1. PRIESTLY AUTHORITY AND AUCTORITAS

Some of the best recent work on Roman priesthoods under the Republic has engaged with the issue of priestly authority and its role in defining the place of priesthoods vis-à-vis other centres of power, influence and knowledge.Footnote ¹ The aim of this paper is to make a contribution to this line of enquiry by focussing on the concept of priestly auctoritas, which has seldom received close attention.Footnote ² The working hypothesis is that the study of priestly auctoritas may contribute to a broader understanding of the place of priesthood in Republican Rome, and especially in the Late Republican period, from which most of the evidence derives. The link between religious authority and religious expertise requires special attention.Footnote ³

The discussion will begin with a general overview of the occurrences of the word auctoritas with reference to priests and priesthoods, which are confined to some Late Republican contexts and to a rather narrow range of texts. The evidence will then draw attention to the important tension between the auctoritas of priesthoods as corporate bodies, or indeed as a set of corporate bodies, and the auctoritas of individual priests. How do these different kinds of auctoritas coexist and interact with each other, and how are they to be understood in a context where there were tensions and concerns regarding the distribution of power and influence both among corporate centres of power and individuals? The final section of the paper will deal with some Late Republican debates and traditions on priests and priesthood. The discussion is based on a broad acceptance of the model of Republican priesthood outlined by M. Beard, whereby the main centre of religious power was the Senate, while priests were credited with a form of religious knowledge and expertise that enabled them to interact with the Senate, usually by providing rulings that were authoritative, but not binding.Footnote ⁴

A few preliminary clarifications on the word auctoritas are in order, not least because of the partial overlap and potential confusion between the Latin word auctoritas and the English word ‘authority’, which has a broader semantic remit than its Latin antecedent.Footnote ⁵Auctoritas is the only abstract noun in Latin that derives from an agent noun.Footnote ⁶ It designates the quality of being auctor. The primary meaning of being auctor is that of being the one who makes something grow (augere) or, more precisely, who enables the establishment of something. However, auctor does not just mean ‘initiator’; it may apply to anyone who promotes, champions and vouches for an initiative or cause.Footnote ⁷Auctor also has specific meanings in the legal domain; for instance, it may refer to the guarantor of a purchase, a dowry, a marriage or a legal obligation contracted by a woman.Footnote ⁸ The word auctoritas applies widely to all these meanings of auctor, but it has a specific function in the political sphere. It indicates a ‘prevailing opinion’, or an opinion that is given first and which takes precedence.Footnote ⁹ When the auctoritas of an individual is mentioned, it is usually that of a priuatus, but there is no strict rule: there are a few clear references to the auctoritas of serving magistrates.Footnote ¹⁰ The variety of meanings of auctoritas is the symptom of a tension that is intrinsic to the concept itself and is confirmed by its applications to specific historical circumstances. On the one hand, auctoritas may be intended in an absolute sense, as a quality that has an impact regardless of what the other competing forces may be: it may be translated, with some approximation, with ‘authoritativeness’. On the other hand, it is often understood and discussed as a force that competes with other forms of power and prestige, and stands out from them – as the quality of someone who is ‘in authority’, or has ‘authority over somebody or something’.Footnote ¹¹ The auctoritas of the Senate prevails, on a considerable number of matters, upon whatever views the magistrates may hold and whatever options the voting assemblies may be willing to pursue. Both facets of auctoritas – ‘being an authority on’ and ‘having authority over’ – are relevant to the position of priests in the Roman Republic. Priests can be the source of special religious knowledge and expertise, and their views may also steer the actions and deliberations of the Senate, the magistrates or the voting assemblies. Moreover, auctoritas is an important factor in the interaction among the members of a priestly college. A related point must be stressed: the priests whom the sources single out for their auctoritas do not derive it merely from their own personal prestige but, first and foremost, from their priestly status.

2. CICERO, CLODIUS AND PRIESTLY AUCTORITAS

There are more than 2,300 references to auctoritas in Latin literature; those to the auctoritas of the Senate – auctoritas senatus or patrum – are in the hundreds.Footnote ¹² The auctoritas of priests, however, is mentioned only in a relatively small number of passages. Unsurprisingly, Cicero is the most generous source and the references that he makes to the auctoritas of priests or to religious forms of auctoritas (such as that of oracles) appear at important moments of his work and at significant junctions of his reflection on religion. The earliest surviving references to priestly auctoritas are in the De domo, a speech where the role of priestly prerogatives and expertise in the political process is central. The oration, which was given on 29 September 57, is addressed to the college of the pontiffs. The law that recalled Cicero from exile contained a clause whereby he should regain his property, including the house on the Palatine, on the site of which Clodius had dedicated a shrine to Libertas. The Senate had sought advice from the pontiffs on the validity of the dedication made by Clodius and on Cicero's ability to regain his property. Cicero repeatedly refers to the auctoritas of the whole college.

