( SEP 20 1910
Divisiou _ 12
Section . t Ci O T (
BY
LOUIS MATTHEWS SWEET
Roman Emperor Worship
The Verification of Christianity
Divination and Prophecy— A Study
in Comparative Religion
A Critical History of the Theory
of Evolution
A System of Christian Theology
RICHARD G. badger, PUBLISHER, BOSTON
ROMAN EMPEROR
WORSHIP
BY
LOUIS MATTHEWS SWEET, S.T.D., Ph.D.
Professor in the Bible Teachers Training School of New York City;
Author of '*The Birth and Infancy of Jesus Christ,"
"The Study of the English Bible" etc.
■^ OF ?^
BOSTON
RICHARD G. BADGER
THE GORHAM PRESS
COPYBIGHT, I919, BY RiCHAED G. BADGER
All Rights Reserved
Made in the United States of America
The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A.
TO THE MEMORY
OF
MY FATHER
AMOS LEWIS SWEET, M.D,
New York University, Class of 1866
WHO
LEFT US WHEN THIS WORK
IN WHICH HE WAS DEEPLY INTERESTED
HAD JUST BEGUN
"How weU he fell asleep!
Like some proud river, widening toward the sea;
Calmly and grandly, silently and deep,
LiJe ioined eternity."
"Reliquos enim deos accepimus, Csesares
dedimus."
— Valerius Maximus.
"Stulte verebor, ipse quum faciam, Deos."
Nero in "Octavia^^
Act ii. l. 450,
FOREWORD
THE following pages contain, in substance,
a dissertation presented to the authorities
of New York University in partial fulfilment of
the requirements for the Doctorate in Philosophy.
The work now appears in print and is submit-
ted to the judgment of the public with the ap-
proval of the University. The research which
has gone to the making of the book was carried
on and much of the actual writing done in the
Latin Seminar Room at University Heights.
I wish to put on record my sense of privilege in
having access to this noble sanctuary of learning
and the incomparable classical library which it
contains, especially as this has involved many
hours of fellowship with the presiding genius of
the place, Professor Ernest G. Sihler, Ph.D., him-
self an embodiment of the best traditions of mod-
ern scholarship. My work has been done con
amove and it is with the deepest satisfaction that
I now connect it with the University, the Seminar
Room and Dr. Sihler.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION ii
I. THE RULER-CULT IN EARLY ANTIQUITY . 15
1. In Babylonia 15
2. In Persia 18
3. In China 20
4. In Japan 21
5. In Egypt 22
IL THE RULER -CULT IN THE MACEDONIAN -
GREEK PERIOD 24
1. Alexander the Great 24
2. The Ptolemies 25
3. In Greece 31
4. Greek-Asiatic Dynasties 36
III. BEGINNINGS OF THE RULER-CULT AMONG
THE ROMANS 37
1. The Universality of Deification in Paganism 37
2. Deification and Mythology 38
3. Deification Native to the Roman Genius . 42
IV. THE RULER-CULT AND JULIUS CiESAR . . S3
1. C^SAR AND THE DiVI 53
2. The Divine Ancestry of C^sar 54
3. Divine Honors of Cjesar During His Life-
Time 56
4. C^sar As Divus 58
5. The Julian Cult 60
6. The Worship of Roma 62
V. THE RULER-CULT IN THE REIGN OF AUGUS-
TUS 64
1. Life-Time Worship of the Emperors ... 64
2. The Worship of Augustus and the Augustan
Cult 69
9
10 CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
VI. THE RULER-CULT UNDER THE SUCCESSORS
OF AUGUSTUS 75
1. The Cult of the Augusti 75
2. The Manifoldness and Pervasiveness of the
Emperor-Cult 80
Vn. THE RULER-CULT AS A POLITICAL INSTRU-
MENT 84
1. Its Politico-religious Origin 84
2. Its Influence in Consolidating the Empire . 88
VIII. THE RULER-CULT AND THE POSITION OF
THE EMPEROR 93
1. Deification and the Mind of the Emperor . 93
2. The Ruler-Cult as a Symptom of Decadence 99
a. The Taint of Sycophancy 99
b. The Glorification of Bad Men 104
IX. THE RULER-CULT AND POLYTHEISM ... 108
1. The Self-Contradiction of Polytheism . . 108
2. Polytheism Essentially Elementary and In-
adequate no
3. Emperor-Worship the Final Phase of Pagan-
ism Ill
a. The Supersession of the Olympians . . . . 112
b. The Absorption of Mithra and Apollo . . . 115
4. Polytheism and Pantheism 124
X. THE RULER-CULT AND THE JUD^O-CHRIS-
TIAN MOVEMENT 126
1. The Jews and Emperor-Worship 126
2. Christianity and Emperor-Worship .... 127
a. TheTeachingof Christ and the Imperial-Cult 128
b. Church and Empire in the Book of Acts . . 132
c. Church and Empire in Nero's Reign and
After the Beginning of Persecution . . . 133
d. The Causes of Persecution 134
e. Conclusion — Christ and Caesar 140
BIBLIOGRAPHY 143
INDEX 149
INTRODUCTION
THE Roman Imperial Cult began with the
first Caesar and continued until the final
overthrow of paganism in the Empire. An ex-
haustive study of the Cult in all its ramifications
would practically involve a survey of Roman his-
tory during the imperial epoch and would trans-
cend all reasonable limits. A bald analytical re-
view, merely, of the data which have passed under
my own eye in the course of this investigation,
would break bounds. A rigid and somewhat pain-
ful process of elimination has, therefore, been ex-
ercised both in the use and presentation of the
available data in this field. Particularly in the
matter of the local origins and spread throughout
the empire of the ruler-cult I have been com-
pelled to turn a deaf ear to many alluring sug-
gestions. There are in this region many urgent
problems awaiting solution, which I have not
ventured even to broach. They can be solved
only by the examination and analysis of hundreds
of additional inscriptions and historic references
— an undertaking which waits upon occasion. A
II
12 Introduction
fit and appropriate opportunity for a more ade-
quate and exhaustive presentation of the theme
may at some future time offer itself. Meanwhile
what is herein contained may be counted as vital
prolegomena to a great and still largely unworked
field of investigation.
"Ars longa, vita brevis est."
The quite sufHcient task, which I have actually
set for myself, is two-fold. First, to exhibit the
grounds upon which my conviction rests that the
Roman system of imperial deification has a
broader context in antiquity, and strikes its roots
more deeply into the past, than has often been
realized even by those most conversant with the
facts.
Second, to exhibit the fact and to unfold the
significance of the fact, that the imperial cult, to a
surprising extent, displaced and superseded, not
only the hereditary and traditional gods of the
Romans, but also absorbed and subordinated the
Imported cults, both Greek and Oriental, which
were superimposed upon the native worship,
hastened the decay and overthrow of the entire
syncretic aggregation and gradually gathered to
itself the whole force of the empire, becoming in
the end the one characteristic and universal ex-
pression of ancient paganism.
ROMAN EMPEROR-WORSHIP
ROMAN EMPEROR-WORSHIP
CHAPTER I
THE RULER-CULT IN EARLY ANTIQUITY
I. In Babylonia
THE absolute beginning of the ancient and
widespread custom of deifying human be-
ings cannot now be discovered. Historic dawns
are for the most part veiled in impenetrable mist
and when the sun has fairly risen and landscapes
are clear and open before us, human affairs are
already midway of something, — beginnings are
already lost in the distance. Of this much, how-
ever, we may be certain, — the custom was al-
ready established at the beginning of that portion
of history the records of which have come down
to us. The most ancient documents afford, once
and again, most striking parallels with later de-
velopments in the Orient and among the Greeks
15
1 6 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
and Romans. A dim and far-away reflection of
the movement in its first phases may be afforded
by the great Babylonian Epic in which the hero,
Gilgamesh, becomes a solar-deity with accomr
panying worship. Another semi-mythical hero,
Etana, is also elevated to godhood. That this
elevation of heroes to divine honors is something
of an innovation is indicated by the fact that
hero-deities do not enter the celestial sphere oc-
cupied by other gods but are kept in the nether
world. ^
It was a very general custom, also, to grant
divine honors after death to prominent persons
whose careers made a deep impression upon the
minds of posterity. Moreover (and the fact is of
vital importance to this study) well-known histor-
ical personages whose reigns we can date and
place were the recipients of divine honors not only
after death but during their life-times. This is
demonstrable in several instances.
Both Gudea, patesi of Shirpurla about 3000
B.C., and Entemena of Lagash about the same
date, were deified, receiving offerings and appear-
ing in tablets with the determinative for deity con-
nected with their names. The latter's statue was
set up in the temple E-gissh-vigal at Babylon.
^Consult Jastrow: Religion of Assyria and Babylonia (N. Y.,
1898), pp. 47of.
The Ruler-Cult in Early Antiquity 17
The proof has been pointed out to me ^ In a date
list of Abeshu (2049-2021 B.C.), the eighth king
of the First Dynasty, In which appears the state-
ment: "The Year In which he (Abeshu) dec-
orated the statue of Entemena for his godhead."
The same king erected his own statue In the same
temple.
GImll Sin (2500 B.C.) was deified In his own
life-time and had a temple of his own at Lagash.
DungI, of Ur (2000 B.C.) was deified. "Shar-
ganl-Sharrl, Semitic king of Agade, writes his
name commonly, though not always, with the di-
vine determinative, and Naram-Sin has his name
seldom without It." ^ These Instances are suffi-
ciently numerous to Indicate that the custom of
deifying rulers both before and after death was
quite common.
^By Prof. R. W. Rogers, of Drew Theological Seminary, to
whom I am also indebted for the translations which appear in
the text. For the antiquity of the custom consult Jastrow: Civ-
ilization of Assyria and Babylonia, p. 336.
* Dr. Rogers. The same competent authority says: "Deifica-
tion was at that time evidently begun even during the king's
life-time." So, also, Jastrow, Religion of Assyria and Baby-
lonia, p. 561. Prof. Jastrow says: "We may expect to come
across a god Hammurabi some day." Dr. Rogers tells me (1918)
that this King's name actually appears coupled with the gods in
oath formulas. Jastrow's references on this subject should be
carefully noted. In the famous "Lament of Tabi-utul-Enlil," 2d
tablet, occurs this line: "The glorification of the king I made
like unto that of a god" (Jastrow: Civilization of Assyria and
Babylonia, p. 478). The context shows that the king's homage
was an essential element of religious duty.
1 8 Aspects of Roman Emperor-J^Forship
2. In Persia
How ancient the idea of a royal divinity among
the Persians was we have no way of knowing.
It thoroughly permeates the Zoroastrian docu-
ments and must, therefore, be as ancient as they.
The Zoroastrian instance is of particular value
because it is really alien to the system as such,
and reveals more clearly than elsewhere the rul-
ing ideas which produced it. The Zoroastrian
system of cosmogony begins with Ahura Mazda,
the creator, and ends with Saoshyant, the re-
storer, of all things. Throughout this entire cycle
of cosmic history there is an unbroken succession
of leaders and rulers possessing one element in
common, the so-called "divine glory." This ele-
ment corresponds, exceptis excipiendis, to the "di-
vine blood" or ichor in the veins of the Egyptian
Kings. A brief resume of the facts will serve to
bring to light the essential principles involved.
In Yast XIX ^ sixteen sections are devoted to the
praise of this heavenly and kingly glory, which is
transmitted through the line of Iranian Kings,
both legendary and historical, to Saoshyant. In
this Yast,^ the glory is spoken of as a quality
"that cannot be seized." Elsewhere ^ it is said
*Zamyad Yast — see S. B. E., v. 23, pp. 286 seg.
°XIX. 55 et passim.
'Aban Yast, XLII — cf. Zamyad 51, 56, etc.
The Riiler-Cult in Early Antiquity 19
that this glory took refuge in the sea during the
reigns of foreign dynasties and wicked kings.
This means that the divine quality and dignity
belong exclusively to the legitimate line of Iranian
Kings. "^ The Dinkard ^ deals with the descent of
the heavenly glory from king to king. The royal
genealogy is a part of the system. It has been
well said that this passage would serve as a short
history of the Iranian monarchy. The person of
the legitimate ruler is sacrosanct because of an
unique divine substance, imparting a correspond-
ing divine quality which puts him on a level with
the first man, with the Amesha Spentas, with Zara-
thustra himself, and with Saoshyant, the restorer,
all of whom with his royal ancestors are mani-
festations and embodiments of Ahura Mazda.
Two tendencies of thought, moving towards a
common center, meet in this conception, which, as
I have said, is really alien to the spirit of Maz-
daism, namely, an excessive idealization of roy-
alty and a tendency to materialize the divine
glory.^
This deification of the Persian rulers persists
through all later history. In a passage of iEschy-
'See Bundahis XXI:32, 33; XXXIV :4.
^'Bk. VII, Ch. I.
® Herodotus (1:131) expresses the spirit of Mazdaisra when
he says of the Persians: " wj fihv ifidi Sok^cip '6tl oOk dp6pu}7ro<f>{>eds
20 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
lus ^° Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus, Is addressed
as consort and mother of the god of the Persians.
Diodorus Siculus^^ states that Darius was ad-
dressed as a god by the Egyptians, adding, quite
incorrectly, ^^ novov ribv airavroiv ^oLdiKkoiv. Momm-
sen points out that uniformly the title of the tri-
lingual inscriptions at Naksi Rustam is "The
Mazda-servant God Artaxerxes, King of Kings of
the Arians, of divine descent," ^^ while we have
a palace inscription ^^ of the Emperor Alexander
Severus (222-235 A.D.) *E7rt5^/xta ^eoD 'AXe^dz/Spou.
This brings us through the Graeco-Asiatic blend-
ing to the Roman Imperial house, well on toward
the end of its history. A Roman emperor deified
in Persia and in Persian style presents a striking
example of historic continuity. Nor is this by
any means the end of the story as we shall see
later.i*
3. In China
So far as China is concerned I need simply call
attention to the fact that in addition to the regular
process whereby deceased ancestors are raised to
" Persae, v. 157 B^ov /jlcp evvareipd. Hepauv deov 5i /cat p.-fjT'qp %<pv%'
"1:95.
^ Mdi(T5a(rvos ^eos Apra^dprjs ^Aaik^vs ^acTLK^uv' ApidvCjp eKyivovs deQv
(C. I. G., 4675.) The Arsacide title was nearly identical. See
Momm. Rom. Gesch. Achtes B. Kap. XIV, pp. 414, 420.
" C. I. G., 4483.
"Below, p. 115.
The Ruler-Cult in Early Antiquity 21
the position of deities, a certified group of In-
stances occur, some of them very ancient, in which
conspicuous Individuals were elevated to a special
place among the deities. For example, Fu Hi
(B.C. 2952-2838), noted as a great clvllizer, was
elevated to god-hood. Nung Shen and How Chi,
founder of the Chow dynasty, were both elevated
to the position of gods of agriculture.^^ They
were both kings who had done much for this
branch of appHed science. The living emperor
during the entire Imperial epoch has been an ob-
ject of worship throughout China, the most uni-
versal of all the gods of China. ^^
4. In Japan
Shintoism, which is usually considered the one
peculiarly indigenous and characteristic religious
development of Japan, involves the deification or
quasi-delfication of the Emperor. This deification
is the core of the system which Is for that reason
frequently called "MIkadoism." ^^ The Japanese
have also a well-developed ancestor-worship
which some scholars look upon as an exotic from
Chlna.18
" See Ross: Original Religion of China, p. 154.
"De Groot: The Religion of the Chinese, pp. Csi', Moore:
History of Religions (N. Y., 1914), p. 12.
" Griffis: Religion of Japan, N. Y., 1895, pp. 45f.
"Moore: History of Religions, p. no.
2 2 Aspects of Roman Emperor-lForship
5. In Egypt
The extreme antiquity of the custom of apotheo-
sizing kings as well as its persistence to later times
finds yet another illustration in the history of
Egypt. At a very early period, before the earhest
pyramid texts, there was brought about, probably
through the influence of the priests of Heliopolis,
a synthesis of primitive solar pantheism with the
deification of the state in the person of the de-
ceased ruler.^^ This takes us back to at least
2750 B.C. The king ascends to the realm of
the sun-god; later becomes his assistant and sec-
retary, then his son and finally becomes identified
with him. He is frequently spoken of as god,
e.g., he is called "a great god." -^
At the time when the fourth dynasty was suc-
ceeded by the fifth, which was an usurping and
^'Renouf: Hibbert Lectures, 1879 (London, '84), pp. i6if, cf.
Breasted: Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient
Egypt, (N. Y., 1912), pp. i2if.
The following text (Breasted, R. A. E.) gives the technical
phraseology of deification (Vol. I, Sec. 169). "Snefru: King of
Upper and Lovjer Egypt; favorite of the tvoo goddesses; Lord
of Truth; Golden Horus; Snefru. Snefru, Great God, Who is
Given Satisfaction, Stability, Life, Health, all Joy Forever." Cf.,
Sees. 176, 236, 264, same volume, in which expressions equally
strong occur. For the origin of the title Son of Re consult
Rawlinson: Egypt, vii, pp. 60, 84. For the details of applied
deification see Erman: Life in Ancient Egypt, pp. 56, 60, 73,
77, 503. Almost all details found later, including the marriage of
brothers and sisters, go back to the earliest days. The royal
title "Son of the Sun" is found among the Incas of Peru.
The Ruler-Cult in Early Antiquity 23
conquering dynasty championed and established
by the priests, the theory was introduced and suc-
cessfully promulgated that the reigning king was
the literal and physical Son of Re. This "state
fiction," as Prof. Breasted calls it, had a long
and interesting history.^^ It prevailed without
question in Egypt until the latest period of an-
tiquity.
^Breasted, R. A. E., II, pp. iSyf. The full account is given
here and should be studied in detail.
CHAPTER II
THE RULER-CULT IN THE MACEDONIAN-GREEK
PERIOD
I. Alexander the Great
THE theory that the King of Egypt was the
son of the sun-god in the literal sense was
in full operation when Alexander the Great en-
tered Egypt as its conqueror; for he went at once
to the distant Oasis of Amon, at Siwa, in the
Lybian desert, and was there formally proclaimed
Son of Re, or Amon — hence, legitimate ruler of
Egypt. The story of Alexander's apotheosis was
incorporated into the Romance of Alexander,
called Pseudo-Callisthenes, which was translated
into Latin near the end of the third century A.D.,
or at the beginning of the fourth, by Alexander
Polemius.^-
There is another line of continuity here, also.
^Consult TeuflFel: History of Roman Literature (Eng. Tr.).,
Sec. 399; cf. also Maspero: Comment Alexandre, etc., Ecole de
H antes Etudes Annuaire, 1897; C. W. Miller: Didot Ed. Ar-
rian sub Scriptores Rerum Alexandri; Plutarch: Alex., 52-55;
Diog. Laert., v. 1.
24
Ruler-Cult in the Macedonian-Greek Period 25
In the Westcar papyrus (2350 B.C.) the idea of
the sonship of the Pharaoh to the sun deity takes
the form of a folk tale and, somewhat convention-
alized in form, appears in sculpture on several
buildings, notably at Luxor and Der-el-Bahri. It
is to be noted that even at this early date the
divine king theory involves a combination of the
political motive with the religious. Kingship, ac-
cording to this system, is a divine institution —
the king, a divine being.^^
We have next briefly to trace the continuity of
the Egyptian divinely-begotten king theory
through later history. It has one early aberrant
development in the case of Hephaestion, the
friend of Alexander, who, according to Diodo-
rus,^* was deified in obedience to a specific com-
mand of the Oracle of Amon.
2. The Ptolemies
In the case of the Ptolemies (330-30 B.C.)
the Macedonian and Egyptian traditions are thor-
oughly blended and deification marks the entire
history. The only Ptolemaic kings for whose
^^ See below, page 6i, n. io8. For the Westcar papyrus, see
Erman: Life in Ancient Egypt, pp. 373f.
^XVII. 115. We shall note other cases where the shadow
of divine royalty, falling upon a king's relative or favorite,
seems to possess the power to create divinity.
2 6 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
deification we have no documentary or epigraphlc
evidence are the minor Individuals about whom
we know practically nothing.
In a text -^ of the year 312-311 B.C. Ptolemy
I (Soter 323-283 B.C.) Is repeatedly called "Son
of the Sun" In old Egyptian style. An Inscription
of the Cyclades makes the claim that these Island-
ers first gave Ptolemy I divine honors. The
Rhodlans (B.C. 306) advanced the same claim.
They first called him Soter and established shrines
and sacrifices in his honor.-^
In the next reign, that of Ptolemy II (Phlladel-
phus 283-247) the process of deification attains
unexampled elaboration.-'^ It should be studied
with some care as It throws light upon everything
that follows.
On the Mendes Stele, Ptolemy Is designated:
"The lord of the land, the lord of power, Merl-
amon-user-ka-ra, the son of Re, begotten of his
body, who loves him, the lord of diadems, Pto-
^ See Mahaffy: Greek Life and Thought, pp. 180-192.
^® See Mahaffy: History of Egypt under the Ptolemaic Dynasty,
pp. 43, 44. Authorities are somewhat at variance as to
whether this deification was Greek or Oriental. We shall have
good reason to conclude that it was both.
^^The idea of Revillout (revue Egyptologique I, 1880) that
genuine deification began with the second Ptolemy is untenable
for the simple reason that it had already been in operation
for centuries. It was {sicut supra) greatly elaborated in this
reign. For the meaning of "Soter" see Mahaffy: Empire of
the Ptolemies, p. 62 n3, cf. p. 125.
Ruler-Cult in the Macedonian-Greek Period 27
lemy, the ever living." On the same stone, Pto-
lemy's famous wife, the first woman of antiquity,
so far as I am aware, to attain such honors. Is
spoken of as the "divine Arsinoe Philadelphos."
For the sake of its bearing upon the later history
of deification the method of deification followed in
the case of Ptolemy and Arsinoe should be care-
fully noted :
On coins she was deified with her husband —
the two pictured together as gods and designated
She was made officially avwalos with the accept-
ed "great gods" throughout Egypt.
After death she was granted a Kavrjipopos. . . .
She was coupled on a basis of equality with Ptah,
as in the expression (from a demotic stele) "Sec-
retary of Ptah and Arsinoe Philadelphos." ^^
Votive inscriptions and temples (called Arsi-
noeia) were dedicated to her in many places.
She was made the tutelary goddess of the Nome
adjacent to Lake Moeris. I have dwelt at length
upon this instance chiefly for the reason that the
operation of the machinery of deification is so.
complete and typical at this early date. Arsinoe
died in 270 B.C. The bestowment of divine hon-
ors including a permanent priesthood, was al-
^* See Krall : Studien, ii, p. 48.
