CHAPTER IV.
Terrestrial Goddesses.
CYBELE, or Vesta the elder. It is highly necessary, in tracing the genealogy of the heathen deities, to distinguish between this goddess and Vesta the younger, her daughter, because the poets have been faulty in confounding them, and ascribing the attributes and actions of the one to the other. The elder Vesta, or Cybĕle, was daughter of Cœlus and Terra, and wife of her brother Saturn, to whom she bore a numerous offspring. She had a variety of names besides that of Cybĕle, under which she is most generally known, and which she obtained from Mount Cybĕlus, in Phrygia, where sacrifices to her were first instituted. Her sacrifices and festivals, like those of Bacchus, were celebrated with a confused noise of timbrels, pipes, and cymbals; the sacrificants howling as if mad, and profaning both the temple of the goddess, and the ears of their hearers with the most obscene language and abominable gestures.
Under the character of Vesta, she is generally represented upon ancient coins in a sitting posture, with a lighted torch in one hand, and a sphere or drum in the other. As Cybĕle, she makes a more magnificent appearance, being seated in a lofty chariot drawn by lions, crowned with towers, and bearing in her hand a key. Being goddess, not of cities only, but of all things which the earth sustains, she was crowned with turrets, whilst the key implies not only her custody of cities, but also that in winter the earth locks those treasures up, which she brings forth and dispenses in summer: she rides in a chariot, because (fancifully) the earth hangs suspended in the air, balanced and poised by its own weight; and that the chariot is supported by wheels, because the earth is a voluble body and turns round. Her being drawn by lions, may imply that nothing is too fierce and intractable for a motherly piety and tenderness to tame and subdue. Her garments are painted with divers colors, but chiefly green, and figured with the images of several creatures, because such a dress is suitable to the variegated and more prevalent appearance of the earth.
VESTA was the daughter of Vesta the elder, by Saturn, and sister of Ceres, Juno, Pluto, Neptune and Jupiter. She was so fond of a single life, that when her brother Jupiter ascended the throne, and offered to grant whatever she asked, her only desires were the preservation of her virginity, and the first oblation in all sacrifices. Numa Pompilius, the great founder of religion among the Romans, is said first to have restored the ancient rites and worship of this goddess, to whom he erected a circular temple, which in succeeding ages was not only much embellished, but also, as the earth was supposed to retain a constant fire within, a perpetual fire was kept up in the temple of Vesta, the care of which was intrusted to a select number of young females appointed from the first families in Rome, and called Vestal virgins.
As this Vesta was the goddess of fire, the Romans had no images of her in her temple; the reason for which, assigned by Ovid, is that fire has no representative, as no bodies are produced from it: yet as Vesta was the guardian of houses or hearths, her image was usually placed in the porch or entry, and daily sacrifices were offered up to her. It is certain nothing could be a stronger or more lively symbol of the supreme being than fire; accordingly we find this emblem in early use throughout the east. The Romans looked upon Vesta as one of the tutelar deities of their empire; and they so far made the safety and fate of Rome depend on the preservation of the sacred fire in the temple of Vesta, that they thought the extinction of it foreboded the most terrible misfortune.
CERES was daughter of Saturn and Ops, or Vesta. Sicily, Attica, Crete, and Egypt, claim the honor of her birth, each country producing the ground of its claims, though general suffrage favors the first. In her youth, being extremely beautiful, Jupiter fell in love with her, and by him she had Perephăta, called afterwards Proserpine. For some time she took up her residence in Corcyra, so called in later times, from a daughter of Asōpus, there buried, but anciently Drepănum, from the sickle used by the goddess in reaping, which had been presented her by Vulcan. Thence she removed to Sicily, where the violence of Pluto deprived her of Proserpine. Disconsolate at her loss, she importuned Jupiter for redress; but obtaining little satisfaction, she lighted torches at the volcano of Mount Ætna, and mounting her car, drawn by winged dragons, set out in search of her beloved daughter. This transaction the Sicilians annually commemorated by running about in the night with lighted torches and loud exclamations.
It is disputed, by several nations, who first informed Ceres where her daughter was, and thence acquired the reward, which was the art of sowing corn. Some ascribe the intelligence to Triptolĕmus, and his brother Eubulĕus; but the generality of writers agree in conferring the honor on the nymph Arethūsa, daughter of Nereus and Doris, and companion of Diana, who, flying from the pursuit of the river Alphēus, saw Proserpine in the infernal regions.
Pl. 6.
