Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Vitta

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

VITTA. A riband, or band, commonly worn round the head by free-born ladies both before and after marriage (Virg. Aen. ii. 168. Prop. iv. 3. 16.), to confine the hair in a neat and modest manner (Ov. Met. ii. 413. Id. A. Am. i. 31.); and to distinguish them from women of easy virtue (Id. Rem. 386.), who dressed so as to attract observation by their meretricious appearance. The illustration (Vitta/1.1) is from a painting at Pompeii.

2. The sacred vitta, strictly speaking, is the long riband which fastened together the flocks of wool forming an infula, the two ends of which, with their fringed extremities (taeniae) hung down at the back of the neck (Virg. Georg. iii. 487. Id. Aen. x. 538. Isidor. Orig. xix. 30. 4.); whence the term is frequently used, in a collective sense, for the fillet itself, formed of these three parts, and which was born by both sexes of the priesthood (Virg. Aen. ii. 221. Ib. vii. 418. Juv. iv. 9.), and especially by those attached to the service of Vesta (Ov. Fast. iii. 30.), as exhibited by the illustration (Vitta/2.1), which represents a Vestal virgin on a medal, bearing the inscription BELLICIÆ MODESTÆ, V. V.

3. A riband of the same description fastened round the infula, with which the head of a victim was dressed at the sacrifice (Serv. ad Virg. Aen. ii. 133. Ov. Pont. iii. 2. 75.); or round the festoons (serta) with which altars, temples, and houses were decorated upon solemn occasions (Virg. Ecl. viii. 64. Aen. iii. 64. Prop. iv. 9. 27. Tac. Hist. iv. 53.), as in the annexed example (Vitta/3.1) from a sculptured altar. In this sense the term is likewise applied collectively to the whole ornament as well as the ligature which bound it.

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  Vitta/1.1
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  Vitta/2.1
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  Vitta/3.1