Conversations: Joining the Vestal Virgins Sounds Nice Until You Realize You Might Get Buried Alive, w/ Dr Peta Greenfield

Liv speaks with Peta Greenfield (aka the Partial Historian's Dr. G) about the HORRORS of ancient Rome's Vestal Virgins, one of the most disturbing religious practices. This chat is as fascinating as it is disturbing... But that's pretty standard for Rome. Find more from the Partial Historians https://partialhistorians.com/. Submit your question for the next Q&A via email http://mythsbaby.com/questions or a voice note https://www.speakpipe.com/LTAMB. Get ad-free episodes and so, so much more, by subscribing to the Oracle Edition at patreon.com/mythsbaby http://patreon.com/mythsbaby CW/TW: far too many Greek myths (and history) involve assault. I try to provide direct warnings when there is reference to anything with overtly traumatic themes but be aware that Greek mythology regularly features assault, death, and many other potentially triggering events. Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here:mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions http://mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions. Learn more about Liv's next group trips https://travelbugxlivalbert.my.canva.site/ to GREECE! Application deadline is November 30 (Subject to change due to demand). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Liv Albert?

  Hey nerds, really quick note from me. I want to tell you that we now have the applications open for the next set of listener group trips. This is us going back to the original, the trips that we have held in the past that have been so much fun, so successful, and pretty affordable in terms of wandering around Greece with a bunch of nerds. So check out the details and get your applications in at mythsbaby.com/groups.

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• 2:02Liv Albert?

  Hello, this is Let's Talk About Myth, baby, and I am your host, Liv.

• 2:10Liv Albert?

  Recording this introduction on my awkward, um shitty Apple microphone. So I'm sorry if it sounds weird, but here we are. Um, it's what I've got. And, uh, what you all don't need to know, but I'm going to tell you anyways, that Jenny Williamson is in my house overhearing the recording of this introduction. And today's episode is with none other than Peta Greenfield of The Partial Historians. And when I tell you that today's episode is like distinctly unhinged, I am not exaggerating. Peta joined me to talk about the Vestal Virgins of ancient Rome,

• 2:51Liv Albert?

  which are these priestesses to Vestal ostensibly, uh, being the Roman form of, of Hestia, which in this case, you know, I love to remind you all that the Romans didn't just copy the Greek gods, but Hestia and Vestal are so fascinatingly similar while also having the practices surrounding them being distinctly different because Rome is, you guys, the Roman Empire. I don't know if I've told you this before, but, um, they were horrifying. And, uh, the horror that is the Roman Empire,

• 3:28Liv Albert?

  I think, is just so crisp today in ways that it never has been before. And so here, listen to the wonderful Peta tell me about the horrific things that the Romans did to the Vestal Virgins. Spoilers, there's burying alive. Being a woman has been cool and normal and totally safe and fair and equitable forever, for sure. Definitely. This episode.

• 4:02Liv Albert?

  This is an unhinged introduction. I think we all saw what happened last weekend.

• 4:08Liv Albert?

  Um, sometimes when you really want something bad enough, it happens for you. And maybe it doesn't look like what you thought.

• 4:22Liv Albert?

  If you know what I'm talking about, you know what I'm talking about. This episode is both horrifying and absolutely so interesting and entertaining and full of my utter bafflement at the horrors. Um, and yet I know you're gonna love it. So sit back and at least appreciate the lovely Australian accent telling you about all the horrors. It makes it better. I promise.

• 5:05Liv Albert?

  Conversations. Joining the Vestal Virgins sounds nice until you realize you might get buried alive with Dr. Peta Greenfield.

• 5:29Speaker 03

  I think maybe you should tell me what you know about Vestal Virgins and then I can calibrate what I tell you in return about them.

• 5:36Liv Albert?

  I mean, I really can think I can safely say I know like almost nothing. I know that I want, I know that they're virgins. So like unmarried in whatever way Rome conceptualized virginity. Um, I'm less familiar with that too, even. And even I was thinking about this earlier, actually, because I Was trying to decide like, oh, how I'm going to start this conversation when I I literally know nothing, which it's now a running joke on the show that like, if I need to learn about Rome, I would prefer to have someone like yourself. It's often you guys, let's be honest. Come on the show and tell me about Rome, because there's just something about Rome. Like, it just doesn't get my interest in the way of like, me finding it out on my own. So I'm thrilled that I get to like, have people come teach me about Rome.

• 6:18Liv Albert?

  But even Vestal is so different. Like, people love to say, you know, Vestal is the Roman name for Hestia. But I know enough to know that she's so different, even from Hestia, who's like, in, even in the Greek mythology, Hestia is this very, like, amorphous, unique kind of figure. So basically, do you want to start by telling me about Vestal?

• 6:44Speaker 03

  Definitely. Okay, Vestal. Vestal is one of the 12 important Roman goddesses, gods and goddesses, but she's also left-

• 6:56Liv Albert?

  Now I'm really already throwing it off. Do they call, I was gonna say you guys, as if you're an ancient Roman.

• 7:03Liv Albert?

  This is when I record at 6pm, this is when my brain like shuts down.

• 7:06Speaker 03

  You ancient Romans.

• 7:08Liv Albert?

  Do you guys also call them Olympians, is what I was going to-

• 7:11Speaker 03

  Oh, definitely not.

• 7:13Liv Albert?

  They call, they still have the 12. And I know, and I mean, also to make very clear, I'm at a point in my knowledge of mythology where I'm not going to pretend like they are the same gods. But I do know that there are 12, and they have all these links to Greek gods. So it's interesting to me that there are 12, and there are all these connections. But do they have like, a name kind of equivalent to the Olympians?

• 7:32Speaker 03

  No, not really. They're kind of referred to generally as the Pantheon, but obviously that sort of also encompasses everything. So this idea that there are 12 is kind of this way of connecting to the Greeks. But, and I believe this is the same for Hestia, sometimes Vestal falls off that list.

• 7:52Liv Albert?

  Yes.

• 7:52Speaker 03

  Depending on who's talking about them, what they feel like might be most important. And for Vestal, this is partly because we have so little physical evidence for her as a goddess. Unlike other Roman gods and goddesses, she is not depicted iconographically. She doesn't have statues. Yeah, so-

• 8:18Speaker 03

  No statues, we'll have none of that around here. The way that she is represented and embodied in Roman life is the fire itself. That's the only way she's supposed to be depicted. And because of that, we don't have lots of physical evidence that remains. So when people talk about who are the important Roman gods, immediately we're looking at the archaeological evidence and being like, well, Vestal doesn't seem to stack up. Where's, where are the depictions? We do get depictions of Vestals though. So that's nice. We do see them coming through in reliefs. And also as we get it further into the Imperial period, we do get sculptures of actual Vestals, which is something that is a late trend for them.

• 9:03Speaker 03

  So that's really interesting, I think, that we don't know much about Vestal as an embodied physical presence in Rome. She has the flame, the flame is centered in the temple, which strictly speaking is not a temple according to Roman standards, because it's not built on consecrated ground. It is called an Aedes. So a sacred area. But that is a suggestion that Vestal and the worship of Vestal is so old that it predates those kinds of ritual practices. So everything about this is, yeah, everything about this is suggesting the antiquity of Vestal.

• 9:42Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 9:44Speaker 03

  So my understanding-

• 9:45Liv Albert?

  Sorry, but I, I love this and I'm just gonna, I mean, connect it to my world of, of mythology, but like, or of Greek, rather, Greek mythology, because Hestia is all of those things. And again, to the listeners, I will, I want to go into more detail about this, but like, the idea of the Roman gods being just the copies of the Greek is definitely not accurate. But all of that is so true for Hestia too. So I just find that so interesting and also gives this idea that like, they were both like predating so many things, which is, I always, people ask me about Hestia all the time and I always have to say like, the way I describe her is that she was so important on a day to day life basis

• 10:30Liv Albert?

  that she was not included in stuff that then ends up typically surviving to make it seem like so that she was an important Olympian. And it's the same where she sometimes, like, I like to say, there are 12 Olympians, but also actually 14. But like, the number 12 is what matters, but also there were really 14. And so it's, you know, that is so applies to her too, where she's sometimes included, sometimes not. She's, there's no stories about her. There's not really any depictions I can think of, except for this idea that, yeah, the hearth was hers and sacred. And at least in the Greek imagination, you know, her sacred hearth was in everyone's homes. Also the temples, but like, yeah, in, in everyone's homes, I was like, where Hestia's sacred hearth is.

• 11:13Liv Albert?

  So it's just interesting that, that the Romans simultaneously had such similar, and then also have this entire world of the Vestals, which is so different, so non-existent in the Greek world.

• 11:25Speaker 03

  Yeah. And I think this comparison with Hestia being the hearth fire that sits in everybody's home is a parallel that we see with Vestal as well. And it strikes me that this is partly a relationship of material culture. Like, we don't know enough about textiles in the ancient world, which means that we don't know a lot about women's work. In the same way, how do we source and figure out where the hearth fire is in every single domus? And it was there, it had to be, because how else are you going to cook your food? And it's a very important part of everyday life. So every house has one. And that means that Vestal is present in every household. And the way that you look after your hearth fire is part of the way that you venerate Vestal.

• 12:09Speaker 03

  And then at the state level, the way that Vestal's fire in the Aidae's vestae is looked after. That represents the whole health and safety of the entire state of Rome. So every city has its own embodiment of Vestal. It's not unique to Rome, but what Romans are doing with it, with its priesthood around it, seems to be quite unique. And I think that's what really starts to fascinate people and be like, where did these ritual practices come from? And how did they decide to do it this way in particular? And my understanding about Hestia, and please correct me if I'm wrong on this, is that she was, she tended to be served at a state level

• 12:53Speaker 03

  by women who were post-menopausal.

• 12:57Liv Albert?

  Hmm. I actually Don't know. I don't know what the problem is. I know all the the stories, the like, I mean, yeah, the mythological sources. But I need to find somebody to tell me more about Hestia from that because I don't know. And I I like that idea.

• 13:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's really interesting to me that it might be sitting at the opposite end of the spectrum. It's like, there's a youthful virginity associated with vestals who are serving in Rome. And that seems to be quite different from the way that Hestia is understood to be served in a Greek context.

• 13:28Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 13:28Speaker 03

  But even.

• 13:30Liv Albert?

  Hestia is regularly called as like a virgin, but there isn't really like, it's just that she's never married. There's not that youthful nature. It's just that this way that like the Greeks were like, oh, if it's a lady who doesn't have any kids and she never married, then surely she's a virgin. You know, and so it's it's interesting to have that more like actual youthful connotation in Rome.

• 13:50Speaker 03

  Definitely. And Vestal appears in stories where she does get pursued by figures like Priapus. Completely inappropriately. And she's like, get away from me. I'm a virgin. I want nothing to do with this.

• 14:05Liv Albert?

  I mean, he's terrifying no matter what.

• 14:08Speaker 03

  He is. He is. He's everywhere as well. Like, you know, you only have to wander in a garden for a certain amount of time and there will be a statue of Priapus. And you're like, oh, okay, then. So for anybody who's not aware of Priapus, he is a minor god that is understood to depict immoderate desire, which means he is always depicted with an oversized erect phallus. Um, not the kind of creature you want to encounter.

