When Julius Caesar rose to a position of such power in the Roman Republic that he could be declared dictator perpetuo (dictator for life), he was the king in Rome in all but name. But when people suggested he become rex, this resulted in backlash, as the Romans had hated kings since they expelled them in 509 BCE. Caesar was assassinated, and his successors were left to fight over the pieces. When his grand-nephew and adopted son Octavian emerged as the new absolute ruler of Rome, he had to develop a way to articulate his position in Rome without the trappings of kingship. Instead, he turned to the divine.
Octavian took the name Augustus in 27 BCE, which means “sacred.” He made himself pontifex maximus (chief priest) and pater patriae (father of his country), making him the paterfamilias (head of household) of the Roman state; the paterfamilias was also responsible for household religion. Sacrifices were made to the gods on behalf of his health and achievements, but he drew a firm line at receiving sacrifices to himself as a god. That is, while he was alive. He fully expected to transform into a god upon his death.
Augustus underwent a process of apotheosis upon his death that allowed him to be deified by the Roman state. This set a precedent for many of his successors and other members of the imperial family. But what did it mean to be deified in the Roman world, and how were these newly created gods, divi, worshipped in Rome?
Becoming a God: Apotheosis vs Deification
In English, ‘to deify’ means to make, treat, or consider something like a god. To understand this concept in the Roman world, two different elements must be considered: deification and apotheosis. The Latin-derived word “deification” refers to cult apparatus such as temples and priests, like the divine gods enjoyed. The Greek-derived word “apotheosis” refers to a metaphysical transformation.
In the Roman world, all individuals could undergo a type of apotheosis upon their death, joining a cohort of divinised ancestral spirits collectively called the di manes or penates. Households cultivated their divinized dead to ensure their continued prosperity, and they received state cult at the public festival of the Parentalia.
However, just as men were not equal in life, it was thought that the illustrious and powerful could gain a more tangible form of divinity after death. Thus, in the 50s BCE, Cicero could intelligibly describe Scipio Africanus, by virtue of his earthly deeds, as having ascended to heaven to become a star, a common symbol of apotheosis (De Re Publica 6.9-26). Cicero similarly praised the Roman forefathers who helped establish the republic as worthy of undergoing a supreme apotheosis that would rank them among the company and number of the gods (Pro Sestio 143, De Legibus 2.18, 2.22).
The Roman state deified men by offering them the same form of cult that it offered the gods. The Roman state did this for Julius Caesar shortly before his death (44 BCE), when he was declared a sacred image, temple, and priest (Cicero, Philippica 2.110, Suetonius, Caesar 76.1, Appian, Civil War 2.106, Cassius Dio 44.4). This also set a precedent that Augustus (27 BCE-14 CE) chose to avoid during his lifetime. However, he conspicuously pursued deification for after his death and widely anticipated supreme apotheosis.
Following Augustus’ death, after a senator testified to having witnessed Augustus’ apotheosis, he received state deification with a senatorial decree of honores caelestes that included the title divus, a temple (eventually dedicated in 37 CE), a cult image, and priests (Suetonius, Augustus 100.4, Cassius Dio 56.46.2). Augustus’ favored step-grandson Germanicus was made his flamen and his wife Livia his flaminica, and a college of sodales Augustales was created, composed of 21 of Rome’s best men drawn by lot, to which imperial princes were added as supernumerary members (Tacitus, Annales 6.45.2, Suetonius, Tiberius 47, Cassius Dio 59.7.1).
Deifying the Julio-Claudian Emperors
Augustus’ precedent paved the way for the deification of several other members of the Julio-Claudian family. Although Tiberius (14-37 CE) did not allow his mother Livia to be deified immediately following her death (Tacitus Annales 5.1, Cassius 58.2, 59.11), his policy against deifying other members of the imperial family was ignored under Caligula (37-41 CE), whose sister Drusilla was deified (Cassius Dio 59.11.4). Livia herself was also eventually deified under her grandson Claudius (41-54 CE), who needed to promote the connection to boost his rise to power (Suetonius, Claudius 11).
