Flamen Dialis

“ This is reflected generally in the Roman priesthood, but especially in the ceremonial surrounding the flamen Dialis, the priest of Iuppiter. He must appear always in festival garb, fire may never be taken from his hearth but for sacred purposes, no other person may ever sleep in his bed, the cuttings of his hair and nails must be preserved and buried beneath an arbor felix—no doubt a magic charm for fertility—he must not eat or even mention a goat or a bean, or other objects of an unlucky character. ”

“ It was the three chief flamines who thus drove to the Capitol—i. e. those of Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus; these at least were the three who had been just instituted by Numa (Liv. 1. 20) , and to them Livy must be referring. As has been often pointed out, the presence of flamines at a rite is always evidence of its antiquity; and in this case they may have represented the union of the two communities of Septimontium and Quirinal in a common worship on the Capitol, this central point being represented by the Flamen Dialis. ”

“ Nothing so easily drew the storm-wind of Flamin's anger out of its cavern, as a doleful voice and long religious edicts. "For God's sake," cried Flamin, "let that be enough now,—God shall punish me, I will be lost to all eternity, I swear to you, if I ever touch him even." This oath which escaped him was magnificent marshmallow-paste and soft ice-cream for the heated court-chaplain, who from forgetfulness of his order of business now adopted the opinion that the betrothal was already full well known to the Regency-Councillor. ”

“ Clearing his way to the altar-steps, Perseus heard hurriedly from Dictys what was happening: how the king, taking advantage of his absence, had been persecuting Danae to marry him against her will, and had at last driven her into the temple to make her his wife by force. Dictys alone had come to her rescue; but what could one man do against the king and all his guards?
“And now you have come,” sighed Dictys, “you will be slain too. See, they are coming on!”
“You sent me to slay Medusa, King Polydectes,” cried Perseus. ”

“ The candidates for the vacant post were Cnaeus Sicinius and L. Pupius, who had been aediles during the previous year; C. Valerius, one of the Flamens of Jupiter, and Q. Fulvius Flaccus, who was curule aedile designate, and therefore did not appear in a candidate's dress, though he was most active of all in his canvassing. The contest lay between him and the Flamen. ”

“ Hostilities were renewed in the spring of 197, and Flamininus took the field supported by nearly the whole of Greece. At Cynoscephalae the Macedonian phalanx and the Roman legion for the first time met in open fight, and the day decided which nation was to be master of Greece and perhaps of the world. It was a victory of superior tactics. The left wing of the Roman army was retiring in confusion before the Macedonian right led by Philip in person, when Flamininus, leaving them to their fate, boldly charged the left wing under Nicanor, which was forming on the heights. ”

“ There seems no doubt that Flamininus was actuated by a genuine love of Greece and its people. To attribute to him a Machiavellian policy, which foresaw the overthrow of Corinth fifty years later and the conversion of Achaea into a Roman province, is absurd and disingenuous. There is more force in the charge that his Hellenic sympathies prevented him from seeing the innate weakness and mutual jealousies of the Greek states of that period, whose only hope of peace and safety lay in submitting to the protectorate of the Roman republic. ”

“ Dion.
"Oh," cried Daphne, shuddering, "never! We couldn't even by daylight, and now it is almost dark."
"Anyway," said Dion, "we're safer being lost here than anywhere else in
Athens. It's where the Gods live. Maybe they'll take care of us."
"We might sacrifice something on an altar," said Daphne, "and pray, the way Father does."
"We haven't a thing to sacrifice," answered Dion. "We haven't anything to eat even for ourselves." ”

“ FLAMINIUS, GAIUS, Roman statesman and general, of plebeian family. During his tribuneship (232 B.C.) , in spite of the determined opposition of the senate and his own father, he carried a measure for distributing among the plebeians the ager Gallicus Picenus, an extensive tract of newly-acquired territory to the south of Ariminum (Cicero, De senectute, 4, Brutus, 14) . As praetor in 227, he gained the lasting gratitude of the people of his province (Sicily) by his excellent administration. ”

