Rex Sacrōrum
(or Rex Sacrificŭlus), “the king of
sacrifices.” The name given by the Romans to a priest who, after the abolition of
the royal power, had to perform certain religious rites connected with the name of king. He
resembles the King Archon of the Athenian constitution. He was always a patrician, was chosen
for life by the Pontifex Maximus with the assistance of the whole pontifical college (of which
he became a member), and was inaugurated by the augurs. Although he was externally of high
rank and, like the Pontifex Maximus, had an official residence in the Regia, the royal abode
of Numa, and took the chair at the feasts and other festivities of the
pontifices, yet in his religious authority he ranked below the Pontifex Maximus, and
was not allowed to hold any public office, or even to address the people in public. His wife
(like the wives of the flamens) participated in the priesthood. Our information as to the
details of the office is imperfect. Before the knowledge of the calendar became public
property, it was the duty of the Rex Sacrorum to summon the people to the Capitol on the
Calends and Nones of each month, and to announce the festivals for the month. On the Calends
he and the
regina sacrificed, and at the same time invoked Ianus. Of the
other sacrifices known to us we may mention the Regifugium on Feb. 24th, when the Rex Sacrorum
sacrificed at the Comitium, and then fled in haste. This has been erroneously explained as a
commemoration of the flight of Tarquinius Superbus, the last of the Roman kings; but it is
much more probably one of the customs handed down from the time of the kings themselves, and
perhaps connected with the purificatory sacrifice from which the month of February derived its
name. At the end of the Republic the office, owing to the political disability attaching to
the holder, proved unattractive, and was sometimes left unfilled; but under Augustus it
appears to have been restored to fresh dignity, and in imperial times it continued to exist,
at any rate, as late as the third century. See Mommsen,
Röm.
Staatsrecht, ii. 13-15 (3d ed.); Marquardt,
Staatsverwaltung, iii.
321-324 (2d ed.).
