United States or Iran ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
On Caesar as Pontifex Maximus devolved the duty of bringing confusion into order, and the completeness with which the work was accomplished at the first moment of his leisure shows that he had found time in the midst of his campaigns to think of other things than war or politics. Sosigenes, an Alexandrian astronomer, was called in to superintend the reform.
His mother kicked a little at first against the money's having gone to him as she said "over his papa's head." "Why, my dear," she said in a deprecating tone, "this is more than ever your papa has had"; but Ernest calmed her by suggesting that if Miss Pontifex had known how large the sum would become she would have left the greater part of it to Theobald.
Very probably, too, a great family, on entering the Roman bond, may have assumed, by a fiction, the character and name of a gens. The Romans themselves knew very little about the matter. Cicero quotes the dictum of Scaevola the Pontifex, according to which the gens consisted of all persons of the same gentile name who were not in any way disqualified.
At thirty-seven he was elected Pontifex Maximus the head of the State Religion. Between Pagan Rome and Christian Paganism there is small choice all State religions are very much alike. Cæsar was Pope: and no State religion since his time has been an improvement on that of Cæsar. In his habits Cæsar was ascetic a scholar by nature. He was tall, slender, and in countenance sad.
I believe old Mr Pontifex, along with his pride and affection, felt also a certain fear of his son, as though of something which he could not thoroughly understand, and whose ways, notwithstanding outward agreement, were nevertheless not as his ways.
Well Sir, would you believe it, there's that in Mr Pontifex's face which is just like young Watkins; he looks that worrited and scrunched up at times, but it's never for the same reason, for he don't know nothing at all, no more than a unborn babe, no he don't; why there's not a monkey going about London with an Italian organ grinder but knows more than Mr Pontifex do.
Before the next course was over Mr Pontifex had recovered his temper, and from that time to the end of the evening he was at his best.
On the day of the funeral, however, we had a great excitement; old Mr Pontifex sent round a penny loaf to every inhabitant of the village according to a custom still not uncommon at the beginning of the century; the loaf was called a dole.
And so, when the Republic is instituted, a special official, the rex sacrorum, inherits the king's ritual duties, while the superintendence of the Vestals passes to his representative in the matter of religious law, the pontifex maximus, whose official residence is always the regia, Numa's palace. The state is but the enlarged household and the head of the state is its religious representative.
Nothing more happened to ruffle Mr Pontifex, so we had a delightful evening, which has often recurred to me while watching the after career of my godson. I called a day or two afterwards and found Mr Pontifex still at Battersby, laid up with one of those attacks of liver and depression to which he was becoming more and more subject. I stayed to luncheon.
Word Of The Day