• 14:37Liv Albert?

  Is the, I'm assuming it's from Pompeii because it's a painting I can picture, the one where he's it's on a scale.

• 14:45Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 14:46Liv Albert?

  Yeah. So I just need to, everyone, if you're curious about this god, just Google Priapus. And maybe the scale. Either way, you're going to find the one I'm talking about because it is. I want to say iconic, but it's also more disturbing than it is anything else.

• 15:03Speaker 03

  Imagine that your erect phallus was so large that it could be weighed on a scale against some other good.

• 15:09Liv Albert?

  And he's like, standing there in this way that it's just so, it's the most bizarre.

• 15:14Speaker 03

  He's like, check it out.

• 15:18Speaker 03

  Like terrible. Yeah. So Vestal doesn't want anything to do with that, and rightly so. But there are stories that are sort of told, which indicate that other gods are maybe not so precious about her virginity as she is. And so she's always looking to protect it for herself. Quite rightly so. And as a flow-on consequence of this, the priestesses who serve her are also required to be virginal in nature in order to reflect her physicality and the way that she presents as a goddess. So this leads down really interesting paths because how do you know that somebody is a virgin in the ancient world? And we know that virginity is a social construct, so that's, the whole thing's a problem.

• 16:03Liv Albert?

  Yeah, that was my question is like, do we know how they conceptualized the notion of it?

• 16:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:10Liv Albert?

  Like, I'm not, I mean, yeah.

• 16:11Speaker 03

  We do, yeah.

• 16:12Liv Albert?

  Weird, but.

• 16:14Speaker 03

  If, if it was penetration, it's not virginity.

• 16:17Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 16:17Speaker 03

  That's, that's a basic.

• 16:19Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 16:19Speaker 03

  Line of thinking. So definitely for women, virginity is definitely related to how they're interacting physically with men. And as far as the Romans are concerned, you can have a look at a lady's downstairs and you can make a determination about her virginity or lack thereof with a simple visual inspection.

• 16:37Liv Albert?

  Oh, great, great.

• 16:39Speaker 03

  Fantastic.

• 16:42Speaker 03

  Yeah. So the Romans, for them, it was pretty simple.

• 16:47Speaker 03

  It's a problem for everybody else, including Vestals in the ancient world.

• 16:53Speaker 03

  But there you have it.

• 16:55Liv Albert?

  That's, so, okay. Yeah. The delightful, the virginity part is just always. And I don't know enough about the Greeks. I just know like also. The word just really meant unmarried too. So it's like this really bizarre kind of, you know, question about like what it really was meant to mean. And there it's so hard to get beyond the like nasty, you know, more modern Christian ideas. But so, yeah, I mean, what, what, what was the role of these? How young were they? Like, what did they do? I don't know. I mean, you have everything to tell me about, but I'm trying to guide us.

• 17:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Okay, so to become a vestal, there is a real particular process for that. First of all, there's the age. To be selected, you have to be between the ages of six and 10.

• 17:43Liv Albert?

  Wow. Oh, wow. They're really young.

• 17:46Speaker 03

  Super young. How can you be sure that you have a virgin in the role? You have to select them before they could possibly be betrothed to anyone. And for elite Roman families, you could betroth a girl as young as 12.

• 18:02Liv Albert?

  Oh, okay. Delightful.

• 18:06Speaker 03

  Horrible. So that's the first criteria. They're selected really young. So they're prepubescent, and this is all part of ensuring that that virginity is in place. Then it's a matter of are they the right kind of candidate for the job? So they have to have no blemish on their body. They must not have a speech impediment. They must not have a hearing impediment. This is all important so that they can perform the rituals appropriately. Because everything about the relationship with the gods is predicated on being able to perform the prayers correctly. So if you're not able to do that, that's, there's no point joining. Don't ruin it for everybody else with your speech impediment.

• 18:51Speaker 03

  And both your parents have to be alive, and neither of them can have a history of slavery. So they must not have ever been enslaved.

• 19:03Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 19:04Speaker 03

  Basically what.

• 19:05Liv Albert?

  Not owning them, that's fine.

• 19:06Speaker 03

  Owning them is fine. In fact, it's probably great if you do own them because that probably means that you're in the elite class. And for the longest period of time in Rome's history, vessels are only drawn from the most elite families, which tend to be called patricians.

• 19:24Liv Albert?

  Hmm.

• 19:25Speaker 03

  But we don't really know what patricians are.

• 19:27Liv Albert?

  Okay, I know that word, so I.

• 19:31Speaker 03

  They're the fancy pants people. Uh, they tend to fill most of the religious positions, which are obviously positions of influence and power at a ritual and sacred level, determining what the relationship with the gods will be and how that's going. And the vessels fall into that category as well.

• 19:51Speaker 03

  So at any point in time, there will be six vestal virgins. That's the appropriate number that gets landed on eventually. Some of the early stories suggest that there was just one to start with, maybe two, but the numbers increase and the college becomes six. They fall under the jurisdiction of the Pontifex Maximus, who is the chief priest in many respects in Rome. And he is the one who selects them.

• 20:21Speaker 03

  So that's kind of an interesting process as well. Because it's not just you have to have your unblemished body and your parents have to be the right kind of people. But there's also a ritual that is called capture.

• 20:35Liv Albert?

  Ah, okay.

• 20:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, so they get taken, captured from their family by the Pontifex Maximus in a ritual process, which severs some of their legal ties to their family. But also creates a different legal position for them in relation to the rest of the Roman state. So they are the only people that are cut off from their family in a very specific way. And it's not that they can't have contact with their family after that, but they're not legally obligated to their family in the way that other Roman daughters were. So that's an interesting sort of moment of freedom for these women. It means that they can own their own property.

• 21:21Speaker 03

  They can do business without having a legal guardian. So Roman women in general needed to have a male with them at all times to conduct business. Because women, goodness knows, not capable of making.

• 21:37Liv Albert?

  Minds, we could have never.

• 21:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, you just don't know how it's going to go if you send a woman by herself. Who knows? Who knows? Better have a man there just in case. So women fought against that quite substantially. And those rules do change over time in Rome as we get into more of the imperial period. But for a long time, vestals are the only women who are allowed to conduct their own business.

• 22:05Liv Albert?

  Okay, so if they're so young, like how long are they vestals? Like when they have time, I guess. And then also, yeah, okay. There's too many questions before one is answered. Like, how long are they vestals for? Is it like a life sentence?

• 22:24Speaker 03

  Are they forever a vestal? Once a vestal, forever a vestal? Pretty much. So the minimum tenure is thirty years.

• 22:33Liv Albert?

  Wow.

• 22:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:35Liv Albert?

  Okay, so it matters then they can conduct their own business because they're selected that young. But they're growing up quick and then they've lived a somewhat free life, but also are clearly tied to.

• 22:46Speaker 03

  A somewhat restricted life, a really, really particular life. So yeah, they grow up. So the youngest age that you could leave, the order would be thirty six. We don't actually have any evidence that women who became vestals did leave.

• 23:02Liv Albert?

  Okay.

• 23:03Speaker 03

  There's the suggestion and possibility that they could. But we don't have any good evidence to suggest that anybody did. And

• 23:11Liv Albert?

  It's nice to know that they probably could.

• 23:14Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 23:15Liv Albert?

  I mean, I guess if we have no evidence, it's also like, but could they really?

• 23:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, but did they?

• 23:21Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 23:23Speaker 03

  And the sense we get is that a lot of them become very used to the lifestyle. And it's kind of like, well, how would I fit back into regular Roman society? When I do have these advantages that I've had all of my life. Yes, there are high levels of restriction, but there's also things that I can do, which I would not be able to do if I left.

• 23:43Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 23:45Speaker 03

  So most stay.

• 23:47Liv Albert?

  Yeah. So what it, I mean, I'm sure that all of this is, there, there's just, there's too many questions. This is so interesting, um, mostly because I know nothing about like the Greek side at all. Because I mean, I also think that the Greek evidence is harder to, to piece apart like this. The level of detail that you clearly have with these. So now I'm just obsessed. But so what were they doing? Like, how tied, how limited was their life? Like, and also that makes so much sense that if you spend 30 years living that kind of life, like I can't fathom. Like I've spent 36 years without a man and let me tell you, I'm not going to start getting one now. You know, because like, what the hell's the point? And so, yeah, like I, that's so interesting, but what, what were their lives like?

• 24:32Speaker 03

  Okay. So.

• 24:34Liv Albert?

  Sorry, I'm just like, I'm like throwing everything at you, but.

• 24:37Speaker 03

  It's a great question. I'm just thinking about where to start. So the, the thing that is most important is their caretaking of the flame of Vestal.

• 24:46Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 24:47Speaker 03

  That is paramount. So I assume, and we don't know this, but because there's six of them, I assume that there's some kind of rotation across the day and people do shifts. Somebody, at least one person has to be in that temple, looking at that fire at any time. Day, night, regardless, because if that fire goes out, it's a huge problem. We can get into why that's a huge problem later.

• 25:14Liv Albert?

  I would like that. Thank you.

• 25:15Speaker 03

  We'll hold, put a pin in that. So they've always got to be watching the fire. The other things that they need to do every day are cleansing the temple.

• 25:28Speaker 03

  So things build up over time, you get ritual impurities. So one of the tasks is to go to a nearby fountain, collect some water, bring it back, cleanse the space. That happens on a daily basis. It's considered on an annual cycle to not be quite enough. There is a huge annual ritual cleanup as well, which happens in June. They have the Vestalia, which is a very exciting time and people who aren't Vestals are actually allowed into the temple space. But because of that, the ritual impurity level goes straight through the roof. And then they have to do a really big ritual cleanup at the end of that process.

• 26:09Speaker 03

  So there's the daily cleanup, there's the annual cleansing, there's the always taking care of the fire. These things are going to sort of anchor the pattern of their days. And then there are all of the rites and rituals related to the public religion that are part of what they need to keep up with as well. Sometimes these relate to Vestal, sometimes these relate to other gods, but they're involved in something every sort of couple of weeks. So they have a real consistent calendar of involvement. And even when they're not directly involved in something, one of the other responsibilities that they have is to create something called molus sosa.

• 26:54Speaker 03

  Now molus sosa is a mixture of spelt growths and salt, which they collect, grind up together and turn into a fine powder. And this fine powder is a purification device prior to animal sacrifice.

• 27:10Liv Albert?

  Oh.

• 27:11Speaker 03

  So any-

• 27:11Liv Albert?

  Would that be like Vestal specific sacrifice or like for all the gods?

• 27:15Speaker 03

  All the gods.

• 27:16Liv Albert?

  Yeah, okay.

• 27:17Speaker 03

  So Vestal is involved in every divine sacrifice that happens at a public level in Rome, because the molus sosa is always involved. So they they make this about three times a year. You gotta keep making it. Uh, gotta have supplies on hand. You wouldn't want to run short. So they're doing that. Different rituals happen throughout the year, which means that they get to collect some of that spelt, or somebody gives them salt, or they bring together different ingredients to help with the mixture and the binding. All of those things means that the vestals are always sitting on a cache of mola salsa that they can share out as needed. Either a vestal is at a public ritual and is doing the sprinkling herself,

• 28:02Speaker 03

  or there's some sort of sharing of that resource with the priests who are going to be doing that process. So Vester is touching upon every public animal sacrifice that is happening. And the Romans do predominantly do animal sacrifice as part of their religious observance. So there's a lot of that going on.

