Reading Giorgio Agamben’s Homo Sacer with René Girard

Abstract

In his 1 998 book Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (Italian original in 1995), Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben draws attention of his readers to an enigmatic of archaic Roman sacer or man.1 As Agamben notes, sacer was object of a peculiar form of violence, which suggests that Agamben's work on sacer offers a good starting point for a reflection on entanglement of the and violence. According to Agamben, violence that befalls sacer classifiable neither as sacrifice nor as homicide and therefore opens a sphere of human that is neither sphere of sacrum facere nor that of profane action (HS 82-83). In this light, Agamben proposes, homo sacer presents originary figure of life taken into sovereign ban and preserves memory of originary exclusion through which political dimension was first (HS 83). Agamben's attention to violence that befalls sacer suggests that his interest in this figure is motivated by larger frame of Homo Sacer-book, namely, his attempt to expose violent character of sovereignty. However, it is important to raise question of whether Agamben's interpretation of sacer - useful as it may be in context of his philosophico-political project - makes any sense at all in light of ancient Roman sources that are relevant for a discussion of this figure. The aim of present essay is to formulate an answer to this question. Questioning Agamben's interpretation of sacer does not mean that I reject legitimacy of overall aim of his Homo Sacer-project (i.e., unmasking violence of sovereignty), but I do contend that this aim does not justify an interpretation of sacer that is completely at odds with historical reality and that amounts to nothing but a fanciful creation by Agamben. We will find out that Agamben's interpretation of sacer is indeed problematical in light of ancient sources, and we will conclude this article by exploring an alternative interpretation of sacer, an interpretation that will be inspired by work of French- American literary critic Rene Girard.2 Introducing Homo Sacer The sacred man is one whom people have judged on account of a crime. It is not permitted to sacrifice this man, yet he who kills him will not be condemned for homicide; in first tribunitian [sic] law, in fact, it is noted that if someone kills one who is sacred according to plebiscite, it will not be considered homicide. This is why it is customary for a bad or impure man to be called sacred. (HS 71) This fragment is Agamben's translation of definition of sacer offered by second-century Roman grammarian Sextus Pompeius Festus in his De verborum significatione (On Significance of Words),3 an encyclopaedia of obsolete terms that was originally compiled by another Roman grammarian, Marcus Verrius Flaccus (ca 55 BCE-20 CE), but that only survived under form of shortened version of it produced by Festus. The definition of sacer quoted by Agamben appears under lemma sacer mons (sacred mount). According to Festus, this mountain was place to where plebeians, Roman citizens not belonging to aristocracy, retreated during secession of plebs which took place around 493 BCE. This secessio plebis was a kind of general strike during which plebs left Rome out of dissatisfaction with harsh debt rules at that time and which was solved by allowing plebeians to have their own magistrates, so-called tribunes, and to become in this way constituted as an assembly possessing political power (as narrated by Roman historian Titus Livius in The History of Rome, book II, chapter 32- 33).4 As noted by American historian Judy Gaughan, first tribunician law mentioned in quotation above taken by Agamben from Festus is best understood as the first regulation passed by [newly constituted] plebeian assembly. …