CONFARREATIO, a ceremony observed among the ancient Romans at the nuptials of those persons more particularly whose children were destined to be vestal virgins or flamines diales. Confarreatio was the most solemn of the three forms of marriage, but in later times the ceremony fell into disuse, and Cicero mentions but two, namely, coemptio and usus. The name is said to have originated in the bride and bridegroom sharing a cake of salted wheaten bread (far or panis farreus), in the presence of the pontifex maximus, or flamen dialis, who performed the ceremony. This form of marriage could only be dissolved by another equally solemn ceremony, which was called disfarreatio. The names patrimi and matrimi were applied to children sprung from this kind of marriage.