• 28:21Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I'm picturing it based on Greek, which is like, yeah, every time. Like, that's, that's the main way that you would sacrifice to a god. And it makes sense. I mean, everything I process is in relation to Greek myths, so apologies. But like, it makes sense too that like, these goddesses of the hearth and of the fire would have that same association with all sacrifice, because all sacrifice is still made over a fire. So it's in that same way where like, the, the, she's a goddess who is so expl- like uniquely important, because everything revolves around this fire. And so that's very interesting. And simultaneously, could you tell me how you're spelling that word? Because my brain wants to visualize it and I have no idea what you're saying.

• 29:05Speaker 03

  So mola salsa is M O L A space salsa, as in like salsa dip.

• 29:13Liv Albert?

  As in, okay. So it's literally what it sounds like. Okay, great. I was like, is it your accent making a word sound like salsa? But no, no, it is. Great.

• 29:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, you, I mean, you could think of it as the dance, uh, either works.

• 29:25Liv Albert?

  Neither one. Great.

• 29:28Speaker 03

  Do they do a little shimmy as they sprinkle it over an animal? Maybe.

• 29:33Liv Albert?

  That's okay. That that's so interesting. So then like, it was probably a pretty revered position. Like, this was like something that women wanted, or girls wanted?

• 29:46Speaker 03

  I'm not sure that necessarily it was wanted.

• 29:49Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 29:49Speaker 03

  This is one of the questions that I struggle with in my research, because part of me, that part of what draws me to this subject is the fact that these candidates for vessels are chosen prior to puberty. So they, they don't know what they're signing up for.

• 30:07Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 30:08Speaker 03

  And by the time that they do hit puberty, they've already been told under no uncertain terms that losing their virginity is the worst thing that could possibly happen.

• 30:22Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 30:23Speaker 03

  And so I don't know if people are clamoring to get in. Maybe they are. Maybe they're encouraged to. It is seen as a great honor, but we do also have moments of crisis for vestal recruitment. And a particular example comes up under Augustus, where he's basically like, I'd put my daughter forward if she was eligible. What's wrong with you people? Because the situation politically for women and legally for women was changing under Augustus.

• 30:54Liv Albert?

  Hmm.

• 30:55Speaker 03

  In ways that he didn't really quite like. But it wasn't seen as offering the same sorts of benefits to be a vestal as it used to. Their advantages at a legal level had been somewhat eroded by the fact that other women had gained different kinds of privileges, but ones that meant that going into the vestal virgin priesthood was maybe not the best use of your daughter.

• 31:21Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Right. So and then it's like, it's parents putting their daughters up.

• 31:27Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 31:28Liv Albert?

  For this role. Yeah. Well, and then like, yeah, someone who's six to 10 has no idea what they're doing. So it's really.

• 31:33Speaker 03

  Well, exactly. So, yes. Ideally, the way that it's supposed to work is that a position becomes free because a vestal has died of natural causes. The selection process is opened up to families. The Pontifex Massimus is looking for about 20 candidates to put themselves forward. And then they would be chosen by lot.

• 31:59Speaker 03

  So that's the ideal process. What we find as we go through Roman history is that if a family offers their daughter to be a vestal, and that sort of obviates the need to have a selection process by lot, because it's like, okay, well, they're fine, they're suitable, they can go in.

• 32:19Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 32:19Speaker 03

  Rather than getting 20 families to be like, what about my kid?

• 32:23Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 32:24Speaker 03

  And then we have the issue under Augustus where people aren't putting forward their daughters. And he's like, well, tough pickies, we need some. And he starts to open up the selection process to families who aren't quite as elite.

• 32:39Liv Albert?

  Hmm.

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• 33:25Speaker 02

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• 33:57Speaker 05

  Welcome to 215 Maple Drive. We just put this property on the market.

• 34:03Speaker 06

  Love the crown molding.

• 34:05Speaker 05

  Oh, wait until you see the walk-in closets and the bathroom tile.

• 34:08Speaker 06

  Does it have Verizon FiOS? You know, 100% fiber internet?

• 34:12Speaker 05

  No FiOS, but it looks like it's got cable. Let's check out the kitchen.

• 34:16Speaker 06

  No FiOS? Yeah, no thank you.

• 34:19Speaker 05

  Don't you want to see the rest? Okay, bye-bye. Get Verizon FiOS, because when you're moving, it's 100% or nothing.

• 34:44Liv Albert?

  But it's still like volunteer, not from the girls necessarily, but from the parents. Like, rather than them going out and like, like requesting it or enforcing it or something?

• 34:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's supposed to be something that's an honorable position. So you want, you want to volunteer for it.

• 35:02Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 35:03Speaker 03

  Essentially, that's the case. Some families are exempt if they have children who are placed into other priesthoods or are serving elsewhere. It's considered, um, it's considered that it's not necessary for them to also offer their daughters.

• 35:21Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 35:22Speaker 03

  Because going into priesthoods obviously have all of these restrictions on it, which means that your children aren't quite functioning as children in the way that you would like for inheritance purposes. So you don't want all of your kids to be priests. But apart from that, yeah, it's supposed to be quite a high honor.

• 35:41Liv Albert?

  It's so interesting to me how, I never thought about it this way, but now it's so obvious, but like how much closer Roman religion is to like an organized religion of today than Greece? Because I mean, like, also duh, because like Greece wasn't even an organized country, let alone, you know, like it was like all these different places that obviously had all these different ideas and thoughts. And like, I'm sure that's true for like the wider Roman Empire, which was so vast. But at the same time, it is this like organized structure in a way that I'm just not used to in my research and now am obsessed with. Like this way that we can know all of this and... Have this whole process, it's like recorded and this, these, you know, it just even knowing about the, this process at all is so fascinating.

• 36:27Speaker 03

  I think we need to give huge thanks to Ovid.

• 36:31Liv Albert?

  Oh, really?

• 36:32Speaker 03

  Yes. And I would argue, and I know there are some scholars out there who agree with me, that Ovid is actually the most important source we have for the ancient world for Rome. Because of his fasti.

• 36:45Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I was, that's just what I was gonna guess. I've not read the whole thing, but I was like, I'm, I'm willing to bet it's in that thing.

• 36:52Speaker 03

  It is not his advice on how to pick up women.

• 36:54Liv Albert?

  Weird, but it's so valuable.

• 36:57Speaker 03

  Although that's fun.

• 37:00Liv Albert?

  God, is it ever. Yeah, but the fasti does, I mean, I, again, I've not, I've not read it, but like, I know I've, I've interacted with it in a number of ways. And I will always remember, um, when I spoke with Elodie Harper about her books, the Wolf Den series, and she was like talking about how much, how many like festivals and things we know about in detail because of the fasti. And so it makes sense that the vestals are in there too. Like, what kind of detail does he give?

• 37:31Speaker 03

  He gives us lots of things related to significant events. So there is, I'm trying to remember whether he talks about the Forticidia. I think he might. There is this ritual moment that happens, which is horrifying. So a pregnant cow is sacrificed. And as the pregnant cow is sacrificed, the calf inside is removed. And the vestal's role is to burn that calf as part of the Forticidia. And you're like, okay. So you're like, we think of the vestals as like, you know, tending to the

• 38:11Speaker 03

  flame, wandering around and cleansing things, creating some magic dust to sprinkle on sacrifices. But then there's also these times where they're highly involved in something that involves what appears to, what feels like a very sort of disturbing ritual process. Where you're like, oh, okay. So they get the baby calf and they get to burn the baby calf. Great. Fantastic. So they're the kinds of details where you're like, what is Roman religion?

• 38:39Liv Albert?

  Yes.

• 38:41Speaker 03

  You're like, oh. There's a ritual involving, which is called the October Horse, where the tail of the horse is cut off and the blood from that tail goes to the vestals and that's important for something they have to do later. So you're like, ew, okay.

• 39:01Liv Albert?

  Romans were so wild.

• 39:03Speaker 03

  The Romans, the Romans are weird. The more you get into it, the more you're like, what is going on in this world?

• 39:09Liv Albert?

  I also love this following up me saying how like, close they are to an organized religion, which is like, true, but then also you hear the way it was organized and like these things involved. And it's like, Jesus Christ.

• 39:20Speaker 03

  You're like, with organization like this, who really needs a religion?

• 39:23Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 39:25Speaker 03

  And so we know that we have a ritual calendar that goes through the whole year. Every Roman day is organized around whether you can do business or you can't do business based on what is happening at a ritual level with the gods. So there's that. Their whole calendar revolves around this kind of relationship with the gods. Is it working? Is it not? Then we have something like Ovid's Vasti, which gives us from January to June, details about everything that is happening.

• 39:55Speaker 03

  So one of the things that is happening in June is the Vestalia. So that is at time of recording, that time has just passed.

• 40:04Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 40:05Speaker 03

  But there is discussion of the Stercus, which is ritual waste pollution that needs to be removed from the Vestal Temple. And it has to be taken all the way down to the Tiber, which by any stretch of the imagination is about 1.2 kilometers. I think about a mile of walking to get from where the temple is in the Forum to a point of the river. If you take the shortest route and they have to get that stuff all through town, all the way down to the riverbank and to get it into the river in order to fulfill the cleansing principle of this annual cleanse. No one talks about this.

• 40:44Liv Albert?

  And like, what kind of waste are we talking? Do we know?

• 40:47Speaker 03

  Well, this is it. I mean, stercus usually means shit.

• 40:50Liv Albert?

  Okay, great.

• 40:50Speaker 03

  And we're like, they can't be shitting in the temple, can they? I'm like, who's shitting in the temple?

• 40:56Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 40:57Speaker 03

  So we don't know. We're a bit confused, but it's, it's like the most disgusting of the disgusting. At least it's classified as such. So.

• 41:04Liv Albert?

  Lovely.

• 41:05Speaker 03

  Hmm. Did they poop in the temple? We don't know.

• 41:09Liv Albert?

  Did somebody, did they just expect that at least one person, like if, if, if this is when the public is being allowed into the temple?

• 41:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, the public's allowed in.

• 41:17Liv Albert?

  I don't know. Like, people are disgusting. Like, we'll be ready for it.

• 41:21Speaker 03

  It's my time to take a shit. We're like, no.

• 41:23Liv Albert?

  I mean, the Romans were the same people who had a shared sponge. So like, would we put it past them?

• 41:31Speaker 03

  Well, no. And look, they do what they do. Do I understand? Not necessarily. Am I fascinated? Yes.

• 41:39Liv Albert?

  Absolutely. We love a public sponge.

• 41:41Speaker 03

  And so the thing that I'm sad about is that we don't have the second volume of the Fasti, which would run from July to December.

• 41:49Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 41:50Speaker 03

  Because that would be really, really helpful. There are some things where, things like the October horse, we get suggestions of, but it's like, I imagine Ovid would go into far more detail and help us out to really understand what might be going on there and why people are doing that. But we don't have it, so.

• 42:08Liv Albert?

  I didn't realize it was only half the year. That's an enormous, that's, I mean.

