In a speech by the famous Roman orator Quintilian (35–100 CE), we are told how the gods are to be praised by speakers giving a public address: “Some [gods] . . . may be praised because they were born immortal, others because they won immortality by their valour, a theme which the piety of our sovereign [the emperor Domitian] has made the glory even of these present times” (Institutes of Oratory 3.7.9).11 Quintilian tells us that some gods were born that way (such as the great gods of Greek and Roman mythology), but others have “won immortality by their valour”—that is, some humans have become divine because of their amazing deeds. And he refers to those for whom this has happened in “these present times.” Here, he is meaning the two previous emperors, Domitian’s father, the emperor Vespasian, and Domitian’s brother, the emperor Titus, both of whom were deified.
Normally, the emperor was officially declared a god at his death by a vote of the Roman Senate. This may seem a bit odd to us today, and it is perhaps best to think of the Senate recognizing a divine figure who had been in their midst rather than making someone divine. The recognition was based on the fact that the person was powerful and beneficent. And who could be more powerful and beneficent than the Roman emperor? So-called bad emperors (there were a number of them) did not receive divine honors at death, but the good ones did. As with Octavian, many were worshiped as divine even while alive. So we find an inscription (a text carved on stone) in the city of Pergamon that gives honor to “the God Augustus Caesar,” and another in the city of Miletus dedicated to Gaius, otherwise known to history as Caligula (later considered a very bad emperor—but this inscription was made during his lifetime), which read “Gaius Caesar Germanicus, Son of Germanicus, God Sebastos.” While he was alive, at least, Caligula was sometimes considered divine.
Over the years scholars have wrestled with the problem of how to understand the development of the emperor cult throughout the Roman empire—in particular with the idea that a living person was revered as a god. Couldn’t everyone see that the man was human like everyone else? He had to eat and drink; he had other bodily functions; he had personal weaknesses as well as strengths—he was altogether mortal. In what sense could he seriously be considered a god?
As a rule, older scholarship was skeptical on this point, arguing that in fact most people didn’t really think the emperor was a god and that the bestowal of divine honors was mostly a form of flattery.12 This scholarly view was largely based on ancient writings that were produced by the literary elite, that is, the upper echelon of society. Moreover, from this perspective it looked as if the emperor cult was sponsored by the ruling authorities themselves as a kind of imperial propaganda, to make everyone in the Roman provinces understand and appreciate whom they were dealing with when they were dealing with the Roman authorities. Ultimately, they were dealing with a god. In this view, everyone knew that of course the emperor was just a mortal, as all his predecessors had been, but members of the empire participated in the imperial cult to remain on Rome’s good side.
So cities built temples dedicated not simply to one of the great gods or goddesses of Rome—Jupiter, his wife Juno, Mars, Venus, or even “Roma”—but also to the “god” emperor. And sacrifices were made to the image of the emperor, just as to the gods. Still, in this former view of things the emperor was a lower-class divinity, and the worship of these human divinities was restricted to those who had already been deified at their deaths.
This older scholarly view is no longer the consensus, however. More recent scholarship has been less interested in what the literary elite of the upper classes had to say about Roman religion and more interested in what we can learn about what most Romans—the vast majority of whom could not read, let alone write, great works of biography or history—may have thought and certainly did practice. In this newer scholarship, the category of “belief” has come to be recognized as rather complicated with regard to Roman religion. Unlike Christianity, Roman religions did not stress belief or the “intellectual content” of religion. Instead, religion was all about action—what one did in relation to the gods, rather than what one happened to think or believe about them. From this perspective, the emperors—both dead and living—were indeed treated in the ways gods were treated, sometimes in virtually identical ways.13
More recent scholarship does not consider worship of the emperor as a top-down act of propaganda, promoted by Roman officials among the poor dupes who couldn’t know any better. It was instead a series of local movements usually initiated by city officials of the provinces as a way of revering the power of the empire. Moreover, this worship happened within Rome itself, not simply out in the boonies. Many people quite likely did believe that the emperor was a god. And whether they believed it or not, they certainly treated the emperor as a god. Not only did they perform sacrifices to the (other) gods on behalf of the emperor, they also performed sacrifices to the emperor, as a god—or at least to his genius, or to his “numen”—the power within him that made him who he was, a divine being.
I have already alluded to the reason a powerful ruler would be considered divine. He was capable of doing many things, but he also put his abilities to good use, by bestowing benefits on people under his rule. Throughout the Roman world we find this emphasis on “benefaction” in the inscriptions dedicated to rulers—chiefly, but not only, the emperors. An example from a realm outside of but obviously related to the emperor cult is an inscription dedicated to the Syrian ruler Antiochus III from the second century BCE. Antiochus had freed the town of Teas from the oppression of a foreign power. In response, the town set up cult statues of Antiochus and his wife Laodice and performed sacrifices at an official public ceremony. The two statues were dedicated beside the statue of Dionysus, who was the chief god in the city, within his temple and were accompanied by the following inscription honoring Antiochus and Laodice: “Having made the city and its territory sacred . . . and having freed us from tribute . . . they should receive honours from everyone to the greatest possible extent and, by sharing in the temple and other matters with Dionysus, should become the common saviors of our city and should give us benefits in common.”14 The political benefactors are considered “religious” heroes. They have statues and a place in the temple, and sacrifices are made in their honor. In a very real sense they are the “saviors” and so are treated as such.
So too the emperors. Already we find with Augustus the province of Asia deciding to celebrate his birthday every year, as explained in an inscription in gratitude for his “benefaction of mankind” and for being “a savior who put an end to war and established all things.” Augustus had “surpassed the benefactors born before him,” so that “the birthday of the god marked for the world the beginning of good tidings through his coming.”15