In the exordium, Cicero argues that the auctoritas and the sapientia of the pontiffs – their authority and their wisdom, their prestige and their knowledge – can play a decisive role in undoing the effects of the actions that have been perpetrated by his enemies.Footnote ¹³ The speech repeatedly addresses the boundaries of the auctoritas of the pontiffs, and sets out to clarify how it may contrast the actions of Clodius in the name of the safeguard of public religio. I. Gildenhard has pointed out that the opening chapters do not simply offer a flattering assessment of the prerogatives of the pontiffs from an orator driven by his own agenda. They outline an innovative and biased definition of the priestly remit: the members of the pontifical college are addressed as priests and as members of the Senate alike, who are expected to fulfil their priestly task in the name of higher political responsibilities. Moreover, the pontiffs are urged to use their wisdom – their sapientia – and are told that they should be involved in matters of religious interpretation, and not just in matters of religious observance. In his appeal to the pontiffs Cicero redefines their brief and their position in the wider scheme of the republic: from advisors they become interpreters (interpretes religionum); and it is their expert knowledge that enables them to reach the judgment that they are expected to produce.Footnote ¹⁴ The reference to the pontiffs as interpretes is not the only instance of unusual terminology in the De domo: in the opening chapter of the speech there is a reference to the iudicium and potestas of the pontiffs. This is the only use of potestas in connection with priests in the whole of Latin prose; later in the speech, the word iudicium is associated with auctoritas.Footnote ¹⁵

The interest in redefining of the duties of the pontiffs and the language that Cicero used were prompted by the peculiar profile of the case. A senatus consultum, put forward by M. Calpurnius Bibulus (cos. 59 b.c.), had entrusted the pontiffs with the decision on the dispute concerning Cicero's house, and the matter was discussed in two different hearings before the pontiffs.Footnote ¹⁶ The De domo was delivered at the second meeting, after the pontiffs had decided to adjourn the first meeting and let Cicero and Clodius present their cases at a hearing before the pontifical college. What was usually a committee of experts was turned into a court of law for the occasion, and was expected to decide between the competing cases made by two able orators, Clodius and Cicero.Footnote ¹⁷ Against this background, it becomes clearer why Cicero engages so vigorously with the redefinition of the tasks of the pontiffs.

The emphasis on the auctoritas of the pontiffs is also relevant to the wider point that Cicero seeks to make in his speech, which cannot be dismissed as a mere attempt to curry favour with the audience. Clodius argued that the matter of Cicero's house should be referred to the people, rather than being settled by the pontiffs; Cicero vigorously opposes that view (ch. 4) and claims that the populace lack the consistency and the intellectual rigour that are necessary to deal with religious issues, while matters of religion should be resolved by the knowledge of law, of the relevant precedents and of a body of written documents that also carry auctoritas (auctoritas litterarum monumentorumque).Footnote ¹⁸ The auctoritas of the pontiffs is therefore related to that of the sources that they deal with.

Interestingly, priestly auctoritas – in the De domo and elsewhere in Cicero's work – is systematically associated with other concepts. We have already drawn attention to the association with sapientia in the exordium. Later in the speech (44) Cicero urges the pontiffs not to give Clodius the potestas to proscribe him with the endorsement of their iudicium and their auctoritas. Their decision comes in the form of a ruling, but it is crucially supported by their prestige and moral standing. The opinion of the pontiffs on the matter discussed by Cicero is not just a ruling of the utmost importance for Cicero, but an essential feature of the political debate too. As he pays tribute to the support that L. Aurelius Cotta, M. Calpurnius Bibulus and especially Pompey gave to his struggle for the house, Cicero mentions the intervention of the pontifical college, which protected him sententiis auctoritatibusque: with its rulings and its authoritative endorsement.Footnote ¹⁹ On one occasion the auctoritas of the pontiffs is associated with the studia, consilia and sententiae; a few lines above, mention is made of the iudicium that the pontiffs are expected to give and on which Cicero's prospects of regaining his house depend.Footnote ²⁰

One of the central aspects of Cicero's appreciation of the role of the pontifical college is the emphasis that he places on the auctoritas of the whole college, as opposed to the alleged auctoritas of individual members. In ch. 117, as he starts developing the theme of the abuse of religion briefly mentioned in the opening part, Cicero polemically points out that only one member of the pontifical college, the young L. Pinarius Natta, was involved in the dedication of the house as a shrine of Libertas. The matter required auctoritas and scientia, as Cicero argued at the outset of the speech.Footnote ²¹ The whole college should have been involved with its solution: while all its members – including Pinarius – have auctoritas, age and rank give more clout (dignitas) to some of them; and while all of them have knowledge, age furthers it.Footnote ²² Moreover, the auctoritas of L. Pinarius Natta, the junior pontiff used by Clodius to perform the dedication of the site of Cicero's house, is put into question by his close family connection to Clodius (118). Even though Cicero undermines the auctoritas of Natta, he does not deny it altogether. Cicero is addressing the pontifical college, and has to reconcile the need to isolate one of its members without alienating his fellow members and without involving them in the illicit dedication that he performed. However, it is not the lack of political clout and social rank of Pinarius that undermines the dedication.Footnote ²³ Cicero argues that the auctoritas of the pontiffs must clarify the fundamental point that the dedication of a house may not be performed by just one priest, but should be entrusted to the whole college. Auctoritas, therefore, must be evoked to defend a fundamental principle of the Republic, which is about the distribution of power and influence among several centres. To be sure, Cicero is obfuscating the nature of the problem: a dedication was inevitably always performed by one priest, the one that pronounced the ritual formula, even if other priests would perhaps be present.