At the start of Nero’s reign (54-68 CE), Claudius was deified (Tacitus, Annales 12.69, 13.2.6, Suetonius Claudius 45, Nero 8), and later in his reign, Nero’s deceased wife Poppaea and their daughter Claudia Virgo also became divae (Acta Fratrum Arvalium/Coinage). It appears that the widespread application of state deification to members of the imperial family was not always popular, and thus Diva Drusilla, Diva Poppaea, and Diva Claudia Virgo were all promptly ignored following the deaths of Caligula and Nero, respectively, when they no longer served a dynastic purpose.
Later Divi
Five members of the Flavian family received deification: Vespasian, Titus, Julia Titi, Caesar Domitiani filius, and Domitilla. On his deathbed, Vespasian (69-79 CE) apparently expected to follow in Augustus’ footsteps as, according to Suetonius, his final words were “Oh dear, I think I am becoming a god.” While what we know of Vespasian’s character might suggest that this was a sarcastic comment, we have to remember that he came from a very different world, and there is strong evidence that he believed in things such as omens and divine favor, so he may have genuinely anticipated his apotheosis. Whatever the case, he died on June 24th 79 CE, but he was only deified after a delay, as we know that in September of 79 CE, he was still not a god, as his sons were still using the titles Augusti filius rather than divi filius. The evidence suggests that he was probably only defied in early 80 CE.
Why the delay? Who got deified depended on both the will of their successor and the will of the Senate, who granted the honors that made someone a god. They seem to have had no problem granting Augustus deification, which he carefully orchestrated before his death and which was supported by the new emperor Tiberius. But when Tiberius died, Caligula did request his deification, but due to Tiberius’ unpopularity and Caligula’s lack of motivation to push the issue, he was never deified. Caligula was assassinated and therefore not deified by his uncle and successor, Claudius, who instead deified his mother Livia. Claudius was deified by his successor and adopted son Nero, though this was later ridiculed by Nero’s teacher and advisor Seneca in his famous Apocolocyntosis (pumpkinification) of the emperor. Nero, who committed assisted suicide after being ousted from power, was, of course, not deified.
Therefore, deification seems to have depended both on a successor who had an interest in seeing it happen and a Senate willing to support the honors. Since Titus (79-81 CE) would have every reason to deify his father, it seems likely that the Senate, which had regained some relevance with the fall of the Julio-Claudians and the civil war of 69 CE, thought that they could reduce future imperial power by blocking deification. If that is the case, they were mistaken, as Vespasian eventually became Divus Vespasianus.
The date of Titus’ deification is more difficult to determine, as the phrase “brother of a god” was not included among his successor Domitian’s titles (81-96 CE). Suetonius (Domitian 2) and Cassius Dio (67.2) both attest that Domitian deified Titus without delay, however it must have taken at least two weeks as Titus died on September 13th 81 CE, and on October 1st of that year his daughter Julia Titi still appeared in the Arval records as Julia T. Imperatoris filia Augusta, indicating that her father was not yet deified. Unfortunately, she does not appear again in what survives of the Arval records, making his deification difficult to date, but she does appear as divi filia on coins and in other inscriptions, but none that can be dated precisely. There is no reason to think that there was a significant delay, because despite sources saying that Domitian hated and resented his older brother, the deification would only boost his own prestige.
Julia Titi herself, who died sometime in 89 CE, must have been deified within a few months of her death as she appears as a diva on coins minted between 90 and 94 CE, and is alluded to as a goddess twice in book six of Martial’s Epigrams, probably also published in 90 CE. Martial describes her as dwelling in heaven with Venus and Cupid (6.13) and as spinning a golden life thread for Domitian’s future successor (6.3).
