VESPER VESUVIUS. 



811 



dour, and erected the gigantic amphitheatre, the 

 ruins of which are still celebrated under the name 

 of the coliseum. Among the principal public events 

 of the reign of Vespasian are the termination of the 

 dangerous rebellion of the Gauls under Civilis, and 

 the capture of Jerusalem by his son Titus whom 

 the emperor had made his lieutenant in Judea. Af- 

 ter reigning ten years, he died in June, A. D. 79, 

 greatly regretted by the Romans, who, under his 

 dominion, enjoyed a degree of national prosperity 

 to which they had long been strangers. 



VESPER (Za<m); properly, the evening : at pre- 

 sent, it is generally used to signify the evening ser- 

 vice ; hence vesper bell and vesper sermon. 



Vesper imag6 is a name given to the represen- 

 tation of the Saviour's corpse in the arms of his 

 mother. 



VESPERS, SICILIAN. See Sicilian Vespers. 



VESPUCCI, AMERIGO. See Americus Vespu- 

 cius. 



VESSELS, in animal and vegetable physiology; 

 those tubiform passages which serve to conduct 

 liquids to or from certain parts, as the arteries, 

 veins, capillary vessels, and lymphatics. See Blood- 

 Vessels, Capillary fessels, and Lymph. For the 

 vessels of plants, see Botany. 



VESTA (Greek, Hestia) ; a daughter of Saturn 

 and Rhea, the goddess of fire, and principally of the 

 fire concealed in the earth ; or, according to some, 

 wife of Uranus and mother of the gods ; in which, 

 sense she has been taken for the earth itself, and 

 has been confounded by the earlier writers with 

 Rhea, Ceres, Cybele, Proserpine, Hecate and Tel- 

 lus. She was at the same time the patroness of 

 chastity, and received permission from her brother 

 Jupiter to remain unmarried. She is said to have 

 first taught man the use of fire for domestic pur- 

 poses ; for which reason the houses, and particu- 

 larly the entries to them, which usually contained 

 the hearth, were sacred to her; and she is honoured 

 as the founder of settled abodes. She is represented 

 as a matron, almost always with a torch in her 

 hand ; but the sacrificial flame also distinguishes 

 her. Numa Pompilius built a temple for her in 

 Rome, and introduced the worship of this goddess. 

 Her festival was celebrated on the 9th of June. 

 For the planet Vesta, see Planets. 



VESTALS, VESTAL VIRGINS, were the priestes- 

 ses of Vesta, established by Numa. There were 

 at first four, afterwards six 

 of them. They were not to 

 l>e more than ten, nor less 

 than six years old, at the 

 time of their consecration : 

 they were to be of good fa- 

 mily, and without bodily in- 

 firmities; to serve in the 

 temple for thirty years, and 

 keep alive the perpetual fire 

 instituted by Numa ; to of- 

 fer prayers and sacrifices for 

 the good of the state ; and 

 at their consecration to take 

 the vow of chastity. If any 

 of them broke this vow, she 

 was doomed to be buried 

 alive. If the one whose 

 duty it was to watch, let 

 the fire go out, she was se- 

 verely chastised. The ves- 

 tals had, however, great pri- 

 vileges. They were not un- 



der parental government. When they appeared in 

 public, a lictor preceded them. Their persons were 

 inviolable. If they met a criminal doomed to 

 death, they might set him at liberty. When they 

 died, their remains "were buried within the town. 

 Their dress was a white garment bordered with 

 purple, and their ornament a band round the fore- 

 head. After thirty years' service, they could quit 

 the temple and marry. '1 he oldest of the vestals 

 was called vestalis maxima. 



VESTRIS ; a family, which, for three genera- 

 tions, afforded entertainment to the Parisians. The 

 first distinguished dancer of this name was a 

 native of Florence, born in 1728, and called the 

 dieu de la danse. To him a great part of Noverre's 

 success was due. Grimm's Correspondence is full 

 of anecdotes of his conceit. Having delighted the 

 public for forty years, he retired, and died in 1808, 

 at the age of eighty. His son, sometimes called 

 Vestrallard, as his mother was a dancer named Al- 

 lard, appeared for the first time, in 1772, in the 

 opera of Paris, before he was thirteen years old, 

 and delighted the public until Duport rose. His 

 son also was distinguished as a dancer, and for his 

 conceit. We believe the Madame Vestris of our 

 own days (recently married to a son of the cele- 

 brated comedian, Matthews) is a descendant of 

 this family. 



VESUVIAN. See Idccrase. 



VESUVIUS ; a volcano in Naples, a mile and a 

 quarter distant from the capital. It rises, in the 

 form of a pyramid, out of the plain, and was sep- 

 arated by wide valleys from the nnountains of Som- 

 ma and Ottojano, until the eruption of 1794, when 

 the summit of the mountain sunk, and the valleys 

 were entirely filled up. The height is 3680 feet. 

 After the memorable eruptions in September and 

 November, 1822, Humboldt found the height of the 

 extreme point of the Palo to be 607 toises. Its 

 summit forms a little plain, in the midst of which 

 the crater is seen perpetually smoking. Its sides 

 are mostly barren, but on some parts vines and fruits 

 are seen between fields of burning lava. The base 

 of the mountain, notwithstanding the eruptions of 

 lava, often a quarter of a mile in breadth, is inha- 

 bited and cultivated. Here and there grow the 

 grapes from which the costly Lachrymce Christi is 

 made. Amongst the principal eruptions of the 

 volcano are that of 79, in which Herculaneum and 

 Pompeii were buried; those of 203, 472, 512, 685, 

 993, 1036, 1306, 1631, 1730, by which the summit 

 of the mountain was visibly heightened, and re- 

 ceived its sugar-loaf form; those of 1766, 1779, 

 1794, by which Torre del Greco, a considerable 

 town, was almost entirely destroyed ; and that of 

 1804. Since the commencement of the nineteenth 

 century, scarcely a year has passed without erup- 

 tions of more or less importance. The shower ot 

 ashes on the 24th of October, 1822, darkened the 

 light of day in Naples, and spread as far as Cassano, 

 105 Italian miles from Vesuvius. The lava, twelve 

 feet in depth, poured down to the distance of an 

 Italian mile. Vesuvius is steep, and therefore dif- 

 ficult to ascend. Its summit may be reached by 

 three different roads; one is on the north side ; one 

 leads from Ottojano, and another from Resina, 

 which is usually taken. The crater of the volcano 

 often changes its form. The gulf is not more than 

 ninety rods in depth. In 101, eight Frenchmen 

 descended into the crater an attempt which has 

 been since repeated. (See Vesuvius during the 

 Years 1821, 1822, 1823, with Physical, Minerals 



