page_title: Imperial cult of ancient Rome
section_title: Divus, deus and the numen
hierarchical_section_title: Imperial cult of ancient Rome / Context and precedents / Divus, deus and the numen
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Bauinschrift am Forum der Korporationen in Ostia Antica, CIL XIV, 04319, Latium, Italien ( CIL 14, 04319 = AE 1908, 00117 = AE 1908, +00184). Numini domus Augusti Victor et Hedistus vern(ae) disp(ensatores) cum Traiano Aug(usti) lib(erto) a(nni) X m(agistr)o
context_page_description: The Imperial cult of ancient Rome identified emperors and some members of their families with the divinely sanctioned authority 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.
  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 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.
  A deceased emperor held worthy of the honor could be voted a state divinity by the Senate and elevated as such in an act of apotheosis.
context_section_description: The divi had some form of precedent in the di parentes, divine ancestors who received ancestral rites as manes (gods of the underworld) during the Parentalia and other important domestic festivals. Their powers were limited; deceased mortals not normally possess the divine power (numen) of the higher gods. Deceased emperors did not automatically become divi; they must be nominated for the privilege. Their case was discussed by the senate, then put to the vote. As long as the correct rituals and sacrifice were offered, the divus would be received by the heavenly gods  as a coelicola (a dweller in heaven), a lesser being than themselves. Popular belief held that the divus Augustus would be personally welcomed by Jupiter. In Seneca's Apocolocyntosis, on the other hand, the unexpected arrival of the divinised Claudius creates a problem for the Olympians, who have no idea who or what he is; and when they find out, they cannot think what to do with him. Seneca's sarcastic wit, an unacceptable impiety towards a deus, freely portrays the divus Claudius as just a dead, ridiculous and possibly quite bad emperor. Though their images were sacrosanct and their rites definitively divine divi could be created, unmade, reinstated or simply forgotten. Augustus and Trajan appear to have remained the ideals for longer than any, and cult to "good" divi appears to have lasted well into the late Imperial dominate.
  The immense power of living emperors, on the other hand, was mediated through the encompassing agency of the state. Once acknowledged as paterfamilias to an Empire, a princeps was naturally entitled to genius cult from Imperial subjects of all classes. Cult to a living emperor's numen was quite another matter and might be interpreted as no less than a statement of divine monarchy. Imperial responses to the first overtures of cult to the August numen were therefore extremely cautious. Only much later, probably in consequence of the hyperinflation of honours to living Emperors, could a living emperor be openly, formally addressed as numen praesens (the numinous presence).
  The obscure relationship between deus, divus and numen in Imperial cult might simply reflect its origins as a pragmatic, respectful and somewhat evasive Imperial solution using broad terminology whose meanings varied according to context. For Beard et al., a practicable and universal Roman cult of deified emperors and others of the Imperial house must have hinged on the paradox that a mortal might, like the semi-divine "heroic" figures of Hercules, Aeneas and Romulus, possess or acquire sufficient measure of numen to rise above their mortal condition and be in the company of the gods, yet remain mortal in the eyes of Roman traditionalists.
caption: Dedicatory inscription (CIL 14.04319) to the "numen of the House of the Augustus", from Ostia Antica
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