MaiestasDAVIDE SALVO

The word maiestas described a characteristic of

figures (gods, Roman people, magistrates, the

emperor, the Christian God) distinguished for

their dignity and power. Originally, the word

had a religious implication describing the pre-

eminence of gods over men, but later Romans

ascribedmaiestas to themselves, being mindful

of its divine origin (Drexler 1956: 196). So, in

republican Rome, maiestas was the legal term

for the supreme status and dignity of the state

and Roman people which were to be respected

above everything else, whereas from the begin-

ning of the principate it came to mean the

dignity of the emperor. As maiestas is derived

from maior/maius, the comparative degree of

magnus (although Macrobius, quoting a Piso

in Sat. 1.12.1618, connected maiestas to the

goddess Maia; Levi 1969: 835), it expresses an

unequal relationship, with one component

(gods, Roman people, or emperor) occupying

the position of the maior, and the other (men,

foreign people, or citizens) that of the minor.

As maiestas was an odd Roman concept, Greek

had no adequate equivalent word (Polyb.

21.32.3, used the word dynasteia; other equiva-

lents were doxa, megaleiotes, theiotes, axioma,

and so on; Gundel 1963: 295; Malavolta 1997:

4746).

As expression of a relationship between gods

and men, maiestas is recorded in Livius

Andronicus Aegisthus (the earliest mention

of maiestas in this meaning), Senecas De

beneficiis 4.19.4, Quintillians Institutio oratoria

3.7.7, and, epigraphically, in CIL III 1918,

III 2970, VIII 14365, and AE 1919, 26

(Malavolta 1997). In Late Antiquity, maiestas

became a quality of the Christian God as

attested, for example, in CIL X 7112. The per-

sonification of maiestas as a goddess, daughter

of Honor and Reverence, is reported by Ovid

in Fasti 5.2548 (Pfaff-Reydellet 2003).

The maiestas populi Romani (the being

greater or superiority of the Roman people)

was, instead, an attribute of the Roman people

as a whole in relation to other people, and

must always be measured according to its posi-

tion compared with the surrounding people

(Cic. Phil. 6.19); in virtue of its maiestas,

Rome affirmed its supremacy and claimed sub-

mission from other people. When the Romans

regulated their relations with other states, they

sometimes required the other contracting

party to bind itself to respect Roman maiestas,

as in the cases of the treaties with the Aitolians in

189 BCE (Livy 38.11.2; Polyb. 21.32.3) and with

GADES/GADIR in 78 BCE (Cic. Balb 16.36). The

superiority of the Roman people did not

involve denial of the freedom of subjected peo-

ple; freedom, in fact, was the necessary condi-

tion for identifying themaiestas populi Romani

(Proculus in Dig. 49.15.7.1). As appointed by

populus Romanus, the magistrates of the

Roman Republic had maiestas that was an

extension of maiestas populi Romani and sub-

ordinate to it (see Livy 2.7.7 referring to

Valerius Poplicola).

The process of transference of majesty from

the Roman people to the person of the

emperor (maiestas principis) began early on,

and it had been completed with the advent of

the Dominate in the third century CE. Horace

(Epist. 2.1.258) made mention of the maiestas

of AUGUSTUS. At the beginning of the reign of

TIBERIUS, the governor of Galatia, Sextus Sotidius

Strabo Libuscidianus, promulgated a bilingual

edict (found at Burdur, Turkey; Mitchell 1976),

containing a set of detailed regulations con-

cerning the provision of transport for officials,

in which he affirms his intention to enforce

imperial orders not only with his power but

with the maiestas (theiotes in the Greek ver-

sion) of the emperor; the theiotes of Augustus

and Tiberius is also attested in the Berlin papy-

rus containing an edict of Germanicus to inhab-

itants of Alexandria promulgated during his

visit to Egypt (see GERMANICUS VISIT TO EGYPT).

In the fourth century CE, Vegetius (Mil. 2.5; see

VEGETIUS RENATUS, FLAVIUS) bears witness that the

new levies of a legion swore by God, Christ, the

Holy Ghost, and the majesty of the emperor.

