The Vestal Virgins were a unique roman priesthood. Composed of six virgin priestesses who lived in the temple of Vesta, they were women with unique freedoms in a patriarchal society.

The Vestals’ primary duty was guarding Rome’s safety and destiny. Their virginity was essential to this. For a Vestal to break her vow of chastity was to endanger Rome. The penalty for such a betrayal was a ritualised execution.

Who Were the Vestal Virgins?

The Vestal Virgins were six women who served Rome and the goddess Vesta from childhood, living and working in the temple of Vesta in Rome.

The Pontifex Maximus chose each new Vestal Virgin. They were girls from senatorial families, aged between six and ten years old, free from physical blemish. Both of their parents had to be living and their father had to remain in the paternal power of his father.

Each Vestal was required to serve for thirty years. Once their service period had expired, a Vestal could leave the goddess’s service and marry. However, few did, choosing instead to renew their vows. This was possibly due to the unprecedented freedoms and advantages the Vestals enjoyed as women in Roman society.

The Social Status of the Vestals 

Vestal Virgins enjoyed greater freedoms than most women in Roman society. This was because, on entering the goddess’s service, they were freed from the legal authority of their fathers. Traditionally, Roman women could only act through their husbands or father. However, a Vestal Virgin was free to act for herself and could make her own will and inherit property.

Despite their vows of chastity, Vestals were not kept in seclusion. In fact, they enjoyed a full social life. It was not unknown for Vestals to attend private dinner parties, where they often dressed in the latest fashions, leaving aside their ritual garments of matron’s stola and bridal headdress. They even attended the games, with special seating areas at the front of the arena giving the vestals an unprecedented view of the games denied to other women by the edicts of Augustus. This was because the Vestals, as virgins, were believed to be beyond the temptations of the flesh.

The Duties of the Vestal Virgins

Each Vestal was dedicated solely to the service of Vesta and Rome. They were responsible for mixing the mola salsa, the grain and salt mix used in public sacrifices.

Their primary duty was to tend the sacred hearth flame of Rome that burned in the shrine of Vesta. For this task, the Vestals had to be virgins because, like the flame, a virgin was pure and undefiled.

A Vestal’s virginity was believed to give her great power. It was believed this was because the Vestals did not spend their energies reproducing as other women did. Their energy instead was directed on Rome.

The power of the Vestals often manifested in the form of miracles. For example, the prayer of a vestal had the power to stop any runaway slave that crossed their path. A virtuous vestal could use miracles to prove their innocence against charges of unchastity, for example, carrying water from the Tiber in a sieve or relighting the sacred flame with their sash.

The loss of virginity was the greatest sin a vestal could commit, and the extinguishing of the sacred flame was a sign from the gods that a virgin had broken her vows. Such an event meant disaster for Rome unless the goddess Vesta could be appeased.

The Penalty for Unchaste Vestals 

The crime of breaking the vow of chastity was known as the crimen incesti. If a vestal was proven by trial to have had sex, the penalty for both parties was death. However, the nature of that death varied for the Vestal and her lover.

For the man, his death was straightforward and ignominious; he was publicly flogged to death. For the Vestal, death followed a prescribed ritual, which left her death solely in the hands of the gods.

The condemned Vestal was dressed as a corpse and carried in a closed litter to an unknown destination. The procession that accompanied her was a funeral procession because the Vestal was theoretically dead to the world.

The Vestal’s destination was an underground chamber specially prepared for the purpose. In essence, it was a room, not a tomb. The Vestal was provided with rudimentary comforts and small quantities of the essentials of life: a small amount of food and drink and a little oil for light.

The Vestal was required to descend to the room of her own free will whilst the priests who accompanied her averted their faces, thus absolving them of her death. She was then sealed inside the room and all signs of the entrance were obliterated.

It was believed if the Vestal was innocent, then Vesta would save her. However, it also meant that the sacred body of the Vestal was not violated by the hands of man. For despite her loss of status and life, the Vestal’s flesh was still sacred to the goddess. In this way, no mortal took her life, which was literally in the hands of her goddess.

Resources

Price, Simon and Kearns, Emily (2003) The Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth and Religion. Oxford University Press: Oxford.

Dumezil, Georges (trans Krapp Philip)(1996) Archaic Roman Religion Vol I. The John Hopkins University Press. Baltimore and London.

Staples, Ariadne (1998) From Good Goddess to Vestal Virgins: Sex and Category in Roman Religion. Routledge: London and New York.