Caracalla and the divine: emperor worship and representation in the visual language of Roman Asia Minor

This paper discusses the visual language adopted in the cities of Asia Minor to represent the emperor Caracalla in the years 214–216, which he spent travelling between the Anatolian region, Egypt and the Near East. The focus of this study is the imagery designed to express his relation with the divine through the overlapping representations of the emperor as a devotee and peer of the gods, and as a divine being. The first part of the study compares Rome to Asia Minor to show divergences as well as possible links between provincial and metropolitan media, discussing local and imperial responses to the emperor governing from the Roman East. The second part focuses on the imagery introduced in Asia Minor to represent the worship of the living Roman emperor and his cult-image in particular, providing insights into the creation of extraordinary visual patterns that remained unique to the reign of Caracalla.

Cassius Dio (51.20.6-8) and the Worship of the Living Emperor in Italy

This article challenges accepted interpretations of Cassius Dio (51.20.6-8) concerning the worship of the living emperor in Rome and the Italian peninsula. I offer a new interpretation of this frequently discussed passage by demonstrating that Dio was keen to emphasise that Augustus, as Dio’s model emperor, was not himself responsible for the temples and cults raised to him in Rome and Roman Italy. I also briefly explore the beneficial consequences of this interpretation in our wider study of emperor worship in the Italian peninsula.

Una revisión historiográfica sobre el culto a la domus imperatoria: siglos XX y XXI = A historiographical review of the cult of domus imperatoria during the 20th and 21st centuries

Resumen: El trabajo presenta una revisión historiográfica del culto a los emperadores romanos y su domus en las publicaciones más destacadas de los siglos XX y XXI principalmente. Se aborda un análisis que comienza con el examen de las aportaciones más importantes sobre la materia, de la centuria pasada, que pueden enmarcarse en el paradigma positivista, y finaliza con la influencia de las concepciones postmodernas en el estudio de la adoración a los emperadores. Así, se pretende mostrar de qué modo la interpretación del culto imperial está ligada tanto a la adscripción a determinadas escuelas historiográficas, como a las posturas individuales de cada historiador, marcadas por sus propias convicciones religiosas.Palabras clave: culto imperial, domus imperatoria, historiografía, paradigma interpretativo, religión romana.Abstract: This document presents a historiographical review of the most relevant publications in the 20th and 21st centuries in the cult to the Roman emperors and their domus. The study begins with an examination of the most important contributions on the subject matter that can be framed in the positivist paradigm and ends by exploring the influence of postmodern conceptions in the studies on emperor worship. The paper thereby aims to explain how the interpretation of the imperial cult is linked to both the affiliation with certain historiographical schools and to the individual positions of historians, marked by their own religious convictions.Key words: imperial cult, domus imperatoria, historiography, interpretative paradigm, Roman religion.

Movement, the Senses and Representations of the Roman World: Experiencing the Sebasteion in Aphrodisias

This article examines the Sebasteion – a complex for emperor-worship built in the first century AD - in Aphrodisias, modern Turkey, and studies its political and ideological messages when the sensory experiences of the spectators are considered. The monument contained geographical representations of the peoples of the Roman world placed above a portico. Previous studies of this monument focus upon close and repeated visual study to gain an idea of a powerful empire, but this is not how the contemporary audience would have experienced it. During a religious procession the spectators were moving past static images situated high above them, with many other stimuli, which could distract from or add to the intended ideological messages of the monument. Therefore this article considers movement and architecture as part of the sensory experience and illustrates that these would have affected the audience’s encounters, which in turn could affect perceptions of the Roman world.