The final section of the argumentatio is accompanied by the discussion of specific instances in which rulings of the pontifical college invalidated dedications that were promoted by prominent individuals and the Senate accepted the authoritative advice of the pontiffs. This is the only occurrence in the De domo in which the expression de auctoritate pontificum appears (136–7).Footnote ²⁴ The concept of priestly auctoritas, which never appears in Cicero's work before the clash with Clodius, emerges very prominently in the De domo, and is specifically referred to the pontifical college. Cicero uses it for reasons that go beyond the obvious need to curry the favour of his audience. The references to auctoritas are used to construct a place for the influence of the pontiffs that can enable Cicero to discuss it in opposition to the powers of the tribune. On the one hand, Cicero mentions the prestige of the pontiffs and contrasts it with the alleged deviousness of his opponent. On the other hand, he insists on the importance of acknowledging the significance of the whole pontifical college, as opposed to the interventions of individual priests, who can be manipulated by powerful individuals driven by specific personal aims. In doing so, however, Cicero also opens up the possibility of differentiating further within the college among members who have different grades of auctoritas. Most importantly, the concept of auctoritas appears to have, in a priestly context as well as in others, a remarkable extent of flexibility, as it can be applied to a range of different nuances and associated with a number of different concepts – be it seniority, experience or knowledge.

A passage in the concluding section of the speech gives an interesting angle on the importance that the existence of different sources of auctoritas has in Cicero's perspective. At the beginning of ch. 141 Cicero urges the pontiffs to look beyond the technical dimension of the case and of his own speech to pay attention to the whole profile of the State. The pontiffs have been entrusted with the exceptional responsibility of deciding over the dignitas of Cicero and his position by the perpetua auctoritas of the Senate. The same impulse comes from the cities across Italy, from all the associations and social classes, and from the voting assemblies (campus centuriarumque una uox omnium). These institutions have a special bond with the pontiffs, who have been their mentors and leaders (quarum uos principes et auctores fuistis).Footnote ²⁵ The unshakeable auctoritas of the senatus is the precondition of the action of the pontiffs; but the standing of the pontiffs, and especially their time-honoured connection with the popular assemblies, makes them a centre of auctoritas that is worthy in itself. The Republic that wants Cicero's return and which Cicero sets out to represent encompasses a set of different centres and levels of auctoritas.

The De domo is not the only moment of the controversy with Clodius in which Cicero engaged with problems of priestly auctoritas. In 56 b.c. a prodigy was reported to the Senate from the ager Latiniensis near Rome. The haruspices were consulted, and they vaguely referred to the gods' anger, mentioning the profanation of sacred sites as one of its reasons. Clodius exploited the response to argue that the restitution of Cicero's house to its former owner was a breach of divine law. Cicero produced an alternative reading of the response of the haruspices in a speech in the Senate, the De haruspicum responso. Cicero mentions the auctoritas of the Senate (ch. 43) and praises the auctoritas, fides and prudentia of the pontiffs (ch. 140); he never questions the auctoritas of the haruspices, but never openly pays tribute to it either.

As he embarks on the detailed discussion of the response (ch. 18), he makes clear that, despite his literary interests, he is keenly interested in matters of religion, and that his interest is shaped by the legacy of the mos maiorum, and only secondly by his philosophical interests: ego uero primum habeo auctores ac magistros religionum colendarum maiores nostros (‘indeed I believe that our ancestors are the auctores and teachers of religious practice’).Footnote ²⁶Auctoritas – the quality of being auctor – is therefore referred to the ancestors; it is the ancestors that set up public religion, by using a combination of knowledge, foresight and – as it becomes apparent in the following chapter – wisdom (sapientia). In the framework of public religion devised by the ancestors, the Etruscan discipline has the prerogative of directing correct ritual expiation, while the pontiffs are entrusted with the appropriate performance of rituals.

Auctoritas is explicitly evoked in association with augury, no doubt with implicit reference to its etymology. Cicero argues the due authority for the correct performance of public business (rerum bene gerendarum auctoritates) belongs to the domain of augury (augurio … contineri putauerunt).Footnote ²⁷ He then goes on to pay tribute to the importance of the Etruscan discipline and its ability to predict the recent traumatic events of the Social and Civil Wars, especially the conspiracy of Catiline. At no time, however, is the auctoritas of the haruspices – either as a body or as individuals – explicitly evoked. Their views are discussed because they are those of a body of priests that work within the domain of public religion. Cicero refrains from confronting the haruspices directly and from asking wider questions about their involvement in Roman public religion and in the Roman political debate. They just are a part of the scene, and they have to be engaged with, in order to do justice to the cause of public religion. However, there is some scope for arguing against their centrality. Shortly after paying tribute to the learning and ability of the haruspices, Cicero urges his fellow citizens to consider the gravity of the prodigy, regardless of the response of the Etruscan seers, and ultimately to replace the seers themselves: ‘cannot we ourselves be haruspices?’ (20: nos nonne haruspices esse possumus?).

