inability to maintain these balances in the late republic led directly to the demise of
the republican political system.
These same balances appear in the religious system: during the middle republic,
the ruling elite balanced the scope for individual initiative with the need for collect-
ive control while maintaining the decisive authority over Roman religion, and again
the senate served as the focal point for these balances. Just as political authority was
diffused, so religious authority was diffused throughout a number of different reli-
gious colleges: the pontiffs, the augurs, the decemviri, or 10 men, in charge of the
prophetic Sibylline Books. The existence of these colleges served an essential role in
maintaining the balance of the system in several ways. Since the Romans believed
that the gods did not reveal their will directly, but through signs and portents that
these men as a body needed to interpret, no one man could claim a special author-
ity to interpret the will of the gods and place himself above the system. A further
sign of the link between religion and politics can be seen in the membership of these
colleges, for these men were drawn exclusively from the same elite who dominated
political life at Rome (Cicero, De domo sua1.1). There was no separate priestly class
in which religious authority was vested, but the same men who made decisions regard-
ing the relationships of the Roman community with other human communities also
made the decisions regarding its relationship with the divine community. When a
vacancy occurred in one of the colleges, the remaining members chose a replace-
ment (a process known as co-option), which kept these positions within a narrow
circle; one important criterion, that of avoiding the selection of a personal enemy
of an existing member, aimed at ensuring the harmonious operation of each group
(Cicero, Ad familiares 3.10). Furthermore, one of the key principles governing these
colleges held that no person should be a member of more than one college, again
guaranteeing the diffusion of power in just the same way that political authority was
diffused.
Numerous examples throughout the republic demonstrate that the senate retained
the final authority to enact decisions relating to religious matters, just as it served
as the highest consultative body on political matters. The handling of prodigies offers
perhaps the clearest example. The Romans considered unusual phenomena – meteor
showers, lightning strikes, congenital deformities – as indications that the pax deorum
(peace with the gods) had been ruptured and that they needed to take action to
repair that relationship and restore themselves to the favor of the gods. The report-
ing of an unusual phenomenon, however, did not in itself constitute a prodigy; the
senate needed to meet and confirm that the report did in fact indicate a rupture in
the Romans’ relationship with the gods. Only after making this decision might they
refer the problem to one of the priestly colleges; the pontiffs or the decemviridid
not act unless they were specifically called upon by the senate. The college would
then recommend a course of action to expiate the prodigy and report its decision
back to the senate, but it was the senate that made the final decision to order that
the recommendation be carried out. This procedure illustrates the close cooperation
between the senate and the priestly colleges, and of course the fact that the mem-
bers of the colleges were themselves senators minimized any possibility of conflict
between religious and political authority. It also demonstrates that it was the senate
60 Eric Orlin