The
Flamen Dialis was an important position in
Roman religion. There were 15
flamines , including the
high priest of
Jupiter, and, according to tradition, they were forbidden to touch metal, ride a horse, or see a corpse.
The Flamen Dialis enjoyed many peculiar honours. When a vacancy occurred, three persons of patrician descent, whose parents had been married according to the ceremonies of confarreatio (the strictest form of Roman marriage), were nominated by the Comitia, one of whom was selected (captus), and consecrated (inaugurabatur) by the Pontifex Maximus.[1] From that time forward he was emancipated from the control of his father, and became sui juris.[2] He alone of all priests wore the albogalerus (Apex);[3] he had a right to a lictor,[4] to the toga praetexta, the Sella Curulis, and to a seat in the Roman senate in virtue of his office. This last privilege, after having been suffered to fall into disuse for a long period, was asserted by C. Valerius Flaccus (209 BC), the claim allowed however, says Livy, more in deference to his high personal character than from a conviction of the justice of the demand.[5] The Rex Sacrificulus or Rex Sacrorum alone was entitled to recline above him at a banquet; if one in bonds took refuge in his house, the chains were immediately struck off and conveyed through the impluvium to the roof, and thence cast down into the street[6] if a criminal on his way to punishment met him, and fell suppliant at his feet, he was respited for that day;[7] usages which remind us of the right of sanctuary attached to the persons and dwellings of the papal cardinals.
To counterbalance these high honours, the Dialis was subjected to a multitude of restrictions and privations, a long catalogue of which has been compiled by Aulus Gellius[8] from the works of Fabius Pictor and Masurius Sabinus, while Plutarch, in his Roman Questions, endeavours to explain their import. Among these were the following
It was unlawful for him to be out of the city for a single night;[9] a regulation which seems to have been modified by Augustus, in so far that an absence of two nights was permitted;[10] and he was forbidden to sleep out of his own bed for three nights consecutively. Thus, it was impossible for him to undertake the government of a province. He might not mount upon horseback, nor even touch a horse, nor look upon an army marshalled without the pomoerium (or pomerium), and hence be elected to the consulship. Indeed, it would seem that originally he was altogether precluded from seeking or accepting any civil magistracy;[11] but this last prohibition was certainly not enforced in later times. The object of the above rules was manifestly to make him literally Jovi adsiduum sacerdotem; to compel constant attention to the duties of the priesthood; to leave him in a great measure without any temptation to neglect them. The origin of the superstitions which we shall next enumerate is not so clear, but the curious will find abundance of speculation in Plutarch,[12] Festus,[13] and Pliny the Elder.[14] He was not allowed to swear an oath,[15] nor to wear a ring nisi pervio et cass, that is, as they explain it, unless plain and without stones;[16] nor to strip himself naked in the open air, nor to go out without his proper head-dress, nor to have a knot in any part of his attire, nor to walk along a path over-canopied by vines. He might not touch flour, nor leaven, nor leavened bread, nor a dead body he might not enter a bustum [Funus], but was not prevented from attending a funeral. He was forbidden either to touch or to name a dog, a she-goat, ivy, beans, or raw flesh. None but a free man might cut his hair; the clippings of which, together with the parings of his nails, were buried beneath a felix arbor. No one might sleep in his bed, the legs of which were smeared with fine clay; and it was unlawful to place a box containing sacrificial cakes in contact with the bed-stead.
