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File:DivusIulius Oak wreath Thasos.jpg
Head of the Divus Iulius with oak wreath from Thasos (Greece)

Divus Iulius (the divine Julius, the God Julius) is the official title given to the deceased Julius Caesar by decree of the Roman Senate on January 1st, 42 BC. Caesar was the first historical Roman to be deified. The Divus Iulius (Eng. also: Divus Julius) was regarded as the supreme God of the state besides Iupiter Optimus Maximus in Rome since his official consecration in the year 42 BC. Divus Iulius is the deity, to which Gaius Iulius Caesar was elevated after his murder in the year 44 BC. (IMP·C·IVLIVS·CAESAR·DIVVS: Imperator Gaius Iulius Caesar Divus, best translated as “Commander [and] God Gaius Julius Caesar”). Suetonius wrote that "[...] he was numbered among the gods, not only because of a proclamation of a decision, but also because of the deep conviction of the people. [1] The Julian religion, the cult of Divus Julius, was prevalent throughout the entire Roman empire and is generally considered as the precursor of the Roman Imperial cult, however, it continued to exist beside that until the Christianization of the empire.


Introductory explanations[edit]

History and meaning of the term divus[edit]

Etymologically, the often mentioned contraction of the Latin divinus to divus is not correct. Rather, the word divus (Latin for „God“ resp. „divine“; pronounced: „(d)iu-us“, since there was no differentiation between u und v in the Latin of that time) is a synonymous by-form of deus: both terms were used indiscriminately by the Romans (diuus < > deus), a practice which continued in Roman poetry after Caesar and the introduction of the Imperial cult as well. The origin of divus is found in the ancestor worship of the Old Roman family, which was directed at the spirits of the deceased, the di(v)i parentes and the di(v)i manes, as an undefined collective: the forefather or particularly famous ancestors were originally only seldom singled out as individuals or even honored by specific veneration, like e.g. the Diva Angerona and the Diva Rumina.

The usage of the term changed under Iulius Caesar when the senate searched for a suitable cult name for the dictator. In september 44 BC divus is mentioned in connection with Caesar's apotheosis by Cicero: Divus Iulius was officially established by the senate at the beginning of the same year as cult name for Caesar. The fact that Caesar accepted the cult name proposed by the senate shows that he tried to distance himself from the antiquated variant deus, which lies close to Dieus, the old name of the god Iuppiter resp. Zeus. This is also confirmed by Caesar's refusal of the alternative and all too clear proposal Iupitter Iulius (Cassius Dio: Dia Ioulion). It further appears that the apotheosis as a godhead separate but close to Jupiter was prepared, and the fact that Caesar had already been flamen Dialis (highpriest of Jupiter) since his youth, but had been prevented to inaugurate by Sulla could have motivated him all the more to approve the cult name Divus Iulius. Furthermore, it is possible that Caesar himself proposed the cult name in his last will and testament (ca. 45 BC). This, however, remains a mere speculation.

An earlier indication to Caesar's apotheosis during his lifetime is a municipal temple in Aesernia, which after Caesar's appointment as parens patriae in the year 45 BC was devoted to the cult of the genius Caesaris. The inscription of the temple refers to Caesar with a variant of his cult name as Deivus Iulius.[2] The inauguration of the genius-cult in Aesernia was without doubt carried out in Caesar's lifetime, however, it more likely has to be dated to the year 44 BC , since despite numerous earlier received divine honors the reception of Caesar as state god into the Roman pantheon was only officially decreed by the senate in that year.

However, according to Gradel (2002), the most significant reference to the cult name divus in connection with Caesar is the inscription on the pantocrator-statue in the city of Rome, which was errected on the Capitol after Caesar's victory at Thapsus in May 46 BC. On this one Caesar was called hemitheos according to a historical work authored later by Cassius Dio.[3] Since, for one thing, Cassius Dio always used the Greek translation heros for the word divus in the case of a deceased emperor, for another thing, in the context of the complete cult name he translated divus als theios (Exp.: Divus Augustus > theios Augoustos), the Latin divus must be assumed for hemitheos if it was used for the still living ruler, in this case Divus Caesar. (The translation as "demigod" must be rejected because hemitheos did not find its way into the Latin language until the fourth century AD. Moreover, the direct Latin translation of hemitheos as semideus was only introduced by Ovid in Rome.) In the time of Caesar the Greeks translated divus always with theos on inscriptions, since there was no differentiation between the new form and the older deus in Greek yet at that time.

