Emperors 305which described the official power of all higher Roman magistrates (Linderski
1995). Therefore every representative of the Roman state was obliged to ask for the
permission of the Roman gods for all his planned activities before he was allowed
to perform any official act in public (e.g. before organizing elections). If he omitted
the obligatory consultation of the gods or continued with his plans even though the
gods had already demonstrated that they disliked his doings, the project was legally
invalid from the beginning.
The same strict categories were applied by the Romans if it came to the separa-
tion of things belonging to the gods (sacrum) or to human beings (profanum). Under
the Roman interpretation, even an unwitting violation of this divine order had to
have grave consequences that endangered the single citizen as well as the Roman
state as a whole. The disturbance of the former harmony between gods and human
beings was usually revealed by a series of catastrophes. This included natural catas-
trophes like an eclipse of the sun, earthquakes, a stroke of lightning, but also defeats
of the Roman army.
The Religious Situation at the End of the Republic
This basic religious attitude of the Roman population had been intensified by the
collective experiences of the last chaotic century of the Roman republic. Bloody civil
wars, catastrophic defeats in wars against foreign enemies like the Cimbers and the
Teutons, and social unrest like the slaves’ war under Spartacus had afflicted not only
the Roman people, but the whole world that was ruled by the Romans. In this way
a mental situation had been created in which humans felt abandoned and punished
by the gods. The poet Horace (Epodes16) declares that the civil wars are a direct
result of Romulus’ fratricide. That means Rome and its population are doomed
from the foundation of the city by Romulus and Remus. Horace, who had lived
through the civil war between the followers of Caesar and his murderers, feels so
desperate that he has only one final piece of advice for his fellow-citizens: leave this
doomed land and follow me to a land far away without war and bloodshed.
The unpleasant feeling that they lived in a final time and were close to a cata-
strophic end of the whole world was not only widespread among the Roman popu-
lation, but was common knowledge among nearly all people that lived in this time.
That mankind existed indeed on the eve of the final destruction was corroborated
by a multitude of oracles and ominous prophecies. Closely connected with the fear
of a catastrophic end of the world and mankind was the hope that the looming
catastrophe had to occur but that it did not mean the final end for the whole world.
For there existed also a widespread conviction that after such a catastrophe there
would be a new beginning for mankind, one could say a second chance. The guar-
antee of the new beginning was usually identical with the appearance of a divine
being or at least of a human being who had been sent by the gods. With the friendly
assistance of this person a new beginning would be possible.
These messianic expectations could assume quite different forms. For the people
in the east of the Mediterranean world, this messiah was of course identical with the