How did the population of the empire perceive the emperor? Certainly people regarded him as a person endowed with extraordinary (i. e. divine) abilities and powers. That was a definition most people could embrace without difficulty. But was the emperor a visible god (theos epiphanes)? Here we encounter difficulties. For the western parts of the empire where the necessary religious traditions were lacking, I am skeptical. The eastern provinces had a completely different religious tradition in dealing with rulers and cultic honors, and for them things are completely different. Here we find the widespread perception that the emperor was not only endowed with special, superhuman abilities, but that he was indeed a visible god.
We have a very illuminating example of this belief from the little town of Akraiphia in central Greece (ILS 8794 = Syll} 814). The inscription reports the local reaction to a declaration of liberty for the whole of Greece that had been announced by the emperor Nero during a visit to Greece. The local population reacted to the act by establishing an official cult dedicated to “the liberating Zeus Nero, for all eternity.” In this case Nero represents a special aspect of the supreme god, his ability to free people.
Most ruler cults known from the Hellenistic kingdoms represent the religious reaction of the population to positive achievements by a ruler that had already become reality. Besides the fact that these cults were limited to a city or a nation, things in the world that was ruled by the Roman emperors were completely different. In this world such cults were in many cases established immediately after the beginning of the reign. This means people reacted at a time when the new emperor had achieved nothing at all, if we disregard the fact that he had succeeded in assuming government, which in earlier times had justified such a cult. Therefore it is legitimate to say that these religious honors are a public recognition of the extraordinary political position the future emperor would have in this world.
In addition, these honors aimed also at the position of the emperor as a mediator between the gods and the humans, and hopefully at the benefits that could be effected by his future government for the whole empire and his population. In the conception of those people the emperor was still a mortal human being, but a very special one, who had been endowed by the gods with important qualities and powers that were only accessible to him and that were necessary for him to achieve his task on earth. Many people probably even identified the emperor as a god who had revealed himself only for a certain time before he returned from the earth to the rest of the gods in heaven (theos epiphanes).
World History
