FEZIALI. — In Rome they constituted a priestly association of Latin origin, composed of twenty members, which recognized Jupiter as its patron and was the custodian of the sacred regulations concerning treaties of alliance and declarations of war (Cicero, De leg., 2, 9, 21). Their task was to negotiate before an alliance or a war; to conclude peace treaties and to supervise their observance, calling upon the deity as witness.
The F. had a ritual formula, known in part through Polybius (3, 25), Livy (1, 24; 9, 5), Gellius (16, 4), and Dionysius of Halicarnassus (2, 72), for demanding satisfaction; for reclaiming from the enemy what had been unjustly taken; for declaring war, by casting into enemy territory an iron spear or one of sanguine wood, burned at the tip; and for sealing an alliance by sacrificing a pig slaughtered with a stone knife taken from the temple of Jupiter Feretrius, inviting Jupiter himself to strike the Roman people in the same manner, according to Livy, or the F., according to Polybius, if it should first have violated the agreements concluded.
The mission of the F. consisted of the pater patratus, who spoke and took the oath in the name of the Roman people, and the verbenarius, the associate who carried with him a sprig of apotropaic verbena, gathered on the Capitoline citadel, with which both touched their foreheads to protect themselves against evils inflicted upon them. Once they had reached enemy territory, the two envoys presented their demands, allowing a suitable time for a reply; if the reply was negative, the supreme decision was referred to the Roman people. When the boundaries of the State were extended, these ceremonies took place in the «Campo Ostile» adjoining the temple of Bellona.
Varro (De l. lat., 5, 86) states that the ceremonial of the F. had, in his time, fallen into disuse. Augustus, however, restored it, enrolling himself in the association as a F., and in 32 B.C. declared war on Cleopatra according to the ritual of the F.