VOL. XII

THE VESTAL VIRGINS OF ANCIENT ROME1

The classicist who is interested in the Vestal Virgins should begin his studies by reading Justus Lipsius's De Vesta et Vestalibus Syntagma. There is a separate edition, perhaps more than one, but the writer has seen it only as it appears on pages 1073-1116 of Volume 3 of Lipsius's Opera Omnia, which bears the imprint "Vesaliae 1675". Joest Lips was an adequate scholar. Considering the editions, indexes, and lexicons existing in his days he covered the subject unsurpassably.

Wilhelm Rein, in his Das Criminalrecht der Römer, 869, 870, 876-879 (Leipzig, 1844), gives some valuable information and references; by no means to be neglected, either, are his two articles in Pauly's old RealEncyclopädie (Stuttgart, 1852): Incestus, 4.120-122; Vestales, 6.2499-2509.

Pages 269-342, and 416-448 of Dr. August Preuner's Hestia-Vesta (Tübingen, 1864), will repay perusal.

Worth looking at is the monograph Vesta und die Penaten, on pages 155-177 of the third edition of L. Preller, Römische Mythologie, by H. Jordan (Berlin, Weidmann, 1881).

Vesta e Vestali, by Constantino Maes (Rome, 1882), should be inspected.

The article on the Vestals on pages 336-347 of Volume 3 of Joachim Marquardt's Römische Staatsverwaltung, in the second edition, by George Wissowa, which is the sixth volume of Marquardt and Mommsen's Handbuch der Römischen Altertümer (Leipzig, 1885), is a model of terse, full, and lucid presentation.

H. Jordan has assembled readable information about the Vestals on pages 40-72 of his Der Tempel der Vesta und das Haus der Vestalinnen (Berlin, 1886).

On pages 281-302 of Volume 51, Neue Folge (1896), of the Rheinisches Museum will be found a capable article, Die Amtstracht der Vestalinnen, by Hans Dragendorff.

No one should miss Miss Esther Boise Van Deman's article, The Value of the Vestal Statues as Originals (American Journal of Archaeology, Second Series, Volume 12 [1908], 324-342). Her admirable treatise, The Atrium Vestae (Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1899), completely supersedes all that had been published concerning the House of the Vestals, and makes unnecessary any reference to Lanciani's L'Atrio de Vesta, on pages 434-487 of the Notizie degli Scavi

The purpose of this paper is to give control of the literature bearing on the Vestal Virgins and to list the primary sources of our knowledge of them.

No. 20

d'Antichitá, 1883; or any further reference to Jordan's Der Tempel der Vesta (see above); or any at all to J. H. Middleton's The Temple and Atrium of Vesta and the Regia, in Archaeologia 49 (1886), 391-423; or to Hans Auer's Der Tempel der Vesta und das Haus der Vestalinnen (Vienna, 1888).

Students who are limited to English can find something in Ramsay and Fowler's article Vestales, on pages 940-944 of Volume 2 of Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1891); something more on page 537 of F. Hueffer's translation of Guhl and Koner's The Life of the Greeks and Romans (1875); much here and there in Lanciani's Pagan and Christian Rome (1893); and yet more on pages 217-220 of J. F. and F. Muirhead's translation of W. Helbig's Guide to the Public Collections of Classical Antiquities in Rome (Leipzig, 1895).

Not a little has been printed which, while not directly dealing with the Vestals, yet throws light on them or on their environment. Worth reading is what is said of Vesta on pages 110-121 of J. A. Hartung's Der Religion der Römer (Erlangen, 1836); on pages 620636 of R. F. Klausen's Aeneas und die Penaten (1840); on pages 156-161 of Dr. George Wissowa's Religion und Kultus der Römer (in Müller's Handbuch, 1912).

