Most Roman rites were held to be entirely vitiated if a death
took place among the worshippers during the course of the
ceremony. To all solemnities at which only a few persons were
present this applied without qualification and positively. Naturally
a death among the crowd about a temple was held of much less import.

Still less could anyone regard a death amid the vast throng in the
Colosseum or the Circus Maximus. So that Meffia's sudden end
was not necessarily held a certain indication of the wrath of the
gods. But, as the death of one of the most important functionaries
present at the spectacle, it caused much concern. The dismay of
the people the pontiffs tried to alleviate by all the means in their
power, by consultation of the augurs, soothsayers and
professional prophets, and by official consultation of the Sibylline
Books. The general anxiety was somewhat allayed by their
placards and proclamations, announcing that Meffia's death
was wholly due to her personal weakness and was not to be
regarded as a portent, in particular that it in no way indicated
the wrath of the gods or their rejection of the petition for public
safety embodied in the spectacles celebrating the triumph of Aurelius.

The Temple and the Atrium of Vesta made up an institution in
which death was entirely disregarded. As no seriously ill Vestal
was ever allowed to remain within the limits of the Atrium, but,
as soon as alarming symptoms appeared, was removed from the
Atrium and put in charge of relations or friends, so also the body
of a dead Vestal was always turned over to the care of her family
or connections. Though the Vestals, alone among Romans,
possessed the privilege of being buried inside the walls of Rome,