PONTIFEX. The principal college of priests in ancient Rome consisted of the pontifices, the rex sacrorum, and the famines, under the headship of the pontifex maximus. The rex sacrorum was the functionary who under the republic succeeded to the sacrificial duties which in old time had been performed by the king; the fiamines were sacrificial priests of particular gods, the most important being the flamen Dialis, or priest of Jupiter, whose wife, the flaminica Dialis, was priestess of Juno. The pontifices on the other hand were not assigned to the service of particular gods, but performed general functions of the state religion; and their head, the pontifex maximus, was the highest religious authority in the state. For, while the rex sacrorum succeeded to the liturgical functions of the king, it was the pontifex maximus who inherited the substance of power in sacred things; the other members of the college were his counsellors and helpers, but no more. It is probable that there was no supreme pontifex under the kings, but that in accordance with the general rule that sacred officers went in threes, following the number of the old tribes, the king sat as sixth and chief among the five pontifices whom Numa is said to have instituted. The functions of pontifex maximus were indeed too weighty to be discharged by a subject in a monarchical government, and from Augustus to Gratian (382 a.d.) this supreme priesthood was held by the emperors in person. The original idea of the pontificate is as obscure as the name; it is by no means certain that pontifex means bridge-maker (as the commonest etymology has it) with reference to the duty of maintenance of the sacred Sublician bridge, for there were pontifices from of old in other parts of Italy. Marquardt conjectures that the name ...