Плутарх - Plutarch's Lives - Volume I

The stone bridge was built many years afterwards, when Aemilius was Quaestor. However, it is said that the wooden bridge itself does not date from the time of Numa, but that it was finished by Marcius, the grandson of Numa, when he was king.

The chief priest, or Pontifex Maximus, is an interpreter and prophet or rather expounder of the will of Heaven. He not only sees that the public sacrifices are properly conducted, but even watches those who offer private sacrifices, opposes all departure from established custom, and points out to each man how to honour the gods and how to pray to them. He also presides over the holy maidens called vestals.

The consecration of the vestal virgins, and the worship and watching of the eternal flame by them, are entirely attributed to Numa, and explained either by the pure and uncorruptible essence of fire being intrusted to the keeping of those who are stainless and undefiled, or by that which is barren and without fruit being associated with maidens.

Indeed, in Greece, wherever an eternal fire is kept up, as at Delphi and Athens, it is not maidens, but widows, past the age to wed, that tend it. When any of these fires chance to go out, as, for instance, the sacred lamp went out at Athens when Aristion was despot, and the fire went out at Delphi when the temple was burned by the Persians, and at Rome in the revolutions during the time of the wars with King Mithridates the fire, and even the altar upon which it burned, was swept away; then they say that it must not be lighted from another fire, but that an entirely new fire must be made, lighted by a pure and undefiled ray from the sun. They usually light it with mirrors made by hollowing the surface of an isosceles right–angled triangle, which conducts all the rays of light into one point. Now when it is placed opposite to the sun, so that all the rays coming from all quarters are collected together into that point, the ray thus formed passes through the thin air, and at once lights the dryest and lightest of the objects against which it strikes, for that ray has the strength and force of fire itself.

Some say that the only duty of the vestal virgins is to watch that eternal fire, but others say they perform certain secret rites, about which we have written as much as it is lawful to divulge, in the Life of Camillus.

X. The first maidens who were consecrated by Numa were named Gegania and Verenia; and afterwards Canuleia and Tarpeia were added. Servius subsequently added two more to their number, which has remained six ever since his reign. Numa ordained that the maidens should observe celibacy for thirty years, during the first ten years of which they were to learn their duties, during the next perform them, and during the last to teach others. After this period any of them who wished might marry and cease to be priestesses; but it is said that very few availed themselves of this privilege, and that those few were not happy, but, by their regrets and sorrow for the life they had left, made the others scruple to leave it, prefer to remain virgins till their death. They had great privileges, such as that of disposing of their property by will when their fathers were still alive, like women who have borne three children. When they walk abroad they are escorted by lictors with the fasces; and if they happen to meet any criminal who is being taken to execution, he is not put to death; but the vestal must swear that she met him accidentally, and not on purpose. When they use a litter, no one may pass under it on pain of death. The vestals are corrected by stripes for any faults which they commit, sometimes by the Pontifex Maximus, who flogs the culprit without her clothes, but with a curtain drawn before her. She that breaks her vow of celibacy is buried alive at the Colline Gate, at which there is a mound of earth which stretches some way inside the city wall. In it they construct an underground chamber, of small size, which is entered from above. In it is a bed with bedding, and a lamp burning; and also some small means of supporting life, such as bread, a little water in a vessel, milk, and oil, as though they wished to avoid the pollution of one who had been consecrated with such holy ceremonies dying of hunger. The guilty one is placed in a litter, covered in, and gagged with thongs so that she cannot utter a sound. Then they carry her through the Forum. All make way in silence, and accompany her passage with downcast looks, without speaking. There is no more fearful sight than this, nor any day when the city is plunged into deeper mourning. When the litter reaches the appointed spot, the servants loose her bonds, and the chief priest, after private prayer and lifting his hands to Heaven before his dreadful duty, leads her out, closely veiled, places her upon a ladder which leads down into the subterranean chamber. After this he turns away with the other priests; the ladder is drawn up after she has descended, and the site of the chamber is obliterated by masses of earth which are piled upon it, so that the place looks like any other part of the mound. Thus are the vestals punished who lose their chastity.

XI. Numa is said to have built the Temple of Vesta, which was to contain the sacred fire, in a circular form, imitating thereby not the shape of the earth, but that of the entire universe, in the midst of which the Pythagoreans place the element of fire, which they call Vesta and the Unit. The earth they say is not motionless, and not in the centre of its orbit, but revolves round the central fire, occupying by no means the first or the most honourable place in the system of the universe. These ideas are said to have been entertained by Plato also in his old age; for he too thought that the earth was in a subordinate position, and that the centre of the universe was occupied by some nobler body.

XII. The Pontifices also explain, to those who inquire of them, the proper ceremonies at funerals. For Numa taught them not to think that there was any pollution in death, but that we must pay due honours to the gods below, because they will receive all that is noblest on earth. Especially he taught them to honour the goddess Libitina, the goddess who presides over funeral rites, whether she be Proserpine, or rather Venus, as the most learned Romans imagine, not unnaturally referring our birth and our death to the same divinity.

He also defined the periods of mourning, according to the age of the deceased. He allowed none for a child under three years of age, and for one older the mourning was only to last as many months as he lived years, provided those were not more than ten. The longest mourning was not to continue above ten months, after which space widows were permitted to marry again; but she that took another husband before that term was out was obliged by his decree to sacrifice a cow with calf.

Of Numa's many other institutions I shall only mention two, that of the Salii and of the Feciales, which especially show his love of justice. The Feciales are, as it were, guardians of peace, and in my opinion obtain their name from their office; for they were to act as mediators, and not to permit an appeal to arms before all hope of obtaining justice by fair means had been lost. The Greeks call it peace when two states settle their differences by negotiation and not by arms; and the Roman Feciales frequently went to states that had done wrong and begged them to think better of what they had done. If they rejected their offers, then the Feciales called the gods to witness, invoked dreadful curses upon themselves and their country, if they were about to fight in an unjust cause, and so declared war. Against the will of the Feciales, or without their approval, no Roman, whether king or common soldier, was allowed to take up arms, but the general was obliged first to have it certified to him by the Feciales that the right was on his side, and then to take his measures for a campaign. It is said that the great disaster with the Gauls befell the city in consequence of this ceremony having been neglected. The barbarians were besieging Clusium; Fabius Ambustus was sent as an ambassador to their camp to make terms on behalf of the besieged. His proposals met with a harsh reply, and he, thinking that his mission was at an end, had the audacity to appear before the ranks of the men of Clusium in arms, and to challenge the bravest of the barbarians to single combat. He won the fight, slew his opponent and stripped his body; but the Gauls recognised him, and sent a herald to Rome, complaining that Fabius had broken faith and not kept his word, and had waged war against them without its being previously declared. Hereupon the Feciales urged the Senate to deliver the man up to the Gauls, but he appealed to the people, and by their favour escaped his just doom. Soon after the Gauls came and sacked Rome, except the Capitol. But this is treated of more at length in the 'Life of Camillus.'