Култът към Юпитер в долнодунавските провинции по времето на Тетрархията

The cult of Jupiter in the Lower Danube Provinces during the Tetrarchy

Abstract

The paper aims to trace the history of the cult of the supreme Roman deity Jupiter in the Lower Danube territories during the period of the Tetrarchy. The topic, within these chronological frames, had not been tackled thus far. The conspicuous positioning of Jupiter on top of the religious propaganda of Diocletian and his heirs, was a result chiefly of the desire to seek legitimacy for their power outside the army. This religious policy was also reflected in the provinces. The paper explores the known archaeological and epigraphic monuments from the Dacia Ripensis, Moesia Inferior (Secunda), and Scythia Minor provinces. The large temple of Jupiter at the residence of Galerius at Felix Romuliana, is the most obvious manifestation of the religious policy at the highest government level. More informative for the nature of the cult are the six epigraphic monuments preserved to this day. These demonstrate that the observation and propaganda of the cult of the supreme Roman deity engaged primarily officers of the provincial civil or military administration. In contrast to the age of the Principate, dedications by common soldiers and veterans, as well as by local civilian communities – colonies, municipia, vici, are entirely missing. The observed changes were not exclusive to the cult of Jupiter but reflected the new political, economic and religious environment in the Roman provinces as a whole.