Restrictions
To counterbalance these high honours, the Dialis was subjected to many restrictions and privations, a long catalogue of which was compiled by Aulus Gellius from the works of Fabius Pictor and Masurius Sabinus, while Plutarch, in his Roman Questions, endeavours to explain their import. Among these were the following:
It was unlawful for him to be out of the city for a single night; a regulation which seems to have been modified by Augustus, insofar that an absence of two nights was permitted; and he was forbidden to sleep out of his own bed for three nights consecutively. Thus, it was impossible for him to undertake the government of a province. He might not mount or even touch a horse, touch iron, or look at an army marshalled outside the pomerium, or be elected to the consulship. Indeed, it would seem that originally he was altogether precluded from seeking or accepting any civil magistracy; but this last prohibition was certainly not enforced in later times. The Flamen Dialis was required to wear certain unusual garments, such as the apex, a point-tipped hat, and a laena, a heavy wool cloak.
The object of these rules was clearly to make him literally Jovi adsiduum sacerdotem (the constant priest of Jove), to compel constant attention to the duties of the priesthood, and to leave him effectively without any temptation to neglect them. The origins of the following superstitions are not so clear, but there is speculation in Plutarch, Festus, and Pliny the Elder.
He was not allowed to swear an oath, nor to wear a ring nisi pervio et cass, that is, as they explain it, unless plain and without stones; nor to strip himself naked in the open air, nor to go out without his proper head-dress, nor to have a knot in any part of his attire, nor to walk along a path over-canopied by vines. He might not touch flour, nor leaven, nor leavened bread, nor a dead body: he might not enter a burial place, but was not prevented from attending a funeral. He was forbidden either to touch or to name a dog, a she-goat, ivy, beans, or raw flesh. None but a free man might cut his hair; the clippings of which, together with the parings of his nails, were buried beneath a felix arbor. No one might sleep in his bed, the legs of which were smeared with fine clay; and it was unlawful to place a box containing sacrificial cakes in contact with the bedstead.
In the view of Dumézil, these prohibitions mark the Flamen Dialis as serving a heavenly god, with his attributes of absolute purity and freedom, but also wielder of lightning and kingship. Within in his scope of action there are the domains of political power and right, but not battle, which belongs to Mars. His solidarity with the king is reflected in that of his earthly counterpart, the rex, with the Flamen Dialis. Such a partnership has parallels in other Indo-European cultures, such as that of the Vedic rajan and his purohita and the ancient Irish rig and the chief druid.
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