title: Downburst

text: A special, and much rarer, kind of downburst is a heat burst, which results from precipitation-evaporated air compressionally heating as it descends from very high altitude, usually on the backside of a dying squall line or outflow boundary. Heat bursts are chiefly a nocturnal occurrence, can produce winds over , are characterized by exceptionally dry air, can suddenly raise the surface temperature to or more, and sometimes persist for several hours.


title: Downburst

text: Downbursts, particularly microbursts, are exceedingly dangerous to aircraft which are taking off or landing due to the strong vertical wind shear caused by these events. Several fatal crashes are attributed to downbursts.


title: Downburst

text: The following are some fatal crashes and/or aircraft incidents that have been attributed to microbursts in the vicinity of airports:


title: Downburst

text: A microburst often causes aircraft to crash when they are attempting to land or shortly after takeoff (American Airlines Flight 63 is a notable exception). The microburst is an extremely powerful gust of air that, once hitting the surface, spreads in all directions. As the aircraft is coming in to land, the pilots try to slow the plane to an appropriate speed. When the microburst hits, the pilots will see a large spike in their airspeed, caused by the force of the headwind created by the microburst. A pilot inexperienced with microbursts would try to decrease the speed. The plane would then travel through the microburst, and fly into the tailwind, causing a sudden decrease in the amount of air flowing across the wings. The decrease in airflow over the wings of the aircraft causes a drop in the amount of lift produced. This decrease in lift combined with a strong downward flow of air can cause the thrust required to remain at altitude to exceed what is available, thus causing the aircraft to stall. If the plane is at a low altitude shortly after takeoff or during landing, it will not have sufficient altitude to recover.


title: Downburst

text: The strongest microburst recorded thus far occurred at Andrews Field, Maryland on 1 August 1983, with wind speeds reaching .


title: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

text: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse is an action-adventure platform video game developed and published by Konami for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was released in Japan in 1989, and in North America in 1990, and in Europe by Palcom in 1992. It was later released on the Virtual Console for the Wii, Nintendo 3DS, and Wii U.


title: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

text: "Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse" is the third installment in the "Castlevania" video game series. It is a prequel to the original "Castlevania" (much like the earlier Game Boy game ""), set a few centuries before the events of the original game. The game's protagonist is Trevor C. Belmont, an ancestor of the original hero Simon Belmont.


title: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

text: "Castlevania III" abandons the action-adventure and role-playing elements of its immediate predecessor "" and returns to the platform game roots of the first "Castlevania" title. Unlike "Castlevania", however, "Castlevania III" is non-linear: Trevor, the main character, can be assisted by one of three possible companions, and after completing the first level, and at several other points throughout the game, the player is given a choice of two branching paths to follow. The player can obtain multiple endings depending on the choices they make throughout the game.


title: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

text: There are two main routes through the game's sixteen stages, which are referred to as blocks and are broken down into several sections. The second stage is an optional excursion for picking up one of the three partner characters, and the main branch occurs part way through the third stage. Each route contains a total of nine stages (ten if the player takes the optional second stage). The upper route takes the player across the lake to the main bridge, entering Dracula's castle through the front gate, while the lower route takes the player through a series of tunnels and caverns, leading to a climb up the cliff face below the castle. The lower route also features one short branching section of its own at stage 6. The two paths converge in the main hall of the castle.


title: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

text: The year is 1476, and Count Dracula has started to ravage Europe with an army of monsters. The Belmont family of vampire hunters, once exiled from Wallachia, are called into action. They feared the Belmonts' "super-human" power, but with Dracula menacing to swallow Europe in darkness, they are left with no choice but to call Trevor Belmont (Ralph C. Belmondo in the Japanese version), current wielder of the Vampire Killer whip.


title: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

text: Joining Trevor Belmont in his mission to defeat Dracula are three new playable characters: Sypha Belnades, a young sorceress with poor physical attack power but powerful elemental magic spells at her disposal; Grant Danasty, a pirate with the ability to climb on walls and change direction in mid-jump (a rare ability in earlier games of the series); and Alucard, Dracula's son, a dhampir with the ability to shoot fireballs and transform into a bat. Trevor can be accompanied by only one companion at a time. If he chooses to take on another he must abandon his current companion. The player can "spiritually transform" between Trevor and his ally with the "select" button. Both Trevor and whoever is accompanying him share the same health meter and heart counter. The ending of the game differs depending on which companion Trevor has with him at the time, or if he does not take another character with him at all.


title: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

text: Besides the different title, "Akumajō Densetsu", the Japanese version has several other differences. It contains a specialized "VRC6" coprocessor chip. The game's audio programmer, Hidenori Maezawa, assisted in the chip's creation. This chip added two extra pulse wave channels and a saw wave channel to the system's initial set of five sound channels. The majority of the music combines the channels to imitate the sound of a synthesized string section. Western versions of the NES did not have the ability to support external sound chips, so the North American release replaced the VRC6 with Nintendo's Memory Management Controller 5 (MMC5). The MMC5 chip's sound channels cannot be used with the NES, and the game's music had to be changed by Yoshinori Sasaki to comply with the NES's standard five channels. "Akumajō Dracula Famicom Best" was a soundtrack album that included the Famicom version of the game's original music.


title: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

text: In the Japanese version, instead of using a stabbing dagger, Grant throws daggers as his main attack. Some enemies do less damage in the Japanese version, and had their sprites changed for the Western releases. Some instances of nudity on the enemies were censored, and religious iconography was pared down. The Japanese version has slightly different backgrounds in many stages, and has special effects not seen in the North American and European releases.


title: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

text: The North American and PAL versions have several hidden features that can be accessed by entering a certain name for the player, which include starting the game with 10 lives (by entering the name "HELP ME"), the option to start the game with any of the three spirit partners, and to access the second, more difficult quest. These features are not present in the Japanese version.


title: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

text: "Castlevania III" was the first game in the series to have different packaging artwork outside Japan, painted by Tom Dubois using alkyd paints. It was inspired by Ray Harryhausen. Dubois would go on to design the North American packaging for "Super Castlevania IV", "" and "".


title: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

text: It was released in Japan on December 22, 1989, in North America on September 1, 1990, and in Europe on December 10, 1992. The game also received a Windows release on November 16, 2002.


title: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

text: It was released on the Wii Virtual Console in the PAL regions on October 31, 2008, in North America on January 12, 2009 and in Japan on April 21, 2009. It was released on the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console in the PAL regions on April 17, 2014 and in North America on June 26, 2014. It was released on the Wii U Virtual Console in Japan on April 16, 2014, in North America on June 26, 2014 and in the PAL regions on September 4, 2014.


title: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

text: It was later released again as part of the "Castlevania Anniversary Collection" for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch on May 16, 2019. The Famicom version was made available to western audiences for the first time as a bonus update to this collection a month later.


title: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

text: Japanese game magazine "Famitsu" gave it a 30 out of 40 score, praising it for a return to the first game's format, the new allies, and the upgraded sound, but knocking points off for excessive difficulty. In 1997 "Electronic Gaming Monthly" ranked it the 57th best console video game of all time, citing the multiple playable characters and routes to choose from and the outstanding graphics and music. "Nintendo Power" listed it as the ninth best Nintendo Entertainment System video game, praising it for its strong improvements over previous entries in the series. "Game Informer"s Tim Turi felt that it was a return to form after "Castlevania II". He discussed characters such as Alucard (whom he called iconic) and Grant (whom he praised for his wall cling ability). GamesRadar ranked it the eighth best NES game ever made. The staff felt that it returned to "Castlevania"s roots after "Castlevania II" yet "took the series to new heights." GameZone ranked it as the third best "Castlevania" title. The staff preferred "III" the most as it felt like the original game the most; they felt its price on the Virtual Console was worthwhile.


title: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

text: In a retrospective review, Allgame editor Christopher Michael Baker highly praised the game, describing it as "the greatest Castlevania game to ever grace the NES" and "possibly even the greatest Castlevania game to ever hit any system".


title: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

text: Former Castlevania Producer and developer Koji Igarashi cites "Castlevania III" as his favorite game in the series, noting the sound and setting as the reasons. Shutaro Iida, who was a programmer for the GBA and NDS games and director of "", also said it is his favorite in the series, and cited the special sound chip in the Japanese version as the reason why.


title: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

text: An animated "Dracula's Curse" movie had been in development since 2007 with writer Warren Ellis, Frederator Studios, and James Jean attached to the project. In August 2015, film producer Adi Shankar teased that the project, now an animated mini series, was finally in production. Titled simply "Castlevania", the first season of the series premiered on Netflix on July 7, 2017. After the 4-episode first season premiere, it was later renewed for an 8-episode second series which premiered on October 26, 2018. A ten-episode third season was released on March 5, 2020. The final season, consisting of 10 episodes, was released on May 13, 2021.


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: Demolition is an American professional wrestling tag team most prominent during the late 1980s and early 1990s in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) made up of Ax (Bill Eadie), Smash (Barry Darsow), and later Crush (Brian Adams). In the WWF, Demolition were three-time WWF World Tag Team Champions, and hold the record for the most combined days as reigning champions with that championship. Their first reign with the WWF World Tag Team Championship is the fourth longest reign with any tag team championship in WWE history (behind Mark Coffey and Wolfgang's reign with the NXT UK Tag Team Championship, The New Day's reign with the WWE (Raw) Tag Team Championship and The Usos' reign with the WWE SmackDown Tag Team Championship) and is the longest reign on record for that specific championship (which has been defunct since 2010). Beginning in 2007, Ax and Smash reunited for several appearances at various independent shows and legends conventions.


