Cult, Ritual, Divinity and Belief in the Roman World

Duncan Fishwick

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351219648
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: History of Religion

The papers assembled in this selection of studies range in subject matter from early Judaic magic to an inscribed monument of the Neo-Classical period. The principal emphasis of the collection is nevertheless on religious developments under the High Roman Empire: problems arising from the interpretation of oriental cults imported from the Hellenistic East but primarily the development of imperial cult, the one universal religion of the empire before the coming of Christianity. The essays divide into five categories: Divinity and Power; The Imperial Numen; The Imperial Cult: Review and Discussion; Rituals and Ceremonies; Ainigmata. The titles of the individual articles speak for themselves but readers may also find the preface of interest in so far as it sets out the author's ideas on the controversial nature of the emperor's divinity. While this is a topic deserving of a book in its own right, the preface together with the points raised by individual studies within the overall framework may go some way to repairing this defficiency.

I


VOTIVE OFFERINGS TO THE EMPEROR?

“It must be emphasized that no one appears to have said his prayers or did sacrifice to the living Augustus or any other living king in the hope of supernatural blessings.”

Nock’s view that prayers, whether public or private, were at no stage part of the imperial cult was repeated on various occasions through his writings.¹ The doctrine is stated at its most positive in Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. 10, 481:

“The touchstone of piety in antiquity is the votive offering, made in recognition of supposed deliverance in some invisible manner from sickness or other peril. This we do not find directed to rulers dead or living.”

In a study published towards the close of his career Nock himself provided a clear exception to this principle, an Egyptian text — it should be noted — from the Ptolemaic period,² but his insistence on the basic absence of ex-voto’s to the emperor has by and large remained the standard view until now.

In a recent paper S.R.F. Price argues precisely the opposite case.³ In addition to various literary passages, Price points to a small number of inscriptions which he takes to attest votive offerings to the emperor. If so, these would be crucial to the whole question of prayer in the imperial cult, not that Price views prayers as in any case a fundamental element of religion.

“The aspects of practice which are particularly controversial are prayers by private individuals and the votive offerings made as a result of sucessful prayers.”

The main concern of the present paper is with the analysis of these and similar epigraphical texts, which on closer inspection may not prove as unequivocal or decisive as seems the case at first sight. Nock’s verdict could in that case still stand, at least in regard to the living emperor. The discussion in no way undermines the possiblity, however, that petitionary prayers were directed to deified members of the imperial family, more particularly to good emperors such as Augustus or Marcus Aurelius.⁴

A text from Pednelissus (?) in Pisidia is in Price’s view the prime example of a votive offering set up to the emperor as a result of sucessful prayer; the reading seems safe despite the restoration [ἀνέθη]κεν:⁵

Aὐτoϰϱάτοϱι Καίσαϱι ǀ Tϱαïανῶι Ἀδϱινῶι ǀ Σεβαστῶι ϰαὶ τφ¯ δήμφ ǀ τὴν εὐχὴν ǁ Σάλμων Θ[έ]ονος? ǀ lεϱεὺς Διòς ϰαὶ πϱo-ϑύǀ της τ[ῶv Σεβ]αστῶν γεǀνόμενος [ἀνέϑη]ϰεv ǀ σὺv γυναιϰὶ (δηνάϱια) σ’.

(SEG 2, 718)

The key point to be made here is that Salmon is both priest of Zeus and sacrificer of the Sebastoi; the genitive is ambigous but Price takes prothytes, correctly one would have thought, to indicate that he sacrified on behalf of the Sebastoi.⁶ Since Salmon is also priest of Zeus, it is perfectly possible that the votive has been set up to Zeus in recognition of his response to prayer. Why is this not explicit in the inscription? For the simple reason that there would have been no need if the votive had been placed at the temple of Zeus in line with the customary practice of depositing an artifact of some kind in a sanctuary as an anathema.⁷ What object was deposited we do not know, only that it cost 200 denarii, but the place where the votive was set up would itself have made it clear to which deity it was offered.⁸ To mention this in the inscription would in that case have been superfluous. In practice a wide range of inscriptions, both east and west, frequently omit the name of the deity to whom a vow has been paid, undoubtedly because this was thought unnecessary.⁹

