ach family had a hearth, also, that it adored.
For the Romans, as for the Hindoos, fire was a god and the hearth an
altar. The flame was to be maintained day and night, and offerings
made on the hearth of oil, fat, wine, and incense; the fire then
became brilliant and rose higher as if nourished by the offering.

Before beginning his meal the Roman thanked the god of the hearth,
gave him a part of the food, and poured out for him a little wine
(this was the libation). Even the sceptical Horace supped with his
slaves before the hearth and offered libation and prayer.

Every Roman family had in its house a sanctuary where were to be found
the Lares, the souls of the ancestors, and the altar of the hearth.
Rome also had its sacred hearth, called Vesta, an ancient word
signifying the hearth itself. Four virgins of the noblest families,
the Vestals, were charged with keeping the hearth, for it was
necessary that the flame should never be extinguished, and the care of
it could be confided only to pure beings. If a Vestal broke her vow,
she was buried alive in a cave, for she had committed sacrilege and
had endangered the whole Roman people.

THE FAMILY

=Religion of the Family.=--All the members of a family render worship
to the same ancestors and unite about the same hearth. They have
therefore the same gods, and these are their peculiar possession. The
sanctuary where the Lares[115] were kept was concealed in the house
and no stranger was to approach it. Thus the Roman family was a little
church; it had its religion and its worship to which no others than
its members had access. The ancient family was very different from the
modern, having its basis in the principles of religion.

=Marriage.=--The first rule of this religion is that one should be the
issue of a regular marriage if one is to have the right of adoring the
ancestors of the family. Roman marriage, therefore, is at the start a
religious ceremony. The father of the bride gives her away outside the
house when a procession conducts her to the house of the groom
chanting an ancient sacred refrain, "Hymen, O Hymen!" The bride is
then led before the altar of the husband where water and fire are
presented, and there in the presence of the gods of the family the
bride and groom divide between them a cake of meal. Marriage at this
period was called confarreatio (communion through the cake). Later
another form of marriage was invented. A relative of the bride in th