The was the chief high priest of the College of Pontiffs (Collegium Pontificum) in ancient Rome. This was the most important position in the ancient Roman religion, open only to patricians until 254 BC, when a plebeian first held this position. Although in fact the most powerful office in the Roman priesthood, the pontifex maximus was officially ranked fifth in the ranking of the highest Roman priests (Ordo Sacerdotum), behind the Rex Sacrorum and the flamines maiores (Flamen Dialis, Flamen Martialis, Flamen Quirinalis).
A distinctly religious office under the early Roman Republic, it gradually became politicized until, beginning with Augustus, it was subsumed into the position of emperor in the Roman imperial period. Subsequent emperors were styled pontifex maximus well into Late Antiquity, including Gratian (), but during Gratian's reign the phrase was replaced in imperial titulature with the ("honourable pontiff"), an example followed by Gratian's junior co-emperor Theodosius the Great and which was used by emperors thereafter including the co-augusti Valentinian III (), Marcian () and the augustus Anastasius Dicorus (). The first to adopt the inclytus alternative to maximus may have been the rebel augustus Magnus Maximus ().
The word pontifex and its derivative "pontiff" became terms used for Christian bishops, including the Bishop of Rome. The title of pontifex maximus was adopted by the Catholic Church for the pope as its chief bishop and appears on buildings, monuments and coins of popes of Renaissance and modern times. The official list of titles of the pope given in the Annuario Pontificio includes "supreme pontiff" () as the fourth title, the first being "bishop of Rome".
Etymology
The etymology of "pontifex" is uncertain, but the word has been used since Roman times. The word appears to consist of the Latin word for "bridge" and the suffix for "maker" (pons + facere)". However, there is a possibility that this definition is a folk etymology for an Etruscan term, since Roman religion was heavily influenced by Etruscan religion, and little is known about the Etruscan language, which is a non-Indo-European and poorly attested language.
According to the common interpretation whereby the term pontifex means "bridge-builder", this could have been originally meant in a literal sense: the position of bridge-builder was indeed an important one in Rome, where the major bridges were over the Tiber, the sacred river (and a deity): only prestigious authorities with sacral functions could be allowed to "disturb" it with mechanical additions. However, it was always understood in its symbolic sense as well: the pontifices were the ones who smoothed the "bridge" between gods and men.
The interpretation of the word pontifex as "bridge-builder" was that of Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Marcus Terentius Varro. Plutarch pointed out that the term existed before there were any bridges in Rome and derived the word from Old Latin pontis meaning a powerful or absolute master, while others derived it from potis facere in the sense of "able to sacrifice". The last derivation is mentioned also by Varro, who rejected it, but it was the view of pontifex maximus Quintus Scaevola. Others have held that the word was originally pompifex (leader of public processions). The word pons originally meant "way" and pontifex would thus mean "maker of roads and bridges."
Another opinion is that the word is a corruption of a similar-sounding but etymologically unrelated Etruscan word. Yet another hypothesisFirst proposed by F. Ribezzo in "Pontifices 'quinionalis sacrificii effectores'", Rivista Indo-Greco-Italica di Filologia-Lingua-Antichità 15 1931 p. 56. considers the word as a loan from the Sabine language, in which it would mean a member of a college of five, from Osco-Umbrian ponte, five.Cf. Greek πέντε This explanation takes into account that the college was established by Sabine king Numa Pompilius and the institution is Italic: the expressions pontis and pomperias found in the Iguvine Tablets may denote a group or division of five or by five. The pontifex would thence be a member of a sacrificial college known as pomperia (Latin quinio).For a review of the proposed hypotheses cfr. J. P. Hallet "Over Troubled Waters: The Meaning of the Title Pontifex" in Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 101 1970 p. 219 ff.
The Roman title pontifex maximus was rendered in Greek inscriptions and literature of the time as Polybius 23.1.2 and 32.22.5; Corpus Inscriptionum Atticarum 3.43, 3.428 und 3.458 or by a more literal translation and order of words as .Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum 2.2696 and 3.346; Plutarch Numa 9.4 The term is used in the Greek Septuagint text of the Old Testament and in the New Testament to refer to the High Priest of Israel, including in 2 Maccabees ().
The word pontifex, Latin for "pontiff," was used in ancient Rome to designate a member of the College of Pontiffs. In the Latin Vulgate translation of the New Testament, it is sometimes used to designate the Jewish high priest, as in the Gospel of John and Epistle to the Hebrews (; ). From perhaps as early as the 3rd century, it has been used to denote a Christian bishop. In the Vulgate, the term was originally applied to the High Priest of Israel, as in the Book of Judith (), whose place, each in his own diocese, the Christian bishops were regarded as holding, based on an interpretation from the 1912 edition of the Catholic encyclopedia of the First Epistle of Clement (I Clement 40).
