cant. In the East all
such traits are exaggerated, a result perhaps rather of the statecraft
than of the religions of Egypt and Persia. Whatever part vanity or the
flattery of courtiers may have played with others, or with Alexander, it
is significant that the dynasties of Alexander's various successors all
claim divine honours of some sort (see PTOLEMIES, SELEUCID DYNASTY,
&c.). Theocritus (_Idyll_ 17) hails Ptolemy Philadelphus as a demigod,
and speaks of his father as seated among the gods along with Alexander.
Ancestor worship, or reverence for the dead, was a third factor. It may
work even in Cicero's determination that his daughter should enjoy
"[Greek: apotheosis]"--as he writes to Atticus--or receive the "honour"
of _consecratia_ (fragment of his _De Consolatione_). Lastly, we need
not speak of mere sycophancy. Yet it was common; Verres was worshipped
before he was impeached!

The Romans had, up to the end of the Republic, accepted only one
official apotheosis; the god Quirinus, whatever his original meaning,
having been identified with Romulus. But the emperor Augustus carried on
the tradition of ancient statecraft by having Julius Caesar recognized
as a god (_divus Julius_), the first of a new class of deities proper
(_divi_). The tradition was steadily followed and was extended to some
ladies of the imperial family and even to imperial favourites. Worship
of an emperor during his lifetime, except as the worship of his
_genius_, was, save in the cases of Caligula and Domitian, confined to
the provinces. Apotheosis after his death, being in the hands of the
senate, did not at once cease, even when Christianity was officially
adopted. The Latin term is _consecratio_, which of course has a variety
of senses, including simple burial. (Inscription in G. Boissier, _La
Religion romaine_; Renier, _Inscriptions d'Algiers_, 2510.) The Greek
term Apotheosis, probably a coinage of the Hellenistic epoch, becomes
more nearly technical for the deification of dead emperors. But it is
still used simply for the erection of tombs (clearly so in some Greek
inscriptions, _Corpus Inscript. Graec._ 2831, 2832, quoted in
Pauly-Wissowa, _s.v. Apotheosis_). Possibly there is a trace of ancestor
worship even here; but the two usages have diverged. The squib of the
philosopher Seneca on the memory of Claudius (d. A.D. 54),
_Apocolocyntosis_ ("pumpkinification"), is evidence that, as early as
Seneca's lifetime, apotheosis was in use for t