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Constantine did NOT abolish the imperial cult. When some town wanted to build his family a temple, he said it was alright as long as they don't sacrifice in it. I need the reference, but I think this is basically how it happened. Of course, he wasn't 'consecrated' after death, but that's another thing. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 163.1.121.3 ( talk) 02:09, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
As it stands, this article is a misleadingly broad representation of the imperial cult of the Roman Empire, in that its opening paragraph implies that worship of living emperors was a widespread, near-universal practice across the Empire (both in time and space) -- an implication not adequately supported by the body of the text or accompanying references.
The article focuses primarily on the deifications of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, and specifically on Julius and Augustus. Of the active worship, living or otherwise, of the post-Julio-Claudian emperors, from Vespasian to Constantine, this article says absolutely nothing. That's a gap of more than 200 years. Whatever we might conclude from the sources cited about emperor-worship during the first half of the 1st century CE, we must take care not to apply those conclusions to the remainder of the Principate and the middle of the 3rd century CE without supporting evidence.
Though I cannot be certain, this article appears to rely upon, and extrapolate too far from, the single External Link cited -- a work concerned with emperor-worship during the Augustan Age in Greece and Asia Minor. On the topic of emperor-worship in other parts of the Empire or of the active worship of emperors after Augustus, it remains silent.
Lastly, there is a difference between revering a deceased emperor as a god and worshipping a living emperor as one, a distinction which is not made especially clear in the present Wikipedia article.
In short, this Wikipedia article is not nearly as comprehensive as its opening paragraph indicates. At the very least I would suggest a change to more specific, and less misleading, title, and the inclusion of more references and citations to support its assertions. JagoWoodbine 14:40, 10 May 2007 (UTC)JagoWoodbine
In the Intro:
"the only emperor to declare himself a god while still living was Domitian which caused outrage."
and in 'Civil religion until abolishment by Constantine':
"After Hadrian, the power of the emperors had become so absolute and consolidated that the later emperors could claim divinity during their own lives"
I think the first quote needs to be edited to explain the growing strength of Emperors claim to divinity over the course of the first 200 years of empire, but I am unsure. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.233.203.36 ( talk) 17:13, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
The article badly needs one. At the moment, it has a weak narrative drive. The prose style switches from one section to the next. Changes in tense and voice don't help any - they show the use of chunks of imported text based on others' research. I know a lot of wiki articles are written that way, but that's why most don't come anywhere near FA, or even B quality. Start with the research, absorb the background, understand how and why the subject arises - then write.
It's good to know there's still some life in the article (re: comment above this one) because it has potential. I'm interested and will help out, if required. Haploidavey ( talk) 22:25, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Sorry for the bolding up there. I just don't think the current structuring of the article offers an adequate basis for useful work. If anyone's up for drastic changes... count me in. My own resources on the subject are zilch, and I've no access to a University library. I go to London and use the British Library 2-3 times a year; next planned is for May or June. Meanwhile, I'll take at look at what - if anything - the internet has of adequate quality. Haploidavey ( talk) 22:59, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Actually found quite a lot. Hurrah for googlebook previews. Will make a start offline. Haploidavey ( talk) 02:40, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
QED. Haploidavey ( talk) 11:36, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
The introduction interprets the cult as one of "personality" - according to which sources? They're not in the main article text, and none of the reputable works currently listed in "Further Reading" support that simplistic conclusion. Anything but. Haploidavey ( talk) 13:02, 13 April 2009 (UTC) Removed unjustified allegation.
The article has very little in the way of anthropological or politico-religious context. Anyone object if I provide that as an introduction in the main body? Most of the modern authors I've been looking at regard this as essential background. Haploidavey ( talk) 22:17, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
Have started to re-write uncited sections, and provide a lot more background for modern scholarship and the cult phenomenon's antecedents. The article's likely to be rather disorganised for a while yet - OK, rather chaotic - partly because I'm trying to keep the best of it (most of which has inline citation) intact. Any contributors want to help in this? Haploidavey ( talk) 22:13, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
Complete, for the time being. A suggestion - as this is likely to become a rather long article, please place comments or crits on this section directly below. If headers are changed for any reason, please strike though the existing header and give new header title. For other sections, please place comments and discussions under appropriately titled headings. Thank you. Haploidavey ( talk) 02:05, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
Pasted in with a reservations - namely, should it be merged? And do other editors agree that terms should be as proposed? If the terminology isn't changed and explained, the article will remain as opaque (at best) or potentially misleading (at worst) as it was. Of course, sources must and will be respected. Post-cult commentators and cult opponents should be cited and quoted strictly in their own terms. Haploidavey ( talk) 22:22, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
There's editorializing happening in this article through selective sourcing. Describing the imperial cult as "servile" may or may not be valid, depending on one's point of view, but it certainly is not a consensus opinion among scholars of the field. A Wikipedia article may reflect scholarly debate about a particular topic, but it should not "take sides" in such a debate, no? The tone here is contentious and politically charged. Perhaps a rewrite with non-axe-grinding sources is in order. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ZoomaBaresAll ( talk • contribs) 23:19, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
I feel there must be fundamental flaws in my restructuring of this article, as it's becoming very difficult to write and organise. Any insights, suggestions or contributions would be most welcome. Haploidavey ( talk) 17:23, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
It strikes me that a lot of the article is occupied with a review of Roman religion; for all I know, the article " Religion in ancient Rome" doesn't contain the material you need so that you could summarize the background more succinctly and then simply cross-reference. No reflection on that article, which I haven't really read; just a comment on what often happens to me in trying to cross-reference. Therefore, the Imperial cult article runs the risk of TMI. If you feel the article has become unwieldy, you might consider a more chronological approach, introducing the religious background in relation to particular developments in cult establishment and practice. (And moving some of this background to the Roman religion article.) What made divus Iulius possible? Narrate events in the deification, then give the religious background that made it possible — would that work? After this chronological exploration, perhaps a section of more conceptual overview from secondary sources before the Christian transition section. Most people coming to the article will want a more grounded view of "emperor worship"; how the Imperial cult was established at specific times and places, cult practice. This would mean moving to the top of the article the under-construction section on the specifics pertaining to the cult under various emperors.
Also, if I may throw gasoline on the fire with one of my more radical notions: discussions of Roman religious practice (not just on Wikipedia, but at the highest levels of professional scholarship) are hampered by the use of the words "paganism" and "polytheism." There is no such thing as "paganism" in antiquity; the term "pagan" begins to be used as a religious slur in the 4th century by Christians. I am happy to cite the great scholar of early Christianity Peter Brown:
Follow the link to read the whole thing, with citations of Tertullian et al. But I myself go further than Brown. I don't think the term "polytheist" is of any great use either, though it can be resorted to as technically correct in a pinch. It elides 'way too much and creates a forest in which the species of trees are not seen. It tries to make Roman religion a monolithic system like Christianity, something that can be contained under the single rubric "polytheism." I guess all I'm saying is that in antiquity no individual and no society practices something called "polytheism"; it's a theoretical abstraction, not a religion per se. Does it make sense to call a Stoic a polytheist? Or Cicero? An initiate into the mysteries of Eleusis? An "Orphic"? The flamen Martialis? How 'bout the Emperor Julian? (To that I can say, he called Christians atheists and himself a Hellene.)
Therefore, Imperial cult makes sense in the context of Roman religion in various aspects (public/state cult, household cult, imported Eastern cult); the intro is a very good statement on that, and "The Imperial cult and Christianity" does a good job of showing both mutual incomprehension and the Christian appropriation of traditional cultic forms. (The Lupercalia paragraph doesn't seem particularly relevant; needed?) However, we get muddled muttering in the "Background" section that implies Tacitus somehow supports claims about the 'moral bankruptcy' of the non-existent entity called 'paganism.' Complaints of moral decline abound in Tacitus and others who refrained from converting to Christianity; but since these self-criticisms were not directed at something called 'paganism,' it would be useful to know what they thought they were criticizing. I am extremely skeptical of the claim that Christianity became the state religion because Roman religion failed morally, since "morality" in the Christian sense is not what it ever claimed to provide; it did provide mores or the mos maiorum, the loss of which Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, whose article represents him inadequately, regarded as imperiling the state — there was serious discussion among adherents of the traditional religions that the empire's conversion to Christianity was causing its downfall. Since the empire soon fell to "barbarian" incursions, this POV has as much merit as the Christian view. (Serious historians are unlikely to accept either.) The article very astutely demonstrates that as the Christians rose to dominance, they appropriated for political purposes the cultic apparatus that carried the authority of the traditional religions of antiquity. (Gore Vidal's novel Julian relishes this irony with particular glee.) It's therefore important not to lump everything together as "paganism," but to distinguish the sources of authority.
Does this make any sense?
