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Updated: August 6, 2024
As for Fabia's fears that Gabinius would attempt to carry her away perforce, as he had perhaps treated earlier sweethearts, Fonteia scoffed at the suggestion. The Atrium Vestæ was in the heart of the city; there was a constant patrol on duty. For a man to enter the Building at night meant the death penalty.
But the appeal to the gentler emotions is reserved for the close of the oration, as in the defense of Cluentius, Caelius, Milo, and Flaccus; the most striking instances of which are the poetical bursts of feeling with which he addresses his client, Plaucius, and his picture of the desolate condition of the vestal Fonteia, should her brother be condemned. Rom.
The word of the aged Maxima was law in the little community. Fabia told herself that Fonteia was right not even Gabinius would dare to set unhallowed foot inside the Atrium Vestæ. But the vision of the coarse, sensual face of her unloved lover was ever before her.
She was extremely reluctant to tell any one of her escape from his clutches in the villa by the Appian Way. However, some confidant seemed necessary. She knew that Fonteia, the senior Vestal, the Maxima, would never treat her other than as a sister, and to her she read the letter and imparted her story and fears. Fonteia did not regard the matter in a very serious light.
"But, Fonteia," urged the younger Vestal, "I know him to be a bold, desperate man, who fears not the gods, and who from the law can expect no mercy. And we in this house are but weak women folk. Our only defence is our purity and the reverence of the people. But only the evil wander the streets to-night; and our virtuous lives make us only the more attractive prey to such men as Gabinius."
Recollecting herself, she went to Fonteia and told her the discovery. The Maxima, however, by that singular fatuity which sometimes takes possession of the wisest of people, especially when the possible danger is one which never in all their long experience has come to a head, received her warnings with blank incredulity.
Agias stood bearing up Fabia in his arms; she was pale as the driven snow. Her lips moved, but no sound passed from them. Fonteia, the old Maxima, with her white hair tumbling over her shoulders, was still huddled in one corner, groaning and moaning in a paroxysm of unreasoning terror, without dignity or self-control.
"Erigone," she said, putting the tablets in the girl's hand, "I am about to ask of you a very brave thing. Do you dare to take this letter through the city?" and she told her how to find Agias's lodgings. "Come back in the morning if you dread a double journey. But do not tell Fonteia; she would be angry if she knew I sent you, though there is nothing but what is right in the letter."
In ordinary times she would have been tempted to go to one of the consuls and demand that Fonteia be overruled; but in ordinary times there would not have been the least need of adding to the already sufficient city watch. It lacked four hours of midnight before she brought herself to take her tablets and write the following brief note: "Fabia the Vestal to Agias her good friend, greeting.
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