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: Randy Colley and Bill Eadie created the Demolition gimmick and worked for the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). They debuted as a heel tag team on January 4, 1987, at the Springfield Civic Centre in Massachusetts, alongside manager Luscious Johnny V, defeating the team of The Islanders and later participating in a battle royal won by Pete Doherty. Demolition wore studded black leather outfits and leather-covered hockey masks to the ring, which they removed to reveal face paint usually made up of some combination of black, white, red, or silver colors, though other colors were sometimes included. The tag team wore


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: outfits similar to Lord Humungus of the 1981 film "Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior", while their facepaint was reminiscent of hard rock band KISS. However, in TV interviews the characters generally compared themselves to another hockey-masked horror movie villain, Jason Voorhees of the "Friday the 13th" film series, as well as Freddy Krueger of "Nightmare on Elm Street".


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: After only two more matches (wins over enhancement talent at TV tapings on January 5 and 6), Colley was replaced with Barry Darsow starting with a match filmed January 26, 1987 at the Sundome, Tampa FL and aired on the February 14, 1987 edition of "Superstars". Eadie has stated that Colley was replaced because he was too recognizable to the fans as the man who previously performed as Moondog Rex. The WWF pitched a few potential replacements to Eadie, but he thought fans would recognize the suggested replacements. However, Eadie felt that many WWF fans would not recognize Darsow, who had been working for Jim Crockett Promotions as Krusher Khruschev alongside Nikita Koloff. Darsow had left Crockett following a dispute in order to take over the role of Smash. On the March 14 "Saturday Night's Main Event X", Demolition participated in another battle royal, won by Hercules Hernandez. Around that same period, Johnny Valiant (who went on to manage the "new Dream Team" of Greg Valentine and Dino Bravo before leaving the WWF at the end of 1987) sold their contracts to Mr. Fuji who became their manager.


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: Demolition's undefeated streak ended when they suffered their first pinfall loss to The Can-Am Connection (Rick Martel and Tom Zenk) on June 6, 1987 at the Boston Garden, Demolition became known for their aggressive style in the ring and the way that they dominated their matches. Their first feud was with the team of Ken Patera and Billy Jack Haynes, which started after Ax and Smash brutalized WWF jobber Brady Boone (billed in storyline as the cousin of Haynes), during a televised match and then battered first Haynes and then Patera when they each tried to come to the rescue. Demolition claimed victories over all of the established face tag teams in the WWF at the time, including The Killer Bees (Jim Brunzell and B. Brian Blair), The Rougeau Brothers (Jacques and Raymond), British Bulldogs (Dynamite Kid and Davey Boy Smith), The Young Stallions (Paul Roma and Jim Powers), The Islanders (Haku and Tama), and The Can-Am Connection (Rick Martel and Tom Zenk).


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: Demolition made their pay-per-view debut at Survivor Series in an elimination tag team match where five babyface teams faced five heel teams. Demolition was part of the heel group, They eliminated The Rougeau Brothers, but were disqualified when Smash shoved down referee Dave Hebner during the match and the face team went on to win the match.


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: At WrestleMania IV, Ax and Smash defeated Strike Force (Rick Martel and Tito Santana) to win their first WWF Tag Team Championship. Ax struck Martel in the back of the neck with Fuji's cane while he had Smash in a Boston crab (Fuji had dropped the cane into the ring while taking a beating from Santana who carried on oblivious to what was happening in the ring). Martel was knocked out and Smash covered him for the pin while Ax hid outside with the cane. As champions, they defeated a number of the top teams of the WWF, which at the time had a very talent-rich and hotly contested tag division, most notably the British Bulldogs and Hart Foundation (Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart).


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: Their first big challenge came in the summer of 1988, when The Powers of Pain (The Warlord and The Barbarian) entered the WWF and challenged them for the Tag Team Championship. During the elimination tag team match at Survivor Series, Mr. Fuji attacked Demolition and joined forces with the Powers of Pain. A double turn took place as Demolition turned face while the Powers of Pain turned heel. Interviewed after the contest, Fuji claimed that he had turned on Demolition because, since winning the championship, they had become insubordinate and disrespectful towards him, whereas the Powers would be utterly obedient and loyal apprentices. For their part, Demolition denounced their former manager as a parasite, labelling him "Fuj the Stooge."


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: Ax and Smash also memorably squared off against each other as entrants #1 and #2 in the Royal Rumble match at the Summit in Houston in 1989, tearing into each other for the full two minutes before being joined in the ring by the third entrant André the Giant, where they once again joined as Demolition and targeted the big man.


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: Demolition defeated the Powers of Pain and Mr. Fuji in a tag team handicap match at WrestleMania V to retain the WWF World Tag Team Championship when they caught Fuji in the "Demolition Decapitation". That day, Demolition became the longest reigning WWF World Tag Team Champions after breaking the previous 370 day record of The Valiant Brothers (Jimmy and Johnny). Subsequently, on May 12 Demolition's reign exceeded the 409-day third reign of The Fabulous Kangaroos with the WWWF United States Tag Team Championship, thus becoming the longest running holders of any tag team championship in WWF/WWWF history. They would eventually last a reign of 478 days, and while the general record for any tag team championship has since been broken (by The New Day in 2016, by Mark Coffey and Wolfgang in 2020 and by The Usos in 2022), this still stands as the specific record for the "classic" World tag team title of 1971-2010.


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: After WrestleMania V, Demolition started a feud with The Twin Towers (Akeem and The Big Boss Man) and then a feud with The Brain Busters (Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard), who were managed by Bobby "The Brain" Heenan. On the May 27, 1989 "Saturday Night's Main Event XXI", the Brain Busters defeated Demolition by disqualification. They finally dropped the titles to the Brain Busters in a two out of three falls match on the July 29 "Saturday Night's Main Event XXII" (filmed July 18, 1989 in Worcester, Massachusetts at the Worcester Centrum) following outside interference from André the Giant who threw a chair into the ring for Anderson to use on Smash. As well as looking to regain the belts, Demolition sought revenge on André and closure on The Twin Towers. At SummerSlam 1989, King Duggan and Demolition defeated André and the Towers in a six-man tag team match (already advertised prior to the title change) where Darsow showcased his strength by body slamming both of the Twin Towers. Demolition focused on regaining the tag titles and restarted their feud with the Brain Busters. On the November 4 edition of "Superstars" (taped on October 2), Demolition defeated the Brain Busters to regain their tag titles and win their second WWF Tag Team Championship.


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: Demolition next feuded with the new Heenan Family team, The Colossal Connection (André the Giant and Haku). On the December 30 edition of "Superstars" (taped on December 13), Demolition lost the tag titles to the Colossal Connection. At WrestleMania VI at the SkyDome in Toronto, Demolition defeated the Colossal Connection to regain the titles and win their third and final WWF World Tag Team Championship, and finally put an end to their feud with the Heenan Family. Due to his deteriorating physical condition, André never tagged in during the match with Haku facing Demolition on his own.


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: Shortly after WrestleMania VI, the team quietly turned heel. This intensified when Brian Adams debuted in WWF and joined the team as Crush. In kayfabe it was claimed that this was a heinous scheme to gain a three-on-two advantage over other tag teams, but it was actually because Eadie had developed an allergy to shellfish (which he attributed to his frequent trips to Japan) which hospitalized him, and WWF owner and head booker Vince McMahon wanted to add a third member to the team just in case the illness put Eadie out of action for an extended period of time.


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: Crush soon took a more active role, teaming with Smash while Ax faded into the background, becoming more of a manager. At this time Demolition used the "Freebird rule" to allow any two members to wrestle the matches. Smash and Crush defended the titles in the summer of 1990. On the July 28 edition of "Saturday Night's Main Event", Smash and Crush defeated The Rockers (Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty) to retain the titles after Ax interfered on their behalf and attacked Michaels. The next month at SummerSlam, however, Demolition lost the titles to the Hart Foundation in a two out of three falls match. In that match, Smash & Crush started, but Ax secretly came down later on to substitute himself into the match behind the referee's back. Ultimately, the Legion of Doom (Hawk and Animal), who had signed with the WWF a month earlier, interfered and snuffed out the deception. Demolition never recaptured the titles after this loss.


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: As a result of the interference by LOD, Demolition began feuding with Hawk and Animal who would often be joined in six man matches by reigning WWF Champion The Ultimate Warrior. WWF commentators at the time would often claim that the team wearing the face paint would win whichever particular match they were broadcasting (Demolition, LOD and the Warrior all wore face paint). On the October 13 edition of "Saturday Night's Main Event", Ax, Smash, and Crush lost to the Ultimate Warrior and LOD.


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: Soon after, due to the Legion of Doom (L.O.D.) now being on the WWF roster, Demolition's popularity began to decline and they regained the managerial services of Mr. Fuji in the fall of 1990. At Survivor Series, The Perfect Team (Demolition and Mr. Perfect) was defeated by The Ultimate Warriors (the Ultimate Warrior, the "Texas Tornado" Kerry Von Erich, and the Legion of Doom). Shortly after, Ax left the WWF, with the on-air explanation being an order from kayfabe WWF President Jack Tunney that there could only be two members of Demolition. Smash and Crush were the two remaining members, and went on to primarily lose to teams such as the Rockers and the Legion of Doom. The team lost a match to Genichiro Tenryu and Koji Kitao at WrestleMania VII.


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: The team's next match was at WWF/SWS Wrestlefest on March 30, 1991 where they defeated Shunji Takano & Shinichi Nakano. Following this match, Demolition would continue to wrestle in both the WWF and the SWS throughout the summer usually on the losing end of matches. Crush went on a leave of absence from the WWF (his SWS commitments aside), while Smash wrestled in singles matches (usually on the losing end) for a brief time before also leaving the WWF. They also teamed in the WWC. The team's final WWF-related match occurred on an SWS show in Japan on September 18, 1991 in a losing effort to George Takano and Shunji Takano. Afterwards, they eventually broke up and the members went their separate ways. Crush would return to PNW (where he hed previously wrestled as Brian Adams), still in his Demolition atire and paint, but as a face, where he would eventually win the PNW Heavyweight Championship Smash would later return to the WWF as the Repo Man a sneaky thief claiming to be a repossessor, in the fall of 1991. Crush would also return in the spring of 1992, still as a face, beginning a run as the popular "Kona Crush" surfer type building on Adams being a native of Hawaii). The two ended up facing off at SummerSlam 1992, with Crush getting the victory over Repo Man. Crush would later turn heel on Randy Savage and rehire Mr. Fuji as his manager in 1993, once again painting his face, only in a different pattern from his Demolition days.


