Vestal Virgin

Template:Short description Template:Redirect

2nd-century AD Roman statue of a Template:Lang (National Roman Museum)

File:INC-3004-r Ауреус. Ок. 43—39 гг. до н. э. Монетарий Клодий Весталий (реверс).png

1st-century BC (43–39 BC) Template:Lang depicting a seated Vestal Virgin marked Template:Smallcaps

In ancient Rome, the Vestal Virgins or Vestals (Template:Langx, singular Template:Lang Template:IPA) were priestesses of Vesta, virgin goddess of Rome's sacred hearth and its flame.

The Vestals were unlike any other public priesthood. They were chosen before puberty from several suitable candidates, freed from any legal ties and obligations to their birth family, and enrolled in Vesta's priestly college of six priestesses. They were supervised by a senior vestal but chosen and governed by Rome's leading male priest, the Template:Lang -- in the Imperial era, this meant the emperor.

Vesta's acolytes vowed to serve her for at least thirty years, study and practise her rites in service of the Roman State, and maintain their chastity throughout. In addition to their obligations on behalf of Rome, Vestals had extraordinary rights and privileges, some of which were granted to no others, male or female.

The Vestals took turns to supervise Vesta's sacred hearth so that at least one Vestal was stationed there at all times. Vestals who allowed the sacred fire to go out were punished with whipping. Vestals who lost their chastity were guilty of Template:Lang and were sentenced to living burial, a bloodless death that must seem voluntary. Their sexual partners, if known, were publicly beaten to death. These were infrequent events; most vestals retired with a generous pension and universal respect. They were then free to marry, though few of them did. Some appear to have renewed their vows.

In 382 AD, the Christian emperor Gratian confiscated the public revenues assigned to the cult of Vesta in Rome. Soon after, the Vestals vanished from the historical record.

History

Template:Priesthoods of ancient Rome Priesthoods with similar functions to the Vestals of Rome had an ancient and deeply embedded religious role in various surrounding Latin communities.<ref>Beard, M., North, J., Price, S., Religions of Rome, Volume I, illustrated, reprint, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 51–54, 323. Template:ISBN.</ref> According to Livy, the Vestals had pre-Roman origins at Alba Longa, where Rhea Silvia, a virgin daughter of the king, forced by her usurper uncle to become a Vestal, miraculously gave birth to twin boys, Romulus and Remus. The twins were fathered by Mars. They survived their uncle's attempts to kill them through exposure or drowning, and Romulus went on to found Rome.<ref>Livy, Ab urbe condita, 1,20.</ref> In the most widely accepted versions of Rome's beginnings,<ref>By the Imperial era authors Livy, Plutarch, and Aulus Gellius: see Cornell, T., The beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000 – 264 BC), Routledge, 1995. pp. 57–63. Template:ISBN.</ref> the city's legendary second king, Numa Pompilius, built its first Temple of Vesta, appointed its first pair of Vestals, and subsidised them as a collegiate priesthood. He then added a second pair. Rome's sixth king, Servius Tullius, who was also said to have been miraculously fathered by the fire god Vulcan or the household Lar with a captive Vestal, increased the number of Vestals to six.<ref>Life of Numa Pompilius 9.5–10; Template:Webarchive.</ref> In the Imperial era as attested by Plutarch, the college had six Vestals at any given time. Claims by Ambrose and others that the college comprised seven Vestals in the late 4th century rest on "very unsatisfactory evidence".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Ramsay, William, 'Vestales', Smith, William, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, John Murray, London, 1875, p. 1189: Ramsay is citing Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptiones. vol. IV p.167; Ambrose, Epistles V.31, cf. Symmachus and the remarks of Lipsius [1]</ref>

The Vestals were a powerful and influential priesthood. Towards the end of the Republican era, when Sulla included the young Julius Caesar in his proscriptions, the Vestals interceded on Caesar's behalf and gained him pardon.<ref>Suetonius, Julius Caesar, 1.2.</ref> Caesar's adopted heir Augustus promoted the Vestals' moral reputation and presence at public functions and restored several of their customary privileges that had fallen into abeyance. They were held in awe and attributed certain mysterious and supernatural powers and abilities. Pliny the Elder tacitly accepted these powers as fact:<ref>Pliny the Elder (translated by Bostock and Riley, 1855), The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 5, p. 280.</ref>

Template:Blockquote

The 4th-century AD urban prefect Symmachus, who sought to maintain traditional Roman religion during the rise of Christianity, wrote:

