Le rôle des pontifes dans l’expiation des prodiges à Rome, sous la République : le cas des "procurations" anonymes

Abstract

Although the sources explicitly evoke the primordial role of the pontiffs in the care of prodigies, the pontifical piacula are seldom attested, contrary to those of the (quin) decemviri sacris faciundis and the haruspices. This paradox should be solved by assigning the many unspecified procurationes not to the Senate, as it was often done, but to the pontiffs. Several clues allow such a hypothesis : the necessity of a sacerdotal consilium in any religious affair ; the clues which let us assume that the annual chronicle of the pontifical college, which recorded in particular the prodigies, took the form of a sacerdotal decree ; traces of a systematic consultation of the pontiffs before the possible consultation of the (quin) decemviri and the haruspices for complementary expiations ; eventually, the existence of a great similarity between the lists of prodigies anonymously cared and the lists cared by the pontiffs.

Keywords

• divination
• prodigy
• pontiff
• procuratio
• piacula