Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/214

Rh 194 VESTA Troy. This sacred object was never shown to profane eyes, but it is represented on the reverse of a coin struck by Antoninus Pius in honour of his deified wife Faustina FIG. 1. First brass struck iu honour of Diva Faustina by her husband Antoninus Pius, soon after her death. On the reverse is a vestal holding the Palladium and pouring a libation on the altar of the sacred fire. (see fig. 1). Strict observance of the vow of chastity was one of the chief obligations of the vestals, and its breach was horribly punished by burial alive at a place near the Porta Collina known as the Campus Sceleratus (see Livy, viii. 15 and 89; Plin., Ep., iv. 11 ; and Suet., Dom., 8). Cases of unchastity and its punishment were rare ; and, as the evidence against the vestal was usually that of slaves, given under torture, it is probable that in many instances an innocent vestal suffered this cruel death. The case described by the younger Pliny (sup. cit.) is one of special pathos, as the vestal appears to have been condemned without any sufficient evidence, simply at the wish of the emperor Domitian. A fanciful reason for this fearful punishment is given by Ovid, Fast., vi. 459-460. The privileges of the vestals and their influential position were very remarkable. They were exempt from any patria potestas, except that of the pontifex maximus, their religious father ; they could dispose by will of their property, and were in most respects not subject to the Roman laws (&quot; legibus non tenetur,&quot; Servius, on Virg., JEn., xi. 204 ; cf. Gaius, i. 130, and Dion Cass., Ivi. 10). This involved freedom from taxes, and the right to drive through the streets of Rome in carriages (plostrum and currus arcuatus). Some bronze plates have been found which were once attached to the carriages of vestals ; the inscription on one of them runs thus, Flavian Publicise v.v. maximse inmunis in jugo (see C. I. L., vi. 2146-2148; cf. also Pruden., Contr. Symm., ii. 1088). They were preceded by a lictor when appearing on state occasions, and enjoyed other semi-royal honours (Plut., Numa, 10, and Dion Cass., xlvii. 19). At theatres and other places of amusement they enjoyed the best seats, except at some of the nude athletic contests, from which they were excluded ; they also took an import ant part in all the grand religious and state ceremonies, such as when the pontifex maximus offered sacrifice on the occasion of a triumph before the temple of Capitoline Jupiter. They had power to pardon any criminal they met in the street on his way to execution, provided that the meeting were accidental. The vestals alone shared with the emperors the privilege of intramural burial (Serv., Ad sEn., xi. 206). During life they were richly dowered by the state (Suet., Aug., 31) and had public slaves appointed to serve them (see Tac., Hist., i. 43). They were also the guardians of the emperor s will, and of other important documents of state (Suet., J. Ctes., 83, and Aug., 101 ; Tac., Ann., i. 8 ; Plut., Anton., 58 ; and Appian, Civ., v. 73). Their influence in the appointment to many offices, both religious and secular, appears to have been very great. Many of the statues to the chief vestals which were found in the Atrium Vestse in 1883-84 have pedestals inscribed with a dedication recording that benefits had been conferred on the donor by the vestalis maxima. Lastly, they lived in a_style_of very great splendour : their house, 1 the Atrium 1 For a description of this, and also of the temple of Vesta aucf its Vestse, which stood close by the yEdes Vestse, was very large and exceptionally magnificent both in decoration and material. The discovery already mentioned of a number of statues of vestales maximse has thrown new light on the dress of the vestals. 2 With one or two exceptions the costume of these statues is much the same : they have a long sleeveless tunic or stola, girdled by the zona immediate ly below the breast. One only wears the diploidion over the upper part of her figure. The outer garment is. an ample pallium, wrapped round the body in a great variety of folds, and in some cases brought over the head like a hood. All seem to have long hair, showing that the process of cutting off the hair at initiation was not repeated. One figure (see fig. 2) wears the suffibulum, a rectan gular piece of white cloth bordered by a purple stripe, worn over the head and fastened on the ^ IGt ^&quot; Statue f a ves talis maxima wearing ,,,, the suffibulum ; time of Trajan, breast by a Jibula. z According to Festus (ed. Miiller, p. 348), this sacred gar ment was Avorn by the vestals only during the act of sacrificing (see also Varro, De Ling. Lat., vi. 21). This is probably the only existing statue on which this rare garment is represented. In all cases the head is closely bound by vittx, rope-like twists of woollen cloth, the ends of which usually fall in loops on each shoulder (see Ser vius, Ad sEn., x. 538). The Regia, or official fanum of the pontifex maximus, was adjacent to the vestal s house : &quot; Hie locus cst Yestse, qui Pallada servat et ignem ; Hie fuit antiqui Regia parva Numse.&quot; 4 When Augustus, after his election to the office of pontifex maximus in 12 B.C., moved his place of residence from the Regia to the Palatine, he built a new yEdes Vestse near his palace, in the magnificent Area Apollinis. This appears to have been a copy of the older temple of Vesta. No traces of it now exist ; but Pirro Ligorio, in the latter part of the 16th century, made some sketches of what then existed of this second temple, to illustrate his great MS. on Roman antiquities, which is now preserved in the royal library at Turin (see Ovid, Fast., iv. 949-954, and Metam., xv. 864). The original course of the Sacra Via was supposed to have passed close to the temple of Vesta; but excavations made in 1886 have shown that this was not vicissitudes, see ROME, vol. xix. pp. 818-819 ; Middleton, Ancient Rome in 1885, pp. 181-206 ; and a paper by the same author in Archseo- logia, vol. xlix. p. 391 sq. 2 These statues appear to have been the work of a privileged class of sculptors, who enjoyed the title of &quot; fictores virginum vestalium,&quot; an honour which is recorded in some of the dedicatory inscriptions on the pedestals. 3 The form of the suffibulum as shown on this statue has a curious similarity to the amice worn by the mediaeval clergy. 4 Ov., Tris., iii. 29. For the history of the Regia and its existing remains, see ROME, vol. xix. p. 819, and Archieologia, vol. xlix. p. 398 sq.