Editing Vestal Virgin (section)

==Term of service==
The Vestals were committed to the priesthood before puberty (when 6–10&nbsp;years old) and sworn to [[celibacy]] for a minimum period of 30&nbsp;years.<ref>{{cite news |last=Lutwyche |first=Jayne |title=Ancient Rome's maidens – who were the Vestal Virgins? |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/0/18490233 |access-date=2012-11-23 |publisher=[[BBC]] |date=2012-09-07 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121001062403/http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/0/18490233 |archive-date=2012-10-01 }} Lutwyche is citing Professor [[Corey Brennan]]</ref> A thirty-year commitment was divided into three decade-long periods during which Vestals were students, servants, and teachers, respectively. Vestals typically retired with a state pension in their late 30s to early 40s and thereafter were free to marry.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.stoa.org/diotima/anthology/wlgr/wlgr-religion408.shtml |title=Life of Numa Pompilius |author=Plutarch |at=9.5–10 |publisher=Stoa.org |access-date=2012-11-19 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121203060947/http://www.stoa.org/diotima/anthology/wlgr/wlgr-religion408.shtml |archive-date=2012-12-03 }}</ref> The {{lang|la|pontifex maximus}}, acting as the father of the bride, might arrange a marriage with a suitable Roman nobleman on behalf of the retired Vestal, but no literary accounts of such marriages have survived. Plutarch repeats a claim that "few have welcomed the indulgence, and that those who did so were not happy, but were a prey to repentance and dejection for the rest of their lives, thereby inspiring the rest with superstitious fears, so that until old age and death they remained steadfast in their virginity". Some Vestals preferred to renew their vows.<ref>Lindner, Molly M., ''Portraits of the Vestal Virgins, Priestesses of Ancient Rome'', University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbour, 2015, p. 34</ref><ref>Plutarch, [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Numa*.html ''Life of Numa''], 10.1, translation, Loeb edition, 1914, University of Chicago</ref> Occia was vestal for 57 years between 38 BC  and 19 AD.<ref>Broughton, vol. II, p. 395.</ref>
[[Image:RomaCasaVestaliDaPalatinoOvest.JPG|thumb|House of the Vestals and [[Temple of Vesta]] from the Palatine]]

=== Selection ===
To obtain entry into the order, a girl had to be free of physical, moral, and mental 'defects'; have two living parents; and be a daughter of a free-born resident of Rome. From at least the mid-Republican era, the {{lang|la|pontifex maximus}} chose Vestals by lot from a group of twenty high-born candidates at a gathering of their families and other Roman citizens.<ref name=Kroppenberg-2010/>{{rp|style=ama|pp= 426–427}}

Under the Papian Law of the 3rd century BC, candidates for Vestal priesthoods had to be of [[Patrician (ancient Rome)|patrician]] birth. Membership was opened to [[plebs|plebeian]]s as it became difficult to find patricians willing to commit their daughters to 30 years as a Vestal, and then ultimately even from the daughters of freemen for the same reason.<ref name=Kroppenberg-2010/>{{rp|style=ama|pp= 426–427}}<ref name=Kroppenberg-2010>{{cite journal |first=Inge |last=Kroppenberg |year=2010 |title=Law, religion, and constitution of the Vestal virgins |journal=Law & Literature |volume=22 |issue=3 |pages=418–439 |issn=1541-2601 |s2cid=144805147 |doi=10.1525/lal.2010.22.3.418 |via=[[University of Regensburg]] |url=http://www.uni-r.de/Fakultaeten/Jura/kroppenberg/pdf/CV%20und%20Schriftenverzeichnis%20Kroppenberg/LAL2203_03-Vestal_Virgins.pdf |access-date=2011-10-20 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120425081258/http://www.uni-r.de/Fakultaeten/Jura/kroppenberg/pdf/CV%20und%20Schriftenverzeichnis%20Kroppenberg/LAL2203_03-Vestal_Virgins.pdf |archive-date=2012-04-25 }}</ref>

