This is John Bachelor under the weather recommending Emily Southon's new book A Rome of One's Own, a very careful and witty biography of the women of Rome of the kingdom, of the It is a fascination. This is the part that is left out when you march from

king to king to Caesar to emperor to Emperor. In this conversation, Emily describes how it is that Rome, ancient Rome with Vestal Virgins explained a bad turn like bad weather

or losing a war, losing a battle, having a king die.

They blamed it on one of the Vestal Virgins. They found an excuse and

here's how they sacrificed the Vestal Virgin, cruelly in the walls of Rome. Emily the

book is A Rome of one's own, more of this later.

So they effectively sacrifice her to the gods but without actually sacrificing her.

It's necessary the way they find out that a Vestal virgin has lost her virginity and

stopped being a virgin is generally that something terrible will happen and there will be signs and omens from the gods and they need to placate the gods.

So they make what is effectively a human sacrifice and but without having to

get their own hands dirty because they don't technically like human sacrifice and So they hold a funeral for her where they parade her through the city

as though she is already a body.

And then they take her to a cave that has been dug out just inside the walls of Rome and they wall

her inside that hole in the ground with some milk, some bread and an oil lamp and they leave her

in there to either suffocate or starve to death, which is a very slow and very horrible way to kill somebody.