FLAMINES. — From flare “to blow,” in the sense of feeding the sacrificial flame (cf. the brahmans of India, ministers of sacrifice): among the Romans they were the priests in charge of the cult of individual deities, all belonging to the most ancient stratum of Roman religion. They numbered fifteen: three major flamines—Dialis (of Jupiter), Martialis (of Mars), Quirinalis (of Quirinus)—and twelve minor flamines, of whom the names of seven are known: Carmentalis, Falacer, Floralis, Furinalis, Palatualis, Pomonalis, Volcanalis. They were not organized into a collegium because their duties were individual and not collective, but they were attached to the collegium of the pontiffs, under the supervision of the pontifex maximus. They wore over the toga a woolen cloak (laena), and a cap of sheepskin (galerus) surmounted by a small disk and an olive twig. They were appointed after a favorable auspice.
Of these, the flamen Dialis enjoyed a high formal privilege but was subject to numerous prohibitions that reveal in him the origin of the supreme head of the social group whose prerogatives in historical times passed to the rex sacrorum, successor of the ancient patriarchal king, and to the pontifex maximus, to whom were transferred those strictly magical-ritual prerogatives that made him almost a personification of Jupiter and rendered his office incompatible with any other. It was his duty always to be in a state of ritual purity (qualide feriatis), ready to sacrifice; he had to avoid the sight and contact of funerary or impure things; he had to be united to his wife by confarreatio, from which only her death could release him, at the same time rendering him unfit for office. These and many other prohibitions (Aulus Gellius [X, 15, 32] lists 22, drawn from the annalist Fabius Pictor) became in time so intolerable that no one wished to undertake this priesthood, which remained without a holder for 87 years. Augustus, in his religious restoration, revived it, lightening its obligations. The office of flamen Dialis lasted in reduced form until Theodosius.
The other two major flamines were far less burdened than the Dialis; the flamen Martialis took part in the ritual of the October Horse, the flamen Quirinalis in ceremonies connected with agriculture, such as the Robigalia, the Consualia, and the Larentalia.
In the imperial period, after the deification of deceased emperors, special flamines were instituted for their cult: flamines Augustales, Claudiales, Flaviales, etc.