• 42:12Speaker 03

  We're missing a lot.

• 42:14Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I was gonna say, there are a handful of things from the ancient world that we know we're missing and that I would give anything to read, so I shouldn't be surprised.

• 42:22Speaker 03

  Yep, this is another one of those. Definitely. I'd be very excited.

• 42:26Liv Albert?

  I would like Ovid's Medea, like just if we're talking Ovid specifically, those two would be great.

• 42:32Speaker 03

  That would be fantastic. I must mention Agrippina's memoir. We always want that. I want the words from her own mouth.

• 42:42Liv Albert?

  Oh, I mean, I want a woman's words.

• 42:46Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 42:46Liv Albert?

  I would like long form women's writing from the ancient world.

• 42:52Liv Albert?

  In literally any way, that would be great. But it's so interesting to know this much about these women specifically, even if it's not coming from them, but like, do we have, do we know about specific women? I imagine with this level of detail that we might have like specific examples of of women who served or like anything relating to their words?

• 43:14Speaker 03

  We definitely do. We do have examples of specific women, quite a few. The trouble with this is that usually vestals that are named are coming into the evidence because something has gone wrong.

• 43:30Speaker 03

  So when we talk about what is going on with vestals, we also have to talk about what happens when an accusation of incastum is leveled against them.

• 43:46Speaker 03

  Incastum is pretty broad. It relates to things like immodesty, unchastity, an absence of virginity. But it covers a whole spectrum of things that are not just a loss of virginity, but it also related to what are considered chaste behaviors in the Roman mindset.

• 44:05Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 44:07Speaker 03

  So we do get some early examples. Well, you know, what's a good vestal? A good vestal is somebody who doesn't care about fashion and doesn't have a sense of humor. And how can we tell this? Because we have examples of vestals going on trial for incastum for caring about their clothes and making cool jokes at parties.

• 44:29Liv Albert?

  Okay, examples, please.

• 44:31Speaker 03

  If only I knew what the jokes were, but those aren't recorded.

• 44:35Liv Albert?

  Yeah, so we know they just told jokes, like specifically?

• 44:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, they they were humorous in ways that were considered inappropriate.

• 44:46Liv Albert?

  Oh, women can't be funny. That's true. Women are not funny. I'm sorry.

• 44:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, how dare you? How dare you turn up and how dare you make jokes? Um, but not just any jokes, jokes that we think are inappropriate. So it could be anything, really. This is a real shame that the jokes haven't been preserved for us.

• 45:03Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 45:06Speaker 03

  But this is not necessarily a death sentence at that level. So the worst sentence that you can get for an in-castum accusation is death.

• 45:18Liv Albert?

  Okay, so.

• 45:19Speaker 03

  Women with a sense of humor tended to be let off with a lighter punishment and told to stop being funny.

• 45:26Speaker 03

  And women who were fashionable were told to dress with more modesty, please. Careless.

• 45:33Liv Albert?

  Yeah, it don't you know, that makes for a slutty lady if she cares about her clothes.

• 45:38Speaker 03

  Exactly. And, you know, those sorts of, the punishment for that kind of thing is usually dealt with in-house. So the Pontifex Maximus will whip the vestal.

• 45:49Liv Albert?

  Jesus fuck.

• 45:51Speaker 03

  With a sheet in between them, so they can't see each other.

• 45:54Liv Albert?

  Well, naturally, he can't see her body.

• 45:57Speaker 03

  You wouldn't want to see her while you're whipping her.

• 45:59Liv Albert?

  Oh, my god.

• 46:01Speaker 03

  Uh, so were the rubbish, Rome, Romans weird? Did they have fetishes? Probably.

• 46:07Liv Albert?

  I mean, I think a thousand percent. Have you seen Creepypast?

• 46:12Speaker 03

  And it's like, what did you do today? I just whipped a vestal through a sheet.

• 46:16Liv Albert?

  Okay, cool. She thought she was funny.

• 46:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Um, she was dressing inappropriately. I could see her.

• 46:24Liv Albert?

  Her forearm came out. It was horrifying.

• 46:28Speaker 03

  I saw her ankle. It was a disaster.

• 46:31Liv Albert?

  I mean, you know, the ankles make men wanna fuck. That's facts.

• 46:34Speaker 03

  It's pretty clear. Historically, the records suggest so.

• 46:37Liv Albert?

  Yeah, and that's our fault.

• 46:40Speaker 03

  God.

• 46:41Liv Albert?

  Sorry, I really don't know how to talk about this shit without just being like horribly dry and terrible.

• 46:47Speaker 03

  It's fine, it's fine. Uh, it's like, if you don't laugh, you'll cry.

• 46:51Liv Albert?

  Exactly. Yeah.

• 46:54Speaker 03

  So, you know, every so often in my spare time, I like to look at my ankles and be like, mm, would they break them in? Probably.

• 47:01Liv Albert?

  I mean, I have a shark on one of my ankles. That feels like I've made it. Even more dangerous and I've not thought about it that way before.

• 47:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, you've elevated the danger.

• 47:13Liv Albert?

  He doesn't have teeth. It's not that scary. So, uh, the, did they get ever get kicked out or like, would they get whipped, but then there's still a vestal?

• 47:23Speaker 03

  Uh, well, you could get whipped and then you go back to doing your job.

• 47:28Speaker 03

  If you get kicked out, you get killed. Yeah, there's no way to get, yeah, there's no middle ground. You don't get told to leave the vestal order and not come back being like, you've been a naughty girl. Go away, we'll pick somebody else. They're like, you've lost your virginity. The accusation, we have determined the accusation to being true. You're guilty of in Keston. You will be buried alive.

• 47:53Liv Albert?

  Jesus Christ.

• 47:57Liv Albert?

  I, okay, one, I've learned that Discord did not get silenced by my do not disturb. And I'm just hoping that stops because I don't know how to turn it off. Um, what? So, so talk to me about the getting buried alive.

• 48:11Speaker 03

  All right, getting buried alive. What a time to be alive.

• 48:14Liv Albert?

  The Romans were fucked up. This is why I like other people coming on and telling me this. It's my favorite thing. I don't want to research them myself. I just want more experiences like this.

• 48:23Speaker 03

  Every time something happens, you're like, what? No.

• 48:26Liv Albert?

  Romans are fucked. This is every time I've got someone on here. It's like, okay, please tell me how the Romans were terrifying.

• 48:33Speaker 03

  Look, uh, I can, um, there's a whole process for this. So. If a vestal is accused of in Keston, an investigation has to be opened up. That's the first thing. Now, whether she's found guilty of sort of a lower level charge of like having a sense of humor and she gets whipped, that's one thing. But if she is found guilty of the higher crime, which is losing her virginity, this means that she is no longer ritually pure to serve Vestal. And this is a big problem for the Romans.

• 49:09Speaker 03

  So in the period of the investigation, she has to abstain from all ritual duties, just in case she is polluted in a way and until they determine what the real answer is to that. A trial is held. It's not a public trial. It is held by the Pontifical College and she is allowed to speak in her own defence, which is actually pretty rare for Roman women. This is one of the privileges of being a vestal, is that she is allowed to speak in courts. So she, yeah, she could be brought into a public trial on account of something else and she could be asked to speak and that is acceptable because she's a vestal virgin. If she is condemned as

• 49:53Speaker 03

  an outcome of that trial, so she is found guilty of having lost her virginity, she has to remove her ritual headdress, which is very distinctive. And when we see statues of vestals from the Imperial period, you can't mistake them for anybody else because they're wearing a very specific kind of braided updo thing with lots of layers. So she has to take that off. She's placed in a cart and carried through the city in a procession that is thought to mimic a funeral.

• 50:27Liv Albert?

  Jesus.

• 50:27Speaker 03

  So everybody comes out for that. She is taken to a place called the Campus Scolarit, wait a minute, Latin, me and Latin, I do Roman history, me and the Latin, Scolaratus, the polluted field. It translates as polluted field.

• 50:48Liv Albert?

  Oh my gosh.

• 50:49Speaker 03

  It is technically inside the city and it is near a place called the Coline Gate, which if you were in Rome today is near Termini Station.

• 51:01Liv Albert?

  Okay.

• 51:01Speaker 03

  So, cue. So when I go to Rome.

• 51:04Liv Albert?

  Termini is a nightmare.

• 51:05Speaker 03

  Termini is a nightmare, but a couple of streets back from that, you can find the approximate area where the Coline Gate is and the Campus Scolaratus was and you can be like, this is where they buried the vestals.

• 51:18Liv Albert?

  Wow.

• 51:20Speaker 03

  Now, they seem to have had a underground chamber that they reused, as far as we can tell.

• 51:29Speaker 03

  This underground chamber is in this polluted field. They open it up. They stick a ladder down. The vessel has to go down into this chamber. They pull up the ladder. They shut the trapdoor. They put earth over the top.

• 51:43Liv Albert?

  Jesus.

• 51:45Speaker 03

  The chamber is prepared ahead of time. So there is a bed down there. There is a lamp that is lit.

• 51:53Liv Albert?

  Oh my god.

• 51:55Speaker 03

  And small portions of food. So a little bit of bread, a little bit of water, milk and oil. And I don't know if they leave the skeletons of previous vessels down there. I don't know. I'm not sure. We haven't done the investigative work to determine the answer to that. But the vessel is placed into this chamber with what are called the necessities of life.

• 52:17Liv Albert?

  For like a week.

• 52:18Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, because ultimately the Romans don't get to decide whether she's absolutely guilty of incestum. The gods have to decide.

• 52:27Liv Albert?

  Yeah. So it's the gods that kill her for sure.

• 52:30Speaker 03

  Definitely.

• 52:31Liv Albert?

  Yeah, okay.

• 52:32Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, if the gods wanted to save her, there's enough provision down there to give them time to figure that out.

• 52:40Speaker 03

  It's fine. Um, so they cover up the entrance with dirt and they walk away. Done.

• 52:49Liv Albert?

  Holy shit.

• 52:50Speaker 03

  They leave her to die.

• 52:52Liv Albert?

  I did not expect this to get that dark.

• 52:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:55Liv Albert?

  I mean, I should have because it's Rome, but like, buried alive is like a next level. That's, that's in like, I don't even know. I don't know where, that's so fucked up.

• 53:06Speaker 03

  It is very much so. Yeah.

• 53:08Liv Albert?

  And they wrote this down, like, we know, we know there was a bed. We know there was food, like.

• 53:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:13Liv Albert?

  Oh my god.

• 53:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. We've got sources that write about this. So Plutarch in, um. Uh, he writes about some of the details in this in his life of Numa because Numa is the second king of Rome and he's thought to establish a lot of the principles associated with the Vestals. But we also have a famous letter from Pliny the Younger, where he talks about a Vestal trial that happens in his lifetime, that he bears witness to, under demission, where a Vestal Cornelius is found guilty of in Kestum. She persistently refuses the charge. She claims throughout the whole process that she's innocent. As she is being

• 53:56Speaker 03

  paraded through the streets to her funeral, uh, she is protesting her innocence. And she also refuses, um, aid as she's going down the ladder. Um, one of the sort of public figures that is there sort of reaches out a hand to help support her and she gives him the dirtiest look, like, do not touch my body. Cause the other thing for Vestals is that on a ritual level, their body is supposed to be inviolable. So it shouldn't be possible for them to lose their virginity because nobody is allowed to touch them.

