Religions of Rome by Mary Beard

Author:Mary Beard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1998-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

9.2 Emperor worship

The increasing claims of the late republican leaders might predictably have led on directly (once the republican system had fallen) to the recognition of emperors as gods on earth. It is indeed possible that Julius Caesar did have plans to be recognized as a god in his own lifetime (9.2a). But if this is the case, and if Caesar’s successors were aware of these plans, they chose largely to avoid any such precedent. In practice, ‘deification’ of Roman emperors was a complex, shifting and varied phenomenon. In Rome itself emperors were often closely associated with the gods (see 2.8c), but only the stereotypically ‘bad’ emperors were said to have become gods during their lifetime; in general, emperors received divine status only after their death – and only if the senate deemed to them to have deserved it (2.8b). In the provinces, divine honours were sometimes given to living emperors – but local practice varied widely and was a matter of local initiative as much as demands made by the emperor himself (10.4e, 10.5, 10.6).

See further: Vol. 1, 140–9; Koch (1960); Hopkins (1978) 197–242*; Price (1984); Fishwick (1987-) 1.3–93; for further passages and bibliography, 2.8.

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