2 8 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
ready a finished art, leaving little room or need
for subsequent elaboration.
The dynastic history of the Ptolemies offers
a number of facts full of interest and suggestion
from the point of view of this discussion:
The formation, almost at once, of a divine
dynasty each successive member of which has a
birthright participation in deity. An inscription
of Ptolemy III -^ reads thus: "The Great King,
Ptolemy, Son of King Ptolemy and Queen Arsinoe,
Brother Gods; Children of King Ptolemy and
Queen Berenice, Saviour Gods; the descended on
his father's side from Heracles, son of Zeus, on
his mother's side from Dionysus, son of Zeus,"
etc.
The assumption, immediately upon accession
to power, of a throne-name significant of deity,
coronation and deification thus becoming coinci-
dent. An interesting and instructive side-light is
thrown upon the practice among the Ptolemies
by this list of throne-names.^*^ Not the least sug-
gestive item is the evident fact that the implied
claim of deity becomes stronger as the list goes
^C. I. G., 5127. Boeck, in his note on C. I. G. 2620 (given
below) holds that these kings were not deified during their life-
times, but more or less promptly after death. In this judgment
I cannot concur. The evidence is all in favor of the statement
in the text.
^"This list transliterated by F. Li Griffith is published by
Mahaffy: Egypt under the Ptolemaic Dynasty, pp. 255, 256.
Ruler-Cult in the Macedonian-Greek Period 29
on. The most frequently used and most signifi-
cant of the formal titles of these rulers, male and
female, are Mepykr-qs, XoiTtip, 'A5eX<^6s.^^
In this connection attention should be called to
the Decree of Canopus.^^ This inscription of
Ptolemy III, which is dated from the temple of
the Benefactor gods in Canopus, speaks of Ptol-
emy, son of Ptolemy and Arsinoe BeoL d5€X06t
and Berenice, his sister and wife, as ^'Benefactor
gods.''
The decree (which I merely summarize) in-
creases preexisting honors so as to include the
entire dynasty under the three titles given above.
It was also voted to "perform everlasting hon-
ors" to Queen Berenice, the deceased daughter
of Ptolemy and his wife. This princess was
granted temples, feasts, hymns, offerings etc. in
great profusion.
We have also to note the frequent bestowal of
special divine names upon individual members of
the dynasty: e.g., Ptolemy V (205-181 B.C.), by
decree was called Beds 'ETrt^a^Tys EvxapLaros and
he and his wife, Cleopatra I, were entitled deot
kincfyaveis and the latter appears on coins as Isis.
"^The terra dde\(p6s in the phrase Oebt ide\<p6i first ap-
plied to Ptolemy II and Arsinoe implies a double kinship, in
lineage, and also in ruler-ship.
^* See MahaflFy: Empire of the Ptolemies, pp. 226f. and
Brugsch: Egypt and the Pharaohs, p. io6.
30 Aspects of Roman Ernperor-W orship
Ptolemy IX (146-117 B.C.), and Ptolemy XIII
(80-51 B.C.), each received the title Neos
Atoi'uo-os. ^^ ^^ From the inscriptions, it is clear
that existing organizations of priests and wor-
shipers were utilized for the advancement of the
ruler-cult. This tendency is evident also among
the Romans. ^^
The marriage of the royal brothers and sisters
of this line, one of the major scandals of all his-
tory, was based upon the assumption of deity and
was intended to keep the blood of the royal gods
pure. 2^
We find here a manifestation of the tendency,
so strong among the Romans, to link the reigning
dynasty with the Olympian deities, either by genea-
logical descent or simply by common formulas. ^^
The dramatic fact emerges from this history
that the last member of this proud dynasty was
Caesarion, Julius Caesar's son by Cleopatra (47-
^^ C. I. G. 2620. This inscription from the island of Cyprus
which is attributed by Boeck to Ptolemy IX ('Eucptctt?? II)
though there is a bare possibility that it belongs to Ptolemy III
reads thus: One Kallipos is spoken of as " dpxtepeiJovTa t^s
TT^XccJS KOiL Twv TTtpl Aidvvffov Kai dtovs 'EvepyeuTS rexviTWV," etc.
^* For the connection of M. Antony with Dionysus see Plu-
tarch: Antony c. 24. This reference gives us a definite line
of tendency from the Ptolemies to the Romans.
^Compare Hirsch. p. 835. n. 9.
'"Maspero: op. cit., p. 19.
^ Recur to p. 28, note 29, and compare the following inscrip-
tion to the third Ptolemy, found in a Greek temple at Ramleh:
Kdi Geois d6€X0o?s AU 'OXu/uttiwc koli AU Suyw/i(r6itot rods fiujfjLOvs,
etc.
Ruler-Cult in the Macedonian-Greek Period 31
30 B.C.), who was called Ptolemy Cassar, and
ascended his mother's tottering throne as the god
Phllopator Phllometor. Here once again we have
direct connection between Greece, the Orient and
Rome. Caesar's son was deified In Egypt just
about the time that Caesar conquered Pharnaces
at Zela.^^
3. In Greece
In order to complete a rapid sketch of the gen-
eral movement which culminated in the deification
of the Roman Emperors, we must now retrace
our steps a little, chronologically speaking, in or-
der to be in at the beginning of things among the
Greeks. An actual beginning may be traceable
here. Dr. SIhler asserts ^^ that according to the
true and original text there is no actual deification
of men In Homer. In the Iliad, as the text now
stands, this Is true. Even Heracles is overcome
by fate, dies and departs to the realm of the
shades. In the present text of the Odyssey, how-
ever (Bk. II, 601 ff.), Heracles has taken his
place among the Immortals and has a goddess for
his wlfe.^°
^47 B.C.
^'"T. A., p. 68.
*° Ibid., p. 69. Interesting parallels to this case are found in
connection with Erechtheus, who in Homer (II. Bk. ii, 11. 672-4)
is simply a buried hero, while in 5th Cen. inscriptions he is
assimilated to Poseidon — C. I. A.: I, 387; III, 276, 815; IV, 556c.
32 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
Two things are clear from this. First, that
some time between the formation of the original
Homeric text and the present one the belief in
the transition of mortals into the company and
felicity of the gods has found open expression.
Second, the conception of the hero who is, so
to say, a superman, easily lends itself to the idea
of apotheosis. The fundamental fact is that men
do not need to be magnified very greatly to bring
them over the rather vague line which separates
them from gods. We must agree with the judg-
ment of Dr. Sihler ^^ that gods and men are essen-
tially the same, "apart from immortality and an
irrevocable title to happiness." The same scholar
points out ^- that the favor of gods extended to
heroes for their character and deeds is the begin-
ning of hero-worship. This latter cult, an en-
tirely spontaneous and popular movement, was
very widely disseminated and combined in various
ways with the worship of the gods. This far-
reaching cult carries us already a long way toward
deification, because historically it so often involved
the junction of gods and men in common lines of
descent.
cf. Farnell: Cults of Greek States, Vol. IV, pp. 49f. Asclepius,
who is neither god nor hero in Homer (II. ii, 729-732), is Son
of Apollo in Pausanias (ii:26), and the Dioscuroi who attain
godhood between the Iliad and Odyssey, cf. II. iii, 236; Od.,
xi:30o; see Wassner: De Heroum apud Graecos Cultu, Pt. 2.
^ Op. cit., p. 68.
*" op. cit., p. 74.
Ruler 'Cult in the Macedonian-Greek Period 33
One leading motive for the establishment and
spread of the hero-cult was the claim on the part
of tribes, families, and leading Individuals to di-
vine descent.^^
Moreover, it is clear that gods and heroes not
infrequently changed places — the hero rising to
godhead and receiving worship and the god be-
ing depressed to the hero level.^^ As a matter of
fact, any essential distinction between gods and
heroes is done away in the fact already stated
that at least Heracles and the DIoscuroi were
both heroes and gods; and that many heroes, at
a very early date, had temples and all the para-
phernalia of worship. ^^ It is undoubtedly true
that the faint and wandering line of demarkation
between gods and men, on the one hand, made
easy the process of deification by removing or
minimizing any shock which might be felt in ap-
plying divine categories to beings otherwise ob-
*^ According to Dollinger such claims were urged even on
behalf of the founders of trade-guilds and industrial corpo-
rations. H. J., Sec. 67.
^Ibid., Sec. 68.
^'The gods and heroes were sometimes honored in conjunc-
tion; e.g., Hermes and Heracles, C. I. G., Ins. Mar. Aeg., 1091,
Hermes and Minyas, C. I. G., Sept., 3218.
Sometimes, apparently heroes have been constructed from
divine epithets, viz., Kapvetos, from Apollo. See Farnell : op.
cit, IV, p. 135; occasionally gods and heroes have been con-
fused, ibid., p. 151. For connection between hero-worship and
ancestor-worship, see below, p. 46, note 67. For the universality
of hero-worship, see Ramsay: Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia,
I, p. 384; for Heroes as Kings; Harrison: Prolegomena to Study
of Greek Religion, p. xiv. Cf. Plut. Cleom., xxxix.
34 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
viously human. On the other hand, it tended to
produce skepticism as to the specific character of
the gods such as we find in Euhemerus and Lucre-
tius.
Two items, before we take up PhiHp of Mace-
don and Alexander the Great again, deserve
special mention. The first is the instance men-
tioned by Herodotus, ^^ where a Spartan king made
the charge that the prince wHo was nominally his
son was actually the son of the hero Astrabakos,
who had become embodied and taken the form
of the royal husband. This I take to be a distinct
echo of the Egyptian theory or dogma which as-
cribes a divine genesis to the Pharaohs through
an actual embodiment of the sun-god. The sec-
ond instance is that of Titus Quintus Flamininus
(sec. Macedonian War, 200-197 B.C.),'*'^ to
whom the Chalcidians dedicated temples and al-
tars, made offerings and sang paeans. In these
dedications and acclamations, Flamininus was
named in company with Zeus, Apollo, Heracles,
Roma and Fides Romae. He was called, In what
is clearly an echo of the Egyptian habit: "Savior
Titus" (ScoTi^p, etc.).
We are to note, again, the combination of a
living deified Roman dignitary with the Olympian
^^6.69.
*^ Plutarch: Flamininus c. XVI.
Ruler-Cult in the Macedonian-Greek Period 35
deities. Here also we have one of the earliest
appearances of the Roma cult, the expression of
a tendency which continued and increased in later
times to personify and deify the Roman state. It
is not to be forgotten or under-estimated that
these were lifetime honors bestowed upon men
who were not actually of the blood royal, but who
possessed and exercised, in certain local jurisdic-
tions, de facto powers of royalty. These Chal-
cidians, moreover, were following an example al-
ready two centuries old, for the Spartan general,
Lysander, had received almost identical honors
at the Hellespont in 405 B.C.^^ More directly
in line with the historical movement, is the case
of Philip of Macedon. According to Pausanias,*^
Philip built a temple at Olympia in which images
of his dynasty were kept. This was in 338 B.C.
And, strikingly enough, the king was murdered at
the very time when, clothed in the dignity of mem-
bership among the Olympians, he was presented
to the people as a god. This is important because
it establishes the fact that Alexander had an hered-
itary claim to divinity, established and widely ac-
knowledged within the limits of his father's do-
mains, before he allowed himself to be acclaimed
as the son of Amon Re, in Egypt.
*^ Plutarch: Lysander, c. 18.
*® 5. 20.9-10 — see Sihler, T. A., p. 124. . .
36 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
We have thus already discovered several lines
of communication through which from primitive
times to the Roman era the ancient tradition of
deified men might easily have been handed down.
4. Greek-Asiatic Dynasties
The Seleucidae and Attilidae,^^ Graeco-Asiatic
dynasties of Antioch and Pergamos, may be dis-
missed with a sentence. The history is quite paral-
lel with that of the Ptolemies. Seleucus I (312-
281 B.C.) received divine honors at least by 281
B.C.^i Antiochus I (281-261 B.C.) was called
S£ori7p and Antiochus II (261-246) was called
Bebs. Deification, in several instances, if not
always, was accomplished in the life-time of the
king.^^
"^^ For Roman Emperor-Worship in Asia Minor, see below, p.
79-
See Hirsch. p. 834, n. 4 for references.
" In connection with Attains and Eumenes we have a group
of inscriptions (C. I. G., Nos. 3067-3070) which show that
certain members of the Association of actors of Teos, who
had charge of public games in general, were specifically ap-
pointed priests of the ruling dynasty and received honors as
such. No. 3068 gives a good idea of such inscriptions. It re-
fers to the presentation of a crown in the theatre to one who
has become ay oivodkrris koll iepevs /SacrtXecos EvfjL^vov, etc.
No. 3070 is still more specific as to the divine status of the king.
Attalus Philadelphus is agonothete and priest deov Evixhov
6.pL(XTalov. Others of the same general tenor might be cited
from later times.
CHAPTER III
BEGINNINGS OF THE RULER-CULT AMONG THE
ROMANS
I. The Universality of Deification in
Paganism
THE early development and widespread prev-
alence of the great-man cult, to designate
it by a term sufficiently broad to cover all the facts,
are not without immediate bearing upon the ques-
tion now before us — the beginning of this cult
among the Romans.
It is not merely that we are able to trace a num-
ber of interlacing lines of historical transmission
from age to age and from land to land, as indi-
cated at the close of the last section — in this way
connecting the Roman custom with the outside
world and with earli&r times. These inter-con-
nections are important enough but not so impor-
tant as a certain general fact or principle which
we may discover even where no direct connection
can be detected. That principle is this: What-
ever may be the reason for it, a matter to be dis-
38 Aspects of Roman Efnperor-Worship
cussed later, polytheists exhibit everywhere a
spontaneous tendency to include great and power-
ful human personalities among the objects of their
worship. This conclusion is inevitable from the
facts. It is impossible to suppose that this mode
of worship started from a single centre and spread
to the boundaries of the world. It has sprung up
spontaneously everywhere on pagan soil, because
it is universally indigenous to that soil.
2. Deification and Mythology
This conclusion is of the utmost importance not
merely because of the light it throws upon the
origin of the ruler-cult among the Romans, sig-
nificant as it is in that respect, but also because
it really involves the whole science of Comparative
Mythology.
The first thorough-going systematizer of tradi-
tional mythology according to a definite theory
rigorously applied was Euhemerus of Messana in
Sicily (cir. 300 B.C.) . This daring innovator held
that the gods were merely deified men and that the
mythological narratives were transmuted history.
Euhemerus has had comparatively few follow-
ers among the scientific mythologists of modern
times. Grote, who explains mythology by refer-
ence to "the unbounded tendency of the Homeric
Beginnings of the Ruler-Cult Among Romans 39
Greeks to multiply fictitious persons, and to con-
strue the phaenomena which interested them into
manifestations of design," ^^ had no difficulty in
exposing the extravagances and fictions of Euhe-
merus and the uncritical methods of the Church
Fathers who followed him. What Grote and
other mythologists of the modem school did not
do was to discern the residuum of truth in the
doctrine of Euhemerus. Emphasize, as much as
one may, the operation of the personifying ten-
dency; explain all that can be explained by false
etymology, naturistic personification or folk-lore,
room must always be found for the tendency, as
spontaneous and universal as any other in ancient
and modern paganism, to deify human beings.
This is a vera causa of mythology. In some cases
already cited and in others, the process of myth-
spinning through deification can actually be ob-
served in actu. As Sir Alfred Lyall says: ^* "It
is a fact that men are incessantly converting other
men into gods, or embodiments of gods, or emana-
tions from the Divine Spirit, all over Asia, and
that out of the deified man is visibly spun the
whole myth which envelops him as a silk-worm in
its cocoon.^' (Italics mine.) In mythologies
^History of Greece (Am. Ed.), Vol. i, p. 342 — see entire
chapter.
^Asiatic Studies, London, 1882, p. 35; cf. whole chapter (2)
and the same writer's Rede Lecture, p. 26f.
40 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
everywhere deification undoubtedly plays an im-
portant part and must be taken into consideration
in any adequate theory as to their origin. The
entire body of data presented in this discussion
may be urged in support of this particular con-
tention, but the following group of items, other-
wise somewhat miscellaneous and unrelated, is
particularly pertinent. The Nusairiyeh of North-
ern Syria, a sub-division of the Shiites, have deified
Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of Mohammed, and
other heretical Moslems have done the same with
Mohammed himself.^^ It is a particularly inter-
esting fact that Ali is identified with one or
another of the heavenly bodies, constituting a rec-
ognizable fusion of naturism and deification. I
am convinced that this has happened oftener than
we have been wont to think. According to the
same authority the Druses deify Hakim Ibn Allah,
while the natives around Mt. Carmel deify,
of all persons, Elijah, the stern monotheistic
prophet of Israel. Elijah is the god Khuddr.^^
Hopkins says of the Jains of India: "Their
only real gods are their chiefs or teachers whose
idols are worshiped in the temples. . . . They
have given up God to worship man." ^"^
^Curtiss: Primitwe Semitic Religion To-day (N. Y., 1902),
pp. 103, 104.
""Ibid., p. 95.
^''Religions of India (Boston, 1898), p. 295, n. 2.
Beginnings of the Ruler-Cult Among Romans 41
In Buddhism, Gautama, the Agnostic, is deified.
As Fairbairn says: "Buddhism deifies the denier
of the divine." ^^ A large part of the vast Bud-
dhist mythology grows out of this primary deifi-
cation which turned Buddhism from a philosophy
into a religion. In China ^^ the same fate over-
took Confucius, whose negative attitude toward
the spiritual world is well known.
The comparatively modern systems of Babism
and its more recent supersessive form of Bahaism
in Persia involve deification as their central and
fundamental principle.^°
The significance of these incidents is not only
that they are undoubted cases of deification but
that these deifications are accompanied or fol-
lowed by mythologies more or less extensive, of
which the deified person and his deeds form the
substance. The statement is therefore justified
that paganism even where it consists of decadent
monotheism universally and spontaneously pro-
duces deification.^^
'^Phil. Christian Religion, pp. 243, 274f., cf. Monier-Williams
Buddhism (N. Y., 1889), Lecture VIII.
^° Legge, the greatest authority on the subject, holds that
Confucius was actually worshiped in China, — cf. Underwood:
Religions of Eastern Asia, pp. i59f. For qualification of this
view consult Knox: Development of Religion in Japan, p. 173;
Martin: Lore of Cathay (N. Y., 1901), pp. 246f.
'"Speer: Missions and Modern History, Vol. i, pp. ii9f. —
esp. 131, n. 4. Wilson: Bahaism and Its Claims (N. Y., 1915),
pp. 35f. with references.
®^For deification among Ancient Celts consult MacCulloch:
42 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
3. Deification Native to the Roman Genius
When, therefore, we come to the Romans the
presumption is that they also will show the same
tendency to deify men of eminence and power
which is so generally seen elsewhere. Hirschfeld ^^
calls the worship of the Roman Emperor and the
royal house: "Eine durchaus un-Romische auf
griechisch - orientalischen Boden gewachsene
Pflanze, die aber gleichzeitig mit der neuen Mon-
archie nach dem Westen iibertragen dort auffal-
lend rasch sich acclimatisirt, tiefe Wiirzeln ge-
schlagen und eigenartige Bliithen getrieben hat."
In this judgment I cannot concur. It is, of
course, somewhat difficult to say just exactly what
is and what is not strictly Roman, '^^ since Roman
Religion of Ancient Celts (Edin., 1911), pp. i6if; Rhys: Hibhert
Lectures, 1886 (3d ed., London, 98), Lecture VI. Those who
•wish to broaden the induction still further will find abundance
of material: E.g., De La Saussaye: Science of Religion, Ch.
XIV; Jevons: Intr. to History of Religions, pp. 275^; W. Rob-
ertson Smith: The Religion of the Semites, pp. 42f; Frazer:
Golden Bough, Part I, Vol. ii, Ch. XIV and index sub. <voc.
There is a vast amount of data bearing on the subject of divine
kings in this colossal work, but much of the material needs
careful critical sifting; e.g., what Dr. Frazer says of the Latin
kings is based upon passages which are both late and de-
cidedly secondary, while the bridge of inference by which he
reaches antiquity seems to me precarious and unsteady. Cf.
Fowler: R. E. R. P., p. 20: J. B. Carter: Ency. Religion and
Ethics, Vol. I, p. 464, col. 2.
"^Op. Cit., p. 833.
'^ Fowler: R. F,, p. 19, starts out with the year 46 B.C., "the
last year of the pre-Julian calendar," as affording a firm basis
Beginnings of the Ruler-Cult Among Romans 43
tradition and culture were from the start domi-
nated by Greek influence, and the back-flow from
Asia through Greece began so early. It is also
obvious that the deification of Roman emperors
began only when there were emperors to deify. It
is also probable, though by no means demon-
strated, that the worship of living emperors, as
distinguished from the diviy or deceased emperors
deified, began in the Asiatic provinces.
Nevertheless, I venture to dispute the dictum
that the worship of the ruler was a thoroughly
un-Roman growth, introduced from the Hellen-
ized Orient and merely domesticated among the
Romans.®* In the first place, it would be difllicult
to explain the rapid development and the ultimate
magnitude of this system among the Romans were
there not something in it inherently congenial to
Roman thought and temper. We are not to for-
get, in this connection, what will be brought out in
detail later, that nowhere in all antiquity did the
for the study of Roman religion while it was still Roman.
By common consent the Fasti of the original calendar, pre-
served through the successive modifications which have been
made in it, afford trustworthy knowledge of the religion of the
early Romans {ibid., p. 20).
** Fowler in his great work on The Religious Experience of
the Roman People gives small place to Emperor-Worship (see
PP- 437-8), on the ground that in its developed form, it belongs
neither to Rome nor Italy. Technically, he is correct, but I
think he underestimates its importance within the period with
which he deals; cf. Heinen, op. cit., under J. Caesar and Au-
gustus.
44 Aspects of Roman Emperor-W orship
ruler-cult reach such power or attain so complete
an organization, inner and outer, as among the
Romans. All other studies of this cult are merely
introductory and auxiliary to the supreme historic
example of organized and systematic deification
afforded by the Roman system. In this sense the
cult is characteristically Roman.
In the second place, there is a sufficiency of
positive evidence to show that the process of dei-
fying men and of uniting gods and men in common
life was as nearly native as anything Roman ever
was. I adduce, first, the Trojan cycle, the pres-
entation of which, in one way or another, forms
the staple of Roman literature from beginning to
end. The traditional founder of the Roman race
was the son of Anchises and Venus Aphrodite.
iEneas, therefore, was himself a demi-god, a
divine-human being who is the reputed ancestor
of a great Roman family, the lulii. It is a fact,
the significance of which can hardly be over-esti-
mated, that Julius Caesar traced his lineage to
the gods.^^ My point here is that at the time
when the Roman tradition was amalgamated with
^ See next section. I need hardly urge that the Hercules
cycle and the hero-stories in general were part and parcel
of the Roman literary tradition. Hercules, who was prob-
ably the first foreign deity to arrive at Rome antedated by
several centuries the beginnings of Roman literature. For
the transformation of Mnezs and others into gods, etc., see
Ovid: Metam., Bk. XIV, 11. 512-771.