• 54:35Liv Albert?

  But women are still slutty and they find a way.

• 54:39Speaker 03

  They find a way. You know, where there's a will, there's a way.

• 54:43Liv Albert?

  I love that those kinds of rules where it's like, no, the God made you pure and untouchable. But at the same time, if a man touches you, you will be killed. So.

• 54:53Speaker 03

  Such a double edged sword. Like, how are you going to navigate this? You've got great power.

• 54:58Liv Albert?

  Oh, my God.

• 54:59Speaker 03

  So we have this great story from the Republican period of a Vestal Claudia, who knows that her body is inviolable, as all Vestals do, but she uses it for political purposes, where one of her male relatives is denied a triumph and wants to celebrate it anyway, in denial of the Senate. And she stands with him in the triumphal cart. So he organizes himself, goes against all senatorial rule, and nobody can stop this triumph from happening because they can't touch her. And I was like, this is incredible.

• 55:34Liv Albert?

  Okay. And a triumph is like basically just parading through the streets, being like, I did something. And cool.

• 55:39Speaker 03

  The triumph is the highest public honor that you can receive, essentially receive, or take in this.

• 55:46Liv Albert?

  Yeah, exactly. Cause if you're doing it yourself, where it's like.

• 55:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, like it's a DIY job. Um, you're supposed to receive the triumph from the Senate for military conquest. So military prowess of the highest order is rewarded with this triumphal procession through the city along a very specific route, culminating on the Capitoline Hill. And it's a huge parade. Everybody gets involved and then there's lots of food afterwards. So everybody wants a triumph to happen, but it has to have been earned. And the only people who can tell you that the triumph has been earned is the Senate, apparently. Unless you're a guy called Claudius, who's like, I am not suffering this indignity. I'm having my triumph anyway.

• 56:34Speaker 03

  What I did was great. And he asked very nicely for his Vestal Virgin relation to help him out. And she's like, sure, I'll stand in the cart. Why not? That'll be fun.

• 56:47Speaker 03

  So the Vestals could have these really powerful moments of using the privileges that they had to support their family. Or they could have everything stripped off them in a moment through an accusation that may or may not have been true. And since we have no way to determine virginity one way or the other, but the Romans thought that they did, they could end up being buried alive instead.

• 57:13Liv Albert?

  Oh, it's so delightful to be a woman. You know, the patriarchy has just done great work for everyone involved. Absolutely working out for the best to this day, for sure.

• 57:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's great. It's fine.

• 57:25Liv Albert?

  Do you ever just sit back? I mean, especially like it, I feel like it gets more and more true with every passing day of like the current world, but specifically also when you're existing in our world today and then also have this knowledge of the ancient world. Like I swear, I just get more and more angry every day because I'm learning about both. You know, like, and it's just so unhinged. Like, I feel like I live on a different planet sometimes because.

• 57:55Liv Albert?

  It's, I mean, the evidence is such that it's not working for anyone except to like 1% of people and like, but yeah, no, still, still, still, like the, the capitalistic patriarchy is absolutely still the only option.

• 58:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, definitely.

• 58:14Liv Albert?

  Much like democracies that were never meant to include women or people of color or literally anyone else. Like, those are the only form of governance that we should be allowing. Did you have to fight for 100, 200, 300 years for your right in the democracy? It's still the only way that should have ever existed.

• 58:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think it's one of those things that being a historian really draws your attention to is how hard and how long women and other marginalized groups of people have fought and continue to fight for a basic minimum opportunity in a system that is structured against them at all times. And I think the thing that scares me is that when I demonstrate a passionate interest or frustration at something that is happening in the current situation in our world today,

• 59:14Speaker 03

  and not everybody, but you know, it doesn't take many people to suggest that maybe I'm overreacting. And I was like, you do not understand history. Like, this is the first step in a series of steps that's going to lead us directly to a situation where we're going to have to fight for these things all over again. And it's like, it's steps backwards when we could have been taking steps forward. I see what is happening in the US and it appals me because it emboldens those people in other places that want the same thing to happen. And so I was like, there's nothing worse than seeing it happen in really visible

• 59:57Speaker 03

  places. And so the fight is always happening on multiple fronts because it's not just enough to fight in the place where you live. You have to be cognizant of the fights that are happening in every context that are going to have an impact on yours, which is why. The things that are happening in Gaza are terrible. Why the things that are happening in Sudan are terrible. Why the things that are happening in Afghanistan need to be fought against? And it's like, but all of these fights are happening simultaneously.

• 1:00:24Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:00:24Speaker 03

  And

• 1:00:25Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:26Speaker 03

  If we don't maintain an awareness and a capacity to critically engage with all of them, then when the fight arrives at your shore, you're not going to be ready. So, and as a woman, it just feels like you're always on high alert. Being like, wait a minute, that's a problem.

• 1:00:44Liv Albert?

  Yeah, it just makes me think of all the, you know, bomb Iran for the women. Like women's rights, bomb Iran, like, you know, it's this idea that like, oh, it's okay to bomb a country because they treat women poorly. Oh, we're, we're killing those women by bombing them, but it's okay because, you know, freedom, like, what do you mean? Like, it just, it, it, the way they, yeah, I just, I'm losing my damn mind all the time. Um, but specifically the more, you know, it, it's like both so,

• 1:01:14Liv Albert?

  it feels so good, it feels empowering and simultaneously like I'm going to lose my mind in terms of like when, you know, researching the ancient world and, and, and seeing those things. Like I just, yeah, the more, the more I, the deeper I get into Greek mythology, the more I see the way that like, everything is stacked against us. And it's just, yeah. And in any case, I Well, I don't know how to think about anything else, but like these vessels are, wow.

• 1:01:43Speaker 03

  There's a lot going on, there's a lot happening. And thinking about in Kestum for a moment, it, it does have this powerful effect on vessels' lives in general. So it doesn't happen in every generation, but perhaps every two generations, somebody gets buried alive. So it's always

• 1:02:05Liv Albert?

  Wow, I was waiting for you to say that like an in Kestum charge comes every two generations, but straight up someone's buried alive every two generations.

• 1:02:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, usually, yeah, yeah, it doesn't take very much. So we don't get any Kestum trial throughout the late republic. But we get into The first century of the Imperial period.

• 1:02:28Liv Albert?

  Yeah, just Augustus comes in and fucks shit up.

• 1:02:30Speaker 03

  Well, no, I, oh, no, no. Well, well, I mean,

• 1:02:36Speaker 03

  he does some other stuff. Yeah, look, he doesn't bury any vessels. So like, good on him.

• 1:02:43Speaker 03

  Still my favorite guy for that.

• 1:02:45Liv Albert?

  That he instigated. I've heard they're really good.

• 1:02:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, they're great. They're great for women. Um, you know, the morality legislation of Augustus. Yeah, it's a big win.

• 1:02:54Liv Albert?

  Like all I know about it. So I know it's good.

• 1:02:57Speaker 03

  It's not, it's not great.

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• 1:04:43Speaker 02

  Terms apply.

• 1:05:02Speaker 03

  But we get to Domitian and Domitian is kind of like, I'm going to bolster my reputation by burying a vestal. It hasn't been done for a while, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna bring back live burial. And this is the way that Pliny positions it. So do we trust Pliny? Maybe, maybe not. But this idea that there's a big ticket element to burying a vestal. It does something for the public imagination. We get an alignment over time between the idea that Rome goes through periods of crisis and turns to burying a vestal to solve it.

• 1:05:42Liv Albert?

  Oh my god.

• 1:05:43Speaker 03

  So rather than it being something that's related to the vestal's body, conveniently, the vestal's body is read as unvirginal because it's convenient for other situations that Rome is facing that are challenging. And they're like, what if we buried a vestal? Would that solve it?

• 1:06:00Liv Albert?

  Oh my god.

• 1:06:02Speaker 03

  So those sorts of things start happening.

• 1:06:05Liv Albert?

  It's almost like they just don't want women to be people. They just want to convince us all that we're not human, like.

• 1:06:14Speaker 03

  But what are we instead? That's the thing that worries me. It's like,

• 1:06:17Liv Albert?

  Superior.

• 1:06:18Speaker 03

  Well, like, how often do I have to open my mouth and say something intelligent? And like, for you to be like, oh, she's not a real human.

• 1:06:28Speaker 03

  I spend my whole time being human. What am I supposed to do?

• 1:06:33Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I mean, I, yeah, I, the, the more I read, the more I'm just like, no, no, like, the entirety of our, of our society is built on the realization that we hold more inherent power as women or as just like, you know, people with a uterus, like, we hold more power than them and the second they learned Bronze Age Mediterranean, if we're like, I, elsewhere, sure, but like, I only know the Med, like.

• 1:07:06Liv Albert?

  The second they learned that, it became about devaluing and like dehumanizing women in every way, right? You just like see all the different like tics of it. Like, I mean, I could see it in Greek mythology. Now I can't unsee it and I can see it in like every little story that exists. And then to hear this where you have these women who were sacred in such a way and still so lacking in humanity to the men in power. Like, it's wild. I mean, I shouldn't be surprised, but I somehow still am always.

• 1:07:42Speaker 03

  They have, yeah, such a significant role in the ritual experience of Rome. And yet, if the moment is right, they're completely expendable.

• 1:07:51Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:52Speaker 03

  So we have, we have a situation that crops up under everybody's favorite emperor, Caracalla.

• 1:08:00Liv Albert?

  Hmm.

• 1:08:01Speaker 03

  Uh, who was done such an injustice in Gladiator 2. I'm not even gonna begin to go there.

• 1:08:07Liv Albert?

  Oh, God, yeah, Jesus.

• 1:08:09Speaker 03

  Uh, he's like the broest military guy that you've ever seen in charge of Rome. And under his watch, there is a trial of four Vestal Virgins for Encasterm.

• 1:08:22Liv Albert?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:08:23Speaker 03

  And there's only six of them. So that's two thirds of the order on trial for Encasterm. They're all found guilty as far as Caracalla is concerned because he's the emperor and by this stage, the emperor is also the Pontifex Maximus. So he gets to make the decisions.

• 1:08:39Liv Albert?

  Oh, right. Oh, God.

• 1:08:42Speaker 03

  And this leads the Vestals who have been accused to try to figure out what they do. A couple of them do commit suicide, so they don't have to face live burial.

• 1:08:53Liv Albert?

  I mean, respect. What the fuck? Like, I mean, I think that that's probably more desirable to me.

• 1:09:01Speaker 03

  Yeah. So we have the case, this involves a vestal called Clodia Later, Aurelia Severa, Pomponia Ruffina, and Canutia Crescentia. So.

• 1:09:17Liv Albert?

  I love that we have their names, though.

• 1:09:18Speaker 03

  We have their names.

• 1:09:19Liv Albert?

  That's, that's really nice. We have their names.

• 1:09:22Speaker 03

  We do.

• 1:09:22Liv Albert?

  That that's so like thrilling to me because it's so rare in every other case.

• 1:09:27Speaker 03

  It is super rare. And the reason why we have their names is because we have the record of Diocasius. And Diocasius is sometimes not considered the most reliable source, but he is actually a senator under Caracalla. So in this part of his history, he's relating events that he has directly witnessed. And he's like, this guy's bad news.

