The Imperial Cult: A Cretan Perspective

Forty years after the publication of Sanders’ Roman Crete, a broader range of evidence for the imperial cult on Crete is available—temples and other structures, monumental architectural members, imperial altars, portraiture and statuary, coinage, statue and portrait bases, other inscriptions, priest and high priests, members and archons of the Panhellenion, and festivals—and far more places can now be identified as cities participating in the imperial cult. This evidence can be set into multiple Cretan contexts, beginning with the establishment and evolution of the imperial cult across Crete, before locating the imperial cult in the landscape of Roman Crete. The ultimate Cretan contexts are the role of emperor worship in the lives of the island’s population, as it was incorporated into Cretan religious and social systems.