Chapter 44. The Divine Emperor: Ruler Cult, State Religion and the Politics of Worship in Rome

The Roman Empire had no creed, but it did have a cult that every subject could be asked to perform. Between Augustus and Constantine the worship of the emperor, his Genius and his deified predecessors became the common language of loyalty from the Euphrates to Dacia. It sat beside the Capitoline gods and the imported deities of the East and did not replace them. This chapter follows that system from its Hellenistic roots through its organisation in the army and the provinces to Aurelian’s solar monotheism. It then turns to the conflict that arose when communities refused to take part. The scholarly picture comes chiefly from A. D. Nock, Miron Ciho and Adrian Bejan. The chapter closes with authors from the library’s alternative shelf: Comyns Beaumont on Jewish resistance to the cult of Augustus, and Michael Tsarion and Mehran Keshe, who in different ways see the Roman religious order surviving inside Christianity.

Hellenistic antecedents: from hero to “present god”

The Roman Republic, as the reference shelf summarises it, “did not give worship to any historic figure, or any living man” for five centuries. Its conservative, anti-monarchic mos maiorum acknowledged no citizen as divine, although triumphal honours, imagines and the household cult of the genius came close [Wikipedia: Roman imperial cult]. The Greek East had already gone further. Lysander was worshipped by the Ionian cities, and Alexander “made the divinity of kings standard practice among the Greeks”. In 324 BCE he asked the Greek cities to make him a god. The Athenians later lodged Demetrius Poliorcetes in the Parthenon and hymned him as “a present god who heard them, as the other gods did not” [Wikipedia: Roman imperial cult]. The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Greek Religion gives the whole question a closing chapter, Ivana Petrovic’s “Deification—Gods or Men?” [Eidinow & Kindt (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Greek Religion, #66316, ch. 29]. Its title states the ambiguity that ran through ruler cult from the beginning.

Ciho places the Egyptian line of this development in Ptolemaic Egypt. From the fourth century BCE, he writes, there developed “the idea of divine or semi-divine qualities of rulers, likened to gods (isotheoi), without however being considered gods”. He traces Hellenistic royal cult to oriental and especially Achaemenid influence and to the Greek practice of honouring city founders; Ptolemy I Soter, for example, received a founder’s cult at Ptolemais [Ciho, Civilizația Egiptului greco-roman, #18260, Cap. I]. When the Romans took over the Greek world they were fitted into this habit. Flamininus called himself isotheos at Delphi, though “not in Latin, or at Rome”, and the Greeks created a goddess Roma whose joint cult with Flamininus is attested in 195 BCE [Wikipedia: Roman imperial cult].

Augustus and the shared honours

Ciho states the Augustan settlement precisely: “The imperial cult was a continuation of the Ptolemaic dynastic cult, but with notable differences. Consequently the emperors of the first two centuries, in their great majority, accepted only with reservations the honours brought to their person as a divine power. Augustus accepted divine honours on condition that they were addressed at the same time to the goddess Roma” [Ciho, Civilizația Egiptului greco-roman, #18260, Cap. I, part 15]. In Egypt the cult nonetheless “developed rapidly”, and by 6 CE Augustus appears there as “Caesar, emperor, son of Zeus the liberator, Augustus” [Ciho, #18260, Cap. I]. Ciho also records that Rome kept Egyptian temples on a short leash. They had to file yearly registers of all priests and their property, the right of asylum was restricted, and no priestly synods are known from the imperial period [Ciho, #18260, Cap. I, part 5].

Nock describes the official policy as directed by the princeps “as pontifex Maximus, as member of all the priestly colleges, and as responsible for public morals and well-being”. Under the Julio-Claudians it “continued and reinforced mos maiorum… but could not change existing trends except by adding the new religious sentiment towards the princeps” [Nock, The Development of Paganism in the Roman Empire (CAH XII ch. 12), #60218, §II “Official Religion”]. Bejan presents the same development from the provincial side. Augustus “involved the imperial institution in the social-economic and cultural-religious life of the empire… placing imperial authority in connection with the authority of the gods”. Veneration of the dead emperor as divus grew until the emperor was considered a god “while still alive, and his family of divine origin”. Bejan reads the titles on inscriptions as a record of this growth, from dominus noster under Septimius Severus to Caracalla as felicissimus fortissimusque princeps [Bejan, Dacia Felix: Istoria Daciei romane, #377460, “Cultul imperial”].

