ABSTRACT
The other use of fire is beneficial: fire as purification. In his analysis of the role of fire in history, Johan Goudsblom stresses its ritual associations with sacrifice and the well-being of cities.2 Rome was protected by a sacred fire, which virgins selected for the role kept constantly burning in the Temple of Vesta. Among the secular uses of fire, he points to the development of lighthouses, and the significance of cremation rather than burial. In the world of ancient Greece, the public cremation of dead heroes became the only way of honouring men like Patroclus and Hector. The system passed into the Roman world to mark the transition of the semi-divine rulers to the divine world, as eagles or peacocks accompanied their souls heavenward.
