This first section is a brief explanation of my Italy blog posts, which were inspired by my 2-week trip to Italy in May, 2025. Feel free to skip this section if you’ve read it before.
Dear Reader, If you read my Italy posts in the order in which they’ve come out, it may seem as though we hopped back and forth all over the country, but I have decided not to write these posts sequentially. I want to write about the things that interest me most, as the spirit moves me. For some topics, I may even combine cities. I hope that by doing so, you’ll find it a lot more interesting than if I just give you a tedious day by day description of our itinerary, as if I were your Aunt Mabel forcing you to sit down and watch all her Super 8 films of the family road trip to Niagara Falls from 1966.
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions about how I’m approaching this travelogue-within-a-blog, please let me know in the comments below!
I have to apologize, Dear Reader, but the mere act of writing this post has me feeling a bit verklempt. It will be my last post about our trip to Italy. To think it took me more than a year to tell you everything!
I know, I know. Some of you are probably jumping for joy at the prospect of me moving on, because not all of you have found the subject matter particularly interesting. You, too, deserve an apology, because I’ll never be entirely done with ancient history, as I am obsessed with trying to figure out how we got where we are today, as where we are seems increasingly barbaric, and I always assumed we’d always move further toward the light.
We are told that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Well, I’m thinking that that ship has sailed. So now, perhaps, the best thing to do is get some sense of where that ship is headed, so that we can brace ourselves when it hits the iceberg. That way, perhaps not all of us will go down with it. Some of us, with sufficient foresight, can survive and start afresh.
But as usual, I’m getting ahead of myself. As I said, this is the last post regarding our trip to Italy, and I thought it only fitting that I end things at the very place that was the symbol of Rome’s safety and prosperity: The Temple of Vesta, or more specifically, the sacred flame that was housed therein. As long as that flame remained alight, it was said that the Roman Empire would not fall.
In the Roman pantheon of gods, Vesta was the virgin goddess of hearth, home, and family. (Oddly enough, she’s also the goddess of bakers.) While she was considered feminine, she was more often depicted as a flame. Her worship began in the home, and her shrine was the hearth of the home. In essence, she kept the home fires burning.
It is said that the worship of Vesta became state sanctioned either during the time of Romulus (if you believe he existed) or during the reign of the king who is said to have succeeded him, Numa Pompilius. This makes Vesta one of the oldest gods in the Roman pantheon.
It is also said that the first version of the Temple of Vesta (and it had to be rebuilt many times) was erected by Numa Pompilius. That means that there could have been a Temple of Vesta in Rome as far back as 753 BC. Maybe. (I apologize for all the wishy-washy sentences. The further back in time you go, the more vague things become.)
The Temple of Vesta always seems to have had a round footprint, which makes perfect sense. Early Roman huts were round, with their fires at the center. As the temple was to be the symbol of Rome as the home of the people, and Vesta as the flame that kept the home going, they would want it to resemble a home.
Apparently, in the beginning, 2 Vestal Virgins tended the flame in the temple, but that must have been stressful. Think of it. 12 hours a day, 7 days a week? Did you get lunch or bathroom breaks? Good grief, how tedious and scary, because they could not, under any circumstances, allow that flame to go out. It didn’t take long before 6 Vestal Virgins became the norm.
Vestal Virgins were chosen before puberty, sometime between the ages of 6 and 10. They served terms of 30 years, and they severed all ties with their birth families. At first, they came from patrician families, but over time, as fewer families were willing to give up their daughters, the bar was lowered to plebeian families, and then even the daughters of freemen became acceptable. After 30 years, they had amassed great wealth, and were allowed to marry, although the few that did seemed to have been very unhappy in doing so. That stands to reason. Why, after spending 30 years not having to answer to some man, would you want to suddenly have to do so at the end of your days? Some simply renewed their vows or chose to live alone.
During their tenure, these women lived very privileged lives, enjoying more rights than other women at the time. They answered to no man other than the Ponitfex Maximus, the leading male priest. They could dispose of their wealth and property any way they saw fit, even giving it to other women, which is something even Roman men were not allowed to do at the time. Anyone who assaulted a Vestal Virgin, or even blocked her path, could be killed on the spot without a trial, and a Vestal Virgin could also exonerate anyone who was condemned to death with the mere touch of her hand. They had ringside seats at public games and stage-side seats at theatrical performances. It was rumored that they had supernatural powers, such as the ability to freeze fleeing slaves in their tracks.
