When Brutus overthrew the tyrant Tarquinius Superbus, Livy says, his establishment of the res publica was followed by his settlement of the res divina (2.2.1-2). A priest was created to act in the king’s place and perform the king’s publica sacra. These were not rites specific to the Tarquin gens (several members of the extended family remain prominent in the narrative of the early republican city, most notably Brutus and his cousin Tarquinius Collatinus), but the kinds of rites which Festus defines as being undertaken ‘for the people, at public expense’.Footnote ² The priest is variously called by our sources rex sacrorum, rex sacrificulus, rex sacrificiorum, or sometimes simply rex.Footnote ³ The fact that knowledgeable contemporaries such as Cicero and Varro can refer to him both as rex sacrorum and as rex sacrificulus (terms also interchangeable in authors from Livy to Macrobius) may indicate that the ‘sacred’ element was not a formal title, but simply a term clarifying his role (compare the phrase sacris faciundis for the viri in charge of putting on certain sacred rites). Indeed, sacrificulus rex is the headword used in Festus’ lexicon (422L), based on Verrius Flaccus’ On the Meanings of Words, which further implies that sacrificulus was not the standard title of the priest. On the other hand, Pliny (HN 11.186) uses sacrorum in a context which suggests an official priestly document, while in inscriptions the full title is given as rex sacrorum.Footnote ⁴

In spite of the antipathy the Romans supposedly exhibited towards the title of rex, it was retained, and not only for the priest but also for the official known as the interrex.Footnote ⁵ Ancient authors clearly recognised this anomaly and felt the need to explain it to their readers. According to Livy (2.2.2) and Plutarch (QR 63) the title was retained on the gods’ account; for Dionysius of Halicarnassus, by contrast, it was because of the benefits that the kings had brought to the state (Ant. Rom. 5.1.4). Our sources explain that, from the very beginning, unlike almost every other Roman priest, the rex sacrorum was neutered by being excused (or banned) from political or military office.Footnote ⁶ According to Plutarch, not only was he forbidden from holding office, he was also banned from addressing the people (QR 63; cf. Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 5.1.4; perhaps this explains why the pontifex minor rather than the rex sacrorum announced when the Nones would fall; see below). He was encumbered by various restrictions, likely to have been comparable to the rules on status, movement, diet, and clothing that constrained the flamen Dialis, the archaic priest of Jupiter.Footnote ⁷ The rex, for example, was not permitted to see work being done during public festivals (Plut. QR 63; Macrob. Sat. 1.16.9); for precisely this reason the three major flamines were preceded by heralds or ‘proclaimers’ who ordered any workers to pause as the priests approached (Fest. 292L praeciamitatores; Paul. Fest. 250L praecia; Macrob. Sat. 1.16.9). Both the flamen Dialis and the rex during the Republic were also required to be of patrician status; perhaps for this reason, Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Ant. Rom. 5.1.4) reports that the very first rex was a patrician, although it is very difficult to determine what the term actually meant at that point in time.Footnote ⁸ Unlike the flamen Dialis, however, for whom some rules were gradually relaxed during the course of the Republic, the office of rex remained tightly restricted right up until the imperial period.Footnote ⁹

The constrained nature of the rex sacrorum helps to explain why, in modern scholarship, this priest is frequently described as an obscure and unimportant individual. Sheehan, for example, comments that his ‘duties in the Roman state seem to have been relatively minor’, while Cornell writes that ‘in the later Republic this “priest-king” was an obscure figure, whose ritual duties had become an obsolete formality’.Footnote ¹⁰ Yet the priesthood endured long into the imperial period, and the record of his ritual actions, once fleshed out, is surprisingly substantial.Footnote ¹¹ It can be divided into monthly, periodic, and annual activities, which will be briefly outlined here.Footnote ¹²

The monthly rites of the rex sacrorum (like those of his wife, the regina) were concerned with the calendar, beginning with the Kalends, the first day of the month. Macrobius says that on this day, before the calendar was made public, a pontifex minor (the name for a pontifical scribe, according to Livy 22.57.3) was responsible for watching for the new moon, then reporting back to the rex. These two men then performed a sacrifice together in the Curia Calabra on the Capitol.Footnote ¹³ Macrobius also describes how on the same day the regina sacrificed to Juno (patron of the Kalends) in the Regia, in what was certainly part of the same ritual (Sat. 1.15.19).Footnote ¹⁴ Like the flamen and flaminica Dialis, the rex and regina operated as a priestly pair, and probably, like them, the death of their spouse necessitated the other’s resignation from office.