The choosing ceremony was known as a {{lang|la|captio}} (capture). Once a girl was chosen to be a Vestal, the {{lang|la|pontifex}} pointed to her and led her away from her parents with the words, "I take you, {{lang|la|amata}} (beloved), to be a Vestal priestess, who will carry out sacred rites, which it is the law for a Vestal priestess to perform, on behalf of the Roman people, on the same terms as her who was a Vestal 'on the best terms{{'"}} (thus, with all the entitlements of a Vestal). As soon as she entered the atrium of Vesta's temple, she was under the goddess' service and protection.<ref>{{cite book |section=Vestal Virgins |author=Aulus Gellius |author-link=Aulus Gellius |title=Attic Nights |volume=1 |page=12 |via=STOA.org |section-url=http://www.stoa.org/diotima/anthology/wlgr/wlgr-religion408.shtml |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121203060947/http://www.stoa.org/diotima/anthology/wlgr/wlgr-religion408.shtml |archive-date=2012-12-03 }}</ref>

If a Vestal died before her contracted term ended, potential replacements would be presented in the quarters of the chief Vestal to select the most virtuous. Unlike normal inductees, these candidates did not have to be prepubescent, nor even virgins; they could be young widows or even divorcées, though that was frowned upon and thought unlucky.<ref>Cornell, Tim. [https://www.persee.fr/doc/efr_0000-0000_1981_act_48_1_1357 "Some observations on the {{lang|la|crimen incesti}}"]. In: {{lang|fr|Le délit religieux dans la cité antique. Actes de la table ronde de Rome}} (6–7 April 1978). Rome: {{lang|fr|École Française de Rome}}, 1981. ({{lang|fr|italic=no|Publications de l'École française de Rome}}, 48).</ref> Tacitus recounts how [[Gaius Fonteius Agrippa]] and Domitius Pollio offered their daughters as Vestal candidates in 19 AD to fill such a vacant position. Equally matched, Pollio's daughter was chosen only because Agrippa had been recently divorced. The {{lang|la|pontifex maximus}} ([[Tiberius]]) "consoled" the failed candidate with a dowry of 1&nbsp;million [[sesterces]].<ref>{{cite book |author=[[Tacitus]] |title=[[Annales (Tacitus)|Annales]] |at=ii. 86}}</ref>

==={{lang|la|Vestalis Maxima}}===
The chief Vestal ({{lang|la|Virgo Vestalis Maxima}} or {{lang|la|Vestalium Maxima}}, "greatest of the Vestals") oversaw the work and morals of the Vestals and was a member of the [[College of Pontiffs]]. The chief Vestal was probably the most influential and independent of Rome's high priestesses, committed to maintaining several different cults, maintaining personal connections to her birth family, and cultivating the society of her equals among the Roman elite. The {{lang|la|Vestalis Maxima}} Occia presided over the Vestals for 57 years, according to [[Tacitus]]. The {{lang|la|[[Flamen Dialis|Flaminica Dialis]]}} and the {{lang|la|[[rex sacrorum|regina sacrorum]]}} also held unique responsibility for certain religious rites, but each held office by virtue of their standing as the spouse of a male priest.<ref>DiLuzio, M. J., ''A Place at the Altar. Priestesses in Republican Rome''. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016, pp. 47–48</ref><ref>Schultz, C. E., ''Women's Religious Activity in the Roman Republic''. The University of North Carolina Press, 2006, pp. 80–81</ref>

[[File:ReliefVestals.jpg|thumb|[[Relief]] of the Vestal Virgins at a banquet, found in 1935 near Rome's {{lang|la|[[Via del Corso]]}} ([[Museum of the Ara Pacis|Museum of the {{lang|fr|cat=no|Ara Pacis}}]])]]

