In ancient Rome, the Vestal Virgins or Vestals (, singular ) 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 members. They were supervised by a senior vestal but chosen and governed by Rome's leading male priest, the —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 and were sentenced to living burial, a bloodless death that was intended to 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
Priesthoods with similar functions to the Vestals of Rome had an ancient and deeply embedded religious role in various surrounding Latin communities.Beard, M., North, J., Price, S., Religions of Rome, Volume I, illustrated, reprint, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 51–54, 323. . 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.Livy, Ab urbe condita, 1,20. In the most widely accepted versions of Rome's beginnings,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. . 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.Life of Numa Pompilius 9.5–10; . 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".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
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.Suetonius, Julius Caesar, 1.2. 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:Pliny the Elder (translated by Bostock and Riley, 1855), The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 5, p. 280.
The 4th-century AD urban prefect Symmachus, who sought to maintain traditional Roman religion during the rise of Christianity, wrote:
Dissolution of the Vestal College would have followed soon after the emperor Gratian confiscated its revenues in 382 AD. The last epigraphically attested Vestal is Coelia Concordia, a who in 385 AD erected a statue to the deceased pontiff Vettius Agorius Praetextatus., p. 217 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. It is unclear from Zosimos's narrative whether Vesta's cult was still functioning, maintained by that single Vestal, or moribund. Cameron is skeptical of the entire tale, noting that Theodosius did not visit Rome in 394.Alan Cameron, Last Pagans of Rome (Oxford UP), pp. 46–47
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. Lutwyche is citing Professor Corey Brennan 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. The , 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.Lindner, Molly M., Portraits of the Vestal Virgins, Priestesses of Ancient Rome, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbour, 2015, p. 34Plutarch, Life of Numa, 10.1, translation, Loeb edition, 1914, University of Chicago Occia was vestal for 57 years between 38 BC and 19 AD.Broughton, vol. II, p. 395.
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 chose Vestals by lot from a group of twenty high-born candidates at a gathering of their families and other Roman citizens.
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.
The choosing ceremony was known as a (capture). Once a girl was chosen to be a Vestal, the pointed to her and led her away from her parents with the words, "I take you, (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.
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.Cornell, Tim. "Some observations on the ". In: (6–7 April 1978). Rome: , 1981. (, 48). 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 (Tiberius) "consoled" the failed candidate with a dowry of 1 million sesterces.
The chief Vestal ( or , "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 Occia presided over the Vestals for 57 years, according to Tacitus. The and the also held unique responsibility for certain religious rites, but each held office by virtue of their standing as the spouse of a male priest.DiLuzio, M. J., A Place at the Altar. Priestesses in Republican Rome. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016, pp. 47–48Schultz, C. E., Women's Religious Activity in the Roman Republic. The University of North Carolina Press, 2006, pp. 80–81
Duties and festivals
Vestal tasks included the maintenance of their chastity, tending Vesta's sacred fire, guarding her sacred shrine 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.Beard, M., North, J., Price, S., Religions of Rome, Volume I, illustrated, reprint, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 51–53, Vesta's temple was essentially the temple of all Rome and its citizens; it was open all day; by night it was closed to men.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. . Accessed 16 December 2022. 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.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 Beard, M., North, J., Price, S., Religions of Rome, Volume I, illustrated, reprint, Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 51 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.Parker, "Why Were the Vestals Virgins?" 2004, p. 568.
The Vestals acknowledged one of their number as senior authority, the , but all were ultimately under the authority of the , 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 , 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.Lott, John. B., The Neighborhoods of Augustan Rome, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 14,15, 81–117, 230 (note 127) Beard, M., North, J., Price, S., Religions of Rome, Volume I, illustrated, reprint, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 191, 382