Render unto Caesar the things that are... a god's?: ritual-symbolic construction and numismatic representations of the divine Julius

• Grant number: 18/17982-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: December 01, 2018
• End date: November 30, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - Ancient and Medieval History
• Principal Investigator: Pedro Paulo Abreu Funari
• Grantee: Gabriel da Silva Fialho
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

An analysis that turns to a specific aspect of the religion in Ancient Rome, by the end of the Republic and beginning of the Empire, allows us to problematize the border between human and divine through a study on the ritual that would mark a certain transition from the former to the latter: the consecratio, that would culminate, in its turn, in the ascension of the ritual subject to the presence of the gods, with the apotheosis. In order to do so, we will carry out bibliographic research focused on the case of Julius Caesar (100-44 B.C.), a Roman patrician, military leader, and politician, the first to officially receive divine honors in Rome. Furthermore, we shall work with the iconography of specific roman coins that were minted in that historical context and that refer to such phenomenon, in an effort to explore the potential of material culture as a documentary source for the comprehension, in this case, of the past. (AU)