Beginnings of the Ruler-Cult Among Romans 45
the early Greek, not absolutely primitive times so
far as the Romans are concerned, but still very
early, the tendency which expresses itself in deifi-
cation was already in active operation. The im-
pulse to claim kinship with the gods, to cross in
one direction or the other the line which separates
gods and men, was in the Roman blood as inherit-
ors of the ancient Greek tradition.
But, I think that we are undoubtedly justified in
going much further back toward primitive times
than this. In fact, I am convinced that the im-
perial-cult was rooted in the earliest stratum of
Roman religion and was fostered by several of
the strongest native tendencies of the Roman
mind. I shall try to justify this assertion. Among
the earliest beings worshiped by the Romans,
even in the period when their gods were dimly
defined numina, deified powers, functions or ac-
tions of nature and life, mostly unnamed and
having no marked features of individuality, were
the Di Manes, ^^ or ^'divi parentum'^ of the Libri
^ That the cult of the Dead involved actual deification is
capable of very curious illustrations. Pliny expresses in a well-
known passage (H. N., VII, 188) his scornful dislike of the
Manes-cult and in the course of his remarks makes use of this
expression: "sensura inferis dando et Manis colendo deumque
faciendo qui tarn etiam homo esse desierit." In a very different
spirit but with the same underlying idea of what the practice
involves Cicero approaches the subject of a proposed memorial
to his beloved daughter Tullia. He says to Atticus (ad At-
ticum, XII, 36) : "Fanum" (a word signifying a temple de-
signed for the worship of a god) fieri volo, neque hoc mihi
46 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
Pontificum,^^ the deified ancestors of the family;
the Genius patris familias, which, in early times,
has been described as masculinity raised to god-
head, in the same sense as the deities of the house-
hold; the Lar compitalis (afterward Lar famili-
aris) or Genius of the common land of the com-
munity.^^ Here within the cult itself, coming down
from the earhest times, is the entire machinery of
deification which operates in the case of the em-
perors. Every regularly constituted family con-
sisted of divine and human members and the line
of demarkation between the groups was crossed at
death. More than that, the idealization as an
object of worship of the creative principle inherent
in the pater-familias identified by the term
erui potest. Sepulcri similitudinem effugere non tarn propter
poenam legis studeo quam ut quam maxime adsequar airodkucnv.
He wishes so to place this sanctuary and so to build it that
"so long as Rome endures 'illud quasi consecratum remanere
possit.' " Ibid., XII :i9. His whole idea is that Tullia is a
living and glorified being as he plainly states in a fragment
of his lost Consolatio: "Te omnium optimam doctissimamque,
approbantibus dis immortalibus ipsis, in eorum coetu locatam,
ad opinionem omnium mortalium consecrabo" (See Fowler:
R. E. R. P., p. 388.) An idea of the extent of the Manes-cult is
given by the number of inscriptions devoted to it, see C.I.L.X.,
^'^ See Teuffel— Hfj/. Rom. Lit., Eng. tr., sec. 73. One of these
laws reads thus: "Si parentem puer verberit, ast olle ploras-
sit, puer divis parentum sacer esto." Wassner holds and offers
convincing evidence for his thesis that hero-worship is a de-
rivative of ancestor-worship, — see De Heroum Apud Graecos
Cultu, esp. pp. 42, 43. The same scholar works out the con-
junction of hero-worship with that of the gods.
"'See Fowler: R. E. R. P., sub 'voc; cf. Marquardt: Rom.
Staats., iii, p. 199; Ovid: Fasti, v, 145; Pliny: H. N., II, 6:12.
Beginnings of the Riiler-Cult Among Romans 47
"Genius" made him a quasi-divine being even in
his lifetime. Moreover, the Lar compitalis ^^
performed the same office in the next larger com-
munity occupying the land and receiving support
from it that the Genius pater-familias performed
in the family. This is evidently pantheistic and
not polytheistic in the Greek sense of anthropo-
morphic and sharply individualized deities ;^^ but
it is no less evidently pantheism on the way to
polytheism. It may be true, as Fowler maintains,
that the Romans would never have personalized
or individualized their divine beings without help
from the Greeks and that without external influ-
ences the portentous system of imperial deifica-
tion would never have developed. On the other
hand, it seems to me beyond question that the
living germ of this development was at hand
among the Romans, awaiting only a touch of
suggestion, a breath of Greek pollen, so to say,
to awaken it to full life. Aust does not put it
too strongly when he says that the man-cult of
Greece and the Orient: "Fand zu Rom in dem
Genien und Manen-cult eine gewichtige Stiitze." "^^
The parallel between the household divi and
"•See Fowler: R. E. R. P., pp. 157, 8.
''"For the place of Lares corapitales in the emperor-cult, see
J. B. Carter: Religious Life of Ancient Rome, p. 69; cf. C. I.
L. X., 816; Dio, LV, 8. 6-7.
'^R. R., p. 95; cf. Horace: Odes IV, v; Ovid: Fasti V, 145:
Epist. II, 1.15.
48 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
the Imperatores dhi, between the Genius of
the pater-famllias and the worshiped Genius
of the emperor; between the community Lares
and what Boissieu calls the "Lare supreme de la
patrie" ^- is too striking to be merely accidental.
It is not to be forgotten either that the beginnings
of the imperial-cult under Augustus are signifi-
cantly connected with an attempted revival of the
ancient religion which brought into renewed prom-
inence the worship of the Manes and Genii.'^^
Into this revival the Divi parentiim of the Julian
house including the Divus lulius and the Genius
of the living representative of that house fitted
only too well. It required but a slight addition
to the ancient ritual and no violation of its pro-
visions."^^ As Aust says, the elevation both of
Julius and Augustus alike was due to the glorifica-
tion of the Julian house of the past. "Die Gottes
^^ This fact is strikingly exhibited in the inscription. C.I.L.
Vol. VI, 439 onwards. The first group, 439-455 is dedica-
tions to the imperial Lares. The next group closely associated
with the former in place and time belongs to Augustus as
*Tilius Divi lulii." The latter cleverly dove-tailed his family
and himself into the revived worship of the ancient gods.
''^ For the elasticity of the conception of the Lares see Duruy:
Hist, of Rome, Eng. tr., IV, p. 164. Duruy holds that the wor-
ship of the Divus was "wholly Roman," ibid. So also J. B.
Carter: Ancestor Worship, in Enc. Religion and Ethics, Vol.
I. pp. 461-466. See Art. {ut supra) y II, i.
The worship of the Lares, etc., was very persistent. The
Codex Theodosianus (XVI. X. 12) forbids any one, of any
rank, to worship even in secret: "larem igne, mero genium,
penates odore."
'^* See below, p. 78.
Beginnings of the Rider-Cult Among Romans 49
herrllchkelt der Vorfahren umstralte auch den
Sohn und Enkel." ^^ Other aspects of the devel-
opment have roots in the remote past. Aust cites
an inscription which he dates 238 B.C. which
speaks of the Genius of the Roman People and
also a shield with an inscription which on the face
of it is ancient: "Genio urbis Romae sive mas
sive femina." '^^ Aust holds that this cult centred
In the Genius of the Roman people was very little
later "als verwandte Gotter des Hauses."
There is another line of historic connection be-
tween ancient and modern Rome, not quite so sig-
nificant but yet intensely interesting, which we may
trace out.
The god Quirinus was worshiped on the hill
which continued to bear his name from the earliest
period of the city-state as is evidenced by the
name-form and by his appearance in the calendar
of Numa from which even the earliest Greek im-
portations are absent. The exact connotation of
Quirinus whether oak deity or what-not Is uncer-
tain and of minor importance. "^^ What is germane
to my purpose, however, Is a rather striking and
suggestive series of facts — the first being the an-
''^ Mon. Ancyr., 2. 9. 15-28.
" Op. cit., p. 137. Uncertainty as to the sex of the deities was
characteristic of developing Roman polytheism in the early
stages.
^^ Fowler: Op. cit., p. 143 n. 60. Ovid gives the story of the
deification of Romulus as Quirinus in Metam. Bk. XIV, 772-828.
50 Aspects of Roman Emperor-W orship
tlqulty of the worship of Quirlnus as a part of the
genuine Roman cult.
The second fact Is that In the course of time
Quirlnus becomes Identified with Mars. This
blending or pantheistic Identification Is, as usual,
the result of a clash of cults, one local, the other
an exotic. In this case, from a wider field In Italy —
and the attempt to save the local cult from being
obscured and overthrown. It failed to work, for,
as Fowler says: "Quirlnus never became like
Mars, an Important property of the Roman peo-
ple, but was speedily obscured and only revived
by the legend of late origin which identified him
with Romulus.^' It Is this last Italicized remark
with which I am particularly concerned. The
identification of Romulus with Mars-Quirinus is
not only interesting In itself but suggests another
line opening out of the primitive past.
According to Preller, Romulus and Remus were
the Lares of the "old town" on the Palatine. By
others Romulus is looked upon as an eponym
and the Romulus cycle of stories as a group of
aetiological myths. "^^ It matters little which view
one takes as to the origin of the Romulus story, —
he is undeniably the Roman race-hero, par excel-
lence. The identification of Romulus with Mars
" Duruy, on the other hand, makes Romulus a legendary hero.
See Hist. Rome, Eng. tr. i, p. 141.
Beginnings of the Ruler-Cult Among Romans 5 1
Is a striking Instance of the strong tendency among
the Romans to historicize their myths. To quote
Fowler again: "The race-hero and the race-god
have almost a mythical identity." ^^ This tendency,
which is almost strong enough to be called a pre-
vailing trait, appears again and again as a forma-
tive factor in the deification process. ^^ An exam-
ple of this lies immediately at hand. In the year
45 B.C., just after the decisive battle of Munda in
Spain, the Roman Senate erected a statue to
Julius Cassar in the temple of Mars-Quirinus-
Romulus, inscribed "Deo Invicto." ^^ From Mars
to Caesar through Romulus, a curious but quite
characteristic blending of the mythological and
the historical, there is a single, logical movement.
I adduce further, as particularly suggestive evi-
dence in the same line, the case of M. Marius
Gratidianus (cir. 85-84 B.C.), a cousin of the
elder Cicero and a praetor. Of him Seneca ^^
says: "M. Mario cui vicatim populus statuas
posuerat, cui ture ac vino supplicabat," etc. Here
is an entirely spontaneous act of deification, as
Indicated by the bestowment of technically divine
"/?. F., p. 37, n. 3.
^^ See below, p. 113.
^This event gave rise to one of the bitterest of all the bitter
remarks of Cicero — see Ad Atticum, 13:28 and cf. Sihler:
C. of A., p. 368. It is to be noted that "Deus Invictus" is a
title both of Hercules and Mithra. See below, p. 122.
^'De Ira, III, 18. i, cf. Cic. de Oratore I. 39.
52 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
honors, on the part of the populace, who proclaim
and worship their leader (in this case, literally,
an idol) while he is still alive. It was an entirely-
native impulse, just as distinctively Roman as any-
thing else the Roman people ever did. No evi-
dence of Asiatic influence is at hand and no sug-
gestion reaches us that any outside influence was
necessary. Any person who touched the popular
Imagination or kindled Its emotions was likely to
evoke that adulatory impulse which so readily
passed among polytheists into the language and
actions of worship. ^^
^'This tendency may be seen even in Lucretius whose venera-
tion for Epicurus is almost a religion — e.g., Bk. V, 8f. ; "Dicen-
dum est, deus ille fuit, deus, inclyte Memmi, qui princeps
vitae rationem invenit," etc.
CHAPTER IV
THE RULER-CULT AND JULIUS C^SAR
L C^SAR AND THE DiVI
I HAVE already touched upon the relationship
of Julius Caesar to the development of the
ruler-cult. Dr. Wissowa holds ^^ that since
Caesar did not actually reign as emperor he did
not by right belong in the circle of the divi, but
was brought in by the personal action and influence
of Augustus. This is an academic judgment which
I consider very nearly an absolute inversion of
the facts. On the contrary, it is quite evident that
Caesar was not only the first of the divi, after
Romulus who belonged to the distant and legend-
ary past, but the actual founder of the new order
in such a way that the entire cult rests upon him,
the first well-known, unquestionably historic per-
son upon whom was conferred the public and offi-
cial title of divus.^^ In support of this conclusion,
I adduce first, the numerous inscriptions which
" See H. K. A., Vol. IV, p. 71.
^ See above, p. 45, for early use of divus.
53
54 Aspects of Roman Emperor-W orship
refer to Augustus as the son of the deified Julius. ^^
The earliest of these which I am able to date with
certainty belongs to the year 1 1 B.C. and is dedi-
cated to Augustus as the son of Julius Caesar.^^
It is important in other respects inasmuch as it
shows the growing dynastic consciousness of the
followers and admirers of Augustus and is given
here entire as typical of these countless dedicatory
inscriptions which are so important for an under-
standing of the history of the ruler-cult.^^ Many
others of the same tenor, dated both before and
after the death of Augustus, might be adduced. In
other words, Julius Cassar was looked upon as
the first and determinative member of the new
divi. From him even Augustus takes his title.
2. The Divine Ancestry of C^sar
The reason for this primacy of Caesar in the
establishment of the order of the imperatores divi
^ C. I. L., X (verified, the index list is incorrect), 404, 795,
805, 931, 3827, 4637, 4857, 5169, 6903, 6914, 6917, 7458, 8035; cf.
Aust: R. R., p. 95; Heinen: Klio, 1911, Vol. II, p. 167; C. I. L.,
I, p. 50. S. I. G., I,', 558, n354 (this last may go back to 17
B.C.). These represent many localities of Italy.
*^ C. I. L., XII, 4333. The inscription belongs to Narbo in
Gallia Narbonensis:
Numini Augusti Votum,
Caesaris Divi F(ilios) Augusto,
Coniugi liberis gentique.
Ad supplicandum Numini Eius.
^ See below, p. 75.
The Ruler-Cult and Julius Casar 55
to which, technically speaking, he did not belong,
since he was never formally emperor, is based
upon certain important facts in his career. First,
we must not forget that he derived his ancestry
from Ascanius lulus, the son of iEneas, the grand-
son of Anchises and Venus Aphrodite. To Caesar,
therefore, the goddess was always Venus Genetrix,
not merely in the general sense*^ but in a pecul-
iarly intimate and personal sense. In the year
of his triumph (44 B.C.) he dedicated in the beau-
tiful Julian Forum a templum Veneris Genetricis,
in honor of his ancestress. The effect of this idea
regarding his divine ancestry upon the mind of
Caesar may be seen in the eulogy in honor of his
deceased Aunt Julia, which he delivered long be-
fore the dedication of the temple, in 68-67 B.C. im-
mediately after his entrance into the Senate. In
that address he says : "Amitae meae luliae mater-
num genus ab regibus ortum, paternum cum diis im-
mortalibus conjunctum est. Nam ab Anco Marcio
sunt Marcii Reges, quo nomine fuit mater; a Ve-
nere lulii, cuius gentis familia est nostra. Est
ergo In genere et sanctitas regum, qui plurimum
Inter homines poUent, et caeremonia deorum, quo-
rum ipsi in potestate sunt reges." ^^ It would seem
''C/. Lucretius: De Rerum Natura Bk. I, 1-24. Lucretius
begins his poem with an invocation to Venus as "Genetrix
Aeneadum."
'" Suet. D. L, VI and LXXVI. See below, p. 81.
S6 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
that to a man who could soberly make this claim,
the forms or titles of imperial distinction could
add very little.
3. Divine Honors of C^sar During His
Lifetime
Suetonius affirms ^^ that many people thought
that during his lifetime, Caesar accepted excessive
honors — "ampliora etiam humano fastigio decerni
sibi passus est." He specifies "sedem auream in
curia, et pro tribunali, tensam et ferculum circensi
pompa, templa, aras, simulacra iuxta deos, pul-
vinar, flaminem, lupercos, appellationem mensis
e suo nomine; ac nullos non honores ad libidinem
cepit et dedit." This enumeration of honors in-
cludes an assigned position for his statue ^- among
the gods both in processions ^^ and in the temples.
Mommsen bases his statement ^* as to Csesar's
personal attitude to his own divinity upon Sue-
"'D. I., LXXVI. Cf. C. I. L., X, 1271, cut in very large and
beautiful characters. It is addressed to M. Salvius: "Decurion
by benefit of the god Caesar." The inscription is from Nola
and seems to belong to the dictatorship of Caesar.
®^ Suetonius uses the word simulacrum which corresponds,
of course, to the Greek ayaXna, a statue designed for worship.
Dio (44.4) uses the word avdptas which does not necessarily
mean a statue intended for worship.
*^ According to Suetonius, Cassar had a iensa, or chariot, in
which a divine image was carried in public processions. He
specifies also ferculus, which is a litter for the same purpose.
^* Staats., 2.2, p. 755.
The Rider-Cult and Julius Casar 57
tonius. The conclusion that Caesar favored his
own deification has been questioned, but it seems
to me the evidence indicates that he went rather
far. At any rate, epigraphic evidence for the dei-
fication of Caesar at the time of his pro-consul-
ship in Bithynia can be cited.^^ Hirschfeld main-
tains that the deification of proconsuls was a cus-
tomary and accepted procedure. Pompey and An-
tony were so honored as well as Caesar.^^ It is
interesting to note, and may go down on the credit
side of Cicero's career that he was offered honors
like these and refused them, partly on the ground
that they rightly belonged to the gods and the
Roman people. ^^ He says: "Ob haec beneficia
quibus illi obstupescunt nullos honores mihi nisi
verborum decerni sino : statuas, f ana, redpnnra, ^^
prohibeo," etc.
®®An Ephesian inscription (C. I. G. 2957) of the year 48-47
B.C. speaks of Caesar in a way that is strongly reminiscent of
Egypt and the Ptolemies as: t6v Apecos /cat ' A<{)po8el-T7]s debv
kTrL(f>avV KOLL Koivbv ToO avdpoiTTLvov ^Lod aoiTTJpa. Of like
tenor are C. I. G., 2369, 22i4g, 2215, 2957 and C. I. A.,
Ill 428. Hirschfeld {op. cit., p. 836, note 19) refutes the con-
tention of Boeck, who is strangely reluctant to believe that
anybody could accept divine honors for himself in his own
life-time, that these inscriptions were not addressed to the liv-
ing Caesar. In 29 B.C. Caesar was honored as a hero under
the title of Men or Sabazios, an Anatolian deity at Nikaia.
See Pliny, H. N., VIII, 155.
^^ See page 34 for case of Flamininus.
®^Ad Atticum, 5.21.7; cf. Ad Quintum Fr., 1.1.26.
®^ Chariots for statues equivalent to tensae.
58 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
4. C^SAR AS Divus
Upon the death of Caesar, he was promptly
voted both divine and human honors by the Sen-
ate. According to Suetonius ^^ he was deified not
merely by the mouth of those making a formal de-
cree "sed in persuaslone volgl." The games in
celebration of his apotheosis were marked by
celestial omens. "Stella crinlta per septem con-
tlnuos dies fulsit," which was believed to be the
soul of Caesar received into heaven.^^^
Dio's list^^^ of posthumous divine honors be-
stowed upon Caesar, which contains a rather por-
tentous number of items, is very Interesting. Out
of the total which I have numbered from one to
eleven, a few deserve special mention. His acts
were made perpetually binding, the place and day
of his assassination were both made accursed; his
Image was not to be carried at the funerals of his
relatives Kadairep deov tlvos cos aXrjdcos but was to
be carried together with a special image of Venus
at horse races; no one taking refuge in his shrine,
which was formally set apart as to a god, could be
banished or stripped of goods, owep ovdevl ovde tcov
deoiv irXriv rccv eirl Po/ioXou yevojJLevccv.
"" D. I., LXXXVIII.
""For Julian games cf. C. I. L., I, p. 293; cf. Beurlier: Culte,
Sec. 55f.
^"'Bk. XLVII, 18, 19.
The Ruler-Cult and Julius Casar 59
It is quite evident from Dio's presentation of
the ceremonial and other official acts, which are
typical of the whole scheme of deification on its
mechanical side, that the process was carried out
in strict accord with Roman customs and with the
deliberate intention of making every item count.
The contention of Wissowa, already alluded to,
is sufficiently disposed of by the fact that Caesar
was deified by the only authority capable of doing
it, that is, the Roman Senate, and in the regular
and accepted mode. It is also clear that in the
dedication of a temple (45 B.C.) and the appoint-
ment of a priesthood to perform the rites belong-
ing to the new cult, Augustus followed — but did
not lead — the Senate and the Roman people in
their acknowledgment of the divinity of the great
Gaius. Augustus, however, was a devoted ad-
herent of the new cult.
Velleius Paterculus (A.D. 30 flor.) in a very
characteristic passage,^^^ said of Augustus: *'Sa-
cravit parentem suum Caesar non imperio sed re-
ligione, non appellavit eum, sed fecit deum.'^ This
last clause should be interpreted by emphasis:
"he not merely called him but made him god."
Valerius Maximus ^^^ ironically acknowledges
the good offices of Caesar's assassins in procuring
^"'I.VIiis.V.M. wrote under Tiberius.
6o Aspects of Roman Emperor-W orship
his exaltation. In an address to Cassar in which
he speaks of the divine honors, including altars,
temples, priests and ritual which were bestowed
upon him, he says finally: "erupit deinde eorum
parracidium, qui, dum te hominum numero subtra-
here volunt, deorum concilio adiecerunt." In this
connection a poetic touch is given to the Caesarean
cult by the fact, which Plutarch records, ^^^ that
Antony was pleased to be appointed a priest of
Caesar.
5. The Julian Cult
The extent and character of the Julian cult
may be seen from a few selected inscriptions. A
marble inscription ^^^ belonging to the pre-Augus-
tan age (cir. 43 B.C.) now in the museum of the
Vatican at Rome, reads :
Divo lulio lussu
Populi Romani
Statutum est Lege
Rufrena
^•^ Antony, 33. The words are worth recording: kvros 5e
Ka^crapi Xapifo^eyos tkpevs awedelxdv toO irporepov Kalcrapos. Ci-
cero (2d Phil. 43.110) points the finger of scorn at Antony for
his delay in playing the role of Julian priest: "Et tu in
Caesaris memoria diligens? tu ilium amas mortuum? quern is
majorem honorem consecutus erat, quam ut haberet pulvinar,
simulacrum, fastigium, flaminem? Est ergo, flamen, ut lovi,
ut Marti, ut Quirino sic divo lulio M. Antonius? Quid igitur
cessas?" etc. In the same connection Cicero expresses his dis-
like of the whole proceeding.
