Seneca's fawning Neronian fiction]], the Roman gods cannot take him seriously as a ''divus'' – the wild British might be more gullible.<ref>Fishwick, 81-9.</ref> In reality, they proved resentful enough to rebel, though probably less against the Claudian ''divus'' than against brutal abuses and the financial burden represented by its temple.

Claudius died in 54 AD and was deified by his adopted son and successor [[Nero]].<ref>Fishwick, Vol. 3, 1, 54–9.</ref> After an apparently magnificent funeral, the ''divus'' Claudius was given a [[Temple of Claudius|temple]] on Rome's disreputable [[Caelian Hill]].<ref>Mons Caelus had "ambiguous Etruscan connections" (Claudius had a historian's interest in Etruscan culture and language). It was also notorious for its brothels and meat-market. Claudius had a reputed liking for "low company", and butchers and prostitutes were classified as ''[[Infamia|infames]]''. Suetonius has Claudius add an extra day to the festival of [[Saturnalia]] – for Seneca he is a [[Lord of Misrule]], at whose demise it can be said: "I told you the Saturnalia could not last forever" (''Apocolocyntosis'' 12).</ref> Fishwick remarks that "the malicious humour of the site can hardly have been lost by those in the know... the location of Claudius' temple in Britain (the occasion for his "pathetic triumph") may be more of the same".<ref>Fishwick, Vol. 3, 1, 88–9.</ref>

Once in power, [[Nero]] allowed Claudius' cult to lapse, built his [[Domus Aurea]] over the unfinished temple, indulged his sybaritic and artistic inclinations and allowed the cult of his own ''genius'' as ''[[pater familias]]'' of the Roman people.<ref>Claudius' Caelian temple was later rebuilt and some of it survives through incorporation in later building. Nero's cult may have been justified as a "revival" of Claudius' entitlement to ''genius'' cult as ''pater patriae''.</ref> Senatorial attitudes to him appear to have been largely negative. He was overthrown in a military coup, and his institutions of cult to his dead wife Poppaea and infant daughter Claudia Augusta were abandoned. Otherwise, he seems to have been a popular emperor, particularly in the Eastern provinces. Tacitus reports a senatorial proposal to dedicate a temple to Nero as a living ''divus'', taken as ominous because "divine honours are not paid to an emperor till he has ceased to live among men".<ref>Tacitus, ''Annals'', [[s:The Annals (Tacitus)/Book 15#74|XV.74]].</ref>

===Flavian===
[[File:Genius Domitian Musei Capitolini MC1130.jpg|thumb|The ''Genius'' of Domitian, with [[aegis]] and [[cornucopia]], found near the [[Via Labicana]], [[Esquiline]]]]
Nero's death saw the end of imperial tenure as a privilege of ancient Roman (patrician and senatorial) families. In a single chaotic year, power passed violently from one to another of [[Year of the Four Emperors|four emperors]]. The first three promoted their own ''genius'' cult: the last two of these attempted Nero's restitution and promotion to ''divus''. The fourth, [[Vespasian]] – son of an equestrian from [[Reate]] – secured his [[Flavian dynasty]] through reversion to an Augustan form of [[principate]] and renewed the imperial cult of ''divus Julius''.<ref>Potter, 68.</ref><ref>Kenneth Scott, ''The Imperial Cult Under the Flavians'', New York 1975</ref> Vespasian could not validate his reign in the same way as the previous Julio-Claudian dynasty, who could trace their lineage back to the divine ancestry of Julius Caesar. Without the ability to trace their origins to any Roman deity, the new Flavian dynasty under Vespasian had to establish a new standard of policy in order to rule over a people predisposed to the divine imperial cult tradition.<ref>Chabrečková, Barbora. ''The Imperial Cult During the Reign of Domitian.'' Masaryk University, Department of Archaeology and Museology. 2017.</ref> Vespasian was respected for his "restoration" of Roman tradition and the Augustan modesty of his reign. He dedicated state cult to ''genio populi Romani'' (the ''genius'' of the Roman people), respected senatorial "Republican" values and repudiated Neronian practice by removing various festivals from the public calendars, which had (in Tacitus' unsparing assessment) become "foully sullied by the flattery of the times".<ref>Tacitus, Histories, 4.40.2</ref> He may have had the head of [[Colossus of Nero|Nero's Colossus]] replaced or recut for its dedication (or rededication) to the [[Helios|sun god]] in 75 AD.<ref>Some still thought the head resembled Nero's. Others were reminded of [[Titus]], Vespasian's son: see also Cassius Dio, 65.15.1.</ref><ref>A dedication of the Colossus to the sun god is consistent with Neronian iconography – any resemblance to Nero would be appropriate to his imperial representation as the "second sun" of the ''[[pax Romana]]'' in [[Stoicism|Stoic]] and [[Cynicism (philosophy)|Cynic]] cosmology. Subsequent alterations or remodeling of a recognisable figure – assuming they happened at all – and rededication were standard responses to an original subject's ''[[damnatio memoriae]]''. On the other hand, the heads of some Imperial statues appear to have been recut or replaced as a matter of economy, rather than of legal or moral insult or effacement.</ref><ref>Marlowe, E. (2006), "Framing the sun: the Arch of Constantine and the Roman cityscape." ''The Art Bulletin''</ref> Following the first [[First Jewish–Roman War|Jewish Revolt]] and the destruction of the [[Herod's Temple|Temple]] in [[Jerusalem]] in 70 AD, he imposed the [[Fiscus Judaicus|''didrachmon'']], formerly paid by Jews for their Temple's upkeep but now re-routed to Jupiter Capitolinus as victor over them "and their God". Jews who paid the tax were exempt from the cult to imperial state deities. Those who offered it however were ostracised from their own communities.<ref>Smallwood, 345.</ref> Vespasian appears to have approached his own impending cult with dry humour: according to [[Suetonius]], his last words were ''puto deus fio'' ("I think I'm turning into a god"). Vespasian's son [[Titus]] reigned for two successful years then died of natural causes. He was deified and replaced by his younger brother [[Domitian]].

Within two weeks of accession, Domitian had restored the cult of the ruling emperor's ''genius''.<ref>The practice of a ''genius'' cult towards Domitian is shown in the Arval Acts.</ref> He remains a controversial figure, described as one of the very few emperors to scandalously style himself a living ''divus'', as evidenced by the use of "master and god" (''dominus et deus'') in imperial documents. However, there are no records of Domitian's personal use of the title, its use in official address or cult to him, its presence on his coinage or in the Arval Acts relating to his state cult. It occurs only in his later reign and was almost certainly initiated and used by his own procurators (who in the Claudian tradition were also his freedmen).<ref>Gradel, 159-61: Suetonius' claims for Domitian's personal use of the title – or its use by his procurators at his behest – are unverified. He is clear that Domitian's freedmen were the first to use it.</ref> Like any other ''pater familias'' and [[Patronage in ancient Rome|patron]], Domitian was "master and god" to his extended ''familia'', including his slaves, freedmen and clients. Pliny's descriptions of sacrifice to Domitian on the Capitol are consistent with the entirely unremarkable "private and informal" rites accorded to living emperors. Domitian was a traditionalist, severe and repressive but respected by the military and the general populace. He admired Augustus and may have sought to emulate him but made the same tactless error as Caligula in treating the Senate as clients and inferiors, rather than as the fictive equals required by Augustan ideology. His assassination was planned and implemented from within his court, and his name officially but rather unsystematically erased from inscriptions.<ref>Gradel, 159-61.</ref>

===Nervan-Antonine===
The Senate chose the elderly, childless and apparently reluctant [[Nerva]] as emperor. Nerva had long-standing family and consular connections with the Julio-Claudian and Flavian families but proved a dangerously mild and indecisive ''princeps'': he was persuaded to abdicate in favour of [[Trajan]]. [[Pliny the Younger]]'s [[panegyric]] of 100 AD claims the visible restoration of senatorial authority and dignity throughout the empire under [[Trajan]], but while he praises the emperor's modesty, Pliny does not disguise the precarious nature of this autocratic gift.<ref>Ando, 167: Pliny ''panegyric'' 75.1–3: Pliny refers to the publication of the senatorial voice in proceedings: Trajan's respect for the Senate can only be good for the "dignity" of the state.</ref> Under Trajan's very capable civil and military leadership, the office of emperor was increasingly interpreted as an earthly viceregency of the divine order. He would prove an enduring model for Roman imperial virtues.<ref>Gradel, 190-2.</ref><ref>Sage, (in discussion of Tacitean themes) in Haase & Temporini (eds), 950: [https://books.google.com/books?id=3O8fO_5oZGgC&dq=%22Panegyric+of+Pliny%22&pg=PA950 Books.Google.co.uk]</ref>

The emperor [[Hadrian]]'s Hispano-Roman origins and marked pro-Hellenism changed the focus of imperial cult. His standard coinage still identifies with the ''genius populi Romani'', but other issues stress his identification with ''Hercules Gaditanus'' (Hercules of [[Cádiz|Gades]]), and Rome's imperial protection of Greek civilisation.<ref>Gradel, 194-5.</ref> Commemorative coinage shows him "raising up" provincial deities (thus elevating and "restoring" the provinces); he promoted [[Sagalassos]] in Greek [[Pisidia]] as the Empire's leading imperial cult centre and in 131–2 AD he sponsored the exclusively Greek ''[[Panhellenion]]''.<ref>Howgego, in Howgego ''et al'', 6, 10.</ref> He was said to have "wept like a woman" at the death of his young lover [[Antinous]], and arranged his apotheosis. Dio claims that Hadrian was held to ridicule for this emotional indulgence, particularly as he had delayed the apotheosis of his own sister [[Paulina#Sister of Hadrian|Paulina]] after her death.<ref>Hadrian's "Hellenic" emotionalism finds a culturally sympathetic echo in the Homeric Achilles' mourning for his friend Patroclus: see Vout, 52–135.</ref>

