The Emperor and the Empire

The chapter discusses the Roman emperor, the administration of the empire, and the imperial cult. It defines the terms “imperium,” and “imperator” and their changing definitions in the Augustan era. It considers the empire as a network of roads, laws, trading partners, and ethnicities, and also the ways religion traveled and spread through these networks through the actions of religious entrepreneurs. It discusses diaspora urban Judaism and its integration within the empire. It presents the division of the empire into senatorial and imperial provinces and their administration of law, along with the collection of taxes through provincial officials and tax farmers. It treats civic patronage by elected officials in the form of liturgies in return for honors. The imperial cult as religious devotion and a ritualized means of communication between the emperor and provincial elites and the high frequency of imperial language and imagery in the New Testament are discussed.