Following the sacrifice by the rex sacrorum, the people were summoned to the Curia Calabra where the pontifex minor announced when the Nones would fall, i.e. on the fifth or seventh day of the month.Footnote ¹⁵ Here, the pontifex minor operated as an ancillary to the rex,Footnote ¹⁶ who was himself a member of the pontifical college, and seems to have held a status technically higher than that of the pontifex maximus and the major flamines. At least, that is the inference from the order of precedence at priestly banquets, in which the rex sits above the rest ‘because he is the most powerful’ (Fest. 198L ordo sacerdotum), and the pontifex maximus holds only the fifth place, despite being responsible for actually installing a rex into office.Footnote ¹⁷ This precedence is confirmed by Varro, who refers to the rex as princeps civitatis (‘leader of the state/community’; Ling. 6.12).

A further public action by the rex sacrorum took place on the Nones. On this day, the people were informed of the month’s upcoming festivals (Macrob. Sat. 1.15.12). This would have been an important task in early Rome, which is said to have had no published calendar before the intervention of the curule aedile Cn. Flavius in 304 BC (Livy 9.46.5).Footnote ¹⁸ Until then, the oral announcement provided the people with crucial information concerning which days were fasti or nefasti, that is, the days on which it was permissible to conduct public business of various kinds, including legal and military. The rex’s action here thus had wide social as well as sacred value.

Aside from his monthly calendrical duties, the rex sacrorum operated at various other regular times during the year. His known periodic actions included sacrifices on the four dies Agonales, in January, March, May, and December, when, Varro says, the rex as princeps civitatis sacrificed a ram in the Regia (Ling. 6.12). That the rex was not the exclusive priest of any god is confirmed by the recipients of these sacrifices: Janus, Mars, Vediovis, and probably Sol Indiges.

On the 24^th of March and the 24^th of May, which were days marked QRCF (Quando Rex Comitiavit Fas) in the calendar, the rex sacrorum did something that was of public importance, and which has greatly exercised modern scholars. In the Fasti Praenestini, Verrius Flaccus complains that most people thought this festival commemorated the exile of Tarquinius Superbus from the city, but points out that Tarquin did not flee from the Comitium (he was not in Rome at all), and that there is another QRCF day in a different month in the calendar.Footnote ¹⁹ Instead Verrius interprets this as a day on which certain rituals had to be undertaken before public business could take place. These rituals changed the character of the day from nefastus to fastus.Footnote ²⁰

Finally, the rex sacrorum engaged in various one-off activities, only some of which can be assigned to specific dates in the calendar. For example, Ovid reports that the pontiffs asked the rex sacrorum and the flamen (Dialis) for purificatory woollen cloths known as februa (Fast. 2.21-2). The date of this is unknown, although Rüpke plausibly places it on the 15^th of February, the day of the Lupercalia and a dies februus (day of purification).Footnote ²¹ Another ritual of uncertain date involved the Vestals going to the rex and issuing a warning to him: ‘Vigilasne rex? Vigila!’ (‘Are you vigilant, king? Be vigilant!’; Serv. Aen. 10.228). The religious formula they employed parallels that used by a general about to go to war: touching the sacred objects (probably the spears) in Mars’ shrine in the Regia, he spoke the words, ‘Mars, vigila’ (Serv. Aen. 8.3).Footnote ²² It is not impossible that these two formulae once formed part of a single ritual (originally, the general would have been the king himself). If so, they can be seen as another example of royal rites inherited by the rex sacrorum.

