It has also been noted that neither of them were consistently illustrated as human. This has been suggested as evidence of their ancient Italic origin, because neither of them were "fully anthropomorphized" Agriculture Counted among the agricultural deities, Vesta has been linked to the deities Tellus and Terra in separate accounts. In Antiquitates rerum humanarum et divinarum, Varro links Vesta to Tellus. He says: "They think Tellus... is Vesta, because she is 'vested' in flowers". Verrius Flaccus, however, had identified Vesta with Terra. Ovid hints at Vesta's connection to both of the deities. Temple Where the majority of temples would have a statue, that of Vesta had a hearth. The fire was a religious center of Roman worship, the common hearth (focus publicus) of the whole Roman people. The Vestals were obliged to keep the sacred fire alight. If the fire went out, it must be lit from an arbor felix, auspicious tree, (probably an oak). Water was not allowed into the inner aedes nor could stay longer than strictly needed on the nearby premises. It was carried by the Vestales in vessels called futiles which had a tiny foot that made them unstable. The temple of Vesta held not only the ignes aeternum ("sacred fire"), but the Palladium of Pallas Athena and the di Penates as well. Both of these items are said to have been brought into Italy by Aeneas. The Palladium of Athena was, in the words of Livy: "fatale pignus imperii Romani" ("[a] pledge of destiny for the Roman empire"). Such was the Palladium's importance, that when the Gauls sacked Rome in 390 BC, the Vestals first buried the Palladium before removing themselves to the safety of nearby Caere. Such objects were kept in the penus Vestae (i.e. the sacred repository of the temple of Vesta). Despite being one of the most spiritual of Roman Shrines, that of Vesta was not a templum in the Roman sense of the word; that is, it was not a building consecrated by the augurs and so it could not be used for meetings by Roman officials. It has been claimed that the shrine of Vesta in Rome was not a templum, because of its round shape. However, a templum was not a building, but rather a sacred space that could contain a building of either rectangular or circular shape. In fact, early templa were often altars that were consecrated