Origins in the Regal period The Collegium Pontificum (College of Pontiffs) was the most important priesthood of ancient Rome. The foundation of this sacred college and the office of pontifex maximus is attributed to the second king of Rome, Numa Pompilius.Livy, Ab urbe condita, 1:20 Much of what is known about the Regal period in Roman history is semi-legendary or mythical. The Collegium presumably acted as advisers to the rex (king) in religious matters. The collegium was headed by the pontifex maximus, and all the pontifices held their office for life. But the pontifical records of early Rome were most likely destroyed when the city was sacked by the Gauls in 387 BC, and the earliest accounts of Archaic Rome come from the literature of the Republic, most of it from the 1st century BC and later.
According to the Augustan-era historian Livy, Numa Pompilius, a Sabine, devised Rome's system of religious rites, including the manner and timing of sacrifices, the supervision of religious funds, authority over all public and private religious institutions, instruction of the populace in the celestial and funerary rites including appeasing the dead, and expiation of prodigies. Numa is said to have founded Roman religion after dedicating an altar on the Aventine Hill to Jupiter Elicius and consulting the gods by means of augury. Numa wrote down and sealed these religious instructions, and gave them to the first pontifex maximus, Numa Marcius.
Roman Republic in Rome
In the Roman Republic, the pontifex maximus was the highest office in the state religion of ancient Rome and directed the College of Pontiffs. According to Livy, after the overthrow of the monarchy, the Romans created the priesthood of the rex sacrorum, or "king of sacred rites," to carry out certain religious duties and rituals previously performed by the king. The rex sacrorum was explicitly deprived of military and political power, but the pontifices were permitted to hold both magistracies and military commands.Roman Public Religion Roman Civilization, bates.edu retrieved August 17, 2006
The official residence of the pontifex maximus was the Domus Publica ("State House") which stood between the House of the Vestal Virgins and the Via Sacra, close to the Regia, in the Roman Forum. His religious duties were carried out from the Regia. Unless the pontifex maximus was also a magistrate, he was not allowed to wear the toga praetexta, i.e. toga with the purple border. In artistic representations, he can be recognized by his holding an iron knife (secespita) or the patera, and the distinctive robes or toga with part of the mantle covering the head (capite velato), in keeping with Roman practice.
In practice, particularly during the late Republic, the office of pontifex maximus was generally held by a member of a politically prominent family. It was a coveted position mainly for the great prestige it conferred on the holder. Julius Caesar became pontifex in 73 BC and pontifex maximus in 63 BC.
The major Republican source on the pontiffs would have been the theological writings of Varro, which survive only in fragments preserved by later authors such as Aulus Gellius and Nonius Marcellus. Other sources are Cicero, Livy, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Valerius Maximus, Plutarch's Life of Numa Pompilius, Festus's summaries of Verrius Flaccus, and in later writers, including several of the Church Fathers. Some of these sources present an extensive list of everyday prohibitions for the pontifex maximus; it seems difficult to reconcile these lists with evidence that many pontifices maximi were prominent members of society who lived normal lives.
Election and number The number of Pontifices, elected by co-optatio (i.e. the remaining members nominate their new colleague) for life, was originally five, including the pontifex maximus. The pontifices, moreover, could only come from the old nobility. In effect, this was only members of the patrician class. However, in 300–299 BC the lex Ogulnia opened the office of pontifex maximus to public election and permitted the plebs (plebeians) to be co-opted as priests, so that part of the exclusivity of the title was lost. But it was only in 254 BC that Tiberius Coruncanius became the first plebeian pontifex maximus.Titus Livius. Ex Libro XVIII Periochae, from livius.org retrieved August 16, 2006
The lex Ogulnia also increased the number of pontiffs to nine (the pontifex maximus included). In 104 BC the lex Domitia prescribed that the election of all pontiffs would henceforward be voted by the comitia tributa (an assembly of the people divided into voting districts); by the same law only 17 tribes, chosen by lot from the 35 tribes of the city, could vote. The law's promulgator, L[ucius] Domitius Ahenobarbus, was shortly afterwards elected pontifex maximus after the death of the incumbent Metellus Dalmaticus: Something of a personal revenge because, the previous year, he had expected to be co-opted as a pontiff to replace his late father, but the pontifical college had appointed another candidate in his place. The office's next holder, Q[uintus] Mucius Scaevola, was also elected under the same law, though without controversy or opposition since he was a former consul and long-serving pontiff.
This law was abolished in 81 BC by Sulla in his dictatorship, in the lex Cornelia de Sacerdotiis, which restored to the great priestly colleges their full right of co-optatio.Liv. Epit. 89Pseudo-Ascon. in Divinat. p 102, ed. OrelliDion Cass. xxxvii. 37 Also under Sulla, the number of pontifices was increased to fifteen, the pontifex maximus included, and Sulla appointed Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius as the next holder of the office – the only truly unelected pontifex maximus in history, since even the other pontiffs did not get a vote in the matter.