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: Original "Smash" gimmick owner Randy Colley moved to the Continental Championship Wrestling territory in late 1987 and revived his version of the Demolition character with only minor modifications as Detroit Demolition. He was managed by Downtown Bruno and stayed in the territory until the end of 1988. In May 1988 he teamed with D.I. Bob Carter to win the CWF Tag Team Championship.


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: Detroit Demolition feuded with Lord Humungous after Humungous turned babyface on Bruno's stable, helping (kayfabe) childhood friend Shane Douglas defeat Detroit Demolition . In retaliation, Detroit Demolition squirted ink in Humungous' eyes, causing Douglas to come to his old friend's aid, cementing their alliance. Humungous and Douglas would defeat Detroit and Carter for the tag team title in June 1988. As Darsow and Adams would do later on, Colley as Detroit Demolition also made occasional visits to the WWC in Puerto Rico. By early 1989 he had reverted to Moondog Rex and signed with WCW.


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: After leaving the WWF, Eadie began using the name Axis the Demolisher on the independent circuit and took in Colley as well as Carmine Azzato under the name of Demolition Blast in an attempt to resurrect the Demolition name and gimmick. They were sent a cease and desist letter by the WWF once they found out.


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: In between his time as Repo Man in the WWF and his 1994-1995 stint as Blacktop Bully in WCW, Darsow wrestled as Smash in Australia for local promotion AWF in mid 1993, losing to Hawk on 14 June in Melbourne.


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: In the mid-1990s, Bill Eadie filed a lawsuit against the WWF for the rights of the "Demolition" name and gimmick but lost. Ax, Smash and Crush signed a deal with Jakks Pacific to make Demolition Classic Superstars action figures. Ax and Smash were together in a 2-pack for Toys R Us, each had a singles figure from series #14, and were packaged and repainted with Crush in a 3-pack for Walmart.


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: On April 1, 2007, Darsow and Eadie reunited for the first time in 16 years at a "Meet the Legends" event in Windsor, Ontario, Canada.


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: On August 13, 2007, Brian Adams was found unconscious in his Tampa, Florida home. Adams' wife found him not breathing in his bed, and summoned paramedics. The wrestler could not be revived, and was pronounced dead at the scene. Police could not immediately determine a cause of death, but noted no signs of injury.


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: On September 29, 2007, Darsow and Eadie reunited as the tag team Demolition for the first time in 16 years in Orlando, Florida at a United States Xtreme Wrestling event. They once again became tag team champions, defeating the Christopher Street Connection (Buff-E and Mace) to win the UXW Tag Team Championship.


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: On Friday, February 22, 2008, both Ax & Smash were re-united and inducted into the XWF Hall of Fame by Jack Blaze who also inducted both New Jack & Shark Boy in the same night. Later that year, XWF became LPW (Legends Pro Wrestling) where Demolition are still honored as LPW Hall of Fame Inductees- Class 2008.


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: Demolition teamed with One Man Gang in the 28-team King of Trios tournament held by Chikara during the weekend of February 29 and March 1 and 2, 2008 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. While losing the three-man tournament they did win the Tag Team gauntlet.


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: On November 13, 2010, Demolition appeared at WrestleRage VIII in Villa Park, Illinois with POWW Entertainment. They beat the team of Picture Perfect for the POWW Tag Team titles, but quickly lost them after the first match to the team of Trevor Blanchard and Black Iron.


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: On May 21, 2011, Demolition reunited at Full Impact Pro's debut iPPV "In Full Force". Their match against Tony DeVito and Ralph Mosco went to a no contest when local commentator and manager Larry Dallas came out and said his men wanted revenge. The ring was stormed by Manu, Sami Callihan, Blain Rage and Joey Attel. Demolition, Devito and Mosco managed to clear the ring and beat Dallas to end the show.


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: On September 16, 2012, Demolition returned to Chikara, taking part in the tag team gauntlet match at the 2012 King of Trios tournament, from which they were eliminated by their old WWF rivals, The Powers of Pain.


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: In 2013, Demolition are set to perform for the eastern Canadian independent promotion XWA. The former champions are scheduled to make appearances in Saint John (June 6), Fredericton (June 7), Miramichi (June 8), and Bathurst (June 9).


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: In July 2016, Eadie and Darsow were named part of a class action lawsuit filed against WWE which alleged that wrestlers incurred traumatic brain injuries during their tenure and that the company concealed the risks of injury. The suit is litigated by attorney Konstantine Kyros, who has been involved in a number of other lawsuits against WWE. The lawsuit was dismissed by US District Judge Vanessa Lynne Bryant in September 2018.


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: On May 6, 2017, Demolition wrestled their last match as a tag team. Eadie retired from wrestling later that year.


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: "See also Moondog Rex#Championships and accomplishments, Ax (wrestler)#Championships and accomplishments and Brian Adams (wrestler)#Championships and accomplishments for singles titles (and tag team titles with a non-Demolition partner) won by the original Smash, Ax and Crush respectively while using the Demolition gimmick."


title: Demolition (professional wrestling)

text: The below list includes only tag team titles held by teams billed under the Demolition name and consisting purely of two or more of the members both/all using their Demolition personas. All championships and accomplishments below are by the Ax and (Darsow) Smash line-up unless otherwise noted.


title: Homeland (season 4)

text: The fourth season of the American television drama series "Homeland" premiered on October 5, 2014, and concluded on December 21, 2014, on Showtime, consisting of 12 episodes. The series started as a loosely based variation of the two-season run of the Israeli television series "Hatufim" (English: "Prisoners of War") created by Gideon Raff and is developed for American television by Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa. The fourth season was released on Blu-ray and DVD on September 8, 2015, and became available for streaming on Hulu on August 1, 2016.


title: Homeland (season 4)

text: On October 22, 2013, "Homeland" was renewed for a fourth season, consisting of 12 episodes. Production and filming for the fourth season began in June 2014, shifting production to Cape Town, South Africa. Executive producers for the fourth season are Alex Gansa, Howard Gordon, Gideon Raff, Alexander Cary, Chip Johannessen, Meredith Stiehm, Avi Nir, and Ran Telem.


title: Homeland (season 4)

text: Nazanin Boniadi, who had a recurring role in the third season as Fara Sherazi, was promoted to series regular for the fourth season. Several actors were cast for the fourth season in June 2014, including new series regular Laila Robins, as well as Corey Stoll, Suraj Sharma, Raza Jaffrey, and Michael O'Keefe, who all have recurring roles. In July 2014, Nimrat Kaur, Mark Moses and Art Malik were additionally cast in recurring roles.


title: Homeland (season 4)

text: The fourth season received positive reviews from critics, with particular acclaim for the second half. On Metacritic, it has a score of 74 out of 100, based on 22 reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, the season received an 82% rating based on 49 reviews with an average rating of 8.0/10. The critical consensus reads ""Homeland" is back on top, with a renewed energy and focus not seen since its first season." Verne Gay of "Newsday" gave the season premiere an "A+" grade and wrote that the show "feels as fresh, important and relevant as yesterday's news – or tomorrow's news. A bracing, intelligent start." Matthew Gilbert of "The Boston Globe" noted it has improved over its previous seasons, and wrote, "The rebooted "Homeland" promises to be an engaging, streamlined CIA thriller with a few big ideas about America and the war on terrorism." Mary McNamara of the "Los Angeles Times" also noted the series improvement and wrote, "Early episodes are strong, if not as shattering as the inaugural season." The season finale was well-received, with Rotten Tomatoes giving the episode a 100% rating based on 12 critic reviews, saying "Subverting expectations, "Long Time Coming" makes for a smart, sharp, and satisfyingly subdued finale for an excellent season of "Homeland"."


title: Homeland (season 4)

text: For the 21st Screen Actors Guild Awards, the cast was nominated for Best Drama Ensemble, Claire Danes was nominated for Best Drama Actress, and the series was nominated for Best Stunt Team. For the 72nd Golden Globe Awards, Danes was nominated for Best Actress – Television Series Drama. For the 67th Directors Guild of America Awards, Lesli Linka Glatter won for Outstanding Directing – Drama Series for the episode "From A to B and Back Again", and Dan Attias received a nomination in the same category for directing "13 Hours in Islamabad". For the 5th Critics' Choice Television Awards, the series was nominated for Best Drama Series and Mandy Patinkin was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.


title: Homeland (season 4)

text: For the 67th Primetime Emmy Awards, the series received five nominations, including Outstanding Drama Series, Claire Danes for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, F. Murray Abraham for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series, and Lesli Linka Glatter for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for "From A to B and Back Again".


title: Homeland (season 4)

text: Laura Durkay of "The Washington Post" criticized the show for perpetuating cultural stereotypes and Islamophobia.


title: Homeland (season 4)

text: According to media reports, Pakistani officials were unhappy over the depiction of Pakistan in the fourth season. Nadeem Hotiana, spokesperson of Pakistan Embassy, said, "Maligning a country that has been a close partner and ally of the US is a disservice not only to the security interests of the US, but also to the people of the US." A source was quoted as saying, "Islamabad is a quiet, picturesque city with beautiful mountains and lush greenery. In "Homeland", it’s portrayed as a grimy hellhole and war zone where shootouts and bombs go off with dead bodies scattered around. Nothing is further from the truth." The alleged Islamabad scenes were filmed in Cape Town, South Africa. The officials also lashed out at "absurd" portrayal of terrorist treatment in Pakistan, saying, "Repeated insinuations that an intelligence agency of Pakistan is complicit in protecting the terrorists at the expense of innocent Pakistani civilians is not only absurd but also an insult to the ultimate sacrifices of the thousands of Pakistani security personnel in the war against terrorism."


