Riggs, 'Religion and Authority in Roman Carthage from Augustus to Constantine', Bryn Mawr Classical Review 9512
URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/bmcr/bmcr-9512-riggs-religion
@@@@95.12.23, Rives, Religion and Authority in Roman Carthage
J. B. Rives, Religion and Authority in Roman Carthage from
Augustus to Constantine. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995. Pp.
xviii, 334. $55.00. ISBN 0-19-814083-5.
Reviewed by David L. Riggs -- Christ Church (Oxford)
david.riggs@lithum.ox.ac.uk
Due to the complex diversity of gods and cult practices existing
in the Imperial period, "religion in the Roman World" is a
subject that is resistant to systematic study and synoptic
interpretations. One productive strategy for overcoming the
disorder is to recreate a coherent picture of religious life in a
specific local context, on the basis of which one might then
formulate more general hypotheses. Accordingly, by focusing his
study on the religious milieu in one particular city, J. B. Rives
hopes to provide a "framework" within which to organize his
examination of the "significant patterns" of religious
development under the Roman empire which culminated in the
state's adoption of Christianity.
It should perhaps be noted that the more precise geographical
locus of R.'s book is the territory of Roman Carthage; for the
author does not limit himself to the urban centre, but relies
heavily on the epigraphic and archaeological remains from a
civitas (Thugga) and its neighboring pagus which
lie within the Carthaginian territory. In addition, the author
depends upon relevant material from other Roman coloniae
(most significantly the Lex Ursonensis from Spain).
In what is an elaboration of his doctoral dissertation, R. is
predominantly concerned with the relationship between religious
identity and socio-political authority in the Roman world. He
assumes that religious identity has both a collective and an
individual form, and acts as a "linking device whereby
individuals more or less consciously align themselves, or allow
themselves to be aligned, with particular groups" (4). The
premise of R.'s thesis may be summarized as follows.
At the inception of the Roman empire, virtually the only existing
model for religious identity was the "civic model", which linked
an individual to a particular city. Consequently, it was a
city's sacra publica, its public cults, which embodied and
defined the religious identity of civic residents. Moreover,
because the city council maintained the sacra publica and
oversaw any modifications, it played a decisive role in shaping
the collective religious norm in a city. R. cites the situation
in Republican Rome as an ideal example. The Roman sacra
publica were subject to ongoing transformation and definition
during the Republic, but in all cases it was the senate who made
decisions regarding the changes, and who consequently, defined
the religious identity of the Romans. Likewise, if anyone
strayed too far from this religious norm, the Senate was willing
to use its power to enforce conformity (e.g., suppression of the
Bacchic cult in 186 B.C.). In Republican Rome then, like other
sovereign city-states in the ancient Mediterranean, there were
clear connections between religious identity and socio-political
authority. As they acquired an empire, the Romans--ignorant of
any alternative model--supported and maintained the civic model
of religion among their subjects. Cities were allowed to retain
and control their own sacra publica. However, R. claims
that in the new political context of the Roman empire, this civic
model of religion was inadequate and increasingly out of place.
In his first three chapters, R. documents this situation in
Carthage and evaluates its effects on religious identity and
authority in the imperial period. In chapter one ("Public
Religion in Roman Carthage"), R. focuses on the nature of formal
authority in religious matters in a Roman colony like Carthage.
He concludes that its charter included some minor provisions
which touched upon religion (e.g., limits on the amount of public
funds that could be spent on games for the Capitoline Triad and
Venus, and a minimum requirement on the amount that magistrates
had to contribute to these games); but ultimately authority in
religion was held by the ordo decurionum. It was
responsible for selecting, organizing, and financing the sacra
publica of the new colony, and in that process, for defining
its collective religious identity. Any intervention on the part
of the Emperor was normally as a result of a council's request
for imperial benefactions for a local cult while Roman governors
rarely took the initiative in civic religious matters. As for
the provincial councils, R. points to the lack of evidence that
they acted with any authority in civic religion, despite the
religious nature of their existence as institutions of the
imperial cult.
R. notices two significant consequences of this policy. On the
one hand, local control of the sacra publica meant that
there could never be such a thing as an official religion of the
Roman empire, or even particular official cults of the empire.
On the other hand, although the ordo exercised formal control
over religion in a structural sense, some of the common public
cults that cities such as Carthage adopted in the imperial period
(e.g., the Imperial cult, Capitoline Triad) linked the
participants not with their city, but with Rome and the empire as
a whole. Thus, the civic model was modified on the symbolic
level in a way that could potentially foster some sense of a
collective religious identity in the empire. Any such
development, however, was dependent upon the cooperation of the
local elite.
