These proud privileges might be lost, however, by a lapse from virtue, or a false accusation. If any public calamity befell the Romans it was imputed to the secret guilt of these priestesses, and they were buried alive, unless some advocate succeeded in snatching them from such a fearful fate. Cicero delivered by his eloquence one of these ladies from a charge involving her life and honour; but in the reign of Domitian three vestals were convicted of unchastity and put to death. Plutarch, in his Life of Numa, has been very particular in describing the dismal ceremonial of the interment of the unchaste vestal. The condemnation of the Vestal College had been so recent that he doubtless described the scene from those who had witnessed its horrors. Several festivals were celebrated in ancient Rome in honour of Vesta. That on the calends of March, when the vestals rekindled the sacred fire, and the laurels were renewed that encircled the consular fasces, must have been very interesting. The solar rays were used for this purpose,—a custom found also among the Druids, only that they commenced the year from the 1st of January, while the Virgin College adhered to the defective old calendar of the early regal times. On the ides of May the vestals, accompanied by the Pontifical College, threw from the bridge Sublicius thirty figures instead of human beings, which had once been offered to Saturn from that place,—a barbarous custom abolished, tradition declared, by Hercules. But the Vestalia held on the ninth of June was the great festival which gave the Roman ladies the most pleasure, because it afforded them an opportunity of displaying their gayest apparel and ornaments in the procession from the temple or Vesta to the Capitol. The month of December was dedicated to Vesta. The temple of this deity stood on Mount Palatine, it was circular in form and unadorned, the altar on which the sacred fire continually was burning stood in the middle of the fane. Men were permitted free access to this temple during the day, but were denied admittance at night. The sanctuary, however, might not be approached by masculine feet. The sacred fire was kept burning for centuries, and was only extinguished with the sacerdotal order that had so long maintained its mysterious flame. NOTE VI.