Fetial

Quick meaning: Fetial is a noun meaning Concerned with declarations of war and treaties of peace.

Meaning

Concerned with declarations of war and treaties of peace.

More Meanings

1. (Ancient Rome, politics, religion, historical) A member of the Roman college of priests who acted as representatives in disputes with foreign nations.
2. Of or relating to a fetial (member of the Roman college of priests who acted as representatives in disputes with foreign nations); (by extension) ambassadorial, heraldic.

Example Sentences

Fetiales also investigated allies' claims of abuse by Romans; if substantiated, the fetiales delivered the men accused to the injured parties.

Nicomachus, as explained in the next line, was already known to the Elean priests or fetials, or whatever we are to call them, as a guest-friend.

The institution of a college of heralds and the fecial law, were proofs of a people considerably advanced in the cultivation of the law of nations as a science; and yet with what little attention they were accustomed to listen to the voice of justice and humanity, […]

According to authors of the late Republic, the fetials supervised Roman adherence to the iura belli, the laws of war. How, then, should we interpret the silence with respect to the fetials of Polybius, the central concern of whose history was Roman imperialism, but who mentions the fetials not even once?

Word Forms

• fetials

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include fetialis, verbenarius, pontifex, pontiff, father, senator.

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