Concerning the surroundings of the Vestals something might even yet be gleaned from Nibby's Roma Antica (1838), 87-96; something from H. Jordan's Topographie der Stadt Rom im Alterthum (Weidmann, Berlin, 1885); from pages 181-206 of J. H. Middleton's Ancient Rome in 1885 and from pages 307-329 of Volume I of his work, The Remains of Ancient Rome (1892). There is also something to be learned or gleaned from Volume 3 of Marquardt's Römische Staatsverwaltung, mentioned above: see 159 (atrium); 180 (infula); 213-214 (antistes); 250-251 (penus); 314-315 (capere).

This about covers the modern literature touching the Vestals. It should be stated, however, that the investigation on which this monograph is based terminated on July 27, 1914; and that, since that date, the writer has paid no attention to new material published concerning the Vestals, if any there has been.

The primary sources of our knowledge of the Vestals fall under five heads: (1) sculpture, including statuary. reliefs, carvings, and gems; (2) coins; (3) inscriptions: (4) passages in anonymous ancient writings; (5) citations from classical authors.

(1) The sculptures and what can be learned from them are discussed in the writings of Dragendorff, Helbig, Lanciani, Lipsius, and Middleton, named above, and especially in Miss Van Deman's article on the statues.

(2) About 121 coins are known which refer in a more or less vague fashion to Vestals, to Vesta, or to Vesta's Temple, and from which inferences may be drawn adding to our knowledge concerning the Vestals. Ten of these coins are figured or described in Ernest Babelon's Monnaies de la Republique Romaine (Paris, 1885; generally cited as Babelon, Monnaies Consulaires). These are: Volume I, 324, XXIII, Cassia 1; 331, XXIII, Cassia, 8, 9, 10, 11; 354, XXVI, Claudia or Clodia, 12; 473; II, 143, LXXXII, Livineia, 7; II, 275; II, 473, CLXI, Sulpicia, 6. One hundred and eleven are figured or described in Cohen and Feuardent's Description Historique des Monnaies frappées sous L'Empire Romain (generally cited as Medailles Imperiales). These are Volume I, page 339, Galba, 309, 310, 311, 312, 313, 314; I, 343, Galba, 364; I, 348, Galba, 404; I, 350, Galba, 432, 434; I, 363, Vitellius, 89, 90, 91; 1, 412, 413, Vespasian, 572581; I, 456, 457, Titus, 340-351; I, 467, Julia. Titus's daughter, 15-18; 1, 520, 521, Domitian, 611-616; II, 85, 86, Trajan, 644, 645; II, 97, Plotina, 10, 11; II, 227, Hadrian, 1450; II, 252-254, Sabina, 64-68, 78-87; II, 435, 436, Faustina the Elder, 285-293; II, 441, 442, Faustina the Elder, 318; III, 129, Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, 2; III, 161, Faustina the Younger, 284-286; III, 222, Lucilla, 92; III, 386, Crispina, 45; IV, 123, 124, Julia Domna, 220-236; IV, 125, 126, Julia Domna, 239-248; IV, 169, 170, Caracalla, 249-251.

(3) There are about 59 inscriptions which wholly concern the Vestals or throw light on them or of which portions relate to them. In the Monumentum Ancyranum are two passages which touch on them; in Mommsen's 1865 edition, page LXXII, lines 29-33 and 38-41 (also in C. I. L. I, pages 404 ff.). Then there are Orelli 1811 and 2802. In C. I. L. the inscriptions concerning the Vestals are 1.206, 6.787, 788, 1778, 1779, 2127-2148, 2150, 2158, 14, 672, 32, 403-32, 428. Of Volume 6, pages 3296-3300, on which appear inscriptions 32, 403-32, 428, pretty well cover the subject of inscriptions relating to the Vestals.

