188 THE ROMAN EMPIRE
brotherhoods and ritual practices, moral reform and a concentration of
power in the emperor’s hands.
These developments were of minor signifi cance in that they did not alter
the religious culture of Rome. Augustus was a religious conservative.
Traditional religious forms provided a vehicle by which he was able to
express his policies and conceptions of revival and restoration. The rebuilding
of temples, the reorganization of sacerdotal colleges, ever stricter limitation
of their membership to the high elite, and the rejection of new cults were
signals that nothing had changed. The main innovation in the area of cult
associated with the Principate, the cult of the emperor, was easily grafted
onto the traditional state religion. The imperial cult was a product of internal
political developments, and its introduction compromised the political, not
religious, sensibilities of the more traditionalist Romans. For this reason it
was instituted in Rome only after Augustus’ death, although Augustus had
been an object of worship in his lifetime in Italy and all over the empire.
In this chapter we pursue two main themes, the infl uence of Rome on the
local religions of the enlarged Roman empire, and the stability of the offi cial
state religion itself. How extensively was Roman religion transplanted in the
enlarged empire, by whose initiative and with what effect on indigenous cult
systems? Secondly, how was it that the offi cial religion remained more or
less impermeable and unresponsive to new religious movements until the
end of the second century? This despite claims by historians that the ‘constant
receptivity’ of the Romans to new religious forms is one of the ‘best attested
general characteristics’ of their religious life.^2
The impact of Rome
Rome’s main export to the empire was the cult of the emperors. This was the
only Roman intrusion in the area of cult that was tolerated in the Greek
world, whose cultural superiority was asserted by Greeks and conceded by
leading Romans through much of our period. The acceptance of the imperial
cult in the eastern Mediterranean did not involve the displacement or
subordination of the cults of the traditional gods. The Greek- speaking
provinces already knew ruler cults celebrating Hellenistic kings, cults of
individual Roman offi cials, typically proconsuls, and other cults which
recognized Roman power, of which the cult of Rome is simply the best
known. The domination of the East by Rome, and of Rome by Augustus,
put an end to the creation of new cults of kings and governors, while the cult
of Rome was easily transformed into a cult of Rome and Augustus or a cult
of Augustus alone. The latter was offered Augustus by the Asians and
Bithynians as soon as he had emerged as victor in the civil war, it was
refused, and instituted none the less; the former was pronounced acceptable
for non-Roman citizens only (Cassius Dio 51.20.7–8; Suetonius, Aug. 52).
This response was in character. Augustus was at once making allowance for