=== Duties and festivals ===
[[File:Temple of Vesta - Hearth 01.jpg|thumb|The most prominent feature of the ruins that were once the [[Temple of Vesta]] is the hearth (seen here in the foreground).]]
Vestal tasks included the maintenance of their chastity, tending Vesta's sacred fire, guarding her sacred {{lang|la|[[Penates|penus]]}} (store-room) and its contents; collecting ritually pure water from a sacred spring; preparing substances used in public rites, presiding at the Vestalia and attending other festivals.<ref>[[Mary Beard (classicist)|Beard, M.]], [[John North (classicist)|North, J.]], Price, S., ''Religions of Rome'', Volume I, illustrated, reprint, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 51–53, {{ISBN|0-521-31682-0}}</ref> Vesta's temple was essentially the temple of all Rome and its citizens; it was open all day, by night it was closed but only to men.<ref>Parker, Holt N. "Why Were the Vestals Virgins? Or the Chastity of Women and the Safety of the Roman State". ''The American Journal of Philology'', vol. 125, no. 4, 2004, p. 568. {{JSTOR|1562224}}. Accessed 16 December 2022.</ref> The Vestals regularly swept and cleansed Vesta's shrine, functioning as surrogate housekeepers, in a religious sense, for all of Rome, and maintaining and controlling the connections between Rome's public and private religion.<ref>Wildfang, R. L. (2006), ''Rome's Vestal Virgins: A Study of Rome's Vestal Priestesses in the Late Republic and Early Empire'', Routledge, p.17 {{ISBN|9780415397964}}</ref><ref>[[Mary Beard (classicist)|Beard, M.]], [[John North (classicist)|North, J.]], Price, S., ''Religions of Rome'', Volume I, illustrated, reprint, Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 51 {{ISBN|0-521-31682-0}}</ref> So long as their bodies remained unpenetrated, the walls of Rome would remain intact. Their flesh belonged to Rome, and when they died, whatever the cause of their death, their bodies remained within the city's boundary.<ref>Parker, "Why Were the Vestals Virgins?" 2004, p. 568.</ref>

The Vestals acknowledged one of their number as senior authority, the {{lang|la|Vestalis Maxima}}, but all were ultimately under the authority of the {{lang|la|[[pontifex maximus]]}}, head of his priestly college. His influence and status grew during the Republican era, and the religious post became an important, lifetime adjunct to the political power of the annually elected consulship. When Augustus became {{lang|la|pontifex maximus}}, and thus supervisor of all religion, he donated his house to the Vestals. Their sacred fire became his household fire, and his domestic gods ([[Lares]] and [[Penates]]) became their responsibility. This arrangement between Vestals and Emperor persisted throughout the Imperial era.<ref>Lott, John. B., ''The Neighborhoods of Augustan Rome'', Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 14,15, 81–117, 230 (note 127) {{ISBN|0-521-82827-9}}</ref><ref>[[Mary Beard (classicist)|Beard, M.]], [[John North (classicist)|North, J.]], Price, S., ''Religions of Rome'', Volume I, illustrated, reprint, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 191, 382 {{ISBN|0-521-31682-0}}</ref>

The Vestals guarded various sacred objects kept in Vesta's {{lang|la|penus}}, including the [[Palladium (mythology)|Palladium]] – a statue of [[Pallas Athene]] which had supposedly been brought from [[Troy]] – and a large, presumably wooden phallus, used in fertility rites and at least one triumphal procession, perhaps slung beneath the triumphal general's chariot.<ref>Beard, Mary. ''The Roman Triumph''. Cambridge, Massachusetts & London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007, pp. 223–224. {{ISBN|978-0-674-02613-1}}</ref><ref>[[Mary Beard (classicist)|Beard, M.]], [[John North (classicist)|North, J.]], Price, S., ''Religions of Rome'', Volume I, illustrated, reprint, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp.53–54 {{ISBN|0-521-31682-0}}</ref>

==== Festivals ====
Vesta's chief festival was the Vestalia, held in her temple from June 7 to June 15, and attended by matrons and bakers. [[Servius (grammarian)|Servius]] claims that during the Vestalia, the [[Lupercalia]] and on September 13, the three youngest Vestals reaped unripened {{lang|la|far}} ([[spelt]] wheat, or possibly [[emmer]] wheat). The three senior Vestals parched the grain to make it edible, and mixed it with salt, to make the {{lang|la|[[mola salsa]]}} used by priests and priestesses to consecrate (dedicate to the gods) the animal victims offered in public sacrifices. The Vestals' activities thus provided a shared link to various public, and possibly some private cults.<ref>Wildfang, R. L. (2006), ''Rome's Vestal Virgins: A Study of Rome's Vestal Priestesses in the Late Republic and Early Empire'', Routledge, p.14 {{ISBN|9780415397964}}</ref>

