APOTHEOSIS, in Antiquity, a heathen ceremony, whereby their emperors and great men were placed among the gods. The word is derived from apo, and theos, God.
After the apotheosis, which they also called disfession and consecration, temples, altars, and images were erected to the new deity; sacrifices, &c. were offered, and colleges of priests instituted.
It was one of the doctrines of Pythagoras, which he had borrowed from the Chaldees, that virtuous persons after their death were raised into the order of the gods. And hence the ancients deified all the inventors of things useful to mankind; and those who had done any important service to the commonwealth.—Tiberius proposed to the Roman senate the apotheosis of Jesus Christ, as is related by Eusebius, Tertullian, and Chrysostom.
Juvenal rallying the frequent apotheoses, introduces poor Atlas, complaining that he was ready to sink under the burden of so many new gods as were every day added to the heavens. Seneca ridicules the apotheosis of Claudius with admirable humour.
The ceremony, according to Herodian's description, was
Apotheca—was as follows: After the body of the deceased had been burnt with the usual solemnities, an image of wax, exactly resembling him, was placed on an ivory couch, where it lay for seven days, attended by the senate and ladies of the highest quality in mourning; and then the young senators and knights bore the bed of state through the Via Sacra to the old forum, and from thence to the Campus Martius, where it was deposited upon an edifice built in form of a pyramid. The bed being thus placed amidst a quantity of spices and other combustibles, and the knights having made a solemn procession round the pile, the new emperor, with a torch in his hand set fire to it, whilst an eagle, let fly from the top of the building, and mounting in the air with a firebrand, was supposed to convey the soul of the deceased to heaven; and thenceforward he was ranked among the gods.
We often meet with the consecration or apotheosis of emperors represented on medals; where we see the pyramids of several stories, each growing less and less; we see also the eagles flying away with the souls of the deceased emperors. A gem in the museum of Brandenburg represents the apotheosis of Julius Cæsar, mounted upon the celestial globe, and holding a helm in his hand, as if he were now the governor of heaven, as before of the earth. See DEIFICATION.