Indeed, in Greece, wherever an eternal fire is kept up, as at Delphi and Athens, it is not maidens, but widows, past the age to wed, that tend it. When any of these fires chance to go out, as, for instance, the sacred lamp went out at Athens when Aristion was despot, and the fire went out at Delphi when the temple was burned by the Persians, and at Rome in the revolutions during the time of the wars with King Mithridates the fire, and even the altar upon which it burned, was swept away; then they say that it must not be lighted from another fire, but that an entirely new fire must be made, lighted by a pure and undefiled ray from the sun. They usually light it with mirrors made by hollowing the surface of an isosceles right-angled triangle, which conducts all the rays of light into one point. Now when it is placed opposite to the sun, so that all the rays coming from all quarters are collected together into that point, the ray thus formed passes through the thin air, and at once lights the dryest and lightest of the objects against which it strikes, for that ray has the strength and force of fire itself. Some say that the only duty of the vestal virgins is to watch that eternal fire, but others say they perform certain secret rites, about which we have written as much as it is lawful to divulge, in the Life of Camillus. X. The first maidens who were consecrated by Numa were named Gegania and Verenia; and afterwards Canuleia and Tarpeia were added. Servius subsequently added two more to their number, which has remained six ever since his reign. Numa ordained that the maidens should observe celibacy for thirty years, during the first ten years of which they were to learn their duties, during the next perform them, and during the last to teach others. After this period any of them who wished might marry and cease to be priestesses; but it is said that very few availed themselves of this privilege, and that those few were not happy, but, by their regrets and sorrow for the life they had left, made the others scruple to leave it, prefer to remain virgins till their death. They had great privileges, such as that of disposing of their property by will when their fathers were still alive, like women who have borne three children. When they walk abroad they are escorted by lictors with the fasces; and if they happen to meet any criminal who is being taken to execution, he is not put to death; but the vestal must swear that she met him accidentally, and not on purpose. When they use a litter, no one may pass under it on pain of death. The vestals are corrected by stripes for any faults which they commit, sometimes by the Pontifex Maximus, who flogs the culprit without her clothes, but with a curtain drawn before her. She that breaks her vow of celibacy is buried alive at the Colline Gate, at which there is a mound of earth which stretches some way inside the city wall. In it they construct an underground chamber, of small