Law and Religion in the Roman Republic PDF
Preview Law and Religion in the Roman Republic
Law and Religion in the Roman Republic Mnemosyne Supplements History and Archaeology of Classical Antiquity Editedby Susan E. Alcock, BrownUniversity Thomas Harrison,Liverpool Willem M. Jongman, Groningen VOLUME336 Thetitlespublishedinthisseriesarelistedatbrill.nl/mns Law and Religion in the Roman Republic Editedby Olga Tellegen-Couperus LEIDEN•BOSTON 2012 Thisbookisprintedonacid-freepaper. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData LawandreligionintheRomanrepublic/editedbyOlgaTellegen-Couperus. p.cm.–(Mnemosyne.Supplements.historyandarchaeologyofclassicalantiquity,ISSN 0169-8958;v.336) Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. TextinGreekwithintroductionandcommentaryinEnglish. ISBN978-90-04-21850-5(hardcover:alk.paper) 1.Religionandlaw–Rome.2.Religionandstate–Rome.3.Ecclesiasticallaw–Rome.4. Rome–Religion.5.Priests–Legalstatus,laws,etc.–Rome.I.Tellegen-Couperus,O.E.(Olga Eveline)II.Title.III.Series. KJA3060.L392011 344.456'32096–dc23 2011034733 ISSN0169-8958 ISBN9789004218505(hardback) ISBN9789004219205(e-book) Copyright2012byKoninklijkeBrillNV,Leiden,TheNetherlands. KoninklijkeBrillNVincorporatestheimprintsBrill,GlobalOriental,HoteiPublishing, IDCPublishers,MartinusNijhoffPublishersandVSP. Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,translated,storedin aretrievalsystem,ortransmittedinanyformorbyanymeans,electronic,mechanical, photocopying,recordingorotherwise,withoutpriorwrittenpermissionfromthepublisher. AuthorizationtophotocopyitemsforinternalorpersonaluseisgrantedbyKoninklijkeBrillNV providedthattheappropriatefeesarepaiddirectlytoTheCopyrightClearanceCenter, 222RosewoodDrive,Suite910,Danvers,MA01923,USA. Feesaresubjecttochange. CONTENTS Introduction ........................................................... 1 OlgaTellegen-Couperus PARTI LAWANDRELIGIONAS MEANSTOCONTROLTHEFUTURE DivineLawandthePenaltyofSacerEstoinEarlyRome............. 11 LeonterBeek LawandDivinationintheLateRomanRepublic .................... 31 FedericoSantangelo PARTII PRIESTS,MAGISTRATES,ANDTHESTATE TheCuriateLawandtheReligiousNatureofthePowerofRoman Magistrates.......................................................... 57 MichelHumm RationalizingReligiousPractices:ThePontificalCalendarandthe Law .................................................................. 85 JörgRüpke TheJurisdictionofthePontiffsattheEndoftheFourthCenturybc 107 JanHendrikValgaeren TheLongevityoftheFetialCollege ................................... 119 LindaZollschan PARTIII SACREDLAW,CIVILLAW,ANDTHECITIZEN SacredLawandCivilLaw ............................................. 147 OlgaTellegen-Couperus vi contents ControloftheSacredinRomanLaw ................................. 165 JamesRives TheImmortalityoftheSoulandRomanLaw ........................ 181 JanWillemTellegen Bibliography ........................................................... 203 IndexofSources ....................................................... 223 INTRODUCTION OlgaTellegen-Couperus Roman law is generally regarded as basically differing from other legal systemsin Antiquity in that it reached, at an early stagein its develop- ment, a very high level of secularisation. However, as late as the first centurybc,theRomanswereregarded(andregardedthemselves)asthe mostreligiouspeopleintheworld.1Isthisaparadoxoristhecommonly heldviewreallyatvariancewiththesources?Theeasywayoutistooptfor theparadoxandtoreducetherelevanceofreligionforlawbystressingthe factthatRomanreligionhadnotheologyanddidnotprescribeconduct. It is true that the state religion did not give rise to an ethical systemof behaviourasdidforinstancetheTorah.Suchasystemwasprovidedfirst by the mos maiorum and, from the secondcentury bc onwards,by the Hellenistic philosophies thatconqueredRome. However,thereare rea- sonstoassumethat,duringtheRepublic,Romanlawwasnotsecularised atall,onthecontrary,thatitsconnectionswithreligionwereneverreally severed. First,itwasthepontiffswhodevelopedsacredlawaswellascivillaw; only in the first century bc, did civil law become the domain of legal expertswhowerenotnecessarilypontiffs.Second,itisstrikingthatwell intothesecondcenturyadreligiousrulesabout,forinstance,deathand burial were still asmuch alive as theyhadbeen in theearly days ofthe Republic; legal problems would arise, and so sacred law met civil law. Moreover,recentresearchhasshownthat,duringtheRepublic,themajor priesthoods and the magistracies were closely connected in matters of governmentaswellaslaw. Researchintothesequestionsseemstohavesufferedfromone-sided- ness: legal historians tend to marginalise religion, whereas scholars of Romanreligiontendtonarrowdownlaw.Aninterestingexampleofthe latter category is a fairly recent volume on law and religion in classical and Christian Rome; the contributions written by historians deal with religionandpubliclaw,whereasthebulkofRomanlawconcernsprivate 1 Cicero,Deharuspicumresponsis,.;Denaturadeorum,.. olgatellegen-couperus law.2 As to the former category: