A. Apollonius Cordus M. Arminiae Maiórà amÃcae et Cn.
Júlió Caesarà et omnibus sal.
First let me respond to a couple of things which have
been written today. Those interested in the main
discussion about the comitia caláta and the creation
of pontificés should skip ahead past the quoted
passages.
Maior wrote:
> The comitia calata which met in republican times is
> another form of
> the comitia centuriata. p. 18 Jolowicz
This is, of course, a typing error. What p. 18 of
Jolowicz says is that the comitia caláta is the same
as the comitia cúriáta, as has been discussed.
Maior also wrote:
> Sorry to post a personal note on the ML but Corde
> since you're at
> the library, I've read a review of Scheid's book he
> is a Professor at
> the College de France and the authority,
Sorry, I left the library immediately after writing
that last message yesterday, and I didnÂ’t read this
message of yours when I was there earlier today. IÂ’ve
come back to London now, but next time IÂ’m in Oxford
IÂ’ll have a look at that.
... and also:
> the end of this whole discussion is that Cordus
> is trying to find
> John Scheid's source for the election process of the
> Lex Domitia.
> Since Scheid is the expert on the Religio Romana
> and professor at
> the College de France, his opinion prevails over
> yours or Cordus's.
Indeed. The question, however, is not whether he is
correct, but precisely what his statements signify.
His book is a general introduction and is not, of
course, concerned with the procedural rules of the
comitia caláta in the regal period and the early
republic. So when his book says something interesting
but brief concerning such matters, itÂ’s important to
try to trace the statement to its source in order to
discover precisely what weÂ’re dealing with.
> What boggles my mind is that neither of you have
> read his book
> before you presumed to discuss this matter.
You say that rather as though ScheidÂ’s book is the
undisputed and singular authority on all matters
concerning the réligió, and that it is sheer folly for
anyone to attempt to discuss such things without
reading it. On the contrary, the book is a rather slim
volume which is clearly intended as a general
introductory textbook (it cannot be intended primarily
for academics or even for undergraduates, since it
lacks footnotes or references to primary sources). Nor
is it even the most widely used or comprehensive
introductory textbook. I donÂ’t doubt that it is
accurate and useful, but it is by no means
indispensible.
> Smythe's dictionary from 1897 is not a proper
> source.
SmithÂ’s dictionary has to be handled with care, as
IÂ’ve said before. ItÂ’s old, which means that a small
part of its contents has been overtaken by the
scholarship of the intervening century. It also comes
from an era of different academic fashions. In those
days it was very hard for scholars to bring themselves
to accept uncertainty on any point, so if Gellius said
that the comitia caláta sometimes met in centuriae
rather than cúriae, some function had to be identified
for these strange caláta comitia centuriáta, even if
the evidence was non-existent; today, on the other
hand, the fashion is to be more cautious and to have
readier resort to words like ‘unknown’. But the most
serious problem with the dictionary is simply that it
is very dense, and can often be misleading to a reader
who doesnÂ’t already know the topic at hand quite well:
its purpose seems to be not to allow the novice to
gain an acquaintance with a variety of subjects, like
a modern encyclopaedia, but to allow the scholar to
find further information and references on a topic he
was already somewhat acquainted with. Having said all
that, most of the information in the dictionary is
accurate and rather more helpful than most things one
can find on the internet. The trick is to be careful
with it, and to try to cross-check with another
source.
Now, having disposed (I hope) of all that, letÂ’s see
where weÂ’re up to. IÂ’ll re-cap for those who have lost
track, and so that you can tell me if IÂ’ve lost track
myself.
The léx Domitia of 105 changed the method by which
pontificés were chosen. Previously they had been
chosen by the existing pontificés (that is, they were
co-opted). After the léx Domitia, the pontificés
prepared a shortlist from which the winning candidate
was elected by the comitia tribúta in much the same
way as quaestórés, for example, were elected, except
that only half the tribes (chosen by lot) voted. There
is some talk of reviving in Nova Róma the system
created by the léx Domitia. Naturally enough,
attention has turned to the historical details
surrounding the issue. Cónsul Equitius Marinus has
argued that from the creation of the pontificés during
the regal period, the right to regulate the state cult
(the réligió pública) on behalf of the populus (this
right being the jús pontificum) was conferred upon the
pontificés by the comitia caláta. The comitia caláta,
however, declined in importance in the early
republican period or before, and by the late republic
– so runs the argument – was no longer sufficiently
representative of the populus to have any meaningful
right to act on its behalf in conferring the jús
pontificum on anyone. Accordingly, the transfer of the
election of pontificés to the comitia tribúta, which
was a more genuinely representative assembly, was a
proper and pious act.
