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The Divi of the Hadrianic Period

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

James H. Oliver
James H. Oliver
Affiliation:
The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore
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Extract

Information about the cult of the divi and divae greatly increased with the publication of the Feriale Duranum. The editors of the latter have shown that the divi and divae whose cult the Army took over were those of the fasti publici. The divae included Trajan's sister Marciana and her daughter Matidia but no member of the Julio-Claudian and Flavian families.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , January 1949 , pp. 35 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1949

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References

1 Fink, R. O., Hoey, A. S., and Snyder, W. F., “The Feriale Duranum,” Yale Classical Studies vii, 1940, 1–222Google Scholar, especially 181–190. For the entry in column I, lines 11–12, I follow Hoey's restoration, p. 183, note 870.

2 C.I.L. vi, 299, II, line 14.

3 C.I.L. vi, 2107. Twenty divi are attested also for 218 A.D.

4 Plotina's consecration is not yet attested. But it may certainly be inferred, as indeed the editors of the Feriale Duranum have inferred it. So also Strack, P. L., Untersuchungen zur römischen Reichsprägung des zweiten Jahrhunderts II (Stuttgart, 1933), 115–117Google Scholar.

5 Grether, G., “Livia and the Roman Imperial Cult,” A.J.P. lxvii, 1946, 222–252Google Scholar, especially 251–252.

6 Durry, M., le Jeune, Pline, Panégyrique de Trajan (Paris, 1938), pp. 233–234Google Scholar.

7 R. Syme, J.R.S. xxvi, 1946.

8 The date is given by a reference under that year in the Fasti Ostienses = Inscriptiones Italiae, xiii (1), 5, xxii, lines 39–43; IIII k. Septembr. | [Marciana Aug]usta excessit divaq(ue) cognominata.| [Eodem die Mati]dia Augusta cognominata. III| [non. Sept. Mar]ciana Augusta funere censorio| [elata est]. The phrase divaq(ue) cognominata does not indicate a solemn consecratio.

9 H. Mattingly and E. A. Sydenham, The Roman Imperial Coinage I, pp. 209 and 211. Plutarch, Galba 14, 5, whether or not he himself confused the empress Livia with Livia Ocellina, provides a striking illustration of the tie's practical value. In 119 A.D., therefore, Hadrian's laudatio funebris over his mother-in-law, which helped to focus attention on a precious tie, was not quite “the peak of gallantry,” to borrow a phrase from D. R. Stuart, Epochs of Greek and Roman Biography, 210 (= Sather Classical Lectures iv, 1928).

10 Vita Marci (ed. Hohl), 18, 3: denique priusquam funus conderetur, ut plerique dicunt, quod numquam antea factum fuerat neque postea, senatus populusque non divisis locis sed in una sede propitium deum dixit.

11 Among the most important discussions of the procedure and ceremony of consecration are E. Bickermann's provocative article, “Die römische Kaiserapotheose,” Archiv für Religionswissenschaft XXVII, 1929, 1–34, and the disagreement from F. Vittinghoff, Der Staatsfeind in der römischen Kaiserzeit. Untersuchung zur damnatio memoriae, Diss., Bonn, 1936, 74–90, 106–112.

12 See note 8 above.

13 Bickermann, op. cit., note 5 of pp. 9–10, suggested that one series of the Consecration coins was a Hadrianic emission. The proposal to separate the two series was rejected by Strack, P. L., Untersuchungen zur römischen Reichsprägung des zweiten Jahrhunderts I (Stuttgart, 1931), 201Google Scholar, footnote 870, but there is no real objection to a date under Hadrian for both series.

14 Mattingly, H., Roman Coins (London, 1928), p. 149Google Scholar; L. R. Taylor, The Divinity of the Roman Emperor, pp. 196–197 (= Philological Monographs Published by the American Philological Association I, 1931).

15 H. Mattingly and E. A. Sydenham, The Roman Imperial Coinage, I, p. 118, for Agrippina the Elder; II, p. 134, for Domitilla.