[Illustration 6: _THE CHIEF VESTAL After the painting by Henri P. Motte Vestals were believed by the Romans to be the guaranties for the existence of the Empire. To these priestesses was paid a respect as great if not greater than any Roman official might claim. Anyone offering insult was punished with death. Whenever a Vestal appeared in public, she was preceded by a lictor, before whom everyone made way, even the highest officer of the State. The faces were always lowered in her presence..... Domitian constituted himself censor; his attention was turned first to the college of Vestal Virgins, who had become notorious for licentiousness. Three priestesses received an order to make away with themselves. Cornelia, the chief Vestal and the worst offender, was condemned to suffer the punishment of entombment. As she was descending to the tomb, Cornelia's veil caught on the steps; when an official offered to disentangle it, the Vestal in a horrified manner bade him to desist, as her consecrated character could not endure the profane touch of a man._] XIII THE SUNSET GLOW OF PAGANISM Gibbon expresses the opinion that in no period of the world's history has the human race been happier or more prosperous than during the time which elapsed between the reigns of Domitian and Commodus. There is not a little that may be said in support of this remarkable conclusion. Under Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines, the Empire enjoyed the calm and brilliant evening following a long day of bitter strife and perilous turmoil, and preceding the moral darkness of the rule of the tyrants under whom paganism was fated to expire. During this period, Italy and the interior provinces of the Empire were entirely free from the rude alarms of war. The home of that day was as secure from violence as it is among ourselves at the present time. No wife or daughter had occasion unavailingly to beg the life of husband or father from the jealous or timid cruelty of a self-indulgent ruler. In the home circle, there was no foreboding dread of proscription. The terrible laws regarding _crimen majestatis_, under which so many cruelties had been perpetrated and so many families unjustly bereaved, were held in abeyance. Pliny writes to Trajan: "It is said, sir, that a woman and her sons have been buried in the same place where your statue is set up." This, under some of the former emperors, would have been a grave matter; a woman was executed under Domitian because she disrobed before a statue of the emperor. But Trajan writes: "You should not have hesitated about such a question, for you know very well that I do not propose to make my name respected by terror and by accusations of treason. Dismiss this charge, which I shall not consider."