noun
definition
A pontiff, or high priest, in Ancient Rome.
Examples of pontifices in a Sentence
When Lucullus assumed the command of the Roman troops in Asia, Caesar returned to Rome, to find that he had been elected to a seat on the college of pontifices left vacant by the death of his uncle, C. Aurelius Cotta.
Fontanini, Codex Constitutionum quas summi pontifices ediderunt in solemni canonizatione sanctorum (Rome, 1729, a collection of original documents); Pr.
The speech against Vatinius was an attack upon a witness under examination; that de Domo was made before the Pontifices; that pro C. Rabirio perduellionis reo in the course of a provocatio to the people; and those pro Ligario and pro rege Deiotaro before Caesar.
On the former date, the flamen Quirinalis, assisted by the vestals, offered sacrifice, and the pontifices presided at horse and chariot races in the circus.
Otherwise, reference was made for an interpretation to the pontifices in olden times,afterwards frequently to the Sibylline books,or the Etruscan haruspices, when the incident was not already provided for by a rule, as, for example, that it was unlucky for a person leaving his house to meet a raven, that the sudden death of a person from epilepsy at a public meeting was a sign to break up the assembly.
He instituted the flamens (sacred priests) of Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus; the virgins of Vesta, to keep the sacred fire burning on the hearth of the city; the Salii, to guard the shield that fell from heaven; the pontifices and augurs, to arrange the rites and interpret the will of the gods; he also divided the handicraftsmen into nine gilds.
D'Arbois de Jubainville maintains that in Gaul the three classes of druids, vates and gutuatri, corresponded more or less to the pontifices, augurs and flamens of ancient Rome.
Under the empire, however, we hear of a regular collegium of sixty haruspices; and Claudius is said to have tried to restore the art and put it under the control of the pontifices.
The collegium of the Pontifices was the most important priesthood of ancient Rome, being specially charged with the administration of the jus divinum, i.e.
During the republican period the number of pontifices increased, probably by multiples of three, until after Sulla (82 B.C.) we find them fifteen; for the year 57 B.C. we have a complete list of them in Cicero (Harusp. resp. 6, 12).
Included in the collegium were also the rex sacrorum, the flamines, three assistant pontifices (minores), and the vestal virgins, who were all chosen by the pontifex maximus.
Vacancies in the body of pontifices were originally filled by co-optation; but from the second Punic War onwards the pontifex maximus was chosen by a peculiar form of popular election, and in the last age of the republic this held good for all the members.
The immense authority of the college centred in the pontifex maximus, the other pontifices forming his consilium or advising body.
In Siena he wrote his Actio in pontifices romanos et eorum asseclas, a vigorous indictment, in twenty "testimonia," against what he now believed to be the fundamental error of the Roman Church in subordinating Scripture to tradition, as well as against various particular doctrines, such as that of ' P. Orsi in Notizie degli Scavi (1899), 45 2 -47 1; Romische Quartalschrift (1898), 624-631.