“ It made me dizzy; it provoked Mor Ag because he could not name them! It enraged Hul Jok, inflamed him with desire to attack the whole throng, shatter them—why, he could not have told, but looking at them made him feel that way. Ron Ti was mildly curious; Vir Dax frantic with ambition to study such beings—our Lady of Bliss deliver me from the curiosity of such as Vir Dax, his methods of study!
Only Toj Qui and Lan Apo remained unperturbed: Toj Qui because he is a diplomat, therefore in no wise startled or amazed at, or by, anything. ”

“ What, dost thou think Flaminius hath no friends For to revenge his death on thee again? Yes, be you sure that, ere you scape from hence, Thy gasping ghost shall bear him company, Or else myself, fighting for his defense, Will be content by those thy hands to die. Alphonsus
Laelius, few words would better thee become, Especially as now the case doth stand; And didst thou know whom thou dost threaten thus, We should you have more calmer out of hand: For, Laelius, know that I Alphonsus am, The son and heir to old Carinus, whom The traitorous father of Flaminius Did secretly bereave his diadem. ”

“ Who in thy dark and watery deep doth rest,—
The stern Flaminius,—he who saw defeat
The eagle standard quell, and fled to hide
His burning shame with thee, holding the frown
And grasp of pitiless Death, less terrible
Than Rome's upbraiding eye.—
In earth he dream'd
To strike a root eternal, and to hang
Unfading garlands on the fickle sky
Of stormy honour.—Even then was spread
Thy bulrush pall for him,—and from their cells
Thy scaly monsters throng'd at his approach
To gaze upon him. ”

“ At the Isthmian games, held at Corinth the year after the downfall of Philip, the Roman consul Flaminius, a true friend of Greece, under the authority of the Roman Senate caused proclamation to be made, that Rome "took off all impositions and withdrew all garrisons from Greece, and restored liberty, and their own laws and privileges, to the several states" (196 B.C.) . The deluded Greeks received this announcement with exultation, and the highest honors which a grateful people could bestow were showered upon Flaminius. ”

“ The ager of the Senonians is part of the Romagna, of Urbino, and the March of Ancona; the colony of Ariminum was already established there. Polybius, in a most unaccountable manner, calls this motion of Flaminius an attempt at rebellion; an example of how even a sensible man may err in judging of some particular circumstance, or follow others, without thinking himself on the subject. As none of the other tribunes would interfere, those who were in power got the father of Flaminius to make his son desist; and the old man ascended the rostra, and led him off. ”

“ We are always at our hardest just after an attendrissement—and moved to tears just after some murderous rage—as earthquakes set warm springs flowing. Now I know quite well that, to-morrow, at the sitting of the council, I shall attack and oppose everybody and everything. Pitiable! pitiable! And you are not a whit better, Flamin.”
“Not a whit,” said Flamin, with touching candour. Luna and my wife took the Professor’s wife between them (each taking one of her children in her lap) , and sat down upon the green nether slope of the hill, on the sunny side of the nightingale. ”

“ But Claudis Flamma for all that prayed on, entreating the mercy and guidance of Heaven, whilst the gore dripped from the dead rabbit, and the silent song-birds hung stiff upon the nail.
"Thou hast a good laborer," said the old woman Pitchou, with curt significance, to her master, meeting him in the raw of the dawn of the morrow, as he drew the bolts from his house-door. "Take heed that thou dost not drive her away, Flamma. One may beat a saddled mule safely, but hardly so a wolf's cub." ”

“ He felt overwhelmed by this sudden and unexpected crisis in his life. He pitied himself and each one of them for being, as it were, called to arms without hint or warning of war. And Lilia—he felt almost as if her holiest feelings were to be outraged. Yet, without troubling the dying man, he could do nothing to protect her.
There was a hush in the sick chamber. Roderick stood leaning against a wardrobe; Mr. Pym remained quietly seated as if he were on the magisterial bench, or in his pew in church. Presently the door opened, and Lilia came in, followed by Mr. Mervyn. ”

“ Diodoros and Melissa knew every note sung by the Greeks or Egyptians of Alexandria, at this or any other festival, but this melody was strange to them; and when the young man whispered to the girl, "What is it that they are singing?" she replied, as though startled from sleep, "They are no mere mortals!"
Diodoros shuddered; he fancied that the procession was floating above the earth; that, if they had been indeed men of flesh and blood, their steps would have been more distinctly audible on the pavement. ”