The [[Fordicidia]] was a characteristically rustic, agricultural festival, in which a pregnant cow was sacrificed to the Earth-goddess [[Terra (mythology)|Tellus]], and its unborn calf was reduced to ashes by the senior Vestal. The ashes were mixed with various substances, most notably the dried blood of the previous year's [[October horse]], sacrificed to [[Mars (mythology)|Mars]]. The mixture was called {{lang|la|suffimen}}. During the [[Parilia]] festival, April 21, it was sprinkled on bonfires to purify shepherds and their flocks, and probably to ensure human and animal fertility in the Roman community.<ref>[[Mary Beard (classicist)|Beard, M.]], [[John North (classicist)|North, J.]], Price, S., ''Religions of Rome'', Volume I, illustrated, reprint, Cambridge University Press, 1998, p.53 {{ISBN|0-521-31682-0}}</ref> On May 1, Vestals officiated at [[Bona Dea]]'s public-private, women-only rites at her Aventine temple. They were also present, in some capacity, at the Bona Dea's overnight, women-only December festival, hosted by the wife of Rome's senior magistrate; the magistrate himself was supposed to stay elsewhere for the occasion. On May 15, Vestals and pontiffs collected ritual straw figures called [[Argei]] from stations along Rome's city boundary and cast them into the [[Tiber]], to purify the city.<ref>{{cite book |author=Dionysius of Halicarnassus |title=Roman Antiquities |at=i.19, 38 |url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Dionysius_of_Halicarnassus/1B*.html#38.2 |publisher=University of Chicago}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=William Smith |title=A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities |publisher=John Murray |location=London |year=1875 |url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Argei.html |via=University of Chicago}}</ref>

===Privileges===
[[File:INC-2941-r Ауреус. Каракалла. Ок. 215 г. (реверс).png|thumb|Reverse of an [[aureus]] depicting the emperor [[Caracalla]] and Vestals before the Temple of Vesta (early 3rd century)]]

Vestals were lawfully {{lang|la|personae sui iuris}} – "sovereign over themselves", answerable only to the {{lang|la|pontifex maximus}}.{{efn|This might reflect his authority as {{lang|la|paterfamilias}} over the life and death of Vestals as "daughters of Rome", though this is inconsistent with their legal independence from their birth family's control.}}<ref>Andrew B. Gallia. "Vestal Virgins and Their Families". ''Classical Antiquity'', vol. 34, no. 1, 2015, pp. 74–120. {{JSTOR|10.1525/ca.2015.34.1.74}}. Accessed 13 December 2022.</ref> Unlike any other Roman women, they could make a will of their own volition, and dispose of their property without the sanction of a male guardian. They could give their property to women, something forbidden even to men, under Roman law. As they embodied the Roman state, Vestals could give evidence in trials without first taking the customary oath to the State. They had custody of important wills and state documents, which were presumably locked away in the {{lang|la|penus}}.<ref>[[Mary Beard (classicist)|Beard, M.]], [[John North (classicist)|North, J.]], Price, S., ''Religions of Rome'', Volume I, illustrated, reprint, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 51–54 {{ISBN|0-521-31682-0}}</ref> Their person was [[sacrosanct]]; anyone who assaulted a Vestal was (in effect) assaulting an embodiment of Rome and its gods, and could be killed with impunity.<ref>Beard, ''Religions of Rome'', Volume I,  pp. 51–54</ref> As no magistrate held power over the Vestals, the lictors of magistrates who encountered a Vestal had to lower their {{lang|la|fasces}} in deference.

The Vestals had unique, exclusive rights to use a {{lang|la|carpentum}}, an enclosed, two-wheeled, horse-drawn carriage; some Roman sources remark on its likeness to the chariots used by Roman generals in [[Roman triumph|triumphs]].<ref>Beard, Mary  (2007), ''The Roman Triumph'', Cambridge, Massachusetts & London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, pp. 223–224. {{ISBN|978-0-674-02613-1}}</ref> Otherwise, the Vestals seem to have travelled in a one-seat, curtained [[Litter (vehicle)|litter]], or possibly on foot. In every case, they were preceded by a [[lictor]], who was empowered to enforce the Vestal's right-of-way; anyone who passed beneath the litter, or otherwise interfered with its passage, could be lawfully killed on the spot.

