, in order that the worship might be entirely acceptable to
the deity invoked, it was essential that the person who conducted it
should be also acceptable. At the head of the whole system was the rex,
who was priest as well as king. We do not know, of course, exactly how
the rex was appointed; but in the case of the typical priest-king Numa,
Livy has described his _inauguratio_ in terms of the _ius divinum_ of
later times for the appointment of priests, and we may take it as fairly
certain that the same principle held good from the earliest times.[353]
After being summoned (so the story ran) from the Sabine city of Cures by
the Senate, he consulted the gods about his own fitness. He was then
conducted by the augur to the arx on the Capitol, and sat down on a
stone facing the south. The augur took his seat on his left hand (the
lucky side) with veiled head, holding the _lituus_[354] of his office
in his right hand, with which, after a prayer, he marked out the
_regiones_ from east to west, the north being to the left, the south to
the right, and silently noted some object in the extreme distance of the
_ager Romanus_, as the farthest point where the appearance of an omen
might be accepted. Then, passing the _lituus_ to his left hand, he laid
his right on the head of Numa, and uttered this prayer: "Father Jupiter,
if it be thy will (_fas_) that this Numa Pompilius, on whose head my
hand is laid, be king of Rome, I pray thee give us clear token within
the limits which I have marked out." Then he said aloud what auspicia he
sought for (_i.e._ whether of birds, lightning, or what); and when they
appeared, Numa descended as rex from the citadel. This process was
called _inauguratio_; it is attested for the confirmation of the
election of the three flamines maiores, the rex, and the augurs, in
historical times,[355] whatever was the method of that election, and
without it the priest was not believed to be acceptable to the gods. It
is not mentioned by Roman writers in connection with the Pontifices or
the Vestals; if this be not merely from dearth of evidence, it is not
easy to account for, unless the reason were that neither body was
specially concerned with sacrifice. But the principle is perfectly
clear--that the person who is to represent the community in worship must
be one of whom the _numina_ openly express approval.

A priest, _sacerdos_, is thus a person set apart by special ritual for
the service of the _sacra populi