Hail Vesta!
Hail to the goddess of hearth and home!
We ask for the food provisions upon which our lives depend – those for self, family and community.
We honour thee with libations of oil and wine.
O virgin goddess of fire,
Keep both us and our polis warm in both body and spirit!
Salve Vesta!

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The Vestalia honour the hearth-goddess Vesta who protects and nourishes both home and state. In ritual, she is linked to the fruits of the earth. The first offering of the mola salsa that had been prepared during the novemdiale sacrum of May is made today. The feriae became a holiday for bakers and millers, and the donkey that was used in milling is decorated with wreathes and cakes. We imagine that this is a more solemn festival as it is characterized in the Fasti as nefastus rather than the with the more festive NP ligature.