Ancient Roman Goddess Vesta and the Temple Servants

The Ancient Romans atttibuted the Goddess Vesta with the power to keep Rome safe and prosperous, and they conceived of these qualities with the symbols of fire, penises, and female chastity. Vesta’s ancient temple (third slide) in the city of Rome had sacred fires, tended to by full-time priestesses whose ritual care preserved the integrity of the state. These temple servants, selected as girls, were forced to remain virgins for three decades of service, and violating this vow meant the death penalty. (19th-c condemnation of a Vestal priestess shown in this painting called “Vestal Virgins” by Jose Rico Cejudo) As historian Parker writes “just as [the priestess] embodied the city of Rome, so her unpenetrated body was a metaphor for the unpenetrated walls of Rome.” Fire had strong connections to fertility in the Ancient world, and Vesta’s sacred fires were so intimately linked to the priestesses’ bodies that some historians think about the Goddess as a “phallic mother.” Perhaps the strangest myth that illustrates these associations is one about the birth of a legendary early king. In an account by Plutarch, a virgin aristocratic maiden named Ocresia was captured in war and turned into a slave. In her new dwelling, as the household fires were stirring, a magical phallus appeared in the flames. Ocresia’s owners forced her to have sex with the disembodied penis, and she became pregnant. This story shows how Romans could consider the flames of Vesta to be like a disembodied force of the Roman state. This position gave the Vestal Virgins unique power among Roman women – they needed no male guardians to have a legal voice, and could attend public events unaccompanied by other men. Second image is a Roman relief of the Vestal Virgins.