De flaminibus Dialibus tempore liberae rei publicae captis observationes aliquot

Abstract

One of the oldest and most curious priesthoods of ancient Rome was the flamonium Diale. The minister of Jupiter was bound by a series of religious rules which not only affected his daily life but made it difficult for him to reach the highest political offices. In the late republic this flaminate existed only until the death of L. Cornelius Merula, who killed himself in the year 87 in a rather dramatic fashion. Despite the fact that the flamen Dialis is almost entirely absent from republican sources, one is able to gather some pieces of information about the nature of the priesthood in question from later authors, above all Aulus Gellius and Plutarch. An assumption can be made that the flamen was able to either avoid some of the rules or turn them to his advantage.