Template:Blockquote

Dissolution of the Vestal College would have followed soon after the emperor Gratian confiscated its revenues in 382 AD.<ref name="Sissel Undheim">Template:Cite book</ref> The last epigraphically attested Vestal is Coelia Concordia, a Template:Lang who in 385 AD erected a statue to the deceased pontiff Vettius Agorius Praetextatus.<ref>Template:Cite journal, p. 217</ref> Zosimos claims that when Theodosius I visited Rome in 394 AD, his niece Serena insulted an aged Vestal, said to be the last of her kind.Template:Sfn It is unclear from Zosimos's narrative whether Vesta's cult was still functioning, maintained by that single Vestal, or moribund.Template:Sfn Cameron is skeptical of the entire tale, noting that Theodosius did not visit Rome in 394.<ref>Alan Cameron, Last Pagans of Rome (Oxford UP), pp. 46–47</ref>

Term of service

The Vestals were committed to the priesthood before puberty (when 6–10 years old) and sworn to celibacy for a minimum period of 30 years.<ref>Template:Cite news 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>Template:Cite web</ref> The Template:Lang, 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, 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>

File:RomaCasaVestaliDaPalatinoOvest.JPG

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 Template:Lang 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/>Template:Rp

Under the Papian Law of the 3rd century BC, candidates for Vestal priesthoods had to be of patrician birth. Membership was opened to plebeians 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/>Template:Rp<ref name=Kroppenberg-2010>Template:Cite journal</ref>

The choosing ceremony was known as a Template:Lang (capture). Once a girl was chosen to be a Vestal, the Template:Lang pointed to her and led her away from her parents with the words, "I take you, Template:Lang (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 termsTemplate:'" (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>Template:Cite book</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. "Some observations on the Template:Lang". In: Template:Lang (6–7 April 1978). Rome: Template:Lang, 1981. (Template:Lang, 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 Template:Lang (Tiberius) "consoled" the failed candidate with a dowry of 1 million sesterces.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Template:Lang

The chief Vestal (Template:Lang or Template:Lang, "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 Template:Lang Occia presided over the Vestals for 57 years, according to Tacitus. The Template:Lang and the Template:Lang 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 Template:Lang ([[Museum of the Ara Pacis|Museum of the Template:Lang]])]]

Duties and festivals

File:Temple of Vesta - Hearth 01.jpg

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 Template:Lang (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>Beard, M., North, J., Price, S., Religions of Rome, Volume I, illustrated, reprint, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 51–53, Template:ISBN</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. Template:JSTOR. 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 Template:ISBN</ref><ref>Beard, M., North, J., Price, S., Religions of Rome, Volume I, illustrated, reprint, Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 51 Template:ISBN</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 Template:Lang, but all were ultimately under the authority of the Template:Lang, 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 Template:Lang, 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) Template:ISBN</ref><ref>Beard, M., North, J., Price, S., Religions of Rome, Volume I, illustrated, reprint, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 191, 382 Template:ISBN</ref>

The Vestals guarded various sacred objects kept in Vesta's Template:Lang, including the 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. Template:ISBN</ref><ref>Beard, M., North, J., Price, S., Religions of Rome, Volume I, illustrated, reprint, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp.53–54 Template:ISBN</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 claims that during the Vestalia, the Lupercalia and on September 13, the three youngest Vestals reaped unripened Template:Lang (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 Template:Lang 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 Template:ISBN</ref>

The Fordicidia was a characteristically rustic, agricultural festival, in which a pregnant cow was sacrificed to the Earth-goddess 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. The mixture was called Template:Lang. 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>Beard, M., North, J., Price, S., Religions of Rome, Volume I, illustrated, reprint, Cambridge University Press, 1998, p.53 Template:ISBN</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>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Privileges

File:INC-2941-r Ауреус. Каракалла. Ок. 215 г. (реверс).png

Reverse of an aureus depicting the emperor Caracalla and Vestals before the Temple of Vesta (early 3rd century)

Vestals were lawfully Template:Lang – "sovereign over themselves", answerable only to the Template:Lang.Template:Efn<ref>Andrew B. Gallia. "Vestal Virgins and Their Families". Classical Antiquity, vol. 34, no. 1, 2015, pp. 74–120. Template:JSTOR. 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 Template:Lang.<ref>Beard, M., North, J., Price, S., Religions of Rome, Volume I, illustrated, reprint, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 51–54 Template:ISBN</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 Template:Lang in deference.

