Religion can rival or exceed money as a source of political power

Evidence

But what is worthy of note is that the plebeians permitted themselves to be thus cheated because they too, like the patricians, held firmly the belief that the approval of the goddess was a condition precedent to the taking charge by an official of his duties, and that election by the people was not enough. If the plebeians had contended that election was enough and that the approval by the goddess was not necessary, they would have derived the fullest benefit from the political right which they had obtained. But they did not. They agreed to elect another, less suitable to themselves but more suitable to the goddess—which in fact meant more amenable to the patricians. Rather than give up religion, the plebeians gave up the material gain for which they had fought so hard. Does this not show that religion can be a source of power as great as money, if not greater? — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 850

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: the actual Roman plebeian-patrician dispute over the goddess’s augural approval, and how this historical episode reads as caste-inflected.
• XREF: connects to: All political power contains an irreducible theocratic element — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1988