(4) Some ten passages in anonymous ancient writings touch on the Vestals or throw light on their circumstances. These are Agrorum Quae Sit Inspectio, B, 82, B, 83 (Die Schriften der Römischen Feldmesser, F. Blume, K. Lachmann, und A. Rudorff, 2.283); Chronicon Paschale, p. 175 and p. 249 (Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae, Volume 16, Bonn, 1832, ed. Dindorff, Volume I, pages 331 and 466); Codex Theodosianus, XIII, III, VIII; Liber Coloniarum, II, A, 104 (same collection as Agrorum Quae Sit Inspectio, cited above, II, 235, lines 4-7); Scholia Bobiensia (ed. Orelli), 2.329; Scholiast to Juvenal, Satires 4.10; Scriptores Rerum Mythicarum, 3, 13, page 247, 7; Vetus Orbis Descriptio (Geographi

Acro, Schol. in Horace, Carm. 1.31.11; Ambrosius, Epistula 18.12-13, Contra Symmachum 2. Epistula 18, De Virginibus 2.4; Appian, De Bello Civili 1. 54, 236, 237, 3.92, 5.73; Arnobius, Adversus Gentes 4.35; Asconius in Milonianum 46, Oratio in Toga Candida; Augustinus, De Civitate Dei 3. 5, 18, 28, 10. 16, 22. 11; Aurelius Victor, De Viris Illustribus 46. 2; Ausonius, Epistulae 7. 2. 2; Cedrenus, Hist. Comp. I, p. 148, A (p. 259); Cicero, Ad Att. 1. 13. 3, De Legibus 2. 20, 29, Cat. 3. 9, Pro Caelio 34, De Domo Sua 136, 144, Pro Fonteio, 46 (36), 47 (37), 48 (38), De Harusp. Resp. 13, 37, Pro Murena 73, Philippica 11. 24, Pro Scauro 48, De Republica 3. 17. Dio Cassius, fragment XCI, A. U. C. 640, 37. 35, 45, 42. 31, 47. 19, 48. 12, 19, 37, 45, 51. 19, 54. 24, 27, 55. 22, 56. 10, 60. 5, 65. 18, 67. 3, 77. 16, 79. 9; Dionysius 1. 38. 2, 1. 69, 76, 77, 2. 64-69, 3. 67, 8. 89, 9.40; Eusebius, Chronicorum, Olymp. 74, Lib. II, Olymp. 215 Lib. II, Olymp. 217; Praeparatio Evangelica, 4. 2. 9, p. 135, a; Festus, s. vv. Argaeos, Armita, Casta, Ignis, Muries, Penus, Probrum, Sceleratus Campus, Semis, Sex, Suffibulum; Firmicus Maternus, Libri De Errore Profanarum 14. 3; Florus, Epitome 1. 2. 3, 1. 13. 11-12, 3.21; Fronto, p. 149; Gaius 1. 130, 145; Gellius, Noctes Atticae 1. 12, 7 (6). 7. 2, 7 (6). 7. 4, 9. 15, 31; Herodian I. II. 4-5, 1. 14, 4. 6. 9, 5. 6. 2; Horace, Carm. 1. 2. 26 ff., 3. 30. 9; Hyginus, De Limitibus, G, 135, B, 105; Julian, Orationes, IV, p. 155, A, V, p. 160; Juvenal 4. 10; Lactantius, Institutiones 2.7, 3. 20. 4; Lampridius, Elagabalus 6; Livy 1. 20. 3, 2. 43. II, 4. 44, 5. 39. 9-11, 5. 40, 5. 52, 7. 20. 4, 8, 8.15, Periocha 14, 20, 22. 57, 28. 11, Epitome 63; Lucan, Pharsalia 1. 551, 579-598, 9.993-994; Lydus, De Mensibus 4. 59; Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.10. 5-6, 1. 12. 6, 1. 17. 15, 3. 13. 11; Minucius Felix, Octavius 25. 10 11; Nonius Marcellus, s. v. Salis, p. 223, M; Julius Obsequens, Libri Prodigiorum 62. 62, 92. 35 (37); Orosius, Adversus Paganos 4.11, 7. 16, Historiae 2. 8. 13, 3. 9. 5, 4. 2. 8, 4. 5. 9, 5. 15. 22, 6. 3. 1; Ovid, Fasti 3. 1114, 135-146, 415-428, 4. 629-640, 721-736,943-954, 5. 147-158, 621-634, 6. 249-348, 395-460, 711-716, Tristia 1. 28-30; Paulanus Nolanus, Poema Ultimum 142-145; Paulus Diaconus, Historia Miscella, 796, C; Persius, Satires 2. 59-60; Philocalus, Calendar, February 13, June 7, June 15; Pliny, Epistles 4. 11, 7. 19; Pliny, N. H. 16. 235, 17. 12, 18. 13, 28. 39, 33. 25, 34. 13; Plutarch, An Seni sit gerenda Respublica 24, De Inimicorum Utilitate 6, Quaestiones Romanae 83, 96, Vitae, Antoninus 21, Antonius 58, Camillus 20-21, Cato 20, Crassus I, Cicero 19, Fabius Maximus 18, Numa 9-10, 13, Poplicola 8, Romulus 22, Tiberius Gracchus 15; Propertius 5. 11, 51-54; Prudentius, Peristephanon, Hymn II, 509-512, 525-528, Contra Symmachum 1. 909-912, 2. 1063-1112, Seneca, De Otio 2. 29, De Providentia 1. 5. 3; Seneca, Controversiae I.