The other two Flavian divi must have been deified many years after their deaths. The first is Domitian’s infant son by his wife Domitia Longina, the daughter of the famous general Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, who was born in 73 CE and died shortly thereafter. The infant was deified early in Domitian’s reign, appearing on the coins minted between 82 and 84 CE. The infancy of the new divus was a common theme in the literary sources. Martial describes the child as a sender of snowfall (4.3), and compares Domitian to the Olympian gods whose mortal sons had died but joined them in heaven (9.86). Quintilian similarly refers to the boy as a youth, stating that the prince did not earn his place in heaven but was born immortal (Institutio Oratio 3.7.9), and Silius Italicus has Jupiter describe the boy as divine (Punica 3.622-629).
The last of the Flavian divi, Diva Domitilla, is more enigmatic than the others, with both her identity and the date of her deification under debate. Starting with her identity, she was either the wife or daughter of Vespasian, both of whom died before 69 CE. Scholars have used numismatic, epigraphic, and literary evidence to attempt to identify the diva, but with little success. A mother does seem a more likely choice than a sister, but the question remains open.
While her deification was initially dated to the reign of Titus, due to coins honoring her minted in 80-81, these honor her but do not depict her as a diva. The first coins to explicitly depict her as Diva Domitilla, based on their metrological properties and Domitian’s coin reforms, must date to 82-84 CE, early in the reign of Domitian.
This suggests that the deification of members of the imperial family was an innovation of the likes of Nero and Domitian, emperors vilified by later dynasties. Domitian was assassinated in 96 CE, leading to the Trajan-Antonine dynasty, and they followed his lead.
Trajan (98-117 CE) deified his predecessor and adopted father Nerva (96-98 CE), plus his birth father, his wife Plotina, and his sister Marciana. Hadrian (117-138 CE) deified Trajan, his mother-in-law Matilda, his wife Vibia Sabina, and his lover Antinous. Antoninus Pius (138-161 CE) deified Hadrian and his wife Faustina the Elder. Marcus Aurelius (161-180 CE) deified Antoninus Pius and Lucius Verus, his co-emperor who predeceased him, plus his wife Fastina the Younger. Commodus (177-192 CE) deified Marcus Aurelius, but was assassinated and not deified. This pattern continued until the 4th century CE and the rise of Christianity, but not more than 50 members of the imperial family joined the gods.
Cult of the Divi
Although each of these deified Julio-Claudians became divi, they were not all deified in the same fashion. Consider the Feriale Duranum, an early 3rd-century military calendar, which listed the birthdays of many of the divi as cult days for the cohort. It did not list the birthdays of all the divi. The feriale includes the birthdays of Divus Augustus and Divus Claudius.
The feriale probably also includes the birthdays of Divus Vespasianus and Divus Titus. The sections of the feriale that would have included these two Flavian birthdays do not survive, but they appear in a variety of other calendars from that era. They are in the Fasti Philocali of 354 CE, the Fasti Silvii of 448/449 CE, and the 3rd-century Papyri Osloenses. The birthdays of the other Julio-Claudian and Flavian divi, the women and children of the emperor, do not appear. In contrast, the birthdays of all the Trajanic-Hadrianic and Antonine divi, both emperor and their family members, with the exception of Trajan’s father, do appear.
The absence of the Julio-Claudian divae is perhaps not surprising, as their cults had already been ignored immediately following the reign of the princeps under whom they were deified. More surprising is he absence of Diva Augusta (Livia) since there is evidence that she continued to receive sacrifices long after her female relatives, but her cult probably disappeared under the Flavians. It is also possible that sacrifices were made to her on the birthday of Augustus. According to the records of the Arval Brethren, a Roman priesthood dedicated to the imperial cult, they made sacrifices to Jupiter for Livia on her birthday during her lifetime, which stopped upon her death. Under Claudius, as Diva Augusta she then received sacrifices on the birthday of Augustus, September 23rd, alongside Divus Augustus, suggesting that this also became her cult day. This made sense as they also shared a temple, with Diva Augusta installed alongside her husband, rather than a new temple being built. It is only natural that she would be eclipsed on that day by her much more important husband over the centuries.
