Roman imperial cult

The Roman imperial cult was a way the Romans showed respect and honor to their emperors. They believed that emperors and some of their family members had special, divine power that helped protect Rome. This idea started during the time of Augustus, the first emperor, and quickly spread throughout the entire Empire.

Augustus changed Rome’s government from a republic to something closer to a monarchy, but he used old Roman traditions to make it seem natural. As emperor, he had to keep everyone happy—the military, the Senate and people, and all the different groups living in the empire. By showing respect to the emperor, people were really saying they believed his rule was right and approved by the gods. This helped the emperor show respect for Rome’s old gods and customs.

Sometimes, after an emperor died, the Senate could decide he was so good that he became a god himself. This was called apotheosis. It was a big deal because it showed that the Senate thought the emperor was worthy. Living emperors could also connect themselves to these honored past rulers. As new leaders took power, they used this idea to strengthen their own rule and show they were better than earlier, less popular emperors. Over time, as Christianity grew, the old ways of honoring emperors and Rome’s gods changed. By the time of Theodosius I, Christianity became the official religion, and the old imperial cult was no longer practiced.

Background

Roman

For five centuries, the Roman Republic (509–27 BC) did not honor any historic figure or living person as a god. Rome’s legendary kings had ruled, but after they were removed, Romans could still honor Romulus, the city’s founder, as the god Quirinus, while keeping their freedom. Similarly, Rome’s ancestor-hero Aeneas was honored as Jupiter Indiges. Romans worshipped many gods and demi-gods who had once been human and believed all gods began as humans. However, Republican traditions (mos maiorum) were very careful to avoid acting like kings. The leaders who held important jobs and were part of the Senate did not see any human as naturally better than others. No citizen, living or dead, was officially called a god, but the honors given by the state—such as crowns, garlands, statues, thrones, and processions—were also fit for gods and had a divine feeling. When emperors later received state worship, it was done by a Senate decision, written like any other honor.

One of the highest honors was the triumph. When a general was called imperator by his soldiers, the Senate would decide whether to give him a triumph. This was a parade to the Capitol where the general showed his prisoners and treasures of war with his soldiers; by law, everyone was unarmed. The general rode in a chariot, carrying symbols of the gods, in a way that came from the ancient kings of Rome, and ended by giving his victory to Jupiter Capitolinus. Some thinkers have seen the general as acting or even becoming a king or a god for that day, but the way the triumph was given and the rites that followed also served to keep his status limited. Whatever his own hopes, his victory and his triumph served the Roman Senate, people, and gods and were only recognized with their approval.

In private life, however, tradition said some humans should be treated almost like gods; respect was owed from family members to their leaders. Every head of household stood for the genius – the life-giving spirit and guard of his family – which others might honor and by which his family and slaves made promises; his wife had a juno. A client could call his leader “Jupiter on earth.” The dead, together and separately, were gods of the world below or after life (Manes). A letter remains from Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, hoping that when she died, her sons would honor her as deus parens, a parent god; such respect was expected from any caring son.

A well-known family might claim divine support and almost divine respect for its leader. Death masks (imagines)) were made for all important Romans and shown in the atria of their homes; they were used to show their spirit at family funerals. The mask of Scipio Africanus, Cornelia’s father and winner over Hannibal, was kept in the temple of Jupiter; his grave words (by Ennius) said he had gone to Heaven. A story grew after his death that Africanus had divine dreams and was the son of Jupiter.

