Max Weber’s work is a veritable treasure trove for historians, from which they can extract ideal types. Most of these ideal types remain remarkably fresh even a century after the sociologist’s death. For historians of Classical Antiquity, however, Weber is more than just a quarry: he himself grew up with Greek and Roman antiquity. His works on economic and religious sociology are inseparable from it. It therefore feels natural to apply Weber’s paradigms to ancient history. The concept of charismatic leadership from his small study ‘Die drei reinen Typen der legitimen Herrschaft’ has been particularly popular for many years. Hans-Joachim Gehrke was the first to apply it fruitfully in a 1982 article on Hellenistic kingship. Although that article is not included in the bibliography of the collection being reviewed here, Gehrke’s approach has found many followers. Charismatic leadership has become a kind of buzzword among ancient historians.
As early as 2019, the École Française at Rome dedicated a conference to charismatic leadership in antiquity. In their introduction, Jean-Pierre Guilhembet and Pascal Montlahuc describe charismatic leadership as a ‘challenge for historians’. The ideal type is a ‘spectre’ that haunts the field of ancient studies, but is either rejected outright or applied to everything and nothing, thereby rendering it devoid of any explanatory power. While Weber’s attention is primarily focused on the emergence of charisma, the authors are also interested in its consolidation. The book therefore consists of two parts, which approach the subject from different angles. Part I examines the genesis of charismatic leadership through three case studies: Critias and the crisis of Athenian democracy after the Peloponnesian War (Vincent Azoulay); Demetrius Poliorketes (Paul Cournarie); and the crisis of the Roman Republic with powerful generals like Caesar (Bertrand Augier). Part II focuses on structures of long duration: the political leadership of Athenian democracy (Carol Atack); the Augustan principate (Francesca Rohr Vio); the relationship between charisma and auctoritas (Frédéric Hurlet); and the self-presentation of Roman emperors as ‘equals’ of senators (Pascal Montlahuc).
Using the example of Critias, Azoulay shows how the charismatisation of politics by means of creating a permanent state of exception can ultimately fail. In the long term, Critias and his associates were unable to undermine the institutional basis of the Athenian democracy. Neither terror nor the playing of the emotional card achieved the desired effect. The oligarchic group’s power, if it ever existed, crumbled because the necessary proof of charisma was lacking. Cournarie discusses the importance of devotion in charismatic leadership relationships: the Athenians declare Demetrius a god, thereby making it acceptable for themselves to obey him. Augier examines revolts in the army to shed light on the sources of Caesar’s charisma. He quotes the famous passage from Caesar’s Gallic War about the pacification of a mutiny in Vesontio. Caesar invokes the bellum iustum and the exampla of the ancestors, but above all he emphasises his felicitas, which can be translated as ‘Gnadengabe’ (grace) in Weber’s wording. The extraordinary, emotional element that was always present in the relationship between Roman generals and their soldiers was deliberately highlighted and became a key component of a ‘charismatic strategy’.
Rohr Vio takes up the idea of a charismatic strategy in her contribution to the development of the Augustan Principate. Even the young Octavian stages himself as a guarantor who vouched for the promises made to veterans, as the Divi filius and as an embodiment of virtus. Although he ultimately succeeded, there were also episodes of failure. These illustrate that the gift of grace was not an inherent property of Octavian, but a goal to which other goals were subordinated in order to achieve legitimacy.
Hurlet’s discussion of the concept pair charisma/auctoritas is particularly interesting. Do both terms, as this reviewer has noted elsewhere, refer to the same essence or something similar? Or are they designed for different epistemological levels? Of course, they are. For Hurlet, the heuristic value of Weber’s charisma concept lies more in its seemingly paradoxical derivatives, such as hereditary charisma, than in providing a category for deciphering the arcanum imperii. Why do people obey the Roman emperor?, Hurlet asks, and answers: not the charisma of individual rulers and not the bureaucratic apparatus, but the need for hierarchies and their functioning was what kept the emperors in power. One does not have to agree with Hurlet’s argument to learn much from this thought-provoking chapter.
Why did the Roman emperors feign modesty? Montlahuc investigates the paradox he calls the ‘primus-inter-pares effect’. This package includes the staged equality with senators, the joviality towards the citizens, and the permanent and repeatedly emphasised accessibility of the civilis princeps. The paradoxical conclusion is: charisma arises through self-abasement. That the princeps only had the power that was vested in him by the magistracies he held was, of course, an illusion, as Montlahuc makes clear. Weber’s ideal type resolves the apparent contradiction, which is a sign that its heuristic value may not be as trivial as co-author Hurlet suggests.
This book is not a user manual for applying Weber’s ideal types to Greek and Roman antiquity, nor can it be. But it is an intellectually stimulating compendium that shows how much can still be done with the ideal type toolkit of the master in the twenty-first century.
