Vespasian, Titus, Domitian: Gods Created by the Senate

Abandoned Pantheons

Ashes Over the Altar

When Vespasian came to power in 69 CE, Rome was enduring another agony—four emperors in a single year. Stabilizing peace required not just strength, but a sacred veneer. The Senate did what it did best: it deified power.

After Vespasian’s death, he became Divus Vespasianus. His son Titus became Divus Titus. Their temples rose not only in Rome (for instance, the Temple of Vespasian and Titus on the Forum, completed under Domitian) but also in the eastern provinces, where reverence for rulers was almost automatic.

Perge (Pamphylia): Archaeologists found temple ruins dedicated to the imperial cult. City priests organized games in honor of the Flavians, offered bull sacrifices, and recited hymns.

Ephesus (Asia): One of the main centers where the cult of Rome and the emperor merged into a single form. Several Flavians, including Vespasian and Titus, were worshipped here.

Side and Antalya (Lycia-Pamphylia): Dedications to emperors were discovered—marble inscriptions where townspeople thanked the Flavian gods for “peace and order.”

Lamos (Cilicia Trachea): A monumental temple of the imperial cult stood on the city acropolis, with inscriptions mentioning priests of the “sacred house of the Flavians.” For small but strategic Lamos, this was a way to integrate into the Empire: townspeople offered sacrifices to Vespasian and Titus, erected statues of Domitian—until his name was chiseled out after damnatio memoriae. Even in provincial backwaters, the empire checked whether loyalty’s heart still beat.

Cilicia (Tarsus, Adana): Temples and altars of the imperial cult stood alongside local shrines to Zeus and Artemis.

Even in Syria, where living kings of the Seleucids had once been worshipped, the Flavian cult spread quickly—processions honored the “divine house” in Antioch.

Temple in Ruins

Perge (Pamphylia): Archaeologists found temple ruins dedicated to the imperial cult. City priests organized games in honor of the Flavians, offered bull sacrifices, and recited hymns.

Ephesus (Asia): One of the main centers where the cult of Rome and the emperor merged into a single form. Several Flavians, including Vespasian and Titus, were worshipped here.

Side and Antalya (Lycia-Pamphylia): Dedications to emperors were discovered—marble inscriptions where townspeople thanked the Flavian gods for “peace and order.”

Cilicia (Tarsus, Adana): Temples and altars of the imperial cult stood alongside local shrines to Zeus and Artemis.

Even in Syria, where living kings of the Seleucids had once been worshipped, the Flavian cult spread quickly—processions honored the “divine house” in Antioch.

The Ghosts of Oblivion

Vespasian

A man who began as a tax collector in Sabinia. He did not pretend to be a god in life. He was a pragmatist, a construction manager on the scale of an empire. Yet after his death, his name became a code, inscribed as DIVUS on marble pedestals. His image—a bearded Zeus with the face of a peasant.

Titus

A short reign, squeezed between the eruption of Vesuvius and the fire of Rome. Called “the darling of humanity,” he was almost instantly deified by the Senate. In Ephesus and Perge, his statues loomed like young Dionysus, though behind this image lay the administrator of disasters.

Domitian

He did not want to wait for death to become a god. In life, he demanded the title Dominus et Deus—Lord and God. His temples were constructed during his rule. In Perge and Ephesus, the cult of Domitian was officially recognized: priests held titles as “servants of the imperial house.” Yet after his assassination, the Senate carried out damnatio memoriae: his cult was banned, statues broken, names chiseled out. Still, hidden altars in the provinces remained for decades, where priests habitually spoke his name.

Shadows on the Edge of Reason

The imperial cult was not about belief—it was about control. People came to Vespasian’s and Titus’ temples not because they believed in their divinity, but because the empire needed a mirror.

Praying to a person whom the Senate made a god was like connecting to a loyalty server. You sent your offering upward, and downward came status: “You are in the system. And you are Roman. You are not a stranger.”

Today, it sounds absurd. But do we not do the same? Worshipping brands, presidents, algorithms—gods created not by nature, but by power and market.

How Did We Get Here

If you want to follow the traces of forgotten gods, start in Asia Minor:

Perge (Antalya, Turkey): remnants of the imperial cult temple remain on the acropolis.

Ephesus (Izmir, Turkey): the main Flavian temple in the region, with fragments of inscriptions dedicated to Vespasian and Titus.

Side (Antalya): archaeological finds of sacrificial altars for emperors.

Rome, Forum: ruins of the Temple of Vespasian and Titus—three columns standing as a signal from the past.

If you veer off tourist routes, you can climb the acropolis of Lamos (Gazipasha). Amid weeds and goat trails stand ruins of the imperial cult temple. No ticket booths, no plaques—just silence, the sea, and the stone where once emperors-turned-gods dwelled.

What not to expect: a living response. Their cult is dead, like code abandoned without updates. But the ruins are an archive that holds the irony of eternity.

Echo in the Void

I stood on Lamos’ acropolis. Stones of weathered walls, the rare surviving column blocks, empty doorways. Wind blew straight from the gorge, carrying voices of priests who once called out to Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian.

No tourist crowd, no reconstructions, no museum displays. Just a cliff overlooking the sea and the ruins of a temple that no one hears. Yet in this silence there is a strange presence—gods created by the Senate still live in the stone, even if their names were carved out.

Lamos is not the Roman Forum, but a provincial node of memory, where the empire sounded in miniature and its echo has not yet completely faded.

Not Vespasian, not Titus, not Domitian—but the Empire itself, which once learned how to turn power into gods.

And perhaps we still live in its shadow.

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