The appointment of flamines

Numa Pompilius was said to have established the flamines as Rome's first priesthood. Or at least the flamines maiores (Livy 1.20.1-2) and the flamen Carmentalis (Livy 1.21.4). Ancus Marcius entrusted the flamines with all religious matters when he went off to war (Livy 1.33.1). About the time that Servius Tullius came to succeed Tarquinius Priscus, a rex sacrorum took up the priestly duties of the king. Servius instead took a different title, magister populi, which under the Republic became an alternate name for the dictator. Festus tells us that at one time the Rex sacrorum held the highest position among the priests and that the flamines maiores followed after him, the pontifex maximus being delegated to fifth place (p. 198 L). We learn, too, in Livy that it was the flamines and vestales that were asked to determine what sacred object should be taken and which buried in secret at the approach of the Gauls in 360 BCE (Livy 5.39.9). It is generally agreed that the flamines represent the earliest form of priesthood at Rome. Certainly at the time of the Gaullic invasion they held a position of considerable importance. However, that does not mean that all of the flamines we know about were in fact established early in Rome?s history. For example Flora was a relatively late arrival to Rome, brought by Oscan speaking Italics, possibly by the Sabines as Varro claimed. But Her temple was established only circa 238 BCE, Her games later. It is in that era of the Samnite Wars that other Oscan deities came to Rome as well, and it could well be that an ancient form of priesthood was given to serve Them in Their Roman rites.

The pontifex maximus had the prerogative to name and consecrate anyone he so chose to be a flamen. In one particular case, in 209 BCE, the pontifex maximus was able to compel Gaius Valerius Flaccus against his will to become the flamen Dialis (Livy 27.8.4-10). In appointing flamines a pontifex maximus did not have to consult with the other pontifices, or Senate, or anyone that we know. The pontifex maximus, often times, was the princeps senatus or some other high official and thus would have a concilium of friends and family with whom to consult. In the story of Valerius Flaccus there seems a suggestion that the pontifex maximus consulted with a wider group. Certainly with the family of Valerius, and likely a number of other patrician and nobiles families as well. Another story claimed that Cinna, as a consul, had named Julius Caesar to be flamen Dialis. But this would have been exceptional, and was due to the extraordinary circumstances of the time. L. Cornelius Merula, flamen Dialis when Cinna had retaken Rome after Sylla?s revolt, feared being mocked by the victors. As the flamen Dialis, Merula could not leave the City, nor could he really have been executed for supporting Sylla. But Merula chose instead to pollute the holy sanctuary of Jupiter by opening his veins upon its altar (Val. Max. 9.12.5). Cinna looked for a way to undo this outrage by finding a suitable candidate to fill this important position. He did so in Caesar, fourteen at the time, a patrician and nephew of Marius but of little political importance at the time. Caesar would have to wait until reaching manhood to become the flamen Dialis, and he would need to marry by confarreatio. He therefore had to put aside his betroth and take a patrician wife. Conveniently Cinna?s daughter Cornelia was available but the couple was still too young to marry. Only the pontifex maximus, however, could make such an appointment and consecrate Caesar as flamen Dialis, and as it happened he too had died in the struggles between Marius and Sylla. With the return of Sylla in 83, Caecilius Metellus Pius became the pontifex maximus. Son of Metellus Numidicus, Metellus Pius was certainly no friend to Marius or Cinna, or their family members, and therefore selected another to be flamen Dialis rather than Julius Caesar.

There is a general contention among modern historians that some of the flamines were members of the Collegium Pontificium. Only the flamines maiores are mentioned as meeting along with the pontifices, and that is done in a very late and unusual context. They appeared along with the pontifices at Cicero?s request for the return of his property, following his return from exile. However it is questionable whether this was actually an assembly of the Collegium Pontificum since the pontifex maximus himself, Julius Caesar, was away in Gaul at the time. In other instances the pontifices and Vestales Virgines appear at rites conducted by flamines, both maiores and minores, but that gives no indication if any or which flamines might have been in the Collegium Pontificum. The flamines did not form a collegium of their own as did the pontifices and augures. Although they were under the authority of the pontifex maximus they need not necessarily be thought as part of his advisory board and thus not part of the Collegium Pontificum. But if they were then it would probably be incorrect to think that only the flamines maiores were members of it. The plebeians had opened the greater priestly collegia in 300 BCE so that at least half of the pontifices and a majority of augures would be plebeians. They certainly would not have agreed then to allow a patrician majority in the Collegium Pontificum by having only the patrician flamines maiores be a part of it. Upon reflection, imho none of the flamines were in the Collegium Pontificum. Over time the position of the flamines, as originally constituted, declined in importance and many of these positions remained vacant, including the more important flamines maiores positions. Some of the early flaminate positions may have become identified with those sacredotes who cared for specific temples, just as later some temple sacredotes held the alternate title of flamen.