For sections that are truly under construction (to the point of incomplete sentences and notes), you might consider moving such to your sandbox or working on them privately and pasting-in later, so people coming to the article aren't confused. A clear but incomplete article is probably more useful. Cynwolfe ( talk) 17:04, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
Looking over the article structurally again, I would recommend moving "From Republic to Principate" to the first section after the intro. Except I might call it "The Deification of Caesar." That's the most concrete background, and establishes a precedent. That gives you a couple subsections: (1) Caesar's lifetime as preliminary, including his divine genealogy, influence of Eastern cults (Hellenistic kingship being tied up with this as well, and how the question of kingship relates to deification), cult honors. (2) Augustus's political purposes in deifying Caesar (using the "Republic to Principate" subhead). All of the material for which is already present and sound. Let me put this as an outline.
Then just do a section on each emperor you've already named here as contributing significantly to the perpetuation of the cult. When you reach the transition to Christianity, that to me is the place to stop the chronological development and address questions more conceptually: what aspects of Roman religion(s) enabled Imperial cult. This means moving all the background on augury, household cult, etc. AFTER the chronology. I could be wrong about this. But I think people need to know WHAT Imperial cult was (as concrete practice) first. After you've established how the context of Roman religion makes sense of the phenomenon, you are in a better position to look at the challenges posed by the rise of Christianity, the initial accommodations, and the final incompatibility. You may find that you don't need as much of the background on Roman religion as you think. But don't let it go to waste! Either add it to the main article, or if there are well-defined topics, create new articles that can serve both as "see also" links for your article and as "main article" links in the Roman religion article. If you feel that your head is exploding, and you think that the proposed reordering would work for you but can't face the tedium of it (don't redo the whole article!), I would do some rough rearranging. I can't give the time the topic requires to make actual content edits, but I might do a closer side-by-side comparison between the "Religion in ancient Rome" article and your background work here, and shuffle stuff. Cynwolfe ( talk) 20:34, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
I found very few relevant citations for cult in South-Western Mediterranean seaboard provinces. Examples used are from areas more or less equivalent to Libya and northern Algeria, and I grouped them beneath the general heading of "Western Provinces". This fits the later division of Empire, avoids anachronistic use of "Africa" and implies by omission the "Eastern" character of Graeco-Egyptian cult (covered, of course, under Eastern Provinces), but I'm not really satisfied with it. Any better suggestions would be welcome. Haploidavey ( talk) 18:43, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
I'm going to attempt to move the res divina section to the res divina article page, which is barely stubbish, and to provide a summary with a "see also" here. Please move stuff back if I've cut too close. Cynwolfe ( talk) 00:27, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
I've just had a major session at the British Library. The evidence for Domitian's claims to godhead (as in picture caption) is very unsound - see Ittai Gradel (in article references) p 160: (with my own paraphrasis in parts, from handwritten notes taken in Library - careful notes...)
"In Domitian's case, there is no evidence that the title "master and god" by which he was regularly addressed in his later years was ever a formal title. It was never granted by the senate; never found in inscriptions; and was probably not invented by himself. Suetonius explicitly states that it was first used by the emperor's own freedmen (his own procuratores), who were - significantly - members of his own extended household (familia). It was not used by Domitian himself, only as a form of address to him. Suetonius claims that Domitian himself dictated a letter in the name of his procurators thus: "our master and god orders this to be carried out". This is slim and unrobust evidence. Had Suetonius possessed first-hand, first-person cases, he would have cited them - but he does not. Domitian may well have been pleased by the title - but that is neither here nor there. (Gradel explains the client-patron relationship which informed the language of D's procuratores within and beyond the domus - and Domitian's causing of senatorial offence by his treatment of themselves in similar vein.)
As to Pliny's mention of sacrifices to Domitian on the Capitol, all such worship (and any associated titulature) was "private and informal", no matter how common. Most importantly, Domitian's coinage and the Arval Acts reveal nothing of this - and that is decisive."
If this is so, there is no reason for Domitian to be singled out in the article. Commodus, perhaps, but even then, the accounts misrepresent the issues and possibly the emperor. The loss of the Domitian picture will leave the article without any illustration - which is no good at all. Has anyone anything to offer? Johnbod very kindly provided a link to the Severan Tondo, which I'd love to use - but I can find no author who attributes it as an object of Imperial cult, which it blatantly is. I know we've a couple of coin images - but having had a few goes with pics, captions and whatnot, I realise I'm seriously hopeless at making such things work on wiki. Haploidavey ( talk) 23:55, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
See also the list of all Divi in the German wikipedia: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divus — including Roman precursors. (I think this article doesn't mention Cornelia, Gaius Marius, Metellus etc.) — 85.178.125.102 ( talk) 08:22, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius, that is. Another son of Jupiter?? In Spain only and 74 BC, according to that list but I can't find this anywhere (not Plutarch, not coinage - which shows pietas but filius of nothing). Might it be inscriptional? Pauly-Wissowa? Mommsen? Haploidavey ( talk) 16:44, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
This page and ff from Ittai Gradel may serve as useful background. The Romans had no institutional objection to divinization as such; it was done by a decree of the Senate, like any other honor - and most other honors had a touch of divinity anyway. But no public figure had the permanent and absolute power of a god under the Republic; in private life, slaves and clients might call their patron Jupiter, and the corona civica may have begun as a private acknowledgment of a savior with Jupiter's oak leaves. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:22, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
"Potter" is cited several times in the footnotes, but there is nothing by that author in the bibliography. I assume it is his The Roman Empire at Bay: AD 190–395 (London/New York: Routledge, 2004)? Or perhaps it is his work on the Sibylline Oracles? It should be specified, though. (Great work on the article, by the way.) Geuiwogbil ( Talk) 22:41, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
Not that the article's finished, but it's reasonably complete. As far as I can tell, the segue into Christianity and Legacy both need further attention - the latter is tricky, and interpretation depends on one's definition of "Imperial cult". Hm. Haploidavey ( talk) 11:26, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
More on the Greeks - as distinct from the Near East - is needed: not just the Hellenists, but Lysander and Phillip. That's jst putting stuff down.
The hard part is the veneration of the heroes. Book length treatments discuss them as the dead, and as living men (like Brasidas and Timoleon). We have to do this in a paragraph.
Thoughts on wording? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:37, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
Are we sure we want to use the loaded word " charisma" here? I mean in the first sentence. I associate this with "charismatic Christianity," which is surely not a place we want to go, and according to the Wiki article, Max Weber is responsible for introducing the term into scholarly discourse. I would feel more comfortable if there were ancient sources that actually used the term "charisma" to talk about the Roman emperors. The Wiki article has a quote from Aristotle describing a quality that sounds like charisma; when I went to see whether Ari himself uses the word, I found that the citation was either incorrect — the LCL book 3 of the Politics does not have a chapter 13 — or this numbering exists in other editions of the Politics (the partition of which is vexed). The concept of "charisma" is certainly relevant, but it carries baggage that weighs down a first sentence. Cynwolfe ( talk) 13:41, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
There seem to be problems of chronology here:
"In 49 BC Caesar crossed the Rubicon to become the sole effective authority in Rome: his armies were on its doorstep, its senate was swollen by his equestrian appointees and he had overwhelming popular support. In 46 BC he held an unprecedented quadruple triumph ..."
I confess to a personal distaste for drama in historical accounts ("armies on its doorstep!" "swollen!" "overwhelming!"), but pumped-up language usually fosters inaccuracy. Caesar did not magically become the sole authority in Rome by crossing the Rubicon; his crossing only made overt his intention to start a civil war. The war was still to come; he could've lost. Or he could've drowned in that famous incident when he was improbably swimming with documents in his teeth, or … whatever. Choked on a chicken bone. The war lasted four years. He really only had a year of uncontested authority in Rome. Or was it uncontested? Something about those naughty boys Brutus and Cassius … .
Also, when he crossed the Rubicon in 49, at what point had he already 'swollen' the senate with these equestrian appointments? He'd been in Gaul for 10 years and had no legal authority in Rome during that time. Ten years, I repeat, without holding any political office in Rome, or exerting anything but indirect influence from at minimum 200 miles away in Ravenna. If he was the long-distance puppet master people like to think, how come there was a civil war? Why didn't he just enter the city and have roses thrown at him?
At any rate, I'm pretty sure that Caesar's controversial appointments to the senate (among them citizen Gauls) date to his dictatorship, post-Rubicon crossing. Wasn't he filling out the senate because it was depleted by the civil wars? (At which time he also extended the rights of citizenship throughout Cisalpine Gaul, another means of consolidating his power by enlarging his clientele, but also the right thing to do for the people there — which shows his mastery of political strategy, not godlike exuding of mysterious mana.)
In 49, Caesar also couldn't be utterly sure of his popular support; he hadn't set foot in Rome for ten years. And so what if the people loved you? Their champion Clodius Pulcher, who had done a heck of a lot more for them than Caesar had, had been killed by the other side in the middle of the street only a couple of years before — and since this is the only current event at Rome mentioned explicitly by Caesar in his seven books of the Bellum Gallicum, it obviously bugged him.