• 1:09:49Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:50Speaker 03

  And he puts to death four of the Vestal Virgins in one go.

• 1:09:54Liv Albert?

  And there were, there are only six, you've said two, right? So four out of six.

• 1:09:57Speaker 03

  Yeah. So the substance of the story is that Caracalla has gone out and violated them himself

• 1:10:11Speaker 03

  to satisfy his lewd desires.

• 1:10:14Liv Albert?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:10:15Speaker 03

  So not only are they accused of incastum, but as far as the story goes, they are sexually assaulted by the emperor.

• 1:10:25Liv Albert?

  Fucking like.

• 1:10:27Speaker 03

  And then he turns around and is like, well, you're guilty of incastum.

• 1:10:30Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah. Because it's the women who are at fault, right? It's the ankles. It's, it's always.

• 1:10:35Speaker 03

  Always.

• 1:10:36Liv Albert?

  It's always the women.

• 1:10:38Speaker 03

  Show me your sandals.

• 1:10:39Liv Albert?

  Like, like, I just want to scream Diddy into this microphone right now. Like, cause it's just, it's only just occurred to me now, but like, here we are. Like, it's just, oh, my God, we're just, it's just never ending. It's just never ending. Like.

• 1:10:55Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. So one of them is buried alive. And to clarify, because I got the number wrong of how many were buried alive. Three are buried alive. And Crescentia hurls herself from the top of a house in order to avoid the live burial.

• 1:11:15Liv Albert?

  Oh, my. God.

• 1:11:17Speaker 03

  So, yeah, shocking times in

• 1:11:22Liv Albert?

  Okay.

• 1:11:22Speaker 03

  Third century Imperial Rome.

• 1:11:26Liv Albert?

  That, I mean, that's so utterly horrifying. And what's a part of the horrifying nature is my brain immediately thought like, were they buried together at least? Like, probably?

• 1:11:35Speaker 03

  I assume so. Yeah.

• 1:11:36Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:37Speaker 03

  So as far as we're aware, there's just one chamber. I don't think, I don't think they dig out a new chamber each time.

• 1:11:44Liv Albert?

  That's, yeah, I would assume. And also, like, they're, they're, you know, is this the only instance we have where more than one would have been subjected to it at a time? Like,

• 1:11:57Speaker 03

  Sadly not.

• 1:11:58Liv Albert?

  Oh, my God, why is Rome? I'm so glad I have you to tell me this, but oh, my God, why?

• 1:12:04Speaker 03

  Surely this is so terrible. It could have only happened once.

• 1:12:09Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:12:11Speaker 03

  There is another infamous case that involves three Vestal Virgins, which comes from the late Republic, so about one fourteen BCE, where three are involved. So, yeah, we, we do have a couple of instances of multiple trials.

• 1:12:29Liv Albert?

  Centuries.

• 1:12:31Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:12:31Liv Albert?

  They were, they were just doing this for hundreds and hundreds of years.

• 1:12:36Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, the Vestal Virgins, we think were in existence if our written sources are illustrative of what we think is happening at an archaeological level, then the Vestals are in Rome doing things as a cult for about a thousand years.

• 1:12:55Liv Albert?

  Wow.

• 1:12:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:12:57Liv Albert?

  Do we know, I, I wanna hope that, like, the burying them alive wasn't around for a thousand years, but I also don't want to give the Romans any credit, but like,

• 1:13:08Speaker 03

  I wouldn't, I wouldn't give the Romans any credit, not on this.

• 1:13:11Liv Albert?

  They like this.

• 1:13:13Speaker 03

  It's the way the cult works. If they're not virgins, you have to bury them. Them's the rules.

• 1:13:21Liv Albert?

  I love how at the beginning I was like, so did they just get kicked out? And you're like, no. So they just get buried alive.

• 1:13:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:13:29Liv Albert?

  One time there was three and then another time there was four almost.

• 1:13:33Speaker 03

  Yeah. And then you've got to like, you know, select a whole bunch of new ones. And I can only imagine when you go out to the Roman families being like, we need four more Vestals. And everyone like, I'm not putting my kid up for that.

• 1:13:44Liv Albert?

  Yes. Are you kidding?

• 1:13:47Speaker 03

  Be like, seems risky.

• 1:13:49Liv Albert?

  Yeah. I'm like, oh my God. Do we know how old some of these women were by the time this was happening? Like, was, were they? Oh, I don't, why am I asking this?

• 1:14:00Speaker 03

  Sadly not. No, we don't know.

• 1:14:02Liv Albert?

  That's probably for the best. I don't want to hear that they've got a 12 year old under there for like, it's, oh my God, it's just so horrifying.

• 1:14:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, we don't know. I couldn't tell you.

• 1:14:11Liv Albert?

  Are there any nice things?

• 1:14:14Speaker 03

  Any nice things?

• 1:14:15Liv Albert?

  Are there any cool, cool things?

• 1:14:17Speaker 03

  Cool things. I think what's really nice is thinking about what do the Vestals do when they're just hanging in their house? So right next door to the temple is the atrium of Vestal, which is the house of the Vestals.

• 1:14:33Liv Albert?

  Okay. So they'll live together in a house like Love Island style?

• 1:14:36Speaker 03

  Yeah. So if they don't have anything else to do, if they're not busy with another ritual and they're not on duty in the temple itself.

• 1:14:43Liv Albert?

  No one's getting buried alive.

• 1:14:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, they're hanging out at home and hanging out together seems like that could be fun. I suppose if you get along with your fellow Vestals, that's great. If you have a little bit of issues with somebody's personality, you've got to deal with that for the whole of your life. Because this is like a job you didn't sign up for and a job you can't get out of. So you've got to find a way to get along with people. But they also get invited to dinner parties and other social events. So they do have a social calendar as well. We do have records of them hanging out with magistrates and other priests in their downtime. You know, eating food, going to feast together and stuff. That's where the jokes happen.

• 1:15:28Speaker 03

  Terribleness, but.

• 1:15:30Liv Albert?

  Thankfully the jokes that don't get. You buried alive, just a whipping.

• 1:15:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:15:35Liv Albert?

  Light whipping.

• 1:15:36Speaker 03

  You've got to surf that edge, you know, is this joke good enough? Will it get me whipped? I don't know. See if it lands. And it's like, you know, looking around at the other vessels at the dinner being like, I'm gonna try it. Let's see what happens.

• 1:15:50Liv Albert?

  Half my podcast would just be like, you know, fifty percent of the time I'm funny. The other half, you know, I'm gonna get whipped.

• 1:15:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, sorry. It's just the way it goes. So I could see vessels having fun with that sort of thing. So they do get to have social lives, even though they're ritually removed from their families. They continue to have connection with their family. That's pretty clear. From things like the story of Claudia helping out one of her relatives with his triumph. And we also have them sort of popping up in criminal trials to help out relatives because they're the only women who are allowed to speak. They're like, can you pop in and say a few words in my favor? And they're like, sure. I'm not busy today, whatever.

• 1:16:34Liv Albert?

  Now, I do like to think about the like sisterhood that comes out of stuff like this. Again, when you just kind of like set aside the burying alive, which I'm not, I don't think I'll ever get over. Um, but like, yeah, there, there. I think about this a lot in the context of like women in, in say ancient Athens, who were primarily not like able to go anywhere, really do anything. They were just like expected to kind of be just with other women, you know, weaving or whatever, tending to their fire. Um, but like, I imagine that in a world like that, you know, the stuff that was going on between the, behind those closed doors, amongst the women was probably like by and large, pretty nice.

• 1:17:15Liv Albert?

  And like, I hope that they were at least able to, you know, share these things and like develop these kinds of relationships and lean on each other in what is otherwise like a pretty.

• 1:17:28Liv Albert?

  Difficult, to put it mildly, life, you know, like, that's nice to think about as something.

• 1:17:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I think that's probably where we can draw the most sense of positivity because I can't imagine a space in which those women aren't truly bonded by the experiences that they've gone through together that are unique to them. Like, nobody else would understand a vestal like another vestal. So the real struggles that they face that they share, I think, is something to hold on to. What that looked like, we don't know. We'd have to imagine it.

• 1:18:07Liv Albert?

  Women are good at bonding. Like, I feel like, you know, that type of, even now, with, you know, I don't know. I just feel like I, everything is on fire. But, you know, having women both in my, like, real life, in my work life, in my internet life, just even like on TikTok, who are also complaining about terrible things. Like, that is so cathartic and so important that I just, especially with everything and with being one, my version of a historian, like, is, at least, you know, that's something really to hold on to

• 1:18:49Liv Albert?

  and think about the ways that like I interact in that kind of sisterhood of just other women and trying to, at least, I kind of just, I have to imagine that in the ancient world. I have to think about all the things that, that they said and did amongst each other that we don't have evidence of, but absolutely was going on. The stories they told, all of that stuff, like, you know, I hope that they're bitching about an emperor or, you know, like, I just, I hope there was a lot of gossip. I hope that they were really shit talking, you know, every dude available, like, that's The fun, at least the fun thing to imagine.

• 1:19:22Speaker 03

  And I I assume that must be the case because there's got to be a chance for release amongst all of the restriction that they're operating under. And I feel like the atrium where they share a living space together is their safe space. Because nobody's allowed to go in there either.

• 1:19:40Liv Albert?

  Yeah, so so was it just them?

• 1:19:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:19:43Liv Albert?

  That's nice. Not even the priest guys?

• 1:19:45Speaker 03

  So they're allowed to have certain priest attendants, but it seems that the vessels are in charge of whether those people are allowed in or out.

• 1:19:53Liv Albert?

  Oh, that's cool. That's nice.

• 1:19:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:19:55Liv Albert?

  And so they, you know, they were selected by the Pontifex Maximus, but i- in terms of like existing as a vestal, like was there a priest? Was there a male involved in the actual, like the vestal part? The temple or, you know, all of their duties and things? Or was it really just them primarily?

• 1:20:18Speaker 03

  This seems to be the thing that we're less sure about because it seems that there are times where the vessels have support from lesser priests and priestly attendants who don't count as priests, but are part of the things that go on.

• 1:20:33Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:33Speaker 03

  But it's also that sort of thing where scholars have really been trying to pause what the evidence is telling us. Because for the longest time in across 20th century scholarship, in any case, the assumption was that women could not hold the sacrificial knife. So they could be present, but they weren't doing the thing.

• 1:20:56Liv Albert?

  No, no, women can't hold the tools, that sort.

• 1:20:59Speaker 03

  No, not a lady.

• 1:21:01Liv Albert?

  Not a precious hands.

• 1:21:03Speaker 03

  Exactly. She'll get her ankles dirty. Um, can't have that.

• 1:21:07Liv Albert?

  Then everyone would come all over themselves.

• 1:21:10Speaker 03

  It's too much. I can't handle it. Uh, so there is that kind of school of thought that persisted for a good, long time. And we are all as scholars indebted to what happened as a result of the second and third waves of feminism that bled into ancient world scholarship, which is like, let's look at this evidence for what it's saying about women, not what it might imply about your assumptions about what women are capable of. And for instance, we know that the Vestal Virgins are involved in a ritual that takes place in early December called the rites of the Bonedaya, the good goddess.

