66 



These two titles, Sevir and Augustalis, are so frequently com- 

 bined in inscriptions as to leave no doubt that when Sevir occurs 

 alone, Augustalis is to be understood. The institution of the 

 Augustales, or Sodales Augustales, is mentioned by Tacitus 

 (Ann. 1. 34) ; they were instituted by Tiberius in honour of his 

 deceased father, after the model of the Sodales Titii, whom 

 Titus Tatius, king of the Sabines, was said to have created/ The 

 first men of the state, to the number of twenty-one, with Tiberius 

 Drusus, Claudius and Germanicus constituted the sodalitaSf 

 and their office appears to have related not only to Octavianus 

 Augustus individually, but to the Augustan house generally, as 

 we find them employed in performing funeral obsequies to 

 Nero. ^ In the absence of all positive information, we can only 

 conjecture that the spirit of flattery led the provincial towns to 

 show their loyalty by establishing a body of Augustales. They 

 are mentioned in inscriptions of the age of Tiberius found at 

 Veii and at Puteoli, ^ and in the later times of the empire, the 

 monuments bear witness, that in every province some town or 

 other had instituted a similar priesthood in honour of the 

 Augustan family. We find also mention of Seviri Claudiales 

 and Flaviales, but these are rare (Zumpt p. 34, 35.) 



When we speak of a priesthood, however, in reference to Roman 

 customs, we must not be misled by modern ideas, to think of an 

 order of men, set apart for religious duties, and bearing an inde- 

 lible character opposed to that of laymen. The Romans knew no 

 such correlatives as priest and layman ; and a man no more 

 lost his civil character, by becoming a pontifex or Augustalis, 

 than among us by being a churchwarden. It is true the office 

 was permanent, and not annual, like that to which we have 

 compared it. The title is joined in some inscriptions with the 

 office of Magister Lararii Augustorum, from which we may 

 infer that the imagines, or waxen portraits of the emperors 



* Morcelli de Stilo Inscr. Lat. Lib. 1. part 1. tit. 1. Orelli, however, deduces 

 the origin of the Augustales from the institution of the worship of the Lares by 

 Augustus, mentioned by the Scholiasts on Hor. Sat. 2, 3, 281. " Ab Augusto enim 

 Lares, id est dii domestici, in compitis positi sunt ; ex libertinis sacerdotes dati, 

 qui Augustales sunt appellati." ^ Tac. Hist. 2, 95. 



3 A. W. Zumpt de Seviris Aug. Dissert, p. 20. Orelli, 4046, 607. 