The Vestals had unique, exclusive rights to use a Template:Lang, an enclosed, two-wheeled, horse-drawn carriage; some Roman sources remark on its likeness to the chariots used by Roman generals in triumphs.<ref>Beard, Mary (2007), The Roman Triumph, Cambridge, Massachusetts & London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, pp. 223–224. Template:ISBN</ref> Otherwise, the Vestals seem to have travelled in a one-seat, curtained 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, 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, Template:Doi</ref>

Prosecutions and punishments

File:Alessandro Marchesini - Dedication of a New Vestal Virgin - WGA14054.jpg

Early 18th-century depiction of the dedication of a Vestal, by Alessandro Marchesini

File:Constantin Hölscher - In the Temple of Vesta.jpg

In the Temple of Vesta by Template:Interlanguage link, 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 prodigy, a warning that the Template:Lang ("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 Template:Lang, the Template:Lang and the Template:Lang to determine whether the matter must be tried or dismissed. Expiation of prodigies usually involved a special sacrifice (Template:Lang) and the destruction of the "unnatural" object that had caused divine offence.<ref name="persee.fr">Cornell, Tim. "Some observations on the Template:Lang". In: Template:Lang (6–7 April 1978). Rome: Template:Lang, 1981. p. 38. (Template:Lang, 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>Template:Cite book</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 Template:Lang or expiation could restore it or compensate for its loss.<ref name="persee.fr"/>

A Vestal who committed Template:Lang 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. "Some observations on the Template:Lang". In: Template:Lang (6–7 April 1978). Rome: Template:Lang, 1981. pp. 27-37. (Template:Lang, 48).</ref> By ancient tradition, she must die, but she must seem to do so willingly, and her 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 immured alive in an underground chamber within the city's ritual boundary (Template:Lang) in the Template:Lang ("Evil Field") near the 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">Template:Cite journal</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>

Template:Blockquote If discovered, the paramour of a guilty Vestal was publicly beaten to death by the Template:Lang, in the Forum Boarium or on the Comitium.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Trials for Vestal Template:Lang 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 Template:Lang merely on the basis of various portents, and allegations that she neglected her Vestal duties.<ref name="ReferenceB">Template:Cite 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>Template:Cite web</ref>

File:Vestal Palatino Inv12491.jpg

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 "without the people's approval" was refused by the Roman Senate.<ref>Template:Harvnb, citing Cicero, De Domo Sua, 53.136.</ref> In 114 Licinia and two of her colleagues, Vestals Aemilia and Marcia, were accused of multiple acts of Template:Lang.<ref>Template:Cite book</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 prodigy, proof of 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>Template:Cite web</ref> Marcia, who was accused of only one offence, and Licinia, who was accused of many, were at first acquitted by the pontifices, but were retried by Lucius Cassius Longinus Ravilla (consul 127), and condemned to death in 113.<ref>Wildfang, Robin Lorsch, 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>Template:Cite book</ref> The prosecution offered two Sibylline prophecies in support of the final verdicts. Of the three Vestals executed for Template:Lang 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 Template:Lang of a Greek man and woman, and a Gaulish 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), 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 BC the Roman Senate had annulled her attempted rededication of Bona Dea's 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 Template:Lang 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, Letters. XLIII. To Cornelius Minicianus The Harvard Classics</ref>

File:Cornelia, the Vestal Virgin, entombed alive surrounded by bo Wellcome V0041753.jpg

Cornelia entombed alive

Template:Blockquote

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>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>Template:Cite book</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>The Roman Antiquities of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Loeb Classical Library, 1937, Book 3, 68.</ref> and that whipping with rods sometimes preceded the immuration, and that this was done to Urbinia in 471 BCE, in a time of pestilence and plebeian unrest.<ref>The Roman Antiquities of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Loeb Classical Library, 1937, Book 1X, 40–41.</ref>

Postumia, though innocent according to Livy,<ref>Template:Cite book</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 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. "Some observations on the Template:Lang". In: Template:Lang (6–7 April 1978). Rome: Template:Lang, 1981. p. 28. (Template:Lang, 48).</ref>

File:Casa-vestali.png

A reconstruction of the House of the Vestals by Christian Hülsen (1905)

