The Roman Vestalia fell a little later than the Kallynteria and Plynteria, but their content is the same. I borrow the account of the ritual of the Vestalia from Mr Warde-Fowler[302]. On June 7 the _penus_, or innermost sanctuary of Vesta, 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. 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; bakers and millers kept holiday, all mills were garlanded and donkeys decorated with wreaths and cakes. On June 15 the temple (_aedes_) was swept and the refuse taken away and either thrown into the Tiber or deposited in some particular spot. 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_, ‘When the rubbish has been carried away.’ Dr Frazer[303] has collected many savage parallels to the rites of the Vestalia. The most notable is the _busk_ or festival of first-fruits among the Creek Indians of North America, held in July or August when the corn is ripe. Before the celebration of the _busk_ no Indian would eat or even touch the new corn. In preparation for its rites they got new clothes and household utensils: old clothes, rubbish of all kinds, and the old corn that remained were carefully burnt. The village fires were put out and the ashes swept away, and in particular the hearth and altar of the temple were dug up and cleaned out. The public square was carefully swept out ‘for fear of polluting the first-fruit offerings.’ Before the sacramental eating of the new corn a strict fast was observed, and (for the precautions taken by the savage ritualist are searching and logical) a strong purgative was swallowed. With the new corn was solemnly dispensed the freshly-kindled fire, and the priest publicly announced that the new divine fire had purged away the sins of the past year. Such powerful ‘medicine’ was the new corn that some of the men rubbed their new corn between their hands, then on their faces and breasts. To resume. In the Anthesteria we have seen that sacrifice was in intent purification, and that this purification took the form of the placation of ghosts. In the Thargelia, purification is again the end and aim of sacrifice, but this purification, though it involves the taking of a human life, is of the nature of a merely magical cleansing to prepare for the incoming first-fruits. We pass to the consideration of the autumn festival of sowing, the _Thesmophoria_. CHAPTER IV. THE WOMEN’S FESTIVALS. THESMOPHORIA, ARREPHORIA, SKIROPHORIA, STENIA, HALOA. ‘τὰ θεσμοφόρι’ ἄγουσιν ὥσπερ καὶ πρὸ τοῦ.’