woman newly married. Among the Greeks, it was customary for the bride to be conducted from her father's house to her husband's in a chariot, the evening being chosen for that purpose, to conceal her blushes; she was placed in the middle, her husband sitting on one side, and one of her most intimate friends on the other; torches were carried before her, and she was entertained in the passage with a song suitable to the occasion. When they arrived at their journey's end, the axle-tree of the coach they rode in was burnt, to signify that the bride was never to return to her father's house.—Among the Romans, the bride was to seem to be ravished by force from her mother, in memory of the rape of the Sabines under Romulus; she was to be carried home in the night-time to the bridegroom's house, accompanied by three boys, one whereof carried a torch, and the other two led the bride; a spindle and distaff being carried with her; she brought three pieces of money called asses, in her hand to the bridegroom, whose doors on this occasion were adorned with flowers and branches of trees: being here interrogated who she was, she was to answer Gaia, in memory of Caia Cecilia, wife of Tarquins the Elder, who was an excellent lanifera or spintrix; for the like reason, before her entrance, she lined the door-polls with wool, and smeared them with grease. Fire and water being set on the threshold, she touched both; but flaring back from the door, refused to enter, till at length she passed the threshold, being careful to step over without touching it: here the keys were given her, a nuptial supper was prepared for her, and ministrils to divert her; she was seated on the figure of a priapus, and here the attendant boys resigned her to the pronuba, who brought her into the nuptial chamber and put her to bed. This office was to be performed by matrons who had only been once married, to denote that the marriage was to be for perpetuity.