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This is John Bachelor, a Rome of One's Own.

This is the new book by Emma Southen, the subtitled The Forgotten Women of the Roman Empire.

Forgotten no longer.

Here, Emma tells the story of a Vestal Virgin who sacrificed, her name is Opeia in 483 BCE, sacrificed by the city of Rome.

Why?

Because there's been an omen. Who knows what kind? The river

flooded, the river drought, a plague, a fire. There's been an omen. And what happens to the Vestal

virgins? How do they use the Vestal Virgins? The centerpiece of the Republic's religious worship.

Here, Emma explains.

It's both bizarre and tribal, and at the same time, reveals what Rome represented when it

called itself a civilization, superstition.

A Rome of one's own, Emma Sauton, to explain.

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

...