The Context and Precedents For Imperial Cult
The Augustan settlement was promoted by its contemporary apologists as restorative and conservative rather than revolutionary. Official cult to the genius of the living princeps as "first among equals" elaborated the hierarchal honours of mos maiorum to justify the unprecedented range and permanence of his powers. The official gift of Caesar's apotheosis in a stable Republic justified the future cult of Imperial divi.
The official offer of divine honours to the living princeps weighed his god-like powers against his self-restraint and pious respect for Republican tradition. "Good" emperors rejected the offer with every appearance of gratitude and humility, accepting the more modest offer of genius cult as an honour to the donor and the imperial office. Claims that later emperors sought and obtained divine honours in Rome reflect their bad relationship with their senates: in Tertullian's day, it was still "a curse to name the emperor a god before his death". On the other hand, to judge from the domestic ubiquity of the emperor's image, private cults to "good" living emperors are as likely in Rome as elsewhere and as Gradel observes, no Roman was ever prosecuted for sacrificing to his emperor.
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