Priestesses of the Imperial Cult in the Latin West: Benefactions and Public Honour
It is a well-known fact that in the Graeco-Roman world no separate class of priests existed; the same persons often held a priesthood and a civic magistracy, simultaneously or successively. Since they were mostly the same persons, these magistrates and priests of the Roman state cults are generally believed to belong to the same social class: the (local) elite. Also priests of the imperial cult are usually held to be members of the (local) elite, who competed for honour and prestige by this prestigious priesthood, often providing costly benefactions to the cities in which they held office. But is their social status as obvious as is usually assumed and what is the relation between their formal social status and benefactions, and the public esteem they enjoyed?
In this article, which is a sequel to my article on their titles and function in Antiquité Classique 741, 1 shall restrict myself to female priests of the imperial cult. On the basis of a corpus of 260 inscriptions set up by, or for, priestesses of the imperial cult in Italy and the Latin-speaking western provinces2, I shall try to shed light on their social status and the public esteem they enjoyed in the cities in which they held office. To get a better view of their relation with these cities, I shall look especially at the relationship between their benefactions and the public honour they received. My main questions are: what benefactions did they bestow? What were their motives for this public munificence and what were the rewards? And finally, was there a direct connection between their priestly office and benefactions, and the public honours they received, or did the latter depend on more, or other, factors?
Social status and social esteem
Despite the modern association of Roman civic (or state-) priesthood with membership of the traditional elite, the social status of imperial priestesses is not self- evident. Though most municipal priestesses whose social status is known, belonged to
1 E.A. Hemelrijk, "Priestesses of the imperial cult in the Latin West : titles and AC 74 (2005), p. 137-170.
2 Apart from two inscriptions, which were added to the corpus after the earlier article was published, both articles are based on the same corpus of inscriptions from the provinces of North Africa, Spain, Gallia (especially Narbonensis), the Alps and Germania Superior. I have not collected Latin inscriptions from provinces to the east of Italy such as Macedonia and Dalmatia. The corpus includes only those inscriptions that explicitly mention a priestess of the imperial cult, for instance, aflaminica (with various additions, such as perpetua or provinciae), sacerdos Augustae or sacerdos divae Augustae (or additions mentioning the name of a empress). Though other sacerdotes or sacerdotes perpetuae or publicae may have been priestesses of the imperial cult, this cannot be proved. Therefore, they are not included.
L'Antiquité Classique 75 (2006), p. 85-117.
