Quaestiones Romanae

Why, among those called Fetiales, or, as we should say in Greek, peace-makers or treaty-bringers, was he who was called pater patratus considered the chief? The pater patratus [*](Plutarch here mistakenly explains patrimus instead of patratus: contrast Livy, i. 24. 6; Tacitus, Hist. iv. 53.) is a man whose father is still alive and who has children; even now he possesses a certain preferment and confidence, for the praetors entrust to him any wards whose beauty and youth require a careful and discreet guardianship.

Is it because there attaches to these men respect for their children and reverence for their fathers?

Or does the name suggest the reason? For patratus means, as it were, completed or perfected, since he to whose lot it has fallen to become a father while he still has a father is more perfect than other men.

Or should the man who presides over oaths and treaties of peace be, in the words of Homer,[*](Il. i. 343, Od. xxiv. 452; Cf. Shakespeare, Hamlet, iv. iv. 37; Shelley, Ode to a Skylark (18th stanza).) one looking before and after? Such a man above all others would be he that has a son to plan for and a father to plan with.

Why is the so-called rex sacrorum, that is to say king of the sacred rites, forbidden to hold office or to address the people?[*](Cf. Livy, ii. 2. 1-2; ix. 34. 12; xl. 42.)

Is it because in early times the kings performed the greater part of the most important rites, and themselves offered the sacrifices with the assistance of the priests? But when they did not practise moderation, but were arrogant and oppressive, most of the Greek states took away their authority, and left to them only the offering of sacrifice to the gods: but the Romans expelled their kings altogether, and to offer the sacrifices they appointed another, whom they did not allow to hold office or to address the people, so that in their sacred rites only they might seem to be subject to a king, and to tolerate a kingship only on the gods’ account.[*](Ibid. iii. 39. 4.) At any rate, there is a sacrifice traditionally performed in the forum at the place called Comitium, and, when the rex has performed this, he flees from the forum as fast as he can.[*](The Regifugium; Cf. Ovid, Fasti, ii. 685 ff.: see the Cambridge Ancient History, vol. vii. p. 408.)