The significance of Divus in comparison with Deus was subject to substantial change in the course of the centuries after Caesar's deification. The original post-republican meaning, which was probably defined in the course of the determining of Caesar's cult name in 46 BC, at the latest in 44 BC, by the influential scholar Varro, put the Divus above all other divine beings: The Divi were thus the highest-ranking gods, and the term divus implied the noblest and most venerable status of a deity, who had been a god since the beginning of all time. Deus in contrast was the term, which was supposed to be used for mortals, who had been consecrated as gods after their deaths. Varro's momentous definition certainly further increased the political brisance of Caesar's apotheosis, also with respect to the subsequent emperor cult: the Divus Iulius was an eternal god, and Caesar, too, had always been a god, even if this quality was only recognized retrospectively. For this reason the senate's decision for the term divus was only logical.

In the fourth century after Christ, however, this Varronian interpretation took an about-face in the writings of the Vergil-commentator Servius, because he wanted to revoke Varro's eccentric disregard of the chronological development from deus to divus. Indeed, the Divi had in Varro's time been the immortal elite class of gods, they were, however, increasingly regarded as a particular and inferior subcategory of the strongly generalized Dii. The process of the consecratio of a deceased ruler contradicted, in the later view, the quality of the Divus as "eternal god". This was reinforced by the fact that Rome more and more abandoned the cult of its posthumously divinized emperors and prefered the cult of the incumbent emperors, particularly in the municipal and private area. The Servian new interpretation may have accounted for the often named interpretation of the word divus as "godly", which rather corresponds to the Christian notion of sacred (Lat. sanctus). Servius notwithstanding, this does not have an historical basis, however, even though the later divinized emperors did no longer have the same status as the Divus Iulius or his son, the Divi (Iuli) filius („Son of God“), who was revered as Divus Augustus after his death.

Historical misunderstandings[edit]

„Divinization“ versus „Deification“[edit]

The diadem and the Rex title[edit]

Summary[edit]

Alba Longa, Bovillae and Rome: the religious tradition of the gens Iulia[edit]

Veiovis[edit]

Apollo[edit]

Mars[edit]

Venus[edit]

Caesar's funeral and apotheosis[edit]

Mark Antony had been appointed as flamen (priest) to Caesar shortly before the latter was assassinated. [...] The cult of Divus Iulius was promoted by both Octavian and Mark Antony.

Further information[edit]

Caesar had abetted the cult of Divus Iulius already before his death, when he had a statue of himself erected with the inscription deo invicto („to the unconquered god“). The descent of the Iulii from Aeneas, the son of the Goddess Venus Genetrix, strongly confirmed Caesar's apotheosis to Divus Iulius.

The by-name of Gaius Iulius Caesar Octavianus, Divi filius (Son of God), goes back to the Divus Iulius and identifies Octavianus as the successor of Iulius Caesar elevated to godhead: initially, when Octavianus accepted the testamentary adoption, he was still simply called Caii filius, „Son of Gaius“. In the year 29 BC the later princeps errected a temple for his deified father on the Forum Romanum in Rome. The last emperor who was a blood relative to Julius Caesar was Nero, but later emperors assumed Caesar's name which became synonymous with the title Emperor. Caesar's name is also the source of such titles as Kaiser and Czar (Tsar).

According to the new theory of the Julian origin of Christianity established by Francesco Carotta, the hagiography of Julius Caesar, the vita Divi Iulii, spanning the time from Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon to his assassination and apotheosis, was transformed into the Gospel of Jesus Christ by an iterative rewriting process in the course of a diegetic transposition.

Original citations and footnotes[edit]

  1. ^ [Suet. Iul. 88.1] [...] in deorum numerum relatus est, non ore modo decernentium, sed et persuasione volgi.
  2. ^ GENIO·DEIVI·IVLI·PARENTIS·PATRIAE·QVEM·SENATVS·POPVLVSQVE·ROMANVS·IN·DEORVM·NVMERVM·RETTVLIT
  3. ^ Lat. inscription approximately: SENATVS·POPVLVSQVE·ROMANVS·DIVO·CAESARIS

See also[edit]

Sources[edit]

Primary literature[edit]

  • Appian: Roman History, books 13–17 (civil wars, books 1–5) (*)
  • Marcus Tullius Cicero: Letters to Atticus, to the brother Quintus, to Brutus
  • Idem: "Philippic speeches
  • Cassius Dio: Roman history, books 37–50
  • Nicolaus of Damascus: Life of Caesar (Augustus) (bios Kaisaros)
  • Plutarch: Parallel biographies: Sulla, Pompeius, Cicero, Caesar, Brutus, Antonius, Cato minor Uticensis (*)
  • Suetonius: Divus Iulius (*)
  • Velleius Paterculus: Historia Romana (Ad M. Vinicium consulem libri duo)
(*) (partially) dependent on Gaius Asinius Pollio: Historiae

Secondary literature[edit]