2, 6. 8; Servius on Vergil, Aeneid 3.12, 7. 150, 153, 8. 190, 9. 4, 10. 228, 11. 206, 339, 12. 303, Eclogues 8.82; Siculus Flaccus, p. 162; Silius Italicus, Punica 1. 542, 543.17.33-45; Solinus 1.35; Sozomenus, Hist. Eccl. 1.9; Spartianus, Didius Julianus 6.5; Statius, Silvae 1. 1. 32-36, Thebaid 2. 739, 740; Suetonius, Augustus 31, 44, 101, Domitian 8, Julius Caesar 1, 83, Nero 12, 28, Tiberius 2, 76, Vitellius 16; Suidas, Lexicon, s. vv. Augustus, Numa; Symmachus, Epistulae 2. 36, 9. 108, 147, 148, Relationes 3; Syncellus, p. 343; Tacitus, Annales 1. 8, 2. 34, 86, 3. 69, 4. 16, 64, II. 32, 12. 42, 15. 22, 36, 41, Historiae 3. 81, 4.53; Tertullian, De Spectaculis 5, Ad Uxorem 1. 6; Trebellius Pollio, Valeriani Duo 6. (2). 6; Ulpian, Fragments 10. 5; Valerius Maximus I. 1. 6, 7, 10, 1. 4. 4, 1. 8. 11, 3. 7. 9, 4. 4. II, 5.4.6, 8. 1. 5: Varro, De Lingua Latina 6. 17, 21, 32; Zonaras 4. 23, C, 7. 8; Zosimus 5. 38.

Really vital among these 249 citations are twenty-six from eighteen authors, five Greek and thirteen Latin, as follows: Ambrosius, Epistula 18. 12-13, De Virginibus 2. 4; Augustinus, De Civitate Dei 22. 11; Dionysius 2. 64-69, 3. 67; Festus, s. vv. Ignis 22, Muries; Gellius, Noctes Atticae 1. 12, 7 (6). 7. 4; Livy 5. 40, 28. 11; Macrobius, Saturnalia 3. 13. 11; Ovid, Fasti 6 249-348, 395-460; Pliny, Epistles 4. 11; Plutarch, Quaestiones Romanae 96, Camillus 21, Numa 9-10; Prudentius, Contra Symmachum 2. 1063-1112; Servius on Vergil, Aeneid 11. 206; Suidas, Lexicon, s. v. Numa (Noumas); Symmachus, Relationes, III; Tacitus, Annales 2. 86; Valerius Maximus I. 1. 10; Zonaras 7.8; Zosimus 5. 38 (The Last Vestal).

