Dr Paolo Cimadomo

Emperors as Gods. Statistical methods to analyse the spread of Roman Imperial Cult in the Roman Province of Achaea

This paper aims to establish the presence – or the lack thereof – of a religious network among the cities of the Roman province of Achaea through the analysis of the development of the Emperor'scult. Most scholars agree that the imperial cult was one of the most important instruments used by Roman emperors to ensure the loyalty of their subjects and, at the same time, one of the most significant transformations to the public life of the Roman cities. In the Roman Empire, imperial worship spread widely under the influence of political and cultural customs. For instance, the idea of a divine ruler was a political and religious novelty in the western part of the Empire. Therefore, it required more involvement from the Roman government. In the East, instead, the groundwork had already been laid by religious precedents established through cults honouring rulers dating back to the Hellenistic period. Following Alexander the Great’s conquest, these cults developed into a legitimate political tool that preserved the relationship between rulers and subjects across the Greek world. This paper examines some elements of the worship of the Roman emperors (cult places, festivals, priesthoods) in the cities of the province of Achaea. The evidence demonstrates these cities’ propensity to include the emperors in all spheres of their political, social, and cultural life. Indeed, pre-existing holy structures were re-dedicated to the emperors, imperial competitions were introduced to ancient Greek festivals, and the emperors were frequently assimilated to traditional gods in inscriptions, coinage, and statues. Members of local aristocracies played a crucial part inorganising various events of emperor worship, especially through the assumption of the office of priest of the imperial cult, which was often held by prominent and wealthy individuals. From a methodological point of view, the relationship between the emperors, the Greek cities and the aspects of the worship of the Roman emperors can be seen as a complex network data structure, for which a multimode network approach can be carried out.

Paolo Cimadomo is a fixed-term researcher at the Institute of Heritage Science at the Italian National Council of Research (CNR). He obtained his PhD in Ancient History and Archaeology at the University of Naples ‘Federico II’ (Italy) in 2017. Since 2019, he has been the Principal Investigator of the CHAIN (Citiesas Historical and Interconnected Networks) Project at the Department of Humanities of the University of Naples ‘Federico II’, where he started to adapt Social Network Analysis to the study of ancient material culture. Paolo’s interests cover several aspects of the Eastern Mediterranean during the Greek, Roman and Late Roman periods, such as the reconstruction of past networks, the analysis of land use, and the impact of climate on human settlement choices. He is currently working on the analysis of religious networks in the Roman period and the relationships between the environment and human actors.

He is the author of two monographs, one titled ‘The Southern Levant during the first centuries of the Roman Rule (64 BCE – 135 CE). Interweaving local cultures’, published by Oxbow Books in 2019, and the second one titled ‘Vita di un monumento. Il Ninfeo di Egeria tra storia e rappresentazione’, written withMarika Griffo and published by Franco Angeli in 2023. He co-edited two volumes, and he is the author of several papers published in relevant scientific journals and edited volumes.