67 



were kept in a chapel under the charge of the Augnstales, and 

 that here the sacrifices or other rites were performed. ' Their 

 functions, as far as they were religious, were perhaps confined 

 to the performance of a sacrifice on one day in the year, or the 

 burning of incense with prayers, or the pouring out of a libation. 

 The religious part of the sacrifice itself, if it were not a holo- 

 caust, was little more than a grace before meat, preparatory to 

 the feasting upon the slaughtered victim. The dignity was 

 conferred by the decree of the Decurions, ^ probably only giving 

 a legal and formal validity to an election by the people. The 

 Seviri {ormed a. collegium ^ or legal corporation, a privilege granted 

 very sparingly by the Roman emperors, who dreaded nothing 

 so much as the formation of new corporate bodies. Pliny the 

 Younger consulted Trajan as seriously, about the formation of a 

 company of firemen at Nicomedia, * as about the desertion of 

 the temples from the progress of Christianity, and the Emperor 

 chose rather to incur all the risks which the Propraetor pointed 

 out to him, than sanction its establishment. Being thus incor- 

 porated they had a common chest, area Sevirorum, a permission 

 specially granted to them, as an inscription records,* by Antoninus 

 Pius. To this public chest we find a wife in one instance, a 

 fireedman in another, bequeathing money, for the maintenance 

 of the husband's or patron's statue,^ and a husband, that 

 funeral libations (profusiones), and an annual strewing of roses 

 might be made on his wife's grave. Another Sevir leaves a 

 legacy to his collegium, that from the interest they might have 

 an annual feast. ' For the management of their property, like 

 other collegia, they had a Quaestor ® or Treasurer, a Patronus 

 and a Magister, one or more, the nature of whose office is not 

 clear. Nor do we know the nature of the distinction between 

 the Seviri Seniorum and Juniorum, beyond what the name itself 



* Alexander Severus had two Lararia, in one of which he every morning performed 

 divine rites to his predecessors. M\. Lampr. 29. 



^ L. Junius Puteolanus Sevir Augustalis in Monicipio Suelitano D.D. i.e. Decreto 

 Decurionum. Orelli 3914, 3942. 



3 Orem3953. ■• Plin. Ep. 10, 42. « Grater 419, 7. 



6 Grat. 424, 12, 348, 1. ' Grater 439, 2. OreUi 3927. 



• Orelli 3954. Grater 149, 5. 



