BMCR 2009.07.58: Zollschan on Ruepke, Fasti sacerdotum: A Prosopography of Pagan, Jewish, and Christian Religious Officials in the City of Rome, 300 BC to AD 499

Joerg Ruepke, Fasti sacerdotum: A Prosopography of Pagan, Jewish, and
Christian Religious Officials in the City of Rome, 300 BC to AD 499.
Oxford/New York:  Oxford University Press, 2008.  Pp. viii, 1107.  ISBN
9780199291137.  $399.00.

Reviewed by Linda Zollschan ([email protected])
Word count:  2575 words
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[Table of Contents below]

Scholars of ancient Rome will be delighted that Ruepke's monumental
work, Fasti sacerdotum, has been translated into English and thus
become accessible to a wider readership. The work of translation was
done by David Richardson who has faithfully rendered the original
German into English.[[1]] For those unfamiliar with the German edition,
its aim was to construct annual lists for the city of Rome of attested
priests, cult officials and followers from 300 BCE to 499 CE, lists
that included not just pagan priests but also the officials from Jewish
and Christian groups. The work falls into two main parts: a compilation
of annual lists of priests and religious functionaries and a set of
alphabetically arranged individual biographies. Understandably, the
whole work was 14 years in the making and required a team of
assistants.

The idea of the compiling the biographies is to personalize the
religious history of the city of Rome through a biographical approach.
Ruepke intends the work to be an instrument for researchers in the
field of religious and cultural history. At all times he is aware of
the limited nature of the source material at our disposal, which is
derived largely from inscriptions (p. 2). In Chapter 2 he gives a clear
outline of the history of modern studies that compiled priestly fasti
starting with Mercklin in 1848. Chapter 3 provides an overview of the
religious specialists that explains their functions. Ruepke covers, in
this chapter, a brief explanation of every Roman priesthood and
imperial cult. Included in this section are also officials associated
with the synagogues in Rome, with the cult of Isis, Mithras, the Mystai
Liberi and with Jupiter Dolichenus. In addition, the various Christian
religious specialists have been covered.

The original German edition was published in 2005 in three hardback
volumes (1860 pp.). It came with a CD so that by computer one could
navigate through the lists, and with each name there was a
bibliography, although not as extensive as in the print edition. The
English edition is in one hardcover volume without the CD. In the
German edition, Volume 1 contains the annual lists of priests and lists
of priests for each college or group. Volume 2 contains a biography for
each individual mentioned in the lists in volume 1 with details of
their political careers and religious activity. Volume 3 is a
collection of varia written by Ruepke where he sets out his views on
some controversial issues with clarity and insight. In this way Ruepke
makes it clear where he stands on various issues that underlie much of
the material in the work so that one may be free to agree or to take
issue with him.

The English edition contains the lists of priests from Volume 1, the
almost 4,000 biographies from Volume 2, the bibliography and the Index
of Names and Index of Sources from Volume 3. It is to be regretted,
therefore, that space in the English edition did not permit the
translation of most of the articles from Volume 3. In the English
edition only a few chapters are included in the front of the volume
before the annual lists of priests and the biographies. Those chapters
that were chosen to be translated and included in the English edition
are:

'How to use the Annual Lists and Biographies' (which is essential
reading),

'Livy, priests' names, and the Annales Maximi' (first appearing in Klio
75 (1993) 155-179), a chapter that is essential in order to understand
why Ruepke considers the name of any priest before 300 BCE
unhistorical;

'The Lists of calatores for the years AD 101 and 102' (first appearing
as 'Moeglichkeiten und Grenzen der Prosopographie' in C. Auffarth and
J. Ruepke (edd.) Epitome tes oikoumenes: Studien zur mediterranen
Religionsgeschichte roemischer Zeit (Festschrift for Hubert Cancik and
Hildegard Cancik-Lindemaier, Stuttgart, 2002, 89-111),

'Structural Change in the Cult of Jupiter Dolichenus: Observations on
the Inscriptions of the Aventine Dolichenum (first appearing in
Historia Antigua 12 (2003) 105-118) and

'Religion and Administration in the late Imperial period'.

Ruepke does not make it clear why he chose the above material for
inclusion. The first two and the last are clearly relevant, but the
other two do not seem to be interesting for the general public. It is
very much to be regretted that most of the essays on many important
subjects that appeared in the original German edition have not been
translated and included in the English edition. Those essays omitted
from the English edition are:

'Priests, Professionals, and Prophets: Considerations regarding the
typology of religious specialists'

'Priestly Colleges: religious associations of the Roman Nobility'

'Divination and Political Decisions in the Republic'

'The Economy of Roman Priesthoods'

'The Inscriptions of the Vicomagistri'

'Libri sacerdotum'

'The Interface between politics and religion in the Republic: sacral
law in Rome in the Republic, Imperial religious policy and the method
of recruitment into the priesthoods'

'Administration'

'Priestly Legislation of the Republic and the Principate'

'Perspectives on the scholarship concerning religion'.