"'C. I. L., IX, 2628.
The Ruler-Cult and Julius Casar 6i
Another most suggestive inscription ^^^ comes
from iEsernia :
Genio ^^^ Deivi luli
Parentis Patriae
Quem Senatus
Populusque
Romanus in
Deorum Numerum
Rettulit i<^8
A rather startling inscription comes from Athens,
which specifically calls Caesar, god.^^^
The extent of the cult may be inferred from the
fact that in a group of three inscriptions recording
flamens or sacerdotes of Caesar, one is from
Terventum of Regio 4 in Rome,^^^ one from
Reii ^^^ in Narbonensian Gaul, and one from
Rusicade ^^- in Numidia.
"« c. I. L., I, 626.
^*" On the the use of genio in this inscription see below, page
68.
^"^ Particular attention should be called to this word. It sig-
nifies that Caesar belongs inherently to the company of the
gods, to which he is restored at death. Cf. Velleius Paterculus,
2.124 "post redditum caelo patrem et corpus eius humanis
honoribus, numen divinis honoratum," etc. (Written under
Tiberius.) The reference in "patrem," etc., is, of course, to
Augustus. The word "Numen" is used exactly as in ordinary
references to the gods). And see below, p. lOo.
^^ C. I. A., 65 virb Faiou'louXtou Kato-apos deov.
"°C. I. L., IX, 2598.
'" C. I. L., XII, 370.
"' C. I. L., VIII, 7986.
62 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
Taken all In all, the Imperial cult Is In full
swing upon the death of Julius Caesar and the
accession of Augustus.
6. The Worship of Roma
At this point, I am compelled to go somewhat
aside for the purpose of taking up a very Impor-
tant unattached thread In this development. I
refer to the Roma-cult, which Is closely united with
the ruler-cult, and formed a sort of Intermediate
link between the new personalism and the old
Olympian system of personified nature-powers.
The glorification of Rome under the title of the
goddess Roma, began, according to Hlrschfeld,^^^
Immediately after the entrance of the Romans Into
Asiatic affairs. According to their own claim, this
cult was founded by the City of Smyrna, whose
inhabitants boasted that "when Carthage yet stood
and mighty kings ruled in Asia," ^^* they had
erected the first temple to Roma. HIrschfeld
points out that Rome had thus become the tutelary
goddess of Smyrna.
This side-development Is especially important
because It exhibits the elasticity of the polytheistic
creed which was continually expanding to admit
'''op. cit., p. 835.
"* Tacitus: Annates, 4:56.
The Ruler-Cult and Julius Casar 63
new members and also the operation of the polit-
ical factor which contributed so largely to the ad-
vancement of the emperors to the position of
divine preeminence. The Roma-cult is Interlocked
from the beginning with the imperial. There were
temples of Dea Roma and Divus lullus for Roman
citizens at Ephesus and Nicaea and probably else-
where. The worship of Roma was connected with
that of the AugustI almost uni vers ally. ^^^
"° See C. I. G., 3524, 2696, 2943, 478 (Roma and Aug. in four
cities incl. Athens), and below, pp. yif. On the Roma-cult in
general, consult Wissowa, H. K. A., p. 283 and Preller: Rom.
Myth., pp. 283f.
CHAPTER V
THE RULER-CULT IN THE REIGN OF AUGUSTUS
I. Life-Time Worship of the Emperors
WE are now fairly embarked upon the im-
perial era, which I have divided into two
sections, about equally balanced in importance;
the era of Augustus, and that of the successors of
Augustus. The Augustan age itself stands out as
the period during which the imperial cult was
organized, established, endowed with institutional
machinery and generally put on a permanent and
self-perpetuating basis.
The question which occupies first place in all
critical discussions of the emperor cult among the
Romans is this: Were the emperors worshiped
by the Romans of Italy during their life-times or
only after death? That they received divine hon-
ors in the Eastern provinces while still alive is
abundantly proved.
The other point, which is of the utmost impor-
tance for an understanding of the relationship of
the cult to the history of Roman religion, is still
64
The Ruler-Cult in the Reign of Augustus 6^
sub judice. We may as well take up the matter
now.
Let us begin with Tacitus. This historian
says ^^^ that he found in the records of the Senate
an entry showing that a certain Cerealis Anicius
moved the erection of a temple Neroni Divo, on
the ground that Nero had attained to more than
human power. This honor though unusual was
refused solely because the action was thought to
be ominous of the emperor's death, — "nam," says
Tacitus, "deum honor principi non ante habetur,
quam agere inter homines desierit." The question
at once arises whether this rule, as Tacitus states
it, was kept. Formally, by the Senate, perhaps it
was, but actually it was not. Take, for example,
the paean sung to Nero himself at Rome on the
occasion of his triumph, A.D. 68. He was called:
"Olympian Victor, Pythian Victor, Augustus, Her-
cules, Apollo," etc. He was also acclaimed: "Our
National Victor, the only one from the beginning
of time" and "Augustus, Augustus, Divine Voice,
Blessed are they that hear thee I" ^^^ This repre-
sents and expresses the flattery of an excited and
servile populace, and there are not wanting indi-
cations that the enthusiasm was officially and arti-
ficially stimulated, but the point is that public adu-
^^^ Annales, 15:74.
"'Dio, 63.20.3.
66 Aspects of Roman Emperor-W orship
lation so constantly takes the form of deification.^^^
Wissowa ^^^ flatly affirms that Augustus was wor-
shiped as god during his life-time, both in the
East and in the West. From that time on, he
holds, until Diocletian, the rule was, the divus
received divine honors together with the Genius of
the living emperor which included the adoration
of the imperial statue. This statue cult was com-
bined with the worship of the Lares. ^-^
As a matter of fact, the worship of the Genius,
or hypostatized spirit or divine alter ego, of the
emperor was a very frail barrier indeed against
personal worship — it could scarcely be called more
than a convention — while the adoration of the im-
perial statue became a system of down-right idol-
atry. Moreover, the rules, whatever they may
have been, were broken absolutely in the instances
of Caligula and Domitian.^-^
Hirschfeld holds ^^- that Augustus, in his life-
time, received divine honors throughout the em-
pire, but that the cult was not so systematic or well
"^Dio says (63.2, 5) that Tiridates offered victims before
the altar of Nero and addressed him as "Dominus" — AecrTro'rTjj —
and also as Mithra.
"'O/*. cit., p. 72.
^ C. I. L,, VI, 307. Sergius Megalensis is spoken of as Cul-
tor Larum et Imaginum Augusti. Under date 56 A.D. (Fynes-
Clinton) we have an entry which identifies the Augustales "qui
Neroni C.C. Augusto et Agrippinae Aug. . . . et genio coloniae
ludos fecerunt."
^'^ See below, pp. 94ff.
'^0/>. cit., p. 838.
The Ruler-Cult in the Reign of Augustus 67
organized In the West, as shown by the scattered
epigraphic remains.^^" Dolllnger^^* maintains
that until Caligula it was understood at Rome that
the emperor by a special decree of the Senate and
the successor should be raised to godhood as
divus. This process was analogous to the cult of
the Manes. ^^^ The same acute student points out
two striking facts: (a) that divine honors were
pressed upon the emperors, rather than sought by
them,^^® and (b) that the divus became a new
god added to the pantheon, whereas the living
^^ Heinen (p. 175, see bibliography) gives the following list
of inscriptions as indicating the priests, altars and temples of
the living Augustus in Italy: C.I.L., V, 18/3341,^4442,^ IX, 1556;*
X, 816,'^ 820,« 837,' 1613,' 5169,'* 630s;" XI, 1331," 1420,"
1421,^^ 1922," 1923/' 3303;'" XIV, 73" 353^' 2964.^'' Of these
identifications of date i, 3, 8, 12, 13, 17 seem probable but un-
certain; 16 seems obviously incorrect; 11 belongs to the age of
Nero but speaks of an Augustan priesthood which by inference
H. carries back to Augustus; 19 depends upon a reading ques-
tioned by Mommsen ; the remaining references are beyond ques-
tion. Throwing away those which are doubtful we have ten
contemporaneous inscriptions from Italy.
^H. J., p. 615.
^ Manes — see P. W., sub. voc. and above, pp. 45, 47. Dill
(Roman Society, etc., N. Y., 191 1, pp. 61 5f) asserts that the be-
lief in the deity of the emperors "was long a fluctuating and
hesitating creed." The evidence which he offers for this hesi-
tancy concerns the attitude of the emperors toward their own
deification (see below, pp. 94ff). On the side of the people there
was no hesitation at all, or, if there was, this attitude was con-
fined to a very few who gave no sign of their secret feeling.
Dill is at least verbally correct in saying that Domitian was
the first emperor who claimed the double title "Dominus et
Deus" {cj. p. 98).
^^H. J., p. 613. See Tac. Annales, 4:37. Nero and Domitian
as well as Caligula must be excepted.
68 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
emperor was looked upon as the incarnation — or
more strictly, the reappearance of some well-
known deity, as Dionysus, Ares, Zeus, etc.^^''^
Looking at the whole body of evidence, it seems
clear that the facts are not homogeneous. It is
evidently vain to look for consistency in a process
which has so many cross-currents of emotion and
self-interest.^-^
The spontaneous and popular character of the
emperor-worship, and something of its psychol-
ogy, I think, can be seen in an instance given by
Suetonius. ^-^ Sailors and passengers of an Alex-
andrian ship In the bay of Puteoli, when Augustus
arrived there "candidati coronatique et tura liban-
tes fausta omina et eximias laudes congesserant."
In their address to the emperor, they said that
"per ilium se vivere, per ilium navigare, libertate
atque fortunis per ilium frui." How easily the
language of flattery passes Into that of actual
worship and how readily the preeminence of the
emperor merges Into that of the deity as a moun-
tain-top melts into the blue of the sky!
^ Op. cif., p. 6i6. As an interesting side-light upon this
tendency to look for the embodiment of the gods, the incident
of Acts 14:12 should be noted.
^As examples of inconsistency, the use of di-vus in connec-
tion with Titus in the oath formula (see below, p. 100), and the
combination of Genius and dwus in the inscription cited on
p. 61, n. 107.
^Aug. 98.
The Ruler-Cult in the Reign of Augustus 69
2. The Worship of Augustus and the Au-
gustan Cult
The worship of Augustus (B.C. 31-A.D. 14)
apparently began at Pergamos, where the em-
peror cult was united with the worship of Roma
and grafted immediately into the already estab-
lished cult of the Attalidas. The foundation of
the whole system as afterward developed was thus
laid in the year 29 B.C.^^^ According to Momm-
sen,^^^ when Augustus permitted divine honors to
be offered him by the Diets of Asia and Bithynia
*'there was blended for the first time the celebra-
tion of the festival for the reigning emperor and
the imperial system in general." The machinery
of the cult was very complete and elaborate from
the start. The whole system of worship was im-
perialized just as it stood. The Senate established
the Augustalia or Augustan celebrations.^^- This
institution spread through the empire with great
rapidity.^^^
"" It is to be remembered that the title "Augustus," which
had previously been confined to the gods, was bestowed upon
Octavian two years before — B.C. 27, Mon. Ancyr. i. 18. 25.
"'Romische Gesch. Band V, Kap. VIII, p. 318.
^^^ Monumentura Ancyranum, 6:13, under date of Oct. 12, 735,
U. C, i8 B.C.
"^Tacitus: Ann., 4. 15, of the year 23 B.C. The historian
says: ''Effigiem apud Forum Augusti publica pecunia patres
decrevere."
70 Aspects of Roman Emperor-W orship
In furtherance of the scheme, Augustales ^^^
were appointed after the model of the Mercu-
rlales. Sodales and cultores, who apparently
were drawn from civil life to further the cult,
were appointed in various localities.
The provincial high priests ^^^ of Augustus be-
came the eponyms for the year and the chief func-
tionaries of their provinces. These men bore the
expenses of the annual festivals and since many
honors and privileges were connected with the
position there was kleen rivalry among distin-
guished and ambitious men for it. They were
named according to the province, Asiarch, Bithyni-
arch,^^^ etc. The dignity of these various perma-
nent and temporary priestly functionaries ^^^ in
connection with the cult of Augustus, and indi-
^^ For mention of Augustales, C. I. L., X, 977, 994, 1026,
1034, 1066. As early as A.D. 38-41 an Augustalis is found at
Avaricum in Britain. See Revue Archeol, Dec, 1879.
"° The first High-priest of Augustus was said to have been
appointed to a temple on the Island of Salamis built by Au-
gustus himself, see C. I. A., Ill, 728. We find inscriptions for
Caesarea or Imperial temples from Augustus to Alexander
Severus, C. I. L., IX, 1556, Or.-Hen., 961, 2508, 2509.
"^ C. I. G., 3487. The Municipal priests appear on the
coins of thirteen Doric towns — see Mionnet: Description, etc.,
iii, 61. I. C. I. L., XIV, p. 367, col. 2. Mommsen: Staatsrecht,
ir, sec. 258f.
"^ There seems to be no absolutely fixed nomenclature for the
priests of Augustus. I have compared a large number of in-
scriptions and have been unable to formulate any distinctions
in the use of flamen, sacerdos, or pontifex. The provincial
high-priest stood by himself. The titles, Augustales, cultores,
etc., seem to have been used without any sharp distinction.
The Ruler-Cult in the Reign of Augustus 71
rectly the sweep and power of the cult itself, may
be inferred from the statement of Tacitus ^^^ that
these new religious rites were established and a
new line of priests added to the sacerdotal col-
lege, which was made up primarily of twenty-one
eminent citizens drawn by lot, to whom were added
Tiberius, Drusus, Claudius and Germanicus.^^^
The spread of the movement to glorify Augus-
tus which seems to have swept both Italy and the
Provinces may also be inferred from another state-
ment made by Tacitus, ^'^'^ who says with respect to
a temple dedicated to Augustus at Tarraco : "Pe-
tentibus Hispanis permissum, datumque in omnes
provincias exemplum."
The first altar to Augustus, with Roma,^^^ was
dedicated by Drusus at Lugdunum in Gaul, in the
year 12 B.C.^^^ Of the year 11 we have the
famous and significant inscription from the forum
at Narbo.^*^ About the same date, from Bae-
tica ^^"^ comes an inscription equally significant of
what is to come : It is addressed to one Lucretius
^^Annales, 1.54.
^'®Acro on Hor. Sat., II, 3.281 says: "Erant autem libertini
sacerdotes qui Augustales dicebantur."
^^^ Annates, 1.78.
^'^ See below, p. 90.
^*^ Mommsen : Rom. Gesch. Band V, pp. 85, 89. Bolssieu:
Inscript. de Lyon, p. 609. C. I. L,, II, 4248. In this same year
there was a Magister Augustalis in Etruria, C. I. L., XI, 3200.
"^ See p. 54, n. 87.
'"C. I. L., II, 1663.
72 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
Fulvlanus, who Is "Pontlfex Perpetuus Domus
Augustae," and to Lucretia, who is Flamlnlca per-
petua, etc. From Scardona ^^^ we have a dedica-
tion:
Sacerdoti ad Aram AugustI,
From Praeneste comes a fragment which speaks of
Cn. Pompeius Rusticus as "Flamen Caearis Augus-
ti." At Nysa, presumably belonging to the temple
of Roma and Augustus In that place/^^ there
Is an inscription lepeoos 'Pco^rjs avTOKparopos He^udTOV
which establishes the fact that the year was named
from the priest of Roma and Augustus. An im-
portant inscription ^'^^ from Auctarlum In Gallia
Narbonensis, furnishes the regulations governing
the feasts of Augustus. Another type of inscrip-
tion, most significant as Indicating the general
trend, passes from the combination of Augustus
with other gods to the mention of Augustus
alone.^^^ The tendency of the imperial cult to
supersede the Olympian, and to throw the older
"'C. I. L., Ill, 2810.
'*" So Boeck— n. C. I. G., 2943.
"'C. I. L., XII, 6038.
"^C. I. L., X, 885-890. a. 885-887, Mercury and Maia; b. 888,
Augustus, Mercury and Maia; c. 890, Augustus alone.
Cf. also C. I. L., XIV, 3679, where also we find a com-
bination of the gods with Augustus, then Augustus. The sec-
ond column of this inscription combines Augustus with others.
See also C. I. L., VIII, 6339, from Numidia, which unites Aug.
with Jupiter Optimus Maximus.
The Rider-Cult in the Reign of Augustus 73
deities into the shadow began in the reign of Au-
gustus.
I have made no attempt to fix with exact-
ness the dates of all these Augustan inscriptions
to determine in each instance whether or not it
precedes or follows his decease and formal deifica-
tion. It is of no vital importance, as inscriptions
of all the leading types belong in both periods.
His death made little difference, as his deification
was already practically accomplished and the post
mortem celebration was merely formal. ^"^^
Suetonius naively discloses the general attitude
in this matter when he ascribes to Augustus him-
self the curious notion that his punctilio with re-
gard to paying his gambling debts would redound
to his ultimate glorification: "Sed hoc malo; be-
nignitas enim mea me ad coelestem gloriam effe-
ret." i^«
^*®Dio (51.20) gives an account of the honors decreed to
Augustus in the year 29 B.C. Among other things it was
decreed, 2s re vnvovs avrbv e^ itrov tois deois ksy pa<f)ecrdaL koll (f>v\^v
lovXiov kir avToO kiravoyia^tadai, etc. The honors included a
crown in all processions, senators in purple-bordered togas,
a perpetually consecrated day and, particularly the follo\ying,
lepeas re avrbv koll virep rbv apidnbv 6(rovs_ av ah kdeXrjcrV aipeiadat
7rpocr/caTecrr77craf TO. Two items in this account are particularly
worthy of note. First, the naming of the Julian family; and
second, the enlarged list of imperial priests. Dio goes on to say
that the custom then established was kept up until in his day
the number of priests was boundless.
""Divus Aug. 71, cf. ibid., 97.
74 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
Suetonius also says ^^^ that a limit was set to
the posthumous honors paid to Augustus but it is
not easy to see where the line was drawn inas-
much as the usual rites were conducted with great
elaboration, ''nee defuit vir praetorius, qui se effi-
glem cremati euntem in caelum vidisse juraret."
"' D. A., loo.
CHAPTER VI
THE RULER-CULT UNDER THE SUCCESSORS OF
AUGUSTUS
I. The Cult of the Augusti
IN reviewing the history of the emperor-cult as
a whole, from the time of Augustus on — un-
der his successors — ^the most striking single fea-
ture is the development of the cult of the Augusti.
By this process, which grew out of the general
organism of imperial deification as fecundated by
the dynastic idea, the emperors together with
members of the royal family and even of the im-
perial entourage were formed into a Roman
Olympus — that is, an organized hierarchy of ac-
cepted deities.^^^ Certain stages in this unique
development are clearly discernible. The first step
is disclosed in an inscription already referred to
more than once,^^^ in which with Augustus, his
"^'In a coin of Sardis (see Eckhel D. N. A., VI, p. 211).
Drusus and Germanicus are called veoi deol. Eckhel caustically
says: "Vocantur {v. 6.), istud fane pro Graecorum genio, qui
Olympum colonis implevere." He also strongly affirms that
these coins in honor of the adopted sons of Tiberius were made
when the young princes were still alive.
^'^C.LL,Xn,4333.
75
76 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
wife, his children and his race, are combined.
Other inscriptions refer to Livia, the wife of Au-
gustus, under the divine title 'Yyeia,^^* and
Julia.i^^
Other women of the imperial house were also
honored as goddesses.^^^
Far more important, however, than this
tendency to include wives, relatives, and favorites,
within the divine nimbus of the emperor, was the
self-perpetuating character of the organization
which had been built up for the purpose of ad-
vancing the interests of the cult.^^'^
^^ c. I. A., Ill, 460.
^^ C. I. L., XII, 1363, 4249. Flaminlcae luliae Augustae.
C. I. L., II, 2038, luliae Augustae
Matri Ti. Caesaris Aug. Prin.
^^^ Cf. C I. A., Ill, 315, 316. In these inscriptions the Dalian
Priest of Apollo, of Caesar Augustus, High Priest of Antonia
Augusta, the priestess of the goddess Antonia, the priestess of
Vesta, Livia and Julia are mentioned. It has been hinted that
Livia herself was called Vesta — see note ut supra.
Julia, the wife of Agrippa, is called Aphrodite Geneteira
at Eresos in Asia Minor (23-1 B.C.).
Tiberius and his mother Livia were worshiped as divine
mother and son at Tiberiopolis in Phrygia (see Ramsay: Hist.
Geoff. Asia Minor, p. 147) ; Agrippina was called 6ea AtoXts
KapTTo^opos at Lesbos; Poppaea Sabina was honored at Ak-
monia as the goddess of "Imperial Fertility" {Xe^aarr] Ev^oaia).
See C. L G., 3858.
"■^In the Narbo inscription of 11 B.C., referred to elsewhere
(see p. 54), occurs the expression: ''Qui se numini eius im-
perpetuum colendo obligaverunt." It is no exaggeration to say
that the system was intended to be permanent, and as human
institutions go, was permanent — it lasted nearly as long as the
Empire.
The scope and effectiveness of the post-Augustan organiza-
tion may be seen from the following facts in Asia Minor.
Ramsay {Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia) shows that the
Rider-Cult Under the Successors of Augustus 77
For example, in the time of Claudius (41-54
A.D.) there are Augustales Claudlales.^^^ Again,
the Seviri, which were originally the six highest
priests of Augustus, were perpetuated through suc-
cessive reigns, thus : Seviri Tiberiani ^^^ Claudi-
ales ^^^ Neronieni,^^^ Flaviales.^^- In the last title
the dynastic tendency is in full bloom. It was
Domitian who established a temple to the Flavian
family,^^^ and it is to this era that the form of
oath to be taken by a praetor left in charge during
the absence of a duum vir, which includes the em-
perors among the gods, belongs. The oath runs
thus,^^* "per lovem et divom Augustum et divom
provincial and municipal organization was practically com-
plete. There were foundations of the imperial cult certainly
in many, probably in all, the cities of Asia Minor. Whole
provinces united in establishing foundations, and these 'Koiva
held festivals in the principalities. Among the cities mentioned
in this connection are those to whom the Epistles of the Apoc.
were written {op. cit., p. 55). Under Caracalla and Commodus
cities competed for the title "Neo/copos," which was bestowed
upon those which built a temple dedicated solely to an em-
peror. The imperial cult adopted and adapted the existent
religious ministrants such as hymnodoi, theologoi, etc., in such
a way as practically to confiscate the existing temple-founda-
tions. Add to that the accompanying assumption of the func-
tions and dignities of the established deities, and the taking over
process seems quite complete. The festival of Zeus at Laodi-
cea became the feast of Zeus and the Emperors before A.D. 150
{ibid., pp. iif).