[[File:Antinous Dionysos Terme.jpg|thumb|Antinous portrayed as Dionysus in a relief from the area between [[Anzio]] et [[Lanuvium]]]]
The cult of [[Antinous]] would prove one of remarkable longevity and devotion, particularly in the Eastern provinces. Bithynia, as his birthplace, featured his image on coinage as late as the reign of [[Caracalla]] (r. 211–217). His popular cult appears to have thrived well into the 4th century, when he became the "whipping boy of pagan worship" in Christian polemic. [[Caroline Vout|Vout]] (2007) remarks his humble origins, untimely death and "resurrection" as ''theos'', and his identification – and sometimes misidentification by later scholarship – with the images and religious functions of Apollo, Dionysius/Bacchus, and later, Osiris.<ref>Dio – or his [[epitome|epitomist]] – insists that Antinous died not through drowning, as Hadrian claimed, but as the emperor's willing sacrificial victim as part of a bid for immortality – though whose is not clear.</ref> In Rome itself he was also ''theos'' on two of three surviving inscriptions but was more closely associated with hero-cult, which allowed direct appeals for his intercession with "higher gods".<ref>Vout, 118-9, ''contra'' Price, 68, who does not regard Antinous as receiving full cult honours of apotheosis in Rome itself. Both agree that Antinous was unlikely to have had official parity with other imperial ''divi'' in Rome.</ref><ref>Vout, 52–135, offers discussion on the nature, context and longevity of the Antinous cult, its function in Christian polemic against pagan cult, notably in [[Athanasius]], and its capacity to fascinate – and sometimes mislead – the modern imagination. Limited preview available: [https://books.google.com/books?id=icxZpoRE-RIC&dq=Antinous+Imperial+cult&pg=PA118 Books.Google.co.uk]</ref> Hadrian imposed the imperial cult to himself and Jupiter on Judaea following the [[Bar Kokhba revolt]]. He was predeceased by his wife [[Vibia Sabina]]. Both were deified but Hadrian's case had to be pleaded by his successor [[Antoninus Pius]].<ref>Vout, 111. His piety lay in his unrelenting yet personally modest plea to the Senate for the deification of his predecessor Hadrian: morally comparable with the filial devotion of [[Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius|Metellus Pius]] during the Republican era.</ref>

[[Marcus Aurelius]]' tutor [[Marcus Cornelius Fronto|Fronto]] offers the best evidence of imperial portraiture as a near-ubiquitous feature of private and public life.<ref>Gradel, 200, citing Fronto, ''Epistulae ad M. Caesar'' (letters to M. Aurelius), 4, 12, 6.</ref> Though evidence for private emperor worship is as sparse in this era as in all others, Fronto's letters imply the ''genius'' cult of the living emperor as an official, domestic and personal practice, probably more common than cult to the ''divi'' in this and other periods.<ref>Gradel, 199: see also [[Imperial cult (ancient Rome)#The context and precedents for Imperial Cult|The context and precedents for Imperial Cult]]. Relative to the living emperor, the ''divi'' probably have little or no personal power, unless of divine intercession.</ref>

Marcus' son [[Commodus]] succumbed to the lures of self-indulgence, easy populism and rule by favourites.<ref>Potter, 78-9.</ref><ref>Dio's assessment is blunt but not entirely unsympathetic – Commodus was lazy, gullible and stupid. See Potter, 85-6: citing Cassius Dio, [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/73*.html Penelope.Uchicago.edu], epitome of book 73. Marius Maximus thought him fundamentally wicked and cruel.</ref> He described his reign as a "golden age", and himself as a new Romulus and "re-founder" of Rome, but was deeply antagonistic toward the Senate – he reversed the standard "Republican" imperial formula to ''populus senatusque romanus'' (the people and senate of Rome). He increasingly identified himself with the demigod Hercules in statuary, temples and in the arena, where he liked to entertain as a ''[[bestiarius]]'' in the morning and a gladiator in the afternoon. In the last year of his life he was voted the official title ''[[Hercules in ancient Rome|Romanus Hercules]]''; the state cult to Hercules acknowledged him as heroic, a divinity or semi-divinity (but not a ''divus'') who had once been mortal.<ref>On 1 January 193 AD, the legions unwittingly renewed their annual vows of loyalty to a dead Emperor: Potter, 92-6. see also Dio ''ibid''.</ref> Commodus may have intended declaring himself as a living god some time before his murder on the last day of 192 AD.<ref>This is based on a statement in the ''[[Historia Augusta]]'', which claims he planned to have his own ''flamen'' while still living. Cassius Dio, in an otherwise detailed account, makes no mention of this. See Gradel, 160-1.</ref>

The Nervan-Antonine dynasty ended in chaos. The Senate declared ''[[damnatio memoriae]]'' on Commodus, whose [[urban prefect]] [[Pertinax]] was declared emperor by the Praetorian Guard in return for the promise of very large ''[[Donativum|donativa]]''.<ref>Potter, 93-6.</ref> Pertinax had risen through equestrian ranks by military talent and administrative efficiency to become senator, consul and finally and briefly emperor; he was murdered by his Praetorians for attempting to cap their pay.<ref>Potter, 75-9.</ref> Pertinax was replaced by [[Didius Julianus]], who had promised cash to the Praetorians and restoration of power to the Senate. Julianus began his reign with an ill-judged appeal to the memory of Commodus, a much resented attempt to bribe the populace ''en masse'' and the use of Praetorian force against them. In protest, a defiant urban crowd occupied the senatorial seats at the ''[[Circus Maximus]]''.<ref>Potter, 96–99.</ref> Against a background of civil war among [[Year of the Five Emperors|competing claimants]] in the provinces, [[Septimius Severus]] emerged as a likely victor. The Senate soon voted for the death of Julianus, the deification of Pertinax and the elevation of Septimius as emperor.<ref>Potter, 103.</ref> Only a year had passed since the death of Commodus.

===Severan===
<blockquote>
"Sit divus dum non sit vivus" (let him be a ''divus'' as long as he is not alive). ''Attributed to Caracalla, before murdering his co-emperor and brother Geta.''<ref>Gradel, 265, citing the unreliable ''Historia Augusta'', ''Antoninus Geta Aeli Spartiani'', II, 8: (Latin version online at thelatinlibrary – [http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/sha/geta.shtml TheLatinLibrary.com] (accessed 18 August 2009). At the very least, the attribution confirms the later devaluation of ''divus'' as a divine category.</ref>
</blockquote>

[[File:Portrait of family of Septimius Severus - Altes Museum - Berlin - Germany 2017.jpg|thumb|right|The [[Severan Tondo]] shows Septimius Severus, his wife [[Julia Domna]], their younger son Caracalla (lower right of picture) and the obliterated image of his murdered co-heir, [[Publius Septimius Geta|Geta]]. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.]]
In 193 AD, [[Septimius Severus]] [[Roman triumph|triumphally]] entered Rome and gave apotheosis to [[Pertinax]]. He cancelled the Senate's ''damnatio memoriae'' of Commodus, deified him as a ''frater'' (brother) and thereby adopted Marcus Aurelius as his own ancestor through an act of filial piety.<ref>Dio, ''Ibid''. 77.9.4: (Loeb) – "When the emperor was enrolled in the family of Marcus, Auspex said: "I congratulate you, Caesar, upon finding a father," implying that up to that time he had been fatherless by reason of his obscure birth."</ref> Severan coin images further re-enforced Severus' association with prestigious Antonine dynasts and the ''genius populi Romani''.<ref>Gradel, 194.</ref><ref>Potter, 107-12: for coinage of Antonine dynasts, see 111.</ref>

Severus' reign represents a watershed in relations between Senate, emperors, and the military.<ref>Potter, 110.</ref> Senatorial consent defined divine ''imperium'' as a republican permission for the benefit of the Roman people, and apotheosis was a statement of senatorial powers. Where Vespasian had secured his position with appeals to the ''genius'' of the Senate and Augustan tradition, Severus overrode the customary preferment of senators to senior military office. He increased plebeian privilege in Rome, stationed a loyal garrison there and selected his own commanders. He paid personal attention to the provinces, as sources of revenue, military manpower and unrest. Following his defeat of his rival [[Clodius Albinus]] at Lugdunum, he re-founded and reformed its imperial cult centre: ''dea Roma'' was removed from the altar and confined to the temple along with the deified Augusti.<ref>Another name for the Imperial ''divi'', which indicates their elevation to "August" status. "Caesar Augustus" is reserved for living emperors: See Gradel, 88.</ref> Fishwick interprets the obligatory new rites as those due any ''pater familias'' from his inferiors.<ref>Fishwick, vol. 3, 1, 199.</ref> Severus' own patron deities, [[Melqart]]/Hercules and [[Liber]]/[[Dionysus|Bacchus]], took pride of place with himself and his two sons at the [[Secular Games]] of 204 AD.<ref>Potter, 113-20.</ref> Severus died of natural causes in 211 AD at [[Eboracum]] (modern York) while on campaign in Britannia, after leaving the Empire equally to [[Caracalla]] and his older brother [[Publius Septimius Geta|Geta]], along with advice to "be harmonious, enrich the soldiers, and scorn all other men."<ref>Cassius Dio, [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/77*.html 77.15.2 Penelope.Uchicago.edu].</ref>