On the 24^th of February the rex sacrorum took part in the Regifugium. Plutarch tells us that, after sacrificing, he fled from the Comitium.Footnote ²³ This was another ritual action wrongly considered by ancient authors to symbolise the expulsion of the kings (e.g. Ov. Fast. 2.685-852; Plut. QR 63). Rüpke considers that originally the real king fled, in a ritual of temporal dissolution that was ‘dramatised’ ‘by the flight of the individual who, in a special way, represented chronological order’.Footnote ²⁴ The festival had a parallel in the Poplifugia of the 5^th of July, but the rex’s actions here, if any, are unknown. The Regifugium also involved, in some way, the Salian priesthood (Fest. 346L Regifugium, very fragmentary), and is another piece of evidence that helps to build up a picture of the network of archaic priests at Rome.

At the Consualia, on the 15^th of December, the Fasti Praenestini report that mules and horses (considered to be under the protection of Consus) were decorated with flowers and (according to Mommsen’s supplement) the rex was carried on a horse (CIL 1²1, p. 237). Consus’ festivals were closely associated with the early monarchy: the foundation of the Consualia was attributed to Romulus, and his female associate was Ops, one of the principal inhabitants of the Regia.Footnote ²⁵

Finally, it is likely that the rex sacrorum played a part in, or was at the very least present at, many other annual rituals, such as the Tubilustrium festivals, or the sacrifice of the October Horse on the Ides of October, which involved blood from the horse’s tail being sprinkled on the hearth of the Regia (Plut. QR 97; Fest. 190L October equus). We should also include his participation in the many priestly banquets which took place during the year. One example (not here connected to an annual rite, but equally valid) is given by Macrobius, quoting from one of the annual reports compiled by the pontifex maximus Metellus Pius: this was a cena aditialis, a dinner to celebrate the inauguration of the new flamen of Mars, L. Cornelius Lentulus Niger in 70 BC, which involved the rex sacrorum, other members of the pontifical college, and the augur responsible for the inauguration, as well as the Vestal Virgins and the new flaminica.Footnote ²⁶

From the evidence assembled above, we gain some understanding of the nature of the rex sacrorum. Three aspects stand out:

1. 1) He played an important and enduring role in the functioning of the calendar (probably including the process of intercalation).Footnote ²⁷

2. 2) As Rüpke has observed, he played a ‘pivotal role in interactions with other members of the pontifical college’.Footnote ²⁸ His chief interactions were with the pontiffs, flamines, Vestals, and Salii, as well as with his own wife, the regina.Footnote ²⁹

3. 3) Although our knowledge of the tasks undertaken by the rex between June and December is limited (for this period we lack Ovid’s Fasti, and the Fasti Praenestini exist only in fragmentary form for August to October, and for December), it is clear that he had a fairly full diary throughout the year. Far from being an obscure priestly figure, a fossil, he was a key religious official who would have been operating both in private and before the eyes of Rome’s inhabitants on a regular basis.

As was noted earlier, our sources believed that the rex sacrorum was created to perform the public rites that the kings had customarily performed in person (Fest. 422L sacrificulus rex; Livy 2.2.1). We cannot assume that all the tasks attributed to him go back to the regal period; but, on the other hand, it is quite hard to see him being given additional tasks at different points in the Republic. How compatible are his duties with the picture we gain from Roman tradition of the sacred duties of Rome’s archaic monarchs? What did the kings do in the religious sphere? Here, I want to look at what ancient authors (i.e. the ‘Roman tradition’) envisaged as the tasks of the ancient kings, not to identify what was historical, necessarily, but to investigate any plausible patterns of behaviour that might lie behind the Roman tradition.

The religious roles of Numa Pompilius are those most extensively recounted in the narrative sources. Livy, for example, describes how Numa created the flamines of Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus; how he chose Vestals (following the Alban precedent); and how he established twelve Salian priests for the worship of Mars Gradivus (1.20).Footnote ³⁰ However, despite Numa being characterised by modern scholars as Rome’s religious founder par excellence, in the Roman tradition every one of the kings is described as undertaking some religious activities. The kings founded cults and temples (Romulus instituted the Consualia, and established the temple of Jupiter Feretrius, for example, while Servius Tullius founded temples to Diana and Fortuna). They undertook sacrifices and instituted priesthoods. Even Tullus Hostilius, who got into trouble with the gods for incorrectly performing sacrifices, created a branch of the Salii. Finally, ancient writers ascribe to the kings the role of censor, guiding the people in their moral and religious behaviour (see, e.g., Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 3.36.2 on Ancus Marcius). All this is consistent with the Roman belief, traceable as far back as Cato the Elder, that all the kings contributed in some way to the development of the city, its society, and its institutions.Footnote ³¹

The tradition therefore characterises the kings as operating in broadly the same way as republican magistrates. We might expect this from writers such as Livy, so often charged with being unable to imagine early Rome’s institutions as much different from those of his own day. But it remains significant that nowhere are the kings ascribed any of the roles undertaken by the rex sacrorum; nor does the later priesthood perform any of the king’s roles.Footnote ³² This casts some doubt over the ancient belief that the rex sacrorum was the heir of the political king.

