Defining the Divine in Rome: In memoriam S. R. F. Price

Abstract

Recent analysis of the imperial cult has argued that it can be best understood in terms of the lack of a fundamental division between gods and humans at Rome worshiping a human as a god was accordingly not a transgressive act. This paper challenges this interpretation, demonstrating that gods and humans were indeed usually conceived as separate species of being. The imperial cult was thus transgressive in theory; however, it primarily operated in contexts where that could be overlooked and the worship of humans as gods accordingly appeared unproblematic.