VESTA´LES
VESTA´LES (
Virgines Vestales), the
virgin priestesses of Vesta, who ministered in her temple and watched the
eternal fire. That they were recognised as a priesthood is clear from their
official designation, “
sacerdotes
Vestales” (
C. I. L.. 6.2128;--Gellius,
1.12,
14;
10.15,
31). They
belonged to that oldest class of priesthoods [
SACERDOS] whose duties were limited to the service
of particular deities, and we have good reason to suppose that they were at
least as ancient as any of these. Their existence at Alba Longa is connected
with the earliest Roman traditions, for Rhea Silvia, the mother of Romulus,
was, according to the legend, a Vestal (
Liv.
1.20;
Dionys. A. R. 1.76); and
they are known to have survived at Alba down to the age of the later Empire.
The institution is also found at Lavinium and Tibur (Marquardt,
Staatsverw. 3.336, reff.; Preuner,
Hestin-Vesta, 340), and was without doubt originally common
to all Latin communities. From Alba it was believed to have been brought to
Rome; whether by Romulus or Numa, the Roman antiquaries were not agreed (cf.
Schwegler,
Röm. Gesch. 1.544, note 1). The original
number of the Vestals was four (their names are given in Plut.
Numa,, 10), two representing the Rhamnes, two the
Tities (
Dionys. A. R. 2.67,
3.67; Festus, 344b); to these two were
added by Tarquinius Priscus or Servius Tullius, to represent the third tribe
of the Luceres.
The true explanation of the origin and meaning of this singular priesthood
has been recently placed beyond doubt by the researches of anthropologists.
The germ of the cult of Vesta is to be found in the great difficulty
experienced by primitive man in obtaining
fire, and
in the consequent veneration with which he regarded it when obtained.
Convenience suggested that in one house in every settlement a fire should be
kept perpetually burning, from which the members of the community could at
any time procure the flame. This house was that of the king or chief, whose
unmarried daughters were charged with the duty of keeping up the fire; their
brothers also, as “kindlers” (
flamines), had duties of the same kind, perhaps more especially
sacrificial. (For the comparative evidence on which this explanation rests,
see especially J. G. Frazer, in
Journal of Philology, vol.
xiv., No. 28, pp. 145 foll.: cf. Helbig,
Die Italiker in der
Poebene, p. 53;
PRYTANEUM) From the first, probably, this duty of the chief's
daughters was a religious one, and the flame was a sacred flame (Ovid,
Ov. Fast. 6.291: “Nec tu aliud Vestam
quam vivam intellige flammam” ); and thus, by a process of
development which cannot be entered into here, the fire became a deity whose
nature and origin were forgotten (ib. 6.267, “Vesta eadem quae
terra;” Varro in August.
Civ. Dei, 7.16 and 23), and the duties of the chief's
daughters were transferred to an organised priesthood, retaining throughout
their history the leading characteristic of maidenhood. What had been matter
of mere utility becomes symbolic of the life, welfare, and unity of the
state; and the sacred hearth continues to be guarded by virgins whose purity
of life and antique simplicity of occupation recalled their humble origin
even in the latest ages of Roman history. (Jordan,
Tempel der
Vesta, pp. 50 foll., regards the Vestal as in the position of the
state representative of the
materfamilias, and not
as the daughter of the
[p. 2.941]rex or pontifex maximus: an
opinion which is incompatible with the comparative evidence alluded to
above.)
The Vestals may be treated under the heads of (1) qualification, (2) mode of
appointment, (3) duties, and (4) privileges.
1.
Qualifications.--The maiden who was to be a Vestal must not
be under six or over ten years of age (Labeo in Gellius,
1.12,
1); she must be perfect in all
her limbs, and in full enjoyment of all her senses (Gell.
l.c.; Marquardt,
Staatsverw. 3.339); must be
“patrima et matrima,” i. e. have both parents living; and
these parents must be, if not patricians (Mommsen,
Forschungen, 1.79), at least free and freeborn, persons who
had never been in slavery or followed any dishonourable occupation, and who
were in residence in Italy (Labeo in Gell.
l.c.).
These rules may have been to some extent relaxed as time went on; we know,
for example, that Augustus allowed the daughters of
libertini to be considered eligible (
D.
