e toward
his adoptive father Julius Caesar. From the very beginning when he took
upon himself, even at the cost of temporary impoverishment, the payment
of Caesar's legacy, he was supremely true to the man whose successor he
was, and this faithfulness is especially apparent in the field of
religion. Here there are two cults, both relating to Julius Caesar, for
which Augustus was largely responsible, that of the god Julius himself,
and that of Mars the Avenger.

In consideration of what Caesar had already done for the reorganisation
of the state, and in view of what he was planning to carry out, his
death was a national calamity, but his influence might still be rescued
and preserved by elevating him into the rank of the gods. For the
accomplishment of this it was necessary that the Senate should act, for
in the hands of the Senate alone lay the power to receive new gods into
the state. Thus the god Julius was created and the word _divus_ received
a new meaning. With that logic which was characteristic of Roman
religion from the very beginning, the elevation of Julius into the ranks
of the greater and more individual gods went side by side with his
exclusion from the ranks of the ordinary deified ancestors, so that
thereafter at the funeral processions of the Julian family his wax mask
was absent from the processions of ancestors to which he no longer
belonged, but in the parade of the circus he was present, drawn in a
waggon among the greater gods. Nothing was left undone to render his
cult both conspicuous and permanent. A special priest (_flamen_) was
appointed to look after it, and as the irony of fate would have it one
of the first incumbents of this position was Marc Antony after his
reconciliation with Augustus in B.C. 40. Then too a special festival day
was given him among the religious holidays of the year. It was intended
that this day should be July 13, his birthday, but as that day happened
to be already devoted to an important celebration in connexion with the
games of Apollo, the day preceding it, July 12, was chosen. But more was
needed than a priest and a holiday, there must be a cult centre as well,
a temple of the Divus Julius. The site of this temple was already given
in the associations connected with Caesar's death. There could be but
one place for it, and that was in the Forum near the Regia where his
body had been carried to be burned. There the temple was built and
dedicated August 18, B.C. 29. An