ces which are
offered upon the sacred bridge, which are of great sanctity and
antiquity. The Latins call a bridge _pontem_. This bridge is intrusted
to the care of the priests, like any other immovable holy relic; for the
Romans think that the removal of the wooden bridge would call down the
wrath of Heaven. It is said to be entirely composed of wood, in
accordance with some oracle, without any iron whatever.

The stone bridge was built many years afterwards, when Aemilius was
Quaestor. However, it is said that the wooden bridge itself does not
date from the time of Numa, but that it was finished by Marcius, the
grandson of Numa, when he was king.

The chief priest, or Pontifex Maximus, is an interpreter and prophet or
rather expounder of the will of Heaven. He not only sees that the public
sacrifices are properly conducted, but even watches those who offer
private sacrifices, opposes all departure from established custom, and
points out to each man how to honour the gods and how to pray to them.
He also presides over the holy maidens called vestals.

The consecration of the vestal virgins, and the worship and watching of
the eternal flame by them, are entirely attributed to Numa, and
explained either by the pure and uncorruptible essence of fire being
intrusted to the keeping of those who are stainless and undefiled, or
by that which is barren and without fruit being associated with maidens.

Indeed, in Greece, wherever an eternal fire is kept up, as at Delphi and
Athens, it is not maidens, but widows, past the age to wed, that tend
it. When any of these fires chance to go out, as, for instance, the
sacred lamp went out at Athens when Aristion was despot, and the fire
went out at Delphi when the temple was burned by the Persians, and at
Rome in the revolutions during the time of the wars with King
Mithridates the fire, and even the altar upon which it burned, was swept
away; then they say that it must not be lighted from another fire, but
that an entirely new fire must be made, lighted by a pure and undefiled
ray from the sun. They usually light it with mirrors made by hollowing
the surface of an isosceles right-angled triangle, which conducts all
the rays of light into one point. Now when it is placed opposite to the
sun, so that all the rays coming from all quarters are collected
together into that point, the ray thus formed passes through the thin
air, and at once lights the dryest and lightest of the objects aga