C. 55.22). But on the whole great care must have been at all
times taken to maintain their reputation by attention to these
qualifications; and thus the institution survived intact, and without loss
of dignity, long after the establishment of Christianity as the state
religion.
2.
Mode of Appointment.--A Lex Papia, of uncertain date,
ordained that when a vacancy occurred, the pontifex maximus should name at
his discretion twenty damsels qualified as above, one of whom was publicly
(
in contione, i.e. in Comitia calata?)
fixed on by lot, an exemption being granted in favour of those who had a
sister already a Vestal, whose father was flamen, augur, XVvir, VIIvir,
Salius, or Tubicen sacrorum; the betrothed of a pontifex was also excused,
and, in the age of the Empire, the daughter of anyone who had the “jus
trium liberorum.” It was possible also for a parent to offer his
child voluntarily to the pontifex maximus to be made a Vestal; in which
case, if she were duly qualified, the senate might grant absolution from the
terms of the Lex Papia (
Gel. 1.12,
10; an example of the last-mentioned procedure in
Tac. Ann. 2.86, where two candidates are
presented to the senate for selection: cf.
D. C.
55.22).
When the girl was chosen, the ceremony of “captio” by the
pontifex maximus took place. This was simply an application of the old legal
procedure of “mancipatio per aes et libram,” by which personal
property, e. g. slaves, passed into the possession of the buyer. The
pontifex maximus took the girl by the hand and addressed her in a solemn
form of words, preserved by Gellius from Fabius Pictor: “Sacerdotem
Vestalem quae sacra faciat quae ius siet Sacerdotem Vestalem facere pro
Populo Romano Quiritibus uti quae optima lege fuit ita te Amata
capio;” where the title
Amata seems to
be simply an honorary one, suggesting perhaps the gentle character of
everything in the worship of Vesta. By this ceremony the girl passed out of
the potestas of her father, and into that of the pontifex maximus, who here
represented in one sense the king, as father to the Vestal, in another the
goddess to whose service she was dedicated. Thus she now entered a new and
sacred
familia, the centre of which was the
hearth of Vesta, the members the Vestals with the Flamines and Flaminicae,
and the paterfamilias the pontifex maximus. She suffered by the process no
capitis deminutio, but on the contrary was henceforth qualified to hold
property independently and to make a will (
Gel.
1.12,
9; Marquardt, 3.314 and 337; Jordan,
Tempel der Vesta, p. 82).
The ceremony seems to have been reckoned as legally equivalent to the
inauguratio of other priests (Gaius, 1.130;
Ulpian,
Fragm. 10, 5). When it was over, she was conducted to
the Atrium Vestae; her hair was cut off, and hung, apparently as a
dedicatory offering, on a branch of the sacred lotus-tree (cf.
Plin. Nat. 16.235; Tylor,
Primitive Culture, 2.364), but was suffered to grow
again, as the recently discovered statues of Vestals clearly prove
(Middleton,
Rome in 1885, p. 200; Marquardt, 3.338, note 4,
with Wissowa's addition). She was then clothed in the white garments of a
Vestal (to be described further on), and was sworn to abide in her office
and to maintain her virginity for not less than thirty years (Gell.
l.c., and 7.7, 4). If she chose then to resign her
office--which seems rarely to have been the case--she became a private
individual, and was entitled to marry.
3.
Duties.--These would seem to have been more complicated
than we might suppose: for the Vestal is said to have spent the first ten
years of her service in learning them, the next ten years in practising
them, and the third decade in teaching them to novices (
Dionys. A. R. 2.67; Plut.
Numa, 10. Jordan,
op. cit.
p. 60, argues that this division of duties could not have always held good;
but it may be taken as roughly representing what was the natural and regular
course). The chief duty, however, was the simple one of tending the sacred
fire; which, as symbolic of the life and religion of the state, might never
be suffered to go out. Its extinction was the most fearful of all
prodigia. If such extinction was the fault of the
Vestal on duty, she was stripped and scourged by the pontifex maximus in the
dark, with a screen interposed, and he rekindled the flame by the friction
of two pieces of wood from a
felix arbor
(Dionys.
l.c.;
Liv. 28.11; Festus, >s. v.
