7.4.1 The Emperor and the Virgins

Roman religio (from which the English word “religion” derives) signified an obligation to the gods. According to this principle, Romans were expected to pay attention to divine and religious matters, including the most important aspect of religious practice, sacrifice. By offering animals to the gods, Romans hoped to receive good fortune or gain insight into a question or problem. While their religion certainly had private elements, its public rituals often intertwined faith with politics. That connection was also, and especially, visible in the worship of the emperor.

The imperial cult was a group of rites and practices that praised a deceased emperor’s divine status. Emperors were often deified (made gods) after they died, by order of their successors and with approval by the Senate. This formal process of deification was known as apotheosis and was extended to emperors who were remembered favorably (Figure 7.13). The process of deification had become so routine among later emperors that when the emperor Vespasian was dying, he is reported to have said, “Alas! I think I am becoming a god!”

A carving in dirty white stone is shown. The top left corner shows detailed carvings of leaves in the ridges and feathers are carved in the wall on the top right. A man and a woman are carved in the middle. He is shown with short curly hair, a beard and long robes. He holds a long, thick scepter with a winged animal with a curved beak carved at the top. Feathers are carved into the wall behind the scepter. At the right the woman is shown with small eyes, large nose, downturned mouth, wavy hair under a cloth on her head and a dress with a belt tied in the middle. She holds a scepter with a round ball at the top in her left hand. In the bottom right forefront a naked chested figure is shown with shoulder length curly hair and large wings extending out their back. They have almond shaped eyes and a large nose.
Figure 7.13 This detail of a carved marble column from the second century CE shows the apotheosis, or elevation to divine status, of the emperor Antoninus Pius and his wife Faustina. A winged genius (an attendant spirit) in the lower right carries the two to heaven. (credit: “Column Base of Antoninus Pius (II)” by Institute for the Study of the Ancient World/Flickr, CC BY 2.0)

In this period, priesthoods were created specifically for the worship of a defied emperor. A number of priesthoods already existed that were attached to specific gods and that organized the religious affairs of the city, such as the festival calendar. Priesthoods for the imperial cult were added to this group of religious offices that men could join to further their public careers.

The worship of living emperors was much more muddled because Romans were wary of changing the custom of deifying only deceased individuals. Julius Caesar seems to have intended to be worshiped as a god in his lifetime, and later emperors may have been aware of this plan because many routinely pushed for deification during their own reigns. In the city of Rome, emperors were often closely associated with the gods, but only stereotypically “corrupt” emperors such as Caligula declared themselves gods during their lifetimes. Still, many compromises were made so living emperors were not directly worshipped. These included associating the emperor with the goddess Roma, the divine representation of the city, or making sacrifices for the emperor’s well-being rather than directly to him. In the provinces, however, divine honors were sometimes given to living emperors; locals might equate a living emperor or a member of the imperial family with a deity in order to gain the emperor’s favor, particularly in the Greek east.

A few women could serve in a priestly office as vestal virgins. The six members of this female priesthood were chosen at an early age to serve in the Temple of Vesta, the goddess of the hearth, for ten to thirty years. Their chief duty was to protect the sacred eternal fire that symbolized eternal Rome. Letting the flame go out was a punishable offense because the fire’s absence meant Vesta had abandoned the city. Vestals swore a vow of chastity, and the punishment for breaking it was severe, illustrating the symbolic importance of their virginity, which was linked to the preservation of Rome. A vestal who lost her virginity could be punished by being buried alive or having hot metal poured down her throat. As a result, political crises could result from the murder of a vestal, while miracles were attributed to their magical virginity.

The story of the vestal virgin Claudia Quinta represents one such instance. To win favor during Hannibal’s invasion of Italy in 204 BCE, the Romans brought the goddess Magna Mater (“Great Mother”) by ship from her shrine in Asia Minor, in the form of a black stone. During its reception at Ostia, the ship was grounded on a shoal, but Claudia Quinta was able to miraculously pull it to safety. She had been suspected of breaking her vow of chastity, but her actions proved her virginity. According to the Roman historian Herodian of Antioch, “she took off her sash and threw it onto the prow of the ship with a prayer that, if she were still an innocent virgin the ship would respond to her. The ship readily followed, attached to the sash. The Romans were astounded, both by the manifestation of the goddess and by the sanctity of the virgin” (Figure 7.14).

An image of a faded, richly, colored painting is shown. In the left forefront of the image, the front of a brown boat with the front decorated with carvings is seen in wavy water. The front of the boat is higher than the rest of the boat seen. It is being pulled by a brown string wrapped around the left arm of a barefoot woman dressed in a white ruffled dress with brown hair and a white cloth on her head. She is standing on rectangular bricked steps that lead to a street. To the right stand two small children dressed in robes, one light blue, and one very dark, with short hair and pointing their right fingers to where the woman is standing. Surrounding the children is a large group of people in long, dark robes, darker hair, all looking at the woman. Behind the woman to the left is a square stone structure where four people are standing and facing in pastel colored robes. One is seen drinking. Right behind the woman is a scene where three horned, large animals are being held by three figures while a fourth figure raises a long thin object above the animals head. In the far background faded buildings of a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors can be seen as well as a beige sky.
Figure 7.14 This large sixteenth-century painting by the Belgian artist Lambert Lombard imagines Claudia Quinta’s rescue of the ship carrying Magna Mater to Rome. Lombard had visited Rome, and this work demonstrates that the story of the vestal virgin remained an inspiration there long after the empire had fallen. (credit: “Claudia Quinta” by Lambert Lombard, Eglise St-Armand à Stokrooie/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
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The content of this course has been taken from the free World History, Volume 1: to 1500 textbook by Openstax