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Vestal

Bas-relief of a Vestal, a work by the time of Hadrian , the Palatine Museum

In ancient Rome , a vestal virgin (in Latin was a priestess dedicated to Vesta , god italics whose cult probably originated Lavinium and was then assimilated to the Greek goddess Hestia. The number of Vestal was four to seven Caught between 6 and 10 years, they were doing thirty years of priesthood, during which they watched over the public hearth of the Temple of Vesta, located in the Roman Forum. During this period, they were bound to chastity, a symbol of the purity of the fire.

Summary

Status

The ancient historians attribute the creation of the Vestal Virgins to Numa Pompilius or, less often, Romulus . According to Plutarch, they are initially in number two, then spend four and Servius bringing the total to six. In Dionysius of Halicarnassus , they are first four, then Tarquin the Elder adds two additional sacred virgins . It is difficult to know which credit should be given to those entries, but a gradual increase in the number of Vestal reflects the broader trend to increase the number of priesthood for the Roman Republic . In any event, the Vestal Virgins were six in number in historic times .

Selection

The selection criteria are described by Vestal Aulus Gellius , quoting Antistitius Labeo , author of a treatise of pontifical right and Ateius Capito , both lawyers at the time of Augustus. They were chosen from among girls aged 6 to 10 years, still having both parents, without physical defect and not emancipated by their father, which would have rendered orphan in the eyes of the law . They should also be born of free parents who does not dishonorable professions (negotia sordida) , . Both parents must also reside in Italy, a waiver is possible from 18 AD. BC Exemptions are also possible, for example, the sister of a Vestal or daughter of a Flamen. They were not always performed, as shown in the case of sisters Oculutae .

Service

View of the ruins of the house of the Vestal Virgins from Palatine. We distinguish the top left the remains of circular temple of Vesta. In the yard statues and inscriptions honoring the vestal virgins were replaced after the archaeological excavations and are not necessarily to their original place

The girls selected were "taken" (captae) by the pontifex maximus during a ceremony approaching the Roman marriage. Their father, that is to say, their legal guardian, had the great pontiff, who takes their hand and utters the following words "to perform the sacred rites that the rule prescribed to a Vestal to celebrate, in the interest of the Roman people and Quirites, as a candidate chosen by the best laws, it's you I take that as such, Amata (beloved? "), as a priestess Vestal . The new Vestal was then conducted in the atrium Vestae and entrusted to the Pontifical College.

The service lasted thirty years of Vestal. Their dress was a tunic ( stola ) and strips to hold the hair (vittae), typical of Roman matrons . They also wore a red cap (flammeum) and hair braids to six (sex crines) typical of a bride . They resided in the temple of Vesta, south-west of the Roman Forum.

Their college was organized into three different age groups, under the authority of the great Vestal virgin (virgo Vestalis maxima): the youngest were educated by the oldest ten years, those of intermediate age maintained Fire Location continuously . Following his time as a priest, the Vestal could if it wished, return to civilian life and marry. However, most chose to continue their priesthood : Tacitus mentions some example Occi who officiated until the end of his life .

Status and Privileges

The Vestal had a very special legal status. While a Roman woman was a minor all her life, they were cleared of paternal authority (patria potestas) and the guardianship of exempt . They had the right to test the lifetime of their father , .

They also enjoyed significant honors (amplissima meet). They testified unsworn to trial . At the end of the Roman Republic , they were preceded by a lictor during their travels, and the consuls and the lenders they yielded step and lower their beams were before them in token of respect , . Even the veto of a tribune of the plebs , yet equally sacrosanct, could not oppose the movement of a Vestal. Thus the vestal Claudia allowed his brother to whom the Senate refused the honors of the triumph going even when Capitol : she boarded the car of his brother, and nobody could prevent them to travel the Via Sacra and achieve Capitol Hill . When he met a Vestal condemned being led to execution, she had the right to request that he was pardoned, provided, however, swear that the meeting was fortuitous . The inviolability of the Temple of Vesta and the person of her priestesses was being deposited in the hands of these wills that we wanted to secure, and even some solemn treaties. Finally, their ashes were buried in the same pomrium , notwithstanding the requirements of the law of the Twelve Tables on burials .

Obligation virginity

Martyrdom of a Vestal.

The Vestal Virgins are, their full name, the "vestal virgins" (Virginia Vestal): they were required to virginity throughout their service. Any relationship sacrilege was described as "incest" (Incestus) in the original sense: In-castus "crime against chastity to which is a taboo . The crime is punishable by death: the guilty Vestal was buried alive (viva defossa), while her lover was flogged to death by the pontifex maximus , as slaves to the current case , . The child was eventually born to them, considered impure, was thrown into the Tiber. , In comparison, regular incest (stuprum) was punished by precipitation from the top of the Tarpeian and in the Republican period, was within the jurisdiction of comitia .