Vestals could also free or pardon condemned persons ''en route'' to execution by touching them, or merely being seen by them, as long as the encounter had not been pre-arranged.<ref>Plutarch, [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Numa*.html ''Life of Numa''], 10.5, translation, Loeb edition, 1914, University of Chicago</ref>

Vestals were permitted to see things forbidden to all other upper-class Roman women; from the time of Augustus on, they had reserved ring-side seating at public games, including [[gladiator]] contests, and stage-side seats at theatrical performances.<ref>Inge Kroppenberg (2010) "Law, Religion, and Constitution of the Vestal Virgins", ''Law & Literature'', 22:3, p. 420, {{doi|10.1525/lal.2010.22.3.418}}</ref>

===Prosecutions and punishments===
[[File:Alessandro Marchesini - Dedication of a New Vestal Virgin - WGA14054.jpg|thumb|Early 18th-century depiction of the dedication of a Vestal, by [[Alessandro Marchesini]]]]
[[File:Constantin Hölscher - In the Temple of Vesta.jpg|thumb|''In the Temple of Vesta'' by {{Interlanguage link|Constantin Hölscher|lt=|de||WD=}}, 1902)]]
If Vesta's fire went out, Rome was no longer protected. Spontaneous extinction of the sacred flame for no apparent reason might be understood as a [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#prodigium|prodigy]], a warning that the {{lang|la|pax deorum}} ("peace of the gods") was disrupted by some undetected impropriety, unnatural phenomenon or religious offence. Romans had a duty to report any suspected prodigies to the Senate, who in turn consulted the {{lang|la|pontifex maximus}}, the {{lang|la|pontifices}} and the {{lang|la|haruspices}} to determine whether the matter must be tried or dismissed. Expiation of prodigies usually involved a special sacrifice ({{lang|la|[[piaculum]]}}) and the destruction of the "unnatural" object that had caused divine offence.<ref name="persee.fr">Cornell, Tim. [https://www.persee.fr/doc/efr_0000-0000_1981_act_48_1_1357 "Some observations on the {{lang|la|crimen incesti}}"]. In: {{lang|fr|Le délit religieux dans la cité antique. Actes de la table ronde de Rome}} (6–7 April 1978). Rome: {{lang|fr|École Française de Rome}}, 1981. p. 38. ({{lang|fr|italic=no|Publications de l'École française de Rome}}, 48).</ref>

Extinction of Vesta's sacred fire through Vestal negligence could be expiated by the scourging or beating of the offender, carried out "in the dark and through a curtain to preserve their modesty".<ref>{{cite book |last=Culham |first=Phyllis |editor-last=Flower |editor-first=Harriet I. |title=The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic |edition=2nd |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2014 |page=143 |isbn=9781107669420 }}</ref> The sacred fire could then be relit, using the correct rituals and the purest materials. Loss of chastity, however, represented a broken oath. It was permanent, irreversible; no {{lang|la|piaculum}} or expiation could restore it or compensate for its loss.<ref name="persee.fr"/>

A Vestal who committed {{lang|la|incestum}} breached Rome's contract with the gods; she became a contradiction, a visible religious embarrassment.<ref name="Cornell, Tim 1978 pp. 27-37">Cornell, Tim. [https://www.persee.fr/doc/efr_0000-0000_1981_act_48_1_1357 "Some observations on the {{lang|la|crimen incesti}}"]. In: {{lang|fr|Le délit religieux dans la cité antique. Actes de la table ronde de Rome}} (6–7 April 1978). Rome: {{lang|fr|École Française de Rome}}, 1981. pp. 27-37. ({{lang|fr|italic=no|Publications de l'École française de Rome}}, 48).</ref> By ancient tradition, she must die, but she must seem to do so willingly, and her [[Human sacrifice#Greco-Roman antiquity|blood could not be spilled]]. The city could not seem responsible for her death, and burial of the dead was anyway forbidden within the city's ritual boundary, so she was [[premature burial|immured alive]] in an underground chamber within the city's ritual boundary ({{lang|la|[[pomerium]]}}) in the {{lang|la|Campus Sceleratus}} ("Evil Field") near the [[Porta Collina|Colline Gate]].<ref>Mueller, Hans-Friedrich, ''Roman Religion in Valerius Maximus'', p. 51; Rasmussen, Susanne William, ''Public Portents in Republican Rome,'' L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2003, p. 41.</ref><ref name="Eckstein 2012 214–217">{{Cite journal|last=Eckstein|first=Arthur M.|date=2012|title=Polybius, the Gallic Crisis, and the Ebro Treaty|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/665622|journal=Classical Philology|volume=107|issue=3|pages=214–217|doi=10.1086/665622|jstor=10.1086/665622 |s2cid=162395205 |issn=0009-837X|url-access=subscription}}</ref> That Vesta did not intervene to save her former protege was taken as further divine confirmation of guilt.<ref>Parker, N., Holt, "Why were the Vestals Virgins? Or the Chastity of Women and the safety of the Roman State," ''American Journal of Philology'', 125, (2004) p.586. See also Staples, Ariadne, ''From Good Goddess to Vestal Virgins: Sex and Category in Roman Religion'', Routledge, (1998), p.133</ref>

