Note 289 — ROMAN PEOPLE (continued 3)

Ovid, Fasti, vi. 296, says that he had been stupid enough to believe that there was a statue in the aedes Vestae, but found out his mistake:—

The passage is interesting as showing how natural it was for a Roman of the Graeco-Roman period to suppose that his deities must be capable of taking iconic form. For anthropomorphic representations of Vesta in other places and at Pompeii, see Wissowa, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, p. 67 foll.