It was thought dishonorable for men to mourn; but the law prescribed that women should mourn ten months for a parent, or a husband. During this time they laid aside ornaments, and purple garments, and staid at home, avoiding all amusements; some even refrained from kindling a fire in the house on account of its cheerful appearance. Under the republic, women dressed in black like the men; but under the emperors, when party-colored garments came in fashion, they wore white for mourning. If a widow married within ten months after her husband’s decease, she was held infamous. Indeed second marriages were never esteemed honorable in women. Even in the most corrupt days of the empire, those who had been married but to one husband were treated with peculiar deference; hence Univira is often found on ancient sepulchres, as an epithet of honor. Plutarch says maidens never married on festivals, nor widows on working-days, because marriage was honorable to the one and seemed not to be so to the other; for which reason they celebrated the marriage of widows in presence of a few, and on days that called off the attention of the people to other spectacles. Those who remained widows had the first place in certain solemn ceremonies. The crown of chastity was decreed to them; and if they married again, they were never after allowed to enter the temple of that divinity. The Romans borrowed their mythology from the Grecian, where female deities abound. When they invoked the gods by name, in their temples, the Romans, in order to avoid mistakes, were accustomed to add, “Whether thou art a god, or whether thou art a goddess.” Women, as well as men, filled the sacred office of the priesthood. The vestal virgins were young girls, six in number, devoted to the service of Vesta. When any vacancy occurred, twenty maidens, not younger than six, or older than sixteen, were selected from the families of Roman citizens. It was required that their parents should both be living, and free-born, and that they themselves should be without any bodily imperfection or infirmity. It was determined by lot which of the twenty should be chosen; unless some one, with requisite qualifications, was voluntarily offered by parents, and approved by the pontifex maximus, or high priest. The vestals were bound to their ministry for thirty years. For the first ten, they learned the sacred rites; for the next ten, they performed them; and for the last ten, they taught the younger virgins. It was the business of the vestals to keep the sacred fire continually burning; they watched it in the night time alternately; and whoever allowed it to go out, was severely scourged. The fire was relighted from the rays of the sun, and extraordinary sacrifices were made to avert the unlucky omen. Certain sacred images, on the preservation of which the safety of Rome was supposed to depend, were likewise intrusted to the care of the vestals. Wills and testaments