Rex sacrorum
The Rex Sacrorum ( latin " King of the Holy "), even Rex Sacrificulus (Latin diminutive to sacrificus sacrificer "victims king"), was one of the highest Roman priest. When the Romans abolished kingship , this priest took over the religious duties that the king had previously held, along with the title of king, in order to keep the tradition that was regarded as mandatory in relation to the gods.
The Rex Sacrorum belonged to the College of Pontifices and was directly subordinate to the Pontifex Maximus , although in the traditional cultic hierarchy it was above the flamines maiores and the pontifex maximus . He enjoyed broadly the same privileges as the pontiffs, but unlike them, he was subject to several serious office-related restrictions. The most important was that he was not allowed to hold any political office, which made the office not very desirable in the late republic. In February the rex sacrorum and the Flamen Dialis shared the February together from, a cultic brush, with which fields, meadows and houses were ritually cleaned at the beginning of the cultivation of the fields.
The Rex sacrorum had to come from the patriciate and come from a marriage concluded with the special ceremony of the Confarreatio . He himself had to be married according to this rite. His wife was the Regina sacrorum ("Queen for the Holy"), who also had to be a patrician and had cultic obligations. Thus the rex sacrorum sacrificed a pig or a sheep on each calendar in the Juno Regia . On the agonals (on the 5th day before the Ides of January = January 9th) the rex sacrorum sacrificed a ram to the god Janus in the Regia, the former residence of the expelled Roman kings and then the official residence of the Pontifex Maximus .
The office of Rex Sacrorum is also proven outside of Rome as the municipal priesthood of the imperial era in central Italy and North Africa.
literature
- Andreas Bendlin : Rex sacrorum. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 10, Metzler, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-476-01480-0 , column 937 f.
- Arthur Rosenberg : Rex sacrorum. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume IA, 1, Stuttgart 1914, Col. 721-726.
- Georg Wissowa : Religion and cult of the Romans . 2nd edition Beck, Munich 1912.
Individual evidence
- ^ Livy Ab urbe condita 2, 2, 1.
- ↑ a b Livius Ab urbe condita 40, 42, 8-11.
- ^ Sextus Pompeius Festus De verborum significatione 198, 29-200, 4; Aulus Gellius Noctes Atticae 10, 15, 21; Servius Commentarius in Vergilii Aeneida 2, 2.
- ↑ Dionysius of Halicarnassus Antiquitates Romanae 4, 74, 4; 5, 1.4.
- ^ Werner Eisenhut: Flamines. In: The Little Pauly (KlP). Volume 2, Stuttgart 1967, column 561 ..
- ↑ Cicero De domo sua 38; Livy Ab urbe condita 6, 41, 9.
- ^ Gaius Institutiones 1, 112.
- ↑ Howard Hayes Scullard : Roman Festivals . Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1985, p. 91.
- ↑ Macrobius Convivia primi diei Saturnaliorum 1, 15, 19f.
- ↑ CIL X 8417; XI 1610; XIV 2089; 2413; 2634; Ephemeris Epigraphica IX 608; L'Année épigraphique 1933, 57; 1946, 80; 1952, 157; 1987, 1066.