In The Legatus Mystery by Rosemary Rowe, the chief priest of Jupiter in the Roman colonia of Glevum, an elderly eccentric, aspires to the post of flamen dialis, chief priest of Jupiter of Rome, the most distinguished of the priesthoods after the pontifex maximus. In fact, he practices already at being so by observing all the rituals and restrictions of that position and requires his young wife to do the same as flaminica dialis.
Here is Cicero outlining these rules:
A great many ceremonies are imposed upon the Flamen Dialis [the priest of Jupiter], and also many restraints, about which we read in the books On The Public Priesthoods and also in Book I of Fabius Pictor's work. Among them I recall the following: 1) It is forbidden the Flamen Dialis to ride a horse; 2) It is likewise forbidden him to view the classes arrayed outside the pomerium [the sacred boundary of Rome], i.e., armed and in battle order---hence only rarely is the Flamen Dialis made a Consul, since the conduct of wars is entrusted to the Consuls; 3) It is likewise forbidden for him ever to take an oath by Jupiter; 4) It is likewise forbidden for him to wear a ring, unless it is cut through and empty; 5) It is also forbidden to carry out fire from the flaminia, i.e., the Flamen Dialis’ house, except for a sacral purpose; 6) if a prisoner in chains enters the house he must be released and the chains must be carried up through the opening in the roof above the atrium or living room onto the roof tiles and dropped down from there into the street;
7) He must have no knot in his head gear or in his girdle or in any other part of his attire; 8) If anyone is being led away to be flogged and falls at his feet as a suppliant, it is forbidden to flog him that day; 9) The hair of the Flamen Dialis is not to be cut, except by a freeman; 10) It is customary for the Flamen neither to touch nor even to name a female goat, or raw meat, ivy, or beans; 11) He must not walk under a trellis for vines; 12) The feet of the bed on which he lies must have a thin coating of clay, and he must not be away from this bed for three successive nights, nor is it lawful for anyone else to sleep in this bed; 13) At the foot of his bed there must be a box containing a little pile of sacrificial cakes; 14) The nail trimmings and hair of the Dialis must be buried in the ground beneath a healthy tree; 15) Every day is a holy day for the Dialis; 16) He must not go outdoors without a head-covering---this is now allowed indoors, but only recently by decree of the pontiffs, as Masurius Sabinus has stated; it is also said that some of the other ceremonies have been remitted and cancelled; 17) It is not lawful for him to touch bread made with yeast; 18) His underwear cannot be taken off except in covered places, lest he appear nude under the open sky, which is the same as under the eye of Jove; 19) No one else outranks him in the seating at a banquet except the Rex Sacrorum; 20) If he loses his wife, he must resign his office; 21) His marriage cannot be dissolved except by death; 21) He never enters a burying ground, he never touches a corpse---he is, however, permitted to attend a funeral.
Almost the same ceremonial rules belong to the Flaminica Dialis [i.e., his wife]. They say that she observes certain other and different ones, for example, that she wears a dyed gown, and that she has a twig from a fruitful tree tucked in her veil, and that it is forbidden for her to ascend more than three rungs of a ladder and even that when she goes to the Argei Festival [when twenty-four puppets were thrown into the Tiber] she must neither comb her head nor arrange her hair. (from Accounts of Roman State Religion, c. 200 BCE- 250CE at the Ancient History Sourcebook)
LacusCurtius, in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, John Murray, London, 1875 has a general article, Flamen:
FLAMEN, the name for any Roman priest who was devoted to the service of one particular god (Divisque aliis alii sacerdotes, omnibus pontifices, singulis flamines sunto, Cic. De Leg. II.8), and who received a distinguishing epithet from the deity to whom he ministered (Horum, sc. flaminum, singuli cognomina habent ab eo deo quoi sacra faciunt, Varro, De Ling. Lat. V.84). The most dignified were those attached to Diiovis, Mars, and Quirinus, the Flamen Dialis, Flamen Martialis, and Flamen Quirinalis. The two first are said by Plutarch (Num. c7) to have been established by Romulus; but the greater number of authorities agree in referring the institution of the whole three, in common with all other matters connected with the state religion, to Numa (Liv. I.20; Dionys. II.64 &c.). The number was eventually increased to fifteen (Fest. s.v. Maximae dignationis): the three original flamens were always chosen from among the patricians, and styled Majores (Gaius, I.112); the rest from the plebeians, with the epithet Minores (Fest. Majores Flamines). Two rude lines of Ennius (Varro, de Ling. Lat. vii.44) preserve the names of six of these, appointed, says the poet, by Numa, —
Volturnalem, Palatualem, Furinalem,
Floralemque, Falacrem et Pomonalem fecit
Hic idem . . . . . Read on
Smith's Dictionary also has Apex, the flaminical head gear.
To the average modern reader, the flamen dialis is best known because of Julius Caesar, who most likely did not actually hold the position as a young man, Colleen McCullough notwithstanding.
We have Plutarch and Suetonius as sources.
Plutarch, int the Life of Caesar is very vague and talks about candidacy:
1 The wife of Caesar was Cornelia, the daughter of the Cinna who had once held the sole power at Rome, and when Sulla became master of affairs, he could not, either by promises or threats, induce Caesar to put her away, and therefore confiscated her dowry. 2 Now, the reason for Caesar's hatred of Sulla was Caesar's relationship to Marius. For Julia, a sister of Caesar's father, was the wife of Marius the Elder, and the mother of Marius the Younger, who was therefore Caesar's cousin. 3 Moreover, Caesar was not satisfied to be overlooked at first by Sulla, who was busy with a multitude of proscriptions, but he came before the people as candidate for the priesthood, although he was not yet much more than a stripling. 4 To this candidacy Sulla secretly opposed himself, and took measures to make Caesar fail in it, and when he was deliberating about putting him to death and some said there was no reason for killing a mere boy like him, he declared that they had no sense if they did not see in this boy many Mariuses.
Suetonius, in De Vita Caesarum, Divus Iulius, writes:
1
In the course of his sixteenth year 1 he lost his father. In the next consulate, having previously been nominated priest of Jupiter,2 he broke his engagement with Cossutia, a lady of only equestrian rank, but very wealthy, who had been betrothed to him before he assumed the gown of manhood, and married Cornelia, daughter of that Cinna who was four times consul, by whom he afterwards had a daughter Julia; and the dictator Sulla could by no means force him to put away his wife. 2 Therefore besides being punished by the loss of his priesthood, a his wife's dowry, and his family inheritances, Caesar was held to be one of the opposite party. He was accordingly forced to go into hiding, and though suffering from a severe attack of quartan ague, to change from one covert to another almost every night, and save himself from Sulla's detectives by bribes. But at last, through the good offices of the Vestal virgins and of his near kinsmen, Mamercus Aemilius and Aurelius Cotta, he obtained forgiveness. 3 Everyone knows that when Sulla had long p5held out against the most devoted and eminent men of his party who interceded for Caesar, and they obstinately persisted, he at last gave way and cried, either by divine inspiration or a shrewd forecast: “Have your way and take him; only bear in mind that the man you are so eager to save will one day deal the death blow to the cause of the aristocracy, which you have joined with me in upholding; for in this Caesar there is more than one Marius.”
(a) Bill Thayer comments: the loss of his priesthood: the flamen dialis had to be married, could not divorce, and if his wife died had to resign: thus by putting away his wife, Caesar was automatically bombing himself out of the priesthood.
________________________
The State, Law and Religion: Pagan Rome
by Alan Watson