I'm not sure how near the doorstep he brought the army (singular, unless you mean "legions", which Pompey and others also had in multiples), but I guess to my mind it actually diminishes Caesar (and the complexities of Roman history) to think everything he did was a preordained breeze. But I'm sure he'd be gratified that we're still buying into his veni, vidi, vici propaganda. As for the quadruple triumph: yes, unprecedented; Pompey had a triple one, so Caesar had to go one better. But also very controversial, as he depicted fellow Romans, including the moral paragon Cato, as defeated enemies. And nobody seems to have liked that.
But I should add that this is a very minor point in the context of the article as a whole. (It's just the sort of thing I can't seem to keep from pouncing on; apologies.) Cynwolfe ( talk) 15:21, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
The info currently in footnote 35, from Weinstock about the red boots and such. Why did it move to a footnote? Weinstock sources the boots to Cassius Dio. The trappings and their significance seem directly pertinent. Maybe I just like the picture of Caesar in red go-go boots that comes unbidden to my mind every time I see this phrase.
Triumph section: Does somebody have Beard to review on this? I had to surrender my copy back to the library. The essential point seems to be: some scholars (and ancient sources) in interpreting the meaning of the triumph have said that the triumphator in some sense impersonated or even became God for the day (this latter is Fowler, I think?). On the other hand, you have the slave whispering mortality. (Isn't that all that's relevant to this article?) Beard has a merry time with the whole god business, but the nature of this interpretational controversy should be mentioned in the article, and I think she also may dispute whether the slave was standard practice. One of Beard's points, of course, is that it's wrong to lump together all the details we have scattered around about various triumphs, and create one picture of the triumph; she suggests there's a great deal of individual choice in how you present yourself. Another theme of Beard's is that it's easy to overemphasize the aggrandizement of the triumph; there were features (such as the slave) that placed the triumphator within, not above, his world.
Also, I'm going to trim the section under Background: Roman (which looks to me to be entirely Republican); I don't see, for instance, what annual magistracies or colonial commissions have to do Imperial cult.
I deleted this statement, perhaps wrongly (but the article does need to be more succinct):
'A client might speak of his patron as "Jupiter on earth"; patrons had permanent power over their clientela.' (Referenced Beard et al, Vol. 1, 77-9.)
Why delete? Well, Beard may contradict me (so please put it back in), but this strikes me as the kind of hyperbole we use when we call somebody "god." "Michael Jordan was a god on the court." Or Donald Trump or whoever. It doesn't say anything about our religious practice, and I don't see anything inherent in the patron-client relationship that necessarily lays the groundwork for emperor worship. Cynwolfe ( talk) 13:51, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:02, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
I see this is a placename from Philo. If it is to be part of Caesar's ascent to godhood, it must, at least, have been consecrated before his deification in 44; what evidence is there that it was not consecrated after his death, or to Octavian (who is also a Caesar, and disembarked at Alexandria)? (There may well be; but it's not visible now). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:55, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
I don't know what this sentence means:
'The legendary kings had been masters in Rome; and this circumspection did not apply to them.'
I said I'd confine myself to the talk page, so I shall.
Despite the 'legendary,' the sentence reads as if these kings existed; but in fact, we're not talking about the legendary or semi-legendary kings, we're talking about the oddly twinned tradition of the founders (Aeneas, or Romulus?) that T.P. Wiseman talks about, especially in Remus. These two are special cases, and not what's usually meant by "kings of Rome." Aeneas is not even considered a king of Rome. (The substitution of "similarly" for an actual linkage of thought indicates that we've just stepped in fudge.) I don't know what it means to say that "kings were masters" — they were kings (except that Aeneas wasn't a king of Rome), so what does it add to say that they were "masters"? That the rest of the population were considered slaves? This does not seem to be true in Rome even in the era of kings, because in the story about the expulsion of the Tarquins, there is a cast of characters who are depicted as nobles. Tyrannos = rex, rex ≠ dominus. The relationship of a true or good king to his people is not the relationship of a master to his slaves; there are philosophical treatises on this subject (Philodemus' On the Good King in the Late Republic, which has been discussed in connection with Caesar; its Epicurean views are pertinent to Cassius' role in overturning the tyrant).
I also don't know how circumspection is applied to someone; does this mean (given the preceding paragraph) that the kings (except that Aeneas wasn't a king of Rome) were not circumspect about their powers? That they (whoever "they" are) lacked the moderation or humility expressed in later times by the (supposed) presence of the slave? (But see Haploidavey's note above.) That also wouldn't seem to be true. The triumphal procession of Romulus was noted by later writers for its relative humbleness; he went on foot instead of in a chariot, for instance. The fact that the dual founders were transmogrified into gods is a crucial piece of evidence for this article; but why bury it under vaguely inaccurate statements? That's what I was trying to clear out. The fact of the existence of these two cults speaks for itself. Or rather, more could be said about them in terms of the connection between politics and apotheosis. Cynwolfe ( talk) 04:19, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
I came upon this quite by accident, but it gets at what I was trying to say above re: who and when in the matter of Romulus.
"It is a remarkable fact that no votive to Quirinus is yet known from Rome; but one has now been found at Bir Mcherga (ancient Giufi) in Africa Proconsularis. To judge from his association with the Larentalia, Robigalia, and Consualia, Quirinus was, like 'rural' Mars, a god of agricultural prosperity, but his adoption into the Augustan promotion of Romulus means that it is impossible to be sure quite how he was understood at Giufi, where, with the title Augustus, he was both an ancestral god, deus pater (Quirinus is named by Lucilius as one of the three gods addressed as pater in prayer), and the genius municipii."
(Bold mine.) I may not be understanding this fully, since it comes from a lengthy article devoted to publishing new inscriptions over a period of years in which this is a mere notice of the particular inscription, not a developed argument. The inscription is dated as "end of first third of third century A.D."
Sorry to obtuse and stubborn, but I just found out why I seem to be pissing against the wind here: because I am. The article cited under "Romulus note" provides me with this helpful and concise clarification of the consensus among scholars working on the concepts of emperor worship and imperial cult:
Their common ground can be summarized as follows. Since divine honours expressed not the essence of the divinity but the disparity in status and power between divinity and worshipper, the difference between worshipping, say, Jupiter and an emperor was merely one of degree -the degree, as it were, to which the emperor was less powerful than Jupiter. The contractual view that bound the ordinary gods to bestow benefactions in return for divine worship applied equally to the Princeps. The anomalousness of the imperial cult is thus merely the result of a modern dichotomy between religion and politics; the key to it lies in studying ritual, which constructs theology, the world and its social order. From here, however, one can take different routes. For Clauss, the crucial insight is that the emperors' divinity was produced by popular longing for immanent divinity (dipraesentes), and emphasis is upon the evidence for worship of the emperors during their lifetimes, the ubiquity of images and rituals which expressed their highness. For Gradel, studying ritual means in effect looking for evidence of the local, low-level, day-to-day, even domestic, reproduction of the divinity of the emperors mainly in Italy. Rather different is the approach of U.-M. Liertz, whose study of the official cult in the two Germanies and Gallia Belgica emphasizes its association with Romanized urban sites, and the irregularity of its attested presence outside the major cult-centres of Metz, Trier, Cologne, Nyon, Augst, [p. 262] and Avenches. Against Clauss and Gradel, Liertz notes the apparently rather pragmatic attitudes of private dedicators, whose votives, especially those pro salute . . ., which apparently emphasize the vulnerability of the emperors to worldly ills and give the impression of viewing the cult as a conscious act of loyalty to the maintenance of a political system in which they have their proper place.
The evidence for priesthoods of Rome and Augustus has also been used as an index of the development of municipalization in Gaul. The role of such priests, who were invariably local magnates, was not to import something extraneous, the 'imperial cult', into a locality, but rather to represent the integration of civic community, local pantheon and the divinized imperial power. Outside the major cities, the imperial cult only exists in close connection with the cult of the local pantheon: virtually every large rural sanctuary in Gaul played some role in the imperial cult. Though they are, of course, an important part in local career structures, the real significance of municipal priesthoods is that they enabled members of major families to enter into a mediating role between the municipium, or even vicus — at any rate a Roman institution developing out of a Gallic settlement — and its deities.
Yes, no dichotomy between politics and religion, and yes, tending the cult of Jupiter and tending the cult of an emperor would create no problems, but I don't agree (here's the apostasy) that social status hierarchy in and of itself explicates imperial cult. This is no doubt because I have not yet placed myself at the side of Lucan and opened my veins because I've despaired of the revival of the Republic (Wiseman takes a Neronian date for when the Republic was truly and really gone beyond the hope of anyone).
