It chanced that at the festival of Vesta I was returning by that way which now joins the New Way to the Roman Forum. Hither I saw a matron coming down barefoot: amazed I held my peace and halted. An old woman of the neighbourhood perceived me, and bidding me sit down she addressed me in quavering tones, shaking her head. “This ground, where now are the forums, was once occupied by wet swamps: a ditch was drenched with the water that overflowed from the river. That Lake of Curtius, which supports dry altars, is now solid ground, but formerly it was a lake. Where now the processions are wont to defile through the Velabrum to the Circus, there was naught but willows and hollow canes; often the roysterer, returning home over the waters of the suburb, used to tip a stave and rap out tipsy words at passing sailors. Yonder god (Vertumnus), whose name is appropriate to various shapes, had not yet derived it from damming back the river (averso amne). Here, too, there was a grove overgrown with bulrushes and reeds, and a marsh not to be trodden with booted feet. The pools have receded, and the river confines its water within its banks, and the ground is now dry; but the old custom survives.” The old woman thus explained the custom. “Farewell, good old dame,” said I; “may what remains of life to thee be easy all!”
The rest of the tale I had learned long since in my boyish years; yet not on that account may I pass it over in silence. Ilus, descendant of Dardanus, had lately founded a new city (Ilus was still rich and possessed the wealth of Asia); a celestial image of armed Minerva is believed to have leaped down on the hills of the Ilian city. (I was anxious to see it: I saw the temple and the place; that is all that is left there; the image of Pallas is in Rome.) Smintheus was consulted, and in the dim light of his shady grove he gave this answer with no lying lips: “Preserve the heavenly goddess, so shall ye preserve the city. She will transfer with herself the seat of empire.” Ilus preserved the image of the goddess and kept it shut up on the top of the citadel; the charge of it descended to his heir Laomedon. In Priam’s reign the image was not well preserved. Such was the goddess’s ovm. will ever since judgement was given against her in the contest of beauty. Whether it was the descendant of Adrastus, or the guileful Ulysses, or pious Aeneas who carried her off, the doer of the deed is un certain; the thing is now at Rome: Vesta guards it, because she sees all things by her light that never fails.
‘ Alas, how alarmed the Senate was when the temple of Vesta caught fire, and the goddess was almost buried under her own roof! Holy fires blazed, fed by wicked fires, and a profane flame was blent with a pious flame. Amazed the priestesses wept with streaming hair; fear had bereft them of bodily strength. Metellus rushed into their midst and in a loud voice cried, “Hasten ye to the rescue! There is no help in weeping. Take up in your virgin hands the pledges given by fate; it is not by prayers but by deed that they can be saved. Woe’s me, do ye hesitate?” said he. He saw that they hesitated and sank trembling on their knees. He took up water, and lifting up his hands, “Pardon me, ye sacred things,” said he, “I, a man, will enter a place where no man should set foot. If it is a crime, let the punishment of the deed fall on me! May I pay with my head the penalty, so Rome go free!” With these words he burst in. The goddess whom he carried off approved the deed and was saved by the devotion of her pontiff.
Ye sacred flames, now ye shine bright under Caesar’s rule; the fire will now be for ever on the Ilian hearths, and it will not be on record that under his leadership any priestess defiled her sacred fillets, and none shall be buried in the live ground. That is the doom of her who proves unchaste; because she is put away in the earth which she contaminated, since Earth and Vesta are one and the same deity.
Then did Brutus win his surname from the Gallaecan foe, and dyed the Spanish ground with blood. To be sure, sorrow is sometimes blent with joy, nor are festivals a source of unmingled gladness to the people: Crassus lost the eagles, his son, and his soldiers at the Euphrates, and perished last of all himself. “Why exult, thou Parthian?” said the goddess; “thou shalt send back the standards, and there will be an avenger who shall exact punishment for the slaughter of Crassus.”,
IV. Id. 10th
But as soon as the long-eared asses are stripped of their violets, and the rough millstones grind the fruits of Ceres, the sailor, sitting at the poop, says, “We shall see the Dolphin, when the day is put to flight and dank night has mounted up.”
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