title: Roman imperial cult

text: The Roman imperial cult identified emperors and some members of their families with the divinely sanctioned authority ("auctoritas") of the Roman State. Its framework was based on Roman and Greek precedents, and was formulated during the early Principate of Augustus. It was rapidly established throughout the Empire and its provinces, with marked local variations in its reception and expression.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: Augustus's reforms transformed Rome's Republican system of government to a "de facto" monarchy, couched in traditional Roman practices and Republican values. The "princeps" (emperor) was expected to balance the interests of the Roman military, Senate and people, and to maintain peace, security and prosperity throughout an ethnically diverse empire. The official offer of "cultus" to a living emperor acknowledged his office and rule as divinely approved and constitutional: his Principate should therefore demonstrate pious respect for traditional Republican deities and mores.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: A deceased emperor held worthy of the honor could be voted a state divinity ("divus", plural "divi") by the Senate and elevated as such in an act of apotheosis. The granting of apotheosis served religious, political and moral judgment on Imperial rulers and allowed living emperors to associate themselves with a well-regarded lineage of Imperial "divi" from which unpopular or unworthy predecessors were excluded. This proved a useful instrument to Vespasian in his establishment of the Flavian Imperial Dynasty following the death of Nero and civil war, and to Septimius in his consolidation of the Severan dynasty after the assassination of Commodus.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: The imperial cult was inseparable from that of Rome's official deities, whose cult was essential to Rome's survival and whose neglect was therefore treasonous. Traditional cult was a focus of Imperial revivalist legislation under Decius and Diocletian. It therefore became a focus of theological and political debate during the ascendancy of Christianity under Constantine I. The emperor Julian failed to reverse the declining support for Rome's official religious practices: Theodosius I adopted Christianity as Rome's state religion. Rome's traditional gods and imperial cult were officially abandoned. However, many of the rites, practices and status distinctions that characterized the cult to emperors were perpetuated in the theology and politics of the Christianized Empire.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: For five centuries, the Roman Republic did not give worship to any historic figure, or any living man, although surrounded by divine and semi-divine monarchies. Rome's legendary kings had been its masters; with their removal, Republican Romans could identify Romulus, the founder of the city, with the god Quirinus and still retain Republican liberty. Similarly, Rome's ancestor-hero Aeneas was worshipped as Jupiter Indiges. The Romans worshipped several gods and demi-gods who had been human, and knew the theory that all the gods had originated as human beings, yet Republican traditions "(mos maiorum)" were staunchly conservative and anti-monarchic. The aristocrats who held almost all Roman magistracies, and thereby occupied almost all of the Senate, acknowledged no human as their inherent superior. No citizen, living or dead, was officially regarded as divine, but the honors awarded by the state—crowns, garlands, statues, thrones, processions—were also suitable to the gods, and tinged with divinity; indeed, when the emperors were later given state worship, it was done by a decree of the Senate, phrased like any other honor.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: Among the highest of honors was the triumph. When a general was acclaimed "imperator" by his troops, the Senate would then choose whether to award him a triumph, a parade to the Capitol in which the "triumphator" displayed his captives and spoils of war in the company of his troops; by law, all were unarmed. The triumphator rode in a chariot, bearing divine emblems, in a manner supposed to be inherited from the ancient kings of Rome, and ended by dedicating his victory to Jupiter Capitolinus. Some scholars have viewed the triumphator as impersonating or even becoming a king or a god (or both) for the day but the circumstances of triumphal award and subsequent rites also functioned to limit his status. Whatever his personal ambitions, his victory and his triumph alike served the Roman Senate, people, and gods and were recognised only through their consent.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: In private life, however, tradition required that some human beings be treated as more or less divine; cult was due from familial inferiors to their superiors. Every head of household embodied the "genius" – the generative principle and guardian spirit – of his ancestors, which others might worship and by which his family and slaves took oaths; his wife had a juno. A client could call his patron "Jupiter on earth". The dead, collectively and individually, were gods of the underworld or afterlife ("Manes"). A letter has survived from Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, expecting that when she was dead, her sons would venerate her as "deus parens", a parental (or a nurturing) divinity; such piety was expected from any dutiful son.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: A prominent clan might claim divine influence and quasi-divine honors for its leader. Death masks ("imagines") were made for all notable Romans and were displayed in the "atria" of their houses; they were used to represent their ghostly presence at family funerals. The mask of Scipio Africanus, Cornelia's father and victor over Hannibal, was stored in the temple of Jupiter; his epitaph (by Ennius) said that he had ascended to Heaven. A tradition arose in the centuries after his death that Africanus had been inspired by prophetic dreams, and was himself the son of Jupiter.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: There are several cases of unofficial cult directed at men viewed as saviors, military or political. In Further Spain in the 70s BC, loyalist Romans greeted the proconsul Metellus Pius as a savior, burning incense "as if to a god" for his efforts to quash the Lusitanian rebellion led by the Roman Sertorius, a member of the faction which called itself "men of the People" ("populares"). This celebration, in Spain, featured a lavish banquet with local and imported delicacies, and a mechanical statue of Victory to crown Metellus, who wore (extralegally) a triumphator's "toga picta" for the occasion. These festivities were organized by the quaestor Gaius Urbinus, but were not acts of the state. Metellus liked all this, but his older and pious ("veteres et sanctos") contemporaries thought it arrogant and intolerable. After the land reformers Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus were both murdered by their opponents, their supporters "fell down" and offered daily sacrifice at the statues of the Gracchi "as though they were visiting the shrines of the gods". After Gaius Marius defeated the Teutones, private citizens would offer food and drink to him alongside their household gods; he was called the third founder of Rome after Romulus and Camillus. In 86 BC, offerings of incense and wine were made at crossroad shrines to statues of the still-living Marius Gratidianus, the nephew of the elder Marius, who was wildly popular in his own right, in large part for monetary reforms that eased an economic crisis in Rome during his praetorship.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: When the Romans began to dominate large parts of the Greek world, Rome's senior representatives there were given the same divine honours as were Hellenistic rulers. This was a well-established method for Greek city-states to declare their allegiance to an outside power; such a cult committed the city to obey and respect the king as they obeyed and respected Apollo or any of the other gods.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: The cities of Ionia worshipped the Spartan general Lysander, when he personally dominated Greece, immediately following the Peloponnesian War; according to Plutarch, this was the first instance of ruler cult in Greek history. There were similar instances of divine cult to humans in the same century, although some rulers, like Agesilaus, declined it. Clearchus, tyrant of Heraclea, dressed up like Zeus and claimed godhood; this did not stop the Heracleots from assassinating him. Isocrates said of Philip II of Macedon that after he conquered the Persian Empire, there would be nothing for him to attain but to become a god; the city of Amphipolis, and a private society at Athens, worshipped him even without this conquest; he himself set out his statue, dressed as a god, as the thirteenth of the Twelve Olympians.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: But it was Philip's son Alexander the Great who made the divinity of kings standard practice among the Greeks. The Egyptians accepted him as Pharaoh, and therefore divine, after he drove the Persians out of Egypt; other nations received him as their traditional divine or quasi-divine ruler as he acquired them. In 324 BC, he sent word to the Greek cities that they should also make him a god; they did so, with marked indifference, which did not stop them from rebelling when they heard of his death next year.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: His immediate successors, the Diadochi, offered sacrifices to Alexander, and made themselves gods even before they claimed to be kings; they put their own portraits on the coinage, whereas the Greeks had always reserved this for a god or for an emblem of the city. When the Athenians allied with Demetrius Poliorcetes, eighteen years after the deification of Alexander, they lodged him in the Parthenon with Athena, and sang a hymn extolling him as a present god who heard them, as the other gods did not.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: Euhemerus, a contemporary of Alexander, wrote a fictitious history of the world, which showed Zeus and the other established gods of Greece as mortal men, who had made themselves into gods in the same way; Ennius appears to have translated this into Latin some two centuries later, in Scipio Africanus' time.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: The Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucids claimed godhood as long as they lasted; they may have been influenced in this by the Persian and Egyptian traditions of divine kings – although the Ptolemies had separate cults in Egyptian polytheism, as Pharaoh, and in the Greek. Not all Greek dynasties made the same claims; the descendants of Demetrius, who were kings of Macedon and dominated the mainland of Greece, did not claim godhead or worship Alexander (cf. Ptolemaic cult of Alexander the Great).