I still say (contra Gradel) that patronage in and of itself is not the issue; the social inequality that mattered was the imperator, the military man amassing wealth and power as a result of Roman expansionism. That's what threw the Republic out of whack; not mutually supportive social networks even though they were hierarchical (but not simply two-tiered). And those outsized figures for the most part establish Republican precedent (Scipio, for instance). If one views the imperatores and their ever-grander triumphs from foreign conquest as a prime cause of the collapse of the Republic (i.e., Sulla and Marius, Caesar and Pompey), the logical connection is between that and the rise of imperial cult — as indicated by the fact that "emperor worship" mostly occurs abroad, not in Rome. The domestic cult of the genii, the quasi-divine nature of early kings, and spontaneous gestures of gratitude toward such as Gratidianus reveal a religious mentality hospitable to regarding an individual as potentially divus, but was not antithetical to republicanism, because an individual earned this status for what he contributed to the res publica (a way of balancing ego and altruism? modesty = fame, paradoxically; see Dentatus and his turnips, but we'll all have our favorites). So I feel somewhat more reconciled to Gradel's argument, but still think that in the interest of making this article clear and more concise for its general readership, the editors should always think about the relationship of forest and trees. Cynwolfe ( talk) 17:04, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
Taylor suggested, long ago, that the word was actually hemitheos in Greek, because it can't be translated. There is also a confused story of a different statue of Caesar with emitheo on it, which may support that postion. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:45, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
Source for Servius' account and elaboration might be found somewhere here - [17] partial preview only. Looks good and very thorough, though I've not been through it yet. Haploidavey ( talk) 01:47, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
Congratulations to the editors! Why is it not a Wikipedia:Good article? Is it too long or too technical? -- Error ( talk) 14:36, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
Hey, Davey, I'll address primarily you as high priest of this page, but of course anybody should pitch in.
I keep needing to link directly to a section on divus. The section here called Divus, deus and the numen certainly works, except that it doesn't begin with a simple discussion of the term. And actually, as I search the term through the article, I don't see anywhere it's actually defined properly. The way it's used in the intro is adequate for that purpose, but I think it's an organizational problem that the term is used in specific instances before the section that defines what it is. Most important, there needs to be a clear statement that distinguishes divus from deus explicitly. I thought this used to be here somewhere. But since it's a fundamental term to have in hand before wrestling with the notion of "emperor worship," ... well, again it's something to consider in the reorganization. I'm about to put a tiny divus entry in the Glossary of ancient Roman religion. Cynwolfe ( talk) 20:09, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
Sumpun fishy here:
As part of his religious reforms, Augustus promoted plebeians, freedmen and even slaves to serve as sodales Augustales, priests at the Compital shrines, dedicated to the Lares of the vici (neighbourhoods). This priestly office, and its connections to the Imperial household, appears to have lasted for as long as the Imperial cult itself.
This has the following note:
Lott, 107 – 117; the replacement of neighbourhood Lares with Augustus' own would have been indelicate at the very least. The Lares Augusti can be understood as August Lares – a joint honorific with unmistakable and flattering connections to the princeps himself, rather than a direct claim of patronage.
I was under the impression that the sodales Augustales were created by Tiberius. I don't know. I was concerned because the phrase was translated "priests of the August ones". It may well be that this priesthood and its origin is often misunderstood. "Low-born" people would've already been involved with discharging priestly duties at the neighborhood shrines by their very nature, which was local and of the populus. Cynwolfe ( talk) 20:21, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
As I cannot find any discussion or consensus about changing the date formats from BC/AD to BCE/CE as requested in WP:ERA, I will propose the reversion of date formats to remove the violation that has occurred. Please voice objections or reasons why this should not happen if you wish. Dalek ( talk) 11:47, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
The section appears to be entirely opinion, editorializing and original research. It actually may be the most flagrant example of it I've seen on Wikipedia. I think it should be either massively rewritten or removed. Carlo ( talk) 01:44, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
holy *****, i have read a bunch of this article and i stil have no idea what exactly the cult was.
it should be relatively simple. the who, what, when, where, how.
what buildings, what people, what did they do, when did they do it, where did they do it, and how.
instead we have these arcane academic discussions and obscure verbiage that has almost no meaning.
Decora ( talk) 00:09, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Page moved. ( non-admin closure) sami talk 14:57, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
Imperial cult (ancient Rome) → Imperial cult of ancient Rome – This article has a truly confusing title. In my experience of WP practice, parenthesises are used to distinguish topics with the exact same titles, not distinguish sub-topics. In this case, the title implies that there was a term in ancient Rome that was explicitly named "imperial cult", rather than that there was practice in ancient Rome of what modern scholars refers to as imperial cults. I see this as a simple and nearly uncontroversial move only to do with formatting, and I hope the community will understand my point without too much controversy. Thankful for cooperation, thankful for Wikipedia, Gaioa ( click to talk) 21:30, 27 December 2017 (UTC)
"The ineffectiveness and eventual collapse of Western Imperium was partly replaced by the spiritual supremacy and political influence of the Roman Catholic Church, whose popes could anoint or excommunicate kings and emperors."
What is the source for this statement? And would it not be more accurate to point to not popes, but simply bishops? Even take for the famous example of Ambrose. 75.73.150.255 ( talk) 08:44, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Moved to Roman imperial cult per nom. I don't find the opposing arguments very persuasive: disambiguation is needed here, and we prefer WP:NATURAL and WP:CONCISE one, and the proposal fits the bill. No such user ( talk) 13:27, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
Imperial cult of ancient Rome → Roman imperial cult – Sources use both "Roman imperial cult" and "imperial cult of ancient Rome" or variations of that. However, the first appears to be more common judging from my Google Scholar search (for "imperial cult") and also is more WP:CONCISE. ( t · c) buidhe 20:04, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
User:Editor2020 reverted my addition of a link to Symbolism of domes in the See also section with a "Related?" edit summary. To show how it is related, here is an excerpt from the Symbolism of domes article:
According to Michael Walter, a tradition of the "golden dome" identifying the ruler with the cosmos, sun, and astrological values originated in Persia and spread to later Roman and Turkic courts.[10] Persian kings used domed tents in their official audiences to symbolize their divinity, and this practice was adopted by Alexander the Great.[6] According to Smith, the distinct symbolism of the heavenly or cosmic tent stemming from the royal audience tents of Achaemenid and Indian rulers was adopted by Roman rulers in imitation of Alexander, becoming the imperial baldachin. This probably began with Nero, whose Domus Aurea, meaning "Golden House", also made the dome a feature of Roman palace architecture.[11] One way the Romans depicted the celestial tent in architecture was as a corrugated or gored dome.[12]
Michele Melaragno writes that the allegory of Alexander the Great's domical tent in Roman imperial architecture coincided with the "divinification" of Roman emperors and served as a symbol of this.[13] According to Nicholas Temple, Nero's octagonal domed room in his Domus Aurea was an early example of an imperial reception hall, the symbolism of which "signaled an elevation of the status of the emperor as living deity, which in the case of Nero related specifically to his incarnation as Helios and the Persian Mithra."[14] The semi-domed apse became a symbol of Roman imperial authority under Domitian and depictions into the Byzantine period used overhead domes or semidomes to identify emperors.[15] Karl Swoboda writes that even by the time of Diocletian, the dome probably symbolized sovereignty over the whole world.[16] Roman imperial reception halls or throne rooms were often domed with circular or octagonal plans and, according to Nicholas Temple, "functioned as a ceremonial space between the emperor, his court and the gods", becoming a common feature of imperial palaces from the time of Constantine onwards.[14]
AmateurEditor ( talk) 02:21, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
In the introduction the divinity is ascribed to worthiness, but although we know that some early emperors were deified, the first mention in the article of a judgment of worthiness is to Decius. What source shows who determined this worthiness. Don't cite to Gibbon; he has no attribution for such a judgment, that's why I'm adding this comment. Read this: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3141986.pdf 100.15.127.199 ( talk) 15:15, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
This site minimizes the persecution of Christians, which still occur today by the way. Nobody says 'Oh my Allah' they say either 'Jesus Christ' or 'Oh my God' as swear words.
Furthermore, if Nero was willing to use Christians as living torches, what other persecutions did the Christians endure (this is common sense)? Rape? Strangulation? Drowning? Dismemberment?
I propose the Christians endured all that and more during the time of the Imperial cult, and your minimization of the persecution of Christians is paramount to denying what the Jews went through during the Holocaust. It's absurd and dishonest to not recognize that these groups of people's during these time periods were subject to the worst of tortures. You do not need archaeological proof either, you can formulate the facts based upon the circumstantial evidence.