3. PRIESTLY AUCTORITAS IN CICERO'S TREATISES

In the late Fifties Cicero started working on the De legibus, a complex and ambitious treaty which he never published.Footnote ²⁸ In Book 2 there is a well-known discussion of priesthoods and their place in Roman public religion and public life (2.19–69). Auctoritas plays a significant role in this context. Unsurprisingly, the approach that Cicero outlines in the De legibus is very different from the one he put forward in the De domo. While that speech was heavily concerned with the auctoritas of the pontiffs, the discussion of the tasks of the priestly colleges in the De legibus begins with a strong assertion of the superior status of the augurate, which is constructed precisely in terms of auctoritas: maximum autem et praestantissimum in re publica ius est augurum cum auctoritate coniunctum (‘the greatest and most distinguished legal position in the state is that of the augurs, combined, as it is, with auctoritas’).Footnote ²⁹ In fact, the emphasis is placed on the auctoritas of the ius augurum, but it reverberates on the priests that are in charge of it and who are bound to adhere to it.Footnote ³⁰ The distance from the De domo is clear, but it is not unbridgeable: as he celebrates augury, Cicero does not claim that other priesthoods lack auctoritas. Cicero himself is an augur, and he hurries to specify that he is not driven by excessive keenness for his own priesthood, but simply acknowledges the weight of augury in the Roman political system.Footnote ³¹ Augury can have a direct influence on the magistrates' use of imperia and potestates. Augurs can interrupt an assembly and they can compel a serving magistrate to step down from office.Footnote ³² Moreover, no magisterial action can be carried out without the endorsement of the augural auctoritas.Footnote ³³ In this context, the auctoritas of the augurs appears to be about power, rather than about their advisory prerogatives: without their active involvement, the political and constitutional process cannot unfold.

Marcus' assessment of the influence of the augurs is accepted by Atticus, albeit with an important proviso: the augural college is divided about the remit of augury, and notably on whether it may be considered a form of diuinatio. Atticus refers to the debate between Appius and Marcellus, which was explicitly set out in two treatises written by the augurs themselves, where the disagreement was publicly voiced. Cicero joins the controversy by expressing an intermediate view, whereby the auspices used to have a divinatory remit, but lost it over time. He also takes a nuanced stance on the reasons for the continued use of augury over the centuries, arguing that it was sometimes used because people were genuinely seeking guidance about the future, while on other occasions it was used for mere political convenience. The remit of augural auctoritas was probably discussed in the technical literature that was devoted to augury in the first century b.c., but it is impossible to establish along what lines.Footnote ³⁴

The De diuinatione, written between 45 and 44, offers a different appraisal of the problem of priestly auctoritas, which is more directly concerned with the subject matter of the dialogue. In the first book Quintus Cicero, who makes the case in favour of divination, evokes a well-known incident in the career of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (cos. 177 and 163), the father of the tribunes, who unwittingly violated augural law by crossing the pomerium before completing the auspices and nevertheless presiding over the consular election for 162.Footnote ³⁵ When, sometime later, Gracchus realized that he had committed a religious offence, he declared the election invalid. By admitting his error, according to Quintus, Gracchus confirmed the prestige, the auctoritas of the auspicia and of augural lore more generally. The haruspices were also involved with the interpretation of the case, and they declared that the election of the consul was invalid: by showing such rigour they enhanced the auctoritas of their own craft (auspiciorum auctoritatem and haruspicum disciplinae … auctoritas).

This passage, where Quintus pays tribute to the lore of all the parties involved in the process and depicts a picture where everybody seems to be winning, does not quite convey the same picture of disruption and tension that another, fuller account of the same episode, in Cicero's De natura deorum, conjures up. In that account, to which Quintus explicitly refers (nota res est et a te ipso mandata monumentis), the death of the returning officer alerts Tiberius Gracchus to the fact that the election of the new consuls P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica and Q. Figulus was undermined by a religious offence. The haruspices were then consulted by the Senate, and they confirmed that there was a problem. Tiberius Gracchus was not quite as respectful of the auctoritas of the Etruscan priests as Quintus suggests in the De diuinatione. He attacked the haruspices, claiming that they were not competent to comment upon augural law and to be the arbiters of the comitia, and he famously labelled them as Tusci ac barbari (‘Etruscans and barbarians’).Footnote ³⁶ His view was that there was nothing wrong about the electoral process which he had overseen, both as a consul and as a serving member of the augural college (qui et consul rogaui et augur et auspicato). In this case, therefore, Gracchus deliberately opposed his own standing and expertise as a magistrate and priest to the auctoritas of a priestly college (albeit one with a peculiar status like that of the haruspices). It was only several months later that he made the unilateral declaration that there was a violation in the process that led to the election of the new consuls, because he had independently realized that their accession to the magistracy was invalid. He then referred the matter to the augurs, who eventually reported it to the Senate, which decreed that the consuls should abdicate.

