In addition to showing respect, often the present ruler deified a popular predecessor to legitimize himself and gain popularity with the people. The first of these cases was the deification the last Roman dictator Julius Caesar in 42 BC due to his adopted son, the triumvir Caesar Octavian. Subsequently, apotheosis in ancient Rome was a process whereby a deceased ruler was recognized as having been divine by his successor, usually also by a decree of the Senate and popular consent. Up to the end of the Republic, the god Quirinus was the only one the Romans accepted as having undergone apotheosis, for his identification/ syncretism with Romulus. Main article: Imperial cult (ancient Rome) One god considered as a hero to mankind is Prometheus, he secretly stole fire from Mount Olympus and introduced it to mankind. Two exceptions were Heracles and Asclepius, who might be honoured as either gods or heroes, sometimes by chthonic night-time rites and sacrifice on the following day. For this reason, hero cults were chthonic in nature, and their rituals more closely resembled those for Hecate and Persephone than those for Zeus and Apollo. The Greek hero cults can be distinguished on the other hand from the Roman cult of dead emperors, because the hero was not thought of as having ascended to Olympus or become a god: he was beneath the earth, and his power purely local. A heroic cult status similar to apotheosis was also an honour given to a few revered artists of the distant past, notably Homer.Īrchaic and Classical Greek hero-cults became primarily civic, extended from their familial origins, in the sixth century by the fifth century none of the worshipers based their authority by tracing descent back to the hero, with the exception of some families who inherited particular priestly cults, such as the Eumolpides (descended from Eumolpus) of the Eleusinian mysteries, and some inherited priesthoods at oracle sites. Such Hellenistic state leaders might be raised to a status equal to the gods before death (e.g., Alexander the Great) or afterwards (e.g., members of the At his wedding to his sixth wife, Philip's enthroned image was carried in procession among the Olympian gods "his example at Aigai became a custom, passing to the Macedonian kings who were later worshipped in Greek Asia, from them to Julius Caesar and so to the emperors of Rome". In the Greek world, the first leader who accorded himself divine honours was Philip II of Macedon. From at least the Geometric period of the ninth century BC, the long-deceased heroes linked with founding myths of Greek sites were accorded chthonic rites in their heroon, or "hero-temple".
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