"'See P. W., II, 2355.
"'C. I. L., IX, 6415.
"° C. I. L., XI, 714.
^^ C. I. L., V, 3429.
;^C. I. L., V, 4399, XI^ 4639; XII, 1159.
"'Suet.: Dom. V.
*^C. I. L., II, 1963, and 4.
78 Aspects of Roman Emperor-W orship
Claudlum et divom Vespaslanum et divum Tltum
Augustum et genium Caesaris Domitlani August!
deosque penates."
In the acts of the Arval brothers/^^ an entry
for the year 69 A.D. which prescribes the mode of
sacrifice on stated occasions (Feb. and March)
reads:
lovl (bull)
lunono (heifer)
SalutI Rom. Pop. (heifer)
DIvo Augusto (bull)
DIvae Augustae (heifer)
DIvo Claudlo (bull)
On March first, and again on the ninth, the em-
peror offered sacrifice as this canon called for, and
in addition offered a bull "Genio Ipslus."
Just when the term Augusti was first applied
as a collective designation for the divi, their liv-
ing successor, relations and satellites looked upon
as "a fast-closed group of new deities" ^^^ I have
been unable to determine. The inscriptions are so
numerous, so widespread, and so nearly contempo-
raneous that it becomes diflicult, If not Impossible,
^"Henzen: Acta Arvalia, year 69 A.D. Under date A.D. 183
the festival of the Arval Brothers was held in which the old
ritual was gone through with the addition of sixteen divi
{ibid.). The "Carmen Saliorum" was also addressed to the
living emperors, see Wordsworth Fragmenta sub <voc. Mar-
quardt: Rom. Staats., iii, pp. 427-438.
""Wissowa: Op. cit., p. 71.
Ruler-Cult Under the Successors of Augustus 79
to determine dates. I am convinced, however, that
the epigraphic evidence will lead us back within a
reign or two of Augustus himself. On the other
hand, there are designated high-priests of the
Augusti in a group of inscriptions in and about
Athens which come down as late as 143 A.D.^^''
(Antoninus Pius) . No worship, therefore, is more
characteristic of the imperial age as a whole than
this veneration of the Augusti. This becomes the
more evident when we consider another related
fact, already hinted at, that these new deities ex-
hibited a tendency to supersede the established and
traditional Olympian gods. To exhibit this tend-
ency in full bloom it is necessary only to refer to
a group of inscriptions discovered in Asia Minor
by the Wolfe expedition of 1884-5.^^^ I gi^^ ^
translation of a Greek inscription ^^^ from Kara
Baulo, on the western edge of Zengi Ovasii :
"The Council and the People
Honored Councilor Bianor son of
Antiochus,
City-lover, gymnasiarch *
High-priest of the Augusti
Founder of the City."
'^ C. I. A., Ill, 57, 389, 665, 668, 669, 670, 671, 672, 673, 675a.
^°* Published by the Archaeological Institute of America in
1888 as Studies of the American School of Classical Studies at
Athens, vol. iii. Written by J. R. Sitlington-Sterrett, Ph.D.
The numbers refer to this volume.
^* No. 403, see op. cit., p. 284, also cf. 282.
8o Aspects of Roman Emperor-W orship
Another inscription ^^^ taken from the Temple of
the Augusti and Aphrodite (who is ignored in the
inscription, as she takes second place in the title of
the temple) is dedicated by Antiochus, the Son of
Tlamoos, designated as apxi-epevs tcov Se/Sao-rcoi', to
Oeols SejSao-rots kcll r>? 7rarpt5t. His wife is desig-
nated in the same way as high-priestess. Another
Inscription ^"^^ from the Temple of the Emperors
and Zeus Sarapis perpetrates the same double
irony upon the Olympian member of the group
as in the preceding instance, for the person desig-
nated is simply "High-priest of the Augusti.''
Here Is unmistakable epigraphic evidence that, in
one locality at least, the emperor cult pushed into
the back-ground and practically superseded the
Olympian system. ^^-
2. The Manifoldness and Pervasiveness of
THE Emperor-Cult
We have now come to a point where it will be
profitable to attempt a rapid review and summary
of results.
The Roman imperial-cult had behind it the
force of a primary instinct and the accelerated
""409 cf. also 410 410, 411, 412.
'"417.
"'^ Cf. Wissowa: Op. cit., p. 72; Beurlier: Le Culte Imperiale,
p. 17; Sterret: p. 290. The latter says that all the temples at
Kara Baulo are identified with the emperor worship.
Rider-Ciilt Under the Successors of Augustus 8i
momentum of ancient and persistent custom. A
world-wide movement recorded In the earliest doc-
uments of Babylonia and in the latest of the
Roman Empire has passed in review before us.
The worship of rulers arose among the Romans
partly de novo as a native and spontaneous action,
partly through the operation of countless converg-
ing lines of Influence.
In the early days of the republic, when offices
were temporary and filled by the choice of an
electorate, certain powerful individuals were sin-
gled out for honors indistinguishable from those
offered to the gods, while generals and pro-con-
suls came back from the provinces with the pres-
tige of deification. The movement reached a pre-
liminary climax in the honors granted to the domi-
nant personality of Julius Cassar, who during his
life-time was deified abroad and in Italy, and
immediately upon his decease was officially put in
the company of the Immortals. In the reign of his
successor, Augustus, an organized cult of the
DIvus Julius was established and almost simul-
taneously with It a priesthood and worship of the
reigning emperor was put into operation.
Throughout the empire, particularly In the prov-
inces, but to a certain extent In Italy itself, the
combined worship of the divi and the living rulers
was carried on under the highest imperial and
local auspices.
82 Aspects of Roman Emperor-W orship
Dolllnger enables us to grasp the whole process
and to visualize both its forward movement in
the direct line of the Augusti and its lateral out-
reach to include those who were deified through
their close association with the emperor, when he
states ^^^ that, from the beginning to the time of
Diocletian, there were fifty-three solemn consecra-
tions, including those of fifteen women. There
were in Rome ^'^^ temples of the Divus lulius; of
the Divus Augustus; ^"^^ of the divi;^'^^ of the
Divus Claudius; ^^^ of Clementiae Caesaris; ^'^^ of
the Divus Marcus Aurelius; of the Divus Tra-
janus; of the Divus Vespasianus; of the Divus An-
toninus and Faustina.
This is certainly an indication of the power and
influence of the cult. I might go on indefinitely
summarizing in this same way, the multitudinous
evidences of the universality and pervasiveness of
the cult. I think, however, that an intensive look
at a limited group of facts will make the situa-
tion much clearer.
For example, of flamens and priests of Roma
"^ 0/>. cit., p. 6i6. There are extant coins of forty-eight dei-
fied royal persons, Duruy: Hist. Rom., Eng. tr., Vol. V, p. i68.
"* Kiepert and Huelsen — Formae Urbis, etc., pp. 74ff.
^"Situated on the Palatine: see Suet. Tib., 47, cf. Acta Ar-
<valia: Henzen, p. LV.
"°See Henzen: pp. XI and XXXIII, where the Augustan
rites are given.
^~J Sueton. Vesp., 9.
^"Ded. to Julius Caesar, yr. 44. See Dio, 47:6.
Ruler-Cult Under the Successors of Augustus 83
and the August! ; of Roma alone (once only);
or of Roma, divi and August!, there were twenty
in Tarraconencis alone, nine in Tarraco alone.
There are extant inscriptions commemorating
flamens, sacerdotes, Augustales, or members or-
dints Augustalis from nineteen localities in Italy.^^^
In Pompeii there are records of seven different
men named as Augustales. ^^^ There are from
Pompeii seven inscriptions dedicated to one man
who must have repeatedly acted as Imperial
prlest.^^^
Another side-light upon the persistence and
power of this cult may be drawn from the state-
ment with which Hirschfeld closes his mono-
graph : ^^2 "The Christian Church in no small de-
gree borrowed for its councils and priests the out-
ward forms, names and insignia of the provincial
Kaiser-cult which for three hundred years had
formed the visible token of Imperial unity in the
East and in the West."i83
"''See C. I. L., X, p. 1149.
""C. I. L., X, 961, 977, 997, 994, 1026 (age of Nero), 1030,
1034, 1066.
^^^ Holconlus Rufus, C. I. L., X, 830, 837, 838, 840, 943, 944,
"'Of cit, p. 862.
"^ Hirschfeld's last paragraph is interesting from another
point of view also. He points out how the meaning and sig-
nificance died out of the cult even while the institutional frame-
work established to carry it on still stood intact.
CHAPTER VII
THE RULER-CULT AS A POLITICAL INSTRUMENT
I. Its Politico-religious Origin
THAT the ruler-cult everywhere had a semi-
political origin, has already become evident.
The very fact that the vast majority of those his-
torically known to us as having been deified were
either civil or military leaders indicates clearly
enough the presence of a powerful political motive
in the entire development.
In Persia, at a time sufficiently early to ante-
date the Zoroastrian documents, the legitimate line
of Iranian kings were looked upon as of divine
lineage, sole possessors and transmitters of the
heavenly glory. In ancient Egypt, we are able
to follow from the records the concrete operation
of the political factor. The crystallization into
a fixed dogma of legitimacy, involving the con-
temporary ruler, of a vague mythology of the past,
was undertaken to establish and legitimatize an
irregular and usurping dynasty. The priests of
Hierapolis were apparently responsible for the
84
The Ruler-Cult as a Political Instrument 85
political revolution which they fostered and com-
pleted by means of this new religious dogma. In
all this the union of religion and state-craft is evi-
dent.
In the case of Alexander of Macedon the po-
litical motive is still more plainly discernible.
Alexander was not of the royal Egyptian line but
an alien conqueror who could not, according to any
strict interpretation of the established doctrine, be
the legitimate ruler of Egypt. Nevertheless, he
possessed the ancient right by which all dynasties
were originally established — the right of irresist-
ible power. Under these circumstances, the priests,
when called upon, found a way to reconcile their
sacred dogma with the exigencies of the situation.
The conqueror was proclaimed Son of Re, by
adoption, which, of course, involved an actual
physical apotheosis. From a non-political point of
view this ceremony was a sycophantic farce, but it
would take a very wise man to tell what else the
priests could have done.
In the case of the Roman rulers, the evidence
points in the same direction. The rehgion of
Rome from the earliest days of the City-state was
political in character. By the tus divinum worship
was put in the hands of state officials.^^* Next
^^*Polybius (Hist., vi, 56) claims that religion was invented
in order to keep the unruly masses in order. The basis of
his argument is the Roman state-religion.
86 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
came the worship of Roma, the deified Genius, so
to speak, of the Roman state, preceding or accom-
panying the deification of the emperors and, as
has often been pointed out, forming an interme-
diate and transitional form of worship between
the traditional deities and the nascent imperial
system. Moreover, it is a significant fact, that
the organized movement leading toward imperial
deification began in the provinces where the im-
perial rule was most powerfully felt in bringing
order out of political chaos. Dollinger^^^ says
that the longing for a world-deliverer, lacking its
true object, turned to the world-conqueror. "He
delivered men from the chaos of cival war and
the tyranny of pro-consuls."
Nor is it difficult to see how religion and civic
interest should thus be intertwined. The relation-
ships between Church and State, that is, between
the people as a political entity and the same people
as a worshiping body, have always been intimate,
difficult to define in theory and still more difficult
to separate in practice.
Civil administration bears so directly and so
powerfully upon all human interests, is so fraught
with weal or woe to all mankind, that the wielder
of political authority tends to become one of the
elemental powers of the world, stands apart from
^^H. J., p. 614.
The Ruler-Ciilt as a Political Instrument 87
the rest of humanity, and gathers himself some-
thing of the exaltation and awfulness of the super-
natural. As a matter of fact, the process is not
altogether artificial or imaginary. An autocrat
with legions of armed men under his command
and with the resources of a world-empire at his
disposal, with authority of life and death over
millions of his fellow-men, actually exercises some
functions of deity.
As Boissieu says : ^^^ *'Nous voila en presence
de la veritable divinite de I'epoque imperiale, de
la divinite de I'Empereur; divinite visible, agis-
sante, puissante pour proteger comme pour nuire,
dispensatrice souveraine et realle des honneurs et
de la fortune; Lare supreme de la patrie que
resume en lui tous les interets et tous les pouvoir
de TEtat."
Granted the polytheistic system to start with,
there would seem to be a place for a deity with a
sphere of operation so vast and with a power so
great as those possessed by the Roman em-
peror.^^^ Of this I shall have more to say here-
after.
^'^0/». cit., p. 51.
"^The fact so well stated by Aust {op. cit., p. 22) should
always be kept in mind in this connection: "The gods (of
the Romans) have no life for themselves alone. Their activ-
ity is expressly confined to the service of men. What the re-
ligion loses in comprehensiveness, it gains in intensity."
88 Aspects of Roitian Emperor-W orship
2. Its Influence in Consolidating the
Empire
Accepting the fact, which needs no further elab-
oration, that the process of imperial deification
had behind it a political motive, we should next
consider its use in the furtherance of political or-
ganization. The emperor-cult was the only avail-
able religious instrument for promoting the unifi-
cation of the empire. The traditional Graeco-
Roman system possessed no inter-racial organiza-
tion, comparable to the Christian Church, by which
a group-consciousness transcending the ordinary
limits of race or clan could be formed. It was
thus local, fragmentary and chaotic. There was
no imperial quality in it. Even where cognate
deities were worshiped and even after the wan-
dering of the gods began and syncretism took place
on a large scale, the result was confusion, not uni-
fication. And for the most part, the deities of the
old system remained what they always had been,
local and fixed.
Into this chaos came the empire, first with a
conquering army bearing everywhere the stand-
ards and illustrating the name and dignity of the
emperor. Following the irresistible thrust of the
army came administrative officials, including
priests of the imperial cult. Altars were set up.
The Ruler-Cult as a Political Instrument 89
Men of eminence in their cities, towns, or even
provinces, were selected as Augustales or cultores
of the new worship. Elaborate rites, including
brilliant festal celebrations with public games and
solemn sacrifices, were established in important
centers of population and government throughout
the empire — all of which tended to focus count-
less blending lights of splendor upon the person of
the emperor. The inevitable result was unifica-
tion. The emperor's name was carried through-
out his vast dominions and his power known and
felt everywhere. The center of this system is the
imperial throne at Rome; its circumference, the
outermost boundaries of the empire; its radii,
the countless major and minor officials who wear
the livery and perform the rites of the deified
emperor, and in so doing bind every community
however remote and almost every individual to
the royal person by the two-fold bond of political
loyalty and religious devotion. It is not too much
to say that the only deity equally well-known in
every locality of the Roman Empire was the em-
peror.
Mommsen ^^^ has outlined brilliantly the build-
ing up of this vast imperial structure. The de-
tails were not left to chance or local enthusiasm.
Far-sighted political genius swept the whole em-
^^^Rom. Gesch. Band V, passim.
90 Aspects of Roman E^nperor-W orship
pire and selected key-positions for the establish-
ment of shrines, temples and local worship.
As we have already seen, Drusus established ^^^
an altar Romae et Genio Augusti at Lugdunum
(Lyons) at the junction of the Saone and Rhone
rivers. Here native priests, chosen by the united
Gallic provinces themselves, carried on the im-
perial rites. At Colonia Agrippina (modern
Cologne) the chief town of the Ubii, there was a
great altar and in the year 9 B.C. the officiating
priest, Segimundus, the son of Segestes, was prince
of the native royal house. At the sources of the
Neckar, near the modern Rottweil, were the Ara?
Flaviae, established by Titus or Domitian in a set-
tlement made by Vespasian. Mommsen has a
most suggestive note here. He says (I condense)
that in all probability there were other altars here
beside the chief one named, as is shown by "das
Zuriicktreten des Roma cults neben dem der Kai-
ser."
Here as elsewhere the all-absorbing tendency of
the imperial cult showed itself. It pushed every
other worship into the background and seized the
whole empire in its all-inclusive grasp. At Sar-
migetusa, in the mountains of western-central Da-
cia, an altar was established for that province.
As a striking instance of the extent of this organ-
^^See Dessau: I. L. S., v. i, p. 31, No. 112.
The Ruler-Cult as a Political Instrument 91
izatlon and the quality of the personnel entering
into it, we may instance Polemon, "King of Pontus
and perpetual high-priest of the emperor and the
imperial house." ^^^ Also, in Britain, there were
central towns for the emperor cult though we do
not know in which of the three legionary camps
the governor of the province had his residence.
We do know, however, that the same camp was
the seat of the provincial council and "the com-
mon emperor-worship." ^^^
There is another aspect of this whole matter of
imperial unification which will come up for more
detailed discussion later. I may merely hint at
it here. Political action and re-action are often
measurably equal. A strong and elaborate device
for promoting unification, when it does not work,
becomes divisive in proportion to its original
thrusting power. In several instances the imperial
cult failed of its purpose, incidentally, perhaps, as
in Camolodunum in West Britain, where a rebel-
lion broke out under Paullinus after the walls of
the temple to the god Claudius had been put up,
or under the same Segimundus who was imperial
priest for the Ubii. In two instances, at least,
the attempt to enforce conformity in the worship
of the emperor thrust deeply Into the unity of
"^'Mommsen: Op. cit, p. 293 (does not give his authority).
^^'Mommsen: Op. cit., p. 176.
92 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
the empire. I refer to the Jews and the Chris-
tians. In the latter case, particularly, the conflict
between Paganism and Christianity arose in direct
connection with the worship of the emperor. This
topic will be resumed in its proper place, but its
significance just here is not to be overlooked.
CHAPTER VIII
THE RULER-CULT AND THE POSITION OF THE
EMPEROR
I. Deification and the Mind of the
Emperor
THIS system of ruler-worship inevitably had
a very important influence upon the -posi-
tion of the emperor. Under normal circum-
stances, altogether apart from any investment with
divine dignities and honors, the imperial position
was one of almost limitless power and responsibil-
ity. In itself the administrative burden involved
was sufficiently heavy to weigh down any but the
most robust intelligence. Clothed, however, by
these popular adorations with enormously en-
hanced distinction, the burden must have been lit-
tle short of absolutely crushing. What human
mind could stand such world-wide persistent, or-
ganized adulation? It would seem that if the em-
peror himself, even for a moment, sincerely believ-
ed what the people were taught and undoubtedly
believed concerning him, the result must have been
93
94 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
madness. This supposition would seem to be fully
justified by the biography of the Caesars. It can
scarcely be doubted that the system of ruler-wor-
ship had much to do with the production of the
semi-insane, or wholly insane, monsters, such as
Caligula, Nero and Domitian, who blackened th^
history of imperial Rome with such incredible fol-
lies and infamies. In this w^ay the working out of
the system contributed something to its own over-
throw. On the other hand, it seems clear to me
that the sanest members of the royal group were
those whose attitude toward their own divinity
was, to say the least, ambiguous. I should place
in this class Tiberius, Titus and Vespasian.
In order to bring out this point let us contrast
Gaius Caligula and Tiberius.
Caligula began his career with the customary
homage to the imagines Cassarum.^^^ Not long
after his accession, at a public banquet, he shouted:
** Ets Kolpavos earco, eh j(3d(7tX€i;s." ^^^
From that time "divinam majestatem asserere
sibi coepit." ^^^ He systematically and dramat-
ically placed himself alongside the gods, playing
successively the parts of Neptune, Juno (sic),
Diana, Venus, Hercules, Bacchus, and Apollo,
''' Suet. Cal., XIV.
"'Iliad, 2.204.
'^Suet. Cal., XXII.
Ruler-Cult and the Position of the Emperor 95
changing his make-up to suit each role.^^^ He de-
manded worship, claimed that he had intercourse
with the moon-goddess and that his sister was
equally intimate with Jupiter.
Dio affirms that he did these things, not as
those who are accustomed consciously to play
an assumed role, dXXd iraw doKovvres tI klvai. In
other words, he took the ascriptions of deity to
himself seriously. Mommsen says : *'Dass Kaiser
Gaius so ernsthaft wie sein verwirrter Geist es
Vermochte, sich fur einen wirklichen und lieb-
haften Gott hielt, wusste alle Welt, und die Juden
und der Statthalter auch." ^^^ An indication that
Caligula took his divinity seriously is afforded by
his remarks to the Jewish legation.^^^
Another striking and portentous fact is to be
considered here. Caligula made his sister, Dru-
silla, his concubine, and upon her death fourteen
specific divine honors were bestowed upon her, so
that she became by law diva. These included a
divine name (Panthea), a declaration of immor-
tahty, a witness to her physical apotheosis, shrines,
priests, priestesses, and severe penalties for sacri-
lege. I cannot resist the conclusion that in the
relationship of Gaius and Drusilla, we have some-
^""Dio, 59. 1 1. 12.
"^^Rdmische Gesch., B. V., p. 516.
"^ See below, p. 127.
g6 Aspects of Roman Emperor-W orship
thing far more significant than mere erotic degen-
eracy. Have we not here the direct influence of
the Ptolemies and their predecessors, — the same
idea that the blood of the gods must be kept pure
and the same method of putting the idea into
effect?
It is generally admitted that Caligula was mad.
The question is, however, did he believe that he
was divine because he w^as mad, or become mad
because he believed himself to be actually divine?
The consensus of facts leads me to the conclu-
sion that the latter is true. His undoubtedly ill-
balanced mind was actually overturned by the gen-
eral acceptance of his divinity.
In striking contrast with Caligula, stands Ti-
berius. This powerful monarch's attitude to his
own divinity at first thought seems ambiguous. ^^^
He was ferociously devoted to the cult of Augus-
tus — more than ordinarily reticent as to his own.
There were five items at least in the law govern-
ing sacrilege toward Augustus, ^^^ some of them
going to absurd lengths, which were rigorously
enforced. For example, a man was put to death
for allowing honors to be giv^en him on one of the
"^ According to Hirschf eld, Tiberius, while living, had no
temple in the West and imperial priests in a few cities only
{op. ciL, p. 842), cf. C. I. L., IX, 652: X, 688; IV, n8o. On the
other hand, we have coins of Tib. in which he calls himself
'Tilius Divi Augusti" (see Eckhel, D. N. A., VI, i92f).
^''^Suet. Tib., 58.
Ruler-Cult and the Position of the Emperor 97
days sacred to Augustus. The Inhabitants of the
city of Cyzlcus lost their liberties, one of the chief
counts against them being their omission of honors
due to Augustus. ^^^ Divine honors without stint
were offered to Tiberius. In the year 26 A.D. it
is said that eleven towns petitioned for the priv-
ilege of building temples to the reigning emperor.
