On Greek Intellectuals and the Roman Emperor Cult

Abstract

The stance of Greek intellectuals towards the idea and the practice of Roman emperor cult has been often examined, with the main result that the complacent, conformist attitude of these subjects of the Empire has been ascertained (thus in a still basic study by G.W. Bowersock, 1973). A new scrutiny of the available evidence, however, spots also serious reserves in that circle towards the real content of emperor worship at least since the Antonine age, while outright and conscious flattery as driving force and quintessence of the imperial cult appears even earlier. After the proper analysis, cultic acceptance of a real benefactor-emperor, refined flattery or careful, direct or indirect, rejection appear as the three poles around which the attitudes of Greek intellectuals towards the imperial cult circled. Essentially, all three variant stances continued threads of reaction to the practice of ruler-cult beginning already in Hellenistic times, thus pointing to an underlying continuity between the ideological picture of the ruler in this period and the Roman Empire.