Between Man and God: Sacrifice in the Roman Imperial Cult

Abstract

Because men addressed him as Augustus in view of his claim to honour they revere him with temples and sacrifices over all the islands and continents, in cities and tribes requiting him for the magnitude of his virtue and his benefactions towards them. This passage from a biography of Augustus by a contemporary writer, Nicolaus of Damascus, gives a rare picture of the way in which the emperor was honoured in his lifetime throughout the provinces of the empire. The temples and sacrifices to which it refers formed part of a nexus of cultic honours, classified by the Greeks as isotheoi timai , honours equivalent to those given to the gods, which also included priests, festivals and games. This form of royal ritual stretched back in the Greek lands three hundred years to the time of Alexander the Great and beyond and constitutes a fundamental aspect of the relationship between subject and ruler in the ancient world.