[606]. Cp. Petronius, Sat. 44 (of the aquaelicium).
[607]. Fasti, 6. 395 foll.
[609]. As the beast that usually worked in mills? There is a Pompeian painting of this scene (Gerhard, Ant. Bild. pl. 62).
[610]. Varro, L. L. 6. 32 ‘Dies qui vocatur Q. St. D. F. ab eo appellatur quod eo die ex aede Vestae stercus everritur et per Capitolinum clivum in locum defertur certum.’ It is Ovid who tells us it was thrown into the Tiber (Fasti, 6. 713).
[611]. Jordan, Tempel der Vesta, p. 63.
[612]. The crushing of the grain no doubt comes down from a time when there were no mills (Helbig, Italiker in der Poebene, 17 and 72). The preparation of the cakes was also peculiar, and even that of the salt which was used in them (Festus, 159; cp. Serv. Ecl. 8. 82). The latter passage is the locus classicus for all these duties: ‘Virgines Vestales tres maximae ex nonis Maiis ad pridie Idus Maias alternis diebus (i. e. on 7th, 9th, 11th?) spicas adoreas in corbibus messuariis ponunt, easque spicas ipsae virgines torrent, pinsunt, molunt, atque ita molitum condunt. Ex eo farre virgines ter in anno molam faciunt, Lupercalibus, Vestalibus, Idibus Septembribus, adiecto sale cocto et sale duro.’ For examples of the primitive method of cooking see Miss Kingsley’s Travels in West Africa, p. 208; and Sir Joseph Banks’s Journal (ed. Hooker), p. 137.
[613]. Penus means, in the first instance, food. Cic. Nat. Deorum, 2. 68 ‘Est omne quo vescuntur homines penus.’ Hence it came to mean the store-closet in the centre of the house, of which the Penates were the guardian spirits. Its sacred character is indicated in a passage of Columella (R. R. 12. 4; and see my paper on the toga praetexta of Roman children, in Classical Review, Oct. 1896).
[614]. Varro, ap. S. Aug. de Civ. 7. 24; cp. 7. 16. Ovid, Fasti, 6. 267, writes, ‘Vesta eadem quae terra,’ but more correctly in 291, ‘Nec tu aliud Vestam quam vivam intellige flammam.’ Some moderns derive Vesta from root vas = ‘dwelling,’ and make her the earth in special relation to the dwelling; e. g. O. Gilbert, i. 348 note.
[615]. Preuner, Hestia-Vesta, p. 221 ‘Gottheit des Feuers, sofern religiöse, ethische Ideen sich in demselben abspiegeln, nicht des Feuers als blossen Elements.’ This is surely turning the question upside down.