Emperors and the Divine – Rome and its Influence, COLLeGIUM 20, Helsinki: Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, 2016 (original) (raw)
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Introduction: Roman Emperors and the Divine: Shifts and Downshifts
2016
In the course of history, the divine sphere has frequently been harnessed to serve the needs of political leaders. Political power has thus been legitimized as authorized by divine forces. In pre-modern societies, and especially in the Roman Empire, phenomena that people today call religion and politics were closely intertwined, even inseparable.1 This can be perceived most clearly in the relationship of the Roman emperors to the divine – in their support of different deities, in their role as the mediators between the divine and humankind, and in their policies towards the many different cults and religious groups across a vast Empire. The manifestation of proximity to the divine was one of the most important ways of legitimating imperial power. The articles of the present volume Emperors and the Divine analyse the various means by which imperial power was justified. Emperors supported cults of various deities, representing themselves as the guardians of the cosmic order, whether t...
This article discusses the sacredness of Roman emperors during the late Roman Empire, in the fourth and fifth centuries C.E. as the Empire was gradually Christianized. I shall argue that the imperial ideology with the sacred emperor, which had developed in the preceding centuries, was adopted with a few modifications. The most important of the modifications was " tidying up " of emperor worship using animal sacrifices. Imperial images for the most part retained the associations and connotations they had earlier had with prestige, authority and divinity. In this article, I discuss the difficulties and ambiguities with the sacredness of emperors in the Christianizing Empire, focusing on imperial images. The analysis of a few fourth-and fifth-century Christian writers (for example, Eusebius of Caesarea, Athanasius, John Chrysostom, the anonymous Consultationes Zacchaei et Apollonii, Philostorgius, Severianus of Gabala and Pseudo-Theophilus of Alexandria) reveals a varied and complex set of attitudes towards traditional emperor worship, depending on the socio-political context of the writings. All these views must be examined as part of the debates in which they participate, as in the case of John Chrysostom's homilies in connection with the Riot of Statues in Antioch in 387, or Philostorgius' statements as connected with the disputes between Homoian and Nicene Christians.
Three emperors were crowned in Rome, while the pope was residing in Avignon: Henry VII (1312), Louis IV (1328) and Charles IV (1355). This contribution suggests that these emperors did not simply enter into an insurmountable “conflict of Empire and city-state”. Many Italians perceived the transalpine rulers as carriers of justice and order. Instead of criticizing the idea of empire, fourteenth-century (proto-)humanists reinforced the imperial myth by applying a classical language to discuss the contemporary Holy Roman Emperors. With their imperial histories, authors such as Albertino Mussato and Ferreto de’ Ferreti wanted to imitate the ancients. As a consequence, they focused on the triumphal aspects of the imperial coronations. Not the coronation in Saint Peter’s Basilica but the adventus into the city and the interaction with the SPQR drew special interest. Because of the papal absence, Henry VII and the excommunicated Louis the Bavarian could indeed act independently in the Eternal City. They both gathered assemblies with the SPQR on the Capitoline Hill. Charles IV, however, kept his promise to the pope and stayed only one day in Rome for his coronation in 1355. The letters of Francesco Petrarch and Niccolò Beccari nevertheless provided him with a classical discourse that could have supported his claims of independence vis-à-vis the pope. The Holy Roman Emperors were presented as the restorers of the res publica. It seems that the imperial presence in a popeless Rome increased the awareness of (and interest in) the city’s ancient past.
