himself in a long-established tradition going back to the time of Alexander the Great.
According to the so-called Alexanderromanthe great king had been fathered by the
god Zeus-Ammon himself.
This was a narrative that not only ranked Alexander amid such illustrious persons
as Hercules and Dionysus, borne by mortal mothers but with the supreme god Zeus
as their father. It was also an indication of things to come. At the end of his human
existence Alexander had become a god. By adapting his own policy to the image of
Alexander the Great, Augustus indicated what he expected at the end of his life: he
would become a god himself.
The Acceptance of the Emperor Cult
While in Rome Augustus was compelled to respect the sentiments of the senate, and
had to accept a political compromise that did not allow him to establish a real cult
for his person during his lifetime, outside Italy things looked quite different. In Rome
and Italy a cult that addressed the emperor directly was impossible; therefore people
preferred to establish cults for divine qualities that were closely connected with the
person of the emperor. To this group belonged the cult of the imperial peace (pax
Augusta) or the fortunate destiny of the emperor (fortuna Augusta). In this case
divinities that before the empire had been the property of the whole Roman state
were redirected to the emperor and privatized.
This is proved by the so called calendar-decree of Asia. The provincial council of
Asia had announced a competition to find the best way to honor the emperor Augustus.
The best proposal was to let the New Year’s Day of the local calendar coincide with
the birthday of Augustus (September 23). Parts of this decree have been conserved
on inscriptions and allow us a glimpse into the sentiments of the population:
Because Providence that dispenses divinely over our lives by employing labor and energy
has looked for perfection in life by procreating Augustus whom she equipped with excel-
lent qualities because of the well-being of mankind. Just as she had sent him as a savior
for us and our offspring. A savior who brought the war to an end and set every thing
in order. By his appearance Caesar surpassed the hopes of everybody who received good
news (euangelion) before us. He did not only surpass everybody who had been a bene-
factor (euergetes) before him but he did not leave any hope for those (benefactors) who
will come in future times.The winner of the competition, the Roman governor of the province of Asia, was
characterized as a man who had been sent as “a benefactor of the province by the
hand and the spirit of the god (=Augustus).” In a later part of the decree the provin-
cial council declared, “He (Augustus) has given a new face to the whole world, a
world that with the greatest pleasure would have plunged itself into the abyss had
not the greatest common good of every human being, that is, Augustus, been born.”
The decree for the province of Asia has been handed down to us by mere chance.
The parallel decrees for the isle of Cyprus, where during the reign of Augustus
Emperors 307