Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/213

Rh V E S V E S 193 Amerigi or America. &quot; Since Humboldt discussed the subject in his Examen Critique dc I Histoire de la Geographic du A ouvcau Continent, vol. iv. (1837), the general weight of opinion has been that Vespucci did not make the 1497 voyage, and that he had no share in the lirst discovery of the American continent, but that there is not sufficient evidence to convict him of deliberate falsifica tion. Varnhagen, however, in his Amerigo Vespucci (Lima, 1845) and many other writers on the subject maintain Vespucci s right to be regarded as a member of the expedition. The whole question is very thoroughly discussed in vol. ii. of the Narrative and Critical History of America, edited by Justin Winsor (1886), where will be found ample references to all the authorities on the subject. See also Major s Prince Henry tlie Xaeigator (1SOS), and a recent re-examination of the evidence for the first voyage in &quot;Alcune Consideration! sul Primo Viaggio,&quot; by L. llugues, in the Bolletino of the Italian Geographical Society, 1885. VESTA (Greek feo-ria), the goddess of fire and the domestic hearth. The cults of the Greek Hestia and the Latin Vesta, both of which involved the guardianship of an ever-burning sacred fire, are most probably derived from a very early custom, common to a great variety of races, and practised during many different ages. Among people in a primitive state of development the production of fire is a slow and very laborious process ; thus it became the custom for each village to maintain a constant fire for the general use of the community, in order to avoid the troublesome necessity of obtaining a spark by friction in case of the accidental extinction at one time of all the vill age fires. 1 This fire, the central hearth or Feo-Tia of the vill age (focus publicus), became a sacred symbol of home and family life, and by degrees grew into a religious cult of great sanctity and importance. The form of the primitive house in which the fire was preserved, probably a round hut made of wattled osiers daubed with clay, appears to have survived both in the circular prytaneum of the Greeks and in the /Edes Vestae in Rome. To watch this fire would naturally be the duty of women, and especially of those who were not burdened with the cares of maternity, and hence may have arisen the Roman order of virgin priestesses, whose chief duty it was to tend the sacred fire. A survival of the prehistoric method of getting a spark appears to have existed in the rule which enacted that, if ever the sacred fire of Vesta did go out, the negligent vestal was to be punished by scourging (Livy, xxviii. 11), and the fire rekindled either by friction of dry sticks 2 or, in later times, by the sun s rays brought to a focus by a concave mirror (Plut., Numa, 9). In the prytaneum, which existed in every Greek state, a different form of cult was developed, though the essential point, the sacred fire, was kept up, just as in the Latin worship of Vesta ; and in both cases the fire was extinguished annually at the be ginning of the new year, and solemnly rekindled by one of the primitive and hence sacred methods. 3 In Rome this was done on the first day of March, the Latin New Year s Day (Ovid, Fast., iii. 137-145). Both among Greek and early Latin races, at the founding of a new colony fire was solemnly sent from the prytaneum or Vesta temple of the mother colony to kindle a similar sacred fire in the new settlement. Thus we find that, according to tradition, the worship of Vesta in Rome was introduced from Alba Longa (Liv., i. 20, and Ov., Fast., iii. 46), which appears to 1 Mr J. G. Frazer, in an interesting paper printed in the Journal of Philology (vol. xiv. pp. 145-172), on &quot;the Worship of Vesta and its Connexion with the Greek Prytaneum,&quot; lias given many examples of a similar custom still surviving among various savage races. - An allusion to the earliest method of obtaining fire by rubbing two sticks together is probably contained in the myth of Prometheus, who brought fire to mortals hidden in a hollow wand. 3 Fire obtained in this way, that is &quot;pure elemental fire,&quot; was com monly thought to possess a special sanctity. Even throughout the Middle Ages in Catholic countries, at Easter, when the new year be gan, the old pagan rite still survived. On Holy Saturday all lamps in each church were