Plutarch's Lives, Volume 1 (of 4)

by Plutarch

Indeed, in Greece, wherever an eternal fire is kept up, as at Delphi and Athens, it is not maidens, but widows, past the age to wed, that tend it. When any of these fires chance to go out, as, for instance, the sacred lamp went out at Athens when Aristion was despot, and the fire went out at Delphi when the temple was burned by the Persians, and at Rome in the revolutions during the time of the wars with King Mithridates the fire, and even the altar upon which it burned, was swept away; then they say that it must not be lighted from another fire, but that an entirely new fire must be made, lighted by a pure and undefiled ray from the sun. They usually light it with mirrors made by hollowing the surface of an isosceles right-angled triangle, which conducts all the rays of light into one point. Now when it is placed opposite to the sun, so that all the rays coming from all quarters are collected together into that point, the ray thus formed passes through the thin air, and at once lights the dryest and lightest of the objects against which it strikes, for that ray has the strength and force of fire itself.

Some say that the only duty of the vestal virgins is to watch that eternal fire, but others say they perform certain secret rites, about which we have written as much as it is lawful to divulge, in the Life of Camillus.

X. The first maidens who were consecrated by Numa were named Gegania and Verenia; and afterwards Canuleia and Tarpeia were added. Servius subsequently added two more to their number, which has remained six ever since his reign. Numa ordained that the maidens should observe celibacy for thirty years, during the first ten years of which they were to learn their duties, during the next perform them, and during the last to teach others. After this period any of them who wished might marry and cease to be priestesses; but it is said that very few availed themselves of this privilege, and that those few were not happy, but, by their regrets and sorrow for the life they had left, made the others scruple to leave it, prefer to remain virgins till their death. They had great privileges, such as that of disposing of their property by will when their fathers were still alive, like women who have borne three children. When they walk abroad they are escorted by lictors with the fasces; and if they happen to meet any criminal who is being taken to execution, he is not put to death; but the vestal must swear that she met him accidentally, and not on purpose. When they use a litter, no one may pass under it on pain of death. The vestals are corrected by stripes for any faults which they commit, sometimes by the Pontifex Maximus, who flogs the culprit without her clothes, but with a curtain drawn before her. She that breaks her vow of celibacy is buried alive at the Colline Gate, at which there is a mound of earth which stretches some way inside the city wall. In it they construct an underground chamber, of small size, which is entered from above. In it is a bed with bedding, and a lamp burning; and also some small means of supporting life, such as bread, a little water in a vessel, milk, and oil, as though they wished to avoid the pollution of one who had been consecrated with such holy ceremonies dying of hunger. The guilty one is placed in a litter, covered in, and gagged with thongs so that she cannot utter a sound. Then they carry her through the Forum. All make way in silence, and accompany her passage with downcast looks, without speaking. There is no more fearful sight than this, nor any day when the city is plunged into deeper mourning. When the litter reaches the appointed spot, the servants loose her bonds, and the chief priest, after private prayer and lifting his hands to Heaven before his dreadful duty, leads her out, closely veiled, places her upon a ladder which leads down into the subterranean chamber. After this he turns away with the other priests; the ladder is drawn up after she has descended, and the site of the chamber is obliterated by masses of earth which are piled upon it, so that the place looks like any other part of the mound. Thus are the vestals punished who lose their chastity.

XI. Numa is said to have built the Temple of Vesta, which was to contain the sacred fire, in a circular form, imitating thereby not the shape of the earth, but that of the entire universe, in the midst of which the Pythagoreans place the element of fire, which they call Vesta and the Unit. The earth they say is not motionless, and not in the centre of its orbit, but revolves round the central fire, occupying by no means the first or the most honourable place in the system of the universe. These ideas are said to have been entertained by Plato also in his old age; for he too thought that the earth was in a subordinate position, and that the centre of the universe was occupied by some nobler body.

XII. The Pontifices also explain, to those who inquire of them, the proper ceremonies at funerals. For Numa taught them not to think that there was any pollution in death, but that we must pay due honours to the gods below, because they will receive all that is noblest on earth. Especially he taught them to honour the goddess Libitina, the goddess who presides over funeral rites, whether she be Proserpine, or rather Venus, as the most learned Romans imagine, not unnaturally referring our birth and our death to the same divinity.

