Marcus Aurelius (head covered) sacrificing at the Temple of Jupiter
Practices and beliefs
libation
votum
temples
festivals
ludi
funerary practices
imperial cult
mystery religions
Priesthoods
Pontifices
Augures
Vestales
Flamines
Fetiales
Epulones
Fratres Arvales
Deities
Twelve major gods
Capitoline Triad
Aventine Triad
Underworld
indigitamenta
Agriculture
Birth
Deified leaders:
Julius Caesar
Augustus
Other deified persons:
Antinous
Related topics
Glossary of ancient Roman religion
Roman mythology
Ancient Greek religion
Etruscan religion
Gallo-Roman religion
Interpretatio Graeca
Decline
v
t
e
The Roman imperial cult (Latin: cultus imperatorius) 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.
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.
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.
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.
and 22 Related for: Roman imperial cult information
The Romanimperialcult (Latin: cultus imperatorius) identified emperors and some members of their families with the divinely sanctioned authority (auctoritas)...
An imperialcult is a form of state religion in which an emperor or a dynasty of emperors (or rulers of another title) are worshipped as demigods or deities...
state divinity (divus) by vote of the Senate. The Romanimperialcult, influenced by Hellenistic ruler cult, became one of the major ways Rome advertised...
the Roman empire, and Diodorus Siculus wrote that the religion was known throughout almost the whole inhabited world. Almost as famous was the cult of...
Roman Egypt was an imperial province of the Roman Empire from 30 BC to AD 641. The province encompassed most of modern-day Egypt except for the Sinai...
to Imperial priesthood gave them Roman citizenship. In an empire of great religious and cultural diversity, the Imperialcult offered a common Roman identity...
influenced by Hellenistic religion (notably neoplatonism) as well as the Romanimperialcult. Western Christianity is largely based on the Catholic Church's Latin...
is a theological concept in several religions. In the historical Romanimperialcult and today in Christianity, the gospel is a message about salvation...
tax were exempt from the obligation of making sacrifices to the Romanimperialcult). In 313, Constantine and Licinius issued the Edict of Milan giving...
and the Middle Ages, such as the Greco-Roman religions of the Roman Empire, including the Romanimperialcult, the various mystery religions, religions...
Romans themselves. For the cult pertaining to deified Roman emperors (divi), see Imperialcult. Certain honorifics and titles could be shared by different...
more strongly represented in the Isis cult than in most Greco-Romancults, and in imperial times, they could serve as priestesses in many of the same positions...
statues stopped. The deity Make-make was the chief god of the birdman cult. The cult declined after the island population adopted Catholicism, though the...
that while he may have embellished some of his accounts to justify Romanimperial conquest, it was "inherently unlikely" that he constructed a fictional...
snake. Many Roman altars found throughout the Western Roman Empire were dedicated to a particular genius loci. The Romanimperialcults of the Emperor...
Mithraism, also known as the Mithraic mysteries or the Cult of Mithras, was a Roman mystery religion centered on the god Mithras. Although inspired by...
festivals. Imperialcult continued to exist throughout Roman occupation of Cyprus, and a number of unique cults emerged from this transition to the Roman period...
were religious initiation rites performed in the cult of the Egyptian goddess Isis in the Greco-Roman world. They were modeled on other mystery rites,...
Machine). Kim, Tae Hun. "The Anarthrous υἱὸς θεοῦ in Mark 15,39 and the RomanImperialCult»". Biblical Studies on the Web. Archived from the original on 28...
arrival of the first German Protestant missionaries in 1845 was followed by Roman Catholic missionaries; conflict between Christian and Non-Christian tribals...
Global Information