A Glimpse Into the Glamorous Lives of Ancient Rome's Vestal Virgins
Every era has its celebrities, and these women had it all
What made Rome great? Military tactics? Strong leadership? State-of-the-art weaponry? Maybe it was a fusion of all these things. Ask an Ancient Roman, however, and they might give some credit to the gods and goddesses. Vesta in particular.
The thing about goddesses is they have to be appeased if you expect to get in their good graces. What Vesta demanded was a fire constantly burning in her honor. Sounds simple enough, but then again, are things ever really simple?
Who Was Vesta?
Vesta was the goddess of the hearth and had a prominent place both in household and state worship.
Houses often had family shrines with her image; but on the state level, things were a lot grander. Vesta had her own temple on the eastern end of the Roman forum.
This was the public hearth where the fire burned continually throughout the year — minus a brief period for the Roman new year on the first of March. Letting the flame go out any other time was kinda like rolling out the red carpet for the apocalypse.
It made the goddess mad, and the city was in danger of losing her protection. So for all…