This belief is not impossible, however, although various anomalies in the tradition do suggest that ancient authors erred in placing his creation at the dawn of the Republic.Footnote ³³ Notable in this regard are the rex sacrorum’s close cultic connections to other archaic priests whose creation is uniformly ascribed to the early regal period, and over whom he was formally superior (at least in the ordo sacerdotum). It is also hard to imagine kings like Servius Tullius being bound by the strict taboos and requirements which affected the rex sacrorum, not least the fact that he had to be patrician (Cic. Dom. 38; Livy 6.41.9), had to have both parents still living, and had to have been married (like them) by confarreatio (Gai. Inst. 1.112).Footnote ³⁴ Most of the kings, by contrast, were not even Roman, but were foreigners whose parents were often either dead or unknown.Footnote ³⁵ Finally, we may note the inflexible schedule of the rex sacrorum’s calendrical and other duties. These actions were tremendously important for the early Roman community, but, although Macrobius reports various republican views on intercalation under the kings, it is hard to imagine Tarquinius Superbus rushing back from besieging Ardea to announce the following week’s festivals.Footnote ³⁶ It is equally hard to imagine the rex sacrorum actually being given these important public functions at the start of the Republic, when hatred of monarchy was supposedly at its height.Footnote ³⁷

These great differences in nature and function between the king and the rex sacrorum seem inconsistent with the way in which the ancient sources account for the origin of the priesthood following the expulsion of the kings. They can be explained, however, when we observe that, in the Roman tradition, the rex sacrorum is presented as merely one of a series of heirs to royal sacred power whose creation is linked to the development of the state during the monarchical period. It is possible that the rex sacrorum did not directly replace the last king, and that regime change was not the driver for his creation.

Various divisions of royal sacred power are said to have taken place during the regal period, chiefly beginning with Numa (i.e. rather early in the history of the city). Numa is characterised by Livy as a largely sacral figure, who communed with the gods and even had a divine spouse, the nymph Egeria; he was gradually transformed into a pragmatic figure, who recognised the needs of the growing state, and adapted and reformed to cope.Footnote ³⁸

Thus Numa is described as initially performing most religious duties himself, especially those which came to belong to the flamen Dialis (Livy 1.20.1). There is an emphasis on his special relationship with the Vestals, whom he created and oversaw.Footnote ³⁹ Then, thinking about the fact that kings would be going to war, and not wishing the royal cults to be neglected, Numa created a flamen to look after the cult of Jupiter, even giving him, significantly, the royal curule chair (Livy 1.20.2).Footnote ⁴⁰ Thus Livy’s interpretation is that, because the king would usually be too preoccupied with political and military duties to undertake cult activities properly, the flamen Dialis was splintered off from the king’s power and provided with symbols of royal authority.

In the next developmental stage, Numa instituted the office of pontifex maximus (although, in Plutarch’s account, Numa himself is portrayed as the first pontifex).Footnote ⁴¹ According to Livy, the first holder of the office was Numa Marcius, who is described as the son of Marcius, one of the patres (senators).Footnote ⁴² There may be some suggestion here of keeping royal sacred power ‘in the family’: it is not made completely explicit in the surviving sources, but the tradition implies that this early pontifex was the husband of Numa’s daughter and the father of Ancus Marcius.Footnote ⁴³

Roman tradition, therefore, characterised the figure of the king as very closely associated with religion. It was the king who founded cults, instituted priesthoods and festivals, and created ritual regulations. The only exception (and even this is partial) is Tullus Hostilius, who suffered divine retribution, either because he did not perform rituals at all, or because he performed them incorrectly (Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 3.36.2). However, over time, that regal monopoly was broken up. The kings came to share their sacred power with priests, first the flamen Dialis, then the pontifex maximus, described by Festus as the ‘judge and arbiter of the affairs of gods and men’ (198L ordo sacerdotum).

