[4] During the Roman Republic, the rex sacrorum was chosen by the pontifex maximus from a list of patricians submitted by the College of Pontiffs.
The rex sacrorum wore a toga, the undecorated soft "shoeboot" (calceus), and carried a ceremonial axe; as a priest of archaic Roman religion, he sacrificed capite velato, with head covered.
At Rome the priesthood was deliberately depoliticized;[12] the rex sacrorum was not elected, and his inauguration was merely witnessed by a comitia calata, an assembly called for the purpose.
It is a matter of scholarly debate as to whether the rex sacrorum was a "decayed king" and it's discussed if this figure was created during the formation of the Republic, as Arnaldo Momigliano argued, or had existed in the Regal period.
[14] The highly public nature of these sacrifices, like the role of the Vestals in official Roman religion, contradicts the commonplace notion that women's religious activities in ancient Rome were restricted to the private or domestic sphere.
[15] While performing her rituals, the regina wore a headdress called the arculum, formed from a garland of pomegranate twigs tied up with a white woolen thread.