• 1:21:55Speaker 03

  It happens in the house of a male magistrate, but it is attended only by women. No boys allowed. If boys get kicked out for the night, they have to figure out what to do with their time. At the Bonedaya ritual, a female pig is sacrificed.

• 1:22:16Speaker 03

  It has to be done by somebody.

• 1:22:19Speaker 03

  There are only women there and the only priests there are the Vestal Virgins. So who's holding the knife? Well, I think it must be a vestal. Surely that would make the most sense. Uh, so we have that kind of moment as a standout. And the only reason why we know so much about the Bonedaya is because one year it gets violated and a man dresses up as a woman and sneaks in.

• 1:22:46Liv Albert?

  Okay, I'm really not trying to keep up with this idea that the Romans copied everything from the Greeks, but I was already gonna say that that sounds like the Thesmophoria. And then you said that and I'm like, well, now it sounds like the play about the Thesmophoria.

• 1:22:58Speaker 03

  It does. There are some parallels. There's some resonances. There's no doubt about that. Uh, it becomes a whole political situation though, that Cicero ends up being involved with.

• 1:23:08Liv Albert?

  Oh, God.

• 1:23:09Speaker 03

  So as far as we can tell, this is a pretty historical event because he complains a lot.

• 1:23:16Speaker 03

  Uh, is he making up some of this to get somebody into trouble? Maybe. Um, do we think a man snuck into the Bonedaya rites? Yes, yes, we do.

• 1:23:28Speaker 03

  But nonetheless, he's not meant to be there. It's meant to be women only. There's definitely a sacrifice involved. It seems most reasonable to assume that the Vestals are leading that sacrifice because they're the most well-placed professionals to do so. So are Vestals holding the knife? Yes, they are. This can then extend to other moments where the Vestals are present and they're thought to be the most appropriate people to be in charge, but then the assumption is made that they don't actually do the thing. It's like, why would you get to the whole point of having these women be so qualified to do all of the things and then not let them do the things? Like, it doesn't make any sense. So the more that we get into what is happening

• 1:24:11Speaker 03

  with women as priests at Rome, the more we start to see how they're involved, because the Vestals are not the only priestesses that Rome has. They're just the most visible and significant college that we have evidence for.

• 1:24:28Liv Albert?

  And they sound like, and I say that without knowing enough about the rest of them, but they sound like also one that is so, yeah, so much more ritualized, so much more like strict and planned out that they also, I mean, not to say, yeah, like, importance level, I'm sure is relative, but it's interesting the way it does seem so structured, you know, as compared to, I imagine a lot of the other priesthoods are much more loose in terms of, you know, who is joining or, or, yeah, women being involved. Like, I know, I mean, there were priestesses in Greece too, where women weren't allowed to do much else, but, you know, there wasn't that kind of like, structure of the Vestals where we know so much about

• 1:25:10Liv Albert?

  the selection and the age and all of those things. Like, it's, it's wild how detailed it is.

• 1:25:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, and we've definitely got a sense of, there are other women who are involved in things like the Flamanes, which is another category of Roman priest, and they come as a pair, a married duo. So it's a sacred marriage, and if one of them dies, they both have to be replaced.

• 1:25:39Liv Albert?

  Somebody's not getting buried alive, though, it sounds like, so that's nice.

• 1:25:41Speaker 03

  No, you can have sex sometimes, it's okay. You're ritually married. In fact, sometimes you need to have sex for the gods. But other times you would have to abstain in the lead up to certain rites, because that, you've got to build up your sexual purity, that sort of thing. But that's a, that's a different scenario. And then we've got the sort of more. Publicly run cult processes where like the matrons will be in charge of certain things and then the plebeian women will be in charge of certain things and they're not considered priests all the time, but they're definitely engaging in ritual processes at

• 1:26:23Speaker 03

  certain moments. So there's a lot going on in Rome, but yeah, they've got a whole calendar. The vessels have a very clear structure. They know what they're doing on any day of the week and they've got their annual rotation that they need to get through and everything connects into everything else. So for them, they're busy all of the time.

• 1:26:42Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Do we know, um, were there more, what am I saying? Were there like regionally? Was it only in Rome or like other major cities? Would they have like their own vessels? Or was this like a specifically like city of Rome thing?

• 1:27:00Speaker 03

  It feels like it's a very specific city of Rome thing, but it can't be at the same time.

• 1:27:06Liv Albert?

  Okay.

• 1:27:07Speaker 03

  So the origin story of Rome comes through the idea that a vestal of a place called Alba Longa is raped. And she's obviously not from Rome. She's from somewhere else. And the fact that she's been violated is the thing that produces Romulus and Remus. So she gives birth to twins as a result of that sexual assault. And, but she was supposed to be a vestal, but a vestal of another place. So we've got this idea, at least even within the Roman storytelling about their own origins, that the idea of Vestal being anchored to

• 1:27:50Speaker 03

  a place is specific to a lot of places.

• 1:27:54Liv Albert?

  Hmm.

• 1:27:54Speaker 03

  And how that works depends on where you are. So certainly it seems like it's embraced by the Latin people in general.

• 1:28:02Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:28:03Speaker 03

  And then we have this broader amorphous connection back to Hestia, which we're not really sure what to do with. Some ancient sources posit that there's an etymological connection in those names between Hestia and Vestal.

• 1:28:18Liv Albert?

  They sound more similar than a lot of the, you know, so-called, you know, Roman names.

• 1:28:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. And so that sort of oral connection is there as well.

• 1:28:30Speaker 03

  Is this emerging of some indigenous italic ideas with some Greek influence? These are the things that are very hard to trace because we know that the Greek influence in Italy has been happening for centuries before Rome sort of pops up.

• 1:28:46Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:28:47Speaker 03

  So even when we have things that we think are sort of indigent italic elements, by the time the Romans are writing it down, the Greek influence has been really clear and present for such a long time that it's really hard to discern the difference between the two.

• 1:29:04Liv Albert?

  Yeah, well, and especially with a goddess like that where, you know, and I feel fairly confident because she does resemble the Greek Hestia so much in very interesting ways where to me it's, it's, you know, reminding me of the, the broader ideas of like the matriarchy before and the, you know, the way that goddesses were valued, if not equally than like higher than the gods, you know, in the prehistoric kind of period. It, it would make sense if, if both regions end up with this goddess who is so tied to the fire, to the house, to the general like existence of,

• 1:29:46Liv Albert?

  or like, you know, and sustenance of all those things that, that come with the hearth, like to have somebody who is so old that both cultures are trying to figure out what to do with her in their own way. Like, I mean, I think that's true for like so many of the gods, or whether they're coming from the east and into Greece or from Egypt or wherever, you know? Like there are so many places, so much older that then you would get, there's so much kind of lost in that period of like the Bronze Age and the early Iron Age and like the time when nobody was writing stuff down for us to figure out like, I mean, I just think about the Bronze Age goddess figurines constantly because I, well, one, I was just in Greece, seeing like hundreds of them because there are just so many. And it's like, if this isn't indicative that like women were once valued.

• 1:30:32Liv Albert?

  At a higher or in a, in a more, I can't even speak right now. I'm like, it's both getting late in my day and also I've got, I've just heard so much burying alive.

• 1:30:44Speaker 03

  My apologies.

• 1:30:46Liv Albert?

  It's so interesting to think about where those links could be coming in where we'll probably never have any kind of concrete evidence, but like it's, it's interesting that, that this is the goddess that is so connected with Greece in the same way that they are both so lacking in what we expect from the other gods. Like that's so interesting in itself.

• 1:31:09Speaker 03

  Definitely. And this is one of the great mysteries of Vestal that keeps driving my interest, I think, because I'm partly fascinated by what is happening to the women who serve her. And it's like, how do they navigate this enforced virginity that they did not choose? It's not like becoming a Christian nun where it's like, this is a vocation and I'm choosing to serve. And I was like, that's fine. You're like,

• 1:31:35Liv Albert?

  Yeah. And you could be like 20, like you don't have to have never done anything. You just can't do it again.

• 1:31:40Speaker 03

  Yeah. You could be like, you know what? Not for me. That's fine.

• 1:31:43Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:43Speaker 03

  But for these young women coming into this cult to then have to grow up through the physical maturation and be like, oh, never. And it doesn't matter what your sexuality is. The idea that you are supposed to be untouchable in a ritual sense means that everything about physical intimacy is denied to you. Like, what is that like? And I wonder about that for these women. I mean, like, this is such a personal sacrifice that they did not know that they were getting themselves into. And the fact that Rome then goes on

• 1:32:25Speaker 03

  to attach so much connection and symbolic value between the maintenance of that virginity.

• 1:32:34Speaker 03

  To is the state going to survive?

• 1:32:38Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:38Speaker 03

  It is horrifying.

• 1:32:40Liv Albert?

  Yeah, so that, yeah, okay.

• 1:32:42Speaker 03

  We have a little detail from Horace where he says, as long as there is a virgin standing next to the pontificates, Rome will last.

• 1:32:52Liv Albert?

  Oh, my god.

• 1:32:54Speaker 03

  This idea that that is what it takes, that is the ultimate thing that will maintain the safety of Rome, is the maintenance of those vestals in their virginity. And so this is why in Keston is treated so seriously at Rome, or at least that's the nominal rationale, is that the state itself could be in danger, Rome itself could fail under the circumstances, that a virgin is no longer a virgin. And the big ticket item for that, which is why they have to watch that flame all the time, is that if the fire goes out, that's a sign that something is wrong.

• 1:33:33Liv Albert?

  Oh, right, we are putting a pin in that. Okay, so do we have evidence of like fires going out and then shit happening? Or just this fear or like also I realize it's I will, we will also try to wrap up soon. I hope you're not, if you're in a rush, let me know, but can I ask that question?

• 1:33:47Speaker 03

  You have time. You can ask that question. We have plenty of stories where the fire goes out and that is the beginning of terribleness. Because the fire going out is something that needs an investigation. So that starts the whole investigation. It's not a directed investigation in the beginning. It's not like an in custom trial where it's like, it starts, we're investigating this. They're like, why did the fire go out? What's happening? Did the wind blow the wrong way? Or is it the case that somebody has lost their virginity and Vester is mad?

• 1:34:23Liv Albert?

  Okay, so they still tied that to somebody's virginity.

• 1:34:27Speaker 03

  Oh, definitely. Yeah.

• 1:34:28Liv Albert?

  Oh, my god, of course. I mean, again, I think I don't know why I would assume otherwise.

• 1:34:32Speaker 03

  Every time the fire goes out, it has to be investigated. Usually a vestal will make the argument that nothing is wrong. We've just got to relight this thing. There's a ritual process for that as well. Um, and sometimes

• 1:34:47Liv Albert?

  Women have been speaking sense for a long time.

• 1:34:49Speaker 03

  We're like, just gotta, just gotta turn it back on, guys. Uh, don't worry about it.

• 1:34:54Speaker 03

  Uh, you know, sometimes stuff happens. So.

• 1:34:58Liv Albert?

  Go out. What do you mean?

• 1:35:00Speaker 03

  It's like, what if we didn't tell them? I'm like, I wonder how, I wonder how often the fire went out and they just relit it and we're like,

• 1:35:06Liv Albert?