Anyone mastering these twenty-six passages will have mastered all the valuable evidence touching Vestals.

It is greatly to be desired that some one compile and publish a Book of the Vestals, presenting at one view all the sources of our knowledge of them. Such a book would be laborious to complete and expensive to produce. It should contain:

(1) Plates

(A) Of all the statuary, reliefs, and gems illustrating the Vestals;

(B) Of all the coins in any way alluding to them, to Vesta, or to her temple;

(C) Of all the inscriptions concerned with the Vestals, or throwing light on them;

(2) Texts of all such inscriptions, and with each an expanded text, amplifying all abbreviations, and an adequate translation;

(3) Texts of all the passages in anonymous Greek or Latin works which relate in any way to the Vestals, each text with a translation;

(4) Similar texts and translations of the 249 citations from classical authors;

(5) A chronological list of the known Vestals, with a brief summary under each name of what we know of her and with references to the statuary, coins, inscriptions, and citations concerning her;

(6) An alphabetical list of all the known names of Vestals, and a discussion of their relation to Latin names in general, and of what we can learn from those relations;

(7) The full text of Lipsius's De Vesta et Vestalibus Syntagma (perhaps followed by excerpts from later modern writings touching on the Vestals);

(8) Three full bibliographies of all modern publications helpful towards comprehending what is known of the Vestals, of their official home, of their goddess, and of her temple-one by titles, arranged alphabetically; a second by authors, similarly arranged; and a third arranged chronologically.

The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy. Columbia University Dissertation. By William Stuart Messer. New York: Columbia University Press (1918). Pp. ix + 105. $1.25.

The writer of this dissertation, which was done under the supervision of Professor Knapp, has restricted himself to the consideration of the dream as a literary device and allows nothing to side-track him, even though, as is perfectly obvious, he has at his command copious collateral material. The dream played a far more important rôle in the technique of Greek epic and tragedy than it could do in contemporary literature. To the reviewer, it seems almost impossible to disassociate a study of the dream as a literary motif from the influence which gave it its value in the eyes of the poets. The subject is intimately and intricately linked with Greek religion, or, to use a term which we in retrospect are apt to apply to outworn religious beliefs, with folk-lore. A brief discussion of dreamlore would form a fitting introduction to the dissertation, and would enable the reader to see that the dramatic value of the dream is not overestimated. Even the sporadic comments on folk-lore would have more force after such a prefatory chapter. The reviewer feels sure that, when Dr. Messer comes to sift and classify the elements in the dream in Latin literature, as he evidently proposes to do, he will be drawn perforce into a systematic discussion of folk-lore problems, both Greek and Roman. Of course the dissertation is for professional classicists, but not even they have an intimate and fresh acquaintance with all departments of classical philology.

An illustration of the perils of isolating the literary side of the subject may be observed in the remarks on page 3 with regard to the well-known dream in the second book of the Iliad:

In this familiar account, note the entire externality, the complete objectivity, of the dream. The dream is an entity. There is no statement that Agamemnon dreamed that Nestor appeared, or that he beheld him in sleep. And Zeus, too, accosts the dream as he might accost a person. So strongly is this artistic personification felt that" Ονειρος becomes almost a proper

name.

One must be careful not to give Homer too much credit for making an innovation in the treatment of this dream or for conscious artistic personification. He is simply retaining the characteristic attitude of primitive man. In the days of animism, of which there are so many traces in the Homeric poems, there was no distinction between imagination and reality, between things dreamed and things seen. In fact there are still peoples that narrate their dream experiences as realities and thereby acquire reputations as most accomplished liars. "When a Cherokee has dreamed of being stung by a snake, he is treated just in the same way as if he had really been stung". Dr. Messer is well aware of such primitive views of dreams (see Note 230), but attributes to deliberate art what the reviewer would ascribe to the survival of a naive outlook on life. "To the Greek of old", says Tylor', "the dream-soul was what to the modern savage it still is".

