The Roman Imperial Cult was all about worshipping Roman emperors and their families as if they had divine qualities. It celebrated their role in spreading Roman religion and culture. This practice kicked off with the first Roman emperor, Augustus, who ruled from 27 BCE to 14 CE, during his efforts to change the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire.
Divine Kingship & Hero Cults
Back in the day, ancient cities had their own foundation stories that said a god or goddess, or even the kid of one, handed down laws about how to worship, behave socially, and what roles men and women should play. These beliefs were passed from generation to generation, with rulers making sure to follow what the gods wanted. This idea of divine kingship helped legitimize their power.
Greece was all about hero worship too. Their heroes were usually the kids of gods or the result of some divine-human hook-up. A classic example is Herakles, also known as Hercules. After doing amazing things, these heroes would get a sweet deal in the afterlife, either hanging out with the gods or chilling in the Elysian Fields. This whole process was called apotheosis, where a hero would become divine and earn worship and respect. There were tons of temples and shrines dedicated to these heroes.
The patron/client system was how things got done back then, creating connections for everyone’s benefit, including ties between people and the divine. The term “patron” comes from Latin meaning defender. Wealthy folks (the aristocrats) would help out the poorer classes by giving out food during festivals. In return, the lower classes would offer their labor, crops, and trades. The tombs of these heroes became pilgrimage spots where people would ask them for help as patron gods, acting as middlemen between the Olympians and the community for special favors and protection.
Ancient Rome
Rome really took a lot from Greek culture. Hercules was seen as a hero who played a part in the founding of Rome, but the stories about Rome’s beginnings were more focused on celebrating the guys from the founding families who became the first kings. Romulus and King Numa were recognized for shaping Roman religion and culture, and they were even turned into gods after they passed away.
The closest thing to a hero worship in Rome was the Roman triumph ceremony. If a magistrate led a successful campaign against an enemy and saved some of his troops, he would be hailed as imperator (commander) on the battlefield. Then, the Senate would grant him the honor of a triumph, which was basically a big parade in Rome where he got to represent the god Jupiter for a day.
Rome also emphasized the idea of genius in people, which was like a divine spark shown through dignitas, or a person’s social status, reputation, and moral character. The concept of paterfamilias represented this, with Roman men taking charge of household religious rituals and acting as priests, augurs, and pontiffs. All elected officials had imperium, giving them the religious authority to follow and enforce the will of the gods. They weren’t worshipped after they died, but they did serve as examples for future generations.
From Monarchy to Republic
Some of the later kings in Rome were actually Etruscan invaders, who were seen as tyrants. Around 508 BCE, Rome got rid of kings and set up the Roman Republic instead. The top position was held by consuls, with two of them running things through the Senate. Rome started to expand its territory all over Italy and neighboring Mediterranean countries. This led to the rise of hero cults, especially after Scipio Africanus beat Hannibal in the Second Punic War (218-201 BCE). People began visiting his grave, leaving tokens behind and sharing stories about his heroic deeds.
In the 1st century BCE, some Germanic tribes invaded Gaul and northern Italy, while Mithridates VI, the king of Pontus, took over the Roman province of Asia. Meanwhile, cities in Italy revolted during the Social War (91-87 BCE) over their citizenship issues. To tackle these problems, a few guys were named first citizens to help lead the republic. After the Social War, Lucius Cornelius Sulla marched his army into Rome and became dictator. A dictator had the power to impose martial law and wasn’t held accountable for any lawsuits during their time in charge. He made changes to the government that favored the Senate and took away the veto power from the Plebian Assembly. Sulla also went on a rampage against his enemies, leading to mass executions. After he died, there was a lot of tension between the senatorial and Plebian factions, with some wanting to keep Sulla’s system and others trying to reverse it.
Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar (100-44 BCE), who was Sulla’s nephew by marriage, teamed up with general Pompey and Marcus Licinius Crassus to form the First Triumvirate. Crassus met his end while battling the Parthian Empire at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE. Later, during a civil war, Caesar took down Pompey at the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BCE. While he was in the East, he let some cities put up statues of him, calling him “divine Julius.” The Caesars claimed they were descendants of Aeneas, the legendary founder of Rome and son of Venus.
Caesar pushed through laws to revive Roman legal traditions. He was elected as the pontifex maximus, which made him the top priest in Roman religion, so his reforms were tied to that. The Senate even named him dictator for life. However, many senators felt this went against the traditional customs (mos maiorum) and ended up assassinating him, believing he wanted to be king.
When it came to his death, even though he was from the upper class, Caesar had a strong following among the common folks. He grew up in a tenement in Rome’s Subura district, which was filled with lower-class residents and foreigners. At his funeral in the Roman Forum, the people went wild, looting furniture from basilicas to throw on his pyre and burn him. Even after the Senate ordered the area cleaned up, people kept bringing flowers and mementos to both his funeral site and the spot where he was killed in Pompey’s theater.
