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VESPASIAN'S APOTHEOSIS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2019

Andrew B. Gallia
Andrew B. Gallia*
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
*
abgallia@umn.edu
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Extract

In the study of the divinization of Roman emperors, a great deal depends upon the sequence of events. According to the model of consecratio proposed by Bickermann, apotheosis was supposed to be accomplished during the deceased emperor's public funeral, after which the Senate acknowledged what had transpired by decreeing appropriate honours for the new diuus. Contradictory evidence has turned up in the Fasti Ostienses, however, which seem to indicate that both Marciana and Faustina were declared diuae before their funerals took place. This suggests a shift away from the Augustan precedent, whereby the testimony of a (well-compensated) witness had been required to establish divinity (Suet. Aug. 100.4, Dio Cass. 56.46.2, 59.11.4; cf. Sen. Apocol. 1.2–3), to a procedure in which the senators were able to jump ahead to the politically foreordained conclusion and bestow the honour at once. Careful re-examination of the evidence in Tacitus (Ann. 12.69.3, 13.2.3) and Suetonius (Ner. 9) has made it possible to assign this development to the year 54, with the consecration of Claudius.

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Research Article
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The Classical Quarterly , Volume 69 , Issue 1 , May 2019 , pp. 335 - 339
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Copyright © The Classical Association 2019 

In the study of the divinization of Roman emperors, a great deal depends upon the sequence of events. According to the model of consecratio proposed by Bickermann, apotheosis was supposed to be accomplished during the deceased emperor's public funeral, after which the Senate acknowledged what had transpired by decreeing appropriate honours for the new diuus.Footnote 1 Contradictory evidence has turned up in the Fasti Ostienses, however, which seem to indicate that both Marciana and Faustina were declared diuae before their funerals took place.Footnote 2 This suggests a shift away from the Augustan precedent, whereby the testimony of a (well-compensated) witness had been required to establish divinity (Suet. Aug. 100.4, Dio Cass. 56.46.2, 59.11.4; cf. Sen. Apocol. 1.2–3), to a procedure in which the senators were able to jump ahead to the politically foreordained conclusion and bestow the honour at once.Footnote 3 Careful re-examination of the evidence in Tacitus (Ann. 12.69.3, 13.2.3) and Suetonius (Ner. 9) has made it possible to assign this development to the year 54, with the consecration of Claudius.Footnote 4

If the acceleration of the process suggests something about the shifting balance of power between the Senate and the imperial family in the first century a.d., a delay might also be revealing. Certain postponements can be explained in terms of changing imperial priorities. For example, the twelve years it took for the Empress Livia to become Diva Augusta can be attributed to the differing priorities of Tiberius, who initially refused divine honours on her behalf (Tac. Ann. 5.2.1), and her ultimate benefactor Claudius, whom Suetonius portrays as especially dutiful in meeting the obligations of familial piety (Claud. 11.2: officia pietatis). The divinization of Pertinax was likewise postponed owing to the usurpation of Didius Julianus, and so could not be put into effect until Septimius Severus’ arrival in Rome (Dio Cass. 74.4–5; cf. SHA Pert. 14.9–15).

Vespasian, on the other hand, passed down his office to his own son in an orderly succession, and Titus obviously had much to gain from his father's consecration. Nevertheless, it appears that the founder of the Flavian dynasty faced a significant delay in becoming a god. As Buttrey demonstrated over four decades ago, the numismatic evidence suggests that divinity was not granted to Vespasian until sometime after the beginning of a.d. 80, when Titus and Domitian became consuls for the eighth and seventh times, respectively.Footnote 5 Both are represented as having obtained this office before being identified as the son of a diuus.Footnote 6 This cannot be marked down to a failure on the part of the moneyers to attest filiation. The legends of Domitian's COS VII coins mark a clear progression, first styling the prince as CAESAR AVG. F. DOMITIANVS before switching to some version of DIVI / DIVI AVG. / DIVI VESP. / DIVI AVG. VESP. F. at a later date.Footnote 7

Epigraphy helps to narrow—but also complicates—the timeline. A military diploma from Bulgaria, in which the phrase diui Vespasiani f(ilius) makes its first appearance in Titus’ official titulature, establishes 24–8 January 80 as a plausible terminus ante quem.Footnote 8 Taken together with the evidence of the coins, this should mean that Vespasian's consecration took place at some time in mid January of 80. There is, however, at least one inscription from Titus’ seventh consulship in which he is described as diui f(ilius).Footnote 9 We must therefore settle for an absolute terminus post quem of 8 September 79, marking the last secure date at which these terms were still absent from Titus’ official titulature.Footnote 10 Vespasian was therefore not officially a diuus—which is to say that his children did not represent themselves as the sons of a diuus—for at least seventy-eight days following his death on 23 June (Suet. Vesp. 24). That is a longer delay than the one Pertinax had to endure.