There are several stories of unofficial respect given to men seen as saviors, in military or politics. In Further Spain in the 70s BC, loyal Romans greeted the leader Metellus Pius as a savior, burning incense “as if to a god” for his work against the Lusitanian rebellion led by the Roman Sertorius, a member of the group called “men of the People” (populares). This celebration, in Spain, had a big feast with local and imported foods, and a moving statue of Victory to crown Metellus, who wore (without right) a general’s toga picta for the event. These celebrations were organized by the quaestor Gaius Urbinus, but were not acts of the state. Metellus liked all this, but his older and careful (veteres et sanctos) followers thought it too proud and wrong. After the land leaders Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus were both killed by their enemies, their supporters “bowed down” and offered daily gifts at the statues of the Gracchi “as though they were visiting the places of the gods.” After Gaius Marius beat the Teutones, private people would give him food and drinks along with their household gods; he was called the third founder of Rome after Romulus and Camillus. In 86 BC, gifts of incense and wine were given at crossroad places to statues of the still-living Marius Gratidianus, the nephew of the older Marius, who was very popular for changing money rules that helped end an economic problem in Rome during his praetorship.

Greek

When the Romans started to control large parts of the Greek world, Rome’s main leaders there were given the same divine respect as Hellenistic rulers. This was a well-used way for Greek city-states to show they would obey and respect an outside power; such a respect tied the city to follow and honor the king as they followed and honored Apollo or any of the other gods.

The cities of Ionia honored the Spartan general Lysander, when he personally led Greece, right after the Peloponnesian War; according to Plutarch, this was the first time ruler cult happened in Greek history. There were similar cases of divine respect for humans in the same century, though some leaders, like Agesilaus, turned it down. Clearchus, tyrant of Heraclea, dressed like Zeus and said he was a god; this did not stop the Heracleans from killing him. Isocrates said of Philip II of Macedon that after he took over the Persian Empire, there would be nothing left for him but to become a god; the city of Amphipolis, and a private group in Athens, honored him even without this taking over; he himself put up his statue, dressed as a god, as the thirteenth of the Twelve Olympians.

But it was Philip’s son Alexander the Great who made the divinity of kings normal among the Greeks. The Egyptians took him as Pharaoh, and therefore a god, after he drove the Persians out of Egypt; other lands took him as their traditional divine or almost-divine leader as he took them over. In 324 BC, he told the Greek cities they should also make him a god; they did so, with clear feeling, which did not stop them from rebelling when they heard of his death the next year.

His first followers, the Diadochi, gave gifts to Alexander, and made themselves gods even before they said they were kings; they put their own pictures on money, whereas the Greeks had always kept this for a god or for a sign of the city. When the Athenians worked with Demetrius Poliorcetes, eighteen years after Alexander was made a god, they let him stay in the Parthenon with Athena, and sang a song praising him as a present god who could hear them, as the other gods could.

Euhemerus, a friend of Alexander, wrote a made-up history of the world, which showed Zeus and the other well-known gods of Greece as mortal men, who had made themselves into gods in the same way; Ennius seems to have put this into Latin some two centuries later, in Scipio Africanus’ time.

The Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucids said they were gods as long as they ruled; they may have been pushed in this by the Persian and Egyptian ways of divine kings – although the Ptolemies had separate respects in Egyptian polytheism, as Pharaoh, and in the Greek way. Not all Greek families made the same claims; the followers of Demetrius, who were kings of Macedon and led the mainland of Greece, did not say they were gods or honor Alexander (compare with Ptolemaic cult of Alexander the Great).

Romans among the Greeks

The Roman leaders who took over the Greek world were placed into this tradition; games were started to honor Marcus Claudius Marcellus, when he took Sicily at the end of the Second Punic War, as the Olympian games were for Zeus; they went on for about one and a half centuries until another Roman leader ended them, to make space for his own honors. When Titus Quinctius Flamininus spread Roman power to Greece itself, temples were built for him and cities put his picture on their money; he called himself god-like (isotheos) in an writing at Delphi – but not in Latin, or at Rome. The Greeks also made a goddess Roma, who was honored with Flamininus (their shared respect is known from 195 BC); she would become a sign of ideal romanitas in the later Roman lands, and a lasting link, while a Marcellus or Flamininus might only hold power for a few years.

When King Prusias I of Bithynia was allowed to talk with the Roman Senate, he bowed and called them “Saviour Gods”, which would have been the right way at his own court; Livy was shocked by Polybius’ description of this, and says there is no Roman record it ever happened.