House of the Vestals

Template:Main The House of the Vestals was the residence of the vestal priestesses in Rome. Located behind the Temple of Vesta (which housed the sacred fire), the Template:Lang was a three-storey building at the foot of the Palatine Hill, "very large and exceptionally magnificent both in decoration and material".<ref>Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Vesta", Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 27 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 1055.</ref>

Attire

File:Sculpture in the Atrium of the Vestals - Rome.JPG

Statue of the Vestal Virgin Flavia Publicia in the House of the Vestals

Vestal costume had elements in common with high-status Roman bridal dress, and with the formal dress of high-status Roman matrons (married citizen-women). Vestals and matrons wore a long linen Template:Lang over a white woollen Template:Lang, a rectangular female citizen's wrap, equivalent to the male citizen's semi-circular toga.<ref>Valerius Maximus, Factorum ac dictorum memorabilium, I.1.7; Dionysus of Halicarnassus, Roman Questions. II.68; Pliny the Younger, Letters, IV.11; cited in William Ramsay, Vestales, article in Smith, William, pp.1189‑1191 in "A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities", John Murray, London, 1875.</ref> A Vestal's hair was bound into a white, priestly Template:Lang (head-covering or fillet) with red and white ribbons, usually tied together behind the head and hanging loosely over the shoulders.<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. 54. Template:ISBN</ref><ref>Croom, Alexandra, Roman Clothing and Fashion, Amberley Publishing, The Hill, Stroud, Gloucestershire, 2010, p.135, ISBN 978-1-84868-977-0</ref>

The red ribbons of the Vestal Template:Lang were said to represent Vesta's fire; and the white, virginity, or sexual purity. The stola is associated with Roman citizen-matrons and Vestals, not with brides. This covering of the body by way of the gown and veils "signals the prohibitions that governed [the Vestals'] sexuality".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The Template:Lang communicates the message of "hands off" and asserts their virginity.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The prescribed everyday hairstyle for Vestals, and for brides only on their wedding day, comprised six or seven braids; this was thought to date back to the most ancient of times.<ref>Festus 454 in the edition of Lindsay, as cited by Robin Lorsch Wildfang, Rome's Vestal Virgins: A Study of Rome's Vestal Priestesses in the Late Republic and Early Empire (Routledge, 2006), p. 54</ref><ref>Laetitia La Follette, "The Costume of the Roman Bride", in The World of Roman Costume (University of Wisconsin Press, 2001), pp. 59–60 (on discrepancies of hairstyles in some Vestal portraits)</ref><ref>"Recreating the Vestal Virgin Hairstyle" video. Template:Webarchive</ref><ref name="online.wsj.com">Template:Cite news</ref> In 2013, Janet Stephens recreated the hairstyle of the vestals on a modern person.<ref name="online.wsj.com" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

High-status brides were veiled in the same saffron-yellow Template:Lang as the Template:Lang, priestess of Jupiter and wife to his high priest. Vestals wore a white, purple-bordered Template:Lang (veil) when travelling outdoors, performing public rites or offering sacrifices. Respectable matrons were also expected to wear veils in public. One who appeared in public without her veil could be thought to have repudiated her marriage, making herself "available".<ref>Sebesta, Judith Lynn, Bonfante, Larissa (editors), "The World of Roman Costume: Wisconsin Studies in Classics", The University of Wisconsin Press, 1994, p.49, isbn 9780299138509</ref>

Named Vestals

From the institution of the Vestal priesthood to its abolition, an unknown number of Vestals held office. Some are named in Roman myth and history and some are of unknown date. The 1st-century BC author Varro, names the first four, probably legendary Vestals as Gegania, Veneneia, Canuleia, and Tarpeia. Varro and others also portray Tarpeia, daughter of Spurius Tarpeius in the Sabine-Roman war, as a treasonous Vestal Virgin. Most Vestals named in Roman historical accounts are presented as examples of wrongdoing, threats to the well-being of the state, and punishment. While Tarpeia's status as a virgin is common to most accounts, her status as a vestal was likely the mythographer's invention, to cast her lust, greed and treason in the worst possible light.<ref name=":6">Template:Cite journal</ref>

