You mean anyone believing what a religious leader tells them is an ignorant savage?
But, assuming the account is correct, do we know that any significant amount of believed it? A lot of "big lies" are told not with the expectation that people are to believe in them literally but to distract from other issues or otherwise more subtly affect people. We get them all the time from politicians today. Why wouldn't they have the same thing in the past?
nero pretended to be an incarnation of apollo; were the romans ignorant savages?
Religiously speaking? Yes. Though I don't know that anyone's daily life back then was modified to accommodate this claim.
They didn't believe it, though, per the article.
Having peasant-level subjects believe the mystic stuff peddled by the state propaganda machine paints the civilization as "ignorant savages" to a much lesser degree than a head of state believing the mystic stuff themselves.
At the time the heads of European states believed they had a god-given right to rule etc.
Why does an American president have to swear on a bible, even nowadays?
They don’t. They could swear on the Constitution, or the Quran, or a picture their granddaughter drew for them.
It’s the oath that matters, not what your hand is on.