Respect and temples seem to have been regularly given by Greeks to their Roman leaders, with different reactions. Cicero turned down a temple offered by the city leaders of Roman Asia to his brother and himself, while the latter was leader, to avoid jealousy from other Romans; when Cicero himself was leader of Cilicia, he said he had taken no statues, places of respect, or carriages. His predecessor, Appius Claudius Pulcher, was so happy, however, when the Cilicians built a temple to him that, when it was not finished at the end of Claudius’ time in office, Claudius wrote Cicero to make sure it was done, and complaining that Cicero was not working hard enough on the matter.

Intermediate forms

The Romans and the Greeks gave religious honor to and for human beings in ways that did not make the people gods; these made the first Greek apotheoses easier. Similar middle ways appeared as Augustus came close to official divinity.

The Greeks did not consider the dead to be gods, but they did honor them and give them gifts, using different ways than for the gods of Olympus. The Greeks called unusual dead people – founders of cities and the like – heroes; in the simplest way, Greek hero cult was the grave and the memories which any good Greek family gave their dead, but paid for by their City forever. Most heroes were figures from old stories, but some were from history: the Athenians honored Harmodius and Aristogeiton as heroes, as saviors of Athens from rule; also, together, those who died at the Battle of Marathon. Leaders did not usually become heroes, but Sophocles was the hero Dexion (“the Receiver”) – not as a writer, or a general, but because when the Athenians took Asclepius’ respect during the Peloponnesian War, Sophocles held an image of Asclepius until a place could be built. The Athenian leader Hagnon started Amphipolis shortly before the Peloponnesian War; thirteen years later, while Hagnon was still living, the Spartan general Brasidas freed it from the Athenian rule, and was badly hurt in the process. The Amphipolitans buried him as a hero, saying he was the second founder of the city, and removed Hagnon’s honors as much as they could.

The Greeks also honored founders of cities while they were still living, like Hagnon. This could also be used for men who did equally important things; during the time when Dion led in Syracuse, the Syracusans gave him “heroic respect” for ending the rulers, and did this again for Timoleon; these could also be called worshipping his good spirit (agathos daimon, agathodaemon; every Greek had an agathodaemon, and the Greek way of a toast was to offer to one’s agathodaemon). Timoleon was called savior; he started a place for Luck (Automatia) in his house; and his birthday, the celebration of his daimon, became a public holiday.

Other men might say they had divine help by having a friend among the gods; so Alcibiades may have had both Eros and Cybele as friends; and Clearchus of Heraclea said he was “son of Zeus”. Alexander said he had the help of Dionysus and other gods and heroes; he had a dinner at Bactra which mixed the toast to his agathos daimon and gifts to Dionysus, who was present within Alexander (and therefore the people toasted Alexander rather than the home and altar, as they would have done for a toast).

It was not always simple to know between heroic respect, honor for a man’s good spirit, respect for his god friend, respect for the Luck of a city he started, and respect for the man himself. One might change into another: In Egypt, there was a respect for Alexander as god and as starter of Alexandria; Ptolemy I Soter had a separate respect as starter of Ptolemais, which probably respected his daimon and then gave him heroic respect, but in his son's rule, the priests of Alexander also respected Ptolemy and Berenice as the Savior Gods (theoi soteres).

Finally, a man might, like Philip II, take some powers of godhood and not others. The first Attalid kings of Pergamum, were not gods, and supported a respect for Dionysus Cathegemon, as their ancestor; they put the picture of Philetaerus, the first ruler, on the money, rather than their own. Finally, like the Seleucids, they got a name priest, and put themselves on the money; but they still were not called gods before their deaths. Pergamum was usually allied with Rome, and this may have affected the later Roman way.

End of the Republic

In the last years of the Roman Republic, leaders often took on special powers. They held offices alone and for many years, unlike the usual short terms. These leaders also received unusual honors. For example, Marius and Sulla, who were rivals, each started cities named after themselves. Sulla even had games held in his honor in Rome. Pompey was allowed to wear special clothes during games.