Dionysius of Halicarnasus names Orbinia, a Vestal put to death in 471.<ref>Dionysius of Halicarnassus, ix. 40.</ref> Livy names a Vestal Postumia, tried for inchastity in 420, but acquitted with a warning to take her position more seriously:<ref>Livy, iv. 44.</ref> Minucia was put to death for inchastity in 337:<ref>Livy, viii. 15.</ref> and Sextilia, put to death for adultery in 273.<ref>Livy, Periochae, 14.</ref> Some Vestals are said to have committed suicide when accused; Caparronia did so in 266:<ref>Orosius, iv. 5 § 9.</ref> essential trial details are often lacking. Livy states that two Vestals, Floronia and Opimia, were convicted of unchastity in 216. One committed suicide, the other was buried alive - he does not say which.<ref>Livy, xxii. 57.</ref>

Vestals could exploit their familial and social connections, as well as their unique, untouchable status and privileges, taking the role of patron and protector. Cicero describes how the Vestal Claudia, daughter of Appius Claudius Pulcher, walked beside her father in his triumphal procession, to repulse a tribune of the plebs, who wanted to veto the triumph.<ref>Cicero, Pro Caelio, (14).34.</ref> Cicero also records a Vestal Fonteia, present during the trial of her brother in 69.<ref>Cicero, Pro Fonteio (21).46–49</ref><ref>Aulus Gellius 1.12.2</ref><ref>T. R. S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic (American Philological Association, 1952), vol. 2, pp. 24–25.</ref> Fabia, admitted to the order in 80 and made chief Vestal around 50, was half-sister of Terentia (Cicero's first wife), and full sister of Fabia the wife of Dolabella who later married her niece Tullia; she was probably mother of the later consul of that name.<ref>Wildfang, Robin Lorsch, Rome's vestal virgins: a study of Rome's vestal priestesses in the late Republic and early Empire, Routledge/Taylor & Francis, 2007, p. 96</ref> In 73 she was acquitted of Template:Lang with Lucius Sergius Catilina.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The case was prosecuted by Cicero.

The 1st century Vestal Licinia was supposedly courted by her kinsman, the so-called "triumvir" Marcus Licinius Crassus – who in fact wanted her property. This relationship gave rise to rumours. Plutarch says: "And yet when he was further on in years, he was accused of criminal intimacy with Licinia, one of the Vestal virgins and Licinia was formally prosecuted by a certain Plotius. Now Licinia was the owner of a pleasant villa in the suburbs which Crassus wished to get at a low price, and it was for this reason that he was forever hovering about the woman and paying his court to her until he fell under the abominable suspicion. And in a way, it was his avarice that absolved him from the charge of corrupting the Vestal, and he was acquitted by the judges. But he did not let Licinia go until he had acquired her property."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Licinia became a Vestal in 85 and remained a Vestal until 61. The Vestals Arruntia, Perpennia M. f., and Popillia attended the inauguration of Lucius Cornelius Lentulus Niger as Flamen Martialis in 69. Licinia, Crassus' relative, was also present.<ref>Broughton, vol. II, pp. 135-137 (note 14).</ref>

File:1813 - Archaeological Museum, Athens - Julia Aquilia Severa - Photo by Giovanni Dall'Orto, Nov 11 2009.jpg

Bronze statue of Aquilia Severa, a vestal virgin whom the emperor Elagabalus (Template:Reign) forced to marry (National Archaeological Museum, Athens)

Imperial Vestals

Junia Torquata (1st century), vestal under Tiberius, sister of Gaius Junius Silanus.<ref>Tacitus, Annales, iii. 69.</ref>
Rubria (1st century), said by Suetonius to have been raped by Nero.
Aquilia Severa (3rd century), whom Emperor Elagabalus married amid considerable scandal.
Clodia Laeta (3rd century).
Flavia Publicia (mid-3rd century).
Coelia Concordia (4th century), the last head of the order.

Outside Rome

Inscriptions record the existence of Vestals in other locations than the centre of Rome.

