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The Imperial Cult: A Cretan Perspective

Publication date: 26.06.2023

ELECTRUM, 2023, Volume 30, pp. 353 - 399

https://doi.org/10.4467/20800909EL.23.013.17330

Authors

Martha W. Baldwin Bowsky
University of the Pacific
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Titles

The Imperial Cult: A Cretan Perspective

Abstract

Forty years after the publication of Sanders’ Roman Crete, a broader range of evidence for the imperial cult on Crete is available—temples and other structures, monumental architectural members, imperial altars, portraiture and statuary, coinage, statue and portrait bases, other inscriptions, priest and high priests, members and archons of the Panhellenion, and festivals—and far more places can now be identified as cities participating in the imperial cult. This evidence can be set into multiple Cretan contexts, beginning with the establishment and evolution of the imperial cult across Crete, before locating the imperial cult in the landscape of Roman Crete. The ultimate Cretan contexts are the role of emperor worship in the lives of the island’s population, as it was incorporated into Cretan religious and social systems.

Abbreviations

IC – M. Guarducci, Inscriptiones Creticae, 4 vols., Roma 1935–1950.

OLD – P. G. W. Glare, Oxford Latin Dictionary, Oxford 1968–1982.

PHI Greek Inscriptions = Packard Humanities Institute, Searchable Greek Inscriptions: A Scholarly Tool in Progress. Available at http://epigraphy.packhum.org/inscriptions/.

PIR2 – E. Groag, A. Stein et al.Prosopographia Imperii Romani: Saec. I, II, III, 2nd ed., Berlin 1933–2015.

RPC I – A. Burnett, M. Amandry, P. P. Ripollès, Roman Provincial Coinage, vol. I: From the Death of Caesar to the Death of Vitellius (44 BC  AD 69), London–Paris 1992.

RPC II – A. Burnett, M. Amandry, I. Carradice, Roman Provincial Coinage, vol. II: From Vespasian to Domitian (AD 6996), London–Paris 1999.

RPC III – A. Burnett, M. Amandry, J. Mairat, W. E. Metcalf, L. Bricault, M. Blet-Lemarquand, Roman Provincial Coinage, vol. III: Nerva, Trajan and Hadrian (AD 96138), London–Paris 2015.

RPC Supp. 3 – M. Amandry, A. Burnett, I. Carradice, P. P. Ripollès, M. S. Butcher, Roman Provincial Coinage, Supplement 3, New York 2014.

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Information: ELECTRUM, 2023, Volume 30, pp. 353 - 399

Article type: Original article

Authors

University of the Pacific

Published at: 26.06.2023

Article status: Open

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Martha W. Baldwin Bowsky (Author) - 100%

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Baldwin Bowsky, M., 2023. The Imperial Cult: A Cretan Perspective. ELECTRUM, Volume 30 (2023), pp. 353-399