{{blockquote|When condemned by the college of pontifices, [the Vestal] was stripped of her {{lang|la|[[vittae]]}} and other badges of office, was scourged, was attired like a corpse, placed in a close litter, and borne through the forum attended by her weeping kindred, with all the ceremonies of a real funeral, to a rising ground called the {{lang|la|Campus Sceleratus}} just within the city walls, close to the Colline gate. There a small [[Vault (architecture)|vault]] underground had been previously prepared, containing a couch, a lamp, and a table with a little food. The {{lang|la|pontifex maximus}}, having lifted up his hands to heaven and uttered a secret prayer, opened the litter, led forth the culprit, and placing her on the steps of the ladder which gave access to the subterranean cell, delivered her over to the common executioner and his assistants, who conducted her down, drew up the ladder, and having filled the pit with earth until the surface was level with the surrounding ground, left her to perish deprived of all the tributes of respect usually paid to the spirits of the departed.<ref>Ramsay, William, ''Vestales'', in Smith, William, in ''A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities'', John Murray, London, 1875, pp. 1189–1191.</ref>}} If discovered, the [[Extramarital sex|paramour]] of a guilty Vestal was publicly beaten to death by the {{lang|la|pontifex maximus}}, in the [[Forum Boarium]] or on the [[Comitium]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Howatson |first=M. C. |title=Oxford Companion to Classical Literature |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1989 |isbn=978-0-19-866121-4 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/oxfordcompaniont00howa }}</ref>

Trials for Vestal {{lang|la|incestum}} were "extremely rare"; most took place during military or religious crises.<ref>Quotation from Cornell, 1981, p. 27</ref> Some Vestals were probably used as scapegoats; their political alliances and alleged failure to observe oaths and duties were held to account for civil disturbances, wars, famines, plagues and other signs of divine displeasure.<ref name="Eckstein 2012 214–217"/><ref name="Cornell, Tim 1978 pp. 27-37"/> The end of the Roman monarchy and the beginnings of the Republic involved extreme social tensions between Rome and her neighbours, and competition for power and influence between Rome's aristocrats and the commoner majority. In 483 BC, during a period of social conflict between patricians and plebeians, the Vestal [[Oppia]], perhaps the earliest of several historic Vestals of [[plebeian]] family, was executed for {{lang|la|incestum}} merely on the basis of various portents, and allegations that she neglected her Vestal duties.<ref name="ReferenceB">{{cite book |author-link=Livy |author=Livy |title=Ab urbe condita |at=2.42|title-link=Ab urbe condita (book) }}</ref> In 337 BC, Minucia, another possible first [[plebeian]] Vestal, was tried, found guilty of unchastity and buried alive on the strength of her excessive and inappropriate love of dress, and the evidence of a slave.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/txt/ah/Livy/Livy08.html |title=History of Rome |at=8.15 |author=Livy |author-link=Livy |publisher=Marquette University |access-date=2012-11-19 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120914151711/http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/txt/ah/Livy/Livy08.html |archive-date=2012-09-14 }}</ref>

