Lactantius, Divine Institutes 1.15

Given the established facts about these men, it is clear how they first came to be called gods. Since no kings existed before Saturn or Uranus because the human population was sparse and people lived a rustic life without any ruler, there is no doubt that in those early times men began to offer the king himself — and indeed the whole nation — the highest praises and honors, even calling them gods. They did this either because of the miracle of virtue — a belief the rude and simple people genuinely held — or, as often happens, out of flattery toward present power or gratitude for benefits that had civilized humanity. Afterward, because those kings had been dear to the people whose lives they had shaped, their deaths left a great longing. Consequently, men fashioned images of them to find some solace in contemplating these likenesses, and, carried further by love, they began to honor the memory of the dead — both to appear grateful to their benefactors and to entice their successors toward the desire to rule well. Cicero teaches this in *On the Nature of the Gods*, saying that human life and common custom adopted the practice of elevating excellent men to heaven by fame and will on account of their benefits; from this came Hercules, Castor, Pollux, Aesculapius, and Liber. In another passage he adds that in most cities one can see that the memory of brave men was consecrated with the honors of immortal gods, either to sharpen virtue or so that the best men might more readily face danger for the republic's sake. By this reasoning the Romans consecrated their Caesars and the Moors their kings. Thus religions gradually arose: those who had first known these men initiated their own children and grandchildren into the rite, then all posterity, until finally these supreme kings were worshipped in every province because of the fame of their names. Privately, individual peoples or cities worshipped their own founders — whether men distinguished by strength or women remarkable for chastity — with the utmost veneration: the Egyptians honored Isis, the Moors Iuba, the Macedonians Cabirus, the Carthaginians Urania, the Latins Faunus, the Sabines Sancus, the Romans Quirinus; likewise the Athenians honored Minerva, the Samians Juno, the Paphian people Venus, the Lemnians Vulcan, the Naxians Liber, and the Delians Apollo. In this way diverse sacred rites were adopted across peoples and regions, because men wished to be grateful to their leaders but could find no other honors to confer upon those who no longer lived. Moreover, the piety of successors contributed greatly to the error: wishing to appear born of divine stock, they bestowed divine honors on their parents and ordered them to be worshipped. Can anyone doubt how the religions of the gods were instituted, when one reads in Virgil Aeneas commanding his companions: "Now pour libations to Jupiter with prayers and invoke Anchises as father"? To Anchises was attributed not only immortality but also power over the winds: "Let us ask for winds, and declare that these sacred rites I have established in the city be brought to him every year in his temples." Liber, Pan, Mercury, and Apollo did the same, and afterward their successors followed suit. Poets added to this, lifting these figures to heaven in songs composed for pleasure, just as flatterers praise even bad kings with mendacious panegyrics. This evil originated among the Greeks, whose levity, armed with rhetorical skill and abundance of speech, stirred up incredible clouds of falsehoods. Admiring them, men adopted their sacred rites and handed them down to all nations. On account of this vanity the Sibyl rebukes them: "O Greece, why do you trust in leaders of men? Why offer vain gifts to the dead? Do you sacrifice to idols? Who put this plan in your mind, to perform these rites while abandoning the face of the great God?" Marcus Tullius, who was not only a consummate orator but also a philosopher — indeed the sole imitator of Plato — did not hesitate in the book where he consoled himself for his daughter's death to say that the gods publicly worshipped were men. His testimony must be judged most serious, since he held the augural priesthood and himself worshipped and venerated those same gods. In a few verses he gave us two things: by professing that he would consecrate his daughter's image in the same manner as the ancients had consecrated theirs, he taught that those gods were dead and revealed the origin of vain superstition. When he says that we see many men and women from the human race numbered among the gods, and that we venerate their most august shrines in cities and fields, let us agree with the wisdom of those whose genius and inventions have given us a whole life cultivated and established by laws and institutions. If any creature was ever worthy of consecration, she certainly was. If the progeny of Cadmus, Amphitryon, or Tyndareus was to be raised to heaven by fame, then this same honor must surely be given to her — and I will do it, placing you, the best and most learned of all, in the assembly of the immortal gods themselves, with their approval, in the opinion of all mortals, I will consecrate her. Perhaps someone will claim that Cicero was delirious from excessive grief. But that entire speech — perfect in doctrine, examples, and the very manner of speaking — came from a steady mind and sound judgment, and this very statement shows no sign of grief. I do not think he could have written so variously, so copiously, so ornately unless his grief had been softened by reason itself, the consolation of friends, and the passage of time. What, moreover, when he says the same thing in *On the Republic* and *On Glory*? In *On the Laws*, following Plato to establish laws that would make a city just and wise, he sanctioned religion thus: "Let them worship the gods who have always been considered heavenly, and also those whom merit has placed in heaven: Hercules, Liber, Aesculapius, Castor, Pollux, Quirinus." Similarly in the *Tusculan Disputations*, when he said that almost the whole heaven is filled with the human race, he added: "If indeed we scrutinize ancient things and draw out from them what the writers of Greece have produced, those very gods of the nations, who are considered to have originated from us, will be found to have gone to heaven." Since their tombs are shown in Greece, he says, remember — because you have been initiated — what is handed down in the mysteries: then you will finally understand how far this extends. He testified, evidently appealing to Atticus's conscience, that from the mysteries themselves one can understand that all those who are worshipped were men. When he confessed without hesitation about Hercules, Liber, Aesculapius, Castor, and Pollux, and about Apollo and Jupiter as their fathers, and similarly about Neptune, Vulcan, Mars, and Mercury, whom he called the gods of the nations, he feared to speak openly. Therefore he says this extends far, so that we may understand the same concerning Jupiter and the other more ancient gods. If the ancients consecrated their memory in the same manner as he says he will consecrate his daughter's image and name, such error can be forgiven in the grieving, but not in the believing. For who is so foolish as to think that the consensus and applause of innumerable fools can open heaven to the dead, or that anyone can give what he himself does not possess to another? Among the Romans, Julius was made a god because it pleased that wicked man Antony; Quirinus was made a god because it seemed right to the shepherds — though one was a twin brother and the other a parricide of his father. But if Antony had not been consul, Gaius Caesar would have been denied even the honor due a dead man for his merits to the republic, by the counsel of his father-in-law Piso and his relative Lucius Caesar, who forbade his funeral, and of the consul Dolabella, who overthrew the column — that is, Caesar's tomb — in the forum and purified the forum. Ennius declares that Romulus was longed for by his people; the people, grieving their lost king, cry out: "O Romulus, Romulus, tell us what kind of guardian of the fatherland the gods produced in you! You brought us within the boundaries of light, O father, O begetter, O blood relative of the gods." Because of this longing it was more easily believed that Julius Proculus was lying — he had been suborned by the fathers to announce to the people that he had seen the king in a form more august than human, and that the king had commanded them to build him a temple, declaring himself a god and called Quirinus. By this deed he persuaded the people that Romulus had gone to the gods, and freed the senate from the suspicion of regicide.