[[Image:Coin_of_Geta.jpg|thumb|left|A [[denarius]] of Geta]]
By 212 AD, Caracalla had murdered Geta, pronounced his ''damnatio memoriae'' and issued the ''[[Constitutio Antoniniana]]'': this gave full Roman citizenship to all free inhabitants of the Empire.<ref>Potter, 133-5: ''dediticii'' (those who had surrendered to Rome in war) and a specific class of freedmen were excluded.</ref> and was couched as a generous invitation to celebrate the "victory of the Roman people" in foiling Geta's "conspiracy". In reality, Caracalla was faced by an endemic shortfall of cash and recruits. His "gift" was a far from popular move, as most of its recipients were ''[[Honestiores and humiliores|humiliores]]'' of peasant status and occupation – approximately 90% of the total population. ''Humiliores'' they remained, but now liable to pay taxes, serve in the legions and adopt the name of their "liberator". Where other emperors had employed the ''[[mos maiorum]]'' of family obligation at the largely symbolic level of ''genius'' cult, Caracalla literally identified his personal survival with the state and "his" citizens.<ref>Potter, 138-9: slaves formally adopted the name of the master who freed them.</ref> Caracalla inherited the devotion of his father's soldiery but his new citizens were not inclined to celebrate and his attempts to court popularity in Commodan style seem to have misfired.<ref>Like Commodus, he participated in [[Chariot racing|chariot races]] and beast-fights, with minimal risk to himself.</ref> In [[Philostratus#Philostratus II|Philostratus]]' estimation, his embrace of Empire foundered on his grudging, parochial mindset. He was assassinated in 217 AD, with the possible collusion of his praetorian prefect [[Macrinus]].<ref>Potter, 142-6: citing Philostratus, V. Soph, 626.</ref>

The military hailed Macrinus as ''imperator'', and he arranged for the apotheosis of Caracalla. Aware of the impropriety of his unprecedented leap through the traditional ''[[cursus honorum]]'' from equestrian to emperor, he respectfully sought senatorial approval for his "self-nomination". It was granted – the new emperor had a lawyer's approach to ''imperium'',<ref>Days of careful negotiation had preceded his "spontaneous" acclamation as ''imperator'' by the military</ref> but his foreign policy proved too cautious and placatory for the military.<ref>Dio disapproves of Macrinus' equestrian status, but not his integrity or manner of government.</ref> After little more than a year, he was murdered in a coup and replaced with an emperor of Syrian background and Severan descent, [[Elagabalus|Varius Avitus Bassianus]], more usually known by the Latinised name of his god and his priesthood, Elagabalus.<ref>Potter, 146-8: Avitus took the Imperial name Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.</ref>

The 14-year-old emperor brought his solar-mountain deity from his native [[Emesa]] to Rome and into official imperial cult.<ref>Potter, 148-9:</ref> In Syria, the cult of Elagabalus was popular and well established. In Rome, it was a foreign and (according to some ancient sources) disgusting Eastern novelty. In 220 AD, the priest Elagabalus replaced Jupiter with the god Elagabalus as ''[[sol invictus]]'' (the unconquered Sun) and thereafter neglected his Imperial role as ''[[pontifex maximus]]''. According to Marius Maximus, he ruled from his degenerate ''domus'' through prefects who included among others a charioteer, a locksmith, a barber, and a cook.<ref>Potter, 152-7.</ref> At the very least, he appears to have been regarded as an unacceptably effete eccentric by the Senate and military alike. He was assassinated by the Praetorians at the age of 18, subjected to the fullest indignities of ''damnatio memoriae'' and replaced with his young cousin [[Alexander Severus]], the last of his dynasty, who reigned for 13 years until killed in a mutiny in 235.

==Imperial crisis and the Dominate==

The end of the Severan dynasty marked the [[Crisis of the Third Century|breakdown of central ''imperium'']]. Against a background of economic [[hyperinflation]] and latterly, endemic plague, rival provincial claimants fought for supremacy and failing this, set up their own provincial Empires. Most emperors seldom even saw Rome, and had only notional relationships with their senates. In the absence of coordinated Imperial military response, foreign peoples seized the opportunity for invasion and plunder.

[[File:Philip I Antoninianus.jpg|thumb|left|Antoninianus of [[Philip the Arab]] showing him in the [[radiate crown]]]]
[[Maximinus Thrax]] (reigned 235–8 AD) sequestered the resources of state temples in Rome to pay his armies. The temples of the ''divi'' were first in line. It was an unwise move for his own posterity, as the grant or withholding of apotheosis remained an official judgment of Imperial worthiness, but the stripping of the temples of state gods caused far greater offense. Maximinus's actions more likely show need in extreme crisis than impiety, as he had his wife deified on her death,<ref>Meckler, in ''De Imperatoribus Romanis'', online [http://www.roman-emperors.org/maxthrax.htm roman-emperors.org] (accessed 7 August 2009)</ref> but in a rare display of defiance the Senate deified his murdered predecessor, then openly rebelled.<ref>Gradel, 356-62: citing Herodian for the removal of temple wealth and reactions to it.</ref> His replacement, [[Gordian I]], reigned briefly but successfully and was made a ''divus'' on his death. A succession of short-lived soldier-emperors followed. Further development in imperial cult appears to have stalled until [[Philip the Arab]], who dedicated a statue to his father as divine in his home town of [[Shahba|Philippopolis]] and brought the body of his young predecessor [[Gordian III]] to Rome for apotheosis. Coins of Philip show him in the [[radiate crown]] (suggestive of solar cult or a Hellenised form of imperial monarchy), with Rome's temple to Venus and ''dea Roma'' on the reverse.<ref>Potter, 237-8, citing Zosimus, 1.19.1–2.</ref>

In 249 AD, Philip was succeeded (or murdered and usurped) by his praetorian prefect [[Decius]], a traditionalist ex-consul and governor. After an accession of doubtful validity, Decius justified himself as rightful "restorer and saviour" of Empire and its ''religio'': early in his reign he issued a coin series of imperial ''divi'' in radiate (solar) crowns.<ref>Howgego, in Howgego ''et al''., 5.</ref> Philip, the three [[Gordian (disambiguation)|Gordian]]s, Pertinax and Claudius were omitted, presumably because Decius thought them unworthy of the honour.<ref>Potter, 244-8.</ref><ref>Ando, 209.</ref> In the wake of religious riots in Egypt, he decreed that all subjects of the Empire must actively seek to benefit the state through witnessed and certified sacrifice to "ancestral gods" or suffer a penalty: sacrifice on Rome's behalf by loyal subjects would define them and their gods as Roman.<ref>Beard ''et al'', Vol. 1, 241.</ref> Only Jews were exempt from this obligation.<ref>Potter, 241-3: see 242 for Decian "libellus" (certificate) of oath and sacrifice on papyrus, dated to 250 AD.</ref> The Decian edict required that refusal of sacrifice be tried and punished at [[proconsul]]ar level. [[Apostasy]] was sought, rather than capital punishment.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=8EgCRHxfouQC&dq=Diocletian+Imperial+cult&pg=PA55 Books.Google.co.uk], Rees, 60. Limited preview available at Google Books</ref> A year after its due deadline, the edict was allowed to expire and shortly after this, Decius himself died.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=MNSyT_PuYVMC&dq=Jews+Decius+exemption&pg=PA627 Bowman ''et al'', 622-33. Books.Google.co.uk], Limited preview available at Google Books</ref>

[[Valerian (emperor)|Valerian]] (253–60) identified Christianity as the largest, most stubbornly self-interested of non-Roman cults, outlawed Christian assembly and urged Christians to sacrifice to Rome's traditional gods.<ref name="Rees, 60">Rees, 60.</ref><ref>Beard ''et al'', 241.</ref> His son and co-Augustus [[Gallienus]], an initiate of the [[Eleusinian Mysteries]], identified himself with traditional Roman gods and the virtue of military loyalty.<ref>Drinkwater, in Bowman et al. (eds), 46: Under Gallienus, any remaining senatorial rights to military leadership were virtually at an end. The bitterness of the senatorial class towards him on this account almost certainly distorts their histories. See, for example, [[Aurelius Victor]], ''De Caesaribus'' (epitome), 33–34, in Banchich's translation online at [http://www.roman-emperors.org/epitome.htm roman-emperors.org] (accessed 7 August 2009.) See also Weigel, at www.roman-emperors.org [http://www.roman-emperors.org/gallval.htm roman-emperors.org] (accessed 7 August 2009.)</ref> [[Aurelian]] (270–75) appealed for harmony among his soldiers (''concordia militum''), stabilised the Empire and its borders and established an official, Hellenic form of unitary cult to ''[[Sol Invictus]]'' in Rome's [[Campus Martius]]. The Senate hailed him as ''restitutor orbis'' (restorer of the world) and ''deus et dominus natus'' (god and born ruler); he was murdered by his Praetorians. His immediate successors consolidated his achievements: coinage of [[Marcus Aurelius Probus|Probus]] (276–82) shows him in radiate solar crown, and his prolific variety of coin types include issues showing the temple of Venus and ''Dea Roma'' in Rome.<ref>Cascio, in Bowman et al. (eds), 171: citing .</ref><ref>See also (with due caveat) ''Historia Augusta'', ''Vita Taciti'', XIII 1–2.</ref>

These policies and preoccupations culminated in [[Diocletian]]'s [[Tetrarchy]]: the Empire was divided into Western and Eastern administrative blocs, each with an Augustus (senior emperor), helped by a Caesar (junior emperor) as Augustus-in-waiting. Provinces were divided and subdivided: their imperial bureaucracy became extraordinary in size, scope and attention to detail. Diocletian was a religious conservative. On his accession in AD 284, he held games in honour of the ''divus'' [[Antinous]].<ref>Vout, 118-9.</ref> Where his predecessors had attempted the persuasion and coercion of recalcitrant sects, Diocletian launched a series of ferocious reactions known in Church history as the [[Diocletianic Persecution]].  According to [[Lactantius]], this began with a report of ominous [[haruspicy]] in Diocletian's ''domus'' and a subsequent (but undated) dictat of placatory sacrifice by the entire military.<ref>Lactantius, II.6.10.1–4</ref> A date of 302 is regarded as likely and [[Eusebius]] also says the persecutions of Christians began in the army.<ref>Eusebius, II.8.1.8.</ref> However, [[Maximilian of Tebessa|Maximilian]]'s martyrdom (295) came from his refusal of military service, and [[Marcellus of Tangier|Marcellus]]' (298) for renouncing his military oath. Legally, these were military insurrections and Diocletian's edict may have followed these and similar acts of conscience and faith.<ref name="Rees, 60"/> An unknown number of Christians appear to have suffered the extreme and exemplary punishments traditionally reserved for rebels and traitors.