This state of affairs requires explanation. It would be strange for Titus and Domitian to delay acknowledging their father's apotheosis if Vespasian had already attained this honour. The normal policy was for imperial titulature to announce the divine status of an emperor's predecessor as soon as consecration was obtained. As noted above, there was a brief delay between Augustus’ death on 19 August a.d. 14 (Suet. Aug. 100.1) and his official consecration at the Senate meeting following his funeral, on 17 September (Tac. Ann. 1.10.8).Footnote 11 One inscription, which refers to Tiberius as Imp. Caes(ar) Augusti f(ilius) Augustus, can be assigned to this interval (CIL 8.10023 = ILS 151). Tiberius is thereafter represented as diui Augusti f(ilius) in another inscription from the same year and on the first coins issued during his reign.Footnote 12 Nero's status as a diui filius was advertised both numismatically and epigraphically without any apparent delay upon his accession to the throne in the middle of October 54.Footnote 13 This pattern continues after the Flavians as well, with the earliest datable inscriptions of every emperor from Trajan down to Commodus attesting to his status as the son of a deified predecessor.Footnote 14 The main difference is that patronymic formulae are generally absent from the coinage of the second century, which makes it more difficult to date the commemoration of imperial consecrations in this medium.Footnote 15 As the lone exception to this trend, Hadrian is duly styled DIVI TRAIAN. AVG. F. and sometimes also DIVI NER. NEP. on his first emissions of 117, however.Footnote 16

There is every reason to suppose that the Flavians would have been eager to see the founder of their dynasty elevated to divine status as soon as possible. If such proof was even necessary, the appearance of a comet in late March and April of 79 appears to have been interpreted as a harbinger of Vespasian's eventual apotheosis.Footnote 17 His deathbed quip, uae, puto deus fio, also suggests that divinization was anticipated during his lifetime.Footnote 18 Titus did ultimately issue extensive series of coins in both precious metals and bronze celebrating DIVVS AVGVSTVS VESPASIANVS on the obverse, thus demonstrating that he understood the ideological usefulness of divine parentage.Footnote 19 His motivations were apparent to Pliny the Younger, at least, who provides a brief history of imperial apotheoses when discussing Nerva's divinization in the Panegyricus (11.1–2).

The passage requires quoting in full:

dicauit caelo Tiberius Augustum, sed ut maiestatis crimen induceret; Claudium Nero, sed ut irrideret; Vespasianum Titus, Domitianus Titum, sed ille ut dei filius, hic ut frater uideretur. tu sideribus patrem intulisti non ad metum ciuium, non in contumeliam numinum, non in honorem tuum, sed quia deum credis.

Tiberius declared that Augustus was divine, but in order to justify charges of treason. Nero did this with Claudius, but in order to mock him; Titus did this with Vespasian, and Domitian Titus, but one in order to appear as the son of a god, the other as the brother of one. You [sc. Trajan] raised your father to the stars not to terrorize citizens, nor in contempt for the divine, nor for your own honour, but because you believe him to be a god.

For Pliny, the actions of Tiberius and Nero represent a stark dichotomy: divinization of one's father could lead either to an expansion of the crimen maiestatis (as insults to such deities were made liable to prosecution) or to a devaluing of the gods altogether (when the new emperor condoned and even participated in such insults).Footnote 20 Pliny has obviously simplified matters in order to praise more effectively Trajan's supposed pietas,Footnote 21 but what stands out as relevant for the present argument is the apparent ease with which he exempts the Flavian apotheoses from this trade-off, such that vainglory becomes the only motivation for Titus and subsequently Domitian.