This article examines what the historians have called the “imperial cult” to describe a wide variety of homages celebrated for the emperor and the members of his family in the imperial era. The established cults and honours have indeed participated in a moving dialectic of power. The emperor and his subjects finally adapted to a monarchy that from an institutional point of view was not, and to an empire consisting of autonomous cities. A new religious language was thus organized around the imperial person on the rhetorical basis of isotheoi timai, of honours equal to those made to the gods. This type of amplified tribute, set up from Actium and exploiting the Caesarian heritage (divus Julius), founded the institutional architecture of the Principate, giving the Emperor a necessarily prominent position. This policy of reverence framed the power relations in the imperial era and often took the form of cults and rituals intending to raise the emperor to divine equivalence, which however fooled no one. Even when dead, the emperor was consecrated as divus, not as deus. The emperors were in a way and from an institutional point of view, gods without being gods, just as they were monarchs without being monarchs, since the powers shaping the imperial office simply made emperors official representatives of the Republic. This fact which belongs to the rhetoric of power explains the great ambiguity of religious language developed around the imperial figure; it also explains the maintenance of the institution with Constantine and the Christian emperors, who kept the essential meaning of the “imperial cult” based on an admittedly ambiguous ritual arsenal, but adapted to the celebration of the highest honours that shaped the imperial function. Therefore, to find a precise meaning for the varied terms used by Roman people to honour the emperor is just as difficult as solving the necessary ambiguities of political rhetoric.then, in a calculated graduation that literally, year after year and according to the decrees passed by the Senate, shaped the exceptional position of the emperor to make him an ubiquitous figure in public religious events. Key words : Imperial Cult, Roman Religion, language of power, divine honours, public sacrifices, religion in the Roman provinces. Political rhetoric often uses shortcuts and ambiguities of language, which inevitably give rise to controversies, contradictions and endless debates. The Augustan regime is not an exception: it left us apparently contradictory literary and epigraphic testimonies on the cults delivered to the living emperor, while the Roman religious rules made any deification of the prince unthinkable, especially in the context asserted by the new political power of a restoration of the Republic and its traditional cults. This supposed contradiction of our sources is at the origin of a very abundant modern literature, produced on what the historians baptized the ‘imperial cult’. This term is of course a reducing concept in the sense that the term often recover a large number of honours and rites celebrated for the emperor in its representative’s role of the Roman Republic and thus of the State . Another element, which does not hold in light of the documentation, is the strict separation which we make today between politics and religion, while in Roman times, both domains overlapped: in the city state, where the gods lived together with men, any political expression or social ritual necessarily conveyed a religious dimension . In this particular case, imperial power could not exist without a specific religious expression or, to put it in another way, power had necessarily a place in the public religion . In Rome, the political action is deified in its structuring role of the community. But that does not mean that the emperor is a god even after his death, when he becomes not a god, deus, but a kind of hero, a divus.
Contested Monarchy reappraises the wide-ranging and lasting transformation of the Roman monarchy between the Principate and Late Antiquity. The book takes as its focus the century from Diocletian to Theodosius I (284–395), a period during which the stability of monarchical rule depended heavily on the emperor’s mobility, on collegial or dynastic rule, and on the military resolution of internal political crises. At the same time, profound religious changes modified the premises of political interaction and symbolic communication between the emperor and his subjects, and administrative and military readjustments changed the institutional foundations of the Roman monarchy. This volume concentrates on the measures taken by emperors of this period to cope with the changing framework of their rule. The collection examines monarchy along three distinct yet intertwined fields: Administering the Empire, Performing the Monarchy, and Balancing Religious Change. Each field possesses its own historiography and methodology, and accordingly has usually been treated separately. This volume’s multifaceted approach builds on recent scholarship and trends to examine imperial rule in a more integrated fashion. With new work from a wide range of international scholars, Contested Monarchy offers a fresh survey of the role of the Roman monarchy in a period of significant and enduring change. // – – – “This exceptionally valuable book offers multiple perspectives on the development