Ignis). Their other daily duties, so far as we know
them, were exactly such as the daughters of a primitive household might have
performed. They had to bring fresh water on their heads from a sacred
spring, e. g. that of Egeria; and, as the recent discovery of the house of
the Vestals has shown, no water was ever supplied them in pipes (Jordan,
op. cit. p. 63; and p. 215 of Dissertations in
honour of E. Curtius). A marble tank in the peristyle of the house served as
a receptacle for the water which they brought (Middleton,
Rome
in 1885, p. 195; Jordan thinks that under the Empire this service
was performed by assistants): when used for sacrificial purposes, this was
mixed with
muries, i.e. salt pounded in a
mortar, thrown into an earthen jar, and baked in an oven (Festus, 158 b;
Serv.
ad Ecl. 8.82). They also daily cleansed the temple with
a kind of mop, and adorned it with laurel, which was renewed once a year
(Marquardt, 3.343 and reff.). The same homely character of their service is
seen in the antique simplicity of the utensils they used; which were all of
the most ordinary ware, made of baked
[p. 2.942]clay, and
without ornament (Ovid,
Fasti, 6.310;
V. Max. 4.4,
11).
The Vestals also had certain public duties in connexion with fixed festivals
of the calendar. All of these, it should be noticed, belonged to the oldest
class of rites, and expressed the religious ideas and interests of the
primitive Italian husbandman. Beginning the year on March 1 with the renewal
of the sacred fire, they had a share in the
FORDICIDIA and
PARILIA in April, and on May 1 were present at the
women's festival of the Bona Dea. From May 7 to 14, they were busy making
their sacrificial cake (
mola salsa) from the
first ripe ears of corn, by pounding it after the fashion of an age when
mills were not invented (Helbig,
Die Italiker in der Poebene,
17 and 72. The mill lately found in the Vestals' house could hardly have
been used for the sacred cake, as Middleton suggests,
op.
cit. p. 193: cf. Jordan, p. 64). On May 15 they were present at the
primitive rite of the
Argei, and their presence
is evidence for a possible connexion of that ceremony with agricultural
interests. From June 7 to 14 was their busiest time; on the 9th fell their
own festival of the Vestalia, and on the 15th the
penus or temple-storehouse of Vesta;, which was open during these
days, was cleaned out and the refuse carefully removed to a particular
spot,--an act probably symbolic of the preparation of barns and garners for
the harvest then proceeding. At the true harvest festivals of Consus and Ops
Consiva in August they were also present, and once again on the Ides of
September at a ceremony possibly connected with the vintage. At the end of
the religious year they appear once more, providing
mola
salsa for the
LUPERCALIA the ancient feast of fructification. (For
details and evidence, see Marquardt, 3.343 foll.; Preller,
Röm. Myth. 2.164 foll.)
They had in their keeping the blood of the “October equus,” and
the ashes of the unborn calves sacrificed at the Fordicidia. But of greater
importance was the charge of the sacred relics which formed the
fatale pignus imperii, the pledge granted by fate
for the permanency of the Roman sway, deposited in the inmost adytum
(
penus Vestae; see Festus, s. v.), which no
one was permitted to enter save the Virgins and the chief pontifex. What
these objects were no one knew, and it may even be doubted whether the
tradition of their existence was not wholly without foundation (so Jordan,
op. cit. p. 67). Some supposed that they
included the Palladium, others the Samothracian gods carried by Dardanus to
Troy and transported from thence to Italy by Aeneas, but all agreed in
believing that something of awful sanctity was here preserved, served,
contained, it was said, in a small earthen jar closely sealed, while another
exactly similar in form, but empty, stood by its side. (
Dionys. A. R. 1.69,
2.66; Plut.
Camill. 20;
Lamprid.
Elagab. 6; Ovid,
Ov. Fast.
6.365;
Lucan 9.994.)
We have seen above that supreme importance was attached to the purity of the
Vestals, and a terrible punishment awaited her who violated the vow of
chastity. According to the law of Numa, she was simply to be stoned to death
(Cedrenus,
Hist. Comp. p. 148, or p. 259, ed. Bekker), but a
more cruel torture was devised by Tarquinius Priscus (
Dionys. A. R. 3.67; Zonaras,
7.8) and inflicted from that time forward. When
condemned by the college of pontifices, she was stripped of her vittae and
other badges of office, was scourged (
Dionys.
