The unfortunate Maxima turned her magnificent countenance from him to the vast assembly as she invoked Vesta and every deity of earth and heaven to attest her innocence; but her voice was distinct, clear, and even melodious. She was interrupted by the emperor, who charged her with the crime for which she was about to suffer, and urged her repeatedly to confess her guilt. To his severe remarks Cornelia calmly replied, “Cæsar believes me guilty of incest, who performed the sacred rites when he conquered and triumphed.” She had repeatedly uttered these mysterious words on her way to the Collina Gate. No one but herself and Domitian comprehended their meaning. Pliny the Younger, who was present, could not discover whether this speech was intended as a satirical allusion to the ill-success of the emperor’s Dacian campaigns, for which he had nevertheless triumphed, or whether the unfortunate vestal wished to conciliate her judge, and attest her own purity by this reply; the enigma was never solved by Cornelia. Then the imperial pontiff made his impious prayers, and after consigning the condemned vestal to her executioners departed with his priestly attendants. At this moment Lucia Claudia raised her veil, and turned her tearful eyes upon the unhappy Maxima, who returned her sympathising recognition with a glance of intelligent gratitude, and even smiled. No trace of the strong agony that had convulsed her noble figure on the pavement of the Tullianum remained on her dignified and placid countenance. She looked towards the temple of which she had been the presiding priestess, she gazed upon the Roman people, and cast a farewell look upon the bright blue heavens that canopied old Rome, and then resolutely advanced towards the chasm. As she placed her firm unshrinking foot upon the steps, the executioner put forth his hand to disengage her robe, but the vestal haughtily repulsed him, as if his touch were profanation to her purity. She was observed to gather her flowing drapery closely round her magnificent person as she descended into her living grave,[28] and this simple and intuitive trait of feminine modesty redeemed for ever the aspersed character of Cornelia Cossi Maxima, in the eyes of the vast assembly who witnessed it, from defamation; and that dark sepulchral vault was closed never to be re-opened to enclose another victim. The conviction that Cornelia had been unjustly immolated made a lasting impression upon the Roman people, and the mound that marked the awful spot was never again disturbed by the votaries of a cruel superstition. The extension of Christianity banished cruel heathen rites.