The Atruim Vestae included the Temple of Vesta and the House of the Vestals, so they didn’t have much of a commute. And where they lived was quite opulent. It had a large courtyard surrounded by statues of past Vestals, some of which you can still see. In the center of the courtyard were 2 rectangular pools. (This area was a model for medieval convents.) Right off the courtyard was the temple. Bedrooms, reception rooms with heating systems and marble paving, and service areas such as kitchens and a mill were arranged on three levels. The palace had 50 rooms, which was quite impressive for only 6 residents and their service staff.
The Vestals had many responsibilities. Not only did they tend the sacred fire and maintain their own chastity, but they guarded the sacred shrine and its contents (which included a statue of Pallas Athene which was said to have been taken from Troy, as well as, incongruously, a large wooden phallus). They collected ritually pure water from a sacred spring, prepared substances used in public rites (including a mixture of flour and salt that was used on all animal sacrifices at the various Roman temples), and presided over or attended various festivals. Despite all these extra responsibilities, if they allowed the sacred flame to go out, they were severely, albeit privately, whipped.
They kept the temple clean, acting as ritual housekeepers for all of Rome. The maintenance of their chastity, in particular, was important, because as long as they remained unpenetrated, the walls of Rome would remain unpenetrated by the enemy. In essence, they were Rome, and as such, they were the only humans at the time who were allowed to be buried within Rome’s city walls after death.
If they did not remain chaste, or were even accused of not having been, they were said to have committed incestum, and they were buried alive near the Colline gate with a small amount of bread and water, so that the death would appear voluntary, and their lover, if known, would be beaten to death. This type of condemnation was extremely rare, and often appeared to be a false accusation for political purposes (as a way to demonstrate that decisive action was being taken when things were going badly for Rome, for example). That’s rather horrifying to contemplate. A Vestal Virgin must never have felt entirely safe.
At one point, during a period of extreme political paranoia, 3 Vestals were buried alive simply because a young virgin, while riding a horse, had been struck by lightning and killed. Signs and portents, don’t you know. They must be addressed.
These gruesome burials took me off on an hours’ long research tangent. Since we have a general idea of where these poor women were buried alive, I wondered if any archeologists had tried to find them, and if so, what had they learned? But to date I’ve found nothing. I even reached out to Mary Beard, who has studied the Vestals extensively. But the odds of her seeing my inquiry, let alone responding to it, are rather slim.
I’m always fascinated by powerful women in history, but powerful men always find a loophole to thwart their power, don’t they? Serving Vesta wasn’t all sunshine and lollipops. These young girls didn’t get to choose their destiny, and there was always the potential of a horrific end.
We are only aware of 10 Vestals accused of incestum over the approximately 1150 years that Vestals existed, but of course records are not exact. If it were an extremely commonplace fate, though, I think we’d know, so I believe it was a risk work taking for a life that was vastly superior to the average woman’s existence at the time. I’d have rolled the dice. But then, check out this short video and decide for yourself.
The worship of the Goddess Vesta began to decline with the rise of Christianity. Of all the gods in the Roman pantheon, she may be the most tragic loss. She represented hearth, home, family, and Rome’s very survival, and she did so by giving at least some agency to women (albeit narrow and easily removed) in an era when most women never had that experience.
In AD 391, despite official and public protests, Theodosius I, a Christian emperor, closed the temple and extinguished the sacred flame for good. The last Vestal, Coelia Concordia, stepped down in 394 AD. And while the empire sputtered along for another 75 years or so, it was never quite the same.
All that remains of the Temple of Vesta in the Roman Forum is one section of curved wall with some standing pillars, and even more pillars scattered on the ground. I was never more saddened to see ruins in my life. It made me realize how fragile the opportunities for women were in Ancient Rome.
Vesta’s flame shows no sign of being rekindled. The winds of Italian machismo seem too strong for an overarching feminist fire to take hold. And in my humble opinion, you don’t have to look very far to see the Madonna-Whore Complex in full force. That’s a shame. The world needs more feminine energy. Think of it—did Mussolini, with his more masculine approach, do a better job for Rome? I’d take Vesta’s values over his any day.
Leave a Reply