Thank you. 174.240.65.77 ( talk) 16:08, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
The current article is fairly thick and length text wall but there are at least five major issues:
Apologies if some of this is in the tl;dr area of the article but the point stands that the links need to go in and the lead needs to be rephrased a bit to address them with the clarity and importance they require. — LlywelynII 13:34, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
The Latin name of the cult was also missing but that's easy enough to pop in. I took it from the Latin Wiki but if there was a better attested name in the inscriptions or modern scholarship, add that instead obviously. — LlywelynII 13:39, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
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Constantine did NOT abolish the imperial cult. When some town wanted to build his family a temple, he said it was alright as long as they don't sacrifice in it. I need the reference, but I think this is basically how it happened. Of course, he wasn't 'consecrated' after death, but that's another thing. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 163.1.121.3 ( talk) 02:09, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
As it stands, this article is a misleadingly broad representation of the imperial cult of the Roman Empire, in that its opening paragraph implies that worship of living emperors was a widespread, near-universal practice across the Empire (both in time and space) -- an implication not adequately supported by the body of the text or accompanying references.
The article focuses primarily on the deifications of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, and specifically on Julius and Augustus. Of the active worship, living or otherwise, of the post-Julio-Claudian emperors, from Vespasian to Constantine, this article says absolutely nothing. That's a gap of more than 200 years. Whatever we might conclude from the sources cited about emperor-worship during the first half of the 1st century CE, we must take care not to apply those conclusions to the remainder of the Principate and the middle of the 3rd century CE without supporting evidence.
Though I cannot be certain, this article appears to rely upon, and extrapolate too far from, the single External Link cited -- a work concerned with emperor-worship during the Augustan Age in Greece and Asia Minor. On the topic of emperor-worship in other parts of the Empire or of the active worship of emperors after Augustus, it remains silent.
Lastly, there is a difference between revering a deceased emperor as a god and worshipping a living emperor as one, a distinction which is not made especially clear in the present Wikipedia article.
In short, this Wikipedia article is not nearly as comprehensive as its opening paragraph indicates. At the very least I would suggest a change to more specific, and less misleading, title, and the inclusion of more references and citations to support its assertions. JagoWoodbine 14:40, 10 May 2007 (UTC)JagoWoodbine
In the Intro:
"the only emperor to declare himself a god while still living was Domitian which caused outrage."
and in 'Civil religion until abolishment by Constantine':
"After Hadrian, the power of the emperors had become so absolute and consolidated that the later emperors could claim divinity during their own lives"
I think the first quote needs to be edited to explain the growing strength of Emperors claim to divinity over the course of the first 200 years of empire, but I am unsure. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.233.203.36 ( talk) 17:13, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
The article badly needs one. At the moment, it has a weak narrative drive. The prose style switches from one section to the next. Changes in tense and voice don't help any - they show the use of chunks of imported text based on others' research. I know a lot of wiki articles are written that way, but that's why most don't come anywhere near FA, or even B quality. Start with the research, absorb the background, understand how and why the subject arises - then write.
It's good to know there's still some life in the article (re: comment above this one) because it has potential. I'm interested and will help out, if required. Haploidavey ( talk) 22:25, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Sorry for the bolding up there. I just don't think the current structuring of the article offers an adequate basis for useful work. If anyone's up for drastic changes... count me in. My own resources on the subject are zilch, and I've no access to a University library. I go to London and use the British Library 2-3 times a year; next planned is for May or June. Meanwhile, I'll take at look at what - if anything - the internet has of adequate quality. Haploidavey ( talk) 22:59, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Actually found quite a lot. Hurrah for googlebook previews. Will make a start offline. Haploidavey ( talk) 02:40, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
QED. Haploidavey ( talk) 11:36, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
The introduction interprets the cult as one of "personality" - according to which sources? They're not in the main article text, and none of the reputable works currently listed in "Further Reading" support that simplistic conclusion. Anything but. Haploidavey ( talk) 13:02, 13 April 2009 (UTC) Removed unjustified allegation.
The article has very little in the way of anthropological or politico-religious context. Anyone object if I provide that as an introduction in the main body? Most of the modern authors I've been looking at regard this as essential background. Haploidavey ( talk) 22:17, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
Have started to re-write uncited sections, and provide a lot more background for modern scholarship and the cult phenomenon's antecedents. The article's likely to be rather disorganised for a while yet - OK, rather chaotic - partly because I'm trying to keep the best of it (most of which has inline citation) intact. Any contributors want to help in this? Haploidavey ( talk) 22:13, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
Complete, for the time being. A suggestion - as this is likely to become a rather long article, please place comments or crits on this section directly below. If headers are changed for any reason, please strike though the existing header and give new header title. For other sections, please place comments and discussions under appropriately titled headings. Thank you. Haploidavey ( talk) 02:05, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
Pasted in with a reservations - namely, should it be merged? And do other editors agree that terms should be as proposed? If the terminology isn't changed and explained, the article will remain as opaque (at best) or potentially misleading (at worst) as it was. Of course, sources must and will be respected. Post-cult commentators and cult opponents should be cited and quoted strictly in their own terms. Haploidavey ( talk) 22:22, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
There's editorializing happening in this article through selective sourcing. Describing the imperial cult as "servile" may or may not be valid, depending on one's point of view, but it certainly is not a consensus opinion among scholars of the field. A Wikipedia article may reflect scholarly debate about a particular topic, but it should not "take sides" in such a debate, no? The tone here is contentious and politically charged. Perhaps a rewrite with non-axe-grinding sources is in order. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ZoomaBaresAll ( talk • contribs) 23:19, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
I feel there must be fundamental flaws in my restructuring of this article, as it's becoming very difficult to write and organise. Any insights, suggestions or contributions would be most welcome. Haploidavey ( talk) 17:23, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
It strikes me that a lot of the article is occupied with a review of Roman religion; for all I know, the article " Religion in ancient Rome" doesn't contain the material you need so that you could summarize the background more succinctly and then simply cross-reference. No reflection on that article, which I haven't really read; just a comment on what often happens to me in trying to cross-reference. Therefore, the Imperial cult article runs the risk of TMI. If you feel the article has become unwieldy, you might consider a more chronological approach, introducing the religious background in relation to particular developments in cult establishment and practice. (And moving some of this background to the Roman religion article.) What made divus Iulius possible? Narrate events in the deification, then give the religious background that made it possible — would that work? After this chronological exploration, perhaps a section of more conceptual overview from secondary sources before the Christian transition section. Most people coming to the article will want a more grounded view of "emperor worship"; how the Imperial cult was established at specific times and places, cult practice. This would mean moving to the top of the article the under-construction section on the specifics pertaining to the cult under various emperors.
Also, if I may throw gasoline on the fire with one of my more radical notions: discussions of Roman religious practice (not just on Wikipedia, but at the highest levels of professional scholarship) are hampered by the use of the words "paganism" and "polytheism." There is no such thing as "paganism" in antiquity; the term "pagan" begins to be used as a religious slur in the 4th century by Christians. I am happy to cite the great scholar of early Christianity Peter Brown:
Follow the link to read the whole thing, with citations of Tertullian et al. But I myself go further than Brown. I don't think the term "polytheist" is of any great use either, though it can be resorted to as technically correct in a pinch. It elides 'way too much and creates a forest in which the species of trees are not seen. It tries to make Roman religion a monolithic system like Christianity, something that can be contained under the single rubric "polytheism." I guess all I'm saying is that in antiquity no individual and no society practices something called "polytheism"; it's a theoretical abstraction, not a religion per se. Does it make sense to call a Stoic a polytheist? Or Cicero? An initiate into the mysteries of Eleusis? An "Orphic"? The flamen Martialis? How 'bout the Emperor Julian? (To that I can say, he called Christians atheists and himself a Hellene.)
Therefore, Imperial cult makes sense in the context of Roman religion in various aspects (public/state cult, household cult, imported Eastern cult); the intro is a very good statement on that, and "The Imperial cult and Christianity" does a good job of showing both mutual incomprehension and the Christian appropriation of traditional cultic forms. (The Lupercalia paragraph doesn't seem particularly relevant; needed?) However, we get muddled muttering in the "Background" section that implies Tacitus somehow supports claims about the 'moral bankruptcy' of the non-existent entity called 'paganism.' Complaints of moral decline abound in Tacitus and others who refrained from converting to Christianity; but since these self-criticisms were not directed at something called 'paganism,' it would be useful to know what they thought they were criticizing. I am extremely skeptical of the claim that Christianity became the state religion because Roman religion failed morally, since "morality" in the Christian sense is not what it ever claimed to provide; it did provide mores or the mos maiorum, the loss of which Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, whose article represents him inadequately, regarded as imperiling the state — there was serious discussion among adherents of the traditional religions that the empire's conversion to Christianity was causing its downfall. Since the empire soon fell to "barbarian" incursions, this POV has as much merit as the Christian view. (Serious historians are unlikely to accept either.) The article very astutely demonstrates that as the Christians rose to dominance, they appropriated for political purposes the cultic apparatus that carried the authority of the traditional religions of antiquity. (Gore Vidal's novel Julian relishes this irony with particular glee.) It's therefore important not to lump everything together as "paganism," but to distinguish the sources of authority.
Does this make any sense?
