This blasphemy may have been on Marcus'mind when he called a " lectisternium ", a great meal offered to the gods, at the beginning of the Marcomannic Wars ( " ca " . 167 ) to ward off the evils then being visited on the state.
12.
Like the Greeks and other ancient peoples, the Romans held ritual banquets for the gods ( a ritualized " theoxenia " ), including the annual Epulum Jovis, and the lectisternium, originally a rare event in times of crisis, first held in 399 BCE according to Livy, but later much more common.
13.
The persistence of a female presence in her cult through the centuries down to the lectisternium of 217 BC, when the " matronae " collected money for the service, and to the times of Augustus during the ludi saeculares in the sacrifices to Capitoline Juno are proof of the resilience of this foreign tradition.
14.
The arranging of the gods in their proper order " ( in ordinem ) " would evoke for the Roman audience the religious ceremony of the " lectisternium ", a public banquet held for the major deities in the form of statues arranged on luxurious couches, as if they were present and participating in the meal.
15.
The first mention of a ritual connection between Vulcan and Vesta is the lectisternium of 217 BC . Other facts that seem to hint at this connection are the relative proximity of the two sanctuaries and Dionysius of Halicarnassus's testimony that both cults had been introduced to Rome by Titus Tatius to comply with a vow he had made in battle.
