The pontifex maximus was the chief priest of the ancient Roman religion, and head of the Collegium Pontificum ("College of Pontiffs").
No other Pontifices Maximi are mentioned in surviving sources until the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally occurring in 509 BC.
This list includes all of the Pontifices Maximi mentioned by historians and other ancient writers, down to the end of the Roman Republic.
The list prior to the time of the First Punic War is presumably incomplete, as fewer than a dozen holders of the office are known from the first two-and-a-half centuries of the Republic.
After the sack of Constantinople and the end of the Eastern Roman Empire in the fifteenth century, the title was revived by the Popes, notwithstanding its pagan origins, and is now a part of the papacy's official titulature.