SCO 66 (2020), 173-201 · DOI 10.12871/978883339362913 1. Introduction The imperial cult in the Roman East remains a major subject in cur- rent scholarly work on religion in the Roman world. However, it seems that scholars have so far underrated an interesting aspect: not only was the emperor himself worshipped, but also various ‘traditional’ divini- ties, as well as qualities connected with the emperors were direct ob- jects of worship (e.g. Venus Augusta, Silvanus Augustus and Salus Au- gusta – ‘the imperial health’, Providentia Augusti – ‘the providence of the emperor’ respectively). Especially the imperial qualities are often regarded as subordinate to the ‘main’ imperial cult, as they served only to highlight a specifc aspect of an emperor’s personality or adminis- tration. However, such qualities had a rich past in Greek and Roman Republican political tradition. But, frstly, what is to be understood as a ‘quality’? To answer this question, one should query which term befts most for describing vari- ous concepts, as e.g. Salus – Hygieia, Iustitia – Dikaiosyne, Pietas – Eusebeia. These were objects of worship, but they were not part of what we nowadays regard as ‘traditional’ gods with a mythological back- ground, such as Zeus or Aphrodite. This contradiction often confuses the researchers. However, the qualities were assigned with a specifc area of competence, like any other god. For example, as Demeter was supposed to be the goddess of fertility, likewise Salus was the goddess of health. In addition, the qualities were depicted in statues, coins and elsewhere and had their own iconographic symbols, again like any other god. In this way, these personifcations were real cult deities. However, they did not always receive cult on an institutional level, accompanied with a temple and a priest. For example, Salus could simply be wor- shipped with the dedication of a statue, as a result of personal devotion. * An earlier version of this paper was presented at the session entitled ‘Dialectics of Religion in the Roman Empire’ at the TRAC 2017 Durham Conference. I am grateful to the session’s organisers Francesca Mazilli and Dies van der Linde, as well as Kostas Buraselis, Francesco Camia, Gian Luca Gregori, Athanasios Rizakis and Eftychia Stavri- anopoulou for their invaluable remarks. All shortcomings remain, of course, mine. GiorGos MitroPoulos THE IMPERIAL QUALITIES IN ROMAN GREECE (31 BC – AD 235): THE EVIDENCE AND A FIRST ASSESSMENT *