Under Diocletian's expanded imperial ''collegia'', imperial honours distinguished both Augusti from their Caesares, and Diocletian (as senior Augustus) from his colleague [[Maximian]].<ref>Bowman et al, 170-3.</ref> While the division of Empire and ''imperium'' seemed to offer the possibility of a peaceful and well-prepared succession, its unity required the highest investiture of power and status in one man. An elaborate choreography of etiquette surrounded the approach to the imperial person and imperial progressions. The senior Augustus in particular was made a separate and unique being, accessible only through those closest to him.<ref>Rees, 46–56.</ref>

[[File:Venice – The Tetrarchs 03.jpg|thumb|The near identical official images of the collegial Imperial Tetrarchs conceal Diocletian's seniority and the internal stresses of his empire.]]
Diocletian's avowed conservatism almost certainly precludes a systematic design toward personal elevation as a "divine monarch". Rather, he formally elaborated imperial ceremony as a manifestation of the divine order of Empire and elevated emperorship as the supreme instrument of the divine will. The idea was Augustan, or earlier, expressed most clearly in [[Stoicism|Stoic philosophy]] and the solar cult, especially under [[Aurelian]]. At the very beginning of his reign, before his Tetrarchy, Diocletian had adopted the ''[[Wikt:signum|signum]]'' of ''[[Jupiter (mythology)|Jovius]]''; his co-Augustus adopted the title ''[[Hercules|Herculius]]''. During the Tetrarchy, such titles were multiplied, but with no clear reflection of implicit divine seniority: in one case, the divine ''signum'' of the Augustus is inferior to that of his Caesar. These divine associations may have followed a military precedent of emperors as ''[[comes]]'' to divinities (or divinities as ''comes'' to emperors). Moreover, the divine ''signum'' appears in the fairly narrow context of court panegyric and civil etiquette. It makes no appearance on the general coinage or statuary of the Tetrarchs, who are presented as impersonal, near-homogenous abstractions of imperial might and unity.<ref>Rees, 51–56 (ideology) & 73-4 (coin image interpretation).</ref><ref>MacCormack, 722, & note 8.</ref>

==Context and precedents==
The [[Augustus#Octavian becomes Augustus|Augustan settlement]] was promoted by its contemporary apologists as restorative and conservative rather than revolutionary.<ref>Brent, 49–51. See also Augustus, Res Gestae, c.4.2.</ref> Official cult to the ''genius'' of the living [[princeps]] as "first among equals" recognised his exceptional powers, his capacity for self-restraint, and his pious respect for Republican traditions. "Good" emperors rejected offers of official cult as a living deity, and accepted the more modest honour of ''genius'' cult. Claims that later emperors sought and obtained divine honours in Rome reflect their bad relationship with their senates: in Tertullian's day, it was still "a curse to name the emperor a god before his death". On the other hand, to judge from the domestic ubiquity of the emperor's image, private cults to living emperors are as likely in Rome as elsewhere. As Gradel observes, no Roman was ever prosecuted for sacrificing to his emperor.<ref>Fishwick, Vol. 3, 1, 5.</ref><ref>Gradel, 263-8: citing Tertullian.</ref>

===''Divus'', ''deus'' and the ''numen''===
[[File:Bauinschrift, CIL XIV, 04319, Forum der Korporationen.jpg|thumb|Dedicatory inscription (''[[Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum|CIL]]'' 14.04319) to the "''numen'' of the House of the Augustus", from [[Ostia Antica]]]]
The ''[[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#divus|divi]]'' had some form of precedent in the [[parentalia|''di parentes'']], divine ancestors who received ancestral rites as ''[[manes]]'' (gods of the underworld) during the [[Parentalia]] and other important domestic festivals. Their powers were limited; deceased mortals did not normally possess the divine power (''[[numen]]'') of the higher gods.<ref>Gradel, 7: ''numen'' "can also be synonymous with ''[[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#deus|deus]]''".</ref><ref>Fishwick, Vol 3, 1, 42: see also Plutarch (based on Varro, ''Quaestionaes Romanae'', 14).</ref> Deceased emperors did not automatically become ''divi''; they must be nominated for the privilege. Their case was discussed by the Senate, then put to the vote.<ref>The apotheosed ("deified") Julius Caesar was "translated by the senate and people of Rome into the company of the gods ''(dei)''" and became the ''divus Julius'': Price, in Cannadine and Price, 1992, 77–8: the cited, translated inscription is from ''[[Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae]]'', ed H, Dessau, 3 vols, Berlin, 1892–1916, 140. 7–24 (Pisa).</ref><ref>Price, in Cannadine and Price, 82–102, for the changing roles of senate and emperors in the granting of apotheosis.</ref> As long as the correct rituals and sacrifice were offered, the ''divus'' would be received by the heavenly gods as a ''coelicola'' (a dweller in heaven), a lesser being than themselves.<ref>Javier Arce, in Theuws and Nelson, pp.116 – 117.</ref> Popular belief held that the ''divus'' Augustus would be personally welcomed by Jupiter. In Seneca's ''Apocolocyntosis'', on the other hand, the unexpected arrival of the divinised Claudius creates a problem for the Olympians, who have no idea who or what he is; and when they find out, they cannot think what to do with him. Seneca's sarcastic wit, an unacceptable impiety towards a ''deus'', freely portrays the ''divus'' Claudius as just a dead, ridiculous and possibly quite bad emperor.<ref>Price, 115.</ref> Though their images were sacrosanct and their rites definitively divine<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=h0iXiIenuU4C&dq=Julian+Imperial+cult&pg=PA203 Books.Google.co.uk], Price, 175–202, 209: later Roman ''divi'' range from "dead but not guilty emperor" to "emperor of fond memory".</ref> ''divi'' could be created, unmade, reinstated or simply forgotten.<ref>Holland's 1606 English language version of Suetonius' ''Lives of the Caesars (Claudius)'' translates Claudius as "canonised... a saint in heaven". Holland's interpretation is consistent with the later use of ''divus'' under Christian emperors: saints function as intercessors but some have also been demoted or quietly lapsed from their religious calendars. See Suetonius, ''History of the twelve Caesars'', trans. Philemon Holland, 1606, for Holland's English rendition of ''divus Claudius'', [https://archive.org/stream/historyoftwelvec02suetuoft/historyoftwelvec02suetuoft_djvu.txt Archive.org]</ref> Augustus and Trajan appear to have remained the ideals for longer than any, and cult to "good" ''divi'' appears to have lasted well into the late Imperial dominate.

The immense power of living emperors, on the other hand, was mediated through the encompassing agency of the state. Once acknowledged as ''pater familias'' to an empire, a princeps was naturally entitled to ''genius'' cult from Imperial subjects of all classes. Cult to a living emperor's ''numen'' was quite another matter and might be interpreted as no less than a statement of divine monarchy. Imperial responses to the first overtures of cult to the August ''numen'' were therefore extremely cautious.<ref>Beard ''et al'', 207: see above for Augustus' permission for cult to his own ''numen'' only very late in his reign. Whether it was official cult is uncertain, but it would have been offered and permitted, not claimed. Fishwick (2007) asserts that inscriptional references to ''numen'', connected to the living Augustus and his cult, as at [[Narbo]] in 12 BC, imply it as a property of the emperor, a "divinised abstraction", not identical with his person.</ref> Only much later, probably in consequence of the hyperinflation of honours to living emperors, could a living emperor be openly, formally addressed as ''numen praesens'' (the numinous presence).<ref>Fishwick, Vol.3, 1, 198, referring to the Severan emperor Caracalla.</ref>

The obscure relationship between ''[[deus]]'', ''[[divus]]'' and ''[[numen]]'' in imperial cult might simply reflect its origins as a pragmatic, respectful and somewhat evasive Imperial solution using broad terminology whose meanings varied according to context. For Beard ''et al.'', a practicable and universal Roman cult of deified emperors and others of the Imperial house must have hinged on the paradox that a mortal might, like the semi-divine "heroic" figures of Hercules, Aeneas and Romulus, possess or acquire sufficient measure of ''numen'' to rise above their mortal condition and be in the company of the gods, yet remain mortal in the eyes of Roman traditionalists.<ref>Beard ''et al'', vol 1, 140–9.</ref>

===''Sacrificium''===
{{See also|Religion in ancient Rome#Sacrifice}}
[[File:Marcus Aurelius showing sacrifice - Arch of Marcus Aurelius - Musei Capitolini - Rome 2016.jpg|thumb|right|[[Marcus Aurelius]] as pontifex offers sacrifice to Jupiter Capitolinus in gratitude for victory. Once part of the Arch of Marcus Aurelius. [[Capitoline Museum]], Rome.]]
Sacred offerings (''[[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#sacrificium|sacrificium]]'') formed the contract of public and private ''[[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#religio|religio]]'', from oaths of office, treaty and loyalty to business contracts and marriage. Participation in ''sacrificium'' acknowledged personal commitment to the broader community and its values, which under Decius became a compulsory observance.<ref>Gradel, 3, 15.</ref> Livy believed that military and civil disasters were the consequence of error (''[[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#vitium|vitium]]'') in augury, neglect of due and proper sacrifice and the impious proliferation of "foreign" cults and ''[[superstitio]]''.<ref>Livy, 25.16.1–4 & 6.1.12: Livy wrote at a time of extreme civil strife, during the era of Rome's transformation from Republic to Principate. See also Rosenstein, 58–60</ref> Religious law focused on the sacrificial requirements of particular deities on specific occasions.<ref>Beard ''et al'', Vol 1, 32–6.</ref>