extinguished, and the Paschal candlestick was lighted by the help of flint and steel. From this sacred source the other lights in the church were kindled, and the various households in the parish took a flame to relight their fires and lamps, all of which had been cart-fully extinguished beforehand. have been the oldest of the Latin colonies in Latium. This intimate connexion between the Greek prytaneum fire, sacred to Hestia, and that of Vesta in Rome has been ably worked out by Mr J. G. Frazer in the paper quoted above. The most generally received Latin legend attri butes the founding of the Roman temple of Vesta to Numa, who transferred the centre of the cult from Alba, together with the four vestal virgins, its priestesses (Plut., Numa, 10). One of the later kings, either Tarquin I. or Servius Tullius, is said to have increased the number to six (Dion. Hal., iii. 67, and Plut., Numa, 10), and it is not till the last years of the pagan period that we hear of a seventh vestal having been added (see Ambrose, Epis., ed. Pareus, p. 477 ; also Plut., Rom. and Cam.}. The election (captio) of the vestal during the early period of Rome was in the hands of the king, and in those of the pontifex maximus under the republic and empire, 4 subject, however, to the following conditions (Aul. Gell., i. 12) : (1) the candidate was to be more than six and less than ten years of age; (2) she was to be palrima and matrima, i.e., having both parents alive; (3) free from physical or mental defects ; (4) daughter of a free- born resident in Italy. Certain details of the election were arranged subject to the provisions of the Lex Papia, now unknown. The selected child had her hair cut off, and was solemnly admitted by the pontifex maximus, who held her by the hand, and, addressing her by the name amata, pronounced an ancient formula of initiation, which is given by A. Gellius in his interesting chapter on the subject (i. 12). In early times there were certain rules by which girls could be excused from serving as vestals, but the honour soon became so eagerly sought that these provisions were practically useless. Vows were taken by the vestal for a limited period of thirty years, after which she was free to return to private life and even to marry a thing very rarely done (Aul. Gell., vi. 7). This period of thirty years was divided into three decades : during the first the vestal learnt her duties ; during the second she practised them ; and during the third she instructed the young vestals. The special dignity of chief of the vestals, or virc/o vestalis maxima, was reached in order of seniority. The inscriptions on the pedestals of statues of various vestales maxima show that a number of different grades of honour were passed through before reaching the maximatus or highest dignity. 5 The duties of the vestals, besides the chief one of tending the holy fire (Cic., De Leg., ii. 8), consisted in the daily bringing of water from the sacred spring of Egeria, near the Porta Capena, to be used for the ceremonial sweeping and sprinkling of the JEdes Vesta?. 6 They also offered sacri fices of salt cakes muries and mola salsa and poured on the altar of sacred fire libations of wine and oil, as is represented on the reverses of several first brasses and medallions of the empire (see fig. 1). The vestals were bound to offer daily prayers for the welfare of the Roman state, and more especially in times of danger or calamity (Cic., Pro Font., 21). They were also the guardians of the seven sacred objects on which the stability of the Roman power was supposed to depend : 7 the chief of these was the Palladium, a rude archaic statue of Pallas, which was said to have been brought by /Eneas from -the burning 4 From the time of Augustus the emperors themselves held the office of chief pontiff, and with it the privilege of electing the vestals. 5 These inscriptions are printed in Middleton, Ancient Home in 1885, pp. 200-6, and in Archxologia, vol. xlix. pp. 414-422. 6 The shrine of Vesta was not a tempi um in the strict Roman sense, as it was not consecrated by the augurs, its sanctity being far above the necessity of any such ceremony. Other natural springs might be used for the daily sprinkling, but it was forbidden to use water brought in a pipe or other artificial conduit (Tac., Hist., iv. 53 ; see also Guhl and Koner, Vit. Gr. et Rom., p. 654). 7 Sec Caucellieri, Le Sdte Cose Fatali di Roma A ntica, Rome, 1812. XXIV. --25