Propaganda política y culto imperial en Hispania (de Augusto a Antonino Pío)

Abstract

The monarchical system, inspired by patterns of Hellenistic government, was established in Rome in the late first century BC. In support of the stability of a society in crisis, disintegrated and heterogeneous, it was necessary to lift the state on the altars, to make sacred politics and his representative man, the princeps. The monarchical power was legitimized through the reinstatement of myths and ceremonies of the republican tradition, that allowed the exaltation of individuals regarded as "saviors of the motherland" and "benefactors of the community", and by creating an image of the ideal imperial family. The theme of the thesis has been approached from a semiologic perspective, which allows to distinguish clearly political propaganda from imperial worship, depending on who were the issuers of political messages. Although offered in the first part an overview of the phenomenon of political propaganda and roman religious politic during the first two centuries AC, through a critical re-reading of the classical sources, the analysis focuses on its manifestation in the Hispanic cities: the three provincial capitals, municipalities and oppida stipendiaria. The urban context is been rebuit in the sense that claimed the headings and imperial sculptural groups, surrounded by monuments dedicated by the decurional council, the provincial council or by personal customers, the most prominent members of local elites, whose support was possible the urban transformation throughout Western Europe. The analysis of the epigrafical, sculptural, numismatic, archaeological and historiographic sources completely ruled out allowing the attachment of certain functional spaces at the imperial worship and offer new proposals for interpretation.