“ During this conversation Flannigan had not betrayed the slightest interest in what was going on. He raised his head now, and looked at the captain.
"Don't you think you are rather underrating them?" he said. "Every secret society has produced desperate men—why shouldn't the Fenians have them too? Many men think it a privilege to die in the service of a cause which seems right in their eyes, though others may think it wrong." ”

“ The Flamp took down one paw from its desert of face and peered out. Then he sprang to his feet and rubbed his heavy, watery, blue eyes in blank astonishment. Tilsa and Tobene did not move. They stood still, gazing into the Flamp's great, mournful face, now wrinkled up with surprise and excitement.
Then the Flamp spoke—'What?' he said, 'kids? Real kids? Flesh-and-blood kids? Human, rollicking, kind-hearted kids?'
'We are real children,' Tilsa replied at length, 'if that is what you mean, and, oh, we are so glad to have found you! ”

“ The doctor’s joy was seemingly so unfeigned that Dillon almost liked him for a moment. He placed no obstacle in the path of the suitor for his adopted daughter’s hand, graciously expressing every confidence in the future. His joy was genuine enough, Dillon determined; but from what source did it actually spring? The Thoth-like eyes were exultant, and all the old mistrust poured back in a wave upon the younger man. Was this distrust becoming an obsession? Why should he eternally be seeking an ulterior motive for every act in this man’s life? ”

“ At the end, the Flamp bowed again and laid a massive paw upon his heart. Then he replied. He began by thanking the Liglid for his kind welcome, continued with the expression of his determination to do in the future all that he could for the good of the city, and ended with a eulogy of Tilsa and Tobene.
'They are, if I may use the word,' he said feelingly, 'kids which any city should be proud of. And to be the grandfather of such bricks ought to be as good as smush and a perpetual delight. ”

“ Like Melissa, her lover and Alexander had been led by thorny paths to the stars which shine on happy souls and shed their light in the hearts of those to whom the higher truth is revealed. It was as Christians that Diodoros and Alexander both came to visit the convalescent. That which had won so many Alexandrians to the blessings of the new faith had attracted them too, and the certainty of finding their beloved among the Christians had been an added inducement to crave instruction from Zeno. ”

“ Here Æneas meets the shade of Dido, and learns what he had only feared before. With tears of love and pity he approaches and addresses her; but she, in indignant silence, turns away.
They reach the fields where souls of slain warriors dwell, still handling their shadowy arms and ghostly chariots. With empty, voiceless shouts the Trojan dead greet their hero, in wonder that he comes still living among them, while the Grecian shades flee gibbering away. ”

“ I don't understand things. But I believe you. Dino, if it were for another man, and not for yourself, that you had to decide this thing——'
He drew away his hand, and looked away from her across the rippling sea. The breeze was freshening a little; there were long rents of darkness overhead where the fog was breaking, and showing the blue of the sky.
'Dino,' the persuasive voice went on, 'you might deceive yourself, not knowing, but you would not deceive me—your old playmate—your little sweetheart, who trusts you—trusts you against all the world. Dino, tell me. ”

“ Dino lay upon the grass and watched him. An insane desire, a fantastic whim, born of no conceivable reason, prompted him to inform this half-brutalised peasant of his real object and intentions. He was seized with a wild craving to explain it all, to tell the shepherd who he was, what he proposed to do, and how he—he, Dino de' Rossi,—that young fellow lying on his back in the sun, that idler in a workman's dress, without a soldo in his pocket, was in very truth a messenger of Fate, a condemned man, the future assassin of a king. ”

“ Flamin is more powerfully affected by distant than by near nature, by the gross than by the detail, just as he has more feeling for the state than for the family room, and his inner man loves best to twine upward on pyramids, tempests, Alps. The Chaplain enjoys nothing about the whole thing except—May-butter, and from his mouth, amidst all this moral apparatus, issues nothing but—spittle, and both, because he is afraid of the damp's preying upon him and gnawing at his throat and stomach. ”