FLA'MENS (of doubtful origin; by sonic eon fleeted with Skt, brahman, priest. from barb, to he great ; by others compared with Goth. b/4tan, AS. Wotan, to reverence, or with Lat. flagrare, to blaze. Gk.OX/yeiv,phlegein, to burn, Skt. bhraj, to be bright; hardly related to Lat. flare, to blow, 01-1G. bbljan, Ger. bliihen, AS. blatran, Eng. Wow). In the Roman religion, sacrificial priests, each of some special divinity. They were some times chosen for life, sometimes annually: some times were attached to rollegia ; sometimes, espe cially outside of Rome, were independent. The most important were those attached to the College of Pontifices, originally 15 in number, of whom 12 (flamines minores) were plebeians and seem early to have been neglected, as the names of only 9 are known. The remaining 3 (famines maiores, or simply famines) were always patricians, and were the famines Dialis, Martialis,Quirinalis. All of these were bound by a strict ceremonial, which for a long time prohibited them from holding any other office: and though this rule was re laxed from about B.C. 200, permission to hold military command or to be absent from Italy was never granted to the famines Dialis, and only very late to the others. The fawn Dialis (of Jupiter) was bound by very strict regula tions. Ile could not take an oath, mount a horse, see an army, or even any one at work; he' must keep carefully aloof from all impurity, and al ways wear his official dress, fastened with brooches, for no knot was allowed, and on his head the pilleus. a pointed cap, on the top of
which an olive twig was fastened by a fillet of wool. He was also forbidden to pass a night away from his house. His wife, the flaminica, a priestess of Juno, was bound by similar re strictions, and in ease of her death the flamen was obliged to resign. These restrictions were ac companied by privileges—the curule chair, the toga prceterta, the attendance of a lictor, and a seat in the Senate—while a prisoner who en tered his house was at once freed from his chains, and he who touched his knee could not be exe cuted on that day. The office was found so burdensome that during the last century of the Republic it remained unoccupied for seventy-five years. The famines were installed in the Comitia Calata, and were chosen by the pontilex maximus from three candidates nominated by the ponti flees. Other tlamens were the flamines curiales, famines dirorum for the worship of the em perors, and the flamen arvalinm, belonging to the Arval Brothers (q.v.). Consult : Marquardt, "Riimisehe Staatsverwaltung," in Handbuch der rijmischen (Leipzig, 1885) ; Harem berg and Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiguites grecques et romaines ( Paris, 1896).