title: Roman imperial cult

text: The Roman magistrates who conquered the Greek world were fitted into this tradition; games were set up in honor of M. Claudius Marcellus, when he conquered Sicily at the end of the Second Punic War, as the Olympian games were for Zeus; they were kept up for a century and a half until another Roman governor abolished them, to make way for his own honors. When T. Quinctius Flamininus extended Roman influence to Greece proper, temples were built for him and cities placed his portrait on their coinage; he called himself godlike ("isotheos") in an inscription at Delphi – but not in Latin, or at Rome. The Greeks also devised a goddess Roma, not worshipped at Rome, who was worshipped with Flamininus (their joint cult is attested in 195 BC); she would become a symbol of idealised "romanitas" in the later Roman provinces, and a continuing link, whereas a Marcellus or Flamininus might only hold power for a couple years.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: When King Prusias I of Bithynia was granted an interview by the Roman Senate, he prostrated himself and addressed them as "Saviour Gods", which would have been etiquette at his own court; Livy was shocked by Polybius' account of this, and insists that there is no Roman source it ever happened.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: Worship and temples appear to have been routinely offered by Greeks to their Roman governors, with varied reactions. Cicero declined a temple proposed by the city officials of Roman Asia to his brother and himself, while the latter was proconsul, to avoid jealousy from other Romans; when Cicero himself was Governor of Cilicia, he claimed to have accepted no statues, shrines, or chariots. His predecessor, Appius Claudius Pulcher, was so pleased, however, when the Cilicians built a temple to him that, when it was not finished at the end of Claudius' year in office, Claudius wrote Cicero to make sure it was done, and complaining that Cicero was not active enough in the matter.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: The Romans and the Greeks gave religious reverence to and for human beings in ways that did not make the recipients gods; these made the first Greek apotheoses easier. Similar middle forms appeared as Augustus approached official divinity.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: The Greeks did not consider the dead to be gods, but they did pay them homage and gave them sacrifices, using different rituals than those for the gods of Olympus. The Greeks called the extraordinary dead – founders of cities and the like – heroes; in the simplest form, Greek hero cult was the burial and the memorials which any respectable Greek family gave their dead, but paid for by their City in perpetuity. Most heroes were the figures of ancient legend, but some were historical: the Athenians revered Harmodius and Aristogeiton as heroes, as saviours of Athens from tyranny; also, collectively, those who fell at the Battle of Marathon. Statesmen did not generally become heroes, but Sophocles was the hero Dexion ("the Receiver") – not as a playwright, nor a general, but because when the Athenians took Asclepius' cult during the Peloponnesian War, Sophocles housed an image of Asclepius until a shrine could be built. The Athenian leader Hagnon founded Amphipolis shortly before the Peloponnesian War; thirteen years later, while Hagnon was still alive, the Spartan general Brasidas liberated it from the Athenian Empire, and was fatally wounded in the process. The Amphipolitans buried him as a hero, declaring him the second founder of the city, and erased Hagnon's honors as much as they could.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: The Greeks also honored founders of cities while they were still alive, like Hagnon. This could also be extended to men who did equally important things; during the period when Dion ruled in Syracuse, the Syracusans gave him "heroic honors" for suppressing the tyrants, and repeated this for Timoleon; these could also be described as worshipping his good spirit ("agathos daimon", agathodaemon; every Greek had an agathodaemon, and the Greek equivalent of a toast was offered to one's agathodaemon). Timoleon was called "savior"; he set up a shrine to Fortune ("Automatia") in his house; and his birthday, the festival of his "daimon", became a public holiday.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: Other men might claim divine favor by having a patron among the gods; so Alcibiades may have had both Eros and Cybele as patrons; and Clearchus of Heraclea claimed to be "son of Zeus". Alexander claimed the patronage of Dionysus and other gods and heroes; he held a banquet at Bactra which combined the toast to his "agathos daimon" and libations to Dionysus, who was present within Alexander (and therefore the celebrants saluted Alexander rather than the hearth and altar, as they would have done for a toast).


title: Roman imperial cult

text: It was not always easy to distinguish between heroic honors, veneration for a man's good spirit, worship of his patron deity, worship of the Fortune of a city he founded, and worship of the man himself. One might slide into another: In Egypt, there was a cult of Alexander as god and as founder of Alexandria; Ptolemy I Soter had a separate cult as founder of Ptolemais, which presumably worshipped his "daimon" and then gave him heroic honors, but in his son's reign, the priests of Alexander also worshipped Ptolemy and Berenice as the Savior Gods ("theoi soteres").


title: Roman imperial cult

text: Finally, a man might, like Philip II, assume some prerogatives of godhood and not others. The first Attalid kings of Pergamum, were not gods, and supported a cult of Dionysus Cathegemon, as their ancestor; they put the picture of Philetaerus, the first prince, on the coins, rather than their own. Eventually, like the Seleucids, they acquired an eponymous priest, and put themselves on the coinage; but they still were not called gods before their deaths. Pergamum was usually allied with Rome, and this may have influenced the eventual Roman practice.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: In the last decades of the Roman Republic, its leaders regularly assumed extra-constitutional powers. The "mos majorum" had required that magistrates hold office collectively, and for short periods; there were two consuls; even colonies were founded by boards of three men; but these new leaders held power by themselves, and often for years.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: The same men were often given extraordinary honors. Triumphs grew ever more splendid; Marius and Sulla, the rival leaders in Rome's first civil war, each founded cities, which they named after themselves; Sulla had annual games in his honor, at Rome itself, bearing his name; the unofficial worship of Marius is above. In the next generation, Pompey was allowed to wear his triumphal ornaments whenever he went to the Games at the Circus. Such men also claimed a special relationship to the gods: Sulla's patron was Venus Felix, and at the height of his power, he added Felix to his own name; his opponent Marius believed he had a destiny, and that no ordinary man might kill him. Pompey also claimed Venus' personal favour, and built her a temple. But the first Roman to become a god, as part of aiming at monarchy, was Julius Caesar.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: Caesar could claim personal ties to the gods, both by descent and by office. He was from the "gens Julia", whose members contended to be descended from Aeneas and his mother Venus. In his eulogy for his aunt Julia, Caesar also indirectly claimed to be descended from Ancus Marcius and the kings of Rome, and so from Mars. Moreover, when he was a teenager, Marius had named him "flamen Dialis", the special priest of Jupiter. Sulla had cancelled this appointment; however, relatively early in his career, Caesar had become pontifex maximus, the chief priest of Rome, who fulfilled most of the religious duties of the ancient kings. He had spent his twenties in the divine monarchies of the eastern Mediterranean, and was intimately familiar with Bithynia.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: Caesar made use of these connections in his rise to power, but not more than his rivals would have, or more than his other advantages. When he spoke at the funeral of his aunt Julia in 69 BC, Julius Caesar spoke of her descent from the Roman kings, and implied his own; but he also reminded his audience she had been Marius' wife, and (by implication) that he was one of the few surviving Marians.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: When, however, he defeated his rivals, in 45 BC, and assumed full personal control of the Roman state, he asserted more. During the Roman Civil War, since 49 BC, he had returned to the Eastern Mediterranean, where he had been called god and savior, and been familiar with the Ptolemaic Egyptian monarchy of Cleopatra, called "Cleopatra Thea" because of the weight she placed on her own divinity. Also, he had a new Senate to deal with. Most of the more resolute defenders of the Senate had joined with Pompey, and – one way or another – they were not sitting in the Senate. Caesar had replaced them with his own partisans, few of whom were committed to the old Roman methods; some of them were not even from Italy. It was rumoured that Caesar intended a despotic removal of power and wealth from Rome eastwards, perhaps to Alexandria or Ilium (Troy).


title: Roman imperial cult

text: During the Civil War, he had declared Venus his patron goddess: he vowed to erect a temple for "Venus Victrix" if she granted him the battle of Pharsalia, but he had built it, in 46 BC, to "Venus Genetrix", which epithet combined her aspects as his ancestress, the mother of the Roman people, and the goddess invoked in the philosophical poem "De rerum natura". The new Senate had also put up a statue of Caesar, with an inscription declaring him a demi-god, but he had it effaced, as not the claim he wished to make. Granted the same extension of rights to triumphal dress as Pompey had been given, Caesar took to wearing his triumphal head-wreath "wherever and whenever", excusing this as a cover for his baldness. He may also have publicly worn the red boots and the "toga picta" ("painted", purple toga) usually reserved to a triumphing general for the day of his triumph; a costume also associated with the "rex sacrorum" (the priestly "king of the sacred rites" of Rome's monarchic era, later the "pontifex maximus"), the "Monte Albano" kings, and possibly the statue of "Jupiter Capitolinus".


title: Roman imperial cult

text: When the news of his final victory, at the battle of Munda, reached Rome, the Parilia, the games commemorating the founding of the city, were to be held the next day; they were rededicated to Caesar, as if he were founder. Statues were set up to "Caesar's Liberty", and to Caesar himself, as "unconquered god." He was accorded a house at public expense which was built like a temple; his image was paraded with those of the gods; his portrait was put on the coins (the first time a living man had appeared on Roman coinage). Early in 44 BC, he was called "parens patriae" (father of the fatherland); legal oaths were taken by his Genius; his birthday was made a public festival; the month Quinctilis was renamed July, in his honor (as June was named for Juno). At last a special priest, a flamen, was ordained for him; the first was to be Mark Antony, Caesar's adjutant, then consul. To be served by a flamen would rank Caesar not only as divine, but as an equal of Quirinus, Jupiter, and Mars. In Cicero's hostile account, the living Caesar's honours in Rome were already and unambiguously those of a full-blown god ("deus").


title: Roman imperial cult

text: Caesar's name as a living divinity – not as yet ratified by senatorial vote – was "Divus Julius" (or perhaps "Jupiter Julius"); "divus", at that time, was a slightly archaic form of "deus", suitable for poetry, implying some association with the bright heavens. A statue of him was erected next to the statues of Rome's ancient kings: with this, he seemed set to make himself King of Rome, in the Hellenistic style, as soon as he came back from the expedition to Parthia he was planning; but he was betrayed and killed in the Senate on 15 March 44 BC.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: An angry, grief-stricken crowd gathered in the Roman Forum to see his corpse and hear Mark Antony's funeral oration. Antony appealed to Caesar's divinity and vowed vengeance on his killers. A fervent popular cult to "divus Julius" followed. It was forcefully suppressed but the Senate soon succumbed to Caesarian pressure and confirmed Caesar as a "divus" of the Roman state. A comet interpreted as Caesar's soul in heaven was named the "Julian star" ("sidus Iulium") and in 42 BC, with the "full consent of the Senate and people of Rome", Caesar's young heir, his great-nephew Octavian, held ceremonial apotheosis for his adoptive father. In 40 BC Antony took up his appointment as "flamen" of the "divus Julius". Provincial cult centres ("caesarea") to the "divus" Julius were founded in Caesarian colonies such as Corinth. Antony's loyalty to his late patron did not extend to Caesar's heir: but in the last significant act of the long-drawn civil war, on 1 August 31 BC, Octavian defeated Antony at Actium.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: In 30/29 BC, the "koina" of Asia and Bithynia requested permission to worship Octavian as their "deliverer" or "saviour". This was by no means a novel request but it placed Octavian in a difficult position. He must satisfy popularist and traditionalist expectations and these could be notoriously incompatible. Marius Gratidianus's popular support and cult had ended in his public and spectacular death in 82 BC, at the hands of his enemies in the Senate; likewise Caesar's murder now marked an hubristic connection between living divinity and death. Octavian had to respect the overtures of his Eastern allies, acknowledge the nature and intent of Hellenic honours and formalise his own pre-eminence among any possible rivals: he must also avoid a potentially fatal identification in Rome as a monarchic-deistic aspirant. It was decided that cult honours to him could be jointly offered to "dea Roma", at cult centres to be built at Pergamum and Nicomedia. Provincials who were also Roman citizens were not to worship the living emperor, but might worship "dea Roma" and the "divus Julius" at precincts in Ephesus and Nicaea.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: In 29 BC Octavian dedicated the temple of the "divus Julius" at the site of Caesar's cremation. Not only had he dutifully, legally and officially honoured his adoptive father as a "divus" of the Roman state. He "had come into being" through the Julian star and was therefore the "divi filius" (son of the divinity). But where Caesar had failed, Octavian had succeeded: he had restored the "pax deorum" (lit. peace of the gods) and re-founded Rome through "August augury". In 27 BC he was voted – and accepted – the elevated title of "Augustus".