[[File:Vestal Palatino Inv12491.jpg|thumb|Vestal from the time of [[Hadrian]], fragment of a relief found on the [[Palatine Hill]] ''(British Museum)'']]
In 123 BC the gift of an altar, shrine and couch to the Bona Dea's Aventine temple by the Vestal [[Licinia (died 113 BC)|Licinia]] "without the people's approval" was refused by the [[Roman Senate]].<ref>{{harvnb|Wildfang|2006|pp=92–93}}, citing Cicero, ''De Domo Sua'', 53.136.</ref> In 114 Licinia and two of her colleagues, Vestals [[Aemilia (vestal)|Aemilia]] and [[Marcia (vestal)|Marcia]], were accused of multiple acts of {{lang|la|[[incestum]]}}.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AktQAQAAMAAJ&q=%22Lucius+Cassius%22+%22vestal%22|title=Religions of Rome: Volume 1, A History|first1=Mary|last1=Beard|first2=John|last2=North|first3=Simon|last3=Price|date=9 July 1998|publisher=Cambridge University Press|via=Google Books|isbn=9780521304016}}</ref> The final accusations were justified by the death, in 114 BC, of Helvia, a virgin girl of equestrian family, killed by lightning while on horseback. The manner of her death was interpreted as a [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#prodigy|prodigy]], proof of [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#castus, castitas|inchastity]] by the three accused.<ref>Erdkamp, Paul, "War, Vestal Virgins, and Live Burials in the Roman Republic", in M. Dillon and C. Matthews, eds., ''Religion and Classical Warfare. II: The Roman Republic'', Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2020, p.9</ref> Aemilia, who had supposedly incited the two others to follow her example, was condemned outright and put to death.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VAQkDwAAQBAJ&q=%22Lucius+Cassius%22+%22vestal%22&pg=PP44|title=Roman Women: The Women who influenced the History of Rome|first=Paul|last=Chrystal|date=17 May 2017|publisher=Fonthill Media|via=Google Books}}</ref> Marcia, who was accused of only one offence, and Licinia, who was accused of many, were at first acquitted by the [[pontifex|pontifices]], but were retried by [[Lucius Cassius Longinus Ravilla]] (consul 127), and condemned to death in 113.<ref>Wildfang, Robin Lorsch, [https://books.google.com/books?id=eYetrQctq04C&pg=PA154 ''Rome's vestal virgins: a study of Rome's vestal priestesses in the late Republic and early Empire''], Routledge/Taylor & Francis, 2007, p. 93ff.</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2esYJJUETiYC&q=%22Lucius+Cassius%22+%22vestal%22&pg=PA206|title=A to Z of Ancient Greek and Roman Women|first1=Marjorie|last1=Lightman|first2=Benjamin|last2=Lightman|date=17 December 2018|publisher=Infobase Publishing|via=Google Books|isbn=9781438107943}}</ref> The prosecution offered two [[Sibylline books|Sibylline prophecies]] in support of the final verdicts. Of the three Vestals executed for {{lang|la|incestum}} between the [[first Punic War]] (216) and the end of the Republic (113–111), each was followed by a nameless, bloodless form of human sacrifice seemingly reserved for times of extreme crisis, supposedly at the recommendation of the [[Sibylline Books]]; the living burial or immurement in the {{lang|la|[[Forum Boarium]]}} of a Greek man and woman, and a [[Gaul]]ish man and woman, possibly to avert divine outrage at the ritual killing of the Vestal priestesses involved. According to Erdkamp, this may have also been intended to restore divine support for Rome's success on the battlefield, evidenced by later successful auguries.<ref>Erdkamp, 2020, pp. 22-25</ref> The initial charges against the Vestals concerned were almost certainly trumped up, and may have been politically motivated.<ref>Phyllis Cunham, in Harriet Flower (ed), [https://books.google.com/books?id=i1rQqJo_flwC&pg=PA155&lpg=PA155 ''The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic''], Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 155. The accusations against Licinia included fraternal incest. She was a contemporary and possible political ally of the [[Gracchi]] brothers. In 123&nbsp;BC the [[Roman Senate]] had annulled her attempted rededication of [[Bona Dea]]'s [[Aventine Hill|Aventine]] Temple as illegal and "against the will of the people". She may have fallen victim to the factional politics of the times.</ref><ref>Broughton, vol. I, p. 534.</ref>

Pliny the Younger believed that Cornelia, a {{lang|la|Virgo Maxima}} buried alive on the orders of emperor [[Domitian]], may have been an innocent victim. He describes how she sought to keep her dignity intact when she descended into the chamber:<ref>Pliny the Younger, [https://www.bartleby.com/9/4/1043.html ''Letters. XLIII. To Cornelius Minicianus'']
The Harvard Classics</ref>