How this transformation might have been accomplished is suggested by Dio Cassius, who is quoted by Xiphilinus as having Titus declare: ‘those emperors who have passed on, if they are truly divine and have such power, will avenge themselves if anyone should injure them’ (66.19.2: οἱ δὲ μετηλλαχότες τῶν αὐτοκρατόρων αὐτοὶ ἑαυτοῖς, ἄνπερ ὡς ἀληθῶς ἥρωές τε ὦσι καὶ δύναμίν τινα ἔχωσι, τιμωρήσουσιν ἄν τί τις αὐτοὺς ἀδικήσῃ). This statement is preserved in the context of a discussion of the remarkable fact that no senators were killed, either by the emperor or any other agent, during Titus’ brief reign (cf. Dio Cass. 67.2.4). Although sometimes associated with the ‘oath not to put senators to death’ that all ‘good’ emperors (and those who wished to appear as such) subsequently offered at the outset of their reigns, this comment, which follows Titus’ disavowal of retribution for criticisms of himself, is in fact part of a more narrowly crafted justification of a refusal to entertain charges of ἀσέβεια (that is, maiestas).Footnote 22 It is, in other words, an explicit rejection of the Tiberian precedent, and an assurance that Vespasian's divinity would not become a pretext for trials and executions.

It is not difficult to imagine that some members of the Senate would have sought such an assurance from Titus, and possibly even delayed Vespasian's consecration in order to obtain it. As praetorian prefect under his father, Titus had operated with brutal efficiency to eliminate perceived threats to the regime, but he significantly damaged his reputation in the process.Footnote 23 Wary of a potential second Nero, many senators were no doubt reluctant to create a state of affairs they knew could be exploited to destroy anyone suspected of disloyalty. We are told that the Senate was prepared to withhold divine honours from Hadrian in 138, so it is not inconceivable that this option was also available to them at the beginning of Titus’ reign.Footnote 24 Resistance to Vespasian's divinization would have posed a significant stumbling-block to the Flavians’ celestial ambitions, but could conceivably have prompted a debate over the nature of this honour and its legal ramifications. Titus’ concession that those ‘who have passed on’ should be left to tend to their own vengeance would then represent the result of an extended negotiation, which would mean that the delay in Vespasian's consecration can be regarded as evidence of the Senate's capacity to act with some measure of independence in order to assert its own interests at this time.

References

1 Bickermann, E., ‘Die römische Kaiserapotheosie’, in Wlosok, A. (ed.), Römischer Kaiserkult (Darmstadt, 1978), 82–121, at 100–6Google Scholar (= Archiv für Religionswissenschaft 27 [1929], 1–31, at 15–19Google Scholar); id., ‘Consecratio’, in den Boer, W. (ed.), Le culte des souverains dans l'empire romain (Entretiens Hardt 19) (Geneva, 1973), 1–37, at 13–25Google Scholar.

2 Vidman, L., Fasti Ostienses (Prague, 1982 2), 48 J 39–43Google Scholar: IIII k. Septembr. | [Marciana Aug]usta excessit diuaq(ue) cognominata. | [eodem die Mati]dia Augusta cognominata. III | [non. Sept. Marc]iana Augusta funere censorio | [elata est.], 49 O 11–14: X[— k. Nou. Fausti]na Aug[usta excessit eodemq(ue) die a] | senatu diua app[ellata et s(enatus) c(onsultum) fact]um fun[ere censorio eam efferendam.] | ludi et circenses [delati sunt. — i]dus N[ou. Faustina Augusta funere] | censorio elata e[st]. Against this interpretation of the Marciana fragment (as published by Degrassi, A., Inscr. Ital. 13.1 [1947], 201Google Scholar), see Bickerman, E., ‘Diva Augusta Marciana’, AJPh 95 (1974), 362–76Google Scholar; cf. Oliver, J.H., ‘The Divi of the Hadrianic period’, HThR 42 (1949), 35–40, at 38Google Scholar.

3 Vittinghoff, F., Der Staatsfeind in der römishen Kaiserzeit: Untersuchungen zur ‘damnatio memoriae’ (Berlin, 1936), 77–80Google Scholar; Richard, J.-C., ‘Incinération et inhumation aux funérailles impériales: Histoire du rituel de l'apothéose pendant le Haut-Empire’, Latomus 25 (1966), 784–804, at 793–804Google Scholar; Price, S., ‘From noble funerals to divine cult: the consecration of Roman emperors’, in Cannadine, D. and Price, S. (edd.), Rituals of Royalty: Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies (Cambridge, 1987), 56–105, at 91–3Google Scholar.

