From the first, no doubt, the tending of the fire was in some sense a religious service, and the flame a sacred flame[603]. There must have been many stages of growth from this beginning to the fully developed Vesta of the Republic and Empire; yet we can see that the lines of development were singularly simple and consistent. The sacred fire for example was maintained in the aedes Vestae, adjoining the king’s house[604] (_regia_); and the penus Vestae, which must originally have contained the stores on which the family depended for their sustenance, was always believed to preserve the most sacred and valuable objects possessed by the State[605].
We return to the Vestalia, of which the ritual was as follows. On June 7, the penus Vestae, which was shut all the rest of the year, and to which no man but the pontifex maximus had at any time right of entry, was thrown open to all matrons. During the seven following days they crowded to it barefoot[606]. Ovid relates his own experience[607]:
Forte revertebar festis Vestalibus illa Qua nova Romano nunc via iuncta foro est. Huc pede matronam vidi descendere nudo: Obstipui tacitus sustinuique gradum.
The object of this was perhaps to pray for a blessing on the household. On plain and old-fashioned ware offerings of food were carried into the temple: the Vestals themselves offered the sacred cakes made of the first ears of corn plucked, as we saw, in the early days of May[608]; bakers and millers kept holiday, all mills were garlanded, and donkeys decorated with wreaths and cakes[609].
Ecce coronatis panis dependet asellis Et velant scabras florida serta molas.
On June 15 the temple (aedes, not templum) was swept and the refuse taken away and either thrown into the Tiber or deposited in some particular spot[610]. Then the _dies nefasti_ came to an end; and the 15th itself became _fastus_ as soon as the last act of cleansing had been duly performed: ‘Quando stercus delatum fas.’
In this account of the ritual of these days, two features claim special attention: (1) the duties of the Vestals in connexion with the provision of food; (2) the fact that the days were _religiosi_, as is illustrated by the prohibition of marriage and the mourning of the Flaminica Dialis. That these two features were in some way connected seems proved by the cessation of the mourning when the penus Vestae was once more closed.