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This paper is specifically concerned with the classical Latin panegyric, thus excluding both panegyrics from late antiquity, where the religious context is substantially different, and (at least in the first instance) panegyrical literature in Greek, with its distinctive linguistic and hence ideological background. I am, moreover, defining ‘panegyric’ to comprise only speeches in praise of a living person or persons: the religious status of living people, and the language applied to them, manifestly raise particular problems not present with other objects of praise.But there are on the face of things difficulties with this definition. There is an obvious overlap between panegyrical speeches and other forms of oratory: themes of praise can clearly play a role, for example, in forensic speeches. Conversely, according to both ancient theorists and modern commentators, panegyrics can be used to give advice, either openly or covertly – the latter when, for example, one recommends future clemency to a tyrant under the guise of praising examples of clemency in the past. I shall be dealing only with speeches that are overtly panegyrical in form, those whose ostensible object is not persuasion, but simple praise; but the limitation seems rather artificial.

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Recent analysis of the imperial cult has argued that it can be best understood in terms of the lack of a fundamental division between gods and humans at Rome worshiping a human as a god was accordingly not a transgressive act. This paper challenges this interpretation, demonstrating that gods and humans were indeed usually conceived as separate species of being. The imperial cult was thus transgressive in theory; however, it primarily operated in contexts where that could be overlooked and the worship of humans as gods accordingly appeared unproblematic.