APTOSIES – Wikipedia

Apotheosis (latino: apotheosis , greco: deportation ) O deification (latino: deificatio ) means “divinization” or, more generally, “glorification”, usually understood to a divine or semi-divine level.

In Greek mythology we speak of apotheosis when a divine being, temporarily descended to earth, returned to his celestial residence, or when a man was elevated to hero after death or even in life ^[first] . An example are Diomede, the Dioscuri, Heracles and Asclepio. Often the Greeks believed that the founders of the city ended their earthly life with an hypothesis and therefore received honors similar to those given to the divinity ^[first] .

The terms apotheosis It is deification They are also used to indicate that process in use in ancient Rome, in which an emperor was recognized as divinity, usually after death. The use then went on to indicate a typical artistic representation of glory.

The first term derives from the Greek verb abide ( apotheoo ) with the meaning of “making among the gods”, while the second is similarly a compound of the Latin terms God (“part”) do (“Do”). Both therefore indicate an act with which the divine condition of someone or something is recognized. In Greek mythology the first mortal that ascended to heaven after death was the demigod Hercules. His soul, while the body poisoned by the blood of the centaur Nesso was burned on a pyre, was brought by Athena on Olympus at the behest of his father Zeus, where he was welcomed among the gods.

The apotheosis of a Roman emperor was essentially a political act implemented by the successor of the emperor. This process provided for the creation of a wax image of the emperor richly dressed and sitting, exposed in public for a certain number of days, after which was burned outdoors on a funeral pira, to symbolize the ascension to the sky. The first historical star was Romolo, who became Quirino after his legendary disappearance.

The tradition began with the declaration of the Senate of the divinization of Julius Caesar after his killing in 44 BC, an act that shook the public opinion of Rome. When Augustus died 58 years later, he also received similar honors thus providing a model for future emperors. The objectives of the act were to strengthen the majesty of the imperial charge and, more immediately, to associate the emperor in office with an illustrious predecessor. For example, when Settimio Severo overturned Didio Giuliano to take power in 193, he favored the apotheosis of Pertinace, who had reigned before Giuliano. This allowed Severo to show up as heir and successor of Pertinace, although the two were not learned.

The apotheosis was not an automatic process, at least at the beginning of the imperial era. The emperors who were not remembered with benevolence or were not welcome to their successors, generally they were not divinized. For example, Caligola and Nero, who were considered by many contemporaries as tyrants and whose kingdom ended violently, were not divinized after their death. So also happened to Eliogabalo, Geta, Caracalla, Massimino Trace and Domitian. Commodo, also assassinated and sentenced to damnation of memory For his cruelty, autocracy and extravagance, he was however rehabilitated by Settimio Severo to seek the favor of the surviving family of Marcus Aurelio (father of Commodo); In one year he then passed from being an enemy of the state according to the Senate rightly killed, on the condition of convenience .

The emperors who were divinized were called with the name of two , title preceding all their names. In fact, Claudio was called Claudius . This word is often translated as “God” (therefore, “Claudio the God”) but this is not exact; A better translation would be “divine” (therefore, “the divine Claudio”), a lighter expression that Roman intellectuals could accept as metaphorical. In the late empire, this honor became increasingly associated with the dead emperors, to the point that it became almost a synonym of modern expression “was” (how to say, for example, “the late Claudio”). The fact that two had lost much of its religious meaning it is understood that it was also attributed to the first Christian emperors after their death (eg, St. Constantine ).

When the apotheosis became part of Roman political life in the late republic and in the first empire, he began to be treated in literary contexts. In the Aeneid, Virgil depicts the deification of Aeneas, saying that he will be accompanied on the stairs of Paradise, and cites the apotheosis of Julius Caesar. Ovid also describes Cesare’s apotheosis in book XV of Metamorphosis And he awaits the glorification of Ottaviano.

The notion of apotheosis was parodied by Lucio Anneo Seneca in his St. Claudio Apocolocyntosis ( The zucchification of the emperor Claudio ), in which Claudio is not transformed into a God, but into a pumpkin. This satirical work not only irrewed the fact that the notoriously clumsy and mistreated Claudio could be a divinity, but revealed a certain irreverence against the idea of ​​the rights of the housekeeper, at least among the polite classes of Rome, or more likely the Livor of Seneca Towards Claudio, whose wife had erected the temple of the star Claudio, giving him a public worship.

Divi and dive [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

Note: the date in brackets refers to Birthday , on the day of the celebration of each emperor star, as it is reported in late Roman calendars.

Starting from Diocletian and Maximian, the emperors took us to usually divine already in life (which was already attempted by Caligola, Domitian, Settimio Severo and Aureliano), taking on the titles of Lord and God , although the real apotheosis was made only after death. Diocletian was the last emperor to be honored with this ceremony and a posthumous cult dedicated to him.

Costantino was appointed not Divo but Isadopostolo; The successors had the same title apart from Pagano Giuliano. Theodosius I in 380 forbade the pagan ceremonies.

In the 4th century AD, with the termination of the pagan rites, the apotheosis ceremony also failed. It was replaced by the title of Isadoposto in life and sometimes by the sanctification after the death of some particularly merit emperors for the Catholic Church or the Eastern Church, such as the first Christian Emperor Costantino, his mother Flavia Giulia Elena, the imperial couple Elia Pulcheria and Marciano, Teodosio I, Justinian I with his wife Teodora, the reigning imperator Irene of Athens, the regent Teodora Armenian and many other Byzantine emperors.

The political and religious meaning after the disappearance of the Roman Empire failed, however, the apotheosis remained one of the typical artistic depictions of the posthumous glory of saints, kings, artists, heroes or famous people. Typically, this sense the glorified subject is represented in the act of being raised to heaven. The artists used the concept for reasons that went from real respect for the deceased (as in the fresco of Constantine Brumidi George Washington’s apotheosis On the dome of the United States Capitol in Washington or in the fresco by Andrea Appiani with the Apotheosis of Napoleon at Palazzo Reale in Milan), to the artistic commentary (the Apotheosis of Homer by Salvador Dalí), to the comic effect.