title: Roman imperial cult

text: Augustus appeared to claim nothing for himself, and innovate nothing: even the cult to the "divus" Julius had a respectable antecedent in the traditional cult to "di parentes". His unique – and still traditional – position within the Senate as "princeps" or "primus inter pares" (first among equals) offered a curb to the ambitions and rivalries that had led to the recent civil wars. As censor and "pontifex maximus" he was morally obliged to renew the "mos maiores" by the will of the gods and the "Senate and People of Rome" ("senatus populusque romanus"). As tribune he encouraged generous public spending, and as "princeps" of the Senate he discouraged ambitious extravagance. He disbanded the remnants of the civil war armies to form new legions and a personal imperial guard (the Praetorian Guard): the patricians who still clung to the upper echelons of political, military and priestly power were gradually replaced from a vast, Empire-wide reserve of ambitious and talented equestrians. For the first time, senatorial status became heritable.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: Ordinary citizens could circumvent the complex, hierarchic bureaucracy of the State, and appeal directly to the emperor, as if to a private citizen. The emperor's name and image were ubiquitous – on state coinage and on the streets, within and upon the temples of the gods, and particularly in the courts and offices of the civil and military administration. Oaths were sworn in his name, with his image as witness. His official "res gestae" (achievements) included his repair of 82 temples in 28 BC alone, the founding or repair of 14 others in Rome during his lifetime and the overhauling or foundation of civic amenities including a new road, water supplies, Senate house and theatres. Above all, his military pre-eminence had brought an enduring and sacred peace, which earned him the permanent title of "imperator" and made the triumph an Imperial privilege. He seems to have managed all this within due process of law through a combination of personal brio, cheerfully veiled threats and self-deprecation as "just another senator".


title: Roman imperial cult

text: In Rome, it was enough that the office, munificence, "auctoritas" and "gens" of Augustus were identified with every possible legal, religious and social institution of the city. Should "foreigners" or private citizens wish to honour him as something more, that was their prerogative, within moderation; his acknowledgment of their loyalty demonstrated his own moral responsibility and generosity; "his" Imperial revenue funded temples, amphitheatres, theatres, baths, festivals and government. This unitary principle laid the foundations for what is now known as "imperial cult", which would be expressed in many different forms and emphases throughout the multicultural Empire.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: In the Eastern provinces, cultural precedent ensured a rapid and geographically widespread dissemination of cult, extending as far as the Augustan military settlement at modern-day Najran. Considered as a whole, these provinces present the Empire's broadest and most complex syntheses of imperial and native cult, funded through private and public initiatives and ranging from the god-like honours due a living patron to what Harland (2003) interprets as privately funded communal mystery rites. The Greek cities of Roman Asia competed for the privilege of building high-status imperial cult centres (neocorates). Ephesus and Sardis, ancient rivals, had two apiece until the early 3rd century AD, when Ephesus was allowed an additional temple, to the reigning emperor Caracalla. When he died, the city lost its brief, celebrated advantage through a religious technicality.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: The Eastern provinces offer some of the clearest material evidence for the imperial "domus" and "familia" as official models of divine virtue and moral propriety. Centres including Pergamum, Lesbos and Cyprus offered cult honours to Augustus and the Empress Livia: the Cypriot Calendar honoured the entire Augustan "familia" by dedicating a month each (and presumably cult practise) to imperial family members, their ancestral deities and some of the major gods of the Romano-Greek pantheon. Coin evidence links "Thea" Livia with Hera and Demeter, and Julia the Elder with Venus Genetrix (Aphrodite). In Athens, Livia and Julia shared cult honour with Hestia (equivalent to Vesta), and the name of Gaius was linked to Ares (Mars). These Eastern connections were made within Augustus' lifetime – Livia was not officially consecrated in Rome until some time after her death. Eastern imperial cult had a life of its own. Around 280, in the reign of the emperor Probus and just before the outbreak of the Diocletianic persecution, part of the Luxor Temple was converted to an imperial cult chapel.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: The Western provinces were only recently "Latinised" following Caesar's Gallic Wars and most fell outside the Graeco-Roman cultural ambit. There were exceptions: Polybius mentions a past benefactor of New Carthage in Republican Iberia "said to have been offered divine honours". In 74 BC, Roman citizens in Iberia burned incense to Metellus Pius as "more than mortal" in hope of his victory against Sertorius. Otherwise, the West offered no native traditions of monarchic divinity or political parallels to the Greek "koina" to absorb the imperial cult as a romanising agency. The Western provincial "concilia" emerged as direct creations of the imperial cult, which recruited existing local military, political and religious traditions to a Roman model. This required only the willingness of barbarian elites to "Romanise" themselves and their communities.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: The first known Western regional cults to Augustus were established with his permission around 19 BC in north-western ("Celtic") Spain and named "arae sestianae" after their military founder, L. Sestius Quirinalis Albinianus. Soon after, in either 12 BC or 10 BC, the first provincial imperial cult centre in the West was founded at Lugdunum by Drusus, as a focus for his new tripartite administrative division of Gallia Comata. Lugdunum set the type for official Western cult as a form of Roman-provincial identity, parceled into the establishment of military-administrative centres. These were strategically located within the unstable, "barbarian" Western provinces of the new Principate and inaugurated by military commanders who were – in all but one instance – members of the imperial family.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: The first priest of the Ara (altar) at Lugdunum's great imperial cult complex was Caius Julius Vercondaridubnus, a Gaul of the provincial elite, given Roman citizenship and entitled by his priestly office to participate in the local government of his provincial "concilium". Though not leading to senatorial status, and almost certainly an annually elected office (unlike the traditional lifetime priesthoods of Roman "flamines"), priesthood in imperial provinces thus offered a provincial equivalent to the traditional Roman "cursus honorum". The rejection of cult spurned "romanitas", priesthood and citizenship; in 9 AD Segimundus, imperial cult priest of what would later be known as Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium (sited at modern Cologne in Germany) cast off or destroyed his priestly regalia to join the rebellion of his kinsman Arminius.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: In the early Principate, an altar inscribed "Marazgu Aug(usto) Sac(rum)" ("Dedicated to Marazgu Augustus"), identifies a local Ancient Libyan (Berber) deity with the supreme power of Augustus. In the senatorial province of Africa Proconsularis, altars to the "Dii Magifie Augusti" attest (according to Potter) a deity who was simultaneously local and universal, rather than one whose local identity was subsumed or absorbed by an Imperial "divus" or deity.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: Two temples are attested to Roma and the divus Augustus – one dedicated under Tiberius at Leptis Magna, and another (Julio-Claudian) at Mactar. A third at Carthage was dedicated to the "Gens Augusta" in the very early empire.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: Even as he prepared his adopted son Tiberius for the role of "princeps" and recommended him to the Senate as a worthy successor, Augustus seems to have doubted the propriety of dynastic "imperium"; this, however, was probably his only feasible course. When Augustus died, he was voted a "divus" by the Senate, and his body was cremated in a sumptuous funeral; his soul was said to have ascended to the heavens, to join his adoptive father among the Olympians; his ashes were deposited in the Imperial Mausoleum, which tactfully identified him (and later, his descendants) by his Imperial names, rather than as "divus". After Augustus, the only new cults to Roman officials are those connected to the Imperial household.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: On his death, the senate debated and passed a "lex de imperio" which voted Tiberius "princeps" through his "proven merit in office", and awarded him the honorific "Augustus" as name and title.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: Tiberius accepted his position and title as emperor with apparent reluctance. Though he proved a capable and efficient administrator, he could not match his predecessor's extraordinary energy and charisma. Roman historians described him as morose and mistrustful. With a self-deprecation that may have been entirely genuine, he encouraged the cult to his father, and discouraged his own. After much wrangling, he allowed a single temple in Smyrna to himself and the "genius" of the Senate in 26 AD; eleven cities had competed – with some vehemence and even violence – for the honour. His lack of personal "auctoritas" allowed increasing praetorian influence over the Imperial house, the senate and through it, the state. In 31 AD, his praetorian prefect Sejanus – by now a virtual co-ruler – was implicated in the death of Tiberius' son and heir apparent Drusus, and was executed as a public enemy. In Umbria, the imperial cult priest ("sevir Augustalis") memorialised "the providence of Tiberius Caesar Augustus, born for the eternity of the Roman name, upon the removal of that most pernicious enemy of the Roman people". In Crete, thanks were given to "the "numen" and foresight of Tiberius Caesar Augustus and the Senate" in foiling the conspiracy – but at his death, the senate and his heir Caligula chose not to officially deify him.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: Caligula's rule exposed the legal and moral contradictions of the Augustan "Republic". To legalise his succession, the Senate was compelled to constitutionally define his role, but the rites and sacrifices to the living "genius" of the emperor already acknowledged his constitutionally unlimited powers. The "princeps" played the role of "primus inter pares" only through personal self-restraint and decorum. It became evident that Caligula had little of either. He seems to have taken the cult of his own "genius" very seriously, and is said to have enjoyed acting the god – or rather, several of them. However, his infamous and oft-cited impersonations of major deities may represent no more than his priesthood of their cults, a desire to shock and a penchant for triumphal dress or simply mental illness. Whatever his plans, there is no evidence for his official cult as a living "divus" in Rome or his replacement of state gods, and none for major deviations or innovations in his provincial cult. His reported sexual relations with his sister Drusilla and her deification after death aroused scorn from later historians; after Caligula's death, her cult was simply allowed to fade. His reported extortion of priesthood fees from unwilling senators are marks of private cult and personal humiliations among the elite. Caligula's fatal offense was to willfully "insult or offend everyone who mattered", including the senior military officers who assassinated him. The histories of his reign highlight his wayward impiety. Perhaps not only his: in 40 AD the Senate decreed that the "emperor should sit on a high platform even in the very senate house". Claudius (his successor and uncle) intervened to limit the damage to the imperial house and those who had conspired against it, and had Caligula's public statues discreetly removed.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: Claudius was chosen emperor by Caligula's praetorians and consolidated his position with cash payments ("donativa") to the military. The senate were forced to ratify the choice and accept the affront. Claudius adopted the cognomen Caesar, deified Augustus' wife, Livia, 13 years after her death and in 42 AD was granted the title "pater patriae" (father of the fatherland) but relations between emperor and Senate seem to have been irreparable. Claudius showed none of Caligula's excesses. He seems to have entirely refused a cult to his own "genius": but the offer of cult simultaneously acknowledged the high status of those empowered to grant it and the extraordinary status of the "princeps" – Claudius' repeated refusals may have been interpreted as offensive to Senate, provincials and the imperial office itself. He further offended the traditional hierarchy by promoting his own trusted freedmen as imperial procurators: those closest to the emperor held high status through their proximity.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: It has been assumed that he allowed a single temple for his cult in Britain, following his conquest there. The temple is certain – it was sited at Camulodunum (modern Colchester), the main "colonia" in the province, and was a focus of British wrath during the Boudiccan revolt of 60 AD. But cult to the living Claudius there is very unlikely: he had already refused Alexandrine cult honours as "vulgar" and impious and cult to living emperors was associated with "arae" (altars), not temples. The British worship offered him as a living "divus" is probably no more than a cruel literary judgment on his worth as emperor. Despite his evident respect for Republican norms he was not taken seriously by his own class, and in Seneca's fawning Neronian fiction, the Roman gods cannot take him seriously as a "divus" – the wild British might be more gullible. In reality, they proved resentful enough to rebel, though probably less against the Claudian "divus" than against brutal abuses and the financial burden represented by its temple.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: Claudius died in 54 AD and was deified by his adopted son and successor Nero. After an apparently magnificent funeral, the "divus" Claudius was given a temple on Rome's disreputable Mons Caelius. Fishwick remarks that "the malicious humour of the site can hardly have been lost by those in the know... the location of Claudius' temple in Britain (the occasion for his "pathetic triumph") may be more of the same".


