Tum mihi post sacras monstratur Iunius idus Utilis et nuptis, utilis esse viris, Primaque pars huius thalamis aliena reperta est, Nam mihi sic coniunx sancta Dialis ait; ‘Donec ab Iliaca placidus purgamina Vesta Detulerit flavis in mare Thybris aquis, Non mihi detonsos crines depectere buxo, Non ungues ferro subsecuisse licet, Non tetigisse virum, quamvis Iovis ille sacerdos, Quamvis perpetua sit mihi lege datus. Tu quoque ne propera. Melius tua filia nubet Ignea cum pura Vesta nitebit humo.’
What is the meaning of this singular aspect of the Vesta-cult? Why should these days be so ill-omened or so sacred that during them marriages might not be celebrated, and the priestess of Jupiter might not hold any intercourse with her husband, cut her hair, or pare her nails? And what is the explanation of the annotation Q[uando] St[ercus] D[elatum] F[as][598], which on the 15th indicated the breaking of the spell, and a return to ordinary ways of life? Before attempting to answer these questions, it will be as well to say a few words about the nature and probable origin of the worship of Vesta. Owing to the remarkable vitality and purity of this cult throughout the whole of Roman history, we do not meet here with those baffling obscurities which so often beset us in dealing with deities that had lost all life and shape when Roman scholars began to investigate them. And yet we know that we are here in the presence of rites and ideas of immemorial antiquity.
In an article of great interest in the _Journal of Philology_ for 1885[599], Mr. J. G. Frazer first placed the origin of the cult in a clear light for English scholars. By comparing it with similar practices of existing peoples still in a primitive condition of life, he made apparent the real germ of the institution of the Vestal Virgins. Helbig, in his _Italiker in der Poebene_[600], had already recognized that germ in _the necessity of keeping one fire always alight in each settlement_, so that its members could at any time supply themselves with the flame, then so hard to procure at a moment’s notice; and Mr. Frazer had only to go one step further, and show that the task of keeping this fire alight was that of the daughters of the chief. This step he was able to take, supported by evidence from Damaraland in South Africa, where the priestess of the perpetual fire is the chief’s daughter; quoting also the following example from Calabria in Southern Italy: ‘At the present day the fire in a Calabrian peasant’s house is never (except after a death) allowed to die quite out, even in the heat of summer; it is a bad omen if it should chance to be extinguished, and the girls of the house, whose special care it is to keep at least a single brand burning on the hearth, are sadly dismayed at such a mishap.’ The evidence of the Roman _ius sacrum_ quite confirms this modern evidence; the Vestals were under the patria potestas of the pontifex maximus, who represented in republican times the legal powers of the Rex, and from this fact we may safely argue that they had once been the daughters of the primitive chief. The _flamines_ too, or _kindlers_, as being under the potestas of the pontifex, may be taken as representing the sons of the primitive household[601]. But from various reasons[602] the duties of the _flamines_ became obsolete or obscure; while those of the Vestals remained to give us an almost perfect picture of life in the household of the oldest Latins.