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This chapter discusses deification in the Graeco–Roman world, examining the origins of deification, the ruler-cult, Jewish and Christian attitudes to the ruler-cult, the democratisation of the ruler's apotheosis, mystery cults, philosophical religion, the Egyptian Hermetists, and the interaction with Christianity. Throughout the Graeco-Roman world the imperial cult excited popular devotion. It played a vital role in unifying society and survived the transition to a Christian empire by more than a century. Moreover, the deification conferred by the imperial funeral rites became available by a process of democratisation to ordinary citizens, so that by the second century, apotheosis could mean no more than solemn burial. Meanwhile, Hermetists aimed to return to God through spiritual awakening under the guidance of an experienced teacher in a manner that dispensed with the need for serious philosophical study.

The epilogue explores that way that scholarly concentration on the religion of classical Greece and especially of Athens has resulted in a very partial picture of Greek religion. It asks what our view of Greek religion would be if the focus was instead on the early centuries AD at the time of the Roman empire. Gods such as Sarapis, Isis and Tyche would be more central to any study and not treated as novelties. Similarly ruler cult would no longer be marginal. This should also make as think further about how the Greeks conceived the divine.

From the Hellenistic period on, various Greek civic festivals in honour of traditional deities have been coordinated or even combined with similar expressions of the ruler cult. The usual results were festivals under a joint name, such as ‘Dionysia and Demetrieia’. These latter ‘appended’ festivals meant — practically and/or ideologically — a supplementary but no less important part of the whole festivity in the cities that instituted them. They helped them ensure the monarchs’ goodwill without swelling the relevant cult costs, especially when they shared an organisational framework with the old festivals of the cities. Such examples concerning Alexander and members of the dynasties of the Antigonids, the Seleucids and the Attalids are collected here and examined in detail. The continuation of this cult practice into the Roman period of the Greek East, both during the Republic and the Empire, is also sketched.

This chapter further explores Diodorus’s Euhemerism through the gods, or culture bringers, who dominate the first six books of the Bibliotheke and are legitimized by his inclusion of mythology. He contrasts these culture bringers, especially Dionysus and Osiris, with the advance of civilization under a metus hostilis to show the superiority of the former. In doing so, Diodorus establishes the standards for deifying a great leader and elevates his conception of ruler cult above the often debased form practiced by late Hellenistic rulers such as Ptolemy XII of Egypt and Antiochus I of Commagene. Through the medium of the culture bringers Diodorus contributes to the debate at Rome, surrounding Julius Caesar, over deification of great leaders, which can also be seen in contemporary authors such as Cicero, and offers his own justification for why Caesar merits divine status.

Chapter 11 argues that the post-Seleucid dynasties appropriated the Seleucid traditions of dynastic cult and dynastic eras as a new Iranian royal tradition. Shifting over the centuries with the rise of new empires and cultural and regional influences, such sanctuaries nevertheless played a central role in defining these dynasties’ royal identity and consolidating their hold over provincial or even transregional Iranian legacies.

Chapter 4 analyses the second shift in modern ruler visibility, along faith-based lines, during the reign of Abdülmecid’s son, Abdülhamid II (1876–1909). It demonstrates that the sultan strove to present himself as a pious Muslim to Muslims at home and abroad, and as a Western ruler to non-Muslims at home and abroad. Therefore, the sultan tended to deprive the former of his direct visibility (public appearances and public display or dissemination of royal portraits), while at the same time channelling and staging it selectively towards the latter. Split chronologically into early-, middle- and late-reign sections, this chapter places a special emphasis on the overall shift from direct to indirect sultanic visibility over time by way of resorting to material objects and abstract metaphors as ruler proxies. Chapter 4 traces the escalation of celebration in the second half of Abdülhamid II’s reign in an attempt to capture the deliberate personality cult, centred on the sultan. At the same time, it also analyses a range of alleged provocations and attempts at subversion (ceremonial or otherwise) of symbolic central power in order to shed new light on the later channels for group activation and increasingly ethnic group realisation.

This chapter deals with Agathokles’ rulership and self-representation, arguing that the adoption of the title of king or basileus did not mark a fundamental rupture in Agathokles’ reign and rulership style—a transition from Sicilian tyranny to Hellenistic monarchy. Rather it was simply an attempt to re-establish his legitimacy after the conclusion of the war with Carthage. A number of features that have been identified as characteristic of a new Hellenistic model of rule are already apparent in the evidence for Agathokles’ conduct before his assumption of the royal title and in the regimes of his predecessors in Syracuse. A number of significant divergences from Hellenistic kingship are also divergences from the practice of Agathokles’ predecessors. Most can be explained by Agathokles’ financial situation, the biases of our evidence, or are also absent from the practice of some of the Diadochoi.

This chapter addresses the issues related to the reorganization of sacred space in Eastern Thessaly, following the foundation of Demetrias under Macedonian rule (293 BC). Demetrias was first established by synoecism of the local Thessalian and Magnesian communities, controlling the Pagasetic port and the Magnesian peninsula respectively. It was subsequently ruled by the local Magnesian Koinon, while Macedonians returned briefly before relinquishing permanent control to the Koinon and to the Romans. As a result, this Macedonian basileion, being concurrently an international port and a trading centre, was inhabited by Macedonians, local populations relocated from their original communities, and individuals from all over Greece and the entire Mediterranean. Eventually, the ethnic diversity of these post-Classical groups, expressing a series of changing and competing claims, had a serious impact on the reorganization of Demetrias’ sacred space in terms of continuity and change.

On the mountain of Nemrut Dağı in the kingdom of Commagene, we have a first-century BC stele with a depiction of a king, Antiochus I, grasping the hand of a figure named ‘Apollo-Mithras-Helios-Hermes’. This image, and others from across the kingdom depicting a god named in this way, call upon a variety of iconographic and linguistic traditions that raise questions about the way conceptions of the divine could be selected, rationalized, and propagated. This act of comparing and combining religious traditions, often referred to as ‘syncretism’, allows us to think about what the use of the name Mithra suggests to us beyond the relatively simple transmission of a god. In turn, the discussion of the importance of iconographies and names associated with deities leads us to reflect on the nature of divinity in antiquity more generally.

Cicero's Pro Marcello was delivered in exceptional circumstances as Cicero made his first speech to the dictator Caesar after the civil war. In particular, scholars have vigorously debated its rhetorical form and persuasive goal. This chapter suggests that the form and function of the Pro Marcello may best be explained as an example of ‘Hellenistic oratory’ at Rome. By looking at the themes, topoi, and argumentative strategy of the Pro Marcello, it considers a number of features in the speech that can be traced back through the Greek and Hellenistic symbouleutic tradition: e.g., a focus on Caesar's virtues, divinity, and an increased awareness of the paradoxon. Thus, the Pro Marcello, which stands at a half-way mark in the history of Greek and Latin panegyric, may be seen to offer evidence for both the appropriation of the Greek oratorical tradition and its subsequent Romanization.