So, this is how it comes about that we are interested
in the details of the comitia caláta in the regal and
early republican periods. Július Caesar has argued, in
criticism of MarinusÂ’ suggestions, that the comitia
caláta which was involved in the creation of new
pontificés cannot possibly have played any more active
part than to simply witness the co-option of the new
pontifex by the collégium pontificum. Therefore,
argues Caesar, the populus never played any active
role in the creation of new pontificés, and the léx
Domitia was an outright innovation rather than a
return to something resembling ancient practice.
Against CaesarÂ’s arguments, I have pointed out that it
is impossible, on the evidence currently available, to
say for certain that the involvement of the comitia
caláta in the creation of pontificés didn’t go beyond
mere witnessing to active voting. It is known that the
comitia caláta did vote on some occasions and that on
other occasions it did not. It is not known, however,
whether the creation of new pontificés was one of the
former occasions or one of the latter. After another
dayÂ’s research today, IÂ’m now fairly well convinced
that there simply is no evidence either way.
Now, we have to remember that even if the comitia
caláta did vote on these occasions, that doesn’t mean
that the voters had a real choice. For one thing, on
those occasions when the comitia caláta did certainly
vote there are no examples (as far as I know) of them
ever voting ‘no’. On the other hand, it seems very
likely that there was a real possibility of a ‘no’
vote at least in the early period, for otherwise the
logic of having a vote at all is questionable, and so
too is the logic of taking the matter before the
comitia in the first place. The problem is that most
of our evidence concerns the middle and late
republican periods. By that time the vast majority of
the functions of the comitia cúriáta (the comitia
caláta was the name given to the comitia cúriáta when
it was convened by a pontifex) had been transferred to
other comitia. The result seems to have been that on
at least some occasions very few people bothered to go
to the comitia caláta at all.
Ciceró (dé lég. agr. 2.12.31) indicates that when the
comitia cúriáta met “auspiciórum causa” (for the sake
of the auspices) it was “per XXX lÃctórés cónstitútÔ.
This is rather tricky. The lÃctórés were the
representatives of the cúriae, one from each cúria.
Gellius says they summoned the cúriae for meetings of
the comitia caláta – presumably each lÃctor gave his
cúria notice of the meeting. The phrase used by Ciceró
is usually interpreted as meaning “comprised of 30
lÃctórés”, and the whole passage is therefore taken to
mean that by Ciceró’s time the comitia cúriáta was
composed only of the 30 lÃctórés and no one else.
However, as Watson has pointed out (‘Law Making In The
Later Roman RepublicÂ’ (Oxford University Press, 1974),
p. 19 n. 6), Cicerós is referring only to the comitia
cúriáta when it met “auspiciórum causa” – it’s
possible that meetings were better attended when they
had different purposes. ItÂ’s not entirely clear what
Ciceró means by “auspiciórum causa”, but the context
suggests that he probably means the meetings of the
comitia cúriáta which passed the léx dé imperió,
confirming the magistrates in office at the beginning
of the year. If so, it wouldnÂ’t be surprising if no
one bothered to turn up – they had already voted for
the magistrates during the elections, and wouldnÂ’t
have had much interest in formally confirming them.
But sometimes meetings of the comitia cúriáta were of
more interest – for instance, when they met to vote on
an adoption by adrogátió, especially when the person
being adopted was a controversial figure (Clódius, for
example, or Octávius). And it is hard to imagine that
anyone who wanted to go would actually have been
barred from the comitia since, after all, the comitia
were by definition assemblies of the people. Moreover,
I personally am not at all certain that “per XXX
lÃctórés cónstitútÔ has to mean “composed of 30
lÃctórés” at all. Now, let me emphasise that as far as
I know no professional scholar that I know of
challenges that translation, and IÂ’m very much out on
a limb, being a minimally competent Latinist. But my
dictionary says that “per XXX lÃctórés cónstitútÔ
could also - and in fact would more normally – mean
“convened by the 30 lÃctórés”. IÂ’m given some hope
that this is not a totally incompetent translation by
the fact that the admittedly rather old translation by
Yonge on Perseus does indeed translate “cónstitútÔ as
“convened” and not “composed”.
It is also an open question whether the comitia caláta
which was involved in the creation of new pontificés,
if indeed it voted rather than passively witnessed,
had any choice between candidates, or simply ratified
the choice already made by the collégium pontificum.
