god
Vesta
Goddess of the hearth; her cult was tended by the Vestal Virgins at the temple in the Forum.
Reading notes
- Ad Familiares 14.2 §2 taken from the temple of Vesta to the Valerian Table
Terentia, who had taken sanctuary at the shrine of Vesta where her half-sister Fabia was a Vestal Virgin, was dragged to the tabula Valeria, a banking spot in the Forum by the Senate-house, apparently to give testimony about Cicero's confiscated property. The indignity of a Roman matron being publicly hauled about is what wrings Cicero's heart here.
- On the Nature of the Gods §2.67 her power extends to altars and hearths
Vesta, goddess of the hearth-fire, named last in sacrifice as Janus is named first. Her name is taken from the Greek Hestia, and her power guards the innermost things of household and state.
- Eleventh Philippic §24 that emblem is which, fallen from heaven, is kept under the guardianship of Vesta
The Palladium, the sacred image of Pallas believed to have fallen from the sky and to guarantee Rome's safety, kept by the Vestal Virgins in the temple of Vesta; Cicero likens Decimus Brutus to this talisman of the state.
- For Marcus Aemilius Scaurus §48 Palladium
The Palladium, an ancient image of Pallas Athena believed brought from Troy, was the pledge (pignus) of Rome's safety, kept in the temple of Vesta. The pontifex maximus L. Caecilius Metellus famously rescued it from the fire of 241 BC, blinding himself in the act.