A. R. 9.40), was attired like a corpse, placed in a close litter
and borne through the forum attended by her weeping kindred, with all the
ceremonies of a real funeral, to a rising ground called the
Campus Sceleratus, just within the city walls, close
to the Colline gate. There a small vault underground had been previously
prepared, containling a couch, a lamp, and a table with a little food. The
pontifex maximus, having lifted up his hands to heaven and uttered a secret
prayer, opened the litter, led forth the culprit, and, placing her on the
steps of the ladder which gave access to the subterranean cell, delivered
her over to the common executioner and his assistants, who conducted her
down, drew up the ladder, and having filled the pit with earth until the
surface was level with the surrounding ground, left her to perish deprived
of all the tributes of respect usually paid to the spirits of the departed.
In every case the paramour was publicly scourged to death in the forum.
(
Plut. Num. 10,
Fab. Max.
18,
Quaest. Rom. 96;
Dionys. A. R. 2.67,
3.67,
8.89,
9.40;
Liv. 4.44,
8.15,
22.57;
Plin. Ep. 4.11;
Suet. Dom. 8;
D. C.
67.3,
77.16, and
fragg. xci. xcii. Festus, s. v.
Probrum et
Sceleratus Campus.）
4.
Privileges.--But if the labours of the Vestals were
unremitting and the rules of the order rigidly and pitilessly enforced, so
the honours they enjoyed were such as in a great measure to compensate for
their privation, They were maintained at the public cost and from sums of
money and land bequeathed from time to time to the corporation (
Suet. Aug. 31,
Tib. 76; Sicul.
Flacc. p. 162, ed. Lachmann), From the moment of their consecration, as we
have seen, they became as it were the property of the goddess alone, and
were completely released from all parental sway without going through the
form of emancipatio or suffering any capitis deminutio (
Gel. 1.12,
9). They had a right to
make a will, and to give evidence in a court of justice without taking an
oath (
Gel. 10.15),--distinctions distinctions
said to have been first conceded by an Horatian law to a certain Caia
Tarratia or Fufetia, and afterwards communicated to all (
Gel. 1.12; Gaius, 1.145; compare
Plin. Nat. 34.11). Each was preceded by a lictor, like the
Flamen Dialis, when she went abroad (Dio Cass, 47.19), consuls and praetors
made way for her, and lowered their fasces (Senec.
Controvers. 6.8; compare
Plut. TG
15), even the tribunes of the plebs respected their holy character
(
Oros. 5.4;
Suet. Tib.
2 compare
Cic. pro Cael.
14, 34;
V. Max. 5.4.6), and if any
one passed under their litter he was put to death (
Plut. Num. 10). Augustus granted to them the
jus trium liberorum (
D. C.
56.10; Plut.
l.c.), and assigned them a
conspicuous place in the theatre (
Suet. Aug.
44;
Tac. Ann. 4.16), a privilege
which they had enjoyed before at the gladiatorial shows (
Cic. pro Muren. 35, 73). Great
weight was attached to their intercession on behalf of those in danger and
difficulty, of which we have a remarkable example in the entreaties which
they addressed to Sulla on behalf of Julius
[p. 2.943]Caesar
(
Suet. Jul. 1; compare
Cic. Font. 17; Suet.
Vitell. 16;
D. C. 65.18;
Tac.
Ann. 3.69,
11.32,
Hist. 3.81), and if they chanced to meet a criminal
as he was led to punishment they had a right to demand his release, provided
it could be proved that the encounter was accidental. Their general dignity
and influence are attested by the inscriptions on the pedestals of their
statues, recently discovered in the Atrium Vestae (Middleton,
Rome
in 1885, p. 200 foll.). Wills, even those of the emperors, were
committed to their charge (
Suet. Jul. 83,
Aug. 101;
Tac. Ann. 1.8),
for when in such keeping they were considered, inviolable (
Plut. Ant. 58); and very solemn treaties, such
as that of the triumvirs with Sextus Pompeius, were placed in their hands
(Appian,
App. BC 5.73;
D. C. 48.37 and 46). Their own persons were inviolable (Plut.
Numa, 10); and as in so many other points
in their life they retained the privileges of the ancient royal household,
so; after death they were an exception to the law of the Twelve Tables which
forbade burial within the pomerium (
Serv. ad
Aen. 11.206). Their-burial-place is not as yet discovered
(Marquardt, 3.309, 341; Lanciani,
Ancient Rome, p. 142).
They were attired entirely in white (Suidas,
 |
|
Statue of Virgo Vestalis Maxima, from the Atrium Vestae.
