Vestal Virgin

The Vestal Virgins (Latin: virgines Vestales) were priestesses of Vesta, goddess of Rome's sacred hearth. A college of six tended the fire in the Temple of Vesta in the Roman Forum and guarded the sanctities associated with it. Their work belonged to the public cult: the fire's accidental extinction was regarded as an ill omen for the city.

Vestals held an exceptional position in Roman society. On entering the priesthood, they passed out of their father's authority and could manage property and make a will without a guardian. In return, they were bound to chastity during thirty years of service. Both their privileges and the severe penalties for breaking the vow reflected the public importance of Vesta's cult.

Origins and the college

Roman tradition attributed the establishment of the Vestals to King Numa Pompilius. Livy says that Numa assigned them support from the public treasury so that they could attend the sanctuary continuously. This is a later Roman account of the institution's beginnings, not documentary evidence from the regal period.

According to Plutarch, there were first two priestesses, then four, and later six. He gives the supposed names of the earliest Vestals as Gegania, Verenia, Canuleia and Tarpeia. Six became the customary number in the historical period. The senior priestess was known as the chief Vestal (Vestalis Maxima).

Selection and thirty years of service

A new Vestal was received into the priesthood by the pontifex maximus. Aulus Gellius lists the requirements for a candidate: she was to be between six and ten years old, have both parents living, meet specified family qualifications and have no physical impairment. The Papian law he describes called for twenty candidates and selection by lot, but Gellius himself says that by his day this procedure was usually bypassed when a suitable girl was offered by her family. Selection by lot should therefore not be presented as an unchanging rule throughout Roman history.

At her induction, the girl was formally taken from her family into the care of the pontiffs. Amata belonged to the formula spoken at this ceremony; it was not added to her family name. Plutarch divides the thirty-year term into three decades: learning the rites, performing them and teaching younger priestesses. After completing her term, a Vestal could leave and marry, though the ancient author says that few did so.

Vesta’s fire and sacred objects

The Vestals' central duty was to keep the sacred fire burning. They performed rites of the public cult and cared for sacred objects kept in connection with Vesta's temple. Their exact contents were not generally known: Plutarch records differing views of what the priestesses guarded. Ancient writers also associated the sanctuary with the Palladium, a sacred image on which Rome's safety was believed to depend.

The Vestals served at the city's communal hearth, not at each family's domestic shrine. Vesta's cult thus resembled the Roman idea of a household while carrying a distinct public significance. According to Plutarch, a priestess responsible for allowing the fire to go out could be physically punished. When the flame had to be rekindled, this was done ritually; ancient accounts differ on the method.

Privileges and penalties

Induction freed a Vestal from the paternal authority normally exercised over a daughter. She could manage property and make a will in her own right. In public, her status was marked by the fasces carried before her. Plutarch also reports that a chance meeting with someone being led to execution could spare that person's life, provided the priestess swore that the encounter had not been arranged. This was not a general power of pardon or an administrative office.

Breaking the vow of chastity was treated as a grave religious offence. Plutarch describes a convicted Vestal being buried alive near the Colline Gate; the man accused with her faced a separate punishment. Such accounts tell us how ancient authors described a Roman practice, not that every accusation necessarily ended in an execution.

Vestals in history and tradition

Rhea Silvia, mother of Romulus and Remus, belongs to Rome's legendary history. The story of the Vestal Tuccia tells how she proved her innocence by carrying water in a sieve. These tales should be distinguished from the historically attested careers of priestesses.

Pliny the Younger recounts the condemnation of Cornelia, the chief Vestal under Domitian, and conveys contemporary doubts about the justice of her sentence. Cassius Dio reports that Emperor Elagabalus married the Vestal Aquilia Severa, an exceptional and scandalous breach of custom. Coelia Concordia is attested as a chief Vestal in the late fourth century; inscriptions and correspondence connect her with a statue dedicated to Vettius Agorius Praetextatus after his death in AD 384.

The story of Claudia Quinta moving the stranded ship that bore the image of the Great Mother belongs to a different tradition: in its early form, Claudia was a Roman matron, not a Vestal.

Related topics

Roman religion: priesthoods, gods and rituals · Roman household religion · Pontiff · Women in ancient Rome

Literature

Livy. History of Rome. 1.20. Plutarch. Life of Numa. 9–10; Life of Camillus. 20. Aulus Gellius. Attic Nights. 1.12. Pliny the Younger. Letters. 4.11. Cassius Dio. Roman History. 80.9. Livy. History of Rome. 29.14 (Claudia Quinta). Pliny the Elder. Natural History. 28.12 (Tuccia). Symmachus. Letters. 2.36; CIL VI 2145 (Coelia Concordia).