In Julio-Claudian Rome, the [[Arval Brethren|Arval]] priesthood sacrificed to Roman state gods at various temples for the continued welfare of the Imperial family on their birthdays, accession anniversaries and to mark extraordinary events such as the quashing of conspiracy or revolt. On 3 January they consecrated the annual vows: sacrifice promised in the previous year was paid, as long as the gods had kept the Imperial family safe for the contracted time. If not, it could be withheld, as it was in the annual vow following the death of [[Trajan]].<ref>Gradel, 21.</ref> In [[Pompeii]], the ''genius'' of the living emperor was offered a bull: presumably a standard practice in imperial cult at this time, though lesser offerings of wine, cakes and incense were also given, especially in the later Imperial era. The ''divi'' and ''genii'' were offered the same kind of sacrifice as the state gods, but cult officials seem to have offered Christians the possibility of sacrifice to emperors as the lesser act.<ref>Gradel, 78, 93</ref><ref>Price, 209, 221.</ref>

===Augury, ''ira deorum'' and ''pax deorum''===
{{Main|Augur}}
By ancient tradition, presiding magistrates sought divine opinion of proposed actions through an augur, who read the divine will through the observation of natural signs in the sacred space (''[[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#templum|templum]]'') of sacrifice.<ref>Beard et al, Vol 1, 12–20: [[Haruspex|haruspicy]] was also used. The haruspex read the divine will in the sacrificial entrails. This was regarded as an ethnically Etruscan "outsider" practise, whose priesthood was separate from Rome's internal priestly hierarchy. The augur's interpretation of all these signs informed the magistrate's course of action. The magistrate could repeat the sacrifice until favourable signs were seen, abandon the project or seek further consultation with colleagues of his augural college.</ref> Magistrates could use their right of augury (''ius augurum'') to adjourn and overturn the process of law, but were obliged to base their decision on the augur's observations and advice. For Cicero, this made the augur the most powerful authority in the Late Republic.<ref>Brent, 17–20: citing Cicero, ''De Natura Deorum'', 2.4.</ref><ref>Beard ''et al'', Vol 1, 17–21: most magistracies ran for only a year. Priesthoods were for life, which offered evident advantages in maintaining a high public and political profile.</ref>

In the later Republic augury came under the supervision of the college of ''[[pontifices]]'', a priestly-magistral office whose powers were increasingly woven into the ''[[cursus honorum]]''. The office of ''[[pontifex maximus]]'' eventually became a ''de facto'' consular office.<ref>Brent, 21–25.</ref> When the consul [[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (triumvir)|Lepidus]] died, his office as ''pontifex maximus'' passed to Augustus, who took priestly control over the State oracles (including the [[Sibylline books]]), and used his powers as [[Roman censor|censor]] to suppress unapproved oracles.<ref>Brent, 59: citing Suetonius, ''Augustus'' 31.1–2. cf official reactions to "foreign cult" during the Punic crises, above.</ref> Octavian's honorific title of Augustus indicated his achievements as expressions of divine will: where the impiety of the Late Republic had provoked heavenly disorder and wrath ''(ira deorum)'', his obedience to divine ordinance brought divine peace ''(pax deorum)''.

===''Genius'' and household cults===
The ''[[mos maiorum]]'' established the near-monarchic familial authority of the ordinary ''pater familias'' ("the father of the family" or the "owner of the family estate"), his obligations to family and community and his priestly duties to his ''[[lares]]'' and domestic ''[[penates]]''. His position was hereditary and dynastic, unlike the elected, time-limited offices of republican magistrates. His family – and especially his slaves and freedmen – owed a reciprocal duty of cult to his ''[[Genius (mythology)|genius]]''.<ref>Gradel, 36-8: the ''paterfamilias'' held – in theory at least, and through ancient right – powers of life and death over every member of his extended ''familia'', including children, slaves and freedmen. In practice, the extreme form of this right was seldom exercised, and was eventually limited by law.</ref><ref>See also Severy, 9–10 for interpretation of the social, economic and religious role of the ''paterfamilias'' within the immediate and extended family and the broader community.</ref>
[[File:Antonius Pius Column Base.JPG|thumb|left|A winged genius raises [[Antoninus Pius]] and his Empress [[Faustina the Elder|Faustina]] in apotheosis, escorted by two [[eagle]]s. From the column-base of Antoninus Pius, Vatican.]]
''Genius'' (pl. ''genii'') was the essential spirit and generative power – depicted as a serpent or as a perennial youth, often winged – within an individual and their clan (''[[gens]]'', pl. ''gentes''), such as the ''Julli'' (Julians) of Julius Caesar. A ''pater familias'' could confer his name, a measure of his ''genius'' and a role in his household rites, obligations and honours upon those he adopted. As Caesar's adopted heir, Octavian stood to inherit the ''genius'', heritable property and honours of his adoptive father in addition to those obtained through his own birth gens and efforts.<ref>Beard ''et al'', vol 1, 67–8.</ref> The exceptionally potent ''genius'' of living emperors expressed the will of the gods through Imperial actions.<ref>Gradel, 5, 8.</ref> In 30 BC, libation-offerings to the ''genius'' of Octavian (later Augustus) became a duty at public and private banquets, and from 12 BC, state oaths were sworn by the ''genius'' of the living emperor.<ref>Brent, 61: Dio Cassius, 51.19.7.</ref>

The Roman ''pater familias'' offered daily cult to his ''lares'' and ''penates'', and to his ''di parentes''/''divi parentes'', in domestic shrines and in the fires of the household hearth.<ref>Brent, 62-3.</ref> As goddess of all hearths, including the ritual hearth of the State, Vesta connected the "public" and "private" duties of citizens. Her official cults were supervised by the ''pontifex maximus'' from a state-owned house near the temple of Vesta. When Augustus became ''pontifex maximus'' in 12 BC he gave the Vestals his own house on the Palatine. His ''penates'' remained there as its domestic deities and were soon joined by his ''lares''. His gift therefore tied his domestic cult to the sanctified Vestals and Rome's sacred hearth and symbolically extended his ''domus'' to the state and its inhabitants. He also co-opted and promoted the traditional and predominantly plebeian [[Compitalia]] shrines and extended their festivals, whose ''lares'' were known thereafter as Augusti.<ref>Beard et al, Vol. 1, 193–4: under Augustus' programme of "renewal" the Vestals had high status seating at games and theatres, and became priestesses to the cult of the deified Livia (wife of Augustus).</ref><ref>Gradel, 38.</ref><ref>Brent, 61.</ref><ref>Severy, 99–100, [https://books.google.com/books?id=SBRN6HW8xEIC&dq=Augustus+Vestals+&pg=PA100 Books.Google.co.uk]</ref><ref>Lott, 14–15, 115 & 230 (note 127).</ref>

===Role in the military===
[[File:Musei Vaticani - Mithra - Sol invictus 01136.JPG|thumb|right|The cult of [[Mithras]] was gradually absorbed within Imperial solar monism: sol Invictus is to the left of picture. The plaque was commissioned by an evidently wealthy Imperial slave. [[Vatican Museum]].]]
Rome's citizen legionaries appear to have maintained their Marian traditions. They gave cult to Jupiter for the emperor's well-being and regular cult to State, local and personal divinities. Cult to the Imperial person and ''familia'' was generally offered on Imperial accessions, anniversaries and renewal of annual vows: a bust of the ruling emperor was kept in the legionary insignia shrine for the purpose, attended by a designated military ''[[imaginifer]]''. By the time of the early Severans, the legions offered cult to the state gods, the Imperial ''divi'', the current emperor's ''numen'', ''genius'' and ''domus'' (or ''familia''), and special cult to the Empress as "mother of the camp." At around this time, [[Mithras|Mithraic]] cults became very popular with the military and provided a basis for syncretic imperial cult which absorbed Mithras into [[Sol Invictus|Solar]] and Stoic [[Monism]] as a focus of military [[Concordia (mythology)|''concordia'']] and loyalty.<ref>Brent, 268-9.</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=r2hBqYtZWNEC&dq=Hadrian+dominus+noster&pg=RA1-PA249 Books.Google.co.uk], Le Bohec, 249: limited preview available via Google Books</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=VqM9AAAAIAAJ&dq=%22mother+of+the+camp%22+severus&pg=PA82 Books.Google.co.uk], Dixon, 78: limited preview available from Google Books</ref>

===Altars, temples and priesthoods===

An imperial cult temple was known as a ''[[Roman temple#Caesareum|caesareum]]'' (Latin) or  ''sebasteion'' (Greek). In Fishwick's analysis, cult to Roman state ''divi'' was associated with temples, and the ''genius'' cult to the living emperor with his altar. The emperor's image, and its siting within the temple complex, focused attention on his person and attributes, and his position in the divine and human hierarchies. Expenditure on the physical expression of imperial cult was vast and was only curbed by the Imperial crisis of the 3rd century. As far as is known, no new temples to state ''divi'' were built after the reign of Marcus Aurelius.<ref>Gradel, 364.</ref>