This suggests that in the early Empire, at least under the Julio-Claudians and the Flavians, the divi were divided into two categories. Former emperors were divi maiores with significant cult, while the family members were divi minores, who were only honored during the lifetime of those who deified them, with Diva Augusta as a bit of an exception. This division seems to have disappeared during the Antonine dynasty, probably under Hadrian, when all the divi were given the same full honors. It has been suggested that both Trajan’s father and sister Marciana as divi minores. But when Hadrian came to power, he elevated Marciana to boost his own claim to power, since it was by marrying her granddaughter that Hadrian entered the imperial family.
A Developing Concept
While it is apparent that there were differences in the cult of the divi maiores and divi minores, this should not be interpreted as a deliberate and hard distinction between two types of divi, those who had served as princeps and those who had not, though this seems to have been the effect. Rather, this variation should be seen as the natural result of experimentation with deification. During the Julio-Claudian period, deification was still a novel concept, and there was not a standard set of honours and cult rituals that defined it.
This seems to be what we see with Diva Drusilla, who, like Livia, who would be deified after her, seems to have had her divinity connected to that of Augustus. According to Suetonius (Caligula 24) and Cassius Dio (59.11, 13, 60.5.2), Diva Drusilla enjoyed an elaborate cult: she received the cult name Panthea, her own sodales, a cult statue in the temple of Venus in the Forum, and games in the style of the Megalesia. This testimony is not supported by the epigraphic evidence, and considering the sensationalism associated with descriptions of Caligula’s reign, the testimony of the literary sources should be viewed with scepticism.
A more conservative character to Drusilla’s deification is implied by a closer examination of the evidence. The literary sources also record that when Drusilla died in 38 CE, initially only a public funeral and public mourning were decreed, following the precedent of Livia (Tacitus, Annales 5.1). It was only after a senator, who may have been trying to win favour with the princeps, claimed to have witnessed Drusilla’s apotheosis that deification was decreed (Seneca, Apocolocyntosis 1). The rites actually recorded for Drusilla’s consecration by the Arval Brothers were conducted on September 23rd 38 CE, again on the birthday of Augustus, though the details of the ritual itself no longer survive.
One good reason to select this date for Drusilla’s consecration, rather than her own birthday in June, could have been that, as was the case with Diva Augusta, Diva Drusilla’s divinity was in some way dependent upon that of her prestigious great-grandfather. When cult was conducted on the birthday of Diva Drusilla in 40 CE, it was not conducted in the temple of Venus, as the literary sources would suggest, and it was also not conducted to Diva Drusilla directly, but rather sacrifices were conducted on the Capitol to the Capitoline Triad, in the same manner as cult conducted on the birthday of the non-deified Germanicus in the same year.
While the popular general Germanicus did not receive official deification or the title divus when he died during the reign of Tiberius, according to Tacitus (Annales 2.83) and the Tabula Hebana, following Germanicus’ death, a sella curulis Germanici Caesaris was to be placed among the seats of the priests at the ludi Augustales, therefore honouring Germanicus as part of the games posthumously established for Divus Augustus. The throne was to be kept in the temple of Mars Ultor until the completion of the temple of Divus Augustus when it was to be kept there, paralleling exactly the arrangements for the cult image of Divus Augustus at the time.
Thus, the posthumous honour of state deification should be seen as a developing idea under the Julio-Claudians, and we should not be surprised that the cults of the individual divi were not identical. It seems only to have been with Claudius that Augustus’ posthumous honours were exactly replicated, with Divus Claudius being granted his own temple and flamen, the sodales Augustales becoming sodales Augustales Claudiales to accommodate the new god, and Claudius’ birthday being established as a unique cult date for the god.
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