For sections that are truly under construction (to the point of incomplete sentences and notes), you might consider moving such to your sandbox or working on them privately and pasting-in later, so people coming to the article aren't confused. A clear but incomplete article is probably more useful. Cynwolfe ( talk) 17:04, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
Looking over the article structurally again, I would recommend moving "From Republic to Principate" to the first section after the intro. Except I might call it "The Deification of Caesar." That's the most concrete background, and establishes a precedent. That gives you a couple subsections: (1) Caesar's lifetime as preliminary, including his divine genealogy, influence of Eastern cults (Hellenistic kingship being tied up with this as well, and how the question of kingship relates to deification), cult honors. (2) Augustus's political purposes in deifying Caesar (using the "Republic to Principate" subhead). All of the material for which is already present and sound. Let me put this as an outline.
Then just do a section on each emperor you've already named here as contributing significantly to the perpetuation of the cult. When you reach the transition to Christianity, that to me is the place to stop the chronological development and address questions more conceptually: what aspects of Roman religion(s) enabled Imperial cult. This means moving all the background on augury, household cult, etc. AFTER the chronology. I could be wrong about this. But I think people need to know WHAT Imperial cult was (as concrete practice) first. After you've established how the context of Roman religion makes sense of the phenomenon, you are in a better position to look at the challenges posed by the rise of Christianity, the initial accommodations, and the final incompatibility. You may find that you don't need as much of the background on Roman religion as you think. But don't let it go to waste! Either add it to the main article, or if there are well-defined topics, create new articles that can serve both as "see also" links for your article and as "main article" links in the Roman religion article. If you feel that your head is exploding, and you think that the proposed reordering would work for you but can't face the tedium of it (don't redo the whole article!), I would do some rough rearranging. I can't give the time the topic requires to make actual content edits, but I might do a closer side-by-side comparison between the "Religion in ancient Rome" article and your background work here, and shuffle stuff. Cynwolfe ( talk) 20:34, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
I found very few relevant citations for cult in South-Western Mediterranean seaboard provinces. Examples used are from areas more or less equivalent to Libya and northern Algeria, and I grouped them beneath the general heading of "Western Provinces". This fits the later division of Empire, avoids anachronistic use of "Africa" and implies by omission the "Eastern" character of Graeco-Egyptian cult (covered, of course, under Eastern Provinces), but I'm not really satisfied with it. Any better suggestions would be welcome. Haploidavey ( talk) 18:43, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
I'm going to attempt to move the res divina section to the res divina article page, which is barely stubbish, and to provide a summary with a "see also" here. Please move stuff back if I've cut too close. Cynwolfe ( talk) 00:27, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
I've just had a major session at the British Library. The evidence for Domitian's claims to godhead (as in picture caption) is very unsound - see Ittai Gradel (in article references) p 160: (with my own paraphrasis in parts, from handwritten notes taken in Library - careful notes...)
"In Domitian's case, there is no evidence that the title "master and god" by which he was regularly addressed in his later years was ever a formal title. It was never granted by the senate; never found in inscriptions; and was probably not invented by himself. Suetonius explicitly states that it was first used by the emperor's own freedmen (his own procuratores), who were - significantly - members of his own extended household (familia). It was not used by Domitian himself, only as a form of address to him. Suetonius claims that Domitian himself dictated a letter in the name of his procurators thus: "our master and god orders this to be carried out". This is slim and unrobust evidence. Had Suetonius possessed first-hand, first-person cases, he would have cited them - but he does not. Domitian may well have been pleased by the title - but that is neither here nor there. (Gradel explains the client-patron relationship which informed the language of D's procuratores within and beyond the domus - and Domitian's causing of senatorial offence by his treatment of themselves in similar vein.)
As to Pliny's mention of sacrifices to Domitian on the Capitol, all such worship (and any associated titulature) was "private and informal", no matter how common. Most importantly, Domitian's coinage and the Arval Acts reveal nothing of this - and that is decisive."
If this is so, there is no reason for Domitian to be singled out in the article. Commodus, perhaps, but even then, the accounts misrepresent the issues and possibly the emperor. The loss of the Domitian picture will leave the article without any illustration - which is no good at all. Has anyone anything to offer? Johnbod very kindly provided a link to the Severan Tondo, which I'd love to use - but I can find no author who attributes it as an object of Imperial cult, which it blatantly is. I know we've a couple of coin images - but having had a few goes with pics, captions and whatnot, I realise I'm seriously hopeless at making such things work on wiki. Haploidavey ( talk) 23:55, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
See also the list of all Divi in the German wikipedia: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divus — including Roman precursors. (I think this article doesn't mention Cornelia, Gaius Marius, Metellus etc.) — 85.178.125.102 ( talk) 08:22, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius, that is. Another son of Jupiter?? In Spain only and 74 BC, according to that list but I can't find this anywhere (not Plutarch, not coinage - which shows pietas but filius of nothing). Might it be inscriptional? Pauly-Wissowa? Mommsen? Haploidavey ( talk) 16:44, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
This page and ff from Ittai Gradel may serve as useful background. The Romans had no institutional objection to divinization as such; it was done by a decree of the Senate, like any other honor - and most other honors had a touch of divinity anyway. But no public figure had the permanent and absolute power of a god under the Republic; in private life, slaves and clients might call their patron Jupiter, and the corona civica may have begun as a private acknowledgment of a savior with Jupiter's oak leaves. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:22, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
"Potter" is cited several times in the footnotes, but there is nothing by that author in the bibliography. I assume it is his The Roman Empire at Bay: AD 190–395 (London/New York: Routledge, 2004)? Or perhaps it is his work on the Sibylline Oracles? It should be specified, though. (Great work on the article, by the way.) Geuiwogbil ( Talk) 22:41, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
Not that the article's finished, but it's reasonably complete. As far as I can tell, the segue into Christianity and Legacy both need further attention - the latter is tricky, and interpretation depends on one's definition of "Imperial cult". Hm. Haploidavey ( talk) 11:26, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
More on the Greeks - as distinct from the Near East - is needed: not just the Hellenists, but Lysander and Phillip. That's jst putting stuff down.
The hard part is the veneration of the heroes. Book length treatments discuss them as the dead, and as living men (like Brasidas and Timoleon). We have to do this in a paragraph.
Thoughts on wording? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:37, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
Are we sure we want to use the loaded word " charisma" here? I mean in the first sentence. I associate this with "charismatic Christianity," which is surely not a place we want to go, and according to the Wiki article, Max Weber is responsible for introducing the term into scholarly discourse. I would feel more comfortable if there were ancient sources that actually used the term "charisma" to talk about the Roman emperors. The Wiki article has a quote from Aristotle describing a quality that sounds like charisma; when I went to see whether Ari himself uses the word, I found that the citation was either incorrect — the LCL book 3 of the Politics does not have a chapter 13 — or this numbering exists in other editions of the Politics (the partition of which is vexed). The concept of "charisma" is certainly relevant, but it carries baggage that weighs down a first sentence. Cynwolfe ( talk) 13:41, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
There seem to be problems of chronology here:
"In 49 BC Caesar crossed the Rubicon to become the sole effective authority in Rome: his armies were on its doorstep, its senate was swollen by his equestrian appointees and he had overwhelming popular support. In 46 BC he held an unprecedented quadruple triumph ..."
I confess to a personal distaste for drama in historical accounts ("armies on its doorstep!" "swollen!" "overwhelming!"), but pumped-up language usually fosters inaccuracy. Caesar did not magically become the sole authority in Rome by crossing the Rubicon; his crossing only made overt his intention to start a civil war. The war was still to come; he could've lost. Or he could've drowned in that famous incident when he was improbably swimming with documents in his teeth, or … whatever. Choked on a chicken bone. The war lasted four years. He really only had a year of uncontested authority in Rome. Or was it uncontested? Something about those naughty boys Brutus and Cassius … .
Also, when he crossed the Rubicon in 49, at what point had he already 'swollen' the senate with these equestrian appointments? He'd been in Gaul for 10 years and had no legal authority in Rome during that time. Ten years, I repeat, without holding any political office in Rome, or exerting anything but indirect influence from at minimum 200 miles away in Ravenna. If he was the long-distance puppet master people like to think, how come there was a civil war? Why didn't he just enter the city and have roses thrown at him?
At any rate, I'm pretty sure that Caesar's controversial appointments to the senate (among them citizen Gauls) date to his dictatorship, post-Rubicon crossing. Wasn't he filling out the senate because it was depleted by the civil wars? (At which time he also extended the rights of citizenship throughout Cisalpine Gaul, another means of consolidating his power by enlarging his clientele, but also the right thing to do for the people there — which shows his mastery of political strategy, not godlike exuding of mysterious mana.)
In 49, Caesar also couldn't be utterly sure of his popular support; he hadn't set foot in Rome for ten years. And so what if the people loved you? Their champion Clodius Pulcher, who had done a heck of a lot more for them than Caesar had, had been killed by the other side in the middle of the street only a couple of years before — and since this is the only current event at Rome mentioned explicitly by Caesar in his seven books of the Bellum Gallicum, it obviously bugged him.