(Jordan.)
|
1010 B). Festus in a doubtful passage (p. 4, 1) describes their dress as a
toga, and this may have been originally so,
and would be in keeping with the antique character of the rest of their life
and ritual. But the portrait statues of Vestals lately discovered, covered,
dating from the 2nd century A.D., show that in
that day at least they wore a stola or long gown, confined by a girdle at
the waist, and usually sleeveless; and over this a pallium or loose robe, as
is seen in the accompanying cuts. On their head was an
infula, or diadem-like band (
Serv. ad Aen. 10.538), from which on each side depended
vittae; and when sacrificing they wore also the
suffibulum, which was their especial
characteristic. This was a white woollen hood with a purple border, folded
over the head and fastened below with a brooch (
fibula); it is represented only in the statue of the Virgo
Vestalis Maxima, of which a cut is given, and corresponds with the
description of Festus (p. 349: cf. Varro,
L. L.. 6.21). The
second cut, copied from a gem, represents the Vestal Tuccia, who when
wrongfully accused appealed to the goddess to vindicate her honour, and had
power given her to carry a sieve full of water from the Tiber to the
temple--a convenient legend for checking hasty accusations (Montfaucon,
Ant. Exp. i. pl. xiv:, Supplem. i. pl. vi.;
V. Max. 8.1,
35;
Plin. Nat. 28.2).
 |
|
The Vestal Tuccia, from an ancient gem.
|
Of the organisation and interior life of the Vestals, we still know very
little. It has been mentioned that they were supposed to spend the first ten
years of their service in learning, the second in practising, and the third
in teaching, their duties. Thus they seem to have risen gradually in dignity
by seniority; and the oldest, under the title of Virgo Vestalis Maxima,
acted as a kind of president or lady superior (Marquardt, 3.340 and reff.:
cf. the inscribed pedestals in Middleton, p. 200 foll., especially Nos. 5
and 6, whence it appears that the head of the sisterhood had passed through
“omnes gradus sacerdotii” ). The Vestalis Maxima had also
the title of
antistes (
C. I. L.
6.2139, 2143; cf.
Liv. 1.20,
3). All were equally under the supervision of the pontifex maximus,
whose duty it was to keep a vigilant eye on the sisterhood: cf.
Liv. 4.44, where a Vestal is denounced to him as
guilty of a desire for personal adornment, and ordered to behave more
discreetly in future. They all resided together in a house adjoining the
Regia and the round temple of Vesta, at the south-eastern corner of the
Forum Romanum, and immediately under the north-western end of the Palatine
Hill. This house was probably several times burnt and rebuilt; the important
remains of it which were excavated in 1883-4, are of Hadrian's time. For a
detailed description of it, the student is referred to Middleton's work
already quoted, ch. vi.; and for its history and relation to the Regia and
the Aedes Vestae, see also Jordan,
Röm. Topographie,
i. pt. 2, pp. 298 foll., 423 foll.; and the same author's
Tempel der
Vesta, passim.
The ample size and accommodation of the house seem to show that after the 1st
century A.D. the Vestals were no longer content with their former simplicity
of life; it may perhaps have been necessary to their reputation and dignity
in a luxurious age, that they should live in comfort if not in splendour. It
was partly rebuilt after the great fire of 191 A.D., and continued to be occupied by the Vestals for two centuries
after that date, in spite of the public recognition of Christianity
(Preuner,
Hestia-Vesta, p. 442 and notes). The inscriptions
show that the sisterhood continued to maintain its prestige and to discharge
its duties until towards the end of this period; but in the latter half of
the 4th century some members seem to have become come Christians, and it is
possibly for this reason (as Middleton suggests,
op.
cit. p. 206;
[p. 2.944]but cf. Lanciani, p. 171) that
in the latest inscription in date the name of the Vestal has been erased.
This was in A.D. 364; in A.D. 394, after the defeat of Eugenius by
Theodosius, and the entry of the latter into Rome, the Vestals were
dispersed and their order abolished, (See Zosimus, 5.38; and the story there
related of the last of the Vestals.) But the modern Italian nunnery, with
its organisation and vows, still recalls the Atrium Vestae and the life of
the Vestals, which thus form a connecting link between the most primitive
civilisation of Italy and the ideas and practice of modern Christianity.
[
W.R] [
W.W.F]