  • Andreas Alföldi: Caesariana - Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Geschichte Caesars und seiner Zeit. Bonn 1984, ISBN 3-7749-1859-7. Contains among others:
    • „La divinisation de César dans la politique d'Antoine et d'Octavien entre 44 et 40 av. J.-C.“. From: Revue numismatique 6,15. 1973
    • „Rezension von H. Gesche, Die Vergottung Caesars“. From: Phoenix 24. 1970
    • „Rezension von St. Weinstock, Divus Julius“. From: Gnomon 47. 1975
  • Javier Arce: Funus Imperatorum: Los funerales de los emperadores romanos. Madrid 1988, ISBN 84-206-7068-5
  • Christoph Battenberg: Pompeius und Caesar: Persönlichkeit und Programm in ihrer Münzpropaganda. Inaugural-Dissertation. Marburg/Lahn 1980
  • Luciano Canfora: C. GIULIO CESARE. Il dittatore democratico, Laterza 1999 (English: Julius Cesar. The People's Dictator, Edinburgh University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0748619368)
  • Carotta, Francesco. Jesus was Caesar. On the Julian Origin of Christianity. An Investigative Report (Soesterberg: Aspekt B V Uitgeverij; 2005). ISBN 9059113969
  • Manfred Clauss: Kaiser und Gott - Herrscherkult im römischen Reich. Stuttgart/Leipzig 1999, ISBN 3-519-07444-3
  • Hellfried Dahlmann: „Clementia Caesaris“. 1934. In: Detlef Rasmussen (Hrsg.): Caesar. Darmstadt 1976, ISBN 3-534-02666-7. [RAS76]
  • Monroe E. Deutsch: Antony's Funeral Speech. Berkeley 1928
  • Gerhard Dobesch: Caesars Apotheose zu Lebzeiten und sein Ringen um den Königstitel. Self-published, Vienna 1966
  • Matthias Gelzer: Caesar - Der Politiker und Staatsmann. Wiesbaden 1983, ISBN 3-515-03907-4
  • Helga Gesche: Die Vergottung Caesars. Kallmünz 1968
  • Ittai Gradel: Emperor Worship and Roman Religion. Oxford 2002, ISBN 0-19-927548-3
  • Wilhelm Kierdorf: Laudatio Funebris - Interpretationen und Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der römischen Leichenrede. Meisenheim am Glan 1980, ISBN 3-445-01941-X
  • Konrad Kraft: Der goldene Kranz Caesars und der Kampf um die Entlarvung des „Tyrannen“. Darmstadt 1969
  • Kurt Latte: Römische Religionsgeschichte - Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft Band 4. München, 1967 (unveränd. Nachdruck: 1992), ISBN 3-406-01374-0
  • Christian Meier: Die Ohnmacht des allmächtigen Dictators Caesar - Drei biographische Skizzen. Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-518-11038-1
  • John T. Ramsey & A. Lewis Licht: The Comet of 44 B.C. and Caesar's Funeral Games. Atlanta 1997, ISBN 0-7885-0273-5
  • Jörg Rüpke: Die Religion der Römer. München 2001, ISBN 3-406-47175-7
  • Lily Ross Taylor: The Divinity of the Roman Emperor. Middletown 1931 (unveränd. Nachdruck: 1988), ISBN 0-89130-702-8
  • Jocelyn M. C. Toynbee: Death and Burial in the Roman World. Baltimore/London 1971 (unveränd. Nachdruck: 1996), ISBN 0-8018-5507-1
  • Stefan Weinstock: Divus Julius. Oxford 1971 (unchanged reprint: 2004), ISBN 0-19-814287-0
  • Mary Frances Williams: „The Sidus Iulium, the divinity of men, and the Golden Age in Virgil's Aeneid“. Leeds International Classical Studies 2,1. 2003
  • Georg Wissowa: Religion und Kultus der Römer. Munich 1912 (unveränd. Nachdruck: 1971), ISBN 3-406-03406-3
  • Antonie Wlosok (Hrsg.): Römischer Kaiserkult. Darmstadt 1978, ISBN 3-534-06078-4
  • Konrat Ziegler, Walter Sontheimer & Hans Gärtner (Hrsg.): Der kleine Pauly - Lexikon der Antike in fünf Bänden. München 1979, ISBN 3-423-05963-X

Image sources[edit]

  • DIVUS IULIUS WITH OAK WREATH (THASOS). Richard Herbig (1959): „Neue Studien zur Ikonographie des Gaius Iulius Caesar“. In: [RAS76]
  • BULL SACRIFICE: AUGUSTUS-ALTAR IN POMPEII. Ittai Gradel (2002): Emperor Worship and Roman Religion. Oxford.
  • VEIOVIS-ALTAR OF THE GENS IULIA FROM BOVILLAE. Stefan Weinstock (1971): Divus Iulius. Oxford.

Web links[edit]

Primary literature[edit]

English Translations[edit]

Original texts[edit]

General links[edit]


Category:Ancient Roman religion


--TO BE CONTINUED--

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