In his second chapter ("Agenda of the Local Elite"), R. aims to
show that the character of such cooperation in Carthage was not
sufficient for the propagation of a widespread Roman religious
identity. By the second century, many of the Carthaginian elite
had a strong identity with Africa through either descent or
adoption, which meant that the religious interests of this
Romano-African elite was strongly influenced by local deities
(e.g., Saturn and Caelestis). Consequently, while the local
elite's religious agenda might coincide to a large extent with
that of the central power, their dual sense of pride prevented
the development of a truly "Roman" religious identity.
In chapter three ("The Failure of the Civic Model"), R. turns to
what he calls the "more serious consequence" of maintaining the
civic model of religion in the context of the empire: the removal
of genuine political significance from public religion. Because
Carthage was not a sovereign and independent city there was no
need for a sharp distinction between its public cults and those
of other cities. Likewise, the local ordo did not and
could not exercise true political power, or make decisions of
real political importance. As a result, the administration of
the sacra publica was carried out in an "apolitical"
context in which the maintenance of collective control over
religious identity became less important. Selecting new
additions to the public cult became a somewhat haphazard process
that was often determined by a cult's financial feasibility and
individual interests. In this climate, R. claims that the
distinction between public and private cults deteriorated, the
collective religious identity of Carthage was only loosely
defined, and individuals were generally free to define their own
religious identity as they pleased. This situation led to a
state of religious pluralism in which an "almost incredible
variety" of beliefs and activities emerged as popular religious
options (e.g., magic, astrology, widespread speculation about the
nature of the gods, cult associations, Judaism, Christianity).
Except in cases where it seemed to threaten public order or
stability, neither local nor imperial officials did much to
prevent this situation of "religious anarchy" (234). Thus, R.
concludes that Rome's maintenance of the civic model of religion
led ultimately to a radical separation of religious identity and
political authority.
In his final chapter ("Religious Authority and The Roman State"),
R. concentrates on what he sees as the third-century developments
in religious authority which ultimately led to the displacement
of the civic model of religion by one more compatible to the
empire (i.e., the organization of Christianity). According to
R., since the empire had become so politically and culturally
unified by the Severan period, religious pluralism was an
increasingly incongruous phenomenon, and the lack of a collective
religious identity became a matter of growing concern to the
imperial government. This concern resulted in a "radical change"
in imperial policy over the course of the third century as Roman
emperors, for the first time, made large scale attempts to
enforce conformity to a religious norm (250f). "Groping in the
dark" for an answer to the "problem of religion in the empire,"
the emperors Decius, Valerian, and the Tetrarchs tried to create
a new model of religion and began, "whether consciously or not,"
to adopt ideas from some of the new religious groups that had
appeared in the empire. Christianity, more than any other cult,
had within its community a strong and extensive system of
authority that provided an "ideal" model for a new type of
official religion; for it encompassed the empire as a whole, and
its hierarchy defined its group norm in detail. R. argues that
these virtues must have caused some members of the ruling class
to admire the power and organization of the church, and "perhaps
realize that it offered a model for a new type of official
religion" (309). Finally, with Constantine's adoption of
Christianity the stage was set for the "truly unified empire of
late antiquity, in which religious identity, closely defined and
controlled by the central powers, once again played a central
part in linking individuals to the state" (310).
Although he uses Carthage as a test case, R.'s study is
ultimately, of course, a sweeping interpretation of religious
developments under the Roman empire. His thesis is argued with a
degree of logic and precision which helps to shed new light on
familiar religious phenomena. R.'s emphasis on the evolving
relationship between civic religious identity and socio-political
authority allows him to make sense of religious attitudes in the
Roman world without having to rely upon tired appeals to
psychological explanations. Unfortunately, however, while the
present study avoids the pitfalls of what we might call an "age
of anxiety" approach to religion in the empire, R.'s sociological
treatment occasionally suffers from an equally inappropriate
one-sidedness. At times, in his eagerness to develop his
sociological model of religion and authority, the author both
imposes a rigidly theoretical ideal on his subject and ascribes
to ancient political authorities a functionalist view of religion
that suits his argument, but fails to grasp the complexity of
their motives. Three examples shall suffice.
Firstly, in using the religious milieu of Republican Rome as a
criterion by which to judge the later deterioration of collective
religious identity in the cities of the empire, R. postulates a
uniformity in republican religious belief that is questionable.
The popularity of Silvanus in Rome (a god who never received any
official status, public temples, festivals, or priests), and the
abundant evidence for unofficial cults and sanctuaries related to
the alleviation of disease (see J. A. North, Cambridge Ancient
History, VII [1989], 580), are but two reminders that "Roman
religious identity" under the republic was by no means limited to
the sacra publica. Moreover, it is far from clear that
the republican senate "actively" enforced conformity to a
well-defined religious norm. The famous account of the
suppression of the Bacchic cult, which R. enlists in support of
his argument, actually reveals a policy that is quite similar to
that of the later imperial government. It is suggested by Livy's
narrative that the cult had been flourishing for a number of
years without any state opposition. Indeed, Livy claims that
Rome had "abundant room and tolerance for such evils" (XXXIX.9).
