Part of The Student Room Group

  • Join over 1.2 million students every month
  • Accelerate your learning by 29%
  • Unlimited access from just £6.99 per month

What Factors Led to a Roman Emperor

Extracts from this document...

Introduction

What Factors Led to a Roman Emperor Being Worshipped as a God? Between Augustus in AD 14 and Constantine in AD 337, 36 out of the 60 emperors were officially deified1. Hopkins2 believes that kings of all eras associate themselves with divine beings in order to secure and legitimise their position in power; likewise, subjects of a nation use divine association to justify the absolute rule of an obscured emperor. Both politics and religion before and after death contribute to an emperor being worshipped as a god, but factors and traditions alter with the changing political system. Whilst the emperor is alive there are many issues that add to his eventual deification; none more important that the cult of the living emperor. The eastern provinces of the Roman Empire had long been worshipping their rulers as gods3 and this created a politically awkward situation within Rome. While the east bestowed many divine honours on Roman emperors, the elites within the city did not condone any divine worship of a mortal. The emperor was one of the elite and although he was thought of as the first man, he was after all only a man. Augustus was the first emperor to have and maintain an official cult whilst alive. ...read more.

Middle

Those further down in the social hierarchy need to glorify the emperor in order to venerate their own position. Signs throughout the emperors life that were documented and spread like myths meant that, like the Christian belief in Jesus, the Romans were able to 'prove' the divinity of an emperor. Tacitus19 writes of a miracle performed by the emperor Vespasian in which a blind man and a cripple is cured by Vespasian's touch. The text shows the emperors divinity but also his reluctance to accept this divine gift and an interest in science. These ideas support the suggestion that a Roman emperor was not to encourage divine worship to himself directly, in his lifetime. When looking at the context of Vespasian's reign, he was unexpectedly brought to power and therefore may have felt the need to reinforce his divine nature to secure his dominance20. The use of divine signs to cement divinity was not a new occurrence; in the Augustan age at the Olympic games held in honour of the recently deified Caesar, a comet was said to have been seen in the sky for seven days and that this was a sign from the gods to say that they were pleased about the worshipping of Caesar21. ...read more.

Conclusion

As it has been argued there are many factors that contribute to an emperor being worshipped as a god and it is the combined effect of all these aspects that eventually lead to the official deification. From the Augustan age many emperors attempted to subtly change time to imperial time and likewise religion was altered to create an imperial religion. Hopkins31 argues that our modern rationalistic prejudices prevent us from fully understanding the need for glorifying the Roman hierarchy and we underestimate the power that myth has on the Roman populace. In the first three centuries AD, there was a great belief that emperors were of divine origin and so were to rejoin their ancestry after death in heaven; many literary texts and images depict emperors as 'gods on earth,' and the cults of emperors continue to bestow heavenly honours after their deaths. However, no matter how virtuous the emperor or how much pressure is placed on the senate by the cult of the living emperor or the succeeding ruler, the only title given to a deified emperor is that of 'divus' meaning divine; the title associated with the traditional gods is that of 'deus' meaning god. Even though the emperor is worshipped as a god and is deified by senatorial decree it is arguable that no emperor is ever made a true god of Rome. ...read more.

The above preview is unformatted text

This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE History Projects section.

Found what you're looking for?

  • Start learning 29% faster today
  • 150,000+ documents available
  • Just £6.99 a month

or


Not the one? Search for your essay title...
  • Join over 1.2 million students every month
  • Accelerate your learning by 29%
  • Unlimited access from just £6.99 per month

See related essaysSee related essays

Related GCSE History Projects essays

  1. Organization, Training and Discipline: How Did these Factors Contribute to the Success of the ...

    and had a basic understanding of what to do and how to use their weapons.

  2. What Do Roman Authors Tell Us About The Celts? To What Extent Are Their ...

    The Romans authors also made a point of enhancing the apparent barbarism of the natives. Strabo wrote that they "are well supplied with milk but do not know how to make cheese; they know nothing of planting crops or of farming in general."

  1. Why was the Roman Army so Successful? Rome was one ...

    Both of these huge pieces of roman technology would have been very frightening to the other armies, as these weapons would've been completely new to them. That was another tactic- causing fear and chaos. The auxiliaries and artilleries weren't the most important strategies they had.

  2. Was Dunkirk a miracle or disaster?

    would be sufficient for Britain to come to peace terms with Hitler. The total destruction of the British Expeditionary Force might have created such asense of revenge in Britain that their involvement would be prolonged. That is one idea put forward for why Hitler did not order a full-scale attack

  1. Am I not a Man and a brother?

    yet, most of those who built this grand, varnish house had crossed the dreadful Middle Passage on the filthy floor below deck for weeks and lived in the small, dusty slave quarters when they arrived - when they were building the grand house and after they finish building it!

  2. Greek Gods and Goddesses

    of Marriage, especially married women, Goddess of maternity, and presided over all of the phases of women's existence. (Guirand 113; Hamilton 26-27) Hera was very jealous of Zeus's many other women, and revenged on them with some sort of a punishment.

  1. An Essay on why Augustus was a better emperor than Nero ?

    In this way Augustus remained popular. He ruled fairly and wisely. Nero achieved brilliant success abroad. King Parithia and the Roman leaders fought over the country of Armenia for many years but in AD 66 Augustus came up with an agreement and for 50 years peace was kept for long after Nero died.

  2. To summarise the history that led Britain to becoming a multicultural society

    Adrian C Smith http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity#Human_context http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiculturalism http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Sub-culture Task 1 (B) In this part of my assignment I am going to summarise the history that led Britain to becoming a multicultural society. I am going to summarise the key events that made Britain change from the white and singular culture into a mixed multicultural society.

  • Over 160,000 pieces
    of student written work
  • Annotated by
    experienced teachers
  • Ideas and feedback to
    improve your own work