Cultul imperial în timpul domniei lui Nero Claudius Caesar (54-68 p. Chr.)
The Imperial Cult During the Reign of Nero Claudius Caesar (54-68 A. D.)

Summary/Abstract: Contemptuous towards everything that was moral and attempting to implement to the Roman citizens o new mentality, based on completely abnormal values, Nero managed to use the emperor’s cult for purely political purposes. During the 14 years of his reign, he transformed the cult of the divine emperors into a privilege of his absolute power, a proof of the providential nature of the imperial mission. A minute analysis of Nero’s behaviour, under the Apollonian protection, allows us to remark that this god was no longer the same as Apollo, Octavianus’ protector at Actium, but a god who had suffered obvious Dionysian influences. The dedications discovered in the Roman territory reveal us an emperor with an inconstant nature and completely disinterested in performing the ceremonies in honour of the traditional gods. Thus, we see him associated to the cult of Apollo, Mars, Juppiter or Mithras. The cult of Mithras was brought to Nero’s court by the magi who accompanied Thiridates at his coronation, but was abandoned after the emperor’s journey in Greece. In the mystical East, there have been discovered inscriptions in which those honoured were the members of the imperial family: Agrippina, Octavia, Popaea and Diva Claudia Virgo. Also during his reign, the imperial cult witnessed an innovation. While until Nero only Augustus and Claudius received apotheosis after death, Tiberius refused his honouring as god, and Caius Caligula was damned, the last Julio-Claudian received the title of divus during his lifetime. According to this title, regalia had been offered. Thus, corona radiata, specific to the emperors worshipped after their death, became a symbol of the living emperor-god.

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