Essay on the Sacred Fire and on the Vestals

point, one is assumed; all that is required for this is skill. Silius likely Silius Italicus, the Roman poet asserts that independently of the lamp, there was also a burner upon the Altar.

We do not have enough details on this part of Egyptian worship to say exactly what it consisted of; most of the Writers who have treated the Religion of these Peoples have only dwelled upon the multitude of gross superstitions to which they were devoted: one can conclude from this that Fire was not the essential object of their worship, that it was only an accessory, or that if it was particularly revered, it was less so than the plants they took from their gardens to place upon the Altar alongside the animals they adored.

Among the festivals they celebrated with the most pomp, there is one in which Fire played a great role; it was that of Minerva The author uses the Roman name for the Egyptian goddess Neith, whose principal Temple was at Sais. Night was chosen for this solemnity; as soon as it had come, everyone attached around their house a prodigious quantity of lamps filled with oil in which salt had been placed: they cast such a great light that one did not notice the absence of day; their arrangement and their brilliance formed an agreeable spectacle that lasted all night. This kind of rejoicing was not limited to Sais; all those who could not travel to that City practiced the same ceremonies in the places where they found

themselves. All of Egypt, thus illuminated, offered a singular sight. This festival was called the illumination of the lamps. Its motive is not known to us; the Egyptians made a mystery of it in their time: and too many centuries have passed for us to hope to discover it today. The festival of lanterns, so ancient and so famous in China, has much resemblance to that one; its origin is equally unknown; these People have entirely lost the memory of the reasons for which it was established, and the fables by which they explain it are perhaps worth no more than our conjectures.

The kind of relationship of wars and conquests that existed between the Babylonians, the Assyrians, and the Medes allows us to think that the worship of Fire was received among the latter. Magism The religion of the Magi or Zoroastrianism, born in Chaldea, must have spread to its neighborhood and extended step by step. Superstitions are active and propagate easily. Plutarch says that the Assyrians and the Medes rendered great honors to Fire.

Perhaps one finds traces of this custom among the Phoenicians; but there is much appearance that it was also only an accessory there. Near the famous Temple of the Syrian Goddess Atargatis, there was a Lake where sacred fish were kept and fed; this Lake was, according to the Priests, two hundred fathoms deep. In the middle rose a stone Altar, which
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