The Vestal Virgins

The Ancients

History Hit

History

4.7 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 6 September 2020

⏱️ 47 minutes

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Summary

Priestesses of Vesta, Goddess of hearth, home and family, the College of Vestal Virgins were Rome’s only full-time priesthood. They numbered only six and were selected from noble Roman families at an early age, between six and 10 years old. They would tend the sacred fire in the Temple of Vesta and remain virgins for the duration of their tenure, which would stretch long into womanhood, lasting at least 30 years. Their importance to Rome was paramount and throughout this ancient civilisation's pagan history, the Vestal Virgins remained right at the heart of Roman society. But things were not always plain sailing for the Vestals during their 1,000 year history... I was delighted to be joined by a leading light on this subject Peta Greenfield to talk through the history of the Vestals. From the importance of fire and water for the cult to the infamous Vestal punishment of 'incestum' Peta explained the history behind all in this brilliant chat.

Quick note:

Octavia was Octavian / Augustus' sister.

Livia was Augustus' wife.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Boy have I got another brilliant podcast for you today. I am joined by Petter Greenfield
0:08.6	to talk about one of the longest lasting and most famous cults of ancient Rome. Now
0:14.2	this was the cult associated with the Vestal Virgins and this was an absolutely fascinating
0:20.8	chat. Petter talked about who these virgins were, what their purpose was, why they were
0:27.2	so important to ancient Rome, what caused their downfall and so much more. This was an
0:34.4	incredible chat and I hope you enjoy. Here's Petter.
0:43.8	Petter, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you so much for having me. It's a
0:47.9	pleasure to be here. Now the Vestal Virgins, this sounds like one of the longest lasting
0:53.5	cults of ancient Rome. It is a pretty long lasting cult. It's embedded in the foundation
1:00.2	of the city actually. So even pre-Rome, there seems to be an element of Vestal's involved.
1:07.6	One of the apocryphal stories of Romulus and Remus is that they are born of a Vestal
1:12.8	Virgins. So we've got this sort of like embedded sense that there are Vestal's practicing
1:18.2	and the worship of Vestal is happening in broader Italy before we even get to Rome itself.
1:23.0	Then we have this foundation that sort of comes about under the law giving King Numa.
1:31.2	And so he's the guy that steps in after the Romulus and Remus incident because that really
1:36.0	doesn't go well as a foundation. There's a lot of violence and everyone after that is
1:40.0	kind of like, we want somebody who's peaceful and somebody who's maybe going to keep the
1:43.7	law is going for us and maybe give us some rules to live by. So we get this guy Numa
1:48.4	and he has some visions amongst other things and he's the one who's considered to be the
1:53.4	founder of the order. So we're looking at sort of pretty early on, pretty close to
1:59.4	753 BC around about and then it goes all the way through until the temple itself is shut
2:07.0	down by Theodosius I and that happens in 391 CE. So we've got like this huge breadth
	...

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