Gradel I. Emperor Worship and Roman Religion

Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002. – 422 p. – (Oxford Classical Monographs).
ISBN: 0-19-815275-2 (alk. paper)While Roman religion worshipped a number of gods, one kind in particular aroused the fury of early Christians and the wonder of scholars: the cult of Roman emperors alive or dead. Was the divinity of emperors a glue that held the Empire together? Were rulers such as Julius Caesar and Caligula simply mad to expect such worship of themselves? Or was it rather a phenomenon which has only been rendered incomprehensible by modern and monotheistic ideas of what religion is – or should be – all about?
This book presents the first study of emperor worship among the Romans themselves, both in Rome and in its heartland Italy. It argues that emperor worship was indeed perfectly in keeping with Roman religious tradition, which has been generally misunderstood by a posterity imbued with radically different notions of the relationship between humans and the divine.Before the Caesars
Caesar’s Divine Honours
Beyond Rome: ‘By Municipal Deification’
The Augustan Settlement
The Augustan Heritage and Mad Emperors
The Emperor’s Genius in State Cult
‘In Every House’? The Emperor in the Roman Household
Corporate Worship
Numen Augustum
A Parallel: C. Manlius, Caeretan ‘Caesar’
‘Heavenly Honours Decreed by the Senate’: From Emperor to Divus1. Dedications from Italy to the Genius of Living Non-imperials2. Dedications from Italy to the Genius Augusti up to AD 2353. Titles of Municipal Priests of Emperors in Italy from Inscriptional Sources