people twice renamed all 12 months to honor Augustus and his family, have unfor-
tunately been lost (Samuel 1972).
Under those circumstances it comes as no surprise that it soon became the case
that, in the imagination of many contemporaries, the personal security of the
emperor and his domination (securitas imperatoris) was equated with the security
and the well-being of the whole empire (securitas imperii). You could even say that
the Roman empire could only continue to exist and function properly if the emperor
and his government were not questioned.
This ideological concept becomes evident in an inscription from the city of Assos
in western Asia Minor (Syll.^3797 =IGRR4.251 =Inschriften von Assosno. 26).
The inscription informs us of a certainly routine affair: the beginning of the reign
of the emperor Caligula (spring 37) and the oath-taking of the city of Assos.
Interesting is the introduction of the text, which describes the action in religious
language:
Because the beginning of the reign of emperor Gaius Caesar Germanicus Augustus has
been reported who is expected by all human beings with prayers and as the whole world
in no way can find a limit for her joy and each city and each nation hurries to see the
face of the god just as if the most blissful time for mankind were near, the city of Assos
has decided...At the end of the text we are informed that the city had dispatched five envoys
to Rome, who prayed for the well-being of the emperor and offered a sacrifice
to Iuppiter Capitolinus in the name of their home city. Certainly hundreds if not
thousands of comparable legations crowded Rome in this year to see the emperor
and offer sacrifices to the supreme Roman god on behalf of Caligula.
The religious language developed and fostered by the existence of the imperial
cult permeated nearly completely the official language of the empire, at least in the
east. Therefore the simple fact that the emperor Caligula had consented to become
the honorary leading magistrate of the city of Kyzikos in Asia Minor, and had granted
his old friends, the Thracian princes Rhoemetalkes, Polemon, and Kotys, the right
to succeed their ancestors in their territories, resulted in a decree of the city (Syll.^3
798 =IGRR4.145). The decree is about contemporary with the oath of Assos and
was published in exuberant and completely religious language:As the new sun, Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, intended to enlighten with her
rays even the kingdoms that are subjected to the domination of the emperor to demand
even more veneration for the splendor of her immortality, he appointed the children
of (king) Kotys, his early friends Rhoemetalkes, Polemon, and Kotys, to the kingdoms
that were due to them from their fathers and ancestors, without giving the kings a chance
to find the appropriate thanks for the benefactions of such a god even if they had intended
to do so. Now they enjoy the superabundance of the divine grace and are greater in
this respect than their predecessors, because these received the dominion in the suc-
cession of their fathers, while they were appointed as kings thanks to the grace of Gaius
Caesar to be co-rulers with such gods. Acts of grace from the gods differ from human
succession by inheritance like day from night, immortality from transitoriness.308 Peter Herz