office
rex sacrorum
also: king of the rites
A patrician priest, the 'king of the sacred rites', who inherited the religious functions of the kings after the founding of the Republic. Cicero lists the office among the patrician priesthoods that would be lost if adoptions like Clodius's emptied the patriciate.
Reading notes
- On His House §38 rex sacrorum
The rex sacrorum, flamines, Salii, and interrex were all patrician priesthoods and offices; Cicero warns that adoptions like Clodius's, draining the patriciate, would leave Rome unable to fill them and so destroy the auspices of the Roman people.