ABSTRACT
The civic cults of Hellenistic states are seen as a strategy for accommodating the rule of kings, and the same flexible response to external stimuli produced cults of Roman power and of individual citizens, an often neglected theme. The excellent treatment of the cult of private citizens risks over-emphasising what was a limited phenomenon by comparison with the cults of rulers or of Roman officials. Sacrifices, processions, and mysteries were all associated with the imperial image and the attendant rituals produced a range of attitudes and expectations differing with the different perspective of Greek, Jew, or Christian. Feelings and emotions, Price holds, are to be excluded as an appeal to the Christian virtue of religio animi. Isotheoi timai were not just a series of honours but a way of defining his special, intermediate status and the interesting thing is to see how this was reflected in architecture, the size and material of statues, or the adaptation of ritual.
