Historical research on the imperial cult of the Roman Empire has traditionally focused on areas marked by prominent political and economic interactions with the ruling center in Rome. The periphery of the empire is often flattened into a passive absorber of the imperial cult from the ruling center, without enough attention paid to its unique social and religious context. Thus, the distinctive nature of the imperial cult in places such as Cyprus has often escaped the attention of historians and archaeologists. This thesis examines the development of the imperial cult based on Ptolemaic royal worship that once prevailed on the island. A diachronic analysis of the cultic transition from the Ptolemaic to the Roman period is conducted using Greek inscriptions on statues and public buildings from major cities such as Salamis, Paphos, Kition, and Amathous. Priesthood titles, royal and imperial epithets, and associations of the rulers with traditional deities reflected by epigraphic evidence provide valuable information on how the organization and practices of ruler worship shifted over time. The result offers new insights into the localization of cultic practices introduced by political hegemony to peripheral areas, and the influence of ruler cults on the original social and political relationships of the local communities.
Junqi Kou (Mon,) studied this question.