The army’s calendar: the Feriale Duranum

The best single document for official cult in the army is the Feriale Duranum, a papyrus list of “days with prescribed offerings” found at Dura-Europos on the Euphrates. Nock reports that it “has been dated between 224/5 and 235, and with some probability in 225-7 A.D.”. It “records official religious practice, almost certainly that of the cohors XX Palmyrenorum”. Its holy days are “exclusively Roman, Imperial, or military” [Nock, The Roman Army and the Roman Religious Year, #60166, §I]. They fall into three groups:

Nock’s conclusions are cautious. The Feriale proves that “one military unit, and probably all military units, performed acts of worship not only on numerous Imperial anniversaries but also on various other festivals”. This was “the outcome of a special directive, probably due to Augustus”. Yet “we cannot suppose any deliberate purpose of Romanization by cult… Roman policy aimed at disciplina“, and “Roman troops showed a marked neutrality in the religious conflicts of the third and fourth centuries” [Nock, #60166, §VI “Conclusions”]. He grants “a marked preponderance of Imperial festivals over divine festivals”, but adds: “this does not mean that the Emperors outranked the gods” [Nock, #60166, §VI]. On the cult of the standards he allows “perhaps a certain analogy between the cult of the standards and the cult of the Emperor”. He cites a British dedication “to the Genius of our lord and of the standards”, and an oath from the cohort’s own archive: “at every command we shall be prepared to stand watch at the signa of our lord the emperor”. He still insists that neither standards nor rulers could be taken seriously as gods: “No honors could cause either to be taken seriously for what they were not” [Nock, #60166, §V and Appendix].

Provincial religion: Dacia as a case study

Bejan’s survey of Roman Dacia shows how the imperial cult worked inside a mixed provincial pantheon. Greco-Roman gods account for 73% of the province’s roughly 2,100 religious monuments, Mithras for 10%, Syro-Palestinian deities for almost 5%, Anatolian cults for 3.8%, Thraco-Moesian for 3.6% and Egyptian for almost 3%. Over 130 deities are attested in Dacia and Moesia Inferior [Bejan, Dacia Felix, #377460, religion section]. Bejan names two defining features, syncretism (Jupiter merged with the Thracian Zbelsurdos) and interpretatio romana (local gods worshipped as Silvanus, Liber and Libera, Diana or Hercules Invictus).

The imperial cult had its own network. A temple of the imperial house stood at Ulpia Traiana from Hadrian’s time, and inscriptions began “in honorem domus divinae”. The ordo augustalium, with its aedes augustalium and main altar at Ulpia Traiana, held its most lavish festival on 3 November. Flamines took the augustales’ role in smaller towns. Units ended their dedications with “devota numini maiestatique eius”, and gods themselves took imperial epithets (Apollo Augustus, Minerva Augusta). Bejan calls the worship of emperors as genii “an alliance of throne and altar”, in keeping with the view that “the gods are made to serve the state” [Bejan, #377460, “Cultul imperial”]. Jupiter Optimus Maximus appears in more than 250 Dacian inscriptions dedicated by magistrates, legionary commanders and soldiers. His cult “was celebrated on 3 January in the Roman camps”. Silvanus ranks third in votive inscriptions after Jupiter and Mithras, with about 100 known texts [Bejan, #377460, “Cultul lui Jupiter”, “Cultul lui Silvanus”].

The oriental cults arrived with soldiers and traders. Bejan describes Jupiter Dolichenus as the patron of soldiers. Of the god’s dedicants in Dacia, 14 were soldiers, 6 priests and 4 merchants, and the names break down as 26.7% Syrians, 11.7% Greeks and 6% Romans. Jupiter Heliopolitanus appears on altars at Micia and Sarmizegetusa. Bejan describes Mithras as “the only divinity of Persian origin” to have conquered the empire. In his account Mithras was “born in a cave on 25 December” and worshipped by shepherds, and the cult had seven grades of initiation open only to men. Some 50 Mithraic monuments are known from Oltenia, centred on Romula. Bejan further states that the Mithraic cult “had the greatest role in the formation of the Christian religion” before declining after 391 [Bejan, #377460, “Cultele orientale”]. These are Bejan’s statements; the sources on the Mithraic birthday tradition are compared in Chapters 25–26.

Sol Invictus and 25 December

Nock calls Aurelian’s solar reform “one innovation of the greatest importance”. Rome’s Republican cult of Sol “had faded, and the importance of Sol in the City is due to Aurelian, who on his return from Syria built the great temple of Sol Invictus, introduced the celebration of his birthday (natalis Invicti) on December 25, and established the college of pontifices Solis” [Nock, CAH XII ch. 12, #60218, §II “New Cults at Rome”]. Nock judges it “a creative act, like the Ptolemaic creation of the cult of Sarapis: it made what was potentially a ‘cosmopolitan religion’, and it gave a new concentration and emphasis to official piety”. Sol was prominent from then on. Nock traces the coins that led up to it: Commodus’s Herc. Commodiano, Jupiter exsuperantissimus, and types “on which Sol is the Imperial comrade” [Nock, #60218, “Coin Evidence”]. Under the Tetrarchy, dedications such as deo Soli invicto Mithrae fautori imperii sui at Carnuntum (probably 307) show solar and Mithraic piety tied directly to the throne [Nock, #60218]. Because 25 December later became the date of Christmas, the natalis Invicti is a central piece of evidence in the later controversy over Christian borrowing. Nock’s bibliography lists Usener’s Das Weihnachtsfest for that question [Nock, #60218, bibliography].

