“If your Goddess has any might, any grace, she will protect me. Do you fear? Have you lost your rights? I claim them.”
“Be it so,” said the Abbess. “None have appealed to the Goddess in vain, none taken sanctuary with her, who have been rejected. She will maintain your cause.”
CHAPTER V.
ATRIUM VESTÆ.
When the Romans were a pastoral people at Alba, then it was the duty of the young girls to attend to the common hearth and keep the fire ever burning. To obtain fresh fire was not always possible, and at the best of times not easy.
Fire was esteemed sacred, being so mysterious, and so indispensable, and reverence was made to the domestic hearth (hestia) as the altar of the Fire goddess.
When the Roman settlement was made on the banks of the Tiber, one hut of a circular form was constituted the central hearth, and provision was made that thence every household should obtain its fire. This hut became the Temple of Hestia or Vesta, and certain girls were set apart to watch the fire that it should never become extinguished.
This was the origin of the institution of the Vestal Virgins, an institution which lasted from the founding of Rome in B. C. 753, to the disestablishment of Paganism, and the expulsion of the last Vestal, in A. D. 394, nearly eleven hundred and fifty years.
No girl under six or above ten years of age was admissible as priestess of the sacred fire, and but six damsels were allowed,—their term of service was thirty years, after which the Vestal was free to return home and to marry. The eldest of the Vestals was termed Maxima, and she acted as superior or abbess over the community.