philanthropic exchange, what the rich got as output from the input of their
wealth was respect, and hence, in that intensely deferential society, polit-
ical power that required relatively little coercive force to maintain (Gordon
1990, 224).
A later proposition, concerning the worldly rewards of religious lead-
ership, is true only to the letter of public paganism, not to its spirit. Stark
proposes that “religious leaders have greater credibility when they receive
low levels of material reward in return for their religious services” (1997,
174). What Stark has in mind is the greater credibility of “impoverished
ascetics” over “affluent clergy.” Now it is true, by and large, that the expen-
diture of the elite of the Roman Empire as religious leaders was greater
than the material income from their religious offices. Of course, there are
exceptions. In the Greek cities, certain priesthoods could be purchased as
a capital investment, with the temple and sacrificial revenue furnishing
an income stream (see the fine example in F.C. Grant 1953, 30 = SIG^3
1009). Nonetheless, the priest’s “credibility” would not have been dimin-
ished by buying and profiting from such a priesthood. Quite the contrary:
an investor was necessary for the cult to function at all. In fact, the more
the elite invested in religious production, the greater their credibility. It is
no accident that membership in the Roman priestly colleges was one of the
most expensive honours that there was, involving payment of the appro-
priately named summa honorariaat the highest level (Gordon 1990, 223–24).
It was not, however, expected of the elite that they spend their way into
poverty, still less than they adopt voluntarily an “impoverished asceticism.”
They were and remained extremely wealthy people.
Indeed, the elite had to remain conspicuously wealthy, precisely in
order to retain their credibility as people favoured by the gods. In a “theod-
icy of good fortune,” poverty is not a sign of grace. Quite the opposite: phi-
lanthropy drawing on boundless wealth signifies both piety and the gods’
reciprocal favour. The biggest player in these stakes was naturally the
emperor: maximum wealth, maximum philanthropy, maximum respect,
maximum piety, Pontifex Maximus. It is no use protesting that the
emperor and the elite were not exactly what one has in mind as religious
leaders. They had the priesthoods to prove it. Their piety is an objective
fact, almost quantifiable and documented painstakingly in the epigraphic
record. Literally, it is set in stone. In the case of the emperor, this image
of public piety is consolidated by more or less monopolizing the depiction
of sacrifice on relief sculpture and coinage (Gordon 1990, 202–19). Nei-
ther “impoverished ascetics” nor “affluent clergy” is a meaningful cate-
gory in assessing public paganism; it makes no sense to measure the
nora
(Nora)
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