With Tarquinius Priscus, we reach a significant new stage. The figure of the king who is explicitly not a priest is forcefully outlined in the widely-told story of the augur Attus Navius, a story enshrining a power struggle between royal and priestly authority.Footnote ⁴⁴ Navius successfully opposed Tarquinius Priscus’ attempts to change the Romulean centuriae. His story is puzzling, however, because, although he embodies what Rüpke has called ‘structural religious opposition to political power’, he does not represent the senatorial group of augurs; he was not a republican-style technical expert, but rather – as is particularly emphasised by both Cicero and Dionysius of Halicarnassus – a ‘miracle-working seer’ of lower class origin.Footnote ⁴⁵

Nevertheless, the story of Attus shows that, as far as the later regal period is concerned, our sources saw sacred power as having come to be differentiated from, and partly independent of, the king’s political authority. And, as we have seen, delegation of sacred power features in the narratives of almost every king, and can be connected to the expansion and increasing complexity of the Roman state.Footnote ⁴⁶ By the time of Tarquinius Superbus, however, no firmly sacral, royal duty can be identified in the tradition. The lack of concentration on the king’s religious role makes it surprising that the founders of the new Republic seem to have felt the need for a sacred royal stand-in. In fact, the real heirs of the king in this regard were, firstly, the magistrates, who dedicated temples and performed other important religious functions for the state, and, secondly, the pontifex maximus, who took over other aspects of the king’s role, in particular managing the interface between Senate and sacra.

Given all this, it may make sense to envisage a rex sacrorum in place by the later monarchical period (perhaps around the end of the seventh century BC, or about the time the Regia and other communal buildings were monumentalised); but we need not look for a single moment, under a single king. Instead, we can envisage a series of developmental stages, as, in fact, the literary sources indicate. A flamen Dialis, a pontifex maximus – why not also a rex sacrorum, as another ritual proxy, in an era when Rome was achieving a level of magnitude and complexity as a state which required a commensurate increase in religious institutions and the permanent delegation of some of the king’s religious authority and responsibilities?

The sources, in fact, do seem conscious of a change of gear in terms of the increased sophistication of the city-state during the monarchy. There are differences in the way they describe the reigns of the later kings, particularly in the way that they achieve power. The last of them, Tarquinius Superbus, is the one characterised as a tyrant in the Greek mould (Livy 1.49), but it is conceivable that the shift to tyranny (and with it the necessity for a rex sacrorum?) occurred prior to his reign, perhaps under Servius Tullius. Servius is described as the first king not to have come to power after an interregnum. According to Cicero and Dionysius, he bypassed the patres and ruled with the acquiescence of the people, bolstering his popular powerbase via demagogic measures such as land grants, political and legal reforms, and the clearing of debts.Footnote ⁴⁷ The tradition still characterises these rulers as performing certain actions in the religious sphere, notably temple dedications, but there is not much sign of them engaging in the activities ascribed to the rex sacrorum. For this and other reasons, Cornell argues for the possibility that, during the late archaic period, Rome experienced a ‘proto-republican’ phase ‘under a life magistrate (magister populi) who ruled alongside the king reduced ad sacra’.Footnote ⁴⁸

There are grounds for thinking that Roman tradition remembered correctly that the rex sacrorum was not part of the earliest stratum of religion, but wrongly (if logically) identified his point of origin as being at the start of the Republic.Footnote ⁴⁹ But what, if any, religious changes were engendered by regime change at this time? How different were things under the new Republic?

We see multiple continuities, but, aside from the supposed introduction of a rex sacrorum, almost no structural religious changes are attributed to the founders of the Republic. Yet some developments can be noted. First of all, the Senate’s religious role under the monarchy is very muted, except with regards to the transmission of royal power: the interregnal procedure and the auspices, key elements in conferring legitimacy on the king, were controlled by one senatorial grouping, the patres.Footnote ⁵⁰ This limited role may be explained by the nature of the monarchical Senate, which was very probably more a hand-picked royal consilium than anything else, and which only enjoyed an independent existence when the king died (cf. Fest. 290L praeteriti senatores). During the early Republic, however, the Senate came to achieve permanent authority over state cult, even though it took into consideration the advice of the religious colleges.Footnote ⁵¹ Secondly, the king’s monopoly on the foundation of temples ended, and, particularly in the first years of the Republic, sacred space was contested in a way that was not apparent under the monarchy. In other words, we see the emergence of religion as a major arena for elite competition.

