Besides these, all the priests had to be patricians; the chief of all was called Pontifex Maximus.

Some say this was because he was the _fax_ (maker) of _pontes_ (bridges), as he blessed them and decided by omens where they should be; but others think the word was Pompifex, and that he was the maker of pomps or ceremonies.

There were many priests as well as augurs, who had to draw omens from the flight of birds or the appearance of sacrifices, and who kept the account of the calendar of lucky and unlucky days, and of festivals.
[Illustration: FEMALE COSTUMES.] The Romans were a grave religious people in those days, and did not count their lives or their affections dear in comparison with their duties to their altars and their hearths, though their notions of duty do not always agree with ours.

Their dress in the city was a white woollen garment edged with purple--it must have been more like in shape to a Scottish plaid than anything else--and was wrapped round so as to leave one arm free: sometimes a fold was drawn over the head.

No one might wear it but a free-born Roman, and he never went out on public business without it, even when more convenient fashions had been copied from Greece.