hello ok so this is like, a very real confusing question i have about vesta, its like, so ahhh its hard to explain, wikipidia lists the impregrenation of another woman as being done or involving vesta but in the text ive read i cant really tell if this even includes the possibility,
like is wikipidia wrong to include these examples???? This doesn't even really sound like her outside the hearth involvement.
"on which the Romans offer various other sacrifices and also consecrate the first portion of their meals, there rose up above the fire a man's privy member, and that Ocrisia was the first to see it as she was carrying the customary cakes to the fire, and immediately informed the king and queen of it."
"Tarquinius, they add, upon hearing this and left beholding the prodigy, was astonished; but Tanaquil, who was not only wise in other matters but also inferior to none of the Tyrrhenians in her knowledge of divination, told him it was ordained by fate that from the royal hearth should issue a scion superior to the race of mortals, to be born of the woman who should conceive by that phantom. And the other soothsayers affirming the same thing, the king thought it fitting that Ocrisia, to whom the prodigy had first appeared, should have intercourse with it. Thereupon this woman, having adorned herself as brides are usually adorned, was shut up alone in the room in which the prodigy had been seen"
"And one of the gods or lesser divinities, whether Vulcan, as some think, or the tutelary deity of the house, having had intercourse with her and afterwards disappearing," -Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities
im on the fence but which fence i dont know what "im on the fence" means what fence
Hahaha I mean no I do not see where the confusion would be but then again Wikipedia is a good place for someone to have a quick read or potentially look at some bibliographical mentions rather than learn things from the page itself
Anyways the story as presented by Dionysius of Halicarnassus is exactly as it says. I am not sure if the roman Vesta has anything to do with it as Dionysius himself seems to be very clear of what he says. In the forth book of his text he seems to mention on the woman by the name Ocrisia who gave birth to her previous husband's child Tullius after the latter was killed in war and she was taken as slave but freed by the queen and treated with kindness and respect as per Dionysius, and she gave birth while still a slave. Then after this very logical account, Dionysius gives us a legend of a supposed miraculous conception of Tullius the second and attributes it to some demonic form (aka a lesser divinity) that presented itself as a phallus of fire within the heath that was used as a ritual offering to Vesta aka Hestia. I think the only direct connection with Vesta is the heath itself. Dionysius doesn't seem to imply that Vesta can make women pregnant lol but rather that this unknown deity presented itself through Vesta's heath and the holy flames.
But of course Dionysius is kind enough to tell us that such a miraculous birth is rather unlikely hahahaha
So yeah. At least this is how I myself read the text unless I am gravely mistaken hahahaha. Anyways sorry for being late