It is to be hoped and very much recommended that a Supplement to the
English edition will be published so that all of the above material can
be made available to the English speaking readership.

There is a slight, but not insignificant, change of title in the
English translation. The German original edition was subtitled
Prosopographie der stadtroemischen Priesterschaften roemischer,
griechischer, orientalischer und juedisch-christlicher Kulte bis 499 n.
Chr. While the English translation shows a slight variation as A
Prosopography of pagan, Jewish, and Christian religious officials in
the City of Rome, 300 BC to AD 499. The change clarifies an ambiguity
in the German edition that Ruepke would be dealing with all priests who
are attested from any period down to 499 CE when on inspection one
finds that Ruepke decided to designate all priests before 300 BCE as
'fictive'. The English translation makes his boundaries clear, namely,
that he will include, but not treat as historical, priests before 300
BCE.

In his essay on 'Livy, priests' names, and the Annales Maximi', Ruepke
makes it clear that most of the historical tradition before 300 BCE has
been filled in with historical reconstructions and that the names of
priests that Livy provides are given in the framework of concrete
events and not for the sake of naming a particular priestly office. A
majority of events down to the fourth century he dismisses as
fictitious and says the names are suspect because they are the names of
the most well-known men of the period in question (p. 27). Is it
self-evident, as Ruepke asserts, that Valerius Antias invented a
Valerius as the first fetialis known by name (p.29)? Studies on Antias
have shown that the names he inserted are generally those of much
lesser figures.[[2]]

Of interest to many readers will be Ruepke's views in the same essay on
the subject of priestly books and the annales maximi. Ruepke's basic
findings (pp. 37-38) are that the commentarii pontificum provide
reliable information only after 249 BCE and the pontifices were never
the repository of Roman historical 'consciousness' with the exception
of the annales maximi, which he concludes were the published edition of
the commentarii 'expanded by amounts of historically uncertain or
invented material, provided by P. Mucius Scaevola.' Ruepke contends
that the annales that emerged from the hand of Scaevola constituted
nothing less than a forgery.

The largest part of the work, the biographies, will probably be the
most used section of the volume and for this reason some words need to
be said about Ruepke's selection of material for inclusion in them.
Ruepke makes clear (p.20) that the biographies are not comprehensive
because they are confined to listing the religious offices of the
particular individual in the order of their acquisition along with
appropriate dates and an outline of their magisterial career, family
relationship and economic activity. The references to the modern
prosopographical sources and epigraphic material provided enable the
reader to follow up any aspect not dealt with in the text.

In each biography dates are given for each priest. Readers should be
cognizant of the problems in assigning dates given the available
evidence. On pp. 21-22 Ruepke sets out his methodology for resolving
chronological issues and readers should acquaint themselves with his
procedures and assumptions. The chronology of individuals where
evidence is not precise or lacking is sustained by the use of
assumptions of general life expectancy and by considerations of typical
career patterns and the customary ages of entry into office. Ruepke
holds that one can assume 10-15 years of life after the last attested
office held. Individuals whose period of office cannot be assigned to
any single year are designated as belonging to broad periods, such as,
the Augustan period, the Imperial period or the second quarter of the
third century CE.

All the sources are given for priestly offices, but not, however, for
the office of pontifex maximus after it began to be held by the
emperors. For such information the reader will need to turn to the work
of Ruth Stepper.[[3]] Ruepke mentions only briefly the knotty problem
of the emperors' membership in priestly colleges (p. 22). The
expression cooptatio in omnia collegia is accepted by Ruepke after the
second century AD to mean membership of the pontifices, augures,
septemviri epulonum and quindecimviri sacris faciundis. He excludes
sodales Flaviales or sodales Titii or Fetiales (p. 23).

Under the heading 'Membership Tables', there is a section 6 (pp.
1001-1004) where Ruepke lists 'falsely identified priesthoods'. Often
it is hard to see why many of these individuals have been excluded from
the list of verifiable priests. It requires the reader to look up every
inscription mentioned in the biography of each of the 'false' priests.
In many cases, the literary evidence is discarded unless backed up by
epigraphic evidence. In other cases the problem is a disputed reading
of an inscription. The reader would have been better served if the
reason/s for their 'falsehood' had been stated clearly beside the name
of each of 'false' priests.

Each priest that Ruepke considers historical has been assigned a number
from 1 -3590. It would appear from some checking I have done that there
are no changes in the priestly lists from the German edition and that
the numbering for individual priests remains the same in the English
edition.

