flamen

A ' (plural, ') was a specific type of priest ("sacerdos") in the ancient Roman religion and one of the oldest classes of the Roman priesthood, with origins likely predating the Republican era. These flamines, of which there were fifteen, were high-ranking members of the College of Pontiffs who administered and oversaw the various cults of the state-sponsored religion, both collectively and individually. The most important of these were the three ("major priests"), who each served one of the gods of the Archaic Triad: Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus. The remaining twelve ("lesser priests") served various minor deities, of whom little is definitively known, with two of their identities even being forgotten. While these original flamines lost most of their cultural and religious significance by the dawn of the Empire, the term flamen went on to be used in reference to priests of the cults of deified Emperors ().

== Etymology == The etymology of remains obscure, and perhaps undecidable. The term is traditionally connected with the Proto-Germanic verb *blōtaną ("to sacrifice"; cf. Gothic blotan), by positing a Proto-Indo-European stem *bʰleh₂d-m(e)n- (or *bʰleh₂g-m(e)n-), which could have originally meant "sacrifice". However, the link remains uncertain since it is impossible to decide whether the Latin form reflects an earlier flă-men, flăd-men or flăg-smen.