Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 2 (of 5) : $b Comprising all his works collected under the title of "Morals"Plutarch
Philosophy
Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 2 (of 5) : $b Comprising all his works collected under the title of "Morals"
Plutarch
Classical literature; Essays; Ethics; Philosophy
Or rather, because light is a sign of generation, and it is natural to
a woman, for the most part, to bring forth so far as five successively,
and therefore they use five torches? Or is it because they suppose that
married persons have occasion for five Gods, Nuptial Jupiter, Nuptial
Juno, Venus, Suada, and above all the rest Diana, whom women invocate
in their travail and child-bed sickness?
_Question 3._ What is the reason that, seeing there are so many
of Diana’s temples in Rome, the men refrain going into that only which
stands in Patrician Street?
_Solution._ Is it upon the account of the fabulous story, that a
certain man, ravishing a woman that was there worshipping the Goddess,
was torn in pieces by dogs; and hence this superstitious practice
arose, that men enter not in?
_Question 4._ Why do they in all other temples of Diana ordinarily
nail up stags’ horns against the wall, whenas in that of the Aventine
they nail up the horns of cattle?
_Solution._ Was it to put them in mind of an old casualty? For it
is said, that among the Sabines one Antro Coratius had a very comely
cow, far excelling all others in handsomeness and largeness, and was
told by a certain diviner that whoever should offer up that cow in
sacrifice to Diana on the Aventine, his city was determined by fate to
be the greatest in the world and have dominion over all Italy. This
man came to Rome, with an intention to sacrifice his cow there; but
a servant acquainted King Servius privately with this privacy, and
the king making it known to Cornelius the priest, Cornelius strictly
commands Antro to wash in Tiber before he sacrificed, for the law
requires men so to do who would sacrifice acceptably. Wherefore,
whilst Antro went to wash, Servius took the opportunity to sacrifice
the cow to the Goddess, and nailed up the horns to the wall in the
temple. These things are storied by Juba and Varro, only Varro hath not
described Antro by that name, neither doth he say that the Sabine was
choused by Cornelius the priest, but by the sexton.
_Question 5._ Wherefore is it that those that are falsely reported
to be dead in foreign countries, when they return, they receive not by
the doors, but getting up to the roof of the house, they let them in
that way?
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