On this interpretation, therefore, the votive will have been to Zeus, who is unnamed, and the priest, having deposited it, is careful to honour the emperor in the dedication formula, as appropriate to the office of prothytes of the Sebastoi (to which he had recently been elevated?). The text could then be read: “In honour of the emperor Caesar Trajan Hadrian Sebastos and the people, Salmon son of Theon, priest of Zeus and having become sacrificer for the Sebastoi, along with his wife, set up the votive at a cost of 200 denarii.” Three points tell in favour of this sense. (i) The emperor is called simply autocrator and given his standard names; nothing, that is, goes to show he was thought of as a deity. (ii) In the dedication the demos appears alongside the emperor. If the votive was to the emperor ut deo, was it then also to the demos as a god? The people of a city can sometimes be personified as an abstraction but this is clearly not the case here. Apart from the mention of the votive (euchên), the inscription does in fact resemble a class of dedications that are made to a god and, say, the emperor and the people or the emperor and a city. Nock has shown that in such cases the emperor and the people or a city are associated with a god honors causa, an idea explicit in the common formula IN H. D.D.¹⁰ What we have in such cases is a combination of the dative of honour with the votive dative of the deity to whom the dedication is made. The Pednelissus inscription looks very much a similar example except that the name of the deity is suppressed. (iii) We are not told what Salmon’s original petition had been but the text states that he has become prothytes. If the petition was in fact that he might obtain this office, there would have been every reason for Salmon, in fulfilling his vow to Zeus, to dedicate the euchên to the emperor.

An explanation along the same lines — that the vow was paid to a deity but the emperor is included in the dedication — looks a possible interpretation of a defaced text on a broken limestone altar from Bozuk Kuyu, near Ladik (Laodicea Combusts) in eastern Phrygia. Here Stephanus, freedman of the procurator, has recorded his dedication in fulfillment of a vow in the year A.D. 184:

… ǀ … ǀ Stephanus lib. proc. ǀ ex vow ǀ dedic. d […ǀ
Marullo et Aeliano cos. (MAMA 1, 23)

The presumption is that the first two lines of the inscription gave the name of Commodus, which has been erased as commonly elsewhere. With the key part of the text missing this inscription hardly serves as a basis for discussion but it is worth observing that, so far as one can tell from the photograph, a sizeable section of the stone has been broken away, perhaps in the process of erasure. It is not entirely certain, then, that the name of a god to whom the altar was dedicated did not originally stand in first place. Alternatively, if space is to be judged too short for that, the name of a god could have been deliberately omitted as superfluous for some reason (above, p. 122f.)¹¹ In any event there is nothing definite to confirm that Commodus has heard or answered ut deus the prayer of the procurator’s freedman. One might compare an Argive text dating from the lifetime of Vespasian and recording the formula ὐπὲρ λειτα^ς (= λιτα^ς):

Αὐτοκρ]άτορα Τίτον

Καίσ]αρα Σεβαστου^

Οὐε]σπασιανου^ νiὸν

…ης Ἀλεξάνδρου γυμνα-

σιαρχ]ήσας, ὐπὲρ λειτα^ς.

(IG 4, 584)

Here again nothing in the titulature of Titus serves to show he was considered a god; despite the votive formula nothing confirms that a vow was paid to the emperor. The fact that the name of Titus is in the accusative should indicate that in fulfilment of his vow (to some deity) the dedicant, having served as gymnasiarch, has honoured the emperor in setting up a statue to him or has erected a staute of the emperor.¹² Quite correctly, therefore, the text is listed by Fraenkel among tituli honorarii.

Two Gallic examples that belong in the same category as the above come from Neuilly-le-Real in the territory of the Bituriges Cubi. The texts are inscribed on the bases of two small bronze busts that purport to be of Augustus and Livia:

Caesari Augusto ǀ Atespatus Crixi fil. v.s.l.m.

Liviae Augustae ǀ Atespatus Crixi fit. v.s.l.m.

(CIL 13, 1366)

On the face df it Atespatus has paid a vow to Augustus and to Livia at some point during their lifetimes. Hence Hirschfeld’s comment: “Quod Augusto eiusque uxori deorum more votum solvitur, in Gallis, ubi jam a. 742 are Romae et August condita est, offensionem non habet.” Against this it may be noted once again that both the emperor and his wife are given their secular names;¹³ nothing, that is, indicates they were considered gods who had responded to prayer. More importantly, in this instance the two acompanying busts, which chance...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Divinity and Power
• 2. The Imperial Numen
• 3. The Imperial Cult: Review and Discussion
• 4. Rituals and Ceremonies
• 5. Ainimgata
• Index of names
• Index of places