4 Kierdorf, W., ‘“Funus” und “consecratio”: zu Terminologie und Ablauf der römischen Kaiserapotheose’, Chiron 16 (1986), 43–69, at 52–5Google Scholar; Fishwick, D., ‘The deification of Claudius’, CQ 52 (2002), 341–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Buttrey, T.V., ‘Vespasian's consecratio and the numismatic evidence’, Historia 25 (1976), 449–57Google Scholar, recapitulated in id., Documentary Evidence for the Chronology of the Flavian Titulature (Meisenheim, 1980), 20 and 25Google Scholar; embraced by Kierdorf (n. 4), 65 n. 92; Kienast, D., Römische Kaisertabelle (Darmstadt, 1996), 108–9Google Scholar; Levick, B., Vespasian (London, 1999), 197Google Scholar. Contra: Scott, K., The Imperial Cult under the Flavians (Stuttgart, 1936), 40Google Scholar; Clarke, G.W., ‘The date of the consecratio of Vespasian’, Historia 15 (1966), 318–27Google Scholar.

6 RIC II2 205–13 nos. 96–255.

7 RIC II2 205 nos. 96–9; RIC II2 214–19 nos. 265–355.

8 CIL 16.158 = AE 1948.56; cf. RGZM 4. Not discussed by Buttrey (n. 5 [1976]), 452, who cites the records of the Arval brethren for 29 May as the earliest datable testimony (CIL 6.2059 = Scheid, CFA 48).

9 CIL 6.1246 = ILS 98c. Buttrey (n. 5 [1976]), 456–7 suggests that this inscription may not have been set up until 80, after the restoration project it refers to was completed. Why the emperor's filiation would have been updated but not his official titles remains unclear, however. Buttrey (n. 5 [1976]), 450–2 is clearly right to discount CIL 3.6732 (an editorial slip: see T.B. Mitford, ‘New inscriptions from Roman Cyprus’, Opuscula Archaeologica 6 [1950], 1–95, at 85–7) and AE 1957.169 = RIB 3.3123 (unreliably reconstructed) as evidence for apotheosis in 79, but is perhaps too hasty in his dismissal of two inscriptions from Laodicea (IGR 4.845–6 = IK 49.15 and 9), which name Titus as ὕπατος τὸ ζʹ and Αὐτοκράτορος θεοῦ Οὐεσπασιανοῦ / [Αὐτοκρά]τορος Καίσαρος [Οὐε]σπασιανοῦ Σεβαστοῦ θεοῦ υἱός.

10 CIL 16.24 = AE 1927.96; cf. RGZM 3. Buttrey (n. 5 [1976]), 452 also calls attention to AE 1962.288 (dated 7 September).

11 Inscr. Ital. 13.2.25 = CIL 9.4192, p. 402; Inscr. Ital. 13.1.31 = CIL 10.6638, p. 664.

12 CIL 2.4905 = ILS 152; RIC I2 93 nos. 1–2.

13 RIC I2 150 nos. 1–3; IGR 4.1124 (a.d. 54); CIL 2.4719 = ILS 225 (a.d. 55). Unlike Tiberius, Nero would eventually abandon this emphasis on divine filiation: RIC I2 153–85 nos. 44–606; cf. Suet. Ner. 33.1; Dio Cass. 60.35.2–4; Hekster, O., Emperors and Ancestors (Oxford, 2015), 51–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 AE 1990.131c, e = CIL 10.6820, 6824, 6826; CIL 2.4685, 12.4341, 16.42; AE 1949.42 (Trajan, a.d. 98). IGR 4.349 (Hadrian, a.d. 117); also CIL 2.429; IG 12.3.175–6 (a.d. 118). AE 1914.174; CIL 2.4057; CIL 9.697 = ILS 332; CIL 6.999 = ILS 333; CIL 14.4357 (Pius, a.d. 138—perhaps predating Hadrian's official consecration? Cf. n. 24 below). CIL 6.31554 = ILS 5933; CIL 3.208, 3744, 6.40867–8, 10.1647 (M. Aurelius and L. Verus, a.d. 161). CIL 8.23828; AE 1938.131 (Commodus, a.d. 181). See, in general, Hammond, M., The Antonine Monarchy (Rome, 1959), 203–7Google Scholar.

15 It was during this period that ‘consecration’ series commemorating the deification of members of the emperor's family become common: RIC II1 299–301 nos. 743–64; 390–1 nos. 418–27; 479 nos. 1051–2; RIC III 69–76 nos. 343–407; 161–9 nos. 1099–1200; 247 nos. 429–42; 441 nos. 654–64. Titus’ undated DIVVS AVGVSTVS VESPASIANVS coins (RIC II2 219–21 nos. 356–84) may be regarded as a precursor of this development.