After being whipped with rods, she was dressed like a dead woman and transported in a closed litter as usual at funerals, sceleratus to campus, which was situated within the city, near the door Hill. The fact that his execution take place within the Pomerium is again indicative of the uniqueness of Vestal, since death was banished from the hallowed halls: Weapons and the legionnaires did not enter the field of Mars was Outside, the executions as well. The culprit was lowered into a small room without opening a lamp and a small supply of the necessaries of life, bread, water in a vase, milk and a little oil , .

The crime could be discovered by information, by conduct and a dress deemed too light by prodigious events (prodigia) or epidemics (pestilentia), but more often by the extinction of the public fire . Occurred when major disasters for the city, quickly suspected Vestal. This was the case during the siege of Rome by Brennos , of Cannae in the war against Hannibal or following disorders Gracchi . The performance that followed was used to restore the pax deorum broken by this stain .

Bonds worship

The cult of Vesta

The Vestal Virgins were watching over the sacred fire, symbol of the goddess Vesta. Negligence on their part, including the extinction of fire, was punished by flogging, inflicted by an envoy of the great Pontiff or the last person . The cult of Vesta was intimately linked to the origins of the city of Rome. The legend says that the twin brothers Romulus and Remus are the son of Rhea Silvia daughter of the King of Alba, a Vestal of Alba Longa and the god in March. Fruit of a forbidden love, they have been exposed and condemned their mother. According to Livy , the Sabine Numa Pompilius , second king of the city, which will forward the cult of Vesta in Rome. The Vestal Virgins were the continuation of a Greek tradition, maintaining the common fire perpetually lit.

Other religions

Besides the worship of Vesta, Vestal Virgins were the auxiliaries needed for other cultural activities. Vestal three were charged - on alternate days in the period from May 7 to 14 - to harvest, roast and grind the ears of emmer wheat (Triticum turgidum subsp. dicoccon, an ancient cereal related to wheat ) . Three times a year (at the Lupercalia, the Vestalia and the Ides of September), flour thus obtained was added with brine (ripened), also manufactured by Vestal from salt crude pounded in a mortar then baked and then dissolved in water drawn from a stream . The mixture, flour ritual (mola salsa), whose invention was supposed to go back to Numa , was spread over the heads of sacrificial animals, and generally, any offering made to the gods . This practice gave the French word "sacrifice" of in-molare "sprinkle mola" .

This ritual is of even greater importance that since the treaty between Romans and Sabines after the rape of the Sabine Women, Roman matrons were forbidden to grind grains, like prime meats . Women were therefore excluded from sacrifice, with the exception of the Vestal Virgins that they were present in all, through the mola . One writer even claims that the Vestal Virgins took themselves involved in bloody sacrifices . We know they were entitled to a special knife, the secespita , but it is unclear if used to cut anything other than sweets and clothing .

During the festival of Lemuria the Ides of May, they threw into the Tiber thirty wicker figures symbolizing the elderly.

History

Under the Republic

  • In 390 BC. AD , during the incursion of the Gauls against Rome, the Vestal Virgins were brought safely to Caere , city Etruscan neighbor and friend of Rome, and were thus spared during the sack of Rome .
  • In 273 BC. AD , the vestal Sextilia, convicted of adultery, was buried alive near the door Capena .
  • Around 204 BC. AD , the vestal Claudia Quinta welcomes miraculous statue of the goddess Cybele .
  • In 114 BC. AD , the misconduct of Vestal Aemilia, Marcia and Licinia which multiply the lovers is terminated by a slave. The Pontifex Maximus Lucius Caecilius Metellus Dalmaticus not condemn qu'Aemilia and pays the other two. The case was retried the following year by Lucius Cassius Longinus Raville at the request of the people outraged by the first trial, and three are executed Vestal .
  • In 73 BC. BC , Catiline was accused of having had a criminal relationship with a Vestal, but was acquitted.

Under the Empire

The historian Suetonius testifies to a certain loss of the Romans for that institution at the beginning of the empire under Augustus :

"Like the death of one of them imposed the choice of a successor, seeing many people take steps in order not to subject their daughters to win, he (Augustus) vowed that if either his granddaughters had been the right age, he himself would have offered. "

- Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Augustus, XXXI

Nevertheless, Tacitus testifies under Tiberius the zeal of two patrician families to offer their daughter to replace a deceased priestess. Tiberius chose the one whose parents had never divorced, and consoled the other candidate for a dowry of a million sesterces (Tacitus, Annals, II, 86).

The respect accorded to Vestal remains great. Sacred persons, they are untouchable, and no one can forbid them to go where they please, allowing them entrusted with intermediaries of last resort:


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