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Maiestas
DAVIDE 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 preeminence of gods over men, but later Romans
ascribed maiestas 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 beginning 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 equivalents 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 personification 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 position compared with the surrounding people
(Cic. Phil. 6.19); in virtue of its maiestas,
Rome affirmed its supremacy and claimed submission 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 people; freedom, in fact, was the necessary condition for identifying the maiestas 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 subordinate 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 concerning 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 version) of the emperor; the theiotes of Augustus
and Tiberius is also attested in the Berlin papyrus containing an edict of Germanicus to inhabitants 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

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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 (promulgated by Sulla in 81 BCE). Two further statutes
on the crime of maiestas 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 punishment 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 committed 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.