[[File:Ercolano fresque sacellum 2.JPG|thumb|left|Interior of the College of the Augustales at [[Herculaneum]]]]
The Imperial ''divi'' and living ''genii'' appear to have been served by separate ceremonies and priesthoods.  Emperors themselves could be priests of state gods, the ''divi'' and their own ''genius'' cult images. The latter practice illustrates the Imperial ''genius'' as innate to its holder but separable from him as a focus of respect and cult, formally consistent with cult to the personification of ideas and ideals such as Fortune (''[[Fortuna]]''), peace (''[[Pax (mythology)|Pax]]'') or victory (''[[Victoria (mythology)|Victoria]]'') ''et al.'' in conjunction with the ''genius'' of the emperor, Senate or Roman people; Julius Caesar had shown his affinity with the virtue of clemency (''[[clementia]]''), a personal quality associated with his divine ancestor and patron goddess Venus. Priests typically and respectfully identified their function by manifesting the appearance and other properties of their ''deus''. The duties of Imperial priests were both religious and magisterial: they included the provision of approved Imperial portraits, statues and sacrifice, the institution of regular calendrical cult and the inauguration of public works, Imperial games (state ''[[ludi]]'') and {{lang|la|[[Munera (ancient Rome)|munera]]}} to authorised models. In effect, priests throughout the empire were responsible for re-creating, expounding and celebrating the extraordinary gifts, powers and charisma of emperors.<ref>Gradel, 78–98.</ref>

As part of his religious reforms, Augustus revived, subsidised and expanded the [[Compitalia]] games and priesthoods, dedicated to the [[Lares]] of the ''[[Vicus|vici]]'' (neighbourhoods), to include cult to his own Lares (or to his ''genius'' as a popular benefactor). Thereafter, the Lares Compitales were known as Lares Augusti. Tiberius created a specialised priesthood, the [[Sodales Augustales]], dedicated to the cult of the deceased, deified Augustus. This priestly office, and the connections between the Compitalia cults and the Imperial household, appear to have lasted for as long as the imperial cult itself.<ref>Lott, 81 – 106; for discussion of Lares Augusti see 107 – 117. Lott rejects the replacement of neighbourhood Lares with Augustus' own as politically indelicate. The ''Lares Augusti'' can be understood as August Lares – a joint honorific with unmistakable and flattering connections to the princeps himself, rather than the direct claim of princeps as patron: ''contra'' Lilly Ross Taylor, ''The Divinity of the Roman Emperor'', American Philological Association, 1931. Taylor understand the institution of Lares Augusti as the extension of Augustus' domus and its deities to Rome's neighbourhood cults. Lott acknowledges Taylor's view as generally accepted.</ref>

===Saviours and monotheists===
[[File:Altes Museum - Statue der vergöttlichten Kaiserin Livia.jpg|thumb|upright|Livia in the guise of a goddess with [[cornucopia]]]]
Greek philosophies had significant influence in the development of imperial cult. Stoic cosmologists saw history as an endless cycle of destruction and renewal, driven by ''[[fortuna]]'' (luck or fortune), ''fatum'' (fate) and ''[[logos]]'' (the universal divine principle). The same forces inevitably produced a ''[[Soter|sōtēr]]'' (saviour) who would transform the destructive and "unnatural disorder" of chaos and strife to ''pax'', ''fortuna'' and ''salus'' (peace, good fortune and well-being) and is thus identified with solar cults such as [[Apollo]] and [[Sol Invictus]]. Livy (in the early to mid 1st century BC), and Lucan (in the 1st century AD) interpreted the crisis of the late Republic as a destructive phase which led to religious and constitutional renewal by Augustus and his restoration of peace, good fortune and well-being to the Roman people. Augustus was a messianic figure who personally and rationally instigated a "golden age" – the ''[[Pax Augusta]]'' – and was patron, priest and protege to a range of solar deities. The Imperial order was therefore not merely justified by appeals to the divine; it was represented as an innately natural, benevolent and divine institution.<ref>Rehak & Younger, 93.</ref><ref>Brent, 17–18, 53–54.</ref>

The imperial cult tolerated and later included specific forms of pluralistic [[monism]]. For imperial cult apologists, monotheists had no rational grounds for refusal, but imposition of cult was counter productive. Jews presented a special case. Long before the civil war, Judaism had been tolerated in Rome by diplomatic treaty with Graeco-Judaean rulers. It was brought to prominence and scrutiny after Judaea's enrollment as a client kingdom in 63 BC.<ref>Smallwood, 2–3, 4–6: the presence of practicing Jews in Rome is attested at least a century before this. The more overt and "characteristically Jewish" beliefs, rites and customs were butts of misinformed scorn and mockery. Legislation by Caesar recognised the synagogues in Rome as legitimate ''collegia''. Augustus maintained their status. Smallwood describes the preamble to events of 63 BC as the Hellenising of ruling Jewish dynasties, their claims to kingly messianism and their popular, traditionalist rejection in the Maccabaean revolt. [https://books.google.com/books?id=jSYbpitEjggC&dq=Jews+smallwood+actium+Parthia&pg=PA2 Books.Google.co.uk] ''Ibid'', 120–143 for a very detailed account of Roman responses to Judaistic practice in Rome under Caesar and the early Principate.</ref><ref>Smallwood's application of ''religio licita'' (licensed religion) to Judaism in this and possibly any period is disputed by Rajack in: Tessa Rajack, "Was there a Roman Charter for the Jews?" ''Journal of Roman Studies,'' 74, (1984) 107–23. Rajack finds no evidence for an early "charter": Josephus seems to have inferred a charter from local, ''ad hoc'' attempts to deal with anti-Jewish acts. ''Religio licita'' is first found in Tertullian. Cicero, ''pro Flacco, 66'', refers to Judaism as ''superstitio'', not ''religio'' but a later change in Roman policy is possible.</ref> The following Jewish diaspora helped disperse early "Judaic" Christianity. Early Christians appear to have been regarded as a sub-sect of Judaism and as such were sporadically tolerated.<ref>Potter, 36.</ref>

Jewish sources on emperors, polytheistic cult and the meaning of Empire are fraught with interpretive difficulties. In Caligula's reign, Jews resisted the placing of Caligula's statue in their Temple and pleaded that their offerings and prayers to Yahweh on his behalf amounted to compliance with his request for worship.<ref>Fishwick, vol. 1, 1, 36.</ref> According to [[Philo]], Caligula was unimpressed because the offering was not made directly to him (whether to his ''genius'' or his ''numen'' is never made clear) but the statue was never installed. Philo does not challenge the imperial cult itself: he commends the god-like honours given Augustus as "the first and the greatest and the common benefactor" but Caligula shames the Imperial tradition by acting "like an Egyptian".<ref>Niehoff, 45–137: in particular, 75–81 and footnote 25. Limited preview available at Google Books [https://books.google.com/books?id=cOjCkfLCt3sC&dq=Philo+Gaius+Jews&pg=PA79 Books.Google.co.uk] (accessed 14 August 2009.</ref> However, Philo is clearly pro-Roman: a major feature of the First Jewish Revolt (AD 66) was the ending of Jewish sacrifices to Rome and the emperor and the defacement of imperial images.<ref>Brent, 221.</ref>

==The imperial cult and Christianity==
To pagan Romans a simple act of sacrifice, whether to ancestral gods under Decius or state gods under Diocletian, represented adherence to Roman tradition and loyalty to the pluralistic unity of the Empire. Refusal to adhere to the cult was treason. Christians, however, identified "Hellenistic honours" as parodies of true worship.<ref>Price, 10–11.</ref><ref>Potter, 37.</ref> Under the reign of Nero or Domitian, according to [[Arnaldo Momigliano|Momigliano]], the author of the [[Book of Revelation]] represented Rome as the "Beast from the sea", Judaeo-Roman elites as the "Beast from the land" and the ''charagma'' (official Roman stamp) as a sign of the Beast.<ref>Collins, 125: citing Revelation, 13, 7–8 & 16–17; 14, 9–11; 16, 2.</ref> Some Christian thinkers perceived divine providence in the timing of Christ's birth, at the very beginning of the Empire that brought peace and laid paths for the spread of the Gospels; Rome's destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple was interpreted as divine punishment of the Jews for their refusal of the Christ.<ref>Momigliano, 142–158: [https://books.google.com/books?id=UbJfEvZX2wUC&dq=Momigliano+military+history+religious&pg=PA142 Books.Google.co.uk] See particularly p146, (commentary on Dio, 52).</ref> With the abatement of persecution Jerome could acknowledge Empire as a bulwark against evil but insist that "imperial honours" were contrary to Christian teaching.<ref>Jerome's interpretations of Imperial ceremonial are heavily reliant on Eusebius' polemical ecclesiastical-Imperial history. Price, 203 : limited preview available at Google Books [https://books.google.com/books?id=h0iXiIenuU4C&q=Julian Books.Google.co.uk]</ref>

As ''pontifex maximus'' [[Constantine I]] favoured the "Catholic Church of the Christians" against the [[Donatists]] because:
<blockquote>
it is contrary to the divine law... that we should overlook such quarrels and contentions, whereby the Highest Divinity may perhaps be roused not only against the human race but also against myself, to whose care he has by his celestial will committed the government of all earthly things. ''Official letter from Constantine, dated AD 314.''<ref>cited in Beard ''et al'', Vol 1, 370.</ref>
</blockquote>

In this change of Imperial formula Constantine acknowledged his responsibility to an earthly realm whose discord and conflict might arouse the ''ira deorum''; he also recognised the power of the new Christian priestly hierarchy in determining what was auspicious or orthodox. Though unbaptised, Constantine had triumphed under the ''signum'' of the Christ (probably some form of [[Labarum]] as an adapted or re-interpreted legionary standard). He may have officially ended – or attempted to end – blood sacrifices to the ''genius'' of living emperors but his Imperial iconography and court ceremonial elevated him to superhuman status. Constantine's permission for a new cult temple to himself and his family in Umbria is extant: the cult "should not be polluted by the deception of any contagious superstition".<ref name="Momigliano, 104">Momigliano, 104.</ref> At the [[First Council of Nicaea]] Constantine united and re-founded the empire under an absolute head of state by divine dispensation and was honoured as the first Christian Imperial ''divus''. On his death he was venerated and was held to have ascended to heaven. [[Philostorgius]] later criticised Christians who offered sacrifice at statues of the ''divus'' Constantine.<ref name="Momigliano, 104"/> His three sons re-divided their Imperial inheritance: [[Constantius II]] was an [[Arianism|Arian]] – his brothers were Nicene.