Octavianus/Augustus
Caesar didn’t have any direct heirs. He did have a son named Caesarion with Cleopatra VII, the queen of Ptolemaic Egypt, but Rome didn’t recognize him as legitimate. His only daughter, Julia, who was married to Pompey, died during childbirth. In his will, he left everything to his 18-year-old great-nephew, Octavianus, through legal adoption. As the heir, Octavianus went to Rome to host some funeral games for Julius. During these games, a comet appeared in the sky for three nights, and the people took it as a sign that Julius was hanging out with the gods.
Octavianus teamed up with Mark Antony, who was Julius Caesar’s cousin, to split the empire into Eastern and Western parts. However, Antony ended up siding with Cleopatra and went against Octavianus. They faced defeat at the naval Battle of Actium in Greece in 31 BCE, and both ended up taking their own lives. Afterward, Octavianus killed Cleopatra’s son and made Egypt a province under the Senate.
Octavianus became known as the first citizen, or princeps. The English term “emperor” comes from the Latin word imperator. Thanks to his adoption, he was now Octavianus Caesar, which became the official title for future emperors. The title of pontifex maximus also became something emperors inherited. In 27 BCE, the Senate gave him the title Augustus, meaning “esteemed one.” This marked the shift from a republic to an empire, with all power centralized under his control. While elections for magistrates still happened, Augustus was the one picking the candidates. As Julius’ heir, he even had coins minted with the title “son of god.”
The Imperial Cult of Roma
After the war with Antony wrapped up, the Eastern kings who were loyal to Rome made their way to the city to show their support. They asked Augustus if they could build temples and make sacrifices in his honor. At first, he said no since Romans didn’t worship their leaders, but his advisors pointed out the financial and propaganda perks of having those temples, so he changed his mind. They were allowed to set up a temple for the goddess Roma, which represented all the good things about Roman culture. People could pray to Roma for the empire’s success, not just for Augustus himself. In the provinces, being part of the imperial cult became a way to boost one’s social status. To refill the Treasury after the civil war, priest positions in the cult were auctioned off to the highest bidders.
Augustus also expanded the worship of the lares, which were ancient household gods that looked after homes and families. He claimed that his family’s lares would safeguard his new era of peace, known as the Pax Romana. He dedicated the Ara Pacis Augustae, or Altar of Peace, in 13 BCE, showcasing all members of the imperial family, both biological and adopted.
Imperial temples popped up all over the empire, from Britain to North Africa. Alongside these temples, Augustus released his Res Gestae, a record of everything he accomplished during his rule. There were even stories that his mother, Atia, who was Julius Caesar’s niece, had been visited by the god Apollo when she got pregnant. The vast Roman Empire included many different ethnic groups and their own gods. The imperial cult didn’t wipe out these old traditions; instead, it added a layer of Roman influence that helped unify the empire. This set the stage for emperors to be deified, but only after they passed away. When Augustus died in 14 CE, the Senate officially declared him a god.
The Julio-Claudian Dynasty
The next few emperors came from the family line of Augustus and Livia Drusilla, which was part of the Claudian clan. Augustus adopted Livia’s two sons from her previous marriage, Tiberius and Drusus. Unfortunately, Drusus died while battling in Germania, leaving Tiberius as the successor. The Julio-Claudians had a pretty tangled web of family ties with lots of intermarriages among cousins, nieces, and nephews. Later historians from Rome shared some juicy rumors about scandals, poisonings, and executions during the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. Out of all of them, only Claudius was made a god after he passed away.
As for Nero, he became notorious for kicking off the first persecution of Christians, blaming them for a huge fire that devastated Rome in 64 BCE. This tale first popped up in Tacitus’s Annals, written around 110 CE. It’s worth mentioning that there are no eyewitness accounts from that time to back up the story. If Nero really did this, it was pretty out of character since there wasn’t any official stance on Christians during that era.
Flavian Dynasty
Nero’s time as emperor came to a dramatic end with his forced suicide in 68 CE, and by then, the Julio-Claudian dynasty was pretty much hated. This kicked off a chaotic period known as the year of the four emperors, featuring Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian. These guys were all generals backed by their troops from places like Germany, Spain, and Egypt. In the end, Vespasian (who ruled from 69-79 CE) emerged victorious. He had been sent by Nero to deal with the Great Jewish Revolt in Judea back in 66 CE. After Nero died, Vespasian handed over the war to his son Titus, who famously laid siege to Jerusalem in 70 CE, leading to the Temple’s destruction.
