 In post-Severan times (after 235 CE), the small number of pagan senators interested in becoming pontiffs led to a change in the pattern of office holding.In Republican and Imperial times no more than one family member of a gens was member of the College of Pontiffs, nor did one person hold more than one priesthood in this collegium.However, these rules were obviously loosened in the later part of the 3rd century A.D.