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"You'll be outside Rome all night," Flexinna objected. "That's sacrilege." "Not a bit of it," Brinnaria retorted. "I know a regulation from a taboo. When the Gauls captured Rome the Flamen of Jupiter went up into the Capitol with the garrison. He might not leave Rome, it would have been impious. But the other flamens nd the Vestals left Rome, the Vestals were months at Caere.
Now to introduce our dramatis personæ, with their "cast," for better effect rather unreasonably presumed. Galba, the chief mover in the catastrophe, as also the opener of its causes, an intriguing and fierce, but well-intentioned patriot, who ultimately becomes the next emperor. With Curtius a tribune, senators, conspirators, soldiers, priests, flamens, &c.
Midway of the crowd, near the head of the middle water-stair, a part of the pavement, ringed about by the lucky dignitaries in the front row of spectators, was left free. In it, by the water-steps, were grouped a selection of Pontiffs, all the Flamens, four Vestals and the Emperor.
Pythagoras, a young Greek of marvellous beauty, the same to whom later the half-insane Nero commanded the flamens to marry him, with the observance of all rites, knelt now at his feet.
This happened at a later period. About the same time, too, the priesthood was taken away from two men of very great honor, Cornelius Cethegus and Quintus Sulpicius: from the former, because he had not rightly held out the entrails of a beast slain for sacrifice; from the latter, because, while he was immolating, the tufted cap which the Flamens wear had fallen from his head.
Being raised by this generally good character to a proper confidence in himself, he claimed to be admitted into the senate; a thing intermitted for many years, on account of the worthlessness of former flamens. On entering the senate, Lucius Licinius, the praetor, led him out; on which the flamen appealed to the tribunes of the people.
But it required the presence of all the Vestals, of the major Flamens, of many Pontiffs, of the entire College of Augurs and of the Emperor himself as Pontifex Maximus. Commodus, who was impatient of anything which curtailed the time he might lavish on athletic amusements, arrived precisely at noon, at the very last minute. The moment he had entered the Atrium he hurried the ceremony.
To him he added two other flamens, one for Mars, another for Quirinus. He also chose virgins for Vesta, a priesthood derived from Alba, and not foreign to the family of the founder. That they might be constant attendants in the temple, he appointed them pay out of the public treasury; and by enjoining virginity, and various religious observances, he made them sacred and venerable.
The patricians, on the other hand, expressed their indignation not so much at the honours of the state being shared, but at their being lost; they said that, "if matters be so, children need no longer be educated; who being driven from the station of their ancestors, and seeing others in the possession of their dignity, would be left without command or power, as mere salii and flamens, with no other employment than to offer sacrifices for the people."
I can’t recollect the order. O! but the grandest thing of all was the Carmen, sung by twenty-seven noble youths, and as many noble maidens, taken for the purpose from the bosoms of their families to propitiate the gods of Rome. The flamens, augurs, colleges of priests, it was endless. Last of all came the emperor himself.”
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