It is clear that the first few years of the Republic saw power struggles amongst the Roman elite. After the exclusion of Superbus, the tradition reports that some members of the Tarquin family (among others) attempted to grasp political power. Periods of sole consulship, and multiple consulships, are reported even in the mainstream tradition; Valerius Publicola is the classic example. It seems that religious power was up for grabs too, and attempts appear to have been made to gain monopolies in this area. It is notable, for example, that the Papirii dominated religious offices during the early fifth century BC. Although they do not appear in the consular fasti before the 440s BC, not only are the Papirii said to have provided the first rex sacrorum and the first pontifex maximus of the new Republic, but also the pontifex maximus at the time of the second plebeian secession in 449 BC.Footnote ⁵²

It has been argued that these names are fabrications and that, at some point later in the Republic, those families that had an agenda for self-promotion created figures such as these to provide themselves with respectable antecedents. That, for example, is the view of Rüpke, who sees the Papirian priests of the early Republic as ‘historically suspect’ and ‘fictitious’, and suggests that they were invented at the time of the pontifex C. Papirius Maso in the mid-third century BC.Footnote ⁵³ In this he follows Mommsen, who accuses the Papirii of falsely inserting their ancestors into the list, of reges and pontifices.Footnote ⁵⁴ Mommsen’s assertion (it can hardly be called an argument) is based in part on the claim that a variant tradition preserved in Festus makes the first rex sacrorum a Sulpicius rather than a Papirius. In fact Festus says no such thing: the relevant lemma (422L sacrificulus), although fragmentary, can be securely restored on the basis of Paul (423L), and the name of Sulpicius Cornutus was incorrectly introduced into the lacuna by Müller (318M).

It is not impossible, and in fact it is extremely likely, that the Papirii maintained family records. For example, Cicero notes that the gens used to be called Papisii until L. Papirius Crassus, consul in 336 BC, dropped this form. He also names various prominent members of the gens who had held magistracies (though not priesthoods). It is plausible to think that he acquired this information from family records or from a family history of some sort.Footnote ⁵⁵ So is such extreme scepticism concerning the names of early priests valid? And how simple would it have been for a family to fake priestly ancestors?

Cicero’s famous complaint about falsi triumphi, plures consulatus in funeral speeches (Brut. 62) cannot be used to reinforce arguments about the wholesale unreliability of the Roman tradition, as Smith has shown in his discussion of competing scholarly arguments on the trustworthiness of the early republican fasti.Footnote ⁵⁶ It seems to me that some of the considerations about how the names on that list of magistrates might have been transmitted, and how falsehoods might or might not have been introduced, are valid for priestly lists too.

There were, of course, many problems involved in the transmission of historical material over the centuries-long history of the Republic, but it is implausible to assume that early writers, whose works do not survive, can be held responsible for the widespread fabrication of Roman tradition (particularly as regards false ancestral offices or priesthoods) for the benefit of certain Roman families. It is also hard to accept that historians of the later Republic were able to deviate significantly from the consistent outlines of Roman history established by earlier annalists. Many factual elements are likely to have endured and survived attempts at rhetorical or other types of elaboration, as indeed is demonstrated by the sometimes rather dull and insignificant details concerning election results, warfare, political and priestly office-holders, festivals, or prodigies, that are included by Livy in most years of the Republic for which his text survives.

