---
title: "annotation of r/askhistorians - comment by u/silas_of_the_lambs on ”what were the distinctions between magistrates, priests, & augurs during the roman republic?”"
layout: post
category: responses
tags: annotation
replyto: "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/qtbizf/what_were_the_distinctions_between_magistrates/"
date: "2022-01-29T03:58:39.940462+00:00"
hypothesislink: "https://hyp.is/vjAqeoC3Eey3f1c0CorQSg/www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/qtbizf/what_were_the_distinctions_between_magistrates/"
---



> ...ary career worth talking about. <em>The [flamen dialis](#flamen dialis), a priest specially dedicated to [Jupiter](#jupiter), could never leave Rome for more than one night and could never touch [iron](#iron) or ride a horse, and he could never attain the high office of consul.  </em>However, members of the college ...

Has anyone ever written fiction about a person in this position? 


> ...ontifex Maximus or chief priest. <em>A magistrate could instead be an [augur](#augury), a different sort of religious functionary whose job was specifically the reading of Omens. In Roman society, practically every major public event was preceded by an augur doing some kind of thing to make sure the gods approved of whatever the event was. The two main ways of doing this were by examining the flight of birds and by [slaughtering an animal or bird and examining its entrails](#haruspicy). Doing this was important enough that we are aware of manuals and diagrams to show people how to do it correctly. As your quotation points out, an augur could in theory put a hard stop on substantially anything the Roman State attempted to do simply by claiming that the Omens were bad. Caesar's co-consul Bibulus used this technique (as a magistrate, per your source) on several occasions to try to block Caesar's agenda, but was generally unsuccessful.</em> In sum, a magistrate was an elec...

[Devereaux](#bret devereaux) has emphasized this "are the gods okay with it??" religious orientation a lot -- I wonder how contemporary e.g. Slavic paganism compared.