The privilege of building a temple to Tiberius,
his mother, and the Senate, together with Roma,
was granted to Smyrna and refused In other in-
stances.
In connection both with his compliance and re-
fusal, Tiberius is said to have offered an explana-
tion ^^^ which exactly brings out my point. After
saying that a single act of compliance with such a
request does not demand an apology, he says:
"but to be deified throughout the provinces and
intrude my own Image among the statues of the
gods, what would It be but vain presumption, and
with the multiplication of such honors, vanescet
August! honor si promiscis adulatlonibus vulga-
tur." He also expressly states ^^^ that he does
not pretend to be anything more than a man. He
refused special divine honors and on one occasion :
"Dominus appellatus a quodam denuntiavit, ne se
=^Tac. Ann., 4.36; cf. Eckhel D. N. A., II, p. 546, 7, and V.
M., IX, 1 1. 4. Dio., 57.6.
^^ Tac. Ann., 4.37.
^'Tac. Ann., 4.38.
98 Aspects of Roftian Emperor-Worship
amplius contumellae causa nomlnare." ^^^ This
modesty Suetonius ascribes to policy and says:
"paulatim principem exseruit." ^^^
I do not agree with this judgment. The incon-
sistencies of Tiberius are apparent rather than
real. He undoubtedly believed in the institution
of the divi and was a rigid supporter of that cult
both personally and officially. On the other hand,
he did not relish divine honors for himself, nor
did he believe himself divine. Here again it may
be difficult to say whether his robust intelligence
in thus refusing assent to the popular idea con-
cerning himself was cause or effect, but it still re-
mains true that disbelief was really necessary to
the maintenance of sanity.
A similar contrast might be worked out between
Vespasian and Domitian. Vespasian, honest old
soldier that he was, never took the ascription of
deity to himself seriously, as his famous mot in
articiilo mortis proves: "Vae, inquit, puto deus
fio." -^^ On the other hand, Domitian was gloom-
ily jealous lest any divine honor which he explic-
itly claimed might be omitted.-^^ ^^^
Another still more far-reaching result came
^ Suet. Tib., 26, 27.
^Ibid., 33.
"^^ Suet. Vesp., 23.
^'Philos. App. of Ty., VII :24. A magistrate is accused of
not calling Domitian "Son of Minerva." Cf. Stat. Silv., IV,
3.128.
^'On Titus, see Dio: 66:19.
Ruler-Cult and the Position of the Emperor 99
from the changed position of the emperor
through deification. In the long run, paganism
was compelled to stake everything on one throw.
It centred every religious interest in the emperor.
It thus compromised and discounted its traditional
system. The Olympians were pushed into the
background. When, therefore, paganism was
brought face to face with Judaism in the Disper-
sion and still more with nascent Christianity, and
compelled, intellectually speaking, to fight for its
life, it had to stand or fall by its imperialized sys-
tem. It was internally discredited and weakened
at the center at the moment when the attack from
without came. The emperor-cult, in which pagan-
ism culminated, did much to prepare the way for
its ultimate overthrow. The emperor as the vis-
ible object of adoration, the divine head and living
embodiment of religion became its shame and dis-
grace.
That leads us to another climactic point In the
discussion.
2. The Ruler-cult as a Symptom of Deca-
dence
a. the taint of sycophancy
It may be due to the rigorous Intolerance of a
mind to which the whole system is grotesque as
100 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
well as alien, but I find it difficult to believe in the
religious sincerity of much of this prostration be-
fore the throne of the emperor. The only con-
sideration which could make this system even tol-
erable is that it should be genuine. Then we could
look upon it as a sincere illusion. But the taint of
sycophancy is in the air. I can understand readily
enough that on its popular side, with the ignorant
populaces of Italian, Grecian and Oriental cities
and villages, such a movement might be both spon-
taneous and genuine. There are other aspects
of it, however, which are not so easy to harmonize
with sincerity. Take, for example, the words of
some of the great intellectuals, spoken or written
in direct address to the living emperors. Virgil
begins and ends the first book of the Georgics -^^
by invoking, among other gods, Augustus, to
whom he attributes the right to choose his own
place amid the celestial beings enthroned on high
as well as the power to control the sun, the
weather, the fruitage of the earth and the opera-
tions of the sea. He adds to this, in the second
invocation, a statement that the gods have but
grudgingly lent Augustus to the earth and that the
loan is likely to be recalled at any time.
Compare with this Pliny's address to Trajan ^^9
^^Georgica I: 24-40, soif., cf. Hor. Ode 1:2, cf. Preller: Op.
cit., p. 771.
""Pan, 74. 5.
Ruler-Cidt and the Position of the Emperor loi
In which he asserts that the state could Imagine
no addition to its good fortune: "nisi ut di Caesa-
rem imitentur." Is this merely oratory or exag-
gerated flattery or genuine adoration?
The climax of this mode of address Is attained
by Lucan ^^^ who affirms that when Nero ascends
to heaven, all the gods will yield place to him and
allow him to choose any sphere of divine ac-
tion which he prefers. If by any chance these
utterances are allowed to pass, what are we to
say of the oath made by ^^^ "vir praetorius" that
he saw the form of Augustus ascend Into heaven,
or that of the Senator Livius Geminus who swore
that he saw Drusilla, the sister and concubine of
Caligula, ascend on high and take her place among
the gods?-^- Ball says:^^^ "Caligula's crazy
performances as a divinity obviously brought the
whole idea of the imperial deification Into a de-
gree of disrepute, undermining whatever dignity
attached to its first august subjects." And yet the
system lasted almost two hundred years after Cal-
igula's time and produced some of its most charac-
teristic results in the later period.
Undermining this institution was evidently a
very slow and difficult process. This, too, I take
-1:45.
^ Suet. Aug., i(x>.
-Dio, 59:11.
^'Satire of Seneca, p. 38.
102 Aspects of Roman Emperor-JForship
to be symptomatic, for I am much inclined to think
that it could have been undermined much more
easily if it had been more sincere. At least, a
partial justification for this paradox may be found
in the Ludus of Seneca -^* on the deification of
Claudius, taken in its historical context.
Taken, I repeat, in its historical context, for it
cannot be understood otherwise, it becomes a most
suggestive commentary on the time and is abso*
lutely a propos. As Caligula introduced the ele-
ment of mental pathology into the history of the
imperial cult, so Claudius introduced the element
of farce and comedy. He was the cause of much
wit, good, bad and indifferent, in others, among
them the moralist Seneca. The most interesting
feature of the situation, however, is not the mor-
dant treatment of Claudius, but the side-light it
throws upon the Roman attitude toward the great
sanctities. Certain facts are to be noted in connec-
tion with the Ludus. Claudius was murdered at the
order, if not actually by the hand, of Agrippina,
the mother of Nero. Claudius was immediately
deified and Agrippina was appointed a priestess
to attend upon the new divinity's rites. Seneca's
brother made a rather brilliant jest to the effect
^ This work seems to have borne the title of ' AroKoXoK^rfrcaa-ts
or "pumkinification" — the implication of which, as applied to
Claudius, is quite obvious. Consult Ball : ''The Satire of
Seneca" (N. Y., 1902) for a complete discussion of the critical
questions which center around the book.
Ruler-Cult and the Position of the Emperor 103
tjiat Claudius h^i leer. ira^-^ti :: hei. r - : 2.
hook, a'f ><er: ::.-:~ti -; : ^ : . :. : -le
about 7r::i:.~'.'jzn.^ Dt.r.'^ z:.z zuc. 01 l-1c gii: "
But ne: :-. : these :: .i i.rr.rare in g^stlr-::
with the 3.zz:.r.-r:.zr.- :: .irderous wife es
priestess of Ch_i _: 1 :r: :- — : : "15 ;-
acccrrr'-re 'it -'r.z ::.:^-: :.:m .:: :-:-:::- ::
dehv.r:-, h:, .:.:: . -.:....-. -:t :. , - -:.:_:;. ^;" ::
the heiacatioii. Bu: :J:e reii ^lernt^ : : : _ ri
to bring out is that ire e_. r : : t : : :-
nounced by the y s u t:if .^ N r : : , t. 1 s ~ : . : : c ; . : 7
Seneca, tjie 2.t::h:r of the Luius. And. it —is so
was :he :,;i 7":r ivrf: :rr.\ .: :z: :z::.: .z h . r:.:rr
only was zit r.t~ drvus iL-_-rer:-:_hy lt~r::r.ei.
his provincial birth, his defective speech, his halt-
ing gait, his absent-mindedness, his hasty and fool-
ish decisii.ts. ah his idiosyncm^es and personal
ceretts r:i::uiei ar.i iieid up to public scorn, but
ti.e ^:is the— seies are ~-.iie a jest of, and the
— it:ie STSte::: :: she::::; ie d:iti:- is turned into
:r :: 1 ::zz.ziy a::i .:.:^.\z 1 :: :: ::\e rery echo.
Caiir.h; ~:\:\i :zzr:. :: :e hr:^ ri :: .::r:ivto
Scet.: Xera ;:.
Tadras : J tx,, i : . 3.
104 Aspects of Roman Emperor-W orship
tern as the corrosive satire of this consummate lam-
poon. There are several items in this situation
which should be recalled here. In spite of the
ridiculous personal peculiarities of Claudius, which
were a matter of familiar court jesting, the deifica-
tion went on according to the regular order. In
spite of the fact that the emperor was about
equally despised and hated, the deification was per-
formed according to the established ritual. In
spite of the fact that the leading performers in this
dismal farce were known to be the murderers of
the late emperor and the deadliest foes of his race,
it yet proceeded according to rule.
Suetonius says -^"^ of Claudius: ''Funeratus est
sollemni principium pompa et in numerum deorum
relatus; quem honorem a Nerone destitutum aboli-
tum que recepit mox per Vespasianum." This is
the whole situation in pario. What a curious and
inconsistent fabric of murder and glorification,
adulation and detraction, fulsome praise and bit-
ter scorn, the whole incident presents ! What it
emphatically does not present, however, is genuine
feeling and single-minded devotion.
b. THE GLORIFICATION OF BAD MEN
Alongside of this evidence of decadence must
be placed another equally manifest. The system
^^ Div. Claudius, 45. Dio, 60.
Ruler-Cult and the Position of the Emperor 105
itself led to the glorification of evil men. A bad
emperor makes a bad god. The very choice or
acceptance of such men as Nero or Diocletian as
objects of adoration is itself a judgment, as it is
a revelation, of paganism. And if it be asserted
that these men wore the purple and therefore the
people had no choice but to worship them, the suffi-
cient answer is Sejanus, the vile and treacherous
favorite of Tiberius. According to Dio,^^^ Ti-
berius, solely to prevent divine honors being paid
to Sejanus, decreed that henceforth sacrifices
should be offered to no man, and included his own
person in the prohibition, in order that his pur-
pose might not be defeated. In spite of all the
circumstances, the people voted honors on the
death of Sejanus, who was executed by Tiberius,
— "solemnities," says Dio, "not customary even
for the gods." Sejanus was not royal; he was
everything he should not have been, and yet the
popular impulse to deify him was beyond imperial
control. The system as a whole, together with the
society that produced and fostered it, and ulti-
mately the religion that molded the society must
be held responsible for the deification not only of
Sejanus, but of Poppaea Sabina, her infant daugh-
ter who lived but three months, of Verus the col-
^^58.8.4, cf. Velleius Pater., 2.127 for fulsome praise of
Sejanus.
io6 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
league of Marcus Aurellus, of Larentina, a public
woman so notorious that Tertullian expresses the
wish that any one of a number of such famously-
infamous women of Rome might have been chosen
for such honors rather than she^^^ Simon Ma-
gus, ^^^ and worst of all, Hadrian's beautiful and
unspeakable male favorite, Antinous.^-^ I confess
that I have come upon few things in all history
more revolting than the widespread and elaborate
worship, with priests, temples, ritual and sacred
places, offered to this blot on the human race,
whose very name and memory are an offense. ^^-
Only a decadent society, with a diseased and mori-
bund religiousness, could have produced such a
phenomenon.^^^ It is evident that a system capa-
ble of such monstrous perversions as these men-
tioned and others like them — for my instances are
by no means exhaustive — was bound to demoralize
^' Apologetica, 13.
*^^See Just. Mar., I, Apol. 29; Athenagoras Suppl. 30; Orig.
adv. Celsum, iii. 36-38; Eusebius, H. E., IV, 8; Tert. adv. Mar.,
1.18.
^ I, myself, worked through the list of flamens or priests
of Antinous, and found the following astonishing number:
C. I. G., 280. II 19, 1. II, Aioi^iJaios natai/teiJs ikphvs Avtivoov.
1121, 1. 23,
1 122, 1. 42,
1128, 1. 19, 1. 30, speaks of Hadrian as a god.
1216,
1 120, 1. 27, priest of Antinous.
1131, 1. 4,
^' Cf. what Pliny says about earlier consecrations in Paneg.,
II.
Ruler-Cult and the Position of the Emperor 107
and weaken religion. Religion, which is a rela-
tionship between man and the object of his wor-
ship, rises or falls necessarily with the dignity and
worth of that object. An evil deity involves the
swift and utter demoralization of his worshipers;
and the final and hopeless collapse of paganism,
with all its prestige, organic fitness and official
power was due in some measure to this system,
which, as I have already said, was at once its cul-
mination and its ruin. We have now to trace that
process.
CHAPTER IX
THE RULER-CULT AND POLYTHEISM
I. The Self-Contradiction of Polytheism
POLYTHEISM has two fundamental weak-
nesses which contributed concurrently to the
establishment and rapid advance of the Emperor-
cult. In the first place, it is essentially contra-
dictory in that it distributes among many, divine
qualities and functions which logically belong to
one only. The concept of deity is itself funda-
mentally unitary. When the Babylonians, for ex-
ample, — to take one instance where hundreds are
available,— called Bel, "Lord of all being," 224
they implicitly denied the existence of any other to
whom such a title can properly be applied. When,
therefore, the polytheists do actually apply that
title to a multitude of deities, an element of con-
fusion is at once introduced which is never wholly
extruded.
^^ Cf. Titles of Snefru, p. 22, n. 15, and the judicious remarks
of Fairbanks: Greek Religion, pp. 23,24.
108
The Ruler-Ciilt and Polytheism 109
Polytheism Is always driven by a gad-fly of un-
rest, seeking and never finding an ultimate center
and pole, around which thought and life may
steadfastly and harmoniously revolve. The mono-
thelst has this center — the polytheist never. His
thought Is chaotic because the world, as he con-
ceives It, Is directed by a plurality of wills which
do not offer any secure guarantee of cosmic har-
mony. His life Is distracted because of the diffi-
culty of finding any god or group of gods adequate
to his changing needs or realized with sufficient
clearness of definition to meet any of his deeper
longings.
The polytheist. In other words, is always on the
search for the ultimate — a final, secure resting-
place of faith and confidence — which does not be-
long to the system.
The polytheist, therefore. Is essentially migra-
tory and his system of thought and worship is in
constant flux. He selects some deities to the neg-
lect of others. He abandons one and takes up
another. TertuUIan ^-^ makes powerful apolo-
getic use of this habit of selection and shifting of
allegiance, which, as he says, if the gods were real
beings would Involve a truly impious degree of
irreverence. It is inevitable, as all history proves.
*" Apologetica, 13.
no Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
2. Polytheism Essentially Elementary and
Inadequate
Along with this tendency, is another equally-
powerful, to outgrow the gods one has at any
given stage of life. Tiele says that the develop-
ment of religion is a phase of deepening self-con-
sciousness. The gods of the traditional Gr^co-
Roman pantheon were outgrown in many ways by
their worshipers in the age of the empire. I
shall take just one phase of change, as particu-
larly germane at this point. The traditional gods
were essentially personified nature-powers. In
the course of time, especially in the period of the
City-state, certain additional social and economic
functions were ascribed to these simple and rather
dimly conceived deities, -^^ but they still remained
essentially nature-powers. They were gods of the
open air, of the outer world; related to the sky,
the forests, the mountains, the fields, the biology
of the seasons, war and the other common human
experiences of human life from birth to death.
Such were the traditional gods of the Roman peo-
ple and so far as the native religious genius of
the people had expression, such were their gods to
the latest period of their history. The importa-
^On the early gods of Rome see Fowler: R. F., pp. 34f;
R. E. R. P., pp. ii8f, i47f; Mythology of all Races, Vol. I.
part III.
The Ruler-Cult and Polytheism 1 1 1
tion of foreign cults began early and went on with
increasing momentum during the period of im-
perial expansion, but none of these imported sys-
tems took very deep root or found a really con-
genial environment. The development of the
imperial system, the rise of a world-consciousness,
showed the narrowness, the jejune inadequacy of
the old system. The old parochial gods were im-
possible in the empire — even the Olympians were
hedged and confined by local cults and identifica-
tions. The newly elaborated imperial-cult, grafted,
as we have seen, into the most ancient stock of
Roman religion, of Roma, the divi and the Genius
of the living emperor, fitted the times and was
seemingly the inevitable outcome of the situation.
When the whole world was a parish, and that in
the country, or even a City-state set on seven hills,
parochial, outdoor or local deities were sufficient;
when the parish expanded to a world the old sys-
tem was bound to go.
3. Emperor-Worship the Final Phase of
Paganism
This change was the more inevitable because
that old system was breaking down intrinsically.
The story of the disintegration of the traditional
Graeco-Roman religion has been told often enough
112 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
and well enough and needs no re-telling here. A
concurrence of contributing influences, internal and
external, brought about that downfall — most of
all, its inherent inadequacy together with the im-
pact of a new and infinitely better system. What
one must do, however, is to visualize this process
of disintegration and re-integration in terms of
the emperor cult. It must not be forgotten that
the imperial cult was the characteristic and es-
sential product of religion in the era in which it
arose. The internal movement of contemporary
paganism is to be understood only through a study
of this development, which is its organic self-man-
ifestation.
a. THE SUPERSESSION OF THE OLYMPIANS
A graphic presentation of the point I have in
mind is to be found in the great Paris cameo, which
represents Tiberius and his family as a group of
gods. Tiberius appears as Jupiter, his mother
Livia as Ceres, while around him are Germanicus,
Antonia, Gains Caligula and Agrippina. Augus-
tus is rising to heaven on a winged horse; iEneas
is handing him a globe representing the world,
Drusus sweeps through heaven bearing a shield —
which means, I suppose, the Roman triumph —
and, at the celestial summit of the glorified group.
The Ruler-Cult and Polytheism 113
sits the Divus Julius, wearing the crown which
he declined on earth. In order to understand this
significant group, one or two Items must be kept In
mind. In the process of deification, as we have
already noticed, the various recipients of divine
honors are frequently given the names of various
well-known deities, such as Mars, Dionysus, Jupi-
ter, and others. To take an example from a later
time, which Is typical all the way, the worship of
Hadrian was connected with the contemporary
pan-Hellenic revival of which he was the patron.
There was a temple foundation to Hadrian at
Athens, with games and priestly service. He was
known as the "New Zeus pan-Hellenlos" and was
called the "founding, living god." ^-'^ In the light
of this, turn to the cameo. Of the earlier figures
of mythology, only a little cupid guiding 'the
winged horse on which Augustus ascends to
heaven, and Nemesis, In the back-ground, appear
in propria persona. The Olympian deities as per-
sonal beings have simply ceased to be. They have
become abstractions and in evaporating into the
functions which they represent they have be-
^ See Mommsen : Rom. Gesch., B. V., p. 244. For the ex-
tent of this cult note the following inscriptions:
C. I. G., 3832, 5852.
C. I. A., Ill, lo, 16, 21, 34a in which Hadrian is called "son
of^the God Trajan," 38, 253, 486, 519, 528, in which he is
called "vi6s d^ov," 534, 681, 1023, 1128, 1306.
C/. C. I. L., XIV, 73, 353.
114 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
queathed their insignia of office to their living,
active, historical, royal successors. Their robes
are empty, their thrones unoccupied, their scepters
abandoned, their crowns doffed and laid aside, to
be taken up, worn, used, and wielded by the mem-
bers of the royal house. It is evident that if any
real faith in the Olympians remained, this cameo
picture would be a frightful blasphemy. On the
other hand, if, as Euhemerus and the Christian
fathers "^^ maintained, the Olympian gods were
originally men, glorified into deities and then evap-
orated into abstractions, as some of them undoubt-
edly were, then the balance would simply be re-
dressed by inverting the process and investing
them with personality, by connecting them with
rulers who, whether they were divine or not, were
certainly real, personal and active. At any rate,
this supersession of the older gods by these new
deities was the characteristic last phase of ancient
paganism. Philostratus says that the statues of
Tiberius were looked upon as being more sacred
and inviolate than those of Zeus in Olympia, so
that It was an impiety to strike a slave carrying
a drachma stamped with the imperial image. This
is echoed and Interpreted by Tertullian, who says :
*"TertulHan: Apol. lo. According to Lactantius {De falso
Religione, i :2o) the goddess Flora was a deified Roman prosti-
tute and some of the rites connected with her worship would
aeem to justify the opinion.
The Ruler-Cult and Polytheism 115
"You do homage with a greater dread and in-
tenser reverence to Caesar than to Olympian Jove
himself. And if you knew it, upon sufficient
grounds; for is not any living man better than
a dead one whoever he may be?" -^^
b. THE ABSORPTION OF MITHRA AND APOLLO
Another most striking illustration of this ab-
sorbing and superseding power of the emperor-
cult is to be found in connection with the history
of the Mithra worship among the Romans. We
now take up the story of the king-cult in ancient
Iran where we previously laid it down.^^^ It is
necessary to reaffirm the statement there made that
the theory of the hvareno or divine glory involves
a genuine apotheosis. Prof. Dill says^^^ and in
so saying echoes Cumont: "The Persians pros-
trated themselves before their kings but they did
not actually adore them as gods." In support of
this statement he quotes Athenagoras ^^^ who
speaks of the Persian veneration of the Aatjucov
of the king which Dill equates with the 'Genius'
of the Romans. It is contended that direct apothe-
=^Appol. Ty., 1.15.
Tertullian: Apol. 27. Tertullian, of course, was an Euhemer-
ist so far as the pagan gods were concerned.
^^^ See above, p. 20.
^^ Roman Society Nero to Marcus Aurelius, p. 617, Cumont:
Myst. of Mithra, Fr. Ed., p. 79.
