Plutarch's Romane Questions · Plutarch
96.
_What is the reason that the Romans punish the holy Vestall Virgins (who have suffered their bodies to be abused and defiled) by no other meanes, than by interring them quicke under the ground?_ IS this the cause, for that the maner is to burne the bodies of them that be dead: and to burie (by the meanes of fire) their bodies who have not devoutly and religiously kept or preserved the divine fire, seemed not just nor reasonable? Or haply, because they thought it was not lawfull to kill any person who had bene consecrated with the most holy and religious ceremonies in the world; nor to lay violent hands upon a woman consecrated: and therefore they devised this invention of suffering them to die of their owne selves; namely, to let them downe into a little vaulted chamber under the earth, where they left with them a lampe burning, and some bread, with a little water and milke: and having so done, cast earth and covered them aloft. And yet for all this, can they not be exempt from a superstitious feare of them thus interred: for even to this day, the priests going over this place, performe (I wot not what) anniversary services and rites, for to appease and pacifie their ghosts.
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