It seems to me pretty unlikely. The power to choose
between candidates for civil magistracies was
transferred at a very early date to the other comitia,
if indeed it ever lay with the comitia cúriáta in the
first place. Moreover, had the pontificate been
bestowed in a contested public election we would
surely hear of at least one occasion on which the
election was of political significance and thus worth
the while of some historian or other to record. So if
the comitia had any choice at all, it was a choice
between “yes” and “no”, not between “A” and “B”.
But this is perhaps beside the point. The question is
whether the populus had any active role in the
creation of new pontificés. The fact is that the
comitia caláta did continue to be, at least in
principle, an assembly of the people capable of acting
on behalf of the whole populus. In cases of adrogátió
we know (from Gellius again) the words which the
presiding magistrate addressed to the comitia. After
proposing that so-and-so be adopted by so-and-so, he
said: “Haec ita, utà dÃxÃ, ita vós, QuirÃtés, rogó”
(“This thus, as I have said, I thus ask you,
QuirÃtés”). So clearly the comitia was in principle a
formal assembly of the QuirÃtés, and the vote
expressed their will. So if the jús pontificum was
indeed bestowed on new pontificés by the comitia
caláta in a vote, there was a constitutional principle
that required the pontificés to receive their power,
or at least confirmation of that power, from the
populus. What we simply do not know is whether the
comitia caláta voted on new pontificés or were merely
called together to be informed that a new pontifex had
been co-opted. Unless some new evidence appears, or
unless we have overlooked some old evidence, this is
going to remain an unsolved question.
We can take a step back from the details in the hope
that a look at broad trends will give us some light.
The problem is that the starting point is in the regal
period, and itÂ’s always hard to know how much we can
rely on the later traditions recorded by Romans of the
late republican and imperial periods. One common
theory is that the pontificés were originally the
kingÂ’s religious advisers. If this is so, and if the
common idea that the cónsulés (and later the other
magistrates) took over the royal power when the kings
were expelled is true also, we would expect to see the
pontificés become religious advisers to the
magistrates. This is part of what happened: just as
the senate gave the magistrates advice (cónsulta) on
whatever matters they brought before it, so the
magistrates – or the senate as a whole, acting under
the presidency of a magistrate – could ask the advice
(respónsa or décréta) of the collégium on religious
matters; and, just as the advice of the senate was not
binding unless the magistrate acted on it, so it was
up to the magistrate whether to act as the collégium
advised. If this were the whole story, we wouldnÂ’t
expect the pontificés to need any endorsement from the
populus, since they would not have any executive or
legislative power and would not be representing the
populus or acting on its behalf. The senate was not
elected or ratified by the populus, so nor need the
collégium be.
But that’s not the whole story. The collégium,
whatever its role under the kings, acquired some real
constitutional powers in the early republic. The
pontificés, particularly the pontifex máximus, and
also the réx sacrórum (who was a member of the
collégium), seem to have taken over some of the
religious powers and duties of the kings. The
pontificés were directly responsible for the
maintenance of the state cult, and also had some
responsibilities regarding family law insofar as the
sacra familiae were concerned. They performed
sacrifices on behalf of the populus; the pontifex
máximus supervised the vestals in their tending of the
sacred flame; and so on. So clearly in this sense the
pontificés were not simply advisors to the
magistrates: they were public officers in their own
right. Accordingly one would expect them, like the
magistrates, to receive at least the symbolic consent
of the populus. But on the other hand the power of the
collégium over law, particularly constitutional law,
in the very early republic was clearly considerable,
and it is certainly not impossible that the pontificés
in their role as guardians of the law were able to
exempt themselves from what we might regard as proper
constitutional practice. It is a very murky business,
and any conclusion is likely to be little more than a
guess.
What we can say is that – as Maior has pointed out –
the pontifex máximus was elected (from among the
pontificés) by the comitia tribúta (or at least by
half the tribes in the comitia, selected by lot) from
212 onward. Somewhat more than half a century later
there were calls for all the pontificés to be elected
– a reform eventually carried out by the léx Domitia.
In addition, the early and middle republican periods
saw a general seepage of religious knowledge away from
the collégium to the people in general: first,
knowledge of the légis áctiónés (the forms and
procedures of legal action), originally kept secret by
the collégium, was published; next, the calendar was
published, allowing people to know which days were
suitable for business of different kinds. In the early
republic the pontificés had been the guardians of the
state cult because they had exclusive possession of
the knowledge necessary to maintain that cult. By the
late republic most of that knowledge was in the public
realm and could be studied by anyone with the
inclination; accordingly the pontificés were now the
officers who put that knowledge into action on behalf
of the populus. This may partly explain the move from
co-option to election. The civil law had been public
knowledge since the early republic, and the civil
magistrates simply administered it on behalf of the
people; now the religious law was also public
knowledge, and the pontificés simply another type of
magistrate. Indeed, the imperial jurist Ulpian classed
religious law as a sub-set of public law.
