FLAMINI. — From fiare, “to blow,” in the sense of feeding the sacrificial flame (cf. the Brahmins of ancient India, ministers of sacrifice); among the Romans they were the priests assigned to the worship of individual divinities, all belonging to the most ancient stratum of Roman religion. They numbered 15: three major flamines—Dialis (of Jupiter), Martialis (of Mars), Quirinalis (of Quirinus)—and 12 minor ones, the names of seven of whom are known: Carmentalis, Falacer, Floralis, Furrinalis, Palatualis, Pomonalis, Volcanalis. They were not gathered into a college, because their functions were individual and not collective, but they were attached to the college of pontiffs, under the control of the pontifex maximus. Over the toga they wore a woolen covering (laena), and they bore a cap of sheepskin (gulerus), surmounted by a disk and a small olive rod. They were elected following a favorable auspice.
Of these, the f. of Jupiter enjoyed high formal privilege, but had to submit to numerous interdictions that reveal in him, originally, the supreme head of the social group whose prerogatives in historical times passed to the rex socrorum, successor of the ancient patriarchal king, and to the pontifex maximus, leaving to him the strictly magical-sacred prerogatives that made him almost a personification of Jupiter and rendered his office incompatible with any other. It was his duty always to remain in a state of ritual sacredness (quotidie ferietus), ready to sacrifice; he had to avoid seeing or touching funerary or impure things; he had to be united to his wife in a confarreate marriage, which only her death could dissolve, at the same time rendering him no longer eligible for the office. These interdictions and many others (Aulus Gellius [X, 15, 32] lists 22, drawn from the annalist Fabius Pictor) became, over time, so intolerable that no one any longer wished to undertake this priesthood, which remained without an incumbent for 87 years. Augustus, in his religious restoration, revived it while lightening its obligations. The flamen Dialis continued until Theodosius.
The other two major f. were far less burdened than the Dialis; the flamen Martialis took part in the rite of the October horse, while the flamen Quirinalis participated in ceremonies connected with agriculture, such as the Robigalia, Consualia, and Larentalia.
In the imperial period, after the apotheosis of deceased emperors, special f. were instituted for their worship: Augustales, Claudiales, Flaviales, etc.