Abstract
With the aim of offering a Roman counterpoint to Carmine Pisano's talk on Greek authority and its relationship to the gods, the lecture aims to discuss an assertion by H. Arendt(La Crise de la culture. Huit exercices de pensée politique,Paris, 1972, p. 162), according to which the Roman gods had more authority than power over their fellow mortals : " The gods also have authority over men, more than power over them ; they "increase" and confirm human actions, but do not command them. "
A key notion in Roman political culture,auctoritas referred to the ability of an individual or a group, inseparable from a position of prestige within the city, to give an opinion or advice that carried weight and was listened to, and to encourage and legitimize the actions of others. In terms of public institutions, the functions ofauctoritas, those of senators and priests, counterbalanced the coercive functions of magistrates, holders of potestas, with or without imperium.
In Rome, superior citizens were par excellence the gods. But can we really say, as H. Arendt, that they exercised auctoritas rather than coercive power over their fellow human beings ? In an attempt to answer this question, the lecture will use case studies to assess the extent to which the theological projection of the institutional termsauctoritas, potestas andimperium, as practiced by the Romans themselves, is operative in understanding the relationship between men and gods in Rome.
