by Ken Parejko
The hearth and the fire it holds are the focal point of family life and symbolic of its warmth. Just as the wife in each of our households must keep the hearth fire alive, in the Forum there is a temple to Vesta which holds an eternal flame, tended not by one but a sodality of six women, the Vestal Virgins. When it comes time to replace one of the Virgins girls aged six to ten are nominated from among the city’s more prominent families. Just as it is an honor to have a son in the collegium pontificum, it is an honor to have a daughter serving as a Vestal Virgin. Rome’s highest priest, the Pontifex Maximus, approves the short list of twenty candidates, and from these one is chosen by lot to serve as a Virgin. Since Julius Caesar’s time the emperor is the Pontifex Maximus. So it is that this morning Vespasian would be choosing a new Virgin. Symbolically all of them are his wives, and from the moment she is installed he will refer to her as amata, his lover. In a sense having six wives demonstrates his potency. But the relationship is purely symbolic: in fact, she is sworn to a vow of celibacy.
Once chosen the new Vestal will move in with the other five, the only full-time residents of the Forum, who live a cloistered life near the temple in which their sacred fire burns, and where all necessities of life are provided them.
Images of the other goddesses are scattered across the empire in statues, amulets and paintings, but not of Vesta, who is represented instead by the image of a flame: the flame in her temple, and all the fires in all the hearths of the city and beyond. The six Virgins take turns hovering over the temple’s flame, two at a time for eight hours, feeding it the oil it consumes. If the fire goes out on a particular watch, the attending Vestals are whipped. The death of the fire is seen as evidence of immorality, the goddess Vesta refusing to cooperate with a priestess who is no longer a virgin.
Becoming a Vestal has its rewards. They preside at official banquets, where they are allowed to share the sumptuous food, drink and entertainment. They travel through the city in carriages, a privilege allowed only a very few women, and while traveling are proceeded by lictors to whom even praetors are required to give way. While other women are required to sit far back from the stage or amphitheater’s arena, they have seats next to the imperial box, though they aren’t allowed to attend any performances in which naked men take part. Vestals are even allowed to own property: while serving they escape control of the patria potestas, the power of the paternity, which controls the life of all other women. When they take their vows they are given a cash payment, a kind of dowry from the state, which they can then invest as they see fit. Only the Vestals among women can inherit property or bequeath their belongings to others. And only emperors and Vestals can be buried inside the city’s walls.
But being chosen as a Vestal comes with a price. They give up their lives to the sodality of Vestals and so can have neither children nor normal family life. But the worst that can happen is being suspected of breaking the vow of chastity. Vesta’s rites are only to be performed by virgins. It's official doctrine that a Vestal who isn't a virgin by taking part in their rites will anger Vesta, which can bring catastrophe onto her country and its leaders. During good times this presents little danger. But if bad fortune strikes while one of them is suspected-- a plague, the illness of an emperor, defeat in battle – she feels the full wrath of the city. She will be arrested, officially charged, and brutally tried. The emperor’s attorneys will bring evidence of her guilt into court. Her fate will likely depend more on the course of events than on the facts of the case. If the affairs of state take a turn for the better, she’s likely to be acquitted. But if the danger to the empire continues and the gods seem in need of appeasing, she becomes a sacrificial victim. The man accused of taking away her virginity is flogged to death. He is the lucky one.
Once her accused lover is executed she too will be treated as dead, wrapped in a linen shroud and carried on a bier from prison to the Campus Scleratus which I was just leaving behind as my servants began the uphill climb toward Vespasian’s palace.
The execution of a Vestal draws a crowd to see her wrapped in her shroud, pulled off the bier, and forced down a narrow ladder into an underground chamber dug into the Campus Scleratus. The Pontifex Maximus who’d appointed her offers a prayer, asking Vesta’s forgiveness for the city’s sake. The door covering the chamber is lowered and covered with earth. Inside she finds a candle, a chalice of water, a loaf of bread, and a bed to lie on. The chamber has become her tomb, buried alive for breaking her vows of chastity. I shuddered over the terror there must have been for the guilty virgin as well as the innocent, to watch the lid of the chamber close, hear the earth piling onto it, and then the candle burning slowly down to finally flicker out, and to know that in the chill darkness of that chamber would come a slow, painful suffocation. Planted there in the Fields of Unhappiness and the ground leveled over their agonies they become anonymous unremembered and unforgiven souls.