An interesting passage on dreams occurs in Od. 19. 562-567. Of this Dr. Messer says (35)

The conscious artifice in these lines is shown in the play upon the similarity of soundin ἐλέφαντι, ἐλεφαίρονται, and κεράεσσι, κραίνουσι--a play which can hardly be accidental.

Lang goes much farther than this and writes":

The Homeric explanation, that true dreams come through the gate of horn, false dreams through the ivory gate, is based merely on a pun in the Greek7.

Striking confirmation of this possibility can be found in an amusing explanation recorded by Servius (on Aen. 6.893):

Physiologia vero hoc habet: per portam corneam oculi significantur, qui et cornei sunt coloris et duriores ceteris membris. nam frigus non sentiunt, sicut et Cicero dicit in libris De Deorum Natura. Per eburneam vero portam os significatur a dentibus. Et scimus quia quae loquimur falsa esse possunt, ea vero quae videmus sine dubio vera sunt. Ideo Aeneas per eburneam emittitur portam.

The Latin could not, of course, reproduce the Greek play, but it finally found a pun available in the two uses

of cornea, 'horny' and 'cornea'. The Roman explanation is, then, merely aetiological.

Dr. Messer has gathered an interesting collection of classical echoes to the 'gates of dreams' (44)8. Readers of a literary bent will regret that he did not record more distant echoes. Classical scholars are coming to feel that it is their privilege, if not their duty, to employ footnotes to correlate ancient and modern material. The reviewer cannot forbear quoting a few lines from the Faery Queene (1.40) that hark back to the Odyssey:

Whose double gates he findeth locked fast,
The one faire fram'd of burnisht yvory,
The other all with silver overcast;
And wakeful dogges before them farre do lye,
Watching to banish Care their enimy,
Who oft is wo it to trouble gentle Sleepe.
By them the sprite doth pass in quietly,
And unto Morpheus comes, whom drowned deepe
In drowsie fit he findes: of nothing he takes keepe3.

The reviewer feels that certain differences between dreams in the Iliad and the Odyssey may be more fortuitous than significant. For instance, Penelope dreams (Od. 19.535-553) that an eagle (Odysseus) comes from the mountain and kills twenty geese (suitors). Great emphasis is laid by Dr. Messer on the allegorical character of this dream as an advance in the dream technique (31-34). In the Iliad (2.308 ff.) the omen of the serpent and sparrows in the plane tree is strikingly allegorical. To the reviewer's notion Homer could have treated it as a portent dreamed as readily as a portent seen. Both omens are vividly dramatic.

A reviewer always likes a few points for captious criticism. It is not strange that the word χρηματισμός does not appear in Homer (see page 2). The meter does not permit it. It would seem that we ought to give up the custom 'made in Germany' of referring to a fifth book of Propertius (see page 44). The fivebook division is without honor now even in its own country, since the Thesaurus Lingae Latinae fails to observe it.

The proof-reading has been done very carefully and very successfully. One would prefer, however, to see foreign words and short phrases italicized, e.g. in propria persona (56), dramatis persona (56), anagnorisis (57), deus ex machina (57), Tempelschlaf (58), etc.

So much space has been devoted by the reviewer to criticism, some of which may be due to the personal equation, that but a few lines are left for a general survey of the work and its merits. In addition to treating the dream as a means of motivation, the thesis (Preface vii)

deals, within the limits of each dream picture, with the amplification of the dream, its increasing complexity, its growth and refinement, or its decay, as an artistic literary device.

Additional instances are Ausonius 157.22-26; Claudianus 27.22-23: Phocas, Carmen De Vita Vergilii 41-42.

The Ivory Gate of Mortimer Collins is another echo.