16 RIC II1 338–40 nos. 2–16.

17 Suet. Vesp. 23.4; cf. Dio Cass. 66.17.2–3. The precise dating of this comet is preserved in the Samguk Sagi, a medieval Korean chronicle: see Kim, P. (transl. Shultz, E.J. and Kang, H.W.), The Silla Annals of the Samguk Sagi (Seongnam, 2012), 43Google Scholar; Ramsey, J.T., A Descriptive Catalogue of Greco-Roman Comets from 500 b.c. to a.d. 400 (Iowa City, 2006), 161–3Google Scholar.

18 Suet. Vesp. 23.4 (‘alas, I think I am becoming a god’); Fishwick, D., ‘Vae puto deus fio’, CQ 15 (1965), 155–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; pace Schmidt, M.G., ‘Claudius und Vespasian: eine neue Interpretation des Wortes “vae, puto, deus fio” (Suet. Vesp. 23, 4)’, Chiron 18 (1988), 83–9Google Scholar. Note also Pliny the Elder's prediction (HN 2.18) that the eternal glory of divinity awaited Vespasian as a reward for his services to humanity.

19 RIC II2 219–21 nos. 356–84 (undated).

20 See Bauman, R.A., Impietas in Principem: A Study of Treason against the Roman Emperor with Special Reference to the First Century a.d. (Munich, 1974), 16–17, 71–82Google Scholar.

21 Tacitus presents Tiberius as initially reluctant to pursue treason charges stemming from insults to Augustus’ divinity, paraphrasing a letter to the consuls in which he warned: ‘the heavens had not been decreed for his father so that this honour could be turned into a civil menace’ (non ideo decretum patri suo caelum, ut in perniciem ciuium is honor uerteretur, Ann. 1.73.3). As with so much in the historian's account of this emperor, however, Tiberius’ resistance is presented to the reader as a ruse, prefaced by a caveat that this initial impediment did nothing to prevent the charge from catching fire and eventually overwhelming everything (quanta Tiberii arte grauissimum exitium inrepserit, dein repressum sit, postremo arserit cunctaque corripuerit, 1.73.1). The issue of Claudius’ divinity under Nero is considerably more complicated: see Griffin, M., ‘Claudius in the judgement of the next half-century’, in Strocka, V.M. (ed), Die Regierungszeit des Kaisers Claudius (41–54 n. Chr.): Umbruch oder Episode? (Mainz, 1994), 307–16Google Scholar; Osgood, J., Claudius Caesar: Image and Power in the Early Roman Empire (Cambridge, 2011), 245–56Google Scholar.

22 Cf. Suet. Tit. 9.1: periturum se potius quam perditurum adiurans (‘swearing he would rather perish than destroy’); Birley, A.R., ‘The oath not to put senators to death’, CR 12 (1962), 197–9Google Scholar; Bauman (n. 20), 214–17; also Levick (n. 5), 198. Subsequent vows: Dio Cass. 68.2.3, 68.5.2, 69.4.4, 73.5.2, 74.2.1: οἷα καὶ οἱ πρῴην ἀγαθοὶ αὐτοκράτορες. See especially P. Garnsey, Social Status and Legal Privilege in the Roman Empire (Oxford, 1970), 44–9.

23 Suet. Tit. 6.1–2; Dio Cass. 66.16.3–4. Murison, C.L., ‘The Emperor Titus’, in Zissos, A. (ed.), A Companion to the Flavian Age of Imperial Rome (Malden, MA, 2016), 76–91, at 86–7Google Scholar.

24 Dio Cass. 69.23.3; SHA Hadr. 27.2, Ant. Pius 2.5; Aur. Vict. Caes. 14.13–14. A delay of at least a year is suggested by the titulature in Hadrian's epitaph, CIL 6.984 = ILS 322 (but cf. n. 14 above): Chastagnol, A., ‘Un chapitre négligé de l'épigraphie latine: la titulature des empereurs morts’, REL 62 (1984), 275–87, at 285Google Scholar. On the significance of the Senate's role, see Price (n. 3), 82–91; Bonamente, G., ‘Il Senato e l'apoteosi degli imperatori da Augusto a Teodosio il grande’, in Rosen, K. (ed.) Macht und Kultur im Rom der Kaiserzeit (Bonn, 1994), 137–64Google Scholar. Note also Dio Cass. 59.3.7 on the Senate's ambivalent response to Gaius’ request for posthumous honours for Tiberius.