The names of major priests can surely be counted among the kinds of facts which might have survived the ravages of time. It is also perfectly possible that the tradition preserves in these names a record of attempts by certain families to lock on to a critical source of power. That is not an outlandish suggestion, nor is it a scenario unique to the early Republic. We know that particular clans dominated particular priesthoods later on in the Republic, even at times when their members were not particularly prominent politically. For example, during the third and second centuries BC, the Valerii Flacci and the Postumii Albini held a number of the major flaminates, while the Cornelii provided six chief pontiffs, as well as a third of the major flamines and six out of ten flamines Diales.Footnote ⁵⁷ Even the office of rex sacrorum may have been held by members of the same clan, including a patrician branch of the Claudii in the first century BC, if Taylor is right in her suggestion that the father of L. Claudius, rex sacrorum in 57 BC (Cic. Dom. 38), preceded him in the priesthood.Footnote ⁵⁸ Earlier, L. Cornelius Dolabella, who controversially refused to take up the office in 180 BC, would have directly replaced his own father or possibly brother, the recently-deceased rex, Cn. Cornelius Dolabella (Livy 40.42.8-10).

As the elite jostled for power and position in the early years of the Republic, the sacred sphere was undoubtedly one place where men attempted to assert themselves.Footnote ⁵⁹ As well as the major priesthoods, temple foundations were also an arena for aristocratic competition, as is exemplified by the well-known dispute over who should dedicate the Capitoline temple.Footnote ⁶⁰ The consuls Valerius Publicola and Horatius Pulvillus drew lots to decide and the task fell to Horatius. While Valerius Publicola himself set off for war against Veii, Publicola’s supporters tried everything they could to impede Horatius, including informing him of the death of his son during the actual dedication of the temple.Footnote ⁶¹ Livy reports another such dispute in 495 BC, in the context of increasing tension between patricians and plebeians. The consuls Ap. Claudius and P. Servilius disagreed over which of them should dedicate the temple of Mercury. The Senate delegated the decision to the people, who snubbed both consuls and assigned the task and honour to the legionary centurion M. Laetorius.Footnote ⁶²

It is well known that temple building in the first century of the Republic has a very distinctive pattern in the literary tradition: there is a clear gap in the literary record which the various new archaeological discoveries have not yet filled. After the Capitoline temple, dedicated at the start of the Republic (but effectively a regal creation), we have the temple of Castor (499-484 BC). It was vowed during the battle of Lake Regillus by the dictator Aulus Postumius, and dedicated much later by his son, who had been appointed duumvir for the purpose (Livy 2.42.5). Next came the temples of Saturn (497 BC), Mercury (495 BC), Ceres (493 BC), and Fortuna Muliebris, the last memorialising the matrons’ role in saving the state from Coriolanus and the Volsci (488 BC; the story in Livy 2.40 may have been drawn from Fabius Pictor). Dionysius of Halicarnassus reports that, in 466 BC, the consul Spurius Postumius consecrated a hangover from the Tarquin period, the temple of Dius Fidius on the Quirinal hill (Ant. Rom. 9.60.8; he reports that the Senate had Postumius’ name inscribed on the temple, a desirable permanent marker of prestige). There follows a large, unexplained break in the founding of temples before the temple of Apollo (433-431 BC; Livy 4.25.3, 4.29.7), then comes a further break of several decades before the temples of Mater Matuta and Juno Regina (396-392 BC: Livy 5.19.6; Plut. Cam. 5).

It can be argued that the absence of temple foundations from the archaeological and literary records of the mid-fifth century BC is due to economic and military pressures on the new republican state; the later resumption of building works can also be seen as evidence of Rome’s regrouping, a second wind carrying it forward to the beginnings of the Roman empire in Italy. But it is also possible to interpret the absence as evidence of religious power struggles: struggles over who, in this new state, was to be permitted this important role of temple-founder. The former royal monopoly was now up for grabs, at a time when the delicate aristocratic consensus was still being negotiated.

It is often argued that religion of the monarchical period was different from republican religion, that it was more obviously separate from the state, and that priests were independent specialists more than collegiate advisers. That is not, generally, the picture we see in the literary sources. Instead, they present a plausible pattern in which the state’s religious structures grow more complex and its practitioners more abundant. This picture of deliberate decentralisation is entirely appropriate for this rapidly expanding state, whose size and power are confirmed more and more by the archaeological record. The upshot is that before the beginning of the Republic, the city had a complex religious system in which religious power – and, in my view, that includes the king’s own sacral power – was already distributed amongst the elite, just as it was in the Republic. The moment at which the elite appropriated valuable religious power and prestige for the first time did not come in 509 BC.