A painting showing Lucius Metellus saving the Palladium from a fire in the temple, and returning it to the Vestal Virgins.
As the story goes, the temple of Vesta was engulfed in flames when the high priest, Lucius Metellus, braved the fire to save the Palladium (the sacred statue of Athena that Aeneas saved from burning Troy, and that was linked to Rome’s fate—it was kept in the Temple of Vesta). Yet since no man was allowed inside the temple, the gods struck him blind. It’s a perfect example, perhaps, of the sentiment that no good deed goes unpunished. Nonetheless, the Romans did reward him for his bravery by erecting a statue of him on the Capitoline Hill where it stood among the city’s finest temples and shrines.