Alexander VII, Pontifex Maximus, wrote him into the number of holy and blessed martyrs on the 17th day of April in the year 1664.

True, it was in reference to a spiritual matter, but emperors, from Caesar downwards, as Pontifex Maximus, had believed it their right and province to meddle in such matters.

[Sidenote: Labassi, summus idolorum pontifex.]

Vna est ibi inter et super omnes ciuitas Sacerdotalis, et Regia, in qua Rex habet suum magnificum palatium, et summus Idolorum Pontifex quem Labassi appellant, cui omnes Regni obediunt et populi sicut Domino Papæ nos Christiani quoniam et iubet, et benedicit, ac confert sacerdotibus beneficia idolorum.

He felt no pleasure, as he himself says, "in relating what was set forth on the tablet in the house of the Pontifex Maximus, how often wheat had been dear, and when the sun or moon had been eclipsed;" and so he devoted the second and third books of his historical work to accounts of the origin of the other Italian communities and of their admission to the Roman confederacy.

P. Crassus Mutianus, quinque habuisse dicitur rerum bonarum maxima, quod esset ditissimus, quod esset nobilissimus, eloquentissimus, Jurisconsultissimus, Pontifex maximus.

Pontifex Romanus prorsus inermis regibus terrae jura dat, ad regna evehit ad pacem cogit, et peccantes castigat, &c. quod imperatores Romani 40.

This office they made subordinate to the pontifex maximus, that the holder might not, if high office were added to the title, prove detrimental to liberty, which was then their principal care.

The senate referred the matter from themselves to the people, and ordained that, to whichever of them the task of dedication should be intrusted by order of the people, he should preside over the markets, establish a guild of merchants, and perform the ceremonies in presence of the Pontifex Maximus.

[Footnote 1: The functions of the old priest-king were divided, the political being assigned to the consuls, the duty of sacrificing to the newly-created rex sacrificulus, who was chosen from the patricians: he was, nevertheless, subject to the control of the Pontifex Maximus, by whom he was chosen from several nominees of the college of priests.]

He was Pontifex Maximus, rich, high-born, eloquent, and of great legal knowledge; and from his intimacy with the Gracchi and Scipio he must have been an unusually favourable specimen of the aristocrat of the day.

In the middle of the banquet his wife Metella sickened, and in order that, as Pontifex, he might prevent his home being polluted by death he divorced her, and removed her to another house while still alive.

It has the following Latin inscription: VII IM CAESAR AVGVSTVS PONTIFEX MAX VIAM.

These decrees of the senate having been passed, Lucius Cornelius Lentulus, pontifex maximus, the college of praetors consulting with him, gives his opinion that, first of all, the people should be consulted respecting a sacred spring: that it could not be without the order of the people.

In the night, after Caesar's death he occupied the forum with his troops and thought of making himself master of the city, but Antonius dissuaded him from that idea and won him over to his views by giving his daughter in marriage to Lepidus's son, and by assisting him to seize on the office of Pontifex Maximus, which was vacant by Caesar's death.

My own secret hope had been, that, by an Act of the Legislature, which that very season had changed Pontifex Parker to Charles Alfred Parker, Mr. Sampson might be accommodated with a name less unspeakably national.

In his young days he was intimate with the famous Pontifex Maximus, Mucius Scaevola, who held that there were three religions,that of the poets, that of the philosophers, and that of the statesman, of which the last must be accepted and acted on, whether it be true or not.

But in that generation no one had the shrewdness or experience of Augustus, and no one but Julius had the necessary free hand; and we may be almost sure that Julius, Pontifex Maximus though he was, was entirely unfitted by nature and experience to undertake a work that called for such delicate handling, such insight into the working of the ignorant Italian mind.

This is supposed to have taken place at the house of Aurelius Cotta, then Pontifex Maximusan office which answered nearly to that of Minister of religion.

Then Cottawho though, as Pontifex, he is a national priest by vocation, is of that sect in philosophy which makes doubt its creedresumes his objections.

This practice was followed at regular periods, established by custom, but not for any such reason as his, and he himself, being pontifex, understood that fact.

Pontifex, son & Thorndyke.

Pontifex, son & Thorndyke.

Pontifex, son & Thorndyke.

Pontifex, son & Thorndyke.