One of the most interesting arenas of mutual accommodation between ruler and city was cult worship. Following the precedent set by Alexander (and even earlier than that by Lysander, p. 302), it soon became accepted that a monarch acquired an elevated status as the favoured of the gods. Not surprisingly, the monarchs were foremost
In stressing their divine links and would associate themselves with a particular deity. The Ptolemies chose Dionysus, the Attalids Athena, and the Macedonian kings Heracles, the assumed ancestor of Alexander. Kings became the focus of elaborate dynastic cults after their deaths. (See the essay by Angelos Chaniotis, ‘The Divinity of Hellenistic Rulers, in Erskine (ed.), A Companion to the Hellenistic World.)
Cities would respond to this by creating their own cults to the ruler. The catalysts for these cults are not easy to pinpoint. There may have been an element of deliberate flattery, an insurance policy against the displeasure of the king, but, most important of all, the king could be targeted as the one individual who could actually get things done. The late Simon Price, a pioneering scholar of such developments, certainly saw this as the crucial element. When Athens approached Demetrius Pol-iorcetes, son of Antigonus the One-Eyed, who exercised temporary power over Athens in the late fourth century, the city knew where to look for protection. ‘O son of the most mighty god Poseidon and of Aphrodite, hail. For other gods are either far away or have not ears, or do not exist nor heed us not at all; but thee we can see in very presence, not in word and not in stone, but in truth, and so we pray to thee.’ (Translation: F. Walbank.) The rulers were never seen as gods in themselves but rather as worthy of receiving the honours that were traditionally due to the gods.
Cult worship of kings was carried out within the framework of traditional religion, often in a temple precinct with sacrifices and libations. In Egypt the Ptolemies were integrated within the traditional framework of divine rule. The Rosetta Stone, celebrated because its three texts, hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek, allowed hieroglyphs to be deciphered (finally by the Frenchman Jean-Fran9ois Champol-lion in the 1820s), is a record of thanksgiving of the priests of Memphis to Ptolemy V in 196 Bc. In it Ptolemy was addressed as a god who was also the son of gods. This was a world where the divine was used as a medium through which relationships between humans and the gods and between humans and quasi-divine individuals, rulers or heroes, could be manipulated, often to the mutual advantage of both. It is impossible to re-create the emotional and spiritual contexts of these cults but the fact that they are to be found springing up across the Hellenistic world shows that they fulfilled important needs.
World History
