in Antiquity, a ceremony, whereby emperors and great men were enrolled among the gods. The word is derived from ἀνα, and Θεός, God. After the apotheosis, which they also called defication 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 services to the commonwealth.