The account in the first book of the De diuinatione, which is of course developed from the viewpoint of a supporter of public divination, overlooks these tensions altogether, and conveys a picture in which the great rigour of Gracchus enables the separate and different auctoritates of the auspices and of the Etruscan disciplina to flourish. The process must have been much more complex and troubled. According to a story related by his son Gaius in a pamphlet, Tiberius Gracchus eventually resorted in private to the advice of the very Tusci ac barbari that he had attacked in public, when two snakes were found under his nuptial bed.Footnote ³⁷ Gracchus either changed his views on the auctoritas of the Etruscan seers over time, or thought that, while the Etruscan seers were no safe guide on matters of public religion (and of public law), they could be competent interpreters of disturbing portents that took place in private contexts. Most references to auctoritas in the De diuinatione are not concerned with the auctoritas of priests, but with the auctoritas of specific forms of divination. There is one telling exception: in the discussion of the origins of augury and of its later historical development, Marcus argues that it has lost its divinatory power, but that a set of ritual practices and regulations, augural law and – last but not least – the auctoritas of the college are still in place.Footnote ³⁸

4. THE AUCTORITAS OF INDIVIDUAL PRIESTS

So far the picture is fairly clear. When Cicero mentions the concept of auctoritas in association with priests, he is either addressing a priestly college, as in the De domo, or discussing broader religious issues, such as in the De haruspicum responso or in some philosophical treatises. In the De diuinatione, the issue of the standing of priests is closely related to that of the auctoritas, i.e. the viability and credibility, of their craft.Footnote ³⁹ As we have seen above, in the De domo Cicero questions the auctoritas of a young and junior member of the college, L. Pinarius Natta. Cicero seems to argue that seniority of service in the college is a fundamental factor and indicator of prestige.Footnote ⁴⁰ However, the main argument that he uses against his opponent is different: the whole college, and not just one member, should have been invested with the matter.

The discussion of priesthoods in the second book of the De legibus is not relevant just to the discussion of the auctoritas of priestly colleges, but also the auctoritas of individual priests. The argument that is developed in this context raises interesting points on the relationship between priesthood and knowledge. When the conversation between Cicero and Atticus moves to the discussion of the prerogatives of the pontifical college, Cicero embarks on a lengthy discussion of funerary rituals, which are regulated both by civil and pontifical law (2.45–68). The two Mucii Scaevolae, Publius and Quintus, who both held the supreme pontificate between the late second century b.c. and the early first century b.c., made a central contribution to the understanding of the problem by shaping pontifical jurisprudence with the categories used in civil law. This was, in Cicero's view, an unwelcome development (2.47).Footnote ⁴¹ The two Scaevolae were persuaded that there was no such thing as a good pontiff who was not an expert in ius ciuile. Cicero openly questions that the whole of civil law is relevant to the brief of the pontiffs: the pontiffs should know about ius only as far as it is relevant to religio.Footnote ⁴² However, by Cicero's day the auctoritas of the pontiffs branched out to the regulations governing funerary rites, because Scaevola had radically modified the ancestral regulations by assimilating them to the law of succession, in a way that – while inspired by an attempt to make the system more linear and coherent – had in fact caused greater confusion.

By making the ius pontificium more complex, the pontiffs ended up by undermining it. Before the Scaevolae set out to turn the ius pontificium into a form of ius ciuile, there were no disputes on pontifical law because the auctoritas of the pontiffs provided the necessary foundations to it (2.48).Footnote ⁴³ Cicero uses even stronger wording at 2.52, when he points out that the Scaevolae, despite their intelligence and learning, chose not to use their pontifical auctoritas and resorted to their juridical expertise. Cicero uses funerary regulations as a telling case study: the rules presiding over the responsibility for the property of the deceased are traditionally regulated by the auctoritas of the pontiffs, rather than by law. The use of legal categories in this field and the attempt to use the intellectual framework of civil law in order to change pontifical law brought about unwelcome developments. Cicero goes as far as arguing that, when the Scaevolae handled issues of pontifical law with their mindset of experts of civil law, they end up overriding (eludistis) their pontifical auctoritas. A very specific and revealing contrast is established between the auctoritas that is associated with the priesthood and the legal scientia that puts it under strain.Footnote ⁴⁴ The survival of pontifical auctoritas is viewed in explicit contrast with a process of systematization that plays an important part in the development of Roman law and must be understood against the wider background of Late Republican intellectual developments.Footnote ⁴⁵

Cicero's polemic is targeted at the priests who have renounced their auctoritas and have ended up putting the boundaries of their priesthood into question. As in the De domo, auctoritas is a concept that can be evoked to define the tension and the contrast between tradition and continuity, and indeed between norm and exception. In this case, it is invoked as a crucial argument in a critical discussion of a vital process in the development of Roman law, and more generally in Roman culture: the application of the same intellectual rules and principles to different domains. Moreover, Cicero raises another fundamental problem: to what extent can a senior priest change the remit of his priesthood in the long term? In this context auctoritas is a determining factor: it was precisely the pontifical auctoritas of the Scaevolae that enabled them to impose a number of innovations to the remit of their priesthood which ended up debasing its auctoritas.

