( 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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146 Bibliography 
 
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148 Bibliography 
 
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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. 
 
 Roman Emperor- Worship. By Louis 
 Matthews Sweet. 
 
 RICHARD G. BADGER, PUBLISHER, BOSTON