Leaders also claimed special ties to gods. Sulla said the goddess Venus Felix protected him, and Pompey said Venus favored him and built a temple to her. The first Roman leader to claim he was a god was Julius Caesar.

Divus Julius

Caesar had family ties to gods. He said his family came from Aeneas and Venus. As a young man, he was named a special priest of Jupiter. Later, he became the chief priest of Rome. When he won full control in 45 BC, he began to act more like a god. He wore special clothes usually saved for big victories and had statues made of him as a god. People called him "father of the country" and celebrated his birthday as a public holiday. After he was killed, many people still honored him as a god. The Senate later officially called him a god, and his heir, Octavian, held ceremonies to honor him as a god.

Caesar's heir

In 30–29 BC, the groups of people in Asia and Bithynia asked to honor Octavian, later known as Augustus, as their "deliverer" or "saviour." This request placed Octavian in a challenging position, as he needed to satisfy both popular and traditional expectations without appearing to seek divine status in Rome. It was decided that worship could be offered to him together with the goddess Roma at special centers in Pergamum and Nicomedia. Roman citizens were not to worship the living emperor but could honor Roma and Julius Caesar at places in Ephesus and Nicaea.

In 29 BC, Octavian dedicated a temple to his adoptive father, Julius Caesar, at the place where Caesar was cremated. This act honored Caesar as a divine figure of the Roman state. Octavian also restored peace with the gods and refounded Rome, earning the title Augustus in 27 BC.

The Imperial succession

Even as he prepared his adopted son Tiberius for the role of leader and recommended him to the Senate as a worthy successor, Augustus seems to have doubted the right way to pass power. When Augustus died, he was voted a divine status by the Senate, and his body was honored in a grand funeral; his spirit was said to have joined the heavens, to be with his adoptive father among the gods; his remains were placed in the Imperial Mausoleum, which identified him (and later, his descendants) by his Imperial names, rather than as divine. After Augustus, the only new honors to Roman leaders are those connected to the Imperial family. On his death, the Senate debated and passed a law which voted Tiberius as leader through his "proven merit in office", and awarded him the honorific Augustus as name and title.

Tiberius accepted his position and title as emperor with apparent reluctance. Though he proved a capable and efficient leader, he could not match his predecessor's extraordinary energy and charm. Roman historians described him as serious and mistrustful. With a self-deprecation that may have been entirely genuine, he encouraged the honor to his father, and discouraged his own. After much discussion, he allowed a single temple in Smyrna to himself and the spirit of the Senate in 26 AD; eleven cities had competed – with some strong feelings and even conflict – for the honor. His lack of personal influence allowed increasing influence from the Praetorian Guard over the Imperial family, the Senate and through it, the state. In 31 AD, his Praetorian Guard leader Sejanus – by now a virtual co-leader – was implicated in the death of Tiberius' son and heir apparent Drusus, and was executed as a public enemy. In Umbria, the imperial cult priest memorialised "the care of Tiberius Caesar Augustus, born for the lasting of the Roman name, upon the removal of that most harmful enemy of the Roman people". In Crete, thanks were given to "the spirit and care of Tiberius Caesar Augustus and the Senate" in stopping the plot, but at his death the Senate and his heir Caligula chose not to officially make him divine.

Caligula's rule showed the legal and moral problems of the Augustan "Republic". To make his succession legal, the Senate was forced to constitutionally define his role, but the rites and sacrifices to the living spirit of the emperor already acknowledged his constitutionally unlimited powers. The leader played the role of first among equals only through personal self-restraint and respect. It became evident that Caligula had little of either. He seems to have taken the cult of his own spirit very seriously and is said to have enjoyed acting the part of a god – or rather, several of them. However, his famous and often-cited acting as major deities may represent no more than his priesthood of their cults, a desire to shock and a love of grand dress or simply mental illness. Whatever his plans, there is no evidence for his official cult as a living divine being in Rome or his replacement of state gods, and none for major changes or new ideas in his provincial cult. His reported personal relations with his sister Drusilla and her deification after death caused scorn from later historians; after Caligula's death, her cult was simply allowed to fade. His reported taking of priesthood fees from unwilling senators are marks of private cult and personal hurts among the elite. Caligula's fatal mistake was to willfully "insult or offend everyone who mattered", including the senior military officers who killed him. The histories of his rule highlight his wayward lack of respect. Perhaps not only his: in 40 AD the Senate decided that the "leader should sit on a high platform even in the very Senate house". Claudius (his successor and uncle) intervened to limit the damage to the imperial family and those who had plotted against it and had Caligula's public statues quietly removed.

