The Trojan followers of Æneas concealed his body, and spread the story among the people of Latium that he had been taken up to heaven. The people accordingly, having before considered their king as the son of a goddess, now looked upon him as himself divine. They accordingly erected altars to him in Latium, and thenceforth worshiped him as a God.
CHAPTER VII. RHEA SILVIA.
B.C. 800
Rhea Silvia.-The order of vestal virgins.-The ancient focus.-Arrangement for fire.-Nature of the ceremonies instituted in honor of Vesta.-Her vestal virgins.-Their duties.-Terrible punishment for those who violated their vows.-Similar observances in modern times.-Influence of the vestal institution.-Ceremonies.-Qualifications of the candidate.-Term of service.-The sacred fire.-Punishment for neglect of duty.-Question in regard to the succession.-Origin of the name Silvius.-History of Ascanius.-His war with Mezentius.-The Trojans victorious.-Settlement of the kingdom.-Lavinia recalled.-The building of Alba Longa.-Situation of Alba Longa.-The name.-Successor to Ascanius.-Perplexing question.-Settlement of the question.-Tiberinus.-The story of Alladius and his thunder.-Death of Alladius.-Superstitions.-Numitor and Amulius.-Their respective characters.-Division of their father's possessions.-Policy of Numitor.-Death of Egestus.-Rhea enters upon her duties as a vestal virgin.-Unexpected events announced.
Rhea Silvia, the mother of Romulus, was a vestal virgin, who lived in the kingdom of Latium about four hundred years after the death of Æneas. A vestal virgin was a sort of priestess, who was required, like the nuns of modern times, to live in seclusion from the rest of the world, and devote their time wholly and without reserve to the services of religion. They were, like nuns, especially prohibited from all association and intercourse with men.
Æneas himself is said to have founded the order of vestal virgins, and to have instituted the rites and services which were committed to their charge. These rites and services were in honor of Vesta, who was the goddess of Home. The fireside has been, in all ages and countries, the center and the symbol of home, and the worship of Vesta consisted, accordingly, of ceremonies designed to dignify and exalt the fireside in the estimation of the people. Instead of the images and altars which were used in the worship of the other deities, a representation of a fire-stand was made, such as were used in the houses of those days; and upon this sacred stand a fire was kept continually burning, and various rites and ceremonies were performed in connection with it, in honor of the domestic virtues and enjoyments, of which it was the type and symbol.
These fire-stands, as used by the ancients, were very different from the fire-places of modern times, which are recesses in chimneys with flues above for the passage of the smoke. The household fires of the ancients were placed in the center of the apartment, on a hearth or supporter called the focus. This hearth was made sometimes of stone or brick, and sometimes of bronze. The smoke escaped above, through openings in the roof. This would seem, according to the ideas of the present day, a very comfortless arrangement; but it must be remembered that the climate in those countries was mild, and there was accordingly but little occasion for fire; and then, besides, such were the habits of the people at this period of the world, that not only their pursuits and avocations, but far the greater portion of their pleasures, called them into the open air. Still, the fire-place was, with them as with us, the type and emblem of domestic life; and accordingly, in paying divine honors to Vesta, the goddess of Home, they set up a focus, or fire-place, in her temple, instead of an altar, and in the place of sacrifices they simply kept burning upon it a perpetual fire.
The priestesses who had charge of the fire were selected for this purpose when they were children. It was required that they should be from six to ten years of age. When chosen they were consecrated to the service of Vesta by the most solemn ceremonies, and as virgins, were bound under awful penalties, to spotless purity of life. As the perpetual fire in the temple of Vesta represented the fire of the domestic hearth, so these vestal virgins represented the maidens by whom the domestic service of a household is performed; and the life of seclusion and celibacy which was required of them was the emblem of the innocence and purity which the institution of the family is expressly intended to guard. The duties of the vestals were analogous to those of domestic maidens. They were to watch the fire, and never to allow it to go out. They were to perform various rites and ceremonies connected with the worship of Vesta and to keep the interior of the temple and the shrines pure and clean, and the sacred vessels and utensils arranged, as in a well-ordered household. In a word, they were to be, in purity, in industry, in neatness, in order, and in patience and vigilance, the perfect impersonation of maidenly virtue as exhibited in its own proper field of duty at home.
The most awful penalties were visited upon the head of any vestal virgin who was guilty of violating her vows. There is no direct evidence what these penalties were at this early period, but in subsequent years, at Rome, where the vestal virgins resided, the man who was guilty of enticing one of them away from her duty was publicly scourged to death in the Roman forum. For the vestal herself, thus led away, a cell was dug beneath the ground, and vaulted over. A pit led down to this subterranean dungeon, entering it by one side. In the dungeon itself there was placed a table, a lamp, and a little food. The descent was by a ladder which passed down through the pit. The place of this terrible preparation for punishment was near one of the gates of the city, and when all was ready the unhappy vestal was brought forth, at the head of a great public procession,-she herself being attended by her friends and relatives, all mourning and lamenting her fate by the way. The ceremony, in a word, was in all respects a funeral, except that the person who was to be buried was still alive. On arriving at the spot, the wretched criminal was conducted down the ladder and placed upon the couch in the cell. The assistants who performed this service then returned; the ladder was drawn up; earth was thrown in until the pit was filled; and the erring girl was left to her fate, which was, when her lamp had burned out, and her food was expended, to starve by slow degrees, and die at last in darkness and despair.
If we would do full justice to the ancient founders of civilization and empire, we should probably consider their enshrinement of Vesta, and the contriving of the ceremonies and observances which were instituted in honor of her, not as the setting up of an idol or false god, for worship, in the sense in which Christian nations worship the spiritual and eternal Jehovah-but rather as the embodiment of an idea,-a principle,-as the best means, in those rude ages, of attracting to it the general regard.
Even in our own days, and in Christian lands, men erect a pole in honor of liberty, and surmount it with the image of a cap. And if, instead of the cap, they were to place a carved effigy of liberty above, and to assemble for periodical celebrations below, with games, and music, and banners, we should not probably call them idolaters. So Christian poets write odes and invocations to Peace, to Disappointment, to Spring, to Beauty, in which they impersonate an idea, or a principle, and address it in the language of adoration, as if it were a sentient being, possessing magical and mysterious powers. In the same manner, the rites and celebrations of ancient times are not necessarily all to be considered as idolatry, and denounced as inexcusably wicked and absurd. Our fathers set up an image in honor of liberty, to strengthen the influence of the love of liberty on the popular mind. It is possible that Æneas looked upon the subject in the same light, in erecting a public fireside in honor of domestic peace and happiness, and in designating maidens to guard it with constant vigilance and with spotless purity. At all events, the institution exercised a vast and an incalculable power, in impressing the minds of men, in those rude ages, with a sense of the sacredness of the domestic tie, and in keeping before their minds a high standard, in theory at least, of domestic honor and purity. We must remember that they had not then the word of God, nor any means of communicating to the minds of the people any general enlightenment and instruction. They were obliged, therefore, to resort to the next best method which their ingenuity could devise.