Absorbing gods, testing loyalty

Nock explains why Rome absorbed foreign gods so easily by looking at how its cult was organised. Apart from domestic cult, “Rome’s worships were the care of the State”, run by boards of the highest-ranking citizens; “no one other than the nobiles and a few paid subordinates had any real function in the worship of the great gods of the State”. In a crisis the governing class consulted the Sibylline Books and incorporated “one foreign cult after another in the worships of the State” under the quindecimviri. “The hellenization of a worship was cultural; the romanization of a cult was political” [Nock, #60218, §I]. In Rome’s case there was “no chance of a static equilibrium”. Augustus himself could not halt the change that wars, migrations, slaves and soldiers brought into the city [Nock, #60218, §I]. The same class “interfered repeatedly”, often citing fear of immorality in secret rites, “sometimes from a feeling that the solidarity of the State was menaced” [Nock, #60218, §I]. This was the pattern behind the repeated measures against Isiac cult in the late Republic and early Principate. Under the Illyrian emperors the Decian libelli “for the first time defined pagan loyalty” [Nock, #60218, §II]. The edict of 250 ordered everyone in the empire to sacrifice to the gods and for the emperor’s well-being before witnesses [Wikipedia: Decian persecution]. A cult that had once expressed loyalty now became a test of it, and Christians who refused were exposed to prosecution.

Monotheist opposition was older than the edict. Comyns Beaumont, a revisionist author who places the biblical geography in Britain, reports Josephus on Herod’s building of Caesarea. He writes that “the erection of the colossi of Augustus and of Urbs Roma was not only a clear indication of homage to the Imperial Caesar, but it offended the Jews themselves”. Beaumont reads Herod’s work as “commands and injunctions to please Caesar” under Roman pressure [Beaumont, The Great Deception, #75803, ch. 11 “Suppression”].

Alternative readings: the empire inside the Church

The library’s alternative authors argue that the Roman system did not end but changed form. Michael Tsarion reproduces, under the heading “Augustus”, a passage holding that after the death of Julius Caesar and “the firm establishment of the Messianic religion and ritual, Augustus ascended the sacred throne of his martyred sire and was in turn addressed as the Son of God, whilst Julius was worshipped as the Father”, with “the flamens of the Sacred college” consecrating the cult [Tsarion, Atlantis, Alien Visitation and Genetic Manipulation, #69277, ch. 22 “Epilogue”]. This is Tsarion’s presentation. The academic sources above record the cult of divus Iulius and the title divi filius that correspond to his wording, but do not describe a “Messianic religion” in these terms.

Mehran Keshe goes furthest. In KSW 520 he states: “The Roman gods survived in the Catholic Church and continue to rule the world.” He adds that “the subconscious message you get when you walk into a Catholic Church is, if you try to go for truth you will end up on the cross”. He also claims that the Vatican does not let anything come out about Mithraism, “because it matches things too closely” [Keshe, Knowledge Seekers Workshop 520, #378232]. In KSW 612 (16 October 2025) the workshop summary lists “changes to scriptures by Roman Rulers – practiced Mithraism; Resurrection from Mitra & Zoroaster”. Keshe says that the three days and the ascension “is what was added to, by… the rulers of Rome, to bring it to Mithraism”, and he tells listeners not to take the Bible literally but to “separate religious doctrine” from history [Keshe, Knowledge Seekers Workshop 612, #378324, opening and part 3]. Against these manipulations he sets the ethos “Talk good, Think good and Act good”, which he attributes to Mitra as “the true soul of humanity” [Keshe, KSW 612, #378324, guide section 2].

Key points

• Ciho describes the imperial cult as a continuation of Ptolemaic dynastic cult. Augustus accepted divine honours only jointly with the goddess Roma, and most emperors of the first two centuries accepted them with reservations, but the cult spread fast in Egypt (Augustus as “son of Zeus the liberator” by 6 CE).
• Greek precedents (Lysander, Alexander, Demetrius as “present god”, the goddess Roma of 195 BCE) supplied the forms that Rome took over.
• The Feriale Duranum (c. 225-235, cohors XX Palmyrenorum) shows imperial anniversaries outnumbering divine festivals in army worship. Nock nonetheless denies a deliberate policy of “Romanization by cult” and allows only “a certain analogy” between the cult of the standards and the cult of the emperor.
• In Dacia, Bejan documents the augustales, flamines, the formula in honorem domus divinae and an “alliance of throne and altar”, alongside Jupiter, Silvanus, Mithras, Dolichenus and Heliopolitanus.
• Aurelian built the temple of Sol Invictus, founded the pontifices Solis and introduced the natalis Invicti on 25 December. Nock calls this a creative act comparable to the creation of Sarapis.
• Nock argues that Rome’s lay, state-run priesthood made it easy to absorb foreign gods. The Decian libelli of 250 turned cult into a defined test of loyalty.
• Beaumont records Jewish offence at Herod’s colossi of Augustus and Roma. Tsarion and Keshe argue in different ways that imperial religion survived in Christianity. Keshe’s “the Roman gods survived in the Catholic Church” and his claim that the resurrection narrative was added to align it with Mithraism are given here as his own claims.