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FROM JULIUS CAESAR TO HADRIAN Julius Cæsar allowed a Statue of himself with the inscription, ''Deo Invicto'' ( Latin "to the unconquered god") in 44 BC . In the same year, Cæsar declared himself dictator for life. Julius Cæsar's nephew and adopted son, Augustus Cæsar caused a temple to be built in Rome to ''Divus Julius'', the "divine", or "deified" Julius. As the (adopted) son of the deified Julius, Augustus was already titled divi filius - son of a god. Between 29 and 19 BC Virgil , befriended to Augustus, wrote the Aeneid . The first book of that poem contains a passage where Jove is portrayed to unfold his decisions to Venus , containing these words: In other words: through the poetry of his friend, as through other channels, Augustus sanctions the Cult of his adopted father - and so also prepares his own. Note that in these 1st century BC mythological developments, that tied the Gens Julia to Iulus, Julius Caesar was portrayed as descending from several gods, amongst which Venus and Jupiter. n part of the Roman empire:
The several temples and statues dedicated to Caligula (on his own instigation) were all destroyed immediately after this emperor's death. Claudius appears to have allowed a single temple in his honor, following Augustus' and Tiberius' example again, this time in Britain , after his successful conquest there. Generally Roman emperors avoided claiming the status of a deity in their own lives, even if some critiques insisted they should, and not doing so would be considered a sign of weakness. Other Romans would ridicule the notion that a Roman emperor was to be considered a living god, or would even make fun of the deification of an emperor after his death: Seneca The Younger 's only known satirical writing, the '' Apocolocyntosis Divi Claudii '', shows bitter sarcasm regarding Claudius' foreseeable deification, which, according to Tacitus , however was already effectuated at the Emperor's funeral in 54 ('' Ann. '' XII, 69). Most often, deceased emperors were the subject of worship during this period — at least, the ones who did not become so unpopular with their subjects that the populace considered their assassination a relief. Most emperors benefited from a speedy deification of their predecessor: if that predecessor was a close relative (even if only ''by adoption''), that meant that the new emperor could count on a "near to deified" status of being a ''divi filius'', without needing to be too presumptuous regarding his own godhead status. A famous deathbed remark, allegedly by Vespasian , claims that his last words were ''puto deus fio'' — "I think I'm turning into a god." For ''females'' of the Imperial dynasties, acquiring the title of Augusta , only exceptionally granted, was generally regarded as the essential stepstone to the status of divinity. 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. During the Persecution Of Christians that took place in the Roman empire, the imperial cult became an important aspect of that persecution. To the extent that participation in the imperial cult became a loyalty test, the imperial cult was a particularly aggressive sort of Civil Religion . Loyal citizens of the Empire were expected to make a periodic offering of Incense to the Genius , or Tutelary Spirit , of the Emperor, and upon doing so they received a certificate that they had in fact demonstrated their loyalty by sacrificing. Christians, of course, refused to worship the Emperor, considering the cult to be Idolatry . The Sacrifice was used as a law enforcement tool to ferret them out. The imperial cult was abandoned when Constantine I - who had adopted the christian religion - became Emperor. From then on high religious claims by Roman and Byzantine emperors, no longer stated in terms of ''godhead'' of the Emperors, but in terms of challenging the religious authority of the highest non-secular leaders of the Church, would be indicated as '' Caesaropapism ''. NOTES EXTERNAL LINKS |
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