Flaminica

The Flaminica was the wife of a Flemish , a priest in the state cult of ancient Rome . In particular, the wife of the Flamen Dialis , the priest of the supreme god Iuppiter Optimus Maximus , was referred to as Flaminica (Dialis). The marriage had to be concluded by the special marriage ceremony of the Confarreatio and was indissoluble.

The Flaminica Dialis took part in her husband's priesthood, so she sacrificed a ram to Iuppiter at the Nundinae in the Regia . She played a role in the Argei , a somewhat puzzling festival at which 27 straw dolls were thrown into the Tiber by the Pons Sublicius on May 14th . There she appeared as a mourner, with uncombed and unadorned hair.

The Flaminica Dialis wore a red dress, a yellow veil ( flammeum ) and sandals made from the leather of a sacrificial animal. As a headdress she wore the branch of an arbor felix ("lucky tree", a tree consecrated to the gods, especially the Iuppiter). Her typical hairstyle was the tutulus .

literature

• Francesca Prescendi: Flamines. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 4, Metzler, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-476-01474-6 , Sp. 537-539.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Tacitus , Annales . 4.16; Servius , Commentarius in Vergilii Aeneida 4,103; 4,374.
2. ↑ Ovid , Fasti 6,232.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Aulus Gellius , Noctes Atticae 10,15,28ff.
4. ^ Servius, Commentarius in Vergilii Aeneida 4,137.
5. ^ Festus , De verborum significatione 484.