The Imperial Cult in Roman Religious Associations

The imperial cult was a local phenomenon. Religious colleges, like other social groups, included various forms of the emperor cult in the rituals they practised at their own discretion. Most frequently, the collegial imperial cult took the form of ceremonies organised to celebrate anniversaries connected with the emperor. They could be accompanied by foundations of statues or even temples dedicated to the emperor or members of his family. The imperial cult played a special role in the case of corporations, which embraced it as their axis of activity and the main element of their identity. Associations of cultores Larum et imaginum Augusti, regardless of their genesis, were an important element of the very complex phenomenon of imperial cult in the western part of the Roman Empire. Testimonies left behind by their members enable us, to a large extent, to verify the 19th-century vision of the imperial cult, which mainly interpreted it in the context of “religion of loyalty.”