entity_id,source_id,evidence_type,source_note
ENT_ROM_VESTA,SRC_BEARD_ROMAN_RELIGIONS,scholarly attestation,"Attested in Beard, North, Price, Religions of Rome."
ENT_ROM_VESTA,SRC_CICERO_DE_NATURA,direct attestation,DND 2.67 (Vesta = fire of the hearth; Stoic element allegory). Key for Roman hearth-fire theology.
ENT_ROM_VESTA,SRC_LIVY_AUC,direct attestation,AUC 1.20.3 (Numa institutes the Vestal Virgins and the eternal fire of Vesta); primary prose source for the Vestal institution. AUC 5.40.7 (Vestals carry sacred objects during the Gallic sack).
ENT_ROM_VESTA,SRC_OVID_FASTI,direct attestation,"Fasti 6.249-460: the Vestalia (June 7-15); the most important surviving ancient account of the Vesta cult; the Penates, the sacred flame, the ritual prohibition on donkeys during the festival; Ovid connects Vesta to the earth and to the primordial fire"
ENT_ROM_VESTA,SRC_ROMAN_OCD,scholarly attestation,"Attested in Oxford Classical Dictionary, Roman Religion entries."
ENT_ROM_VESTA,SRC_VARRO_ANTIQ,direct attestation,Varro's identification of Vesta with the earth (terra); City of God 7.16; differs from the more common fire identification and is Varro's distinctive contribution.
ENT_ROM_VESTA,SRC_VIRGIL_AENEID,direct attestation,Vesta appears in Aeneid 2.296-297 (Aeneas rescues her sacred fire from Troy); 2.567-569; 5.744. The Aeneid grounds the Trojan origin of the Roman Vestal fire.