title: Roman imperial cult

text: Once in power, Nero allowed Claudius' cult to lapse, built his Domus Aurea over the unfinished temple, indulged his sybaritic and artistic inclinations and allowed the cult of his own "genius" as "paterfamilias" of the Roman people. Senatorial attitudes to him appear to have been largely negative. He was overthrown in a military coup, and his institutions of cult to his dead wife Poppaea and infant daughter Claudia Augusta were abandoned. Otherwise, he seems to have been a popular emperor, particularly in the Eastern provinces. Tacitus reports a senatorial proposal to dedicate a temple to Nero as a living "divus", taken as ominous because "divine honours are not paid to an emperor till he has ceased to live among men".


title: Roman imperial cult

text: Nero's death saw the end of imperial tenure as a privilege of ancient Roman (patrician and senatorial) families. In a single chaotic year, power passed violently from one to another of four emperors. The first three promoted their own "genius" cult: the last two of these attempted Nero's restitution and promotion to "divus". The fourth, Vespasian – son of an equestrian from Reate – secured his Flavian dynasty through reversion to an Augustan form of principate and renewed the imperial cult of "divus Julius". Vespasian could not validate his reign in the same way as the previous Julio-Claudian dynasty, who could trace their lineage back to the divine ancestry of Julius Caesar. Without the ability to trace their origins to any Roman deity, the new Flavian dynasty under Vespasian had to establish a new standard of policy in order to rule over a people predisposed to the divine imperial cult tradition. Vespasian was respected for his "restoration" of Roman tradition and the Augustan modesty of his reign. He dedicated state cult to "genio populi Romani" (the "genius" of the Roman people), respected senatorial "Republican" values and repudiated Neronian practice by removing various festivals from the public calendars, which had (in Tacitus' unsparing assessment) become "foully sullied by the flattery of the times". He may have had the head of Nero's Colossus replaced or recut for its dedication (or rededication) to the sun god in 75 AD. Following the first Jewish Revolt and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD, he imposed the "didrachmon", formerly paid by Jews for their Temple's upkeep but now re-routed to Jupiter Capitolinus as victor over them "and their God". Jews who paid the tax were exempt from the cult to imperial state deities. Those who offered it however were ostracised from their own communities. Vespasian appears to have approached his own impending cult with dry humour – according to Suetonius, his last words were "puto deus fio" ("I think I'm turning into a god"). Vespasian's son Titus reigned for two successful years then died of natural causes. He was deified and replaced by his younger brother, Domitian.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: Within two weeks of accession, Domitian had restored the cult of the ruling emperor's "genius". He remains a controversial figure, described as one of the very few emperors to scandalously style himself a living "divus", as evidenced by the use of "master and god" ("dominus et deus") in imperial documents. However, there are no records of Domitian's personal use of the title, its use in official address or cult to him, its presence on his coinage or in the Arval Acts relating to his state cult. It occurs only in his later reign and was almost certainly initiated and used by his own procurators (who in the Claudian tradition were also his freedmen). Like any other "paterfamilias" and patron, Domitian was "master and god" to his extended "familia", including his slaves, freedmen and clients. Pliny's descriptions of sacrifice to Domitian on the Capitol are consistent with the entirely unremarkable "private and informal" rites accorded to living emperors. Domitian was a traditionalist, severe and repressive but respected by the military and the general populace. He admired Augustus and may have sought to emulate him, but made the same tactless error as Caligula in treating the Senate as clients and inferiors, rather than as the fictive equals required by Augustan ideology. His assassination was planned and implemented from within his court, and his name officially but rather unsystematically erased from inscriptions.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: The Senate chose the elderly, childless and apparently reluctant Nerva as emperor. Nerva had long-standing family and consular connections with the Julio-Claudian and Flavian families, but proved a dangerously mild and indecisive "princeps": he was persuaded to abdicate in favour of Trajan. Pliny the Younger's panegyric of 100 AD claims the visible restoration of senatorial authority and dignity throughout the empire under Trajan, but while he praises the emperor's modesty, Pliny does not disguise the precarious nature of this autocratic gift. Under Trajan's very capable civil and military leadership, the office of emperor was increasingly interpreted as an earthly viceregency of the divine order. He would prove an enduring model for Roman imperial virtues.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: The emperor Hadrian's Hispano-Roman origins and marked pro-Hellenism changed the focus of imperial cult. His standard coinage still identifies with the "genius populi Romani", but other issues stress his identification with "Hercules Gaditanus" (Hercules of Gades), and Rome's imperial protection of Greek civilisation. Commemorative coinage shows him "raising up" provincial deities (thus elevating and "restoring" the provinces); he promoted Sagalassos in Greek Pisidia as the Empire's leading imperial cult centre and in 131–2 AD he sponsored the exclusively Greek "Panhellenion". He was said to have "wept like a woman" at the death of his young lover Antinous, and arranged his apotheosis. Dio claims that Hadrian was held to ridicule for this emotional indulgence, particularly as he had delayed the apotheosis of his own sister Paulina after her death.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: The cult of Antinous would prove one of remarkable longevity and devotion, particularly in the Eastern provinces. Bithynia, as his birthplace, featured his image on coinage as late as the reign of Caracalla (r. 211–217). His popular cult appears to have thrived well into the 4th century, when he became the "whipping boy of pagan worship" in Christian polemic. Vout (2007) remarks his humble origins, untimely death and "resurrection" as "theos", and his identification – and sometimes misidentification by later scholarship – with the images and religious functions of Apollo, Dionysius/Bacchus, and later, Osiris. In Rome itself he was also "theos" on two of three surviving inscriptions but was more closely associated with hero-cult, which allowed direct appeals for his intercession with "higher gods". Hadrian imposed the imperial cult to himself and Jupiter on Judaea following the Bar Kokhba revolt. He was predeceased by his wife Vibia Sabina. Both were deified but Hadrian's case had to be pleaded by his successor Antoninus Pius.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: Marcus Aurelius' tutor Fronto offers the best evidence of imperial portraiture as a near-ubiquitous feature of private and public life. Though evidence for private emperor worship is as sparse in this era as in all others, Fronto's letters imply the "genius" cult of the living emperor as an official, domestic and personal practice, probably more common than cult to the "divi" in this and other periods.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: Marcus' son Commodus succumbed to the lures of self-indulgence, easy populism and rule by favourites. He described his reign as a "golden age", and himself as a new Romulus and "re-founder" of Rome, but was deeply antagonistic toward the Senate – he reversed the standard "Republican" imperial formula to "populus senatusque romanus" (the people and senate of Rome). He increasingly identified himself with the demigod Hercules in statuary, temples and in the arena, where he liked to entertain as a "bestiarius" in the morning and a gladiator in the afternoon. In the last year of his life he was voted the official title "Romanus Hercules"; the state cult to Hercules acknowledged him as heroic, a divinity or semi-divinity (but not a "divus") who had once been mortal. Commodus may have intended declaring himself as a living god some time before his murder on the last day of 192 AD.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: The Nervan-Antonine dynasty ended in chaos. The senate declared "damnatio memoriae" on Commodus, whose urban prefect Pertinax was declared emperor by the Praetorian Guard in return for the promise of very large donatives. Pertinax had risen through equestrian ranks by military talent and administrative efficiency to become senator, consul and finally and briefly emperor; he was murdered by his Praetorians for attempting to cap their pay. Pertinax was replaced by Didius Julianus, who had promised cash to the Praetorians and restoration of power to the Senate. Julianus began his reign with an ill-judged appeal to the memory of Commodus, a much resented attempt to bribe the populace "en masse" and the use of Praetorian force against them. In protest, a defiant urban crowd occupied the senatorial seats at the "Circus Maximus". Against a background of civil war among competing claimants in the provinces, Septimius Severus emerged as a likely victor. The Senate soon voted for the death of Julianus, the deification of Pertinax and the elevation of Septimius as emperor. Only a year had passed since the death of Commodus.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: "Sit divus dum non sit vivus" (let him be a "divus" as long as he is not alive). "Attributed to Caracalla, before murdering his co-emperor and brother Geta."