The Flavian family, including Vespasian, focused on collecting taxes and boosting the empire’s economy. Vespasian worked hard to restore economic stability and continued the policies set by Julius Caesar, who had used Jewish mercenaries in his army and allowed Jews to keep practicing their customs without interference. However, Vespasian added a tax specifically for Jews. They used to send money to Jerusalem for the Temple’s upkeep, but since it was destroyed, they had to send that cash to Rome instead as reparations for the revolt. After Vespasian, his older son Titus took over but only ruled for two years before both were deified after they passed away.
Domitian, the younger son, ruled from 81-96 CE and brought back a lot of dangerous policies that often led to emperors getting killed. He had spies watching senators for any signs of conspiracy and would execute them to seize their wealth for the treasury. There were whispers that he even killed Titus. Domitian also insisted on being worshipped as a god and required everyone to make sacrifices to him at imperial temples. But Paul the Apostle, while establishing early Christian communities, rejected these traditional sacrifices, and Christians refused to comply with Domitian’s demands.
The Crime of Atheism
The term “atheism” comes from the Greek word atheos, which means “godless.” It didn’t really mean that people were denying gods’ existence; instead, it pointed to a lack of respect or impiety towards them. Since the gods were believed to be crucial for the empire’s success, upsetting them was seen as a threat to everyone’s well-being.
Looking to boost his income, Domitian’s advisors reminded him about the Jewish Tax, which seemed to have been ignored in Rome and its territories. So, Domitian sent the Praetorian Guard around Rome to track down Jews. Earlier on, Christian groups had decided that pagan converts didn’t need to take on Jewish identifiers like circumcision (as mentioned in Acts 15). Because early Christians weren’t ethnic Jews, they weren’t subject to the tax, but this also meant they had no legal protection. Not participating in the imperial cult was viewed as unpatriotic and could be considered treason, which was punishable by death. As a result, many Christians and others faced execution in arenas. In 96 CE, Domitian was assassinated by some of his advisors and Praetorians, and he wasn’t honored with deification.
In Christianity’s history, the imperial cult became a major reason for the struggles and suffering of Christians. This cult represented everything wrong with pagan beliefs. Christians who refused to participate often faced martyrdom, which was seen as a ticket to heaven after death. Traditional accounts say thousands died in these persecutions, but there’s not much solid evidence to back up those numbers. Over 300 years, there were maybe seven or eight periods of persecution, mostly in the provinces, usually triggered by crises.
Rome would crack down on Christians whenever there were disasters like famine, drought, earthquakes, plagues, or invasions, blaming them for angering the gods. But when things were going smoothly, Rome generally didn’t bother with what Christians were up to, as long as they didn’t stir up trouble or disrupt social norms.Another illegal aspect had to do with collegia, which were basically trade and social clubs that formed around a god or goddess. However, these groups needed a license from the Senate to gather. For 300 years, Christians weren’t allowed this permission. Pliny the Younger, who was the governor of Bithynia-Pontus, wrote to Emperor Trajan about how Christians were meeting in these unauthorized collegia and skipping out on the imperial cult temples because they were busy recruiting new members. The earliest accounts of Christian trials we have come from Pliny’s writings on the subject.
Subsequent Roman Emperors & The New Imperial Cult
Between 250 and 300 CE, the Roman Empire went through a tough time known as the Crisis of the Third Century. There was crazy inflation, plagues, invading armies at the borders, and a bunch of generals trying to take over as emperors. With all this chaos, different opinions about each new emperor led to some serious persecution and executions. It’s hard to pin down exact numbers from back then, but with Christianity eventually taking over, a lot of those stories got left out of Western history.
Then came Emperor Constantine I (r. 306-337 CE), who made Christian gatherings legal in 313 CE with the Edict of Milan. His conversion to Christianity put an end to the persecution of Christians. At that point, there was some drama among Christian bishops because some folks had given in during earlier persecutions by making sacrifices. The big question was whether they should be kicked out of the church or forgiven. The bishops asked Constantine to step in, and wanting to keep everyone united, he decided that those who lapsed should be forgiven. This pretty much made him both the leader of the empire and the church.
Because of riots and debates about how Jesus related to God (the Arian controversy), Constantine called for the First Council of Nicaea in 325 CE. This meeting helped shape the Christian idea of the Trinity, stating that Christ is the same essence as God, just showing up as a human on Earth. It also led to the Nicene Creed, which laid out what all Christians should believe and do.
Christian emperors started being seen as part of a new Imperial cult. They represented Christ until he returned to bring in God’s kingdom. Anyone who disagreed with the theology of the Christian emperor was labeled a heretic, which was basically the same as treason and could get you executed. To show their sacredness, Constantine and later Christian emperors were often depicted with halos around their heads. After they died, they were even declared saints in heaven.
When Emperor Theodosius I (r. 379-395 CE) declared that Christianity was the only legal religion in the empire, many imperial temples and public buildings were turned into Christian churches. He also put a stop to the Olympic Games since they were dedicated to pagan gods, and they didn’t come back until 1896.