Constantine's nephew [[Julian the Apostate|Julian]], Rome's last non-Christian emperor, rejected the "Galilean madness" of his upbringing for a synthesis of [[neo-Platonism]], Stoic asceticism and universal solar cult and actively fostered religious and cultural pluralism.<ref>A summary of relevant legislation – [http://www.fourthcentury.com/index.php/imperial-laws-chart FourthCentury.com] (accessed 30 August 2009)</ref> His restored Augustan form of principate, with himself as ''primus inter pares'', ended with his death in 363, after which his reforms were reversed or abandoned. The Western emperor [[Gratian]] refused the office of ''pontifex maximus'' and, against the protests of the Senate,<ref>Internet Medieval Sourcebook: Letter of St. Ambrose, trans. H. De Romestin, 1896., [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/ambrose-sym.html Fordham.edu] (accessed 29 August 2009)</ref> removed the altar of ''[[Victoria (mythology)|Victoria]]'' (Victory) from the Senate House and began the disestablishment of the Vestals. [[Theodosius I]] briefly re-united the Western and Eastern halves of the Empire, officially adopted Nicene Christianity as the Imperial religion and ended official support for all other creeds and cults. He refused to restore ''Victoria'' to the Senate House, extinguished Vesta's sacred fire and vacated her temple. Even so, he accepted address as a living divinity, comparable to Hercules and Jupiter, by his overwhelmingly pagan Senate.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=JNIOAAAAQAAJ&dq=pacatus+theodosius&pg=PA66 Books.Google.co.uk], Williams & Friell, 65–67. Limited preview at googlebooks</ref><ref>Nixon & Rodgers, 437-48: Full text of [[Pacatus Drepanius|Latinus Pacata Drepanius]], ''Panegyric of Theodosius'' (389) with commentary and context.</ref> After his death the sundered Eastern and Western halves of Empire followed increasingly divergent paths: nevertheless both were Roman and both had emperors. Imperial ceremonial – notably the Imperial ''[[Adventus (ceremony)|adventus]]'' or ceremony of arrival, which derived in greater part from the Triumph – was embedded within Roman culture, Church ceremony and the Gospels themselves.<ref>MacCormack, 721-52.</ref>

The last Western ''divus'' was probably [[Libius Severus]], who died in 465 AD.<ref>His status as ''divus'' is surmised from ''cons.'' = consecratio: ''his. cons. defunctus est Imp. Severus Romae XVIII kal. Septembris'' (Mommsen) in: Scharf, R., Zu einigen daten der Kaiser Libius Severus und Maiorian, Heidelberg University (pdf), p182. [http://www.rhm.uni-koeln.de/139/Scharf.pdf] (accessed 1 September 2009)</ref> Very little is known about him. His Imperium was not recognised by his Eastern counterpart and he may have been a puppet-emperor of the Germanic general [[Ricimer]]. In the west, imperial authority was partly replaced by the spiritual supremacy and political influence of the Roman Catholic Church.

In the Eastern Empire, sworn adherence to Christian orthodoxy became a prerequisite of Imperial accession – [[Anastasius I (emperor)|Anastasius I]] signed a document attesting his obedience to orthodox doctrine and practice. He is the last emperor known to be consecrated as ''divus'' on his death (AD 518). The title appears to have been abandoned on grounds of its spiritual impropriety but the consecration of Eastern emperors continued: they held power through divine ordinance and their rule was the manifestation of sacred power on earth. The ''adventus'' and the veneration of the Imperial image continued to provide analogies for devotional representations ([[Icon]]s) of the heavenly hierarchy and the rituals of the Orthodox Church.<ref>Price, 204-5, and footnote 171, citing Basil, ''Homily'' 24: "on seeing an image of the king in the square, one does not allege that there are two kings" (therefore veneration of the image venerates the original: the analogy is implicit in imperial cult but is not found in the Gospels. See also articles on [[Iconodules]] and [[Iconoclasm]]).</ref>

==Historical evaluations==

The Roman imperial cult is sometimes considered a deviation from Rome's traditional Republican values, a religiously insincere [[cult of personality]] which served Imperial propaganda.<ref>Price, 13–17, includes historians of opposing political views among those who interpret the imperial cult as the domination of "a servile world" through politically driven "charade". Eduard Meyer, "Alexander der Grosse und die Absolute Monarchie", (1905) in ''Kleine Schriften'', 1, 1924, 265, and Ronald Syme, ''The Roman Revolution'', Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1939. 256, reach essentially the same conclusions about the nature and purpose of the imperial cult, despite their opposing political alignments. Price, 13, note 31, refers to Demandt's analysis of Meyer's position, in A. Demandt, "Politische Aspekte im Alexander-bild der Neuzeit," ''Archiv für Kulturgeschichte'' 54, 1972, 325ff at p.355.</ref><ref>See also Harland, P. A., "Honours and Worship: Emperors, Imperial Cults and Associations at Ephesus (First to Third Centuries C.E.)", ''Studies in Religion/Sciences religieuses'' 25 (1996) 319–334.</ref> It drew its power and effect, however, from both religious traditions deeply engrained in Roman culture, such as the veneration of the ''[[Genius (mythology)|genius]]'' of each individual and of the ancestral dead, and on forms of the Hellenistic ruler cult developed in the eastern provinces of the Empire.

The nature and function of imperial cult remain contentious, not least because its Roman historians employed it equally as a topos for Imperial worth and Imperial hubris. It has been interpreted as an essentially foreign, Graeco-Eastern institution, imposed cautiously and with some difficulty upon a Latin-Western Roman culture in which the deification of rulers was constitutionally alien, if not obnoxious.<ref>Tacitus' reference to the ''graeca adulatio'' (greek adulation or flattery) of benefactor-cult was set within the Graeco-Eastern context of the Roman civil war and referred to [[Theophanes of Mytilene]], whose god-like honours were occasioned by no merit other than his friendship and influence with Pompey: Tacitus, Annals, 6.8: cited and explicated in Gradel, 8.</ref> In this viewpoint, the essentially servile and "un-Roman" imperial cult was established at the expense of the traditional Roman ethics which had sustained the Republic.<ref>Roman (and Greek) justifications of Rome's hegemony insisted on Rome's moral superiority over its allies and subject peoples. The same commentators deplored Empire for the demoralising effects of its "foreign" influences. See Sallust, ''Catalina'', 11.5: Livy, 1.11: Pliny the Elder, ''Natural History'', 7.130</ref> For Christians and secularists alike, the identification of mortal emperors with godhead represented the spiritual and [[moral bankruptcy]] of paganism which led to the triumph of Christianity as Rome's state religion.<ref>Price, 10–20: citing evaluations of the imperial cult as insincere or "mechanical" in Gibbon, ''Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', Bury edn, 1,75-7; Ferguson, CAH, VII (1928), 17; Eduard Meyer, "Alexander der Grosse und die Absolute Monarchie", (1905) in ''Kleine Schriften'', 1, 1924, 265; Ronald Syme, ''The Roman Revolution'', Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1939.</ref><ref>Harland, 85, cites among others M. P. Nilsson, Greek Piety (Oxford 1948) 177–178, and early work by D. Fishwick, ''The Development of Provincial Ruler Worship in the Western Roman Empire'', ANRW II.16.2 (1978) 1201–1253, for similar evaluations.</ref>

Very few modern historians would now support this point of view. Some – among them Beard ''et al.'' – find no distinct category of imperial cult within the religio-political life of Empire: the Romans themselves used no such enveloping term. Cult to living or dead emperors was inseparable from Imperial state religion, which was inextricably interwoven with Roman identity and whose beliefs and practices were founded within the ancient commonality of Rome's social and domestic ''mos maiorum''. Descriptions of cult to emperors as a tool of "Imperial propaganda" or the less pejorative "civil religion" emerge from modern political thought and are of doubtful value: in Republican Rome, cult could be given to state gods, personal gods, triumphal generals, magnates, benefactors, patrons and the ordinary ''paterfamilias'' – living or dead. Cult to mortals was not an alien practise: it acknowledged their power, status and their bestowal of benefits. The Augustan settlement appealed directly to the Republican ''mos maiorum'' and under the principate, cult to emperors defined them as emperors.<ref>Brent, 17.</ref>

With rare exceptions, the earliest institution of cult to emperors succeeded in providing a common focus of identity for Empire. It celebrated the charisma of Roman Imperial power and the meaning of Empire according to local interpretations of ''romanitas'',<ref>Beard, North, Price, (1998), 318: see also 208-10, 252–3, 359–61.</ref> firstly an agency of transformation, then of stability. Cult to Imperial deities was associated with commonplace public ceremonies, celebrations of extraordinary splendour and unnumbered acts of private and personal devotion. The political usefulness of such an institution implies neither mechanical insincerity nor lack of questioning about its meaning and propriety: an Empire-wide, unifying cult would necessarily be open to a multitude of personal interpretations but its significance to ordinary Romans is almost entirely lost in the critical interpretations of a small number of philosophically literate, skeptical or antagonistic Romans and Greeks, whether Christian or Hellene.<ref>Price, 6–20, 116.</ref><ref>Gradel, 3–8.</ref> The decline of prosperity, security and unity of Empire was clearly accompanied by loss of faith in Rome's traditional gods and – at least in the West – in Roman emperors. For some Romans, this was caused by the neglect of traditional religious practices. For others – equally Roman – breakdown of empire was God's judgment on faithless or heretical Christians and hardened pagans alike.

