Teodosio I, imperatore senza apoteosi

The Apotheosis is a complex institution with a strong and spectacular ritual. Its ratio is evident in the connection between power and the imperial virtues, and in the projection of the emperor – after death – to a time and to an absolute dimension. The primary role of the Senate in managing the probatio, which preceded and gave foundation to the relatio in numerum divorum, and the consecratio of the deified emperor conferred prestige and credibility to imperial apotheosis. Therefore, by its nature, the apotheosis is commensurable with both the Old and New Testament’s eschatological sanction of the works of a man, which explains the passage from the apotheosis to the ‘sanctification’ of the Christian emperors. At the beginning, the institute of the apotheosis was commissioned by Augustus for his adoptive father, but throughout the imperial age became an important component of the figure and the role of the figurehead and role of emperor, because the Senate maintained an important role in deciding the probatio, and the successor to the dead emperor – who usually promoted the probatio and sanctioned the conse532 Abstracts cratio himself – obtained a strong legitimacy from the title of divi filius. A profound transformation, both in the ceremony and in the conception of the institution origintated from Constantine the Great. The first Christian emperor received both the ceremonial of relatio in numerum divorum and the title of divus by the senate of Rome, and obtained the depositio ad Apostolos in the Basilica of the Apostles in Constantinople. It was evident that the Christian conception of the afterlife fate of the emperor came into direct competition with the traditional Roman conception. The balance experimented with by Constantine soon proved soon unstable and hence his sarcophagus was removed from the Basilica of the Apostles during the reign of Constantius II. Nevertheless, only Ambrose was able to impose a Christian interpretatio on the projection of the imperial figure beyond the limits of earthly life, in occasion of the death of Theodosius in 395. His senatorial culture exposed his sensitivity to the political significance of probatio and he strived to give new foundations, a new process and new referents for reviewing the political work of an emperor, thus granting to it the chrism of absoluteness. The recent victory of Theodosius over Eugenius and the succession to the throne of his two children presented Ambrose with the ideal conditions under which to propose a new model in a solemn manner. During the funeral, the bishop of Milan showed how a Christian prince could be ‘accepted in light of the Father’. It can be said that De obitu Theodosii marked the time when the traditional apotheosis disappeared.