Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers

Seneca: His Character and Environment
ral inclinations. His highest ideal of virtue was to
cultivate and strengthen his
sense of duty;
but this
duty was primarily political.
There is little doubt that the conspicuous place
occupied by the state in the mind of every Roman
citizen prepared the way
for the deification of the
emperors, a form of adulation that in the course of
time wrought untold mischief, and led to the most
of men of whom one
abject servility on the part
would have expected better things. Baumgarten
devotes many pages to a discussion of this curious
feature of Roman politics. In the nature of the
case this deification had no regard whatever to the
personal character of the sovereign. It elevated him
to the skies, solely as the personification
est possible power
of the larg
entrusted to a mortal. When in
the course of time all the functions of the govern
ment were concentrated in the hands of a single
individual, it was natural that he should become an
object of worship, at least in a sense, even during his
lifetime, and as a matter of course placed among the
gods
at his death. We shall find this transition
easy if we consider further the character of the gods
of antiquity. They were not distinguished from
mortals by higher attributes, but only by the pos
session of greater power. A god, in the popular
estimation, was not necessarily any better than a
man he was only stronger. His good^will was to
be gained and his ill=will averted by precisely the
same means that were employed
19
in the case of men.