Pontifex Maximus

PONTIFEX MAXIMUS. - The college of pontiffs, in the religious constitution of ancient Rome, was charged with overseeing the entire body of the national religious heritage, both public and private (marriage, adoption, funerary law, etc.; cf. Cicero, De leg., II, 119); with adapting the handed-down religious doctrine to circumstances by means of new norms (decreta pontificum; cf. Gellius, II, 28); with enlightening the city's magistrates through its counsel (Livy, I, 20; Dionysius, II, 73); with punishing, where necessary, those who transgressed religious norms (Festus, Maximus pontifex), etc.

However, despite this vast range of religious powers, at least in historical times the pontiffs never had the attributions of magistrates (they could not therefore issue edicts and had no religious jurisdiction except over the priesthoods subject to them), their influence remaining in reality tied to that intimate connection existing between civil and religious institutions. The pontiff (accepting the etymology from pontem and facere; cf. Varro, De lingua lat., V, 83) would trace back to Latin prehistory and precisely to those constructions of wooden villages of which he would have had charge, as it is well known that in reality he did at Rome, in historical times, for the Pons Sublicius, built of interlocking wood, without nails. Tradition held that the pontifical college was instituted by King Numa with an initial number of 5 (or 4; cf. Livy, X, 6) members, who by the age of Caesar had risen to 16. They were elected by the college (cooptatio) and then inaugurated (Dionysius, II, 2273); whereas under the Empire the right of appointment belonged virtually to the emperor, who was also p. m. Members of the pontifical college were the 15 flamens (priests of particular divinities, distinguished into 12 minores and 3 maiores), the rex sacrorum (or sacrificulus, a priest specially of Janus, whose dignity in theory was above all the other priests, including the p. m.) and the Vestals, all of whom depended on the supreme authority of the p. m., who appointed them by choosing them from a list presented by the pontifical college (Tacitus, Annales, IV, 16; Livy, XL, 42; Dionysius, V, 1; Gellius, I, 12). The p. m. was appointed for life and irremovable like the king (Suetonius, Octav. 31; Dionysius, XLIX, 15); his attributions were undoubtedly a remnant of the royal ones: the official residence was the house of the king (regio) on the Via Sacra.

The college of pontiffs intervened in the cult of the divinities closely connected with the life of Rome, that is Vesta, the Penates and the Capitoline triad; moreover it took part in other ceremonies such as: the Fordicidia (v.), the Argei (v.), the aquaelicium, etc. To the same college was also assigned the control of the calendar and the intercalation of a supplementary month (mercedonius) every two years, to bring the lunar year (of 355 days) back into agreement with the astronomical one, a control which it exercised until the reform of Caesar (v. CALENDARIO)

Moreover to this college is due the written collection of the religious and juridical norms that regulated the life of Rome, and also the registration of the names of the magistrates and of the salient events of the city's history (Libri Sacerdotum populi Romani; Commentarii pontificum; Fasti; Annales pontificum or maximi). As for the p. m., his particular tasks and powers, besides those already seen, were those of convoking the "calate comitia" to validate inaugurationes, adrogationes and wills: acts that concerned the transmission of the sacra privata, domestic or gentilician; of fixing each month the days of festival; the celebration of religious marriage (confarreatio), etc. From Augustus onward the emperors held the office of p. m. and kept it until the age of Gratian (who was the first, in 382 A.D., to refuse it). But, this office being tied to the Principate, the emperor needed a permanent representative especially to carry out ordinary business, so that there was created in the college of pontiffs an annual promogister (mentioned for the first time in 155 A.D.).

Cesare D'Onofrio