  Truly. Like, I was already thinking about that before I, like, before you said it was also investigated for that.

• 1:35:14Speaker 03

  Like, just don't tell anybody. We'll just.

• 1:35:15Liv Albert?

  Put it back. Just relight it.

• 1:35:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's gonna be fine. I do wonder about that. But if it gets noticed, that's a problem and it does need to then be investigated. In some cases, they're able to relight the fire. And when that happens, sometimes that's okay and that's enough. And everyone's like, the fire's back on track. It's okay. We won't go any further with our investigations. At other times, though, it kicks off a whole sort of public witch hunt where the pontifices will put out a notice being like, if you know anything, if you've seen anything.

• 1:35:54Liv Albert?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:35:55Speaker 03

  Come forward with information. And usually a slave will come forward. Classic. Uh, to relate that they've seen their master getting it on with a vestal. And that's terribleness. And they weren't ever gonna say anything. But now that it's been mentioned, they thought maybe they should let somebody know about that. So often we see investigations into encastment then started through this gossip rumor mill process that has been sought by the pontifices.

• 1:36:28Liv Albert?

  Dude, was there like, um, a reward? Or do we think like a master would also like tell some, tell their enslaved person to like go? We don't, like, that just seems so interesting.

• 1:36:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, we don't hear about a reward. Um, it's mostly just punishment all the way down. So.

• 1:36:43Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 1:36:44Speaker 03

  If they figure out that you had slept with a vestal and that was the information that they had decided to believe, you were also punished.

• 1:36:57Liv Albert?

  Okay, great. So they did punish the man.

• 1:36:59Speaker 03

  They did.

• 1:37:00Liv Albert?

  A little bit?

• 1:37:00Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:37:01Liv Albert?

  He didn't get buried alive though, I bet, so.

• 1:37:03Speaker 03

  No, but it wasn't pleasant.

• 1:37:06Speaker 03

  He gets scourged with rods in public. So what that means is he's getting beaten up in front of everybody. And usually he's beaten until he dies.

• 1:37:19Liv Albert?

  Okay.

• 1:37:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:37:20Liv Albert?

  Well, that's not great.

• 1:37:21Speaker 03

  Not ideal.

• 1:37:22Liv Albert?

  Not getting buried alive, but.

• 1:37:23Speaker 03

  No, it's not a nice way to go. You usually end up dead at the end of that process. It's very rare to survive the scourging. But it is done publicly, so it's humiliating and you're being put to death in front of a crowd. So the Romans, always, always subtle.

• 1:37:42Liv Albert?

  In, in cases where they'd actually done it, it's probably also sexual assault. So like, I don't know, beat him till he dies in public. But maybe that's just me. Maybe that's my current feelings coming through. Sorry.

• 1:37:56Speaker 03

  It's fair and appropriate, I think. Um, yeah, look, we're not sure. Um, I can see many, I can see a viable way of understanding some cases of vestals losing their virginity because they were just like, I just want to know what it's like.

• 1:38:10Liv Albert?

  Yeah, no, not to suggest it's all, but like, given the punishment, I would imagine that like, we could assume that at least fifty fifty if that's happening, you know?

• 1:38:20Speaker 03

  Yeah. And so I think that's the other thing is that because they're held up in this really particular way as symbolic of this thing, that for some really grotesque men, that would be an incentive being like, I wonder, you know?

• 1:38:35Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:36Speaker 03

  And so horrifying as that thought is. So yeah, it's, it's a great time in Rome. Nothing untoward happening here. The vestals are very normal priesthood. Vestal, very normal goddess. It's all fine.

• 1:38:51Liv Albert?

  Well, to, to, to wrap up on a, a dumb and angry, um, I'm gonna call it a joke. I don't really think it is. Um, that I just thought of when you were talking about the way that the like, health of the state gets placed on these women and the fire and their virginity. It just, it makes me think of how the quote unquote male loneliness loneliness epidemic is on women to fix. We have to be nicer to them, don't you know? Because the existence of men, their entire mental health is dependent on how women treat them. You know, just like how the entire empire of Rome depended on whether one woman was a virgin or not.

• 1:39:35Speaker 03

  Hmm. It's risky putting all your eggs into a single basket, isn't it? I mean, young men out there, work on yourselves.

• 1:39:43Liv Albert?

  Honestly, get some therapy and you won't be so lonely. It's not about us. We just have developed standards that came with the getting allowed bank accounts.

• 1:39:55Speaker 03

  I mean, it seems so reasonable and yet here we are.

• 1:40:00Speaker 03

  And it's like, it's okay. It's all right. Don't change. Just be willing to be alone. It's okay to be alone. And in fact, lots of people are choosing to do that without having any other problems. So, I mean, think about it. Maybe just enjoy your life for what it is.

• 1:40:17Liv Albert?

  Truly. I'm happily single because the idea of living with a man is like a goddamn nightmare.

• 1:40:25Speaker 03

  And look, I would agree with you. I, I have been very fortunate to fall in love with an excellent man. And I'm very, I, but I didn't think that was going to happen to me. I'll, I'll put it out there. I did think for a long time I was gonna, I was gonna be a spinster with cats forever and, you know. And if it comes down to it, I mean, I've still got the cats.

• 1:40:48Liv Albert?

  That's what matters.

• 1:40:49Speaker 03

  So, you know.

• 1:40:52Speaker 03

  It'll be fun.

• 1:40:52Liv Albert?

  No, I hear there are a handful of good ones. I'm just more and more, I've not seen evidence. So I'm, I'm open to it. Anyway, this is not about modern men. It's about the crazy Romans. Um, I, this was horrifying as it was delightful. Thank you.

• 1:41:11Speaker 03

  You're most welcome. I can come and talk to you anytime about the horrors of ancient Rome, of which there are many, but this is one of the particular ones.

• 1:41:21Liv Albert?

  And wow, and like, yeah, I, I, I should always expect that Rome is going to surprise me with its horrors, but somehow I always think I'm lulled into understanding the level of their depravity. And then somebody shows me it's deeper than I thought. But I really, I mean, I'm sure I'll have said it in the introduction, I'll record separately too. But, um, you know, I, we should have more of the partial historians on my show to tell me about Rome. So you and your co-host, but speaking of that, do you want to share with my listeners where they could find you? And maybe the podcast I already named?

• 1:41:57Speaker 03

  Ooh, yes.

• 1:41:58Liv Albert?

  Anything else?

• 1:42:00Speaker 03

  So I and Dr. Rad host a podcast called The Partial Historians, which is all about ancient Rome. And our main series is going year by year through Roman history.

• 1:42:14Liv Albert?

  That's so cool.

• 1:42:16Speaker 03

  Look, it, I think we're in the running for longest running year by year Roman podcast. At this point in time, we are currently in the fourth century BCE, which is considered the start of the Middle Republic.

• 1:42:30Liv Albert?

  I was gonna say that's so early in Rome. I love this read dive.

• 1:42:34Speaker 03

  We've been podcasting for over a decade now. We're getting there slowly, but surely. Um, so you can find The Partial Historians on places like Instagram, places like Blue Sky. And I continue to run our Mastodon account because I still like Mastodon. We're also on Facebook for old people, you know, welcome. Um, we have a YouTube channel and you can listen to us wherever you listen to exciting podcasts. Sometimes we talk about the reception of Rome in cinema. Sometimes we talk to special guests about areas of Rome that we don't know as much about because it's impossible to be an expert on everything. And we have a lot of fun along the way. We like to laugh.

• 1:43:20Speaker 03

  We have a good time. I'd say we're pretty solidly left as well. So.

• 1:43:24Liv Albert?

  Heck, yeah. I mean, and, and to wrap that right in, like, you're also part of the Memory Collective, which it, it will, I promise, be a thing that really exists more fully eventually soon. When I find more hours in the day, but I'm, I'm so glad to have you guys on with whatever the hell we're trying to do here. But like, I mean, I brought it up for the lefty thing. Cause I'm like, I mean, if you weren't who you are.

• 1:43:53Speaker 03

  You wouldn't be in there.

• 1:43:57Speaker 03

  It's because you do the things you do the way you.

• 1:44:00Liv Albert?

  Yeah. And I love it. No, but I really, I mean, you guys are so always so fun to talk to you. And this was fun, even though it was horrifying. And I think that says a lot about the way you talk about the Vestals. So.

• 1:44:11Speaker 03

  Thank you. Well, it is always an absolute pleasure to sit down with you, Liv, because your passion for the ancient world is so present and shining through in everything that you do that.

• 1:44:24Liv Albert?

  God, thank you.

• 1:44:25Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's like your, your vibe is bringing that enthusiasm to stuff. And I find that that's really inspiring for me and for what I do as well. And, you know, always a pleasure. Absolutely.

• 1:44:40Liv Albert?

  I'm at a place where you could make me cry. No, but thank you a lot. I, especially as I like, oh my God, I want to do so much with the collective, but I don't have the time. But I needed to hear that after. So thank you. It's like, I'm working on it. There's just so much and the world is on fire.

• 1:44:54Speaker 03

  That's true. And, you know, there's only so many hours in the day and some of those have got to be sleeping hours.

• 1:45:00Liv Albert?

  That's exactly right.

• 1:45:01Speaker 03

  So important to restore yourself at the end of the struggle.

• 1:45:05Liv Albert?

  Truly, truly. We love sleep. Um, well, that, I mean, yeah. Uh, thank you again so much. This is me trying to wrap it up without it just the last word being sleep. I wasn't ready for that. No, but this has been so fun. And also, oh my God, horrifying.

• 1:45:24Speaker 03

  Welcome to Ancient Rome.

• 1:45:42Liv Albert?

  Oh, thank you all so much for listening, as always. Jesus fucking Christ, the world's a goddamn mess, isn't it? I don't even, I want to say so much about Gaza, but I also just want to cry all of the time, so, um, just if, again, if, um, I don't even know what to say anymore. They, the UN even decided to finally say the truth out loud that Israel is committing a genocide against the Palestinian people, and so none of our countries have any excuse to let this go on any further, and yet they are. Israel has begun a ground invasion of Gaza, which is, let me remind you, a city that survived

• 1:46:23Liv Albert?

  the Bronze Age collapse, but it won't, it, it, I don't even, I won't, I won't say that. I, it's a city that survived the Bronze Age collapse, and we, I, I don't, scream in the streets, call everyone, "Free Palestine."

• 1:46:44Liv Albert?

  Oh my God. Let's talk about Miss Baby, is written and produced by me, Liv Albert. Michaela Pangwisch is the Hermes to my Olympians, my incredible producer. The podcast is part of the Memory Collective Podcast Network, where you can also find The Partial Historians, which is the incredible podcast of Dr. G and Dr. Rad, these incredible Australian historian women. I don't know why I'm empathizing with their Australian, it's just delightful, and they're delightful, and they have such an amazing show about ancient Rome, and we all need more shows about places like ancient Rome that are created by women. So, check them out, along with all the other shows. There's more coming soon, as soon as I am no longer drowning in Odysseus's bullshit.

• 1:47:29Liv Albert?

  Thank you. I am Liv, and I love this shit.

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• 1:49:59Liv Albert?

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• 1:50:44Liv Albert?

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