I'm not sure how near the doorstep he brought the army (singular, unless you mean "legions", which Pompey and others also had in multiples), but I guess to my mind it actually diminishes Caesar (and the complexities of Roman history) to think everything he did was a preordained breeze. But I'm sure he'd be gratified that we're still buying into his veni, vidi, vici propaganda. As for the quadruple triumph: yes, unprecedented; Pompey had a triple one, so Caesar had to go one better. But also very controversial, as he depicted fellow Romans, including the moral paragon Cato, as defeated enemies. And nobody seems to have liked that.
But I should add that this is a very minor point in the context of the article as a whole. (It's just the sort of thing I can't seem to keep from pouncing on; apologies.) Cynwolfe ( talk) 15:21, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
The info currently in footnote 35, from Weinstock about the red boots and such. Why did it move to a footnote? Weinstock sources the boots to Cassius Dio. The trappings and their significance seem directly pertinent. Maybe I just like the picture of Caesar in red go-go boots that comes unbidden to my mind every time I see this phrase.
Triumph section: Does somebody have Beard to review on this? I had to surrender my copy back to the library. The essential point seems to be: some scholars (and ancient sources) in interpreting the meaning of the triumph have said that the triumphator in some sense impersonated or even became God for the day (this latter is Fowler, I think?). On the other hand, you have the slave whispering mortality. (Isn't that all that's relevant to this article?) Beard has a merry time with the whole god business, but the nature of this interpretational controversy should be mentioned in the article, and I think she also may dispute whether the slave was standard practice. One of Beard's points, of course, is that it's wrong to lump together all the details we have scattered around about various triumphs, and create one picture of the triumph; she suggests there's a great deal of individual choice in how you present yourself. Another theme of Beard's is that it's easy to overemphasize the aggrandizement of the triumph; there were features (such as the slave) that placed the triumphator within, not above, his world.
Also, I'm going to trim the section under Background: Roman (which looks to me to be entirely Republican); I don't see, for instance, what annual magistracies or colonial commissions have to do Imperial cult.
I deleted this statement, perhaps wrongly (but the article does need to be more succinct):
'A client might speak of his patron as "Jupiter on earth"; patrons had permanent power over their clientela.' (Referenced Beard et al, Vol. 1, 77-9.)
Why delete? Well, Beard may contradict me (so please put it back in), but this strikes me as the kind of hyperbole we use when we call somebody "god." "Michael Jordan was a god on the court." Or Donald Trump or whoever. It doesn't say anything about our religious practice, and I don't see anything inherent in the patron-client relationship that necessarily lays the groundwork for emperor worship. Cynwolfe ( talk) 13:51, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:02, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
I see this is a placename from Philo. If it is to be part of Caesar's ascent to godhood, it must, at least, have been consecrated before his deification in 44; what evidence is there that it was not consecrated after his death, or to Octavian (who is also a Caesar, and disembarked at Alexandria)? (There may well be; but it's not visible now). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:55, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
I don't know what this sentence means:
'The legendary kings had been masters in Rome; and this circumspection did not apply to them.'
I said I'd confine myself to the talk page, so I shall.
Despite the 'legendary,' the sentence reads as if these kings existed; but in fact, we're not talking about the legendary or semi-legendary kings, we're talking about the oddly twinned tradition of the founders (Aeneas, or Romulus?) that T.P. Wiseman talks about, especially in Remus. These two are special cases, and not what's usually meant by "kings of Rome." Aeneas is not even considered a king of Rome. (The substitution of "similarly" for an actual linkage of thought indicates that we've just stepped in fudge.) I don't know what it means to say that "kings were masters" — they were kings (except that Aeneas wasn't a king of Rome), so what does it add to say that they were "masters"? That the rest of the population were considered slaves? This does not seem to be true in Rome even in the era of kings, because in the story about the expulsion of the Tarquins, there is a cast of characters who are depicted as nobles. Tyrannos = rex, rex ≠ dominus. The relationship of a true or good king to his people is not the relationship of a master to his slaves; there are philosophical treatises on this subject (Philodemus' On the Good King in the Late Republic, which has been discussed in connection with Caesar; its Epicurean views are pertinent to Cassius' role in overturning the tyrant).
I also don't know how circumspection is applied to someone; does this mean (given the preceding paragraph) that the kings (except that Aeneas wasn't a king of Rome) were not circumspect about their powers? That they (whoever "they" are) lacked the moderation or humility expressed in later times by the (supposed) presence of the slave? (But see Haploidavey's note above.) That also wouldn't seem to be true. The triumphal procession of Romulus was noted by later writers for its relative humbleness; he went on foot instead of in a chariot, for instance. The fact that the dual founders were transmogrified into gods is a crucial piece of evidence for this article; but why bury it under vaguely inaccurate statements? That's what I was trying to clear out. The fact of the existence of these two cults speaks for itself. Or rather, more could be said about them in terms of the connection between politics and apotheosis. Cynwolfe ( talk) 04:19, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
I came upon this quite by accident, but it gets at what I was trying to say above re: who and when in the matter of Romulus.
"It is a remarkable fact that no votive to Quirinus is yet known from Rome; but one has now been found at Bir Mcherga (ancient Giufi) in Africa Proconsularis. To judge from his association with the Larentalia, Robigalia, and Consualia, Quirinus was, like 'rural' Mars, a god of agricultural prosperity, but his adoption into the Augustan promotion of Romulus means that it is impossible to be sure quite how he was understood at Giufi, where, with the title Augustus, he was both an ancestral god, deus pater (Quirinus is named by Lucilius as one of the three gods addressed as pater in prayer), and the genius municipii."
(Bold mine.) I may not be understanding this fully, since it comes from a lengthy article devoted to publishing new inscriptions over a period of years in which this is a mere notice of the particular inscription, not a developed argument. The inscription is dated as "end of first third of third century A.D."
Sorry to obtuse and stubborn, but I just found out why I seem to be pissing against the wind here: because I am. The article cited under "Romulus note" provides me with this helpful and concise clarification of the consensus among scholars working on the concepts of emperor worship and imperial cult:
Their common ground can be summarized as follows. Since divine honours expressed not the essence of the divinity but the disparity in status and power between divinity and worshipper, the difference between worshipping, say, Jupiter and an emperor was merely one of degree -the degree, as it were, to which the emperor was less powerful than Jupiter. The contractual view that bound the ordinary gods to bestow benefactions in return for divine worship applied equally to the Princeps. The anomalousness of the imperial cult is thus merely the result of a modern dichotomy between religion and politics; the key to it lies in studying ritual, which constructs theology, the world and its social order. From here, however, one can take different routes. For Clauss, the crucial insight is that the emperors' divinity was produced by popular longing for immanent divinity (dipraesentes), and emphasis is upon the evidence for worship of the emperors during their lifetimes, the ubiquity of images and rituals which expressed their highness. For Gradel, studying ritual means in effect looking for evidence of the local, low-level, day-to-day, even domestic, reproduction of the divinity of the emperors mainly in Italy. Rather different is the approach of U.-M. Liertz, whose study of the official cult in the two Germanies and Gallia Belgica emphasizes its association with Romanized urban sites, and the irregularity of its attested presence outside the major cult-centres of Metz, Trier, Cologne, Nyon, Augst, [p. 262] and Avenches. Against Clauss and Gradel, Liertz notes the apparently rather pragmatic attitudes of private dedicators, whose votives, especially those pro salute . . ., which apparently emphasize the vulnerability of the emperors to worldly ills and give the impression of viewing the cult as a conscious act of loyalty to the maintenance of a political system in which they have their proper place.
The evidence for priesthoods of Rome and Augustus has also been used as an index of the development of municipalization in Gaul. The role of such priests, who were invariably local magnates, was not to import something extraneous, the 'imperial cult', into a locality, but rather to represent the integration of civic community, local pantheon and the divinized imperial power. Outside the major cities, the imperial cult only exists in close connection with the cult of the local pantheon: virtually every large rural sanctuary in Gaul played some role in the imperial cult. Though they are, of course, an important part in local career structures, the real significance of municipal priesthoods is that they enabled members of major families to enter into a mediating role between the municipium, or even vicus — at any rate a Roman institution developing out of a Gallic settlement — and its deities.
Yes, no dichotomy between politics and religion, and yes, tending the cult of Jupiter and tending the cult of an emperor would create no problems, but I don't agree (here's the apostasy) that social status hierarchy in and of itself explicates imperial cult. This is no doubt because I have not yet placed myself at the side of Lucan and opened my veins because I've despaired of the revival of the Republic (Wiseman takes a Neronian date for when the Republic was truly and really gone beyond the hope of anyone).
