Sons of Gods and Heroes

This chapter investigates explicit and suggested notions of divine imperial ancestry in the period up to the Tetrarchy. Claims of divine descent (from Aeneas) formed a prominent part of the personal prestige of Caesar and Augustus, but rapidly became of less importance when the imperial family came to occupy a central ancestral position. Consequently, divine claims (other than to deified emperors) lost much of their importance. But the closeness of the emperors to the (Olympian) gods remained important. Only in a few cases was direct descent from an Olympian god such as Mars implied, but such claims were never systematically put forward. Imperial representation in Roman Egypt, with its pharaonic traditions, was an exception. This chapter forms a thematic case study that emphasizes the constraints of local traditions in constructing emperorship, and the limits imposed on communicating imperial imagery by the different media at imperial and non-imperial disposal.

Ancient Egypt and Archaeology · Classical Antiquity Studies · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History · Philosophy