Vestal Virgins:



They were the only female priests within the roman religious system.

In Ancient Rome, the Vestal Virgins were the virgin holy Order of priestesses of Vesta. Their primary task was to maintain the sacred fire of Vesta, the goddess of the hearth and home. By maintaining the sacred fire, from which anyone could receive it for household use, they functioned as "surrogate housekeepers", in a religious sense, for all of Rome. Their sacred fire was treated, in Imperial times, as the Emperor's household fire. Letting the fire die out was a serious offence, and punished by execution. It burned until 391 AD, when the Emperor Theodosius I's decreees forbade public pagan worship, had the fire extinguished, closed the Temple of Vesta and disbanded the Vestal Virgins.

All Vestals took a vow of celebacy. The punishment for violating this oath was to be buried alive in an underground chamber known as the "Evil Fields", or Campus Sceleratus, just outside the Servian Wall with a few days of food and water to prolong the punishment. This is stronger than the punishment for stuprum (literally, an immoral act, it usually implies an immoral sexual act . . . sometimes adultery) because of the religious importance of the Vestal Virgins. Their lover would be flogged to death on the Comitium. The execution of one or more vestal virgins were carried out several times, but very infrequently.

Raping a Vestal Virgin was also punishable by death. The modern day equivalent today would be raping someone like Mother Teresa (when she was alive of course) . . . The traditional punishment is being clubed to death.

The exception to this rule was Mars, who raped Rhea Silvia, a Vestal Virgin. She than gave birth to Romulus and Remus who found Rome. Obviously, gods get special privileges.

As compensation for their chastity, they had many privileges not given to ordinary Roman women. Wherever they went, they were accompanied by a lictor (lictors were bodyguards whose task it was to protect the Vestals and other city magistrates). The Vestals were not subject to the pater potestas of their father, they could handle their own property and write a legally binding testament.



They had special seats in the front row at the games where women normally were relegated to the back seats and they were allowed to move around in the city in a carriage; they gave evidence without the customary oath; they were, on account of their incorruptible character, intrusted with important wills and public treaties; Their persons were inviolable and sacred and their blood could not be spilt. If a person sentenced to death, met a vestal virgin on his way to the execution, he was automatically pardoned.

There were six Vestal virgins. The order was led by the senior member, the Virgo Vestalis Maxima. They were originally chosen (capere is the technical word) by lot by the king during the republic and by the Pontifex Maximus during the empire. It was necessary that the maiden should not be under six nor above ten years of age, perfect in all her limbs, in the full enjoyment of all her senses, the daughter of free and freeborn distinguished patrician families who had never been in slavery, who followed no dishonorable occupation, and whose home was in Italy. It was ordained that when a vacancy occurred the Pontifex Maximus should name at his discretion twenty qualified damsels, one of whom was publicly (in concione) fixed upon by lot. The casting of lots does not seem to have been practiced if any respectable person came forward voluntarily and offered a daughter who fulfilled the necessary conditions. As soon as the election was concluded the Pontifex Maximus took the girl by the hand and addressed her in a solemn form: Sacerdotem · Vestalem · Quae · Sacra · Faciat · Quae · Ious · Siet · Sacerdotem · Vestalem · Facere · Pro · Populo · Romano · Quiritium · Utei · Quae · Optima · Lege · Fovit · Ita · Te · Amata · Capio where the title Amata seems simply to signify "beloved one," and not to refer to the name of one of the original Vestals. After these words were pronounced she was led away to the atrium of Vesta, and lived thenceforward within the sacred precincts under the special superintendence and control of the pontifical college. The first ten years they served as novices, then ten years as Vestal virgins proper, and at last ten years as supervisors.



After the thirty years of duty she was free to unconsecrate herself and thus also to marry. Few took the opportunity to leave their respected role in luxurious surroundings to submit themselves to the authority of a man, with all the restrictions placed on women. Those who eventually married were said to have lived in sorrow and remorse (as might indeed have been expected from the habits they had formed); hence such a proceeding was considered ominous, and the priestesses for the most part died as they had lived in the service of the goddess. However, for a man, marrying a former vestal virgin was highly prestigious.

The Vestals lived in the Atrium Vestae near the circular Temple of Vesta at the eastern edge of the Roman Forum, near the domus publicae where the Pontifex Maximus dwelled, until that role was taken up by the emperors. The complex lay at the foot of the Palatine Hill, in a sacred grove, until all was swept away by the Fire of Rome in 64 AD. The House of the Vestals was rebuilt several times in the course of the Empire.