Note 683 — Chapter XV · THE FIRE-DRILL

Festus, s.v. “Ignis,” p. 106, ed. C. O. Müller: “Ignis Vestae si quando interstinctus esset, virgines verberibus afficiebantur a pontifice, quibus mos erat tabulam felicis materiae tamdiu terebrare, quousque exceptum ignem cribro aeneo virgo in aedem ferret.” In this passage it is not clear whether quibus refers to the virgins alone or to the virgins and the pontiff together; but the strict grammatical construction is in favour of the latter interpretation. The point is not unimportant, as we shall see presently. From a passage of Plutarch (Numa, 9) it has sometimes been inferred that the Vestal fire was rekindled by sunlight reflected from a burning-glass. But in this passage Plutarch is describing a Greek, not a Roman, mode of making fire, as has been rightly pointed out by Professor M. H. Morgan (“De ignis eliciendi modis apud antiquos,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, i. (1890) pp. 56 sqq.). In this memoir Professor Morgan has collected and discussed the passages of Greek and Latin writers which refer to the kindling of fire.