Abstract

Shortly before the death of Augustus, Tiberius dedicated the celebrated ara numinis Augusti, thus formally enshrining the numen of Augustus within the Imperial Cult. The step was a radical one, fundamental to the whole development of the emperor's ‘divinity’. Whereas the official cult of the emperor's genius had continued a traditional Republican practice, if with significant differences, to ascribe numen to the princeps was to establish Augustus as a through whom divinity could function as an intermediary. For to pay cult to the numen Augusti was to ascribe to the human emperor the quintessential property of a god.