The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, First Edition. Edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine,

and Sabine R. Huebner, print pages 42364238.

2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

DOI: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah19111

1

Significantly, the concept of maiestas populi

Romani was the subject of a specific crime,

called crimen minutae (or laesae) maiestatis,

consisting of the diminution of the reputation

and authority of the majesty of the supreme

status of Rome (ad Herennium 2.12.17; Ulpian

in Dig. 48.4.1); it was defined by a lex Appuleia

de maiestate (promulgated by the tribune

Lucius APPULEIUS SATURNINUS perhaps in

103 BCE), a lex Varia de maiestate (promulgated

by the tribune Varius Severus Hybrida in

90 BCE), and a lex Cornelia maiestatis (promul-

gated by Sulla in 81 BCE). Two further statutes

on the crime ofmaiestas were enacted by JULIUS

CAESAR (Cic. Phil. 1.23), at an uncertain date,

and by Augustus, who promulgated (in 27 or

8 BCE) a lex Iulia maiestatis redefining the crime.

Several kinds of wrongs were termed crimen

maiestatis: high treason, sedition, criminal

attack against a magistrate, contempt of the

various rites of the state, and disloyalty in

word or act, desertion and the like; in the early

stage of the republic these wrongdoings were

treated as perduellio (high treason), which was

defined by Tullus Hostilius (Livy 1.26.6).

During the empire, the crimen maiestatis

was extended to violation of the majesty of the

emperor, so including any offense where the

safety of the emperor or his family was involved.

The conception of the emperor as a divine being

made maiestas next to SACRILEGIUM (Ulpian in

Dig. 48.4.1). In the reign of Tiberius, charges of

maiestas were increasingly frequent through

the activity of informers, called delatores, and

SEJANUS used the crimen maiestatis for purging

his political opponents (such as AGRIPPINA THE

ELDER, her sons, and friends). Even a eulogy for

Brutus and Cassius, the murderers of Caesar,

was considered a crimen maiestatis as in the

case of the historian Cremutius Cordus

(Tac. Ann. 4.345; Cass. Dio 57.24.24; Suet.

Tib. 61.3; see CREMUTIUS CORDUS, AULUS). It is

not clear whether the profession of Christianity

was also treated as crimen maiestatis (as Tert.

Apol. 10.1 and 28.2 seem to suggest). The pun-

ishment for the offender was the death penalty

or, alternatively, banishment in the form of

interdictio aqua et igni (interdiction of fire and

water). It was an offense that could be com-

mitted by non-Romans as well as Romans and

outside Roman territory as well as within it.

SEE ALSO: Crime, Greece and Rome; Law, Roman.

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Bauman, R. A. (1967) The crimen maiestatis in the

Roman Republic and Augustan principate.

Johannesburg.

Drexler, H. (1956) Maiestas. Aevum 30:

195212.

Gaudemet, J. (1964) Maiestas populi Romani. In

A. Guarino and L. Labruna, eds., Synteleia

Vincenzo Arangio-Ruiz: 699709. Naples.

Gundel, H. G. (1963) Der Begriff maiestas im

politischen Denken der romischen Republik.

Historia 12: 283320.

Levi, M. A. (1969) Maiestas e crimen maiestatis.

Parola del passato 24: 8196.

Levick, B. M. (1979) Poena legis maiestatis.

Historia 28: 35879.

Malavolta, M. (1997) Maiestas. In Dizionario

epigrafico di antichita romane 5, 16: 46981. Rome.

Mitchell, S. (1976) Requisitioned transport in the

Roman Empire: a new inscription from Pisidia.

Journal of Roman Studies 66: 10631.

Pfaff-Reydellet, M. (2003) Naissance de maiestas

dans les Fastes dOvide (F. V.954). Revue des

etudes latines 81: 15771.

Rutledge, S. (2001) Imperial inquisitions:

prosecutors and informants from Tiberius to

Domitian. London.

Seager, R. (2001) Maiestas in the Late Republic:

some observations. In W. Cairns and O. F.

Robinson, eds., Critical studies in ancient law and

legal history: 14353. Portland.

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