When Marc Antony speaks his famous lines in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, “You all did see that on the Lupercal I thrice presented him a kingly crown, which he did thrice refuse,” he is alluding to the powerful symbolism of ancient springtime fertility rituals. Most scholars agree that Shakespeare was referring to the festival of Lupercalia, rather than the cave shrine of Lupercal itself, which served as its cult center. This cave was revered as the place where Romulus and Remus, legendary founders of Rome, suckled at the tit of a she-wolf. For Julian Rome this festival was one steeped in antiquity, and an important occasion for Romans who wished to have children in the coming year.
Alexander the Great
Julius Caesar is known to have been fully aware that, as a conqueror, he stood in Alexander the Great’s shadow. In the Twelve Caesars, Suetonius recounts that Caesar sighed at the inequity, since, by the time that Caesar had begun his career, Alexander had already conquered the world. However, it may be that Alexander’s relative youth had left him with an impetuous edge, ill-suited for the delicate task of consolidating his holdings. We are reminded by Alexander’s legendary final words, “to the strongest,” that, despite his brilliance as a conqueror, he was primarily just that, a conqueror. Caesar, on the other hand, proves to be, like the supreme deity Jupiter/Zeus, equally balanced with force on one hand and cunning on the other.
The Goat-god Pan
The holiday of Lupercalia represents an interesting connection and breaking point between Caesar and Alexander. The significance of Caesar thrice refusing the crown on the Feast of Lupercal is apparent in the identity of Lupercal as Pan, the goat-god. In Greek Myth, the deity Pan played a vital, yet often obscured role in the ascension of Zeus.
When Zeus, as a child, was in hiding from his father, he was fostered to a she-goat Amaltheia who lived in a cave on the island of Lycos. In some versions of the myth, in particular as told by Eratosthenes in Catasterismoi, Zeus is not alone at the goat’s tit, but shares it with the Goat-god Pan. This is not the same entity as the Pan who is born to Zeus and Hubris, but, as Kerenyi explains in Gods of the Greeks, “Each generation of gods must have had its own Pan.”
The Son of Zeus
Firmly based in this mythological tradition, Alexander the Great had fashioned himself as the son and heir to Zeus. Hesiod, in the Theogony, describes Zeus’s heir as a “son with an arrogant heart who would one day be king of gods and men.” It is of note that Zeus is usually heralded as “king of all the immortals” or “king of the gods,” but not as king of gods and men.
This title would appear to open the door to contenders such as Hercules and Dionysus, who each have a foot in both the world of men and of the gods. Yet Hercules and Dionysus never display the true quality of their half sister Athena, who Hesiod deems alone is “equal to her father in strength and wisdom”. This theme concerning the ambiguity of the successor to Zeus was tentatively developed by Aristophanes in Frogs, but to no conclusion.
With this mythological foundation, Alexander was trying to break the mold that had been set for early European rulers. Equipped with fresh ideas about divine kingship after his visit to Egypt, he set out to create a world-spanning Empire with himself as its god-king. Interestingly, despite what Alexander may have seen as a logical move from heroic king to god-king, history records this effort was ill received by his Macedonian soldierly. What Alexander did manage to achieve was to lay the groundwork for bridging the gap between myth and history.
The Birth of the Imperial Cult
It was this success of Alexander's that Caesar sought to build upon by rejecting the Crown on Lupercalia. Had Caesar taken his place among such ancient rituals, he could never have broken away from kingship; which, for all westerners, had previously been a position of power among men alone. The Feast of Lupercal would have been the place for Caesar to have established himself among the ranks of heroic kings, a ranking which, in the end, had confined Alexander’s Empire to the length of his lifespan. Caesar, however, would take no part in the ancient rituals of kingship. Nevertheless, at the time he was turning down the crown, nearby at the new Forum Julium, a statue of Venus had been erected which clearly displayed her as the divine ancestor of Caesar.
The heir to Julius Caesar was Octavian Augustus and, upon assuming the title Pontifex Maximus, he gathered up all known prophetic texts and then destroyed 2,000 of these works. Presumably Octavian would not have acted in such fashion without good reason, yet his motivations were seemingly self serving. Augustus would make sure that Caesar’s legacy took root. Caesar, in refusing the crown of springtime, had successfully created a new position of authority over gods and men and thus the Imperial Cult was born.
Sources:
Graves, Robert, The Greek Myths. (London, The Folio Society,2002.)
Grant, Michael, The Founders of the Western World: A History of Greece and Rome. (New York. Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1991.)
Fox, Robin Lane, Alexander The Great. (London, The Folio Society,1997.)
Herodotus, The Histories. (New York, Barnes and Noble Classics, 2004.)
Merivale, Patricia, Pan The Goat-God: His Myth In Modern Times. (Cambridge, Harvard University Press,
1969.)
Parenti, Michael, The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People’s History of Ancient Rome. (New York,
The New Press, 2003.)
Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars. (London, The Folio Society, 2003.)
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