In a passage of the Brutus Cicero touches upon priestly auctoritas in days gone by and draws attention to its political implications. An important place in his discussion of the great orators of the Early and Middle Republic (ch. 55) is taken up by the example of M. Popillius, who succeeded in stopping a popular revolt against the Senate by addressing the plebs with a speech. The episode took place in 359 b.c. during Popillius' consulship; at the time Popillius also held the flaminate of Carmenta, and he intervened to quell the revolt wearing his priestly ceremonial garb.Footnote ⁴⁶ According to Cicero, his success in persuading the populace was determined both by his eloquence and by his auctoritas. The auctoritas, in this case, did not derive just from his social standing or from his office, but was closely associated with his priesthood. Cicero emphasizes the detail that Popillius was still dressed in the woollen double cloak that flamines wore (laena amictus), and implies that this detail crucially corroborated his auctoritas and determined his ability to persuade the audience.Footnote ⁴⁷

J. Linderski has linked Popillius' choice to wear his priestly attire with a defining moment of Late Republican history in which a senior priest played a central political role: the decision of the pontifex maximus P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica to take the lead in the attack against Tiberius Gracchus and his supporters in the summer of 133 b.c.Footnote ⁴⁸ The story is well known and is told by a number of ancient sources.Footnote ⁴⁹ In the famous Senate session that took place in the temple of Fides the issue of how to handle the political crisis created by Gracchus' attempt to seek a second tribunate was discussed. The pontifex maximus Nasica urged the consul P. Mucius Scaevola to take action; when he met with refusal he urged those who wished to save the commonwealth to follow him and left the temple with a group of supporters, initiating a riot in which Tiberius Gracchus lost his life. Nasica was a former consul who held no public office at the time except for the supreme pontificate. A number of ancient accounts point out that Nasica was wearing his toga praetexta during the riots. This is a remarkable detail, which draws attention to Nasica's priestly status. The evidence suggests that Roman priests wore the toga praetexta only when they were performing their priestly functions, with the notable exception of the flamen Dialis.Footnote ⁵⁰ Nasica's decision to wear the praetexta is, on the one hand, a valuable reminder of how he initiated the movement against Gracchus both as a priest and as a virtuous citizen; at the same time, it is an implicit statement of Nasica's motives and intents when he initiated the riot. The sources that insist on this detail point to the fact that, far from being the frenzied reactionary who leads a gang of thugs against the tribune Gracchus that some sources depict, Nasica intervened into the controversy as a priest who was fully aware of his civic duties and was prepared to display solemnly his priestly credentials.Footnote ⁵¹ A number of sources explicitly emphasize the fact that he was wearing his toga and provide (partly contradictory) details on how he arranged it during the riot.Footnote ⁵² On the reading of the events put forward by Linderski, Nasica staged his movements as if he were presiding over the consecration of Tiberius and his followers to the gods, and notably to Jupiter; he may also have taken care to display the purple border on his veiled head, hence giving his gesture a sacrificial resonance.Footnote ⁵³

A. Clark has drawn attention to the complexity of the literary tradition on this event and on how different, competing readings could be attached to the same ritual gesture in the pro-Gracchan and anti-Gracchan traditions.Footnote ⁵⁴ What seems reasonably certain is that Nasica affirmed his status on that crucial day by emphasizing his priestly position. This choice, however, is not constructed in terms of auctoritas, be it priestly or merely personal, in most of the extant sources. There is an important exception. It is likely that Livy spoke of Nasica as the auctor of the murder of Gracchus: this is how he is referred to in Periochae 58 and in Orosius. In the Brutus, however, the same work where he acknowledges the priestly auctoritas of Popillius, Cicero uses a stronger formulation to define the intervention of Nasica, which he probably drew from the poet Accius: quo duce priuato Tiberius Gracchus occisus esset.Footnote ⁵⁵ Rather than as an auctor, Nasica is regarded as a dux, a word that has an obvious military connotation; the adjective priuatus further emphasizes his extraordinary position.Footnote ⁵⁶ This episode in which priestly authority seems to come to the fore most forcefully in direct opposition to the authority of the magistrates does not prompt the use of the word auctoritas. The context of the riot and Nasica's decision to get personally involved did not require the vocabulary of political persuasion, but were more suited to the vocabulary of military action.Footnote ⁵⁷ The different choice of terminology also reflects, as E. Badian plausibly argued, different points of view on Nasica's personal involvement in Tiberius' murder.Footnote ⁵⁸

5. CONTROVERSIES ON AUCTORITAS WITHIN PRIESTLY COLLEGES

We would probably have a different picture of priestly auctoritas if we had an extended narrative of the Late Republic in Latin. A section of Livy's account of the preliminaries of the Second Macedonian War engages directly with the limits of the auctoritas of individual priests. In 200 b.c., as the troops were recruited for the campaign, religious observances were carried out.Footnote ⁵⁹ The pontifex maximus P. Licinius Crassus Dives argued that no vow ought to be made unless the sum required to discharge it was paid, because the money so appropriated could not be used towards the war, and ought to be at once set aside and not mixed up with other money; unless this were done, the vow could not be duly discharged. Apparently this was a personal initiative of the pontiff; the Senate reacted by instructing the consul to refer the matter to the whole pontifical college, asking the specific question of whether the sum had to be determined beforehand. Livy makes clear that Licinius was a respected auctor (§ 8) and that his arguments were taken seriously, but it was deemed preferable to entrust the whole college with the solution of the matter. Interestingly, the response of the college was at odds with the view of the pontifex maximus: no limit was set to the expenditure.Footnote ⁶⁰