[[File:Cornelia, the Vestal Virgin, entombed alive surrounded by bo Wellcome V0041753.jpg|thumb|left|Cornelia entombed alive]]
{{blockquote|As they were leading her to the place of execution, she called upon Vesta, and the rest of the gods, to attest her innocence; and, amongst other exclamations, frequently cried out, "Is it possible that Cæsar can think me polluted, under the influence of whose sacred functions he has conquered and triumphed?" Whether she said this in flattery or derision; whether it proceeded from a consciousness of her innocence or contempt of the emperor, is uncertain; but she continued exclaiming in this manner, til she came to the place of execution, to which she was led, whether innocent or guilty I cannot say, at all events with every appearance and demonstration of innocence. As she was being lowered down into the subterranean vault, her robe happening to catch upon something in the descent, she turned round and disengaged it, when, the executioner offering his assistance, she drew herself back with horror, refusing to be so much as touched by him, as though it were a defilement to her pure and unspotted chastity: still preserving the appearance of sanctity up to the last moment; and, among all the other instances of her modesty,
"She took great care to fall with decency." [The quotation is from [[Euripides]], ''[[Hecuba]]''.]}}

[[Dionysius of Halicarnassus]] claims that long before Rome's foundation, Vestals at ancient [[Alba Longa]] were whipped and "put to death" for breaking their vows of celibacy, and that their offspring were to be thrown into the river.<ref>[https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Dionysius_of_Halicarnassus/1D*.html ''The Roman Antiquities of Dionysius of Halicarnassus''], Loeb Classical Library, 1937, Book 1, 78.</ref> According to Livy, Rhea Silvia, mother of Romulus and Remus, had been forced to become a Vestal Virgin, and was chained and imprisoned when she gave birth.<ref>{{cite book |author=Livy |author-link=Livy |title=History of Rome |volume=1 |translator1=Baker |year=1844 |location=New York |publisher=Harper & Brothers |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BdsLAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA22 |page=22}}</ref> Dionysius also writes that the Roman king [[Tarquinius Priscus]] instituted live burial as a punishment for Vestal unchastity, and inflicted it on the Vestal Pinaria;<ref>[https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Dionysius_of_Halicarnassus/1D*.html ''The Roman Antiquities of Dionysius of Halicarnassus''], Loeb Classical Library, 1937, Book 3, 68.</ref> and that whipping with rods sometimes preceded the [[Immurement|immuration]], and that this was done to Urbinia in 471 BCE, in a time of pestilence and plebeian unrest.<ref>[https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Dionysius_of_Halicarnassus/9B*.html ''The Roman Antiquities of Dionysius of Halicarnassus''], Loeb Classical Library, 1937, Book 1X, 40–41.</ref>

Postumia, though innocent according to Livy,<ref>{{cite book |url=http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/txt/ah/Livy/Livy04.html |title=History of Rome |volume=4 |at=4.44 |author=Livy |author-link=Livy |publisher=Marquette University |access-date=2012-11-19 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120915013420/http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/txt/ah/Livy/Livy04.html |archive-date=2012-09-15 }}</ref> was suspected and tried for unchastity on grounds of her immodest attire and over-familiar manner. Some Vestals were acquitted. Some cleared themselves through ordeals or miraculous deeds; in a celebrated case during the mid-Republic, the Vestal [[Tuccia]], accused of unchastity, carried water in a [[wikt:sieve|sieve]] to prove her innocence; Livy's epitomator (Per. 20) claims that she was condemned nevertheless but in all other sources she was acquitted.<ref>Cornell, Tim. [https://www.persee.fr/doc/efr_0000-0000_1981_act_48_1_1357 "Some observations on the {{lang|la|crimen incesti}}"]. In: {{lang|fr|Le délit religieux dans la cité antique. Actes de la table ronde de Rome}} (6–7 April 1978). Rome: {{lang|fr|École Française de Rome}}, 1981. p. 28. ({{lang|fr|italic=no|Publications de l'École française de Rome}}, 48).</ref>  [[Image:Casa-vestali.png|thumb|A reconstruction of the House of the Vestals by [[Christian Hülsen]] (1905)]]