I still say (contra Gradel) that patronage in and of itself is not the issue; the social inequality that mattered was the imperator, the military man amassing wealth and power as a result of Roman expansionism. That's what threw the Republic out of whack; not mutually supportive social networks even though they were hierarchical (but not simply two-tiered). And those outsized figures for the most part establish Republican precedent (Scipio, for instance). If one views the imperatores and their ever-grander triumphs from foreign conquest as a prime cause of the collapse of the Republic (i.e., Sulla and Marius, Caesar and Pompey), the logical connection is between that and the rise of imperial cult — as indicated by the fact that "emperor worship" mostly occurs abroad, not in Rome. The domestic cult of the genii, the quasi-divine nature of early kings, and spontaneous gestures of gratitude toward such as Gratidianus reveal a religious mentality hospitable to regarding an individual as potentially divus, but was not antithetical to republicanism, because an individual earned this status for what he contributed to the res publica (a way of balancing ego and altruism? modesty = fame, paradoxically; see Dentatus and his turnips, but we'll all have our favorites). So I feel somewhat more reconciled to Gradel's argument, but still think that in the interest of making this article clear and more concise for its general readership, the editors should always think about the relationship of forest and trees. Cynwolfe ( talk) 17:04, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
Taylor suggested, long ago, that the word was actually hemitheos in Greek, because it can't be translated. There is also a confused story of a different statue of Caesar with emitheo on it, which may support that postion. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:45, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
Source for Servius' account and elaboration might be found somewhere here - [17] partial preview only. Looks good and very thorough, though I've not been through it yet. Haploidavey ( talk) 01:47, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
Congratulations to the editors! Why is it not a Wikipedia:Good article? Is it too long or too technical? -- Error ( talk) 14:36, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
Hey, Davey, I'll address primarily you as high priest of this page, but of course anybody should pitch in.
I keep needing to link directly to a section on divus. The section here called Divus, deus and the numen certainly works, except that it doesn't begin with a simple discussion of the term. And actually, as I search the term through the article, I don't see anywhere it's actually defined properly. The way it's used in the intro is adequate for that purpose, but I think it's an organizational problem that the term is used in specific instances before the section that defines what it is. Most important, there needs to be a clear statement that distinguishes divus from deus explicitly. I thought this used to be here somewhere. But since it's a fundamental term to have in hand before wrestling with the notion of "emperor worship," ... well, again it's something to consider in the reorganization. I'm about to put a tiny divus entry in the Glossary of ancient Roman religion. Cynwolfe ( talk) 20:09, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
Sumpun fishy here:
As part of his religious reforms, Augustus promoted plebeians, freedmen and even slaves to serve as sodales Augustales, priests at the Compital shrines, dedicated to the Lares of the vici (neighbourhoods). This priestly office, and its connections to the Imperial household, appears to have lasted for as long as the Imperial cult itself.
This has the following note:
Lott, 107 – 117; the replacement of neighbourhood Lares with Augustus' own would have been indelicate at the very least. The Lares Augusti can be understood as August Lares – a joint honorific with unmistakable and flattering connections to the princeps himself, rather than a direct claim of patronage.
I was under the impression that the sodales Augustales were created by Tiberius. I don't know. I was concerned because the phrase was translated "priests of the August ones". It may well be that this priesthood and its origin is often misunderstood. "Low-born" people would've already been involved with discharging priestly duties at the neighborhood shrines by their very nature, which was local and of the populus. Cynwolfe ( talk) 20:21, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
As I cannot find any discussion or consensus about changing the date formats from BC/AD to BCE/CE as requested in WP:ERA, I will propose the reversion of date formats to remove the violation that has occurred. Please voice objections or reasons why this should not happen if you wish. Dalek ( talk) 11:47, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
The section appears to be entirely opinion, editorializing and original research. It actually may be the most flagrant example of it I've seen on Wikipedia. I think it should be either massively rewritten or removed. Carlo ( talk) 01:44, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
holy *****, i have read a bunch of this article and i stil have no idea what exactly the cult was.
it should be relatively simple. the who, what, when, where, how.
what buildings, what people, what did they do, when did they do it, where did they do it, and how.
instead we have these arcane academic discussions and obscure verbiage that has almost no meaning.
Decora ( talk) 00:09, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Page moved. ( non-admin closure) sami talk 14:57, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
Imperial cult (ancient Rome) → Imperial cult of ancient Rome – This article has a truly confusing title. In my experience of WP practice, parenthesises are used to distinguish topics with the exact same titles, not distinguish sub-topics. In this case, the title implies that there was a term in ancient Rome that was explicitly named "imperial cult", rather than that there was practice in ancient Rome of what modern scholars refers to as imperial cults. I see this as a simple and nearly uncontroversial move only to do with formatting, and I hope the community will understand my point without too much controversy. Thankful for cooperation, thankful for Wikipedia, Gaioa ( click to talk) 21:30, 27 December 2017 (UTC)
"The ineffectiveness and eventual collapse of Western Imperium was partly replaced by the spiritual supremacy and political influence of the Roman Catholic Church, whose popes could anoint or excommunicate kings and emperors."
What is the source for this statement? And would it not be more accurate to point to not popes, but simply bishops? Even take for the famous example of Ambrose. 75.73.150.255 ( talk) 08:44, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Moved to Roman imperial cult per nom. I don't find the opposing arguments very persuasive: disambiguation is needed here, and we prefer WP:NATURAL and WP:CONCISE one, and the proposal fits the bill. No such user ( talk) 13:27, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
Imperial cult of ancient Rome → Roman imperial cult – Sources use both "Roman imperial cult" and "imperial cult of ancient Rome" or variations of that. However, the first appears to be more common judging from my Google Scholar search (for "imperial cult") and also is more WP:CONCISE. ( t · c) buidhe 20:04, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
User:Editor2020 reverted my addition of a link to Symbolism of domes in the See also section with a "Related?" edit summary. To show how it is related, here is an excerpt from the Symbolism of domes article:
According to Michael Walter, a tradition of the "golden dome" identifying the ruler with the cosmos, sun, and astrological values originated in Persia and spread to later Roman and Turkic courts.[10] Persian kings used domed tents in their official audiences to symbolize their divinity, and this practice was adopted by Alexander the Great.[6] According to Smith, the distinct symbolism of the heavenly or cosmic tent stemming from the royal audience tents of Achaemenid and Indian rulers was adopted by Roman rulers in imitation of Alexander, becoming the imperial baldachin. This probably began with Nero, whose Domus Aurea, meaning "Golden House", also made the dome a feature of Roman palace architecture.[11] One way the Romans depicted the celestial tent in architecture was as a corrugated or gored dome.[12]
Michele Melaragno writes that the allegory of Alexander the Great's domical tent in Roman imperial architecture coincided with the "divinification" of Roman emperors and served as a symbol of this.[13] According to Nicholas Temple, Nero's octagonal domed room in his Domus Aurea was an early example of an imperial reception hall, the symbolism of which "signaled an elevation of the status of the emperor as living deity, which in the case of Nero related specifically to his incarnation as Helios and the Persian Mithra."[14] The semi-domed apse became a symbol of Roman imperial authority under Domitian and depictions into the Byzantine period used overhead domes or semidomes to identify emperors.[15] Karl Swoboda writes that even by the time of Diocletian, the dome probably symbolized sovereignty over the whole world.[16] Roman imperial reception halls or throne rooms were often domed with circular or octagonal plans and, according to Nicholas Temple, "functioned as a ceremonial space between the emperor, his court and the gods", becoming a common feature of imperial palaces from the time of Constantine onwards.[14]
AmateurEditor ( talk) 02:21, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
In the introduction the divinity is ascribed to worthiness, but although we know that some early emperors were deified, the first mention in the article of a judgment of worthiness is to Decius. What source shows who determined this worthiness. Don't cite to Gibbon; he has no attribution for such a judgment, that's why I'm adding this comment. Read this: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3141986.pdf 100.15.127.199 ( talk) 15:15, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
This site minimizes the persecution of Christians, which still occur today by the way. Nobody says 'Oh my Allah' they say either 'Jesus Christ' or 'Oh my God' as swear words.
Furthermore, if Nero was willing to use Christians as living torches, what other persecutions did the Christians endure (this is common sense)? Rape? Strangulation? Drowning? Dismemberment?
I propose the Christians endured all that and more during the time of the Imperial cult, and your minimization of the persecution of Christians is paramount to denying what the Jews went through during the Holocaust. It's absurd and dishonest to not recognize that these groups of people's during these time periods were subject to the worst of tortures. You do not need archaeological proof either, you can formulate the facts based upon the circumstantial evidence.
Thank you. 174.240.65.77 ( talk) 16:08, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
The current article is fairly thick and length text wall but there are at least five major issues:
Apologies if some of this is in the tl;dr area of the article but the point stands that the links need to go in and the lead needs to be rephrased a bit to address them with the clarity and importance they require. — LlywelynII 13:34, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
The Latin name of the cult was also missing but that's easy enough to pop in. I took it from the Latin Wiki but if there was a better attested name in the inscriptions or modern scholarship, add that instead obviously. — LlywelynII 13:39, 18 January 2024 (UTC)