Philological Dissertation on Honored, Learned, Adored, and Fruitful Virginity

which we will also provide below. Onuphrius Panvinius produces this in his Roman City, that nothing is purer than fire, just as nothing is purer than a Virgin. Perhaps this is older, because the cult of fire was in the family hearth, the care and religion of which was entrusted to girls still remaining at home, that is, to Virgins. For the household Lar was at the domestic hearth, whom the author of Aulularia introduces speaking in the prologue:

But to me, his grandfather, begging, entrusted
A treasure of gold, hidden from everyone, in the middle of the hearth
He buried it, venerating me, that I might guard it for him.
Where he also adds about the girl or the daughter of the house:
To him there is one daughter: she daily to me
With either incense, or wine, or something, always prays,
She gives me garlands.
What, garlands? Will this from Propertius, Book 4, Elegy 6, be explained thereby?
And let the woolen circle go three times around the hearth.
The Gods, therefore, are in the hearth: indeed on account of the fire. Hence Ovid, Fasti 6:
It was the custom formerly to sit on long benches before the hearths,
And to believe that the Gods were present at the table.
But Vesta is called the Mistress of the hearths by the same Ovid. However, the domestic Lar was not the fire itself, but had an altar and a wooden statue near the fire, for Tibullus speaks of it when he says, Book 1, Elegy 10:
Then they kept faith better, when with poor cult
The wooden God stood in a small shrine.
But without the girl, no vow or sacrifice was made to him, the same Tibullus, ibid:
And someone, having fulfilled a vow, brought cakes himself,
And afterwards the little daughter followed with a pure honeycomb.