As Roman society evolved, so did cult to emperors: both proved remarkably resilient and adaptable. Until its confrontation by fully developed Christian orthodoxy, "imperial cult" needed no systematic or coherent theology. Its part in Rome's continued success was probably sufficient to justify, sanctify and "explain" it to most Romans.<ref>Price, 11.</ref><ref>Gradel, 23.</ref> Confronted with crisis in Empire, Constantine matched the Augustan achievement by absorbing Christian monotheism into the Imperial hierarchy. Cult to emperors was not so much abolished or abandoned as transformed out of recognition.<ref>Price, 20.</ref>

==See also==
{{Commons category|Imperial cult in ancient Rome}}
* {{annotated link|Ara Pacis}}
* {{annotated link|Cult of personality}}
* {{annotated link|Divine right of kings}}
* {{annotated link|Imperial cult}}
* {{annotated link|Mandate of Heaven}}

==Notes==
{{Reflist}}

==References and further reading==
* {{Cite book|last=Ando|first=Clifford|title=Imperial ideology and provincial loyalty in the Roman Empire|edition=Illustrated|publisher=[[University of California Press]]|year=2000|isbn=0-520-22067-6}}
*Beard, M., Price, S., North, J.,  ''Religions of Rome: Volume 1, a History'', illustrated, [[Cambridge University Press]], 1998. {{ISBN|0-521-31682-0}}
*Beard, M., Price, S., North, J.,  ''Religions of Rome: Volume 2, a sourcebook'', illustrated, Cambridge University Press, 1998. {{ISBN|0-521-45646-0}}
* Beard, Mary: ''The Roman Triumph'', The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., and London, England, 2007. {{ISBN|978-0-674-02613-1}}
*Bowersock, G., Brown, P. R .L., Graba, O., (eds), ''Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World,'' [[Harvard University Press]], 1999. {{ISBN|978-0-674-51173-6}}
*Bowman, A., Cameron, A., Garnsey, P., (eds) ''The Cambridge Ancient History: Volume 12, The Crisis of Empire, AD 193–337'', 2nd Edn., Cambridge University Press, 2005. {{ISBN|0-521-30199-8}}
*Brent, A., ''The imperial cult and the development of church order: concepts and images of authority in paganism and early Christianity before the Age of Cyprian'', illustrated, [[Brill Publishers]], 1999. {{ISBN|90-04-11420-3}}
*Cannadine, D., and Price, S., (eds) ''Rituals of Royalty: Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies,'' reprint, illustrated, Cambridge University Press, 1992. {{ISBN|0-521-42891-2}}
*Chow, John K., ''Patronage and power: a study of social networks in Corinth,'' [[Continuum International Publishing Group]], 1992. {{ISBN|1-85075-370-9}}
*Collins, Adela Yarbro, ''Crisis and catharsis: the power of the Apocalypse,'' Westminster John Knox Press, 1984. {{ISBN|0-664-24521-8}}
*Elsner, J., "Cult and Sculpture; Sacrifice in the ''Ara Pacis Augustae''", in the ''Journal of Roman Studies'', 81, 1991, 50–60.
*Ferguson, Everett, ''Backgrounds of early Christianity'', 3rd edition, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2003. {{ISBN|0-8028-2221-5}}
*Fishwick, Duncan, ''The Imperial Cult in the Latin West: Studies in the Ruler Cult of the Western Provinces of the Roman Empire'', volume 1, Brill Publishers, 1991. {{ISBN|90-04-07179-2}}
*Fishwick, Duncan, ''The Imperial Cult in the Latin West: Studies in the Ruler Cult of the Western Provinces of the Roman Empire'', volume 3, Brill Publishers, 2002. {{ISBN|90-04-12536-1}}
*Fishwick, Duncan, "Numen Augustum," ''Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik'', Bd. 160 (2007), pp.&nbsp;247–255, Dr. Rudolf Habelt GmbH, Bonn (Germany).
*Friesen, S. J., ''Imperial cults and the Apocalypse of John: reading Revelation in the ruins'', [[Oxford University Press]], 2001. {{ISBN|978-0-19-513153-6}}
*Gradel, Ittai, ''Emperor Worship and Roman Religion'', Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002. {{ISBN|0-19-815275-2}}
*Haase, W., Temporini, H., (eds), ''Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt'', de Gruyter, 1991. {{ISBN|3-11-010389-3}}
*Harland, P., "Honours and Worship: Emperors, Imperial Cults and Associations at Ephesus (First to Third Centuries C.E.)", originally published in ''Studies in Religion/Sciences religieuses 25'', 1996. Online in same pagination: [https://web.archive.org/web/20130603020820/http://www.philipharland.com/publications/articleSR.htm Philipharland.com]
*Harland, P., "Imperial Cults within Local Cultural Life: Associations in Roman Asia", originally published in ''Ancient History Bulletin / Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 17'', 2003. Online in same pagination: [https://web.archive.org/web/20090530070951/http://www.philipharland.com/publications/articleAHB.html Philipharland.com]
*Howgego, C., Heuchert, V., Burnett, A., (eds), Coinage and Identity in the Roman Provinces, Oxford University Press, 2005. {{ISBN|978-0-19-926526-8}}
*Lee, A.D., ''Pagans and Christians in late antiquity: a sourcebook'', illustrated, Routledge, 2000. {{ISBN|0-415-13892-2}}
*Lott, John. B., ''The Neighborhoods of Augustan Rome,'' Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004. {{ISBN|0-521-82827-9}}
*MacCormack, Sabine, Change and Continuity in Late Antiquity: the ceremony of "Adventus", ''Historia,'' 21, 4, 1972, pp 721–52.
*Martin, Dale B., ''Inventing superstition: from the Hippocratics to the Christians'', [[Harvard University Press]], 2004. {{ISBN|0-674-01534-7}}
*Momigliano, Arnaldo, ''On Pagans, Jews, and Christians'', reprint, [[Wesleyan University Press]], 1987. {{ISBN|0-8195-6218-1}}
*Niehoff, Maren R., Philo on Jewish identity and culture, Mohr Siebeck, English trans GW/Coronet Books, 2001. {{ISBN|978-3-16-147611-2}}
*Nixon, C.E.V., and Rodgers, Barbara S., In Praise of Later Roman Emperors: The Panegyric Latini, University Presses of California, Columbia and Princeton, 1995. {{ISBN|978-0-520-08326-4}}
*Potter, David S., ''The Roman Empire at Bay, AD 180–395,'' Routledge, 2004. {{ISBN|978-0-415-10057-1}}
*Price, S.R.F. ''Rituals and power: the Roman imperial cult in Asia Minor,'' (reprint, illustrated). Cambridge University Press, 1986. {{ISBN|0-521-31268-X}}
* {{Cite book|last=Rees|first=Roger|title=Diocletian and the Tetrarchy|year=2004|location=Edinburgh, UK|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|isbn=9780748616602|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wV5oAAAAMAAJ}}
*Rehak, Paul, and Younger, John Grimes, ''Imperium and cosmos: Augustus and the northern Campus Martius'', illustrated, [[University of Wisconsin Press]], 2006. {{ISBN|0-299-22010-9}}
*Rosenstein, Nathan S., ''Imperatores Victi: Military Defeat and Aristocratic Competition in the Middle and Late Republic.'' Berkeley:  University of California Press, 1990. [http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft967nb61p/ Ark.CDlib.org]
*[[Jörg Rüpke|Rüpke, Jörg]] (Editor), ''A Companion to Roman Religion'', Wiley-Blackwell, 2007, {{ISBN|978-1-4051-2943-5}}
*Severy, Beth, ''Augustus and the family at the birth of the Roman Empire'', Routledge, 2003. {{ISBN|0-415-30959-X}}
*Smallwood, E., Mary, ''The Jews under Roman rule: from Pompey to Diocletian: a study in political relations'', illustrated, Brill Publishers, 2001. {{ISBN|0-391-04155-X}}
*Taylor, Lily Ross, ''The Divinity of the Roman Emperor'', American Philological Association, 1931; repr. Arno Press, 1975.
*Theuws, Frans, and Nelson, Janet L., ''Rituals of power: from late antiquity to the early Middle Ages,'' Brill Publishers, 2000. {{ISBN|90-04-10902-1}}
*Versnel, H S: ''Triumphus: An Inquiry into the Origin, Development and Meaning of the Roman Triumph,'' Leiden, 1970.
*Vout, Caroline, ''Power and eroticism in Imperial Rome'', illustrated, Cambridge University Press, 2007. {{ISBN|0-521-86739-8}}
*Walbank, Frank W., ''Selected Papers: Studies in Greek and Roman History and Historiography'', Cambridge University Press, 1986 (pp 120–137). {{ISBN|978-0-521-30752-9}}
*Weinstock, Stefan. ''Divus Iulius''. Oxford (Clarendon Press/OUP). 1971.
*Wiedemann, Thomas. ''Adults and Children in the Roman Empire'', Taylor & Francis Ltd., 1989. {{ISBN|978-0-415-00336-0}}
*Williams, S., and Friell, J.G.P., ''Theodosius: The Empire at Bay'', Taylor & Francis Ltd., 1994. {{ISBN|978-0-7134-6691-1}}

{{Roman religion}}
{{History of religions}}
{{Religion topics |ancient}}
{{Paganism}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Ancient Roman religion]]
[[Category:Christianity and Hellenistic religion]]
[[Category:Deified Roman emperors| ]]
[[Category:Religion in the Roman Empire]]
[[Category:Religious nationalism]]
[[Category:Cults of personality]]