Elsewhere Livy mentions an intervention of the same pontifex maximus concerning the incorrect performance of a uer sacrum. In 194 b.c. Licinius detected a ritual problem, which he reported to the Senate with the support of the auctoritas – and therefore the explicit endorsement – of the college.Footnote ⁶¹ In a system of effective cooperation among Senate and priestly college that closely matches the model outlined by Quintus Cicero in his account of the election of Tiberius Gracchus, the request of the pontiffs is accepted, and the Senate entrusts them with the supervision of the new uer sacrum. However, the priesthood of Licinius was no ordinary moment in the history of the supreme pontificate. He was the third plebeian pontifex maximus in Roman history. He was elected in 212 b.c. despite being a junior political figure, as he was standing for the aedileship. In 211 he compelled the flamen Dialis C. Claudius to resign for failing to fulfil his priestly duties adequately.Footnote ⁶² In 209 he forced C. Valerius Flaccus to accept the inauguration as flamen Dialis;Footnote ⁶³ when Valerius, in the following year, asked to be granted the privilege of sitting in the Senate even though he did not have senatorial rank, he was denied it by the opposition of the praetor P. Licinius, who is almost certainly to be identified with our pontifex maximus.Footnote ⁶⁴

In 189 Licinius clashed with the flamen Quirinalis Q. Fabius Pictor, who was a praetor and was intending to set off for his province, Sardinia.Footnote ⁶⁵ The pontifex maximus required the flamen to stay in Rome and fulfil his priestly duties in the urbs. In doing so, he was following a principle which we first encounter in the evidence in 242 b.c., when the first plebeian pontifex maximus, L. Caecilius Metellus, prevented the flamen Martialis A. Postumius Albinus from leaving Rome to take part in the operations of the Punic War, in spite of being consul.Footnote ⁶⁶ No compromise was found between Licinius and Fabius; the matter was debated by the Senate and referred to the people. In Livy's words, ‘religious scruple prevailed in the end’ (religio ad postremum uicit); the flamen was compelled to fulfil his priestly duties and to renounce his province. Interestingly, however, the people decided to exempt him from the payment of the fine that Licinius had charged him for overlooking his priestly duties.Footnote ⁶⁷ The impression is that the matter was not regarded as straightforward and a compromise solution was devised. Fabius wanted to resign his magistracy, but the Senate used its auctoritas and persuaded him to take up the office of praetor peregrinus.Footnote ⁶⁸ It is tempting to see in Licinius' behaviour the zeal of the newcomer, the ambition of the plebeian senior priest who wants to establish his reputation by asserting the primacy of the ius sacrum and by putting forward its restrictive interpretation. This is not strictly incompatible, of course, with the presence of narrower political concerns, and with the attempt to use his pontifical position to curtail the ambitions of his political opponents. Wherever the balance may be placed, auctoritas plays an important role in Livy's account of the priestly career of Licinius – both the auctoritas of the individual pontiff and that of the whole college with which he negotiates his choices.

What matters most to the purposes of this discussion is that clashes concerning priestly auctoritas could and did occur within the same priestly college and that they posed specific problems and required specific efforts in order to be addressed. It would be desirable to know more about this level of priestly activity: about the interaction between members of the same college, both in routine circumstances and in situations of exceptional tension and crisis, and about the ways in which priestly auctoritas (be it corporate or individual) was understood and weighted. If we had more of Livy's work, or had access to more continuous narratives of Roman history, we would no doubt reach a better understanding of this problem, and especially of its Late Republican developments. Our most reliable information, however, is for the early second century b.c.

6. PRIESTLY AUCTORITAS AND DIVINE INSPIRATION: THE CASE OF ATTUS NAVIUS

References to priestly auctoritas become very occasional in the authors of the Imperial period. The background of the apparent lapse of interest in priestly auctoritas must be the wider development of priesthoods after the fall of the Republic and the rise of a regime in which the monarch controlled religious power under a tight monopoly, and where centralization replaced a complex distribution of responsibility and influence.Footnote ⁶⁹

Two passages require some discussion. Valerius Maximus calls priestly auctoritas into play from a negative standpoint in his account of a disagreement between a magistrate and a priestly college.Footnote ⁷⁰ When Marcellus, in 208 b.c., during his fifth consulship, vowed to dedicate a temple to Honos and Virtus, the pontiffs blocked his initiative using the argument that a single temple could not be dedicated to two deities. Marcellus accepted their response and abandoned his plan. Valerius Maximus points out the effective collaboration between the serving consul and the pontiffs, which was ultimately intended to secure the respect of proper religious procedures. Marcellus did not object to the prohibition of the pontiffs, because they saved him from committing a religious offence; and the pontiffs were not deterred by his personal auctoritas. A passage of Gellius makes reference to Caesar's auctoritas on the obligations that are owed to parents, friends and guests. A number of views expressed by various authors on the nature of bonds of loyalty are listed, and the final quotation is from Caesar, who justified his loyalty to the Bithynians in the name of his old hospitality ties with King Nicomedes. Caesar is referred to as pontifex maximus, and this may well mean that the speech was given in or after 63 b.c.; if this is the case, Gellius would imply that the authoritativeness of Caesar's statement is corroborated by the priestly position that he held.Footnote ⁷¹

An occurrence of priestly auctoritas in another Imperial author leads us back to Archaic Rome. The author of the De uiris illustribus refers to priestly auctoritas in the biography of Tarquinius Priscus, in the neatest terms: the king doubled the number of the equestrian centuries, but did not change their names because he was frightened by the auctoritas of the augur Attus Navius, who corroborated the credibility of his craft ‘with the razor and the whetstone’.Footnote ⁷² This is a cursory reference to the well-known tale of the encounter between the augur Attus Navius (or Nevius) and the king, which poses the problem of the definition of priestly authority in explicit terms.Footnote ⁷³ Despite the dismissive label (2.80: commenticia fabella) with which Cicero – in his sceptical persona – dismissed the tale in the De diuinatione, the legend of Attus Navius was a remarkable aetiological myth concerning the origins of augury. Its significance is directly confirmed by the relatively high number of surviving ancient accounts, which often diverge – to various extents – from each other.

