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Despite the fact that the bride was considered the ugliest girl in the place, she had been duly "robbed" by her bold or possibly blind lover her features were providentially veiled beneath her nuptial flammeum, and of her squat figure little could be discerned under the gorgeous accoutrements of the occasion.

"Inditum imperatori flammeum, dos et genialis torus et faces nuptiales; cuncta denique, quae vel in feminis non sine verecundia conspiciuntur, spectata." "Inditum imperatori flammeum, visi auspices, dos et genialis torus et faces nuptiales; cuncta denique spectata, quae etiam in femina nox operit."

But, alas! a saffron-coloured flammeum pitilessly masked the face of Nyssia, who seemed embarrassed, veiled though she was, at finding so many eyes fixed upon her, and frequently signed to a slave behind her to lower the parasol of ostrich plumes, and thus conceal her yet more from the curious gaze of the crowd.

In our character of poet we have the right to lift the saffron-coloured flammeum which concealed the young bride, being more fortunate in this wise than the Sardians, who after a whole day's waiting were obliged to return to their houses, and were left, as before, to their own conjectures. Nyssia was really far superior to her reputation, great as it was.

The evening sun gleamed across her amber robe, and lit it up till it glowed like fire, as if she were invested in the marriage flammeum, and was to be claimed that evening as the bride of her own bright god of day. She looked at Cæcilius, first with surprise, then with anxiety; and her words were, “You, I fear, are of his people. If so, make the most of these hours.

It is all movement; the scene opens before us; the marriage god wreathed with flowers and holding the flammeum, or nuptial veil, leads the dance; then the doors open, and amid waving torches the bride, blushing like the purple hyacinth, enters with downcast mien, her friends comforting her; the bridegroom stands by and throws nuts to the assembled guests; light railleries are banded to and fro; meanwhile the bride is lifted over the threshold, and sinks on the nuptial couch, alba parthenice velut, luteumve papaver.

No penal fire shall be her robe, who has been carried in her bright flammeum to the Bridal Chamber of the Lamb. A divine odour fills the air, issuing from that senseless, motionless, broken frame. A circle of light gleams round her brow, and, even when the daylight comes again, it there is faintly seen.