Note 1156 — BOOK VII.835 MAN, HIS BIRTH, HIS ORGANIZATION, AND THE INVENTION OF THE ARTS.

Her story is told at great length by Ovid, in the Fasti, B. iv. l. 305, et seq. Her name was Claudia Quinta, and she is supposed to have been the sister of Appius Claudius Pulcher, and grand-daughter of Appius Claudius Cæcus. The vessel which was conveying the statue of Cybele from Pessinus to Rome having stuck fast on a shallow at the mouth of the Tiber, the soothsayers declared that none but a really chaste woman could move it. Claudia, who had been previously accused of unchastity, being in the number of the matrons who had accompanied Scipio to Ostia to receive the statue, immediately presented herself, and calling upon the goddess to vindicate her innocence, seized the rope, and the vessel moved forthwith. A statue was afterwards erected to her in the vestibule of the temple of the goddess.