CONFARREATIO. — Among the Romans, the confarreatio was the pre-eminent sacred nuptial rite (Pliny, *Nat. hist.*, XVIII, 14), which originally must have consisted in the offering by the two spouses of a spelt cake, the most ancient cereal cultivated by the Romans. Under the Empire, it remained the prerogative of the members of the great priestly colleges and took place not before the hearth, but in a public place, as a marriage from which were born children capable of exercising the highest functions of the State.
At the ceremony, besides ten witnesses, there assisted the *pontifex maximus* and the *flamen* of salt. If the latter was the contracting party, the union of the spouses was expressed, besides by eating the same cake, also by sitting on two seats covered with the skin of a sheep sacrificed to Jupiter Farreus (Servius, *ad Aen.*, IV, 374; Gaius, *Inst.*, I, 112). The confarreation marriage was dissolved by the *diffarreatio*, whose ritual is unknown, except that spelt was also used in it, and that (according to Plutarch, *Quaest. rom.*, 59; and Festus, s. V. *Diffarreatio*) it was accompanied by strange and terrifying ceremonies.