Manlia Severa, Template:Lang,<ref>Template:CIL = ILS 6190, found in 1728 at the XI mile of the Via Appia, now in the Lapidary Gallery of the Vatican Museums: it mentions the dedication of a clipeus by her brother.</ref> a chief Alban Vestal at Bovillae whose brother was probably the L. Manlius Severus named as a Template:Lang in a funerary inscription. Mommsen thought he was Template:Lang of Rome, but this is not considered likely.<ref>Template:CIL = ILS 4942 presently no longer reperibleTemplate:Clarify in the palazzo Mattei in Rome.</ref>
Flavia (or Valeria) Vera, a Template:Lang, chief Vestal Virgin of the Alban [[Arx (Roman)|Template:Lang (citadel)]].<ref>Template:CIL = ILS 5011, found in Rome near the basilica of St. Saba, now in the Lapidary Gallery of the Vatican Museum. It is a dedicatory inscription on a little base, possibly of a statuette that was housed in the home of the same vestal on the Little Aventine. M. G. Granino Cecere, Template:Lang, in Template:Lang 20 2003 p. 70-71.</ref>
Caecilia Philete, a senior virgin (Template:Lang) of Laurentum-Lavinium,<ref>Virgo maior regia Laurentium Lavinatium, Template:CIL, as read by Pirro Ligorio, now housed in the Palazzo Borghese at Pratica di Mare. Cecere above p. 72.</ref> as commemorated by her father, Q. Caecilius Papion. The title Template:Lang means at Lavinium the Vestals were only two.
Saufeia Alexandria, Template:Lang.<ref>Template:CIL = ILS 6244 on the base of an honorary statue, now irreparable. Possibly also mentioned in Template:CIL. Cecere above p. 73–74</ref>
Cossinia L(ucii) f(iliae), a Template:Lang of Tibur (Tivoli).<ref>Inscription It. IV n. 213. Inscription on funerary monument discovered at Tivoli in July 1929. On the front, the name of the Vestal is incised within an oak wreath onto which adheres the sacred Template:Lang, knot of the order; with the name of the dedicant (L. Cossinius Electus, a relative, probably brother or nephew) on the lower margin. Cecere above p. 75.</ref>
Primigenia, Alban vestal of Bovillae who had forsaken her vows of celibacy, mentioned by Symmachus in two of his letters.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In Western art

Two starkly different views by two French Academic painters of the Vestals in their front-rows seats at the Roman Colosseum: Pollice Verso (Thumbs Down), 1874, by Jean-Léon Gérôme (detail; Phoenix Art Museum), and the Vestals in a painting by Hector Leroux, c. 1890 (private collection).

Two starkly different views by two French Academic painters of the Vestals in their front-rows seats at the Roman Colosseum: Pollice Verso (Thumbs Down), 1874, by Jean-Léon Gérôme (detail; Phoenix Art Museum), and the Vestals in a painting by Hector Leroux, c. 1890 (private collection).

File:Hector leroux inauguration of a vestal virgin.jpg

Hector Leroux, Inauguration of a Vestal, by 1900, private collection

The Vestals were used as models of female virtue in allegorizing portraiture of the later West. Elizabeth I of England was portrayed holding a sieve to evoke Tuccia, the Vestal who proved her virtue by carrying water in a sieve.<ref>Marina Warner, Monuments and Maidens: The Allegory of the Female Form (University of California Press, 1985), p. 244 ; Robert Tittler, "Portraiture, Politics and Society," in A Companion to Tudor Britain (Blackwell, 2007), p. 454; Linda Shenk, Learned Queen: The Image of Elizabeth I in Politics and Poetry (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), p. 13.</ref> Tuccia herself had been a subject for artists such as Jacopo del Sellaio (Template:Abbr 1493) and Joannes Stradanus, and women who were arts patrons started having themselves painted as Vestals.<ref>Warner, Monuments and Maidens, p. 244.</ref> In the libertine environment of 18th century France, portraits of women as Vestals seem intended as fantasies of virtue infused with ironic eroticism.<ref>Kathleen Nicholson, "The Ideology of Feminine 'Virtue': The Vestal Virgin in French Eighteenth-Century Allegorical Portraiture," in Portraiture: Facing the Subject (Manchester University Press, 1997), p. 58ff.</ref> Later, Vestals became an image of republican virtue, as in Jacques-Louis David's The Vestal Virgin.

Excavations in Rome and Pompeii, as well as translation of Latin sources, made Vestals a popular subject for artists in the 18th century and the 19th century. The French painter Hector Leroux, who lived and worked in Italy for seventeen years, became famous for meticulously researched images of Vestals in all aspects of their daily life and worship, making some thirty paintings of Vestals between 1863 and 1899.<ref>Couëlle, Colombe (2008). "Hector Leroux (1829-1900). Un peintre du XIXe voué à l'Antique", Journée de l'Antiquité 2008, April 2008, Université de La Réunion, Saint-Denis, La Réunion, pp. 210-245.</ref>

Procol Harum's famous hit "A Whiter Shade of Pale" (1967) contains the lyrics "One of sixteen vestal virgins/ Who were leaving for the coast".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>