Claudius was chosen leader by Caligula's Praetorian Guard and strengthened his position with payments to the military. The Senate was forced to agree to the choice and accept the insult. Claudius adopted the name Caesar, made Augustus' wife, Livia, divine 13 years after her death and in 42 AD was given the title father of the country, but relations between leader and Senate seem to have been impossible to repair. Claudius showed none of Caligula's excesses. He seems to have entirely refused a cult to his own spirit: but the offer of cult simultaneously acknowledged the high status of those allowed to give it and the extraordinary status of the leader – Claudius' repeated refusals may have been interpreted as insulting to Senate, people in the provinces and the imperial office itself. He further insulted the traditional order by promoting his own trusted friends as imperial leaders; those closest to the leader held high status through their closeness.

It has been assumed that he allowed a single temple for his cult in Britain, following his victory there. The temple is certain – it was placed at Camulodunum (modern Colchester), the main town in the province, and was a focus of British anger during the Boudiccan revolt of 60 AD. But cult to the living Claudius there is very unlikely: he had already refused honors in Alexandria as "common" and wrong and cult to living leaders was linked with altars, not temples. The British worship offered him as a living divine being is probably no more than a cruel literary judgment on his worth as leader. Despite his evident respect for republican norms, he was not taken seriously by his own class, and in Seneca's fawning Neronian story, the Roman gods cannot take him seriously as a divine being – the wild British might be more easy to convince. In reality, they proved angry enough to rebel, though probably less against the Claudian divine being than against cruel acts and the financial weight represented by its temple.

Claudius died in 54 AD and was made divine by his adopted son and successor Nero. After an apparently grand funeral, the divine Claudius was given a temple on Rome's disreputable Caelian Hill. Fishwick remarks that "the harmful humor of the site can hardly have been lost by those in the know... the location of Claudius' temple in Britain (the occasion for his "pathetic victory") may be more of the same".

Once in power, Nero allowed Claudius' cult to end, built his Golden House over the unfinished temple, enjoyed his luxurious and artistic tastes and allowed the cult of his own spirit as head of the Roman people. Senatorial attitudes to him appear to have been largely negative. He was overthrown in a military coup, and his honors to his dead wife Poppaea and infant daughter Claudia Augusta were ended. Otherwise, he seems to have been a popular leader, particularly in the Eastern provinces. Tacitus reports a senatorial idea to dedicate a temple to Nero as a living divine being, taken as ominous because "divine honors are not given to a leader till he has stopped living among men".

Imperial crisis and the Dominate

The end of the Severan dynasty brought big changes to the Roman Empire. With problems like money losing value quickly and health issues, different leaders from the provinces fought for power. Many emperors didn’t even visit Rome, and their ties to the Senate were weak. Without strong leadership, nearby lands began to attack.

During this time, leaders took resources from temples to pay their armies, which upset many people. One leader, Philip the Arab, honored his father as a divine figure and brought back the body of a young leader to Rome for a special ceremony. Another leader, Decius, required everyone to make offerings to Rome’s traditional gods or face serious trouble. Only Jewish people were allowed to follow their own traditions. Later, Valerian and his son Gallienus worked to bring back traditional Roman beliefs and values.

Diocletian divided the Empire into Western and Eastern parts, each with a senior and junior emperor. He focused on keeping order and harmony, and his rule included special ceremonies and titles that showed respect for the emperor as a divine figure. These ideas were based on older Roman and Greek thoughts about leadership and the gods.

