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Numinibus Aug(ustorum)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

Duncan Fishwick
Affiliation:
University of Alberta

Extract

The theology of the Imperial Numen continues to stir vigorous debate. In an article recently published in this journal J.C. Mann has proposed a radically different interpretation of the concept as seen through Celtic eyes in the Roman provinces of the North-West. He lays down in the first place that it is epigraphically impossible for numinibus Aug. to refer to multiple living emperors, who would rather have been indicated by the reduplicated ‘g’. Nor can the reference be to the living emperor in combination with the deceased: deified dead emperors would certainly have had the divus title and could not in any case be credited with numen since they possessed no ‘divine power’. As a result, the formula n[u]minibus Aug. on an altar from Benwell (RIB 1330), for example, must be taken to refer to the numina of the reigning emperor, who in popular thought was considered to have multiple numina, powers ‘in every human field’ (p. 177). Long before its publication, an oral version of this thesis had convinced E. Birley, who on the strength of it completed both RIB 707 and 1330 in such a way as to refer likewise to the numina of the living emperor. Since this expansion affects the interpretation of epigraphical texts that are of interest in ways other than just recording the cult of the numen, the whole question merits re-examination.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 25 , November 1994 , pp. 127 - 141
Copyright
Copyright © Duncan Fishwick 1994. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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