If the fire happened to be extinguished, it was accounted a direful omen, and all business and amusements were suspended, until, by prayers and sacrifices, the crime was expiated. […] In order to represent, allegorically, their atrocious crimes and passions, the poets incarnated them in monstrous forms and powers. […] During the golden age, Astræa dwelt on earth; but when that was over, being unable to bear the sight of the crimes which men committed, she returned with the other gods to heaven. […] The respect of the Egyptians for the dead was carried so high, that they often preserved the bodies of even those to whom, on account of crime or debt, the honours of burial had been refused. […] She is seated on a block of stone, ready to prescribe penalties against crime, and rewards to virtue.