He also defined the periods of mourning, according to the age of the deceased. He allowed none for a child under three years of age, and for one older the mourning was only to last as many months as he lived years, provided those were not more than ten. The longest mourning was not to continue above ten months, after which space widows were permitted to marry again; but she that took another husband before that term was out was obliged by his decree to sacrifice a cow with calf.

Of Numa's many other institutions I shall only mention two, that of the Salii and of the Feciales, which especially show his love of justice. The Feciales are, as it were, guardians of peace, and in my opinion obtain their name from their office; for they were to act as mediators, and not to permit an appeal to arms before all hope of obtaining justice by fair means had been lost. The Greeks call it peace when two states settle their differences by negotiation and not by arms; and the Roman Feciales frequently went to states that had done wrong and begged them to think better of what they had done. If they rejected their offers, then the Feciales called the gods to witness, invoked dreadful curses upon themselves and their country, if they were about to fight in an unjust cause, and so declared war. Against the will of the Feciales, or without their approval, no Roman, whether king or common soldier, was allowed to take up arms, but the general was obliged first to have it certified to him by the Feciales that the right was on his side, and then to take his measures for a campaign. It is said that the great disaster with the Gauls befell the city in consequence of this ceremony having been neglected. The barbarians were besieging Clusium; Fabius Ambustus was sent as an ambassador to their camp to make terms on behalf of the besieged. His proposals met with a harsh reply, and he, thinking that his mission was at an end, had the audacity to appear before the ranks of the men of Clusium in arms, and to challenge the bravest of the barbarians to single combat. He won the fight, slew his opponent and stripped his body; but the Gauls recognised him, and sent a herald to Rome, complaining that Fabius had broken faith and not kept his word, and had waged war against them without its being previously declared. Hereupon the Feciales urged the Senate to deliver the man up to the Gauls, but he appealed to the people, and by their favour escaped his just doom. Soon after the Gauls came and sacked Rome, except the Capitol. But this is treated of more at length in the 'Life of Camillus.'

XIII. The priests called Salii are said to owe their origin to the following circumstances: In the eighth year of Numa's reign an epidemic raged throughout Italy, and afflicted the city of Rome. Now amidst the general distress it is related that a brazen shield fell from heaven into the hands of Numa. Upon this the king made an inspired speech, which he had learned from Egeria and the Muses. The shield, he said, came for the salvation of the city, and they must guard it, and make eleven more like it, so that no thief could steal the one that fell from heaven, because he could not tell which it was. Moreover the place and the meadows round about it, where he was wont to converse with the Muses, must be consecrated to them, and the well by which it was watered must be pointed out as holy water to the vestal virgins, that they might daily take some thence to purify and sprinkle their temple. The truth of this is said to have been proved by the immediate cessation of the plague. He bade workmen compete in imitating the shield, and, when all others refused to attempt it, Veturius Mamurius, one of the best workmen of the time, produced so admirable an imitation, and made all the shields so exactly alike, that even Numa himself could not tell which was the original. He next appointed the Salii to guard and keep them. These priests were called Salii, not, as some say, after a man of Samothrace or of Mantinea named Salius, who first taught the art of dancing under arms, but rather from the springing dance itself, which they dance through the city when they carry out the shields in the month of March, dressed in scarlet tunics, girt with brazen girdles, with brazen helmets on their heads and little daggers with which they strike the shields. The rest of their dance is done with their feet; they move gracefully, whirling round, swiftly and airily counter-changing their positions with light and vigorous motions according to rhythm and measure. The shields are called ancilia, because of their shape; for they are not round, nor with a perfect circumference, but are cut out of a wavy line, and curl in at the thickest part towards each other; or they may be called ancilia after the name of the elbow, ankon, on which they are carried; at least so Juba conjectures in his endeavours to find a Greek derivation for the word. The name may be connected with the fall of the shield from above (anekathen), or with the healing (akesis) of the plague, and the cessation of that terrible calamity, if we must refer the word to a Greek root.

It is related that, to reward Mamurius for his workmanship, his name is mentioned in the song which the Salii sing while they dance their Pyrrhic dance; others, however, say that it is not Veturium Mamurium that they say, but Veterem Memoriam, which means ancient memory.

XIV. After he had arranged all religious ceremonies, he built, near the temple of Vesta, the Regia, as a kind of royal palace; and there he spent most of his time, engaged in religious duties, instructing the priests, or awaiting some divine colloquy. He had also another house on the hill of Quirinus, the site of which is even now pointed out.