SOVRANO, CULTO del. – In primitive communities, the head of the community performs the dual function of king and priest (magician, sorcerer), as one who, being in closer contact with the higher powers, knows how to interpret their will and to act as spokesman before them for the needs of the community itself.
By virtue of his function, he must always be in a position to represent his group effectively; therefore, when age and infirmities have weakened his powers, he is eliminated or replaced. But as long as he remains effective, he is the object of interdictions (taboos) and of measures intended to prevent the mediating Power within him from dissipating to the detriment of the community.
The progress of civilization and culture, which tends to separate the two functions, sacred and civil, in the person of the s., does not deprive royalty of its privileges. Thus, in the Chinese Empire, although the monarch is not considered a god, he exercises the function of Heaven itself in regulating relations between gods and men, performs the official sacrifice to Heaven, and, through expiatory ceremonies, remedies the wrath of Heaven angered by the evil deeds of men.
In Japan the s. is regarded as an incarnation of the solar goddess Amaterasu: once a year the gods go to pay homage to him at his court, abandoning their temples for a month, which is therefore called “without gods.”
In Babylon the s. is chosen by the gods, who “pronounce his name,” predestining him to office from his mother’s womb; King Hammurabi says in his code that he is a “royal scion formed by the god Sin,” “god of kings,” and his name is invoked in oaths as that of a divinity. The pharaoh of Egypt was deified while still alive; he is the son of the Sun (Ra, Rē), the good god, generated by the god himself, who coupled with the queen in the form of her husband.
In Greece the cult of the s. would not have been possible in the classical period, but it developed during the Hellenistic period. Alexander found the adoration of the s. firmly rooted in Egypt, Asia Minor, Babylon, and Persia; and when the Romans succeeded his successors in the various kingdoms of his divided Empire (Ptolemies, Seleucids, Attalids), divine honors were rendered to the representatives of Rome: the Senate, proconsuls, Dea Roma, and the emperors.
In Rome itself, certain premises for the possible exaltation of the human person are found in the ancient religion: the flamen dialis is a personification (ἐμύργος) of Jupiter; the victorious general assumes the attributes of the god in the triumphal ceremony; every private family venerates the genius of the head of the household as protector of its gens; the dead are honored with particular veneration and called gods (di Manes). With the triumph of Hellenism, this divine exaltation of illustrious figures developed: after his death, Julius Caesar was enrolled among the gods with the official title of Divus Iulius and venerated in a special temple. Augustus, the restorer of the official religion, allowed the people to show grateful devotion to his person, granting permission for a cult to be offered to his genius, associated with those of the compital Lares, protectors of the various subdivisions of the city. This was the origin of the imperial cult, which in the East associated the figure of the s. with that of the great divinities who possessed temples, together with assemblies of a religious and political character (κοινῶς), in the various metropolitan cities; while in the West, where such assemblies did not exist, it established by special law the obligations of the head of the priesthood (flamen), the regulations governing provincial gatherings (Concilium, consentus), and the rules for sacrifice. The rite of apotheosis (consecratio), which consisted in cremating the corpse of the s. on a pyre while at the same time releasing an eagle, signifying the emperor’s soul ascending to heaven, placed the seal on the solemn ceremony.
Christianity naturally abolished the cult of the s., but an echo of the supernatural power that has always been attributed to the person of the king may be recognized in the privilege—by which the kings of France and England considered themselves invested—of healing by the touch of their hands those suffering from scrofula (écrouelle), hence called “the king’s evil” (mal le roi, King's evil).