^'VI, 252-
ii6 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
osis is avoided by the mediate address of worship
to the royal daimon or genius. As we have seen
the practical result of this conventional device
among the Romans was the full and unqualified
deification of the ruler.-^^ So it was also among
the Persians. Moreover, Dill's opinion cannot be
supported by an appeal to the Zend Avesta. The
facts are these: Undoubtedly, Zoroastrianism or
Mazdaism began as a monotheistic movement or,
perhaps, I ought to say more strictly an anti-poly-
theistic and unifying trend, but for many centuries
it failed to conquer or assimilate the polytheism
which it attempted to displace.
In fact, Zarathustra himself was deified. Dar-
mesteter says emphatically: -^^ "All the features in
Zarathustra point to a god." As we have already
seen, the Persian kings were assimilated to the
divine status of Zarathustra himself through their
common possession with him of the hvareno or
divine glory, which is by no means a mere halo or
aureole surrounding the king but a substantial
divine element at once physical and transcendental
which is derived ultimately from Ahura Mazda
but secondarily by a miracle from Zarathustra
himself. And here there is discoverable a definite
^^'Minucius Felix says (Oct., XXIX, 5, Halm's ed.) that it
was "tutius per lovis genium peierare quam regis."
^*For the place of Zarathustra in Mazdaism, see S. B. E.,
Vol. IV, Int., Sec. 40.
The Ruler-Cult and Polytheism 117
line of historic connection between these ideas of
ancient Iran and the Roman system of deification.
Among the gods common to the Indo-Iranian
peoples before their separation was Mitra, who
was frequently invoked together with Varuna, and
also less frequently with Indra.-^^ Mitra is evi-
dently the sun-god, as he is identified as the light
of Varuna, the sky-god.
In the Avesta, Mitra appears as Mithra. The
Identification Is evident both from the name and
the identical attributes. While these attributes are
much more clearly defined in the Avesta they are
evidently the same. The conventional title of this
deity is "lord of wide pastures." ^^^
Mithra is the almost exclusive subject of Yast
X,^^^ one of the longest In the Avesta, and is ad-
dressed in the Mlhir Nyayis.^^^ The position of
Mithra in later Mazdaism and his identity with
Mitra In the Vedic system as well as his relation-
ship to Ahura Mazda in the Avestic system Indi-
cate clearly that he is a survivor of ancient poly-
theism who refused to be absorbed In the unifying
movement.
In the course of time, all these surviving gods
^ Hymns of the Atharva Veda, 11:28. Cf. S. B. E., vol. 42,
suh. <voc.
^'Venidad: Fargard, III, I.i.
=^ Mihir Yast.
238
353, 355-
Ii8 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
were brought, more or less completely, under
Ahura Mazda ^^^ but MIthra remained god by
deputy until the end of the chapter. Of him
Ahura Mazda is represented as saying: "I cre-
ated him as worthy of sacrifice, as worthy of
prayer as myself." ^'^^
Again ^^^ he is spoken of as the guardian of
truth and avenger of lies, "awful, overpowering,
worthy of sacrifice and prayer, not to be deceived
anywhere in the whole material world," and as
"the strong heavenly god." -*- This is manifestly
syncretism with the seams not very smoothly
ironed out. Mithra is alien to Mazdaism but is
artificially included in it.
The importance of Mithra for my purpose lies
in his relationship to the imperial system at Rome.
The deification of Zarathustra and his reputed
successors on the throne of Iran is immediately
and inseparably connected with the separate wor-
ship of Mithra, the sun-god, as the revelation and
embodiment of the remote and dimly conceived
Ahura Mazda. The kings were related to Ahura
Mazda in much the same fashion as Mithra him-
self and were, so to say, congeners of the sun-
god, sharing with him the nature and glory of
^'' S. B. E., vol. IV, Int., pp. LIX ff.
""^Yast, XI, I.
"^Jbid., 1.5.
'"/^i^., XXXIII.
The Ruler-Cult and Polytheism 119
Ahura Mazda. The worship of Mithra finally
separated itself from the Mazdean system as a
whole and entered upon a history of its own.
With the Persian conquest, it began a westward
movement and by way of Babylon, Greece and
the Greek Settlements of Asia Minor, came to
Rome. It seems to have been brought by return-
ing legionaries from the Orient and by migrating
citizens from incorporated provinces formerly un-
der Persian and Greek rule and spread through
the Empire until it became a powerful factor in
its later religious life. In the course of this long
migration the Mithra cult gathered to itself many
strange elements; astrology, demonism and plan-
etary fatalism from Babylon; ritual and symbol-
ism from Phrygia; mysticism from Alexandria;
personification and plastic representation from
the Greeks, so that finally when it arrived at
Rome it had become the most inclusive syncretism
the world had ever seen. In spite, however, of
this drag-net feature of its progress, the core of
the Persian sun-worship in Mithraism remained
unchanged. It is said that the name of Mithra was
never translated.
It reached Rome, if the one slight notice we
have is to be accepted, in 70 B.C. with the Cicilian
pirates conquered by Pompey.^^^ Little is known
'^^ Plutarch: Pompey, c. 24.
120 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
of the system, except that it seems first to have
spread among the lowly, until the period of the
Antonines, probably because the movement really
did not get under way until the incorporation of
Cappadocia, Pontus and Commagene, where its
centers were, a process which was not completed
until the reign of Vespasian.
In the course of time, it swept the empire and
left behind it abundant monumental and epigraphic
testimony to its spread and power. It lasted in
out-of-the-way places until the fifth century.
The most striking fact in this whole romantic
history, however, is yet to be told; namely, that
this world-movement, sweeping in from every di-
rection upon Rome, the most comprehensive and
powerful revival of paganism in all its phases
known to history, which was thought by many to
threaten the very life of Christianity itself, was,
in the final outcome, hitched to the chariots of the
Cssars and made the theoretical justification of
emperor worship. The blending of Mithraism
with the imperial cult probably began in a tenta-
tive and secret way under Tiberius and found
open expression in the reigns of Caligula and
Nero, both of w^hom w^ere made solar deities in
the East.
On the other hand, the underground prepara-
tion for the final union of these two systems began
The Ruler-Cult and Polytheism ill
long before this. In the year 40 B.C. occurred
the famous "dinner of the twelve gods" at which,
according to the lampooner of the occasion, "Im-
pia dum Phoebi Caesar mendacia ludit."^*^ This
w^as, perhaps, not a serious presentation of him-
self in the character of Apollo by Augustus but
later developments show that it remained in his
thought. In the year 28 B.C. Augustus initiated
a revival of the Apollo cult by the dedication of
a new and magnificent temple to Apollo on the
Palatine, and in the library hard-by, he set up a
statue of himself adorned with the attributes of
Apollo. ^^^ This movement toward the identifica-
tion of himself with the Apolline and sun-worship
culminated in the Ludi Saeculares of the year 17
B.C. In the course of this ceremony the carmen
of Horace, written at the dictation of Augustus,
was sung by a chorus of boys and girls facing the
great temple of Apollo "in quo soils erat supra
fastigia currus." -^^ To the sun thus represented
the lines beginning "Alme Sol, curru nitido diem-
que" -^^ w^ere addressed, and a little later Augus-
'■^Suet.: Aug., LXX.
^ The Scholium of Servius (ad BucoL, IV:io) says: "Tuus
iam regnat Apollo, ultimum saeculura ostendit, quod Sibylla
Solis esse memoravit et tangit Augustum cui simulacrum factum
est cum Apollinis cunctis insignibus." Augustus bore the title
"Son of Apollo" — cf., Gardthausen: Augustus und Seine Zeit:
I, p. 46, II, p. 15, n8; i6, 119, 580, Horace: Odes III: XIV.
-^ Propertius, 111:28.
**^ Carmen Saeculare, 9, 50.
122 /Ispccls of Roman Kmperor-JVorship
tus himself is brought forward in a skillful allu-
sion to the Julian family, — tlie never forgotten
"Clarus Anchisae Veneris(iue San^^uis." i'owler
well says (hat "the listeners for^^et the Capitolinc
^ocls as they note the allusion to Venus" and the
world-wide "prestige of Augustus." ^'^
In this way the worshij) of Apollo I lelios was
subordinated to the emperor cult and in due time
the allied JVIitlira sun-worship suHered the same
fate."''' In a well-known passaj;^c of Dio already
(juoted, 'liridates is represented as greeting Nero
as JVlithra, while this emperor and his successors
are represented as wearing an imperial crown with
darting sun-rays. J'he J'lmperor dallienus is said
to have gone about clothed in a complete set of
vestments symboli/.ing the sun-god. -''•'' The later
emperors took the solar titles "Dominus et Dcus
Natus" which makes them manifestations or "de-
scents" of the sun-deity. This god comes down
from heaven to earth in the person of the em-
peror. It is (juite possible that the mysterious
I'Ortuna worship which also merges into the
emperor cult (the phrase "i'Ortuna Po])uli Ro-
mani" becomes "lM)rtuna Augusti" from Vcs-
■""R. f:. r. p., p. 4.,r,.
**"]! is to be r<rncml)ci<(l ih.it Apollo and Mithra had al-
ready htcii coinhinrd amoiijjj ilic Circcks — see Farnell, op. cit.,
IV, i-X II. 6; nS II. a.
"""'Irtbcllius I'ollio: Gal., i6:i8.
The Ruler-Cult and Polytheism 123
pasian's time) may have been another form of
sun-worship.--'^ However that may be, the other
undoubted forms of heholatry, inckiding Mithra-
ism, certainly were assimilated by the emperor
cult. Commodus (180-192 A.D.) was an initiate
both of Isis and Mithra and assumed the Mith-
raic titles "Aeternus" and "Jnvictus." -"'- "''•' 1 his
is the final and official step in the imperial
assumption of deific solar prerogatives. Hence-
forth emperor worship and solar worship were
identical. As Harnack sums it up: ^'\n the third
century Rome was simply the headquarters of the
Mithra cult, in which and with which the emperor
was worshiped as co-essential with the sun, 'con-
substantivum Soli.'" As in earliest Egypt so In
latest Rome, the ruler was the embodiment and
revelation on earth of the sun-god. This was the
last and greatest victory of the ruler-cult. It fell
only when paganism as a whole fell under the vic-
torious onset of Christianity. Within paganism
itself emperor worship was the final development.
For this there is a deep basic reason in the very
nature of things.
'"Fowler: R. F., p. 169. Cj. Plut: de Fort. Romae, IV.
""Dio, XLTI, 15:5.
^''^ Praclically the entire corpus of li(crary and epigraphic
texis, (()}j;('(lit'r with the rnonuineiital remains of Mithraistn, are
cited with a complete critical apparatus for the understand-
\u^ of (hem by C'umont (see bibliography infra. Dill gives a
good summary — op. cit., ch. VI).
124 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
4. Polytheism and Pantheism
Polytheism Is always rooted In pantheism. -^^
Naturism — that Is, the Immediate worship of nat-
ural objects and powers, conceived Individually,
personified and deified — always carries with It as
an Implicit and often unconscious premise, the di-
vinity of the world as a whole. Philosophic or
self-conscious pantheism, which Is for the few w^ho
are capable of dealing with abstractions or gen-
eralizations, always has underground connection
with polytheism, — the popular aspect of the same
world view.^^^
^^* On the pantheism of the whole polytheistic system consult
Harrison: Themis, passim, particularly Ch. X. The data pre-
sented in this somewhat confusing book are to be sharply dis-
criminated from the theories erected upon them.
^^ See Fairbairn: Philosophy of the Christian Religion, pp.
24if. Cf. Bigg: Origins of Christianit}-, p. 304. That even
Stoic pantheism leads in the direction of deification is well ex-
hibited in the following from Cicero's Somnium Scipionis
(De Republica, Ch. XXIV, 26), "Deum te igitur scito esse, si
quidem est deus, qui viget, qui sentit, qui meminit, qui pro-
videt, qui tam vegit et moderatur et movet id corpus, cui
praepositus est, quam hunc mundum ille princeps deus," etc.
The practical impossibility of escaping the power of the
man-cult for any one reared in the pagan system, however
enlightened and intellectual, is thus strikingly illustrated in
the case of Cicero. Collating the citations already made from
Cicero, we have the following curious result. Divine honors
for himself, "nisi verborum," he declined and he was about
equally angered and disgusted by the developments of the
Julian-cult; but, when his daughter Tullia died, he persistently
held to the idea of erecting a fane to her as a divine being and
in the mystic mood of the Somnium Scipionis he developed the
idea that man is a deity differing only in degree from *'ille
princeps deus qui mundum regit."
The Ruler-Cult and Polytheism 125
The swing from one aspect of nature to another
in the polytheist's ceaseless and feverish hunt for
the ultimate — to which allusion has already been
made — is bound to bring him around to man as
the final term in the natural process which he rec-
ognizes as divine.
Naturism, which constantly tends to lose its arti-
ficial content of personality and become imper-
sonal and abstract, both develops and reacts into
the personalism of man-worship. ^^^ This justifies
the brilliant generalization of Boissieu: "C'etait
le terme inevitable auquel devait aboutir le pan-
theisme antique, et, idole pour idole, le dernier des
vivants, comme dit Tertullian, etait preferable au
plus illustre mort." ^^^ The individual object wor-
shiped is part of a larger whole, which in its
totality is divine, but, undivided, is too vast and
vague to worship.
^^® Buddhism, Confucianism, and Comtian phenomenal Posi-
tivism, all three attempts to substitute impersonal forces or
abstract principles for the personalism of religion have, in the
end, reverted to the personalism against which they were prin-
cipally framed. On the transformation of nature-powers into
men of heroic dimensions see Reville: Hibbert Lectures for 1884
(N. Y., '84) p. 206. On the combination of nature-powers and
deified men see Moore: Hist, of Religions, p. 95; Harrison:
Themis, pp. 445, 6.
^^Ins. de Lyon, p. 51.
CHAPTER X
THE RULER-CULT AND THE JUD.^O-CHRISTIAN
MOVEMENT
I. The Jews and Emperor-worship
THE transition from the decadent paganism
of the emperor cult to the contemporary-
thought and worship of the Jews is the entrance
into a new world.^^^ It would be dijfficult to exag-
gerate the sense of relief which one feels in pass-
ing from the heated, artificial, incense-laden at-
mosphere of this court worship into the larger and
freer thought of the worshipers of Jehovah. The
difference between the self-inclosed pagan thought,
which changes from deity to deity but never es-
capes from a system bounded by nature on the
one hand, and man on the other, to the thought of
those whose God is a universal, invisible, spiritual
and ethical personality can best be realized by a
^^The generally fair record of the Jews in regard to the
emperor cult has one spot on it. In Akmonia the High-priestess
of Augustus was a Jewess, and built the Jews a synagogue.
Jews were in office when the coin to Poppaea was struck — Ram-
say: Op. cit., I, pp. 637-640, 649-51; cf. Philo: Flaccum, 7;
Legatio ad Gaium, 20.
126
Ruler-Cult and Judao-Christian Movement 127
concrete Instance. Caligula's officials in Alexan-
dria forcibly put images into the largest of the
Alexandrian temples. A delegation headed by
Philo was sent to the Emperor Caligula in the
year 39-40 A.D. While this delegation of five
distinguished men was actually in Italy, Caligula
ordered his own representative, Petronius, to put
up his image in the temple at Jerusalem.
The members of the delegation presented them-
selves before the emperor, were put off at first,
then were received with insults; but the point is
that, when Caligula tried to force them to worship
him, they refused and their resistance, though cour-
teously expressed, was so inflexible that Caligula
had to yield. Capricious, tyrannical and vicious
though he was, he could not browbeat nor bend
these men, who refused to bow the knee in the
presence of this new idol, as their ancestors had
refused to bow before the image of Nebuchadnez-
zar. The baffled emperor saved his face by de-
claring: ov TTOvqpoi fxaWov ri 8v(7TVX^ls ^vdi ixoi boKovaiv
avdpOJTTOL KCLl CLVOTJTOLy CtC."^^
2. Christianity and Emperor-worship
The anti-pagan movement which ultimately de-
stroyed the emperor cult, with cognate forms of
^* Philo: Legatio ad Gaium, 11, 35, 43, 43.
128 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
paganism, began with the Jews, among whom
Christianity, which was the heir of Jewish mono-
theism, was cradled. Christianity made use of the
Jewish Scriptures and was powerfully molded by
them. On the other hand, it was Christianity
which freed the essential Jewish teaching from its
particularism and made it a world-power. It was
not Judaism which was called upon to resist to
the death the pan-Roman Imperial system, but
Christianity. The reason for this is not far to
seek.
a. THE TEACHING OF CHRIST AND THE IMPERIAL-
CULT
The founder of Christianity was born under
Augustus and crucified under Tiberius. The last
survivor of His immediate disciples suffered under
Domitian in the last decade of the first century.
By the time of Valentinianus, and midway of
the fifth century, the emperor cult had lost its
power, although the official frame-work of it still
stood. Meanwhile, nominally Christian emper-
ors like Constantine had been officially divi and
had winked at the continuance of the pagan fam-
ily ritual which coupled their names with those of
the gods.
An alleged Christian writer, at the end of the
Ruler-Ciilt and Judceo-Christian Movement 129
period now under review, could write: (milites)
"jurant autem per Deum, et per Christum, et per
Spiritum Sanctum, et per majestatem Imperatoris,
quae secundum Deum generi humano diligenda est
et colenda. Nam Imperatori, cum Augusti nomen
accepit, tamquam praesenti et corporali Deo fidelis
est praestanda devotio, et impendendus pervigil
famulatus." -^^ He vainly tries to soften this evi-
dent compromise with paganism by saying: *'He
serves God who faithfully honors him who rules
by the authority of God."
It is evident enough that the system died slowly
and died hard, but at last it died. Between the dei-
fication of Julius Caesar and the final dissolution
of the structure whose corner-stone was laid in
that deification, ^^^ lies the history of nascent
Christianity and a little more, — five full centuries
of intense, complicated and colorful life, to depict
which adequately would take volumes. One
thread only of this complex historical fabric I
wish to draw out to view.
Just as decadent paganism was interpreted in
terms of the emperor cult, its final and supremely
characteristic product, so, through the same me-
'*°Vegetius: II. V.
^^ As a terminus ad quern, — in the Codex Justinianus the
title "Augustalis" seems to be confined to the Prefect of Egypt
and is entirely otiose, see Dig. 1:17; C. I., 37; cf. Cod. Theod.,
XVI, X, II.
130 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
dium, in its connection with the same system, I
would view nascent Christianity. I do this be-
cause in this contact, which became a conflict a
Voiitrance, the essential quality and spirit of Chris-
tianity were exhibited as nowhere else. If I mis-
take not, this is the central thread of early Chris-
tian history.
Jesus, in His teaching, does not mention the
Roman Empire by name and yet incidentally and
also in the general substance of His teaching it is
quite evident that He knew that His movement
was a challenge to the dominant power of the
world — a challenge bound to produce conflict and
revolution. Incidentally He made this remark:
"ot j(3a(7tXets ro)v edvcov KVpievovaiv avrcov, /cat oi k^ovaia^ovTes
avTO)v evepyercLL KoKovvrai, vfiels 8e ovx ourcos," etc.^^^
It cannot, in view of the context, be a mere coin-
cidence that, in a passage which sharply sets His
disciples against the prevalent ethnic custom,
Christ should use the familiar divine title of the
Ptolemaic kings. The exquisite irony involved in
the contrast between the verb-forms and the title
marks it as original and as the utterance of one
who had a knowledge of world-movements.
Moreover, in the consistent and detailed teach-
ing of Christ concerning the Kingdom of God,
which is constituted through the organic working
^*'^Luke, 22:25.
Ruler-Cult and Judao-Christian Movement 131
of the graces of love, humility and unselfish serv-
ice, and the building up of a new social order of
His adherents, — a kingdom which is not of this
world because it is inward and spiritual, there is
constant implicit reference to the world-empire
of the Caesars. It is quite evident that, while
Jesus was not a revolutionist in the ordinary sense,
yet, if His words had power to put themselves into
effect and embody themselves in institutions, a new
world-empire was sure to be built up on the shat-
tered foundations of the old. It is a simple fact,
therefore, that Jesus came not to bring peace but
a sword. Though all unrecognized by the author-
ities. He precipitated a conflict in which every
existing social and political institution was in-
volved, and, most of all, the divine preeminence of
the emperor. For, both in His teaching and in
His personality, the interpretation of which in re-
lation to God, men and the world, was early seen
to be the essence of the new religion, Christ be-
came a challenge to Csesarism.
The first working of that challenge was the well-
nigh immediate deliverance of the non-Jewish be-
lievers from the trammels of the imperial cult.
This emancipation grew more and more evident
until, in the writings of the Church Fathers, it
became the burden of the Christian propaganda.
There are few passages in all literature more no-
132 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
ble than those in which TertuUian defines his posi-
tion and that of his fellow-believers with reference
to the empire and its head — in which he refuses
to call the emperor god, but prays for him with
all honest fervor and devotion.-^^
Of course, this inward principle of Christianity
was only gradually disclosed to the world. When
it was disclosed, the era of martyrdom was on.
Let us trace its development.
b. CHURCH AND EMPIRE IN THE BOOK OF ACTS
Throughout the entire Book of the Acts, which
breaks off abruptly about the year 62 A.D., the
attitude of the Romans to the Christians was
favorable rather than otherwise. At the end of
Acts the Apostle Paul was a prisoner at Rome,
but only because of the activity of the Jews against
him and as the result of his own appeal to Caesar.
He was treated with extreme leniency and was
apparently confident of release.
^See TertuUian: Apol.: 5, in which he points out how the
Romans made their gods by oflScial decision.
Apol.: 10, in which he affirms that all the gods were deified
men.
Apol.: 30, in which he shows how irreverently the Romans
treated their gods.
Apol.: 30, in which he states his own position. This is a
sublime passage both from a religious and a literary point
of view. Nothing could show more clearly how immeasurably
Christianity had broadened the mental horizon of its advocates
than this passage.
Cf. also ibid., 32-35 and Lact. Div. Inst., 1.13; 17.
Ruler-Ciilt and Judao-Christian Movement 133
C. CHURCH AND EMPIRE IN NERO's REIGN AND
AFTER THE BEGINNING OF PERSECUTION
In the year 64 A.D., the Neronian persecution
broke out, in the course of which, if we follow the
well-authenticated tradition, Paul lost his life as a
martyr, but only after release, a period of free-
dom, a second arrest and trial. From that time
on, the Christians were in danger at any time of
being arrested as malefactors, that is, as crimi-
nals accused of specific offenses against the law.
The next great persecutor of the Christian body
was Domitian and, as all competent historians
have noted, a great change had come over the
attitude of the Roman authorities. Nero's perse-
cution was individual and the attacks upon Chris-
tians immediately subsequent were also unorgan-
ized and sporadic, based largely upon accusations
of delators and trumped-up criminal charges.