Those Ruepke considers unhistorical or whose priesthood is subject to
some doubt are included but without any number. Listed in this way are,
for example, priests considered unhistorical, e.g. M. Valerius and Sp.
Fusius (both fetial priests in the 7th century, according to Livy
1.24.3-9), M. Atilius (II vir s.f. according to D.H. 4.62.4 in the 6th
century BCE), Cornelius and Postumius (both priests in the temple of
Diana in the 6th century BCE) and L. Valerius Potitus (RE 307) (IIvir
s.f. in the 4th century BCE). On the other hand Romulus and Remus are
listed with numbers but with the description of the latter as a
'legendary figure'. Other names without numbers are those whose
priesthood is considered not absolutely verifiable, for example, the
pontificate of M. Aemilius Honoratus, the augurate of M. Licinius
Crassus (RE 58), the pontificate of Cn. Cornelius Urbicus (RE 402a) and
the pontificate of M. Iunius Homullus in early 2nd century CE and the
Xvirate of Iulius Eubulidas in the 4th century CE.

Unfortunately, there are some oversights in the lists of priestly
names. Omissions, particularly in a work so large, are inevitable.
Ruepke states that his aim is to compile all the known individuals who
filled a particular post in a given year where it is known with a
relatively high degree of probability (p. 23). The extent to which his
lists are complete may be measured by an analysis of one of his lists
of priests, that of the fetial priests. I can only report from the
results of my own research into the fetial priests[[4]] and use that as
a litmus test of the completeness of the lists of priests given by
Ruepke for each collegium. In the German edition Ruepke listed 31
fetial priests and 13 fictitious fetial priests. In the English edition
he lists 35 fetials and also the same 13 fictitious ones. This corrects
an error in the German edition which listed four fetial priests under a
list called 'festiale' (vol. 1, p. 588). As far as the lists for fetial
priests are concerned, there are several names that have been
overlooked. As an example, I was surprised to see that C. Sempronius
Speratus (CIL 2.2344) had not been included. I would send out a plea to
all who, in the course of their research, find names of priests in
other collegia not found in Ruepke's lists that they send them to the
author. It is in the interests of all of us who work in the field of
Roman history to keep this work updated.

Additions and amendments will be keenly awaited in what should be the
publication of a second volume to the English edition or by a
Supplementary volume, as a work of this scope and value deserves
updating along the lines of the supplement, volume 3, to Broughton's
Magistrates of the Roman Republic, which includes addenda and
corrigenda.

Where the author has done readers a service is to provide the latest
research and interpretation of inscriptions that have been misread in
the past. As an example I cite the case of the inscription CIL 3.291,
which in many of the older lists of priests was interpreted as
referring to a certain Bellicus Sollers. This false reading is now
corrected as referring to L. Caesennius Sospes (p. 588).

Some references given in the biographies are not given in full, making
it hard for the reader to find the exact work, and this is particularly
annoying. For example, in the biography of Cn. Domitius Afer Marcellus
Curvius Lucanus (p. 658) reference is made to a work by Alfoeldy but
with 14 items in the bibliography by this author it is hard to discern
to which work Ruepke refers. In the English edition the bibliography
has been updated with a few items up to 2007. As far as I could tell
there were eight new entries, five from the pen of Ruepke himself.

Ruepke is to be congratulated on providing all scholars with a major
research tool that I am sure will open up new avenues of study for many
years to come in the same way that Broughton's work continues to do. I
congratulate and salute the author and his team of advisors for
completing such a massive project and for producing a remarkably useful
resource. The work is an indispensable research tool for all historians
of ancient Rome working not just in the field of Roman religion, but
also in Roman politics and society. The price will probably mean that
the volume will mainly be purchased by institutions. All university,
college, state and public libraries should have this volume in their
collection.

Table of Contents:

1. Statement of aims
2. Research History
3. How to use the annual lists and biographies
5. Livy, priests names, and the annales maximi
6. The lists of calatores for the years AD 101 and 102
7. Structural change in the cult of Jupiter Dolichenus: observations on
the inscriptions of the Aventine Dolichenum
8. Religion and Administration in the late Imperial period
ANNUAL LISTS
BIOGRAPHIES
Membership Tables
General Bibliography
Index of Names
Index of Sources
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Notes:


1.   David Richardson is also part of the international team
translating the Pauly Encyclopedia. In the translation only an
occasional oversight is found, for example
'und' instead of 'and' on p. 788.

2.   R.M. Ogilvie, A Commentary on Livy. Books 1-5, Oxford, 1965,
14-15.

3.   Ruth Stepper, Augustus et sacerdos. Untersuchungen zum roemischen
Kaiser als Priester, Wiesbaden, 2003.

4.   See L. Zollschan (forthcoming) The Fetial Priests: the sources and
new perspectives.