[96] Why do they inflict no other punishment on those of the Holy Maidens[222] who have been seduced, but bury them alive?[223]
Is it because they cremate their dead, and to use fire in the burial of a woman who had not guarded the holy fire in purity was not right?
Or did they believe it to be against divine ordinance to annihilate a body that had been consecrated by the greatest of lustra! ceremonies, or to lay hands upon a holy woman? Accordingly they devised that she should die of herself; they conducted her underground into a chamber built there, in which had been placed a lighted lamp, a loaf of bread, and some milk and water. Thereafter they covered over the top of the chamber with earth. And yet not even by this manner of avoiding the guilt have they escaped their superstitious fear, but even to this day the priests proceed to this place and make offerings to the dead.