so far, Alan Watson has been the only legalhistoriantodedicate amonographtothesubject.3Heexplainsthe important role of the pontiffs in Roman private law in the context of the struggle between the patricians and plebeians. Until bc, only patricianscouldbepontiffs.AccordingtoWatson,theydevelopedtheius civilefromtheinterpretationoftheLawoftheTwelveTables.Bygiving advice to the magistrate who operated the court system they and their successors, the jurists, created an autonomous system of law that was differentfromanywhereelseintheworld.ItseemsthatWatson’sviewson the relationship between law and religion are—indirectly—inspired by MommsenandtheHistoricalSchool.However,theideathatRomanlaw had developed into an autonomous legal system is no longer generally supported.ItistimetolookatRomanlawandreligionfrombothsides. InDecember,anexpertmeetingwasheldatTilburgUniversity (the Netherlands) to discuss the relationship between law and religion in the time of the Republic. It was the first time that both scholars of RomanreligionandofRomanlawcametogether.Admittedly,historians of Roman religion were more willing and able to participate in this projectthanthelegalhistorians.Sincethen,contactsbetweenthevarious disciplineshave becomemoreeasyandfrequent. Theresultshave been puttogetherinthisvolume. Ofcourse,severalapproachestotheinteractionoflawandreligionare possible.Here,threeaspectsareprominent,andthebookisaccordingly dividedintothreeparts.Thefirstpartfocusesonthesharedbasisoflaw andreligionas meansto dealwiththefuture. In thesecondpart ofthe book,therelationshipbetweenlaw,religion,andthestateisexplored,by highlightingthereligiousbasisofthemagistraciesandthelegaldutiesof thevariouspriests.Thethirdpartofthebookdealswiththeinteraction between religion and private law, by means of a discussion of subjects ranging from the concept of noxae deditio to the building of funerary monuments. How should we deal with the uncertainties of life? In modern times aswellasinearlyRome,thatquestionhastriggeredallsortsofactivities by individuals and communities. On a societallevel, it may lead to the development of common rules that, if properly kept, would ward off danger. This is what happened at Rome. Leon ter Beek states that, in 2 ReligionandLawinClassicalandChristianRome,eds.CliffordAndoandJörgRüpke (Stuttgart,). 3 AlanWatson,TheState,LawandReligion:PaganRome(Athens,Georgia-London, ). introduction early Rome, religion permeated all aspects of society including law. At the same time, Roman law was of a secular and casuistic nature, just like the legislation of almost all the peoples in the Ancient Near East. This ambivalence can very well be illustrated by the penalty of sacer esto, ‘he must be cursed’. These words occur in a religious as well as a secularcontext.Anexampleoftheformeristheinscriptiononthestele underneaththefamouslapisniger.Onthebasisofathoroughdiscussion oftheextantlinesoftheinscription,TerBeeksuggeststhatthelapis nigermarkedasacredspot,maybethegraveofRomulusorofhisfoster fatherFaustulus,andthattheinscriptionwarnedthepeopletokeepthis placecleansoastoavoidabadomen.Thepenaltyofsacerestowasalso usedinasecularcontext,i.e.,inthelegesregiaeandtheLawsoftheTwelve Tables.Theclausesmentioningthispenaltyalldealwithwrongsagainst otherhuman beings involving a breach of trust. Ter Beek suggeststhat suchwrongswereregardedasathreattoRomansocietythatcouldonly bewardedoffbymeansofareligiouspenalty. Since divine law was, in early Rome, one means by which the future could be controlled, it is but a small step to another way of dealing with the future, divinatio. Federico Santangelo studies the connection betweenlawanddivinationinthelaterRomanRepublic,makingample useofCicero’sDedivinationeandDelegibus.Theverbdivinareand,later, the noun divinatio were used in different ways, varying from the gen- eral (making a divinely inspired guess) to the specific (the speech by a prospectiveprosecutorbeforethejuryinacriminaltrial).Accordingto Santangelo, there may have been some line of contact between divina- tion and prudentia. The translation ofprudentia may be problematical, butitclearlyderivesfrompro-videre,seeingbefore,seeingahead.Inthis connection,theadjective prudensisalsointeresting:itcouldbeaccom- panied by a genitive to refer to a kind of knowledge, for instance iuris prudens, ‘a legal expert, a jurist’, or it could be used as a noun; in legal jargon,thenounprudenscametomean‘legalexpert’.Santangelodraws aparallelbetweentheresponsaofthejuristsandthoseoftheharuspices, thepriestswhointhesecondandfirstcenturiesbcacquiredaprominent roleinRomanpublicdivination:inbothcontexts,theresponsawereused as precedents that laid the basis of a ‘jurisprudence’, but, most impor- tantly,theybothoriginatedinatypicallydivinatorypractice.According toSantangelo,theboundariesbetweendivinatioandprudentiaaremore porousthanithasoftenbeenthought. The close connection between law and religion had a considerable impactonthefunctioningofthestate,andparticularlyonthemagistrates
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