Pontifex Maximus - Roman Empire

Roman Empire

After Julius Caesar's assassination in 44 BC, his ally Marcus Aemilius Lepidus was selected as Pontifex Maximus. Though Lepidus eventually fell out of political favor and was sent into exile as Augustus consolidated power, he retained the priestly office until his death in 13 BC, at which point Augustus was selected to succeed him and given the right to appoint other pontifices. Thus, from the time of Augustus, the election of pontifices ended and membership into the sacred college was deemed a sign of imperial favour. With this attribution, the new office of Emperor was given a religious dignity and the responsibility for the entire Roman state cult. Most authors contend that the power of naming the Pontifices was not really used as an instrumentum regni, an enforcing power.

From this point on, Pontifex Maximus was one of the many titles of the Emperor, slowly losing its specific and historical powers and becoming simply a referent for the sacral aspect of imperial duties and powers. During the Imperial period, a promagister (vice-master) performed the duties of the pontifex maximus in lieu of the emperors whenever they were absent (Van Haeperen). In post-Severan times (post AD 235), the small number of pagan senators interested in becoming pontiffs led to a change in the pattern of office holding. In Republican and Imperial times no more than one family member of a gens was member of the College of Pontiffs, nor did one person hold more than one priesthood in this collegium. However, these rules were obviously loosened in the later part of the 3rd century AD. In periods of joint rule, at first only one of the emperors bore this title, as it occurred for the first time during the reign of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, when only Marcus Aurelius was pontifex maximus, but later two pontifices maximi could serve together, as Pupienus and Balbinus did in 238 — a situation unthinkable in Republican times. In the crisis of the Third Century, usurpers did not hesitate to claim for themselves the role not only of Emperor but of Pontifex Maximus as well. Even the early Christian Emperors continued to use it; it was only relinquished by Gratian, possibly in AD 376 at the time of his visit to Rome, or more probably in 383 when a delegation of pagan senators implored him to restore the Altar of Victory in the Senate House.