It was not the mere existence of the "non-Roman" cult, then, that
prompted the senate to take notice, but the advent of shocking
rumours. Ultimately, the senate's actions were motivated by its
concern for public order and security, not by its desire to
preserve the collective religious identity of Rome. Thus, while
there were clear connections between religious identity and
socio-political authority in Republican Rome, R.'s view of this
connection is far too systematic.
Secondly, R.'s assertion that religious pluralism in the empire
had become a "problem" and "a matter of growing concern to the
imperial government" by the third century, is a tenuous
speculation based upon the author's own sociological
presumptions. R. never quite convinces this reader that a more
coherent empire-wide religious consensus was necessary for
successful Roman rule in the third century. On the one hand, in
speaking of the "religious anarchy" of the empire, R. neglects
the common features which existed among most of the "pagan"
cults. In such cults piety was regularly expressed through the
erection of stone temples and statues, a communal system of
sacrifice, and sacred festivals that included feasting,
entertainment, and good-humour; while religious sensibilities
were dominated by an eager acceptance of polytheism, a mostly
anthropomorphic conception of the gods, a respect for traditional
deities, a concern to propitiate the divine world in order to
avoid disaster and attain benefits, and a willingness to adopt
additional patron deities. Such common characteristics made
"paganism" explicable to worshippers throughout an empire in
which Jews and Christians were a small minority. On the other
hand, the pervasiveness of the imperial cult served to integrate
the unique position of the emperor into local religious
expressions in a way that both reinforced the emperor's power and
enlisted the support of the plurality of gods on his behalf.
Moreover, even if we allow R.'s debatable assumption that
religious pluralism had become a real problem, to claim that
Decius, Valerius, and the Tetrarchs recognized this fact and
attempted to create a new model of official religion more suited
to the needs of the empire, is to credit such emperors with a
level of objective detachment from religious belief improbable in
the ancient world. In addition, although the rhetoric of these
emperors often invoked traditional Roman deities, R. himself
admits that there is no clear evidence for a well-defined Roman
religious norm in their imperial policies. It is unnecessary
then to conclude that these emperors were motivated by anything
other than an immediate desire to conciliate "the gods" as part
of their effort to restore peace and prosperity to their realm.
In other words, it was not the "incongruous" structure of
religion in the empire and its inadequacy for "linking
individuals to the state" that concerned the imperial
authorities, but rather their own awareness of the anger of the
gods.
Finally, the reductionistic tendency of R.'s functionalist
approach to religion is perhaps most evident in his treatment of
the rise of Christianity to official status. The organization of
Christianity is seen as the logical solution to the "problem of
religion in the empire" that R. has been developing during the
course of his study. When considering Maximin's apparent attempt
to imitate the structure of the church, R. poses a rhetorical
question that reveals a great deal about his preconceptions: "But
since Christianity had already developed and almost perfected
such a structure, would it not have been easier for the imperial
government to co-opt the church itself rather than recreate its
structure in another form?" (309) The author assures the reader
that he will not attempt to argue that Constantine converted to
Christianity because it provided a practical answer to the
religious problems of the empire, but the functional approach to
religion that proceeds and follows this statement belies his
assurances. And in the end, he concludes that Constantine did
"to a certain extent ... co-opt" Christianity for the "needs of
the empire" (310).
R. may be correct in assuming that the nature of Christian
organization was advantageous to the administration of imperial
authority (though in the light of the theological disputes which
continued to divide the church, it is worth asking what criteria
the author is using when he claims a "truly unified empire of
late antiquity"). Nonetheless, his sociological emphasis again
fails to account sufficiently for the more complex role of
inherent religious sensibilities; and yet, in an age in which the
immediate participation of the divine realm in human affairs was
universally taken for granted, accounting for such a role in the
Christian conversion of Constantine is essential.
In spite of these shortcomings, R.'s study has much to commend it
to students of religion in the Roman empire. His reconstruction
of the religious milieu in Carthage is brilliant; as is his
insightful sketch of the religious developments in the
pagus and civitas at Thugga. Likewise, R.'s
discussion of Tertullian and Cyprian's differing views on
authority in the church, and his appraisal of the development of
Christian organization are both very helpful. Lastly,
considering the disproportionate number of religious studies
which have concentrated on the Greek East, perhaps R. should be
applauded most of all for writing a book on religion in the Roman
world that focuses on evidence from the western half of the
empire.