Imperial Cult

The Roman imperial cult identified emperors and some of their relatives with the divinely sanctioned authority of the state. Shaped under Augustus, it spread through the provinces, though the Republic had never worshipped a living man.

The Senate could vote a dead emperor a state god by apotheosis, an honour Vespasian and Septimius Severus used to bolster new dynasties. The cult was bound up with Rome's official gods, and was abandoned when Theodosius I made Christianity the state religion.