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Rome's Vestal Virgins Rome’s Vestal Virgins Rome’s Vestal Virgins examines one of the most important state cults in ancient Rome and the role of the virgin priestesses in ancient Roman religion and society. It analyses the rituals these priestesses enacted, both the public rituals performed in connection with official state rites and festivals, and the private rites associated only with the order itself. Wildfang argues that the Vestals did not participate in Rome’s family structure and that this was done to ensure that the Vestals could represent Rome as a whole in the religious sphere without any risk of pollution from a family cult. She contends that the rituals the Vestals performed on behalf of the Roman state were neither fertility rites nor reflections of traditional female activities. Instead they were rites concerned with purification, storage and the preparation of harvested grain for food use, or sometimes a combination of all three areas at once. This exploration of the function of the Vestal Virgins in the changing Roman world, exposed to new and different cultures through the expansion of the Roman Empire, provides a new and penetrating investigation of a cult which was at the very centre of ancient Roman religion. Robin Lorsch Wildfang is Project coordinator for Studenterkurset i Sønderjylland. Rome’s Vestal Virgins A study of Rome’s Vestal priestesses in the late Republic and early Empire Robin Lorsch Wildfang First published 2006 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2006 Robin Lorsch Wildfang This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Wildfang, Robin Lorsch. Rome’s vestal virgins: a study of Rome’s vestal priestesses in the late Republic and Early Empire/Robin Lorsch Wildfang. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Vestals. 2. Rome–Religion. 3. Women and religion–Rome. I. Title. BL815.V4W55 2006 292.6Ј1–dc22 2006005626 ISBN10: 0–415–39795–2 (hbk) ISBN10: 0–415–39796–0 (pbk) ISBN10: 0–203–96838–7 (ebk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–39795–7 (hbk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–39796–4 (pbk) ISBN13: 978–0–203–96838–3 (ebk) To Leah who (almost) arrived with this book Contents Preface ix Acknowledgements xi List of abbreviations xiii Introduction 1 1 Within the aedes Vestae 6 2 The Vestals in public 22 3 Vestal initiation – the rite of captio 37 4 The Vestals’ virginity 51 5 The Vestals’ legal and financial position 64 6 The Vestals in the Romans’ history 76 7 The Vestals in Roman history 91 Conclusion 109 Appendix A: Original texts of translated passages 111 Appendix B: List of known Vestals in chronological order 142 Bibliography 144 Index 156 Preface In the last quarter of the twentieth century, scholarly interest in the history of women in antiquity has grown steadily, until now, at the beginning of the twenty-first, it encompasses countless books and articles on almost every aspect of ancient women’s lives. Women’s roles in marriage have been examined,1 as have their roles in the family.2 Women’s influence on Roman politics has been discussed,3 as has their legal position, their economic possibilities and, most recently, their place in religion.4 Yet, surprisingly, despite this interest and the many advances in knowledge and methodology that have resulted from it, while scholars have examined various important aspects of the Vestal Virgins, the only major female Roman state priesthood, and their cult, no one has undertaken a thorough monographic examination of the ancient literary sources for these priestesses since Guizzi’s well-known but largely legalistic Italian study in the 1960s.5 This omission is even more singular in that the Vestal order was at the heart of the Romans’ state religion, and necessary to the city’s continued existence. An understanding of the Vestals’ rites, activities and historical roles, as por- trayed in our ancient sources, ought to be of interest, not only to those studying women and gender in antiquity, but also to scholars of ancient religion and indeed to anyone interested in the Romans’ views of themselves and their state. This work is an attempt to fill this void. It focuses primarily on the Vestals and their cult in the years between the end of the Second Punic War and the end of the first century ce, the period in which most of our ancient sources for these priestesses were writing, and the period of greatest interest to students of classical literature. The rituals, privileges and restrictions which surrounded these priestesses, and made up the body of their cult, provide the framework for most of this book, but to these considerations are appended two chapters, which examine the Vestals’ history as recorded by the Romans. Within this framework, the book considers the significance of these various rituals, privileges and duties, and develops a two-pronged argument. On the one hand, it argues that the rituals the Vestals performed on behalf of the Roman state were neither fertility rites nor reflections of traditional female activities as has so often been postulated. Instead, they were rituals concerned x Preface with purification, storage and the preparation of harvested grain for food or sometimes a combination of these three activities. On the other hand, it contends that many of the most mysterious aspects of the Vestals and their cult can be explained by the theory that the Vestals were simultaneously members of the Roman women’s citizen class, the virgines, and non-members of Rome’s family structure. This dual status was important because it ensured that the Vestals could represent the Roman state as a whole on the religious level, without any risk of pollution from individual family cults. It is hoped this book will be of interest to the general reader as well as satisfy the specialist in Roman religion, gender studies and history. In the interests of the former, English translations of the ancient sources are included in the main text and endnotes, while in the interests of the latter the original texts are included in an appendix. Notes 1 S. Treggiari 1991. 2 J. Hallett 1984. 3 R. Bauman 1992. 4 See, for example, R. Kraemer 1992; A. Staples 1998. 5 F. Guizzi 1968. This work, while seminal in its way, obviously does not make use of the many advances in methodology which have taken place since the early 1960s, when the book was written. Also, since it concentrates largely on the Vestals’ legal position and status, it leaves room for a consideration of the many other aspects of the Vestals and their cult. J. Saquete’s Spanish work from 2000 is largely a study of the archaeological and epigraphical sources, while M. C. Martini’s 2004 work is in Italian and arrived on my desk too late to appear in this book, although her two earlier articles (M. C. Martini 1997a, 1997b) on which it is based do figure frequently. Acknowledgements My sincere thanks are due to the Carlsbergfond of Denmark, who generously provided me with three full years of financial support for the writing of this book and to the University of Southern Denmark, who provided me with office space and many congenial and helpful colleagues during that same period. Susanne William Rasmussen and Jacob Isager read an early draft of this work and, together with my companions of the Freja study group, provided valuable oral commentaries on my ideas and work underway. The American Academy at Rome housed me on two memorable research trips to Rome and provided the photographs found within this work. Routledge’s editorial and production teams ably saw this book through the production process. Thanks are also owed to my former students, at Williams College and the University of Southern Denmark, whose questions in two Roman religion courses I taught led to the idea of this book. Finally, I wish to thank my family and friends for helping me in many ways throughout the long process of writing this book. Abbreviations Except where otherwise noted, abbreviations of periodical titles, ancient authors and their works are taken from L’Année Philologique, the Oxford Latin Dictionary or Liddell, H. G. and Scott, R. (1925– ) Greek–English Lexicon. ANRW Temporini, H. and Haase, W. (eds) (1972– ) Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt. CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. DnP Cancik, H. and Schneider, H. (eds) (1997–2004) Der neue Pauly. ILS Dessau, H. (1892–1916) Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae, 3 vols. MRR Broughton, T. R. S. (1951–1956) The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, 3 vols. OCD Oxford Classical Dictionary. OLD Oxford Latin Dictionary. PIR Stein, A. and Petersen, L. (eds) (1952–1966) Prosopographia Imperii Romani. RE Pauly, A. et al. (eds) (1894–1978) Real-Encyclopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft. RIC Mattingly, H. et al. (eds) (1923–1984) The Roman Imperial Coinage, 9 vols. TLL Thesaurus Linguae Latinae. Introduction I shall increase and grow ever more famous, so long as the priest and the silent Virgin solemnly climb to the Capitol.
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