THE RELIGION OF REPUBLIC AND EMPIRE B “TABLE 1: Priests in Rome 1, Four major colleges of priests Pontifices: ‘9 members from 300 BC, five plebelan, four patrician; increased to 15 members by Sulla, members co-opted by the College until lex Domatia and again from Sulla until 663 BC, at other dates elected by 17/35 tribes on the nomination of existing members of the Colleges. Head: the pontifex maximus, who speaks for the College in the senate, and chooses and disciplines the additional members ‘Additional members: Flamines (3 major ones ~ Dialis, Martialis, Quirinalis~ and 12 mino:) ‘Rex sacrorum (1 ~ nuccessor to the original King (rex )) Vestal Virgins (6, serving for thirty years from childhood) Functions: advisers to the senate about all matters concemed with the sacra; advisers to the people on matters of sacred law, including burial law. Supervisors over matters ‘of family law (adoption, inheritance ctc.); keepers of records Augures: ‘Numbers etc. as ponsifces, but no additional members, Election/co-optation as for pontifies. Functions: supervisors of and advisers about all the rituals and procedures concemed with the auspices, Duo/decem/quindecimviri sacris faciundis: Originally 2; 10 from 367 BC; 15 after Sulla, Blection/co-optation as for ponte. Funetions: care of and, though only when asked by the senate, consultation of the Sibylline Books, ‘Tres/septemnviri epulones College created as three members in 196 BC; increased to 7 by Sulh. Election/co-optation as for pontifices, Functions: supervision of the regular Games in Rome. 2. Priestly groups sometimes consulted by the senate Fetiales: 20 Functions: deal with matters of relationship with other states ~ war, peace, treats Haruspices: Later on, lst of 60. Functions: not a Roman college, at least in the Republican period: cither specialists in. Etruscan lore of prodigies, lightnings, other divination etc; or lower-class experts on the reading of entrails at sacrifice.28 THE RELIGION OF REPUBLIC AND EMPIRE ‘Taste 2: Religious Action in Rome: The Handling of Prodigies in the Second Century BC. REPORTS from he Agr ‘The Colleges of Priests — Net, ‘The Senate hhoruspicescte, -———»| _ InRome - (comitia) Cons —— \ Paeon, | pee. ‘Action = tal, orother Itis perhaps going too far to say that the senate was the main decision- making body in the Roman religious order, but it certainly was playing a central and co-ordinating role."* On its instructions, the magistrates or Priests or other groups carried out sacrifices or took vows or perform other rituals. ‘The most important conclusion, however, is not that the senate was dominant, but that religious authority was so widely dis- seminated through the governing élite, whether a8 magisirates, or Priests, or senators. Even the popular assemblies played a limited part, "For this argument see especialy Beard (1990)