title: Roman imperial cult

text: In 193 AD, Septimius Severus triumphally entered Rome and gave apotheosis to Pertinax. He cancelled the Senate's "damnatio memoriae" of Commodus, deified him as a "frater" (brother) and thereby adopted Marcus Aurelius as his own ancestor through an act of filial piety. Severan coin images further re-enforced Septimius' association with prestigious Antonine dynasts and the "genius populi Romani".


title: Roman imperial cult

text: Septimius' reign represents a watershed in relations between Senate, emperors, and the military. Senatorial consent defined divine "imperium" as a Republican permission for the benefit of the Roman people, and apotheosis was a statement of senatorial powers. Where Vespasian had secured his position with appeals to the "genius" of the Senate and Augustan tradition, Septimius overrode the customary preferment of senators to senior military office. He increased plebeian privilege in Rome, stationed a loyal garrison there and selected his own commanders. He paid personal attention to the provinces, as sources of revenue, military manpower and unrest. Following his defeat of his rival Clodius Albinus at Lugdunum, he re-founded and reformed its imperial cult centre: "dea Roma" was removed from the altar and confined to the temple along with the deified Augusti. Fishwick interprets the obligatory new rites as those due any "paterfamilias" from his inferiors. Septimius' own patron deities, Melqart/Hercules and Liber/Bacchus, took pride of place with himself and his two sons at the Saecular Games of 204 AD. Septimius died of natural causes in 211 AD at Eboracum (modern York) while on campaign in Britannia, after leaving the Empire equally to Caracalla and his older brother Geta, along with advice to "be harmonious, enrich the soldiers, and scorn all other men."


title: Roman imperial cult

text: By 212 AD, Caracalla had murdered Geta, pronounced his "damnatio memoriae" and issued the "Constitutio Antoniniana": this gave full Roman citizenship to all free inhabitants of the Empire. and was couched as a generous invitation to celebrate the "victory of the Roman people" in foiling Geta's "conspiracy". In reality, Caracalla was faced by an endemic shortfall of cash and recruits. His "gift" was a far from popular move, as most of its recipients were "humiliores" of peasant status and occupation – approximately 90% of the total population. "Humiliores" they remained, but now liable to pay taxes, serve in the legions and adopt the name of their "liberator". Where other emperors had employed the "mos maiorum" of family obligation at the largely symbolic level of "genius" cult, Caracalla literally identified his personal survival with the state and "his" citizens. Caracalla inherited the devotion of his father's soldiery but his new citizens were not inclined to celebrate and his attempts to court popularity in Commodan style seem to have misfired. In Philostratus' estimation, his embrace of Empire foundered on his grudging, parochial mindset. He was assassinated in 217 AD, with the possible collusion of his praetorian prefect Macrinus.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: The military hailed Macrinus as "imperator", and he arranged for the apotheosis of Caracalla. Aware of the impropriety of his unprecedented leap through the traditional "cursus honorum" from equestrian to emperor, he respectfully sought senatorial approval for his "self-nomination". It was granted – the new emperor had a lawyer's approach to "imperium" but his foreign policy proved too cautious and placatory for the military. After little more than a year, he was murdered in a coup and replaced with an emperor of Syrian background and Severan descent, Varius Avitus Bassianus, more usually known by the Latinised name of his god and his priesthood, Elagabalus.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: The 14-year-old emperor brought his solar-mountain deity from his native Emesa to Rome and into official imperial cult. In Syria, the cult of Elagabalus was popular and well established. In Rome, it was a foreign and (according to some ancient sources) disgusting Eastern novelty. In 220 AD, the priest Elagabalus replaced Jupiter with the god Elagabalus as "sol invictus" (the unconquered Sun) and thereafter neglected his Imperial role as "pontifex maximus". According to Marius Maximus, he ruled from his degenerate "domus" through prefects who included among others a charioteer, a locksmith, a barber, and a cook. At the very least, he appears to have been regarded as an unacceptably effete eccentric by the Senate and military alike. He was assassinated by the Praetorians at the age of 18, subjected to the fullest indignities of "damnatio memoriae" and replaced with his young cousin Alexander Severus, the last of his dynasty, who reigned for 13 years until killed in a mutiny.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: "This section provides an overview of developments most relevant to cult: for a full listing of emperors by name and date, see List of Roman Emperors."


title: Roman imperial cult

text: The end of the Severan dynasty marked the breakdown of central "imperium". Against a background of economic hyperinflation and latterly, endemic plague, rival provincial claimants fought for supremacy and failing this, set up their own provincial Empires. Most emperors seldom even saw Rome, and had only notional relationships with their senates. In the absence of coordinated Imperial military response, foreign peoples seized the opportunity for invasion and plunder.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: Maximinus Thrax (reigned 235–8 AD) sequestered the resources of state temples in Rome to pay his armies. The temples of the "divi" were first in line. It was an unwise move for his own posterity, as the grant or withholding of apotheosis remained an official judgment of Imperial worthiness, but the stripping of the temples of state gods caused far greater offense. Maximinus's actions more likely show need in extreme crisis than impiety, as he had his wife deified on her death but in a rare display of defiance the senate deified his murdered predecessor, then openly rebelled. His replacement, Gordian I, reigned briefly but successfully and was made a "divus" on his death. A succession of short-lived soldier-emperors followed. Further development in imperial cult appears to have stalled until Philip the Arab, who dedicated a statue to his father as divine in his home town of Philippopolis and brought the body of his young predecessor Gordian III to Rome for apotheosis. Coins of Philip show him in the radiate solar crown (suggestive of solar cult or a hellenised form of imperial monarchy), with Rome's temple to Venus and "dea Roma" on the reverse.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: In 249 AD, Philip was succeeded (or murdered and usurped) by his praetorian prefect Decius, a traditionalist ex-consul and governor. After an accession of doubtful validity, Decius justified himself as rightful "restorer and saviour" of Empire and its "religio": early in his reign he issued a coin series of imperial "divi" in radiate (solar) crowns. Philip, the three Gordians, Pertinax and Claudius were omitted, presumably because Decius thought them unworthy of the honour. In the wake of religious riots in Egypt, he decreed that all subjects of the Empire must actively seek to benefit the state through witnessed and certified sacrifice to "ancestral gods" or suffer a penalty: sacrifice on Rome's behalf by loyal subjects would define them and their gods as Roman. Only Jews were exempt from this obligation. The Decian edict required that refusal of sacrifice be tried and punished at proconsular level. Apostasy was sought, rather than capital punishment. A year after its due deadline, the edict was allowed to expire and shortly after this, Decius himself died.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: Valerian (253–60) identified Christianity as the largest, most stubbornly self-interested of non-Roman cults, outlawed Christian assembly and urged Christians to sacrifice to Rome's traditional gods. His son and co-Augustus Gallienus, an initiate of the Eleusinian Mysteries, identified himself with traditional Roman gods and the virtue of military loyalty. Aurelian (270–75) appealed for harmony among his soldiers ("concordia militum"), stabilised the Empire and its borders and established an official, Hellenic form of unitary cult to the Palmyrene "Sol Invictus" in Rome's Campus Martius. The senate hailed him as "restitutor orbis" (restorer of the world) and "deus et dominus natus" (god and born ruler); he was murdered by his Praetorians. His immediate successors consolidated his achievements: coinage of Probus (276–82) shows him in radiate solar crown, and his prolific variety of coin types include issues showing the temple of Venus and "Dea Roma" in Rome.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: These policies and preoccupations culminated in Diocletian's Tetrarchy: the empire was divided into Western and Eastern administrative blocs, each with an Augustus (senior emperor), helped by a Caesar (junior emperor) as Augustus-in-waiting. Provinces were divided and subdivided: their imperial bureaucracy became extraordinary in size, scope and attention to detail. Diocletian was a religious conservative. On his accession in AD 284, he held games in honour of the "divus" Antinous. Where his predecessors had attempted the persuasion and coercion of recalcitrant sects, Diocletian launched a series of ferocious reactions known in Church history as the Great Persecution. According to Lactantius, this began with a report of ominous haruspicy in Diocletian's "domus" and a subsequent (but undated) dictat of placatory sacrifice by the entire military. A date of 302 is regarded as likely and Eusebius also says the persecutions of Christians began in the army. However Maximilian's martyrdom (295) came from his refusal of military service, and Marcellus' (298) for renouncing his military oath. Legally, these were military insurrections and Diocletian's edict may have followed these and similar acts of conscience and faith. An unknown number of Christians appear to have suffered the extreme and exemplary punishments traditionally reserved for rebels and traitors.


title: Roman imperial cult

text: Under Diocletian's expanded imperial "collegia", imperial honours distinguished both Augusti from their Caesares, and Diocletian (as senior Augustus) from his colleague Maximian. While the division of empire and "imperium" seemed to offer the possibility of a peaceful and well-prepared succession, its unity required the highest investiture of power and status in one man. An elaborate choreography of etiquette surrounded the approach to the imperial person and imperial progressions. The senior Augustus in particular was made a separate and unique being, accessible only through those closest to him.