of the institutional, ideological and religious aspects of the Roman empire’s first Christian century. Breaking away from traditional divisions according to dynasty or religion, we see how the Roman state developed new answers to the central question of its own legitimacy. Eschewing simplistic generalizations, the diverse contributions offer multiple perspectives on the way the Roman system of government interacted with its subjects. Wienand has performed an invaluable service by facilitating a wide ranging encounter among scholarly styles to promote a well-articulated discussion of significant themes in the governance of the Roman Empire, illuminating not only the period under consideration, but earlier and later periods as well.” —David Potter, University of Michigan Reviews Journal of Roman Studies 106 (2016), 361-363 [Alexander Skinner]; Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2015.11.34 [Jan Willem Drijvers]; Sehepunkte 15 (2015) Nr. 11 [Adrastos Omissi]; H-Soz-Kult 18.5.2015 [Raphael Brendel] Reviewers Quotes: "This is a book that deepens our sense of the complexity, and unexpectedness, of the late Roman Empire. It is a landmark." —Alexander Skinner "Contested Monarchy is an enormously valuable volume without a weak link in its chain of articles. It is a must have for any scholar working on late Roman political, social, or religious history and for the library of any university that offers courses on the fourth century. Its depth of inquiry and range of coverage means that it will be of great value to researchers but the articles are all sufficiently accessible that advanced students will be able to gain much from them as well. The articles can be read individually, but the volume repays reading as a whole." —Adrastos Omissi "This is a fine collection of articles articulating the contested Roman imperial rule of late antiquity. Everybody interested in the late Roman empire will profit from it." —Jan Willem Drijvers CONTENTS 1. Johannes Wienand: "The Cloak of Power: Dressing and Undressing the King" 2. John Weisweiler: "Domesticating the Senatorial Elite: Universal Monarchy and Transregional Aristocracy in the Fourth Century AD" 3. John Noël Dillon: "The Inflation of Rank and Privilege: Regulating Precedence in the Fourth Century AD" 4. Sebastian Schmidt-Hofner: "Ostentatious Legislation: Law and Dynastic Change, AD 364–365" 5. Doug Lee: "Emperors and Generals in the Fourth Century" 6. Joachim Szidat: "Gaul and the Roman Emperors of the Fourth Century" 7. Michael Kulikowski: "Regional Dynasties and Imperial Court" 8. Mark Humphries: "Emperors, Usurpers, and the City of Rome: Performing Power from Diocletian to Theodosius" 9. Johannes Wienand: "O tandem felix civili, Roma, victoria! Civil-War Triumphs from Honorius to Constantine and Back" 10. Hartmut Leppin: "Coping with the Tyrant’s Faction: Civil-War Amnesties and Christian Discourses in the Fourth Century AD" 11. Christopher Kelly: "Pliny and Pacatus: Past and Present in Imperial Panegyric" 12. Henning Börm: "Born to Be Emperor: The Principle of Succession and the Roman Monarchy" 13. Christian Reitzenstein-Ronning: "Performing Justice: The Penal Code of Constantine the Great" 14. Harold Drake: "Speaking of Power: Christian Redefinition of the Imperial Role in the Fourth Century" 15. Bruno Bleckmann: "Constantine, Rome, and the Christians" 16. Noel Lenski: "Constantine and the Tyche of Constantinople" 17. Steffen Diefenbach: "A Vain Quest for Unity: Creeds and Political (Dis)Integration in the Reign of Constantius II" 18. Johannes Hahn: "The Challenge of Religious Violence: Imperial Ideology and Policy in the Fourth Century" 19. Rita Lizzi Testa: "The Famous ‘Altar of Victory Controversy’ in Rome: The Impact of Christianity at the End of the Fourth Century" 20. Johannes Wienand: "The Empire’s Golden Shade: Icons of Sovereignty in an Age of Transition"
Topic: Roman Emperor Introduction
In the ancient world, many nations went to war with their neighbouring countries and in the course of battle, the victorious nation would place certain officials as governors who ruled/ governed the nation or province on behalf of the emperor himself. The Roman government placed roman governors in every province to oversee the administration and the social law and order. These governors were also given certain responsibilities and powers to execute and maintained co-cordial relations with other nations and also facilitated trade and commerce dealings.
At the centre of the Roman empire stood the emperor and the court surrounding him. The systematic investigation of this court in its own right, however, has been a relatively late development in the field of Roman history, and previous studies have focused on narrowly defined aspects or on particular periods of Roman history. This book makes a major contribution to understanding the history of the Roman imperial court. The first volume presents nineteen original essays covering all the major dimensions of the court from the age of Augustus to the threshold of Late Antiquity. The second volume is a collection of the ancient sources that are central to studying that court. The collection includes: translations of literary sources, inscriptions, and papyri; plans and computer visualizations of archaeological remains; and photographs of archaeologic sites and artworks depicting the emperor and his court.