Caesar and Ruler Cult

The most controversial aspect of Caesar’s religious activities is the role he played in the institution of ‘‘ruler cult’’ in Roman public life. Whereas intermittent traces or reflections of cult offered to prominent Romans in the East and even in Rome can be found before Caesar’s dictatorships, that period of four years saw an enormous increase in both the frequency and the level of cult manifestations, as the magnitude and probable permanence of Caesar’s dominion became clear. Caesar’s responsibility for this response to his growing power, and his intentions, are the key questions in an area that has attracted great scholarly interest - was there a program?

Dio’s account, which must form the basis of any study as the most detailed of all extant sources, reveals three stages in the public honors voted to Caesar by the Senate. While Dio plausibly records that the senators intermingled secular and religious honors without clear distinction in their attempts to respond to Caesar's unique position, I isolate here the latter. After his victory at Thapsus in 46 he received a statue, erected on the Capitol, which took the form of his figure in some way surmounting the world, and bore an inscription which stated that he was hemitheos (43.14.6: hmi-SeoB; see Fishwick 1975: 624-8; Rizzo 2002: 613-20). Although it is generally argued that Dio’s Greek effectively conceals the Latin of the original, the testimony of Servius [Auctus] may suggest that the Senate used the Greek term (Ecl. 9.46: eique in Capitolio statuam... inscriptum in basi fuit ''Caesari emitheo’), although Caesar himself later had the term chiseled from the inscription (Dio 43.14.6). After Munda in 45 a statue of him was to be placed in the cella of the temple of Quirinus with an inscription calling him “unconquered god’’ (43.45.3), and his statue was carried in a procession to the Circus next to that of Quirinus (Cic. Att. 13.28.3). As in the former case, the honors stop short of unambiguously attributing divinity to Caesar, but deliberately leave open the question of his status. Thirdly, in the last weeks of his life, a law, rather than just a senatorial decree (probably the lex Rufrena; CIL 1.626), proclaimed him a state deity, who was to be worshiped by the cult name Divus Iulius and to be given a flamen, M. Antonius, a state temple to himself and his Clemency, and a pulvinar for his image (44.6.3-4; cf. App. B Civ. 2.106, Suet. Iul. 76.1, 84.2).

The contemporary testimony of Cicero, who was hostile to the cult innovations (Phil. 2.110), is crucial in establishing the historicity of the formal deification, cult honors and the title assumed by the new divinity:

Quem is honorem maiorem consecutus erat, quam ut haberet pulvinar, simulacrum, fastigium, flaminem? Est ergo flamen, ut lovi, ut Marti, ut Quirino, sic Divo lulio M. Antonius.

What greater honor had he secured than that he should have a couch, a cult-image, a pediment, and a flamen? So, as Jupiter, as Mars, as Quirinus have a flamen, so Divus Iulius has M. Antonius.

The cult title of Divus Iulius was deliberately chosen, for the archaic sound of Divus lent to what was in the Roman context a revolutionary maneuver of deifying a living human being something of the sanctity of tradition, and it was particularly appropriate to the legal context, here underlining the legally conferred status that Caesar enjoyed (Wardle 2002: 190-1). Oaths were sworn by Caesar, as by a god. Balbus’ oath, recorded by Cicero (Att. 9.7B.3) in March 49, was informal, but Dio asserts that there was also an official oath by Caesar’s genius (tutelary spirit) and salus (well-being) (44.6.1, 50.1). While Dio may be guilty of anachronism or have misunderstood the significance of unofficial oaths sworn by senators by Caesar’s genius., certainly in the immediate aftermath of his assassination such oaths were common in the forum-based cult around the column on which Caesar was honored as parens patriae (Suet. Iul. 85; cf. Beare 1979: 469-73).

What I see emerging from the study of the moves towards Caesar’s eventual deification is a tentative, uncertain groping by the Senate for appropriate forms of honors by which to celebrate the achievements of Caesar, rather than a carefully planned or thought-out progression towards a politically inspired deification, skillfully orchestrated by Caesar himself (cf. Stevenson 1998: 263-6). The sources, Dio in particular, conceal the master’s hand. Zecchini argues plausibly (2001: 59-62) that Caesar was opposed to deification during his lifetime and that he signaled this deliberately in his rudeness to the senatorial delegation that presented him with the decree. Indeed, he did nothing as Pontifex Maximus to realize the elements of the decree - M. Antonius was not inaugurated as flamen - nor did he celebrate on the coinage any aspect of his deification. Although the right to place his image on the coinage during his lifetime (Dio 44.4.4) was radical, it did not signal divine status (cf. Weinstock 1971: 274-5). Caesar’s aim was for a posthumous deification, for which good Roman precedent existed in Romulus and exemplary Greek precedent in Hercules. Caesar, while conscious of Roman sensibilities and tradition, was effecting, nevertheless, a revolutionary change - the most lasting changes are often achieved under the guise of tradition, as Augustus was to demonstrate.