1 Earliest Rome

2.8 Becoming a god
the arms of Rome." He made this pronouncement,' he said, 'then departed on high.' It is
extraordinary how much credence was granted to the man's story and how the grief felt
by the people and army for the loss of Romulus was assuaged by belief in his immortality.
1. Romulus, in his status as a god, was given the title Qiurinus - so identifying him with
one of the oldest Roman deities (see 1.3; Vol. 1,4-5- 148-9).
2. This detail could hardly fail to be reminiscent of the fate of Julius Caesar.
3. The prominence of Proculus Julius is significant-a (no doubt legendary) member of die
Julian family, the family of Caesar and Augustus.
2.8b The deification of the Emperor Antoninus Pius and his wife Faustina
(A.D. 161)
From the time ol Caesar and Augustus onwards, emperors and some of the
members of their immediate families were the most frequent category of
recruits to the Roman pantheon (9.2; 9.3b; 10.5). After the death of an
Emperor, the senate would take a vote as to whether or not he had been a
deserving ruler, who should be formally recognized as a god, though of course
the wishes of the dead man's successor would in reality have played a great role
in making of the decision. From Caesar onwards, the name of the new god or
goddess - divus Augustus, divus Claudius and so on - was formed by adding
divus ox diva to their name.
This relief (height, 2.47m.; width, 3.38m.) once stood at the base of a column
erected in honour of the Emperor Antoninus Pius, who died in A.D. 161.
In it, Antonius is depicted being carried upwards to join the immortal gods;
with him is his wife Faustina, who had in fact died, and so become a diva,
twenty years before him. They are seen together being transported upwards on
the back of a strange figure with huge wings, leaving the symbols of the city of
Rome beneath them. For the great sequence of Roman temples to the divi, see
Vol. 1, 253; the new divus and diva had their joint temple in the Forum, where
it still stands; see 4.7 n. 1.
See further: tor the apotheosis and deification of emperors, Vol. 1, 206-10,
318, 348-63; Hopkins (1978) 197-242*; Price (1987); for the sculpture, and
the (lost) column, Vogel (1973); D. E. Strong (1988) 197-8*; D. E. E. Kleiner
(1992) 285-8*. Note also the sculpture showing the apotheosis of Sabina, the
wife of the emperor Hadrian: Vogel (1973) pi. 47; Price (1987) 94, fig. 16; D.
E. Strong (1988) illustration 111.
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