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On this page: Vestibulum – Vesticeps

YIAE.

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VESTALES.

keeping they were considered inviolable (Plut. Antnn. .'58) ; and in like manner very solemn treaties, such as that of the triumvirs with Sextus Pompeius, were placed in their, hands. (Appian, B. C. v. 73 ; Dion Cass. xlviii. 37 and 46 ; com­pare xlviii. 12.) That they might be honoured in death as in life, their ashes were interred within the pomoerium. (Serv. ad Virg. A en. xi. 206.) They were attired in a stola over which was an

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upper vestment made of linen (Val. Max. i. 1. § 7 ; Dion}Ts. ii. 68 j Plin. Ep. iv.. 11), and in addition to the Infula and white woollen Vitta they wore when sacrificing a peculiar head-dress called suffi-bulum, consisting of a piece of white cloth bordered with purple, oblong in shape, and secured by a clasp. (Festus, s. v. Suffibulum.) In dress and general deportment they were required to observe the utmost simplicity and decorum, any fanciful ornaments in the one or levity in the other being always regarded with disgust and suspicion. (Liv. iv. 44, viii. 15 ; Plin. Ep. iv. 11 ; Ovid. Fast. iv. 285,) We infer from a passage in Pliny (//. N. xvi. 85) that their hair was cut off, probably at the period of their consecration ; whether this was re­peated from time to time does not appear, but they are never represented with flowing locks. The first of the following cuts, copied from a gem (Montfaucon, Ant. Eoop. i. pi. xxviii., Supplem. i. pi. xxiii.), represents the Vestal Tuccia who when wrongfully accused appealed to the goddess to vin­dicate her honour^ and had power given her to carry a sieve full of water from the Tiber to the temple. (Val. Max. viii. 1. § 5 ; Plin. H. N. xxviii. 2..) The form, of the upper garment is

here well seen. The second is from a denarius of the Gens Clodia, representing upon the reverse a female priestess with a simpuvium in her hand, and bearing the legend vestalis ; on the ob­verse is a head of Flora with the words c. glodivs c. F. Two Vestals belonging to this gens were celebrated in the Roman Annals. (See Ovid. Fast. iv. 279 ; Suet. Tib. 2 ; Augustin. de Civ. Dei, x. 16 ; Herodian. i. 11.) [triumphus, p. 1165, a.] The coin seems to have been struck to commemorate the splendour of the Floralia as ex­hibited during the famous aedileship of C. Clodius Pulcheru. c. 99. (Cic. de Off. ii. 16, c. Verr.iv. 2 ; Plin. H. N. xxxv. 4.)

(Lipsius, de Vesta et VestaliUs Syntagma, and Noehden, " On the worship of Vesta, &c. Clas-

sical Journal, vol. xv. 123^ vol. xvi. 321," have collected most of the authorities on this subject ; Gottling, Gesehiclite der Romisch. Staatsverfassung, p. 189.) [W. R-]

VESTIBULUM. [Bonus,p. 427,a; janua, p. 627, b.]

VESTICEPS. [impubes, 631, a.] VETERA'NUS. [ExEucrrus, p. 499, b.] VEXILLA'RII. [exercitus, p. 507, b.] YEXIL.LUM. [exercitus, p. 507, b ; signa

MlLITARIA.)

VIAE. Three words are employed by the Ro­man jurists to denote a road, or a right of road, Iter, Actus, Via. The different meanings of these three words are given under servitutes, p. 1032.

We next find Viae divided into privatae or agrariae and. publicae^ the former being those the use of which was free while the soil itself remained private property, the latter those of which the use, the management, and the soil were alike vested in the state. Viae Vicinales (quae in vicis sunt vel quae in vicos ducuni), being country cross-roads merging in the great lines,, or at all events not leading to any important terminus, might be either publieae or privatae according as they were formed and maintained at the cost of the state or by the contributions of private individuals. (Dig. 43. tit. 8. s. 2. § 21,22 ; tit 7. s. 3 ; Sicul. Flacc. de Cond. Agr. p. 9, ed. Goes.) The Viae puUicae of the highest class were distinguished by the epithets militares^ consulates, praetoriae^ answering to the terms o5ot /3a<rtA:/cal among the Greeks and king's highway among ourselves.

That public roads of some kind must have existed from the very foundation of the city is manifest, but as very little friendly intercourse ex­isted with the neighbouring states for any length of time without interruption, they would in all probability not extend beyond the narrow limits of the Roman territor}7", and would be mere muddy tracks used by the peasants in their journeys to and from market. It was not until the period of the long protracted Samnite wars that the neces­sity was strongly felt of securing an easy, regular, and safe communication between the city and the legions, and then for the first time we hear of those famous paved roads, which, in after ages, keeping pace with ths progress of the Roman arms, con­nected Rome with her most distant provinces, con­stituting not only the most useful, but the most lasting of all her works. (Strabo, v. p. 235.) The excellence of the principles upon which they were constructed is sufficiently attested by their extra­ordinary durability, many specimens being found in the country around Rome which have been used without being repaired for more than a thousand years, and are still in a high s.tate of preservation.

The Romans are said to have adopted their first ideas upon this subject from the Carthaginians (Isidor. xv. 16. § 6), and it is extremely probable that the latter people may, from their commercial activity, and the sandy nature of their soil, have

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