Context and precedents

The rule of Augustus was seen by many as a way to bring back order and tradition, rather than a big change. People showed respect to the leader, called the princeps, by honoring his special powers and good behavior through a practice called genius cult. Good emperors did not want to be treated as gods while alive, but they did accept a simpler form of respect. Later emperors sometimes wanted to be treated like gods, which showed they did not get along well with the leaders of Rome.

Divus, deus and the numen

When an emperor died, they could be named a divus, a kind of divine ancestor. This was not automatic; it needed approval from the leaders of Rome. The divus was thought to live among the gods but was not as powerful as the main gods. The idea of a living emperor having divine power was very careful and rare. Over time, some emperors were openly called divine while still alive.

Sacrificium

See also: Religion in ancient Rome § Sacrifice

Making offerings to gods was a big part of Roman life. People made these offerings to show they cared about the community and its values. Leaders made special offerings on important days for the emperor and his family. In some places, people made offerings to the living emperor’s spirit, called his genius.

Augury, ira deorum and pax deorum

Main article: Augur

Leaders in Rome asked for guidance from the gods before making big decisions. They watched for signs in nature to see what the gods thought. This practice was very important and helped keep balance and peace, which was called pax deorum.

Genius and household cults

The mos maiorum established the near-monarchic familial authority of the ordinary pater familias ("the father of the family" or the "owner of the family estate"), his obligations to family and community and his priestly duties to his lares and domestic penates. His position was hereditary and dynastic, unlike the elected, time-limited offices of republican magistrates. His family – and especially his slaves and freedmen – owed a reciprocal duty of cult to his genius.

The genius was like the special spirit inside a person. Families showed respect to this spirit every day. When Augustus became a top leader, he connected his family’s traditions to the state’s important rituals. He also supported local festivals to strengthen community ties.

Role in the military

Roman soldiers showed respect to the emperor and his family in special ways. They kept images of the emperor in their camps and made offerings on important days. Over time, soldiers also followed other beliefs, mixing them with respect for the emperor.

Altars, temples and priesthoods

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

Leaders and special priests took care of the rituals for the emperor and his family. They made sure images and statues were made and used in ceremonies. They also organized games and events to honor the emperor.

Saviours and monotheists

Some Greek thinkers believed the world needed a saviour to bring peace and order. They saw Augustus as this kind of leader. Even though the imperial cult included many beliefs, it sometimes faced questions from people who followed only one god. Jews and early Christians had their own ways to show respect without treating the emperor as a god.

The imperial cult and Christianity

For ancient Romans, showing respect through special ceremonies was a way to show loyalty to the empire and its traditions. Not doing this was seen as a betrayal. Christians, however, saw these ceremonies as not true worship.

When Constantine I became leader, he supported the Christian church and changed many imperial practices. Though he was not baptized, he used symbols of Christianity and ended some old ceremonies, but he still treated himself almost like a god. His nephew Julian tried to bring back older Roman ways but his changes did not last.

Later leaders like Theodosius I made Christianity the official religion of the empire. Even after the western part of the empire ended, leaders in the eastern part continued to rule with a sense of sacred power. Ceremonies of welcome and respect for the emperor's image influenced Christian practices and icons in the eastern church.

Historical evaluations

The Roman imperial cult is sometimes seen as different from Rome's old values, and some thought it was just a way to show support for the emperor. But it was really tied to old Roman religious traditions, like respecting important people and ancestors, and also to ideas from the eastern parts of the empire.

Historians still debate what the imperial cult meant. Some thought it was a foreign idea that didn’t fit well with Roman culture. Others, including modern historians, see it as a natural part of Roman religion and life. The cult helped bring together people across the empire and celebrated the power and importance of Rome. It was linked to everyday ceremonies and special events, and many people felt personally connected to it. As the empire changed, so did the cult, adapting to new religious ideas, like Christianity, while still playing a role in Roman society.