Several monuments that represent an important religious feature during the Imperial era, namely the cult of the (defunct) emperors, are relevant in the framework of this study and will be discussed in this chapter. There will be a particular focus on specific characteristics of their decoration. The Roman Empire had a vibrant cult of select emperors who were venerated in official temples, often in combination with the goddess Roma, but also in small shrines built and looked after by private groups of liberti r citizens. While Augustus had set a good example by erecting a temple for his adoptive father Julius Caesar on the Forum Romanum, he remained reluctant to receive divine honours during his lifetime. Like Caesar Augustus, he was made diuus after his death and several other emperors followed. Gradually, this cult also came to include living emperors as well as dead emperors who had not been declared diui. Other members of the court could also be included in this veneration and entire dynasties, especially that of the Julio-Claudians, got galleries of statues that showed the family bonds and the intricate rights and duties to be borne by these elected families. In the following discussion, various monuments dedicated to the cult of the augusti, both diui and not, are presented. They display interesting iconographic programmes that mostly do not show portraits but gods associated with the respective town and the emperor of that moment.

In this respect, there is a highly important study by Beate Bollmann about small shrines or temples that were managed by sodalitates, or cultic associations, since it includes many data about the decoration of these sacral spaces. The majority formed part of a bigger entity, for instance living quarters, whilst others were built in a precinct. Many sodalitates were managed by socially defined groups of citizens who looked after the cult of the deified emperors, the Augustales.

THREE CENTRES FOR IMPERIAL CULT IN HERCULANEUM

Three buildings in the northwestern corner of the excavated part of Herculaneum, situated at the crossroads of the alleged decumanus maximus and cardo III, are generally seen as public and/or religious monuments. Two of them are only known from eighteenth-century excavations and now only the façade from one building and a side wall from the other are visible.