cows, and oxen) with a rope or line around its neck to the altar (fig. 12.1 above).
Attendants and servants are shown pouring a liquid, the wine, into the paterathe
priest or magistrate is holding. The young camillias well as the elder ministri, obvi-
ously the victimarii, are often presented with the mantele(kind of hand-towel) (Fless
1995: tab. 2.1). These attendants assisted the sacrificer in the necessary purification
rites with water and towel, as part of the so-called pre-sacrifices with wine, if it was
a libation, and with incense. They poured wine over the animal-victim’s head before
an immolation took place. After those pre-sacrifices it was the victimarius’ turn. He
had a culter(knife) with which the sacrificial victim’s carotid was cut through and
the exta(entrails) were cut out (Siebert 1999: 79– 84).
Apparitores: Public Attendants of Magistrates and
Priests Paid by the State or the Cities
Unlike most of the above mentioned slave-servants, freedmen, or freeborn citizens
in ritual contexts, the so-called apparitoresreceived a fixed salary and were paid by
the state. These apparitoresserved the Roman magistrates in the city of Rome and
during their term of office in the provinces. Apparitores are also known from
municipiaand coloniaein Italy and the provinces. Our sources for the apparitores
are identical to those for the ministri. However, we have more inscriptions (more
than five hundred in Rome, Italy, and the provinces) and more depictions, especially
of the lictors and their fasces, bundles of rods with an axe. In republican times, the
fasces had not been just symbols of power but were used for punishment: flogging
with the rods and executions with the axe. According to Gladigow (1972) they
thus had a sacral function on their own. From late republican times the lictors no
longer had the right to punish. The fasceswere reduced to symbols of power. During
the empire, the fascesseem to have become such popular symbols of outstanding
power that they were often presented on funerary reliefs of magistrates of the cities
or municipal priests of the imperial cult, even if these men had lictors only on spe-
cial occasions or were not allowed to have as many fascesas were depicted on their
funerary reliefs (Schäfer 1989: 209–21).
Most apparitoreswere freeborn, though some were freedmen-citizens (Purcell 1983:
161–70). They included the scribae (professional writers), accensi (attendants),
lictores(lictors), viatores (agents on official errands, messengers), and praecones
(announcers, criers). In the city of Rome, not only did they attend the magistrates to
perform their duties and to represent the power of the magistrate, but some of them
were also part of the priestly representation and entourage. We know of viatores
of the senatorial priestly colleges of augures, the decemviri epulonesand the sodales
Augustales(Rüpke 2005a: 624). Twelve lictors went in front of a consul wherever
the latter set his course. They even wore the same cloths as the consul to multiply
his presence and representation of power. Lictors were also part of the representa-
tion of the pontificesand the Vestal Virgins, although they had only one or two lictors.
Apart from the viatores, who were agents to some priests and priestly collegia, and
whose duties were thus connected to religion in a wider sense, we do not know of
334 Marietta Horster