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

is a Virgin. For Pausanias says in his Achaica: "There was in the house a sacred precinct and a temple of Diana, surnamed Triclaria, and the Ionians held a festival and all-night vigil for her every year. The priesthood was held by a Virgin, until she was sent away to a husband." Which Amasaeus, the interpreter, translates thus: "In a certain house was a sacred precinct and a temple of Diana, surnamed Triclaria. The Ionians celebrated festival days for her every year, and held a lectisternium a feast where images of the gods were laid on couches. The priesthood was in the hands of a Virgin, until she married."

In Ephesus also, in the temple of Diana, there were Virgin priestesses. We elicit this from Plutarch, who is dealing with something else in his book, Whether an old man should engage in politics. In which he writes thus: "Just as in Rome time was distinguished for the Vestal Virgins, so that in the first part they learned, in the second they did the customary things, and in the third they taught others. And similarly among those in Ephesus concerning Diana, each one is called first a future priestess, then a priestess, and the third a retired priestess, etc."

Lycophron in his Cassandra introduces her speaking thus:

The leaders of the Daunians will build a temple for me
By the banks of Salpia, they who inhabit
The city of Dardanus, near the water of the lake.
But the maidens, to escape the marriage yoke,
When they wish, refusing husbands,
With flowing hair adorned with shears