Of course, even if we accept that there was a general
trend toward election, and that the léx Domitia was
not therefore simply an out-of-the-blue piece of
political opportunism, that doesnÂ’t necessarily mean
it was a good trend. There was also a trend toward the
collapse of the republic. But we can ask whether Nova
Róma at present is in its religious circumstances more
like the early or the late republic. In some respects
it is like the late republic: everything there is to
know about the réligió pública (apart from any
information which may be revealed by the gods to some
individual or other) is available in academic books
and is in principle available to all who look for it.
On the other hand, most of us know very little about
the réligió pública, so although the pontificés don’t
keep such knowledge secret, they in practice possess
far more of it between them than the rest of us have.
Moreover, even when the pontificés were elected during
the republic there was no doubt about the nature of
the job they were elected to do; there would have been
no question, for instance, of the comitia having to
choose between a candidate who advocated a certain
vision of the réligió pública and another who had a
different policy. In Nova Róma, however, much has to
be reconstructed, and there is the further question of
deliberate innovation. Different pontificés will
naturally have different views about how to do this,
and so voters would be involved indirectly in making
decisions about the policy of the collégium. Thus the
effect of election on the character of the réligió
pública would be much greater than it ever was in
antiquity at a time when the knowledge of the general
populus about the réligió is much lesser, and in which
– and this must be said – a substantial part of the
populus does not actually believe that terrible
disaster could result from a poor decision.
I donÂ’t believe the pressures which brought about the
léx Domitia in 105 B.C. are at all the same as those
which raise the possibility of the same reform today.
Today the question is one of the responsiveness and
sensitivity of the collégium toward the populus. This
simply was not a real concern in the late republic,
because there was nothing for the collégium to respond
or be sensitive about. There were no decisions to be
made about how to maintain and reconstruct the state
cult. It was just a question of choosing which of
three people would be performing certain pre-existing
rituals which would not differ according to who was
performing them. Apart from the trend IÂ’ve suggested
above concerning the demystification of the réligió
pública and the corresponding increase in similarity
between pontificés and any other civil magistrates,
there was a pressure throughout the republic for more
elected positions to be made available as the
competition for office became fiercer and the number
of competitors who felt entitled to prestigious
offices increased. The creation of a block of new
elected positions by the opening of pontificates for
election was an obvious move. There was also a general
politicization of the réligió pública as a result of
the increased intensity of political competition,
which prompted the competitors to search for new
methods to obstruct and overrule their opponents – the
many and complicated formalities and rules of the
state cult offered plenty of opportunities. The
pressures we see today are quite different. Nova Róma
began its life with an unhistorically politicized
collégium. It has unhistorical legislative powers. It
has unhistorical political influence (because it can
always claim that its particular bailiwick – the
réligió – is a more important part of Nova Róma than
any other and that therefore, by implication, it is
the most important part of the constitution). It has
arrogated to itself unhistorical judicial powers. Its
area of responsibility is unhistorically politicized
by the presence of a substantial body of non-believers
in the populus, by the need to make policy-decisions
about the reconstruction of the réligió, and by the
centrality of the réligió to the purpose of the Nova
Róma project as often presented. These are not
criticisms of the collégium, they are simply facts.
The extremely unhistorical position and powers of the
collégium create an extremely unhistorical set of
pressures. It is, partly by necessity, partly by the
choice of the designers of the constitution, and
partly by its own choice a far more politically
important, powerful, and controversial body than it
ever was in the old republic. It is profoundly
unsurprising that there should be pressure for it to
be subjected to some form of political accountability
given its great political importance and power. It is
equally unsurprising and understandable that it should
be resistant to such pressure. But it seems inevitable
that, if the causes of the pressures remain, the
pressures will remain, and will most likely grow. The
alternative is to go back to the source and remove the
causes of the pressures by bringing the collégium
closer to its historical powers, functions, and
characteristics. This cannot be fully achieved,
because the nature of its constituency is profoundly
different from that of the old republican populus, but
certainly some progress can be made.
Apologies for detaining you for so long; these are
complicated issues, and it would be hard to do them
justice with greater brevity.
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