(*)
The holder of this post officially bore the secespita iron knife and the patera dish, and posts overseen by this office included the flamines and the rex sacrorum. Originally elected by the comitia tributa, this person kept the annals maximi and at first headed a group of five, though that number grew to sixteen in the centuries after the Lex Ogulnia. (*) Pope Damasus I may have been the first Christian to take this title, though it had been ironically applied to the 3rd-century Pope Callixtus I, after having been held by emperors from Julius Caesar on. For 10 points, name this title for the head of the Roman state religion, which is now applied to Catholic popes almost exclusively in Latin inscriptions.
The holder of this post officially bore the secespita iron knife and the patera dish, and posts overseen by this office included the flamines and the rex sacrorum.
{Pontifex Maximus}