There were so many religious strictures placed on the flamen Dialis that it was nearly impossible for him to hold public offices, although some certainly did. That was not the case with the other flamines, however. We do not know that any special strictures were placed on the other flamines as were on the flamen Dialis. The only requirements to become one of the three flamines maiores was that the candidate originally had to be a patrician (Livy 4.54.7), the child of parents married by confarreatio and had to marry by this rite himself. The confarreatio was a special form of marriage involving religious sacrifices and the sharing of a spelt cake. The ceremony had to take place before ten witnesses, among whom had to be the pontifex maximus, the flamen Dialis and his wife, the flaminica Dialis. The rite was especially associated with patricians but it is apparent that some plebeians would have been able to meet the requirements of becoming a flamen Dialis. In fact, the flamen Dialis that Valerius was selected to replace had a plebeian name. Unlike other forms of marriage, a confarreatio did not allow for a divorce. (In later times there did develop a form of divorce from a confarreatio, but this was not an option for flamines.) The death of a flaminica meant her husband would have to abandon his office. Remarriage was not an option since a confarreatio was considered to continue on even after death. The flamines minores on the other hand do not seem to have been required to marry by confarreatio. They were mostly plebeian, some may even have been required to be plebeian as the deity they served was associated with plebeian culti deorum. Whatever strictures may have been placed on the flamines, other than the flamen Dialis, do not seem to have greatly interfered with their holding political offices. They were required, however, to be in Rome at the proper times to perform their religious duties, and that meant they were prohibited from leaving the provinces of Italy. In one case a flamen Martialis was prohibited from taking his province in Sardinia when the pontifex maximus threatened to fine him. This was the case, in 131 BCE, between two consules, the pontifex maximus Licinius Crassus Mucianus using his position to restrain his colleague, flamen Martialis L. Valerius Flaccus (Cicero, Philipics XI.18). The excuse was that a flamen had to remain within a day?s travel of Rome, in order to ensure he could perform his religious duties. However the issue was that Crassus Mucianus preferred Sardinia as his own province. The flamen appealed to the comitia by right of provocatio. The comitia then deferred to the opinion of the pontifex maximus. In none of the cases we know, when a decision of a pontifex maximus was appealed to a comitia, was a pontifex maximus overruled. The authority of the pontifex maximus over his flamines, in their selection and disciplining, was complete.

A pontifex maximus had the power to fine magistrates, even those who were not priests, and the flamines under his authority and their wives, the flaminicae. He could also fine anyone whom he chose to be a flamen, the means by which Valerius Flaccus was compelled to accept his office. Fining was the only means available to the pontifex maximus for disciplining the flamines. He could not issue corporal punishment on a flamen as he could in matters dealing with the Vestales Virgines. In one instance, a pontifex minor L. Cantilius (that is, one of three secretaries to the pontifices and not a pontifex himself), was convicted of seducing Vestal Floronia. He was then led into the comitia held in the Campus Martis, where the pontifex maximus personally beat him to death in a public execution (Livy 22.57.2-4).

Open to debate, too, is whether any of the flamines were women. Some sacredotes certainly were. Besides the better known Vestales Virgines there were other female priesthoods. One example is the sacredoti Liberi. Some of the deities served by flamines arrived late, from other Italic regions where Their priesthoods were women. We know that the flamines maiores were men, but that their wives, the flaminicae, also served important ritual roles. We might compare them, too, to the Regina Sacrorum. At his important monthly function, when the Rex Sacrorum announce the coming festivals on the Nonnae, it was actually the Regina Sacrorum who performed the sacrifice to Juno Covella. General consensus holds that the flamines were the earliest priests, dating back to the Regal period, and therefore had to be all male. But as I have indicated that may not be true, and therefore the exclusion of women may also not be true. The fact is that we know so very little about the flamines other than the flamines maiores that nothing can be attested for what or who they may have been. We are told by Varro (L. L. V.84) that their name is derived from the fillets of wool they wore to bind their veils, and that originally they were called filamines. While male priests and the female priestess of Ceres are known to have worn white woolen fillets, at least in one case a priestess of the Bona Dea is said to have worn a red fillet on head as a sign of her office. A symbol of the flamines, too, was a special headdress called an apex. This was a leather hat with cheek guards, atop which was a peak trimmed from a live olive tree in the form of an offa penita (the tail of a sacrificial victim removed with a circular piece of flesh). The apex was then tied beneath the chin of a flamen with a woolen fillet. Besides their duties in performing rites for their respective deities, a very important function of the flamines was to provide such woolen fillets to other priests. We are told by Ovid that this was done in February, the woolen fillets being one type of februa. In order to purify an altar before using it in a rite, the februa of wool fillets was wound around it at least three times. These came in three colors, white, red and black. No formal Roman ritual, no marriage, could take place without this februa. And since woolen fillets would be made by women, this may be an indication that at least some flamines, or those called flamines and filamines, were women. Add to that the fact that Romans held women to possess magical powers in a way that men did not, and that other priestly titles do not distinguish between male and female. Sacredotus can mean priest or priestess. Vates is sometimes applied to Etruscan haruspices, but is also the term used for a variety of female religious figures. While a distinction is made between flamines and their wives as flamincae, as a general term flamines might have meant both male and female priests in the same way that the plural term ?Di? means both gods and goddesses.

In the long history of the Religio Romana the one thing that was consistent was that it was ever evolving. Our understanding of the flamines therefore needs to be as fluid as the context in which this title was applied. The only thing we can assert about the flamines other than the flamen Dialis is that we know very little beyond the titles that some of them had. Even in that, some of them served deities of whom we know nothing other than that they had a flamen. There is an assumption that the flamines were the earliest Roman priests, and from that it is assumed that a deity such as Falacer was worshipped in so distant in Rome?s early history that we can know nothing of Him. But the fact is that when it comes to the flamines nothing is certain.