Under Domitian, as reflected in the Apocalypse
and even earlier as shown by the first Epistle of
Peter, persecution has become regular, organized
and pitiless, but more important still, it has, in
the course of about thirty years, become criminal
per se to be a Christian. No form of wrong-
doing other than belonging to the Christian body
need be proved against the accused in order to
bring immediate condemnation. What brought
134 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
about this change of sentiment on the part of the
Roman authorities it is not difficult to discover.
d. THE CAUSES OF PERSECUTION
Look first at the charges against Christians
which were considered by Roman officials in the
early period and those which were dismissed off-
hand in these same courts.
In every instance recorded in the Book of the
Acts, when Paul alone or with his associates was
brought before the Roman tribunal, the question
turned not on his guilt or innocence, but on the
question of jurisdiction and the nature of the ac-
cusation.
At Philippi,^^^ the crowd accused Paul and Silas,
as Jews, with teaching what was unlawful for the
Romans. The magistrates were evidently greatly
disturbed, reasonably enough, for it was danger-
ous for a Roman city to have such characters as
the Christians were accused of being, at large, and
hastily and without regard for forms of law, or-
dered them severely scourged and thrown into
prison. This was a mistake, as presently was rec-
ognized, for these unknown Jews happened to be
Romans. The magistrates were obliged to sue for
favor in order to get rid of their troublesome
^Acts, 16:19 f.
Ruler-Cult and Judao-Christian Movement 135
guests. Here, the charge held, but the magis-
trates acted illegally in omitting the trial.
At Beroea,^^^ it was Jason, the entertainer of
the Apostles, who was dragged by the mob before
the magistrates and accused. In this instance also
the accusation was made in such form that it
held, and Jason was bound over for examination.
The charge was that the Christian preachers were
subverters of social order, that they acted con-
trary to the decrees of Caesar by affirming the ex-
istence within the empire of another king, Jesus.
As I say, this charge was legal in form and compe-
tent to the court; as a result, the accusation was
received. This fact, namely, that the charge was
legally made, explains two things, the disturbance
of the magistrates, and the haste of friends to get
the Apostles out of the city. It also enables us
to understand what constituted a legal charge, by
which alone the Christians could be brought within
the jurisdiction of the Roman Courts.
At Corinth,^^^ Paul was brought before the
judgment seat of Gallio, the pro-Consul of Achaia,
on the charge of teaching men to worship God
contrary to the law. Gallio instantly discharged
the accused and drove the accusers away on the
ground that the case was not within the jurisdic-
^"Acts, 17:1-9.
'^'"Acts, 18:12 f.
136 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
tion of his court. He did not need to try the case
and therefore would not.
At Ephesus,^^^ trouble arose between the Paul-
ine company and the shrine makers and sellers of
the local cult of Diana. Note as germane to our
whole discussion the fact that the religious antag-
onism arises over a purely local worship. It is
not Jupiter Capitolinus for whom the fanatics are
jealous, but Diana of the Ephesians. And here
an extremely interesting fact emerges. The
"Asiarchs" — that is, the provincial priests of the
emperor cult — took the side of Paul to the extent
of giving him a friendly warning not to brave the
fury of the mob. The explanation of this rather
anomalous proceeding is that the Asiarchs had
no zeal for Diana and felt no antagonism to Paul
as long as they recognized no danger to the im-
perial cult. Later, in his famous letter, the
Emperor Julian ^^^ expressly charged the pro-
vincial priests with the task of watching the Chris-
tians, but at this date the imperial system was not
aroused against the Christians. At Ephesus the
antagonism to Paul had no legal standing and was
easily controlled by the authorities.
In his defense before Festus at Csesarea, Paul
expressly stated that he had done nothing against
Caesar and, to cap the climax of the whole strug-
^Acts, 19:23 f.
^Letter 49.
Ruler-Cult and Judao-Christian Movement 137
gle, when Festus wanted to turn him over to the
Jews, appealed to Cassar. The appeal, of course,
carried. Later Agrlppa said to Festus that the
prisoner might have been released then and there
had he not set the machinery of the Empire in
operation by appealing to Caesar.
This is the record in the Book of the Acts — and
the lesson is plain. The Christians cannot be
brought before Roman magistrates to be tried ex-
cept for political offenses, — offenses against the
law of the empire or the person of the emperor.
The next inference also is inevitable, that between
the close of Acts and the reign of Domitian, when
to be a confessed Christian is a capital offense
per se, Christianity has become a political offense
in the two senses just mentioned. The author of
I Peter urges the Christians to be brave in suffer-
ing ^^^ and clearly intimates that in his time the
believers are suffering simply for being Christians
— i.e., for the name of Christ. Christianity is no
longer a phase of Judaism, to be dismissed as Gal-
lio dismissed it, with a "look ye to it" addressed
to disorderly Jews. Christianity is now seen
to be a deadly menace to the unity of the empire
and the supremacy of the emperor. The Apoca-
^®'I Peter, 4:12-16 E't dP^i-Sl^eade kv dvolJ'O.Tt xPf-f^Tov /zaKctptot
OTL t6 TTJs 86^r]s kAl rb rod deov -n-vevfia kcp' u/xds CLvaizaieTai fxi] yap rts
VfiQu iracrx^ra. w <pov^^s 7) KXkirrrjs iJKaKOirocos, ■^uiS aWoTpLeTriaKOTros
€t ffk ojs xpicFTLavos, fir] ato-xyj'eo-^co, So^a^kro 5k tov debv ku ti^ ovofiaTi,
138 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
lypse records In vivid imagery the struggle which
had just begun when the first Petrine letter was
written. Rome is the great harlot drunk with
the blood of the saints. The emperor, or rather
the imperial system (not the individual emperor)
considered as the claimant of divine honors, is the
Beast -"'^ — the sum total of the forces that claim
to be god and yet are against God. We find this
same antithesis, of paganism centered in the em-
peror, and the followers of Christ in all these
later books of the New Testament. Westcott has
said:-"^^ "In the Emperor, the 'world' found a
personal embodiment and claimed divine honors."
A single sentence of Paul's over against the atti-
tude of Domitian, the emperor of John's vision,
will show how this struggle arose. Paul says :
*'No man speaking in the Spirit of God saith Jesus
is anathema; and no man can say Jesus is Lord,
but in the Holy Spirit."
Of course, these are not merely forms of words
— they embody the whole Christian and anti-
Christian confessions. The Christian called Jesus
"Dominus." He could not also call the emperor
"Dominus" — as Domitian loved to be called. "Ad
clamari etiam in Ampitheatro epuli die libenter:
Domino et Dominae feliciter." ^^^
^'°Rev. 13.
"^Epistle to John, 2d edit., p. 268.
"^Suetonius: Dora., 13.
Ruler-Ciilt and Judceo-Christian Movement 139
This situation, of which we catch lurid glimpses
through John's flaming imagery, comes plainly be-
fore us in Pliny's letter to Trajan -^^ and the lat-
ter's rescript in answer. The gist of Pliny's re-
port to the emperor lies in the words : ''Interro-
gavi ipsos an essent Christiani: confitentes iterum
ac tertio interrogavi supplicium minatus, perse-
verantes duci jussi." He had hesitated formerly,
"nomen ipsum, si flagitus careat, an flagitia co-
haerentia nomini peniantur." That hesitation had
apparently passed away, or, at any rate did not
attach to the action which he had chosen to fol-
low. "Neque enim dubitabam qualecumque esse
quod faterentur, pertinaciam certe et inflexibilem
obstinationem debere puniri." The final test for
this criminal recalcitrancy was the refusal to offer
incense in the presence of the imperial image.
Pliny's action was based on the organic law of the
empire already in operation, and was approved
by Trajan.^"^*
When the saintly Polycarp was on his way to
trial, he was asked by the captain of police or the
latter's father: ^'What harm is there in saying
Lord Caesar and sacrificing and saving your
life?" ^'^^ The aged Confessor was simply asked
to call Caesar "Dominus" and Jesus "Anathema"
^^Plin. Ep., 90 (97).
"'Ibid., 91.
^'''Eusebius H. Eccl., IV. 15. 15.
140 Aspects of Roman Emperor-Worship
and he might have lived. But when he refused,
the court-room was filled with the cry: "Poly-
carp hath confessed that he is a Christian!" ^"^^
No other condemnation was necessary or thought
of. He had blasphemed the deity of the empire
and must die a confessed malefactor in the eyes
of the law.
e. CONCLUSION CHRIST AND C^SAR
The conclusion of the whole investigation is
now within our reach and would seem to be inev-
itable.
There is a difference between paganism and
Christianity, not of degree but of kind. That dif-
ference becomes an impassable gulf the moment
the attempt is made to establish genetic connec-
tion between the two systems. It is allowable to
call paganism a preparation for Christianity, in-
asmuch as it constitutes, especially on its philo-
sophical side, the broadest and deepest disclosure
in history of the limitations and needs of the hu-
man heart. It is not possible in view of the facts,
many of the most significant of which have been
passed in review here, to make Christianity an
evolutionary derivative of the system which it
antagonized and superseded.
Christianity and imperial paganism are most
""'Ibid., IV, 15.25.
Ruler-Cult and Judao-Christian Movement 141
widely separated at the point where, historically,
they come nearest each other.^'''^ This point of
approach is found in the antithesis of Divus Im-
perator and Christus Dominus.
These two figures confront each other, the one
the genius of paganism — the other the protago-
nist, representative, and Lord of Christianity.^'^^
There is the same centrality of position in each
case, the same solitary preeminence, the same as-
criptions of heavenly power and glory. The sim-
ilarity here is startling. There is no phraseology
of devotion which the Christian could apply to
Christ, — Lord, Saviour, Son of God, God, —
which has not been applied to the Caesars, and to
their predecessors in royalty of other times and
in faraway lands. But there the resemblance ends.
No one can possibly be blind, whether Chris-
tian or not, to the vast difference in character be-
tween the paganism which deified the Caesars and
the Christianity which worshiped Christ. On
the one hand, a fawning sycophancy, where there
was not abject superstition, deep despair and ^'un-
fathomable corruption" ; on the other, a lofty the-
'"Dill {op. cit., pp. 622, 3) says almost the same thing with
respect to Mithraism: "One great weakness of Mithraism lay-
precisely here — that in place of the narrative of a Divine life,
instinct with human sympathy, it (Mithraism) had only to
oflFer the cold symbolism of a cosmic legend."
^^ For the pagan view of this contrast see Julian: Caesares,
Herthein's Ed., p. 431. Julian seizes upon Christ's attitude to-
ward the sinner for his attack.
142 Aspects of Roman Emperor-W orship
ism, a pure morality, a sane, sober, unified grasp
of truth, a joy of life and a deathless hope. But
that is not the core of the difference. That differ-
ence is focused in the two contrasted figures of
Caesar and Christ.
For words which but reveal the pitiful human
weakness, the absurdity and the baseness of the
greatest of the Caesars, when applied to Christ,
are like a cluster of jewels which belong to the
sunlight to which they add nothing, but from which
they gather and reflect unimaginable splendors.
For, after all, the problem of religion is not to
produce descriptive epithets, but a personaHty to
fit them. Here paganism failed. Her deified
Caesars could not always fill, let alone adorn, the
robes of royalty, to say nothing of the more august
garments of deity. While the humble Galilean,
whose Kingdom was not of this world, whose
crown was of thorns and whose robe was one of
mockery, brought heaven to earth and made real
to men the glory of the Unseen and Eternal.
[Kdt 6 X670S aap^ kyevero kcll kaKrjvoxrev ev rjfjLlv, kcli
kdeaacLfxeda Trjv 86^av avrovj 86^av cos jJLOvoyevovs irapa
Trarpos, irXijp'qs x^P^'^os kcli oKTjdeLas.l
[Qeov ovdels e&paKev irwiroTe 6 jiovoyevrjs 6e6s 6 cov els
Tov koKttov tov irarpos kKelvos e^7)y'f)aaT0.
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144 Bibliography
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Mommsen:
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Note on Bibliography. — This list of books
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148 Bibliography
tion. I have not ventured to include any work,
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INDEX
Abeshu, 17
Aero, 71
Aeneas, 44
Aeschylus, 19
Agrippina deified, 760., i03
Ahura Mazda, 19, 118
Alexander the Great, 24, 35,
85
Alexander, Romance of, 24
Alexander Severus, 20
Alii, cousin of Mohammed,
deified, 36
Antinous, 106
Antiochus, i, 11; deified, 36
Antonius, M., deified, 57, 60
Apocalypse (The), 133
Apollo, 32n.
Arsinoe Philadelphus, deified,
27
Artaxerxes, 20
Arval Brothers, The, 78 and
n., 82n.
Asclepius, 32n.
Asia Minor, 79, 80
Astrabakos, hero, 34
Athenagoras, 115
Athens, 79
Atossa d. of Cyrus, 20
Attalidae, 36, 69
Attalus, 1; deified, 36
Attalus Philadelphus, 36n.
Atticus, fr. of Cicero, 45, 57
Augustales, 66b., 70 and n.;
77, 83,. 89
Augustalia, 69
Augustan Age, 64
Augusti (The), 75, 76, 77, 78,
83
Augustus, 48, 53, 54, 59, 69,
70 and n. (see Sodales, Cul-
tores Provincial Priests,
High Priests), 71, 72 and
Jupiter 72n.; 73, 74, 79, 81,
91. See Polemon, Vergil on
100; 101, 112; as Apollo,
121 and n., 128
Aust, see bib., 47, 48, 49
Avesta (Zend), 18, 116
Babylon, 16
Berenice, d. of Ptol. II, deified,
28, 29
Beurlier, 58, 80
Bigg, 124
Boeck, 28, 57n., 72n.
Boissieu, 48, 7in., 87, 125
Breasted, J. H., 22, 23
Brugsch, H. K., 29
Buddhism, 41
Caesar, J., 51, 53, 54, 55, 56,
57 and n., 58, 59, 6on., 81,
82, 113
Caesarea (temples), 700.
Caesarion, son of Caesar and
Cleopatra, deified, 30, 31
Caligula, Gaius, compared
with Tib., 94; Mommsen on,
95; and Drusilla, 95; and
Ptol., 96; madness of, 96,
102, 120, 127
Cameo (Paris), 112, 113
149
150
Index
Carter, J. B., 42, 47, 48
China, deification in, 20, 21
Christ and Caesar, 140-143
Cicero, M. T., 45n., 510., 6on.,
i24n.
Claudius, 91, 102, 103, 104
Codex Theodosianus, 48n.
Commodus, 123
Confucius, deified, 41
Cultores, 70, 89
Cumont, 115, 123
Cyclades, 26
Darius, 20
Darmesteter, 116
De La Saussaye, 42
Deification, in paganism, 37;
and Mythology, 38, 41, 42;
not un-Roman, 43, 44, 45;
Cult of Dead and 45n., 52,
103, 115
Deification, total, 82
Dessau, 90
Deus Invictus, 51, 123
Di Manes, 45
Dill, S., 67n., 115
Diocletian, 105
Dio Cassius, 47, 56, 58, 66y
82, 105
Diodorus Siculus, 20
Diogenes Laertius, 24
Dioscuroi, 32n., 33
Divi Parentura, 45
Divi, 48, 78, 82, III
Divine King theory, 25
Dollinger, J. J. I. von, 330.,
67, 82, 86
Domitian, 77, 78, 90, 98, 138
Druses, The, 40
Dungi of Ur, deified, 17
Duruy, 48n., 5on.
Dynasties (divine), 28
Ecshel, 97
Egypt, deification in, 22
Elijah, deified as Khuddr, 40
Emperor Cult, 81, 82, see
Temples; 83, 84, 85, 88, 89,
91, 93, 99, 100, III, 115 ab-
sorbs Mithra and Apollo;
128, 129
Emperors, 81, 94
Entemena of Lagash, 16
Erman, on early deification,
22n., 25
Etana, hero, deified, 16
Euhemerus, 34, 38, 39, 114
Eumenes, 36
Fairbairn, A. M., 124
Farnell, L. R., 33
Flamen, 72, 82
Flavian House, The, 77, 90
Flora, 114
Fowler, W. W., 42, 43, 46,
47, 49, 50, 51, 123
Frazer, J. G., 42
Gallienus, Emp., as sun-god,
122
Gautama, the Buddha, deified,
41,
Genius, Worship of, 46, 47;
Romae, 49; 78, 86, iii, 115
Gimil Sin, deified, 17
Glory, Divine, of Persians, 18,
116
Gods and men (in Trojan sto-
ries), 44; kinship with
claimed by Romans, 45
Gratidianus, M. M., deified by
the people, 51
GriflSs, W. E., 2in.
Griffith, F. LI., 28n.
Grote, G., 38, 39
Gudea, of Shirpurla, deified,
16
Hadrian, 113
Hakim Ibn Allah, deified, 40
Index
151
Harnack, A., 123
Harrison, J. E., 33
Heinen (inscriptions), see bib.,
67n.
Henzen (inscriptions), ySn.,
82
Hephaestion, deified, 25
Heracles (Hercules), 33 and
n., 44
Hermes, 33
Hero-cult and deification, 3 if.
Herodotus, ipn.
Heroes and gods, 33
Hirschfeld, O., 36, 42, 57, 62,
83 and n., 96n.
Hopkins, E. W., 40
Horace, 47
How Chi, deified, 21
Hvareno, see glory, divine
Iliad, The, no deification in,
31.
Iranian Kings, 19
Jains of India, 40
Japan, deification in, 21
Jastrow, M., 16, i7n.
Jesus (and the Imp. cult), 130
Jews, The, and Caligula, 127;
and Emp. worship, i26n.
Judaism, 99
Julii, claim descent from Ve-
nus, 44
Julian House, The, 55, 73n.,
122
Kingdom of God and Caesar-
ism, 131
Knox, G. W., 41
Krall, 27
Laodicea, Feast of, 77n.
Lar Compitalis, 46, 47
Larentina, 106
Lares, Worship of, 48n.
Lucretius, T., 34, 52, 55
Ludi Sasculares, of Aug., i2i
Ludus, The (of Seneca), 102,
io3f.
Lysander of Sparta, deified,
35
MacCulloch, p. 4in.
Mahaffy, J. P., 28, 29
Man-worship, 15, 16
Manes, 45, 47, 67
Marquardt, 46, 78
Martin, W. A. P., 41
Maspero, 24n.
Mazdaism, Herod on, i9n., 84;
and Monotheism, 116; 117,
119
Mendes Stele, The, 26
Miller, C. W., 24n.
Minucius, Felix, n6
Minyas, 33
Mithra, not absorbed, n8;
sun-god, 118; and King-
worship, 118; in the West,
119; and Imp. Cult, 120;
Harnack on, 123
Mitra, iden. with Mithra, iii,
117
Mommsen, T, 20, 56, 69, 7on.,
7in., 91, 95, 113
Naram Sin, 17
Naksi-Rustam, inscription of,
20
Naturism and Man-cult, 125
Nero, triumph of in 68 A.D.,
65 ; Lucan on, loi ; 102, 103,
105, 120, 122; persecution
under, 133
Numen, in ruler-cult, 6in.
Numina, 45
Nung Shen, deified, 21
Odyssey, The, deification in
present text, 31
152
Index
Olympian deities, 34, 68, 72,
80, 90, III, 112, 114
Ovid, on ^neas, 44; 46, 47;
on Romulus, 49
Paganism, in conflict, 92; 99,
107, HI
Pantheism, 47, 124
Pausanias, 35
Pergamos, 69
Persecution, under Nero, 133 ;
under Domitian, 133; causes
of, 134-140
Persians, deification among,
18, 84, see Mithra
Petronius, 127
Philip of Macedon, deified, 35
Philo of Alexandria, 127
Philostratus, 98n.
Pliny, the Elder, 45, 46, 57
Pliny, the Younger, 100, 139
Plutarch, 33, 34n., 35, 6on.
Polemius, Alexander, 24
Polemon of Pontus, 91
Polybius, 85
Polytheism, fragmentary, 88;
weakness of, 108-111, 114,
124
Pompey, the Great, deified, 57
Poppaea Sabina, deified, 76n.,
105
Preller, L., 50, 63n.
Propertius, 121
Provincial Priests, 7on.
Pseudo-Callisthenes, 24
Ptah, 27
Ptolemies, The, deified, 25f.
Quintus Cicero, 57n.
Quirinus, 49; and Mars, 50
Ramsay, W. M., 33n., 76n.,
126
Rawlinson, on "Son of Re,"
22
Re, 23, 24
Renouf, P., 22n.
Revillout, 26
Rhodians, The, 26
Rhys, J., 42
Rogers, R. W., 17 and n.
Roma-cult, The, 35, 62, 63,
72
Roman religion. The, 85, 87
and n.
Saoshyant, 19
Sardis, coin of, 75n.
Segimundus, Aug., priest, 90,
Sejanus, 105
Seleucidae, 36
Seneca, 51; Ludusof, 102
Shintoism, 21
Sihler, E. G., 31, 32n., 35,
51
Sitlington-Sterret, 79, 80
Smith, W. R., 42
Smyrna, and Roma-cult, 62
Sodales, 70
Speer, R. E., 4in.
Statue-worship (Imperial), 63
and n., 66 and n.
Suetonius, 56, 58, 68, 73, 74,
82, 98n., 101, 103, 104
Tacitus, 62, 65, 69, 71, 97, 103
Temples (of Imp. cult at
Rome), 82
Tertullian, 106, 114, 115, 13211,
Teuffel (Rom. Lit.), 24n., 46
Throne-names (divine), 28
Tiberius, 74, 75n., 94; and
Augustan Cult, 96 and n.,
97, 98, 112; statues of, 114,
120, 128
Titus (Emp.), 68n.
Trajan, 100, 113 and n.
Tullia, d. of Cic, 45, 124
Index
153
Underwood, H. C, 4111.
Unification, under Emp. Wor.,
88f.
Valerius, Maximus, 59, 97
Varuna, 117
Vedas, The, 117
Vegetius, 129
Velleius Paterculus, 59, 6in^
105
Verus, 105
Vespasian, 98, 104
Wassner, 46
Westcar Papyrus, The, 25
Wilson, S. A., on Bahaisra, 41
Wissowa, G., on Caesar as
divus, 53, 59, 63, 66, 80
Wolfe Expedition, 79
Worship of Emp. in life-time,
64, 68
Zarathustra (Zoroaster), 19;
deified, 116
Zoroastrianisra, see Mazdaism
WORLD WORSHIPS SERIES
History of Christianity. Four vol-
umes. By Andrew Stephenson.
Sex Worship and Symbolism of
Primitive Races. By Sanger Brown,
11.
Devil Worship, the Sacred Books
AND Traditions of the Yezidiz. By
Zoroastrianism and Judaism. By
George William Carter.
Messiahs, Christian and Pagan. By
Wilson D. WaUis.
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