ROMAN MYTHOLOGY AND SAGA 631The second Roman king, Numa, was said to have founded the cult of Vesta.
The myths of Vesta are few and uninteresting. Ovid (Fasti 6. 319-338) tells how
the fertility god Priapus tried to seduce her and was prevented by the braying
of a donkey. He gives another version of the story (see pp. 636-637), in which
the nymph Lotis is the intended victim of Priapus.
Closely associated with Vesta were the household spirits of the Romans, the
Penates, whose name derives from the penus, or store cupboard, source of food
and therefore symbol of the continuing life of the family. Originally the spirits
on whom the life and food of the individual family depended, they became an
essential part of the life of the state. The Romans were vague about their num-
ber or identity, and a useful definition is that of Servius (fourth century A.D.),
"all the gods who are worshiped in the home." The Penates were originally Ital-
ian and were especially worshiped at the Latin town of Lavinium. It was said
that when an attempt was made to remove them from Lavinium to Alba Longa
they miraculously returned to their original home. At Rome they became iden-
tified with the Trojan gods entrusted by Hector to Aeneas on the night of Troy's
destruction and brought by him to Italy. Among the sacred objects kept in the
penus Vestae (i.e., the sacred repository in the temple of Vesta) was the Palla-
dium, the statue of the Trojan Athena given by Diomedes to one of Aeneas' fol-
lowers. When the temple of Vesta was burned in 241 B.C., the consul L. Caecil-
ius Metellus earned great glory by saving the Palladium with his own hands,
yet he was blinded for the act because he had looked upon a sacred object that
it was not lawful for a man to see.
Vulcan (Volcanus) was the chief Italian fire-god, more important than his
Greek equivalent, Hephaestus. The Greek god was the god of industrial, cre-
ative fire, while Vulcan was the god of destructive fire and a potent power to
be worshiped in a city frequently ravaged by conflagrations.^4 Through his iden-
tification with Hephaestus, Vulcan acquired creative attributes shown by his
other name, Mulciber (He who tempers). Vergil has a fine description of Vul-
can's smithy deep below Mt. Aetna (Aeneid 8. 424^38):f
The Cyclopes were working the iron in the vast cave, Brontes and Steropes and
naked Pyracmon. In their hands was a thunderbolt, partly finished and partly
yet to be finished, one of very many which the Father (i.e., Jupiter) hurls to the
earth from all over the sky. They had put onto it three rays of twisted rainstorms,
three of watery clouds, three of red fire and the winged south wind. Just then
they were adding the terrifying lightning to the weapon and the penetrating
flames of [Jupiter's] anger. In another part they were working on the chariot of
Mars and its winged wheels, with which he stirs up men and cities. They were
busily polishing the fearsome aegis, the weapon of aroused Minerva, with ser-
pents' scales and gold. It had entwined snakes and the Gorgon's head itself turn-
ing its gaze.The Italian fire-god, Cacus, was associated with Vulcan. Vergil narrates how
he was killed by Hercules (Aeneid 190-267). Cacus had stolen the Cattle of Geryon