Attus Navius' priestly profile is very complex. In Dionysius' account, he first resorts to divination as a child, when he has to establish how to find the biggest bunch of grapes in order to perform a sacrifice to the gods; he is aided by divine favour and uses divine inspiration to carry out his ritual. When his father becomes aware of his divinatory skills, he sends him to Etruria and has him formally trained into the augural art. According to this tradition, therefore, Etruria is not just home to haruspicy, but to augury too.Footnote ⁷⁴ After receiving formal training, Attus becomes a celebrated augur, but does not join the augural college. This does not make him less knowledgeable an augur, nor does it make him an ‘irregular’ one; in fact, Attus is said to have advised the official augural college, albeit in an external capacity. This, of course, is not paralleled in the historical practice: there could be lively debate among the augurs, but there is no evidence that the college ever sought or accepted external advice.

The clash between Attus and Tarquinius bypasses the augural college, but it takes place in public. It involves a fully trained diviner and a king who has multiple religious interests and associations, and who comes from Etruria, the land where Attus has learned his craft and which is home to another kind of public and private divination, haruspicy. There are discordant versions about the background of the encounter. According to Cicero, Tarquinius wants to test Attus' divinatory skills, while in the rest of the tradition Attus decides to intervene in order to stop the reforms put forward by Tarquinius. This is the version of the story that the author of the De uiris illustribus viewed as a clash between the king and the auctoritas of the priest. The prominent location of the event – the Comitium – is the precondition that eventually turns it into a foundation myth. A sacred fig tree grows after the intervention of Attus on the site of his altercation with Tarquinius and ensures the lasting memory of the augur's achievement and lesson. The audience of the confrontation between Attus and Tarquinius is also the necessary condition for the solemn assertion of the credibility and the power of Attus' craft. Like Tiberius Gracchus père in 163, Tarquinius has an initial reaction of uncontrolled anger when he is told by the priest that his plans are to be rejected. He then regains composure, and asks Attus to establish whether an unspecified plan of his can be enforced. When Attus answers that it can be carried out, Tarquinius sarcastically confesses that his plan was to cut a whetstone with a razor in public. The obvious intention is to ridicule Attus' craft, but the unexpected happens: a whetstone is brought, and Attus effortlessly cuts it in two with a razor.Footnote ⁷⁵ The consequence of the prodigious event is twofold: the king accepts the response of Attus on his reforms; and Attus gains the status of official augur, widely regarded as a public authority. Once Attus becomes a member of the public augural college, he disappears from the record. Nothing is known about him until his death, which is in fact a disappearance into the sky, very similar to the death of Romulus.Footnote ⁷⁶

M. Beard has read the tale as a story of the emergence of a form of ‘religious authority’ that – unlikely that of Roman priests under the Republic – is not closely associated with political authority, and which is framed within a broader reflection on the remit of priesthood. This is certainly a helpful approach, although it is perhaps underpinned by an excessive confidence in the strength of what Beard calls the ‘integration’ of priests with the political process, i.e. their reluctance to ‘offer objections to particular political positions’.Footnote ⁷⁷ It is also doubtful that the myth of Attus may be read as a story of the clash between inspired prophecy and the power of the state.Footnote ⁷⁸ In fact, the memory of Attus Navius was a lasting tribute to the importance of augury, as the central position of his statue in the Forum forcefully showed: the activity of the Roman public augurs took place, quite literally, in the shadow of the monument to their mythical predecessor.Footnote ⁷⁹

That monument, however, must also have been a reminder of how controversial the craft of the augurs could sometimes be. J. Bremmer has plausibly argued that the story of Attus Navius reflects a tradition that emerged in the second half of the second century b.c., when religion became a matter of intense political debate, which could at times be deeply divisive.Footnote ⁸⁰ A myth that challenged the mainstream practice of the separation between priesthood and magistracy fits well in that context. Bremmer's caution on the possible source of this myth is salutary. It is possible that the emergence of an antiquarian literature on the problem contributed to the genesis of the story. It is also worth allowing for the possibility that the myth of Attus Navius had different resonances for different people at different times. Whatever its origin, the story of the augur who opposed the plans of a king with the force of his craft is likely to have had a special resonance for a Late Republican audience, which witnessed the attempts of a number of political figures to tamper with the mechanics and sometimes even the symbols of religio.Footnote ⁸¹ Navius could be read as an invaluable blueprint for successful resistance. He does not just reassert the power of his craft, but positively manages to stop the political changes promoted by Tarquinius.