Leaving the Fields of Unhappiness behind I breathed more easily, glad to see the sun poking its head over the eastern hills, glad too for Vespasian’s sake that Camilia Secundilla had died of natural causes and had not been charged with venery.
Set down at Vespasian’s door I climbed off the litter and my carriers went their way to catch a bite of breakfast and take a break. The carpenters and plumbers had not yet arrived. The house was quiet. A guard let me in. I made my way to Vespasian’s bedroom, where I found him lounging in bed, slurping up a big bowl of his favorite alica, a millet porridge cooked in cream and sweetened with a touch of honey.
“So, my friend,” he said, putting the bowl aside, smiling. “What wonder of nature do you bring me today?”
“I’ve discovered an interesting conjunction of natural and human prodigies,” I said, accepting a bowl of porridge and lifting a spoonful to my mouth. “It’s wonderful honey.”
“Spring honey,” Vespasian agreed, “from Sicily. It’s very nice, you know, being emperor. A nod and the best olives from Picenum are rushed to me, Syrian dates or honey from Sicily. Yes,” he said, leaning back into his pillow, cleaning his teeth with a golden toothpick. “I could get used to it. Now what is this double prodigy of yours?.”
“Last night while reading Hipparchus I discovered he’s predicted an eclipse of the sun and the moon in February of next year.”
“Two eclipses in one month, well then, that is a prodigy!”
“The sun, on the eighth day of the month, and the moon on the twenty-second.” I took another spoonful of alica. When I’d finished chewing I went on. “To me the prodigy is not so much the eclipses themselves. For thousands of years humankind beat drums and shouted to scare the evil spirits away, the ones who were eating the sun and moon. No, the real prodigy is that thanks to scientists like Hipparchus and Thales we're rid of that silliness. That we can not only explain these prodigies by natural causes but even predict them, well, that goes so far beyond the old way that as I sat last night reading Hipparchus, I came almost to tears.”
Vespasian smiled. “Yes, the human mind is a prodigy,” he agreed. “Speaking of which...”
Musonius Rufus, who sometimes joined our breakfasts, entered the room.
“We were just talking about you,” Vespasian said to Musonius.
“Oh? And what were you saying?” Musonius pulled up a stool. A servant brought him a bowl of porridge.
“Pliny here was just remarking the wonders of the human mind, when you came in to prove his point.”
Musonius smiled. “It’s a bit early for that, isn’t it?” He set the porridge aside. “Whose mind were you remarking?” he asked.
“Hipparchus. He’s cast an eclipse for us in the coming February, of both sun and moon,” I said.
“I suppose I ought to announce it,” Vespasian said, “and soon, before it becomes common knowledge. After all as emperor I’m in charge of such things, aren’t I? I mean, eclipses, earthquakes, volcanoes...” He laughed to himself. “Keeps me busy, managing the Empire and all those natural prodigies. Poor Jupiter, think of how busy
he must be!”
“I came here via the Campus Sceleratus,” I noted.
“So it's business already?” Vespasian kidded. “Give us a few moment’s rest, my friend.”
“Business?” Musonius asked.
“I have to replace the Virgin Secundilla,” Vespasian reminded him.
“You know, it's such a contrast, Hipparchus on the one hand and this terrible thing of burying a Vestal alive. I couldn’t help but think if my mother or sister Plinia as victims of such a horror.”
“Yes,” Vespasian agreed. “It is horrible. But there is a story you told me once, from Theophrastus. Tell it again, will you?”
“Which story?” I asked. Many of my stories came from Theophrastus.
“The one about the farmer and the mouse. Have you heard it?” he asked Musonius, who chewing his millet nodded he hadn’t.
“Well,” I said. “I’ll make it short. This farmer is losing grain to some mice. So he goes to an oracle, and asks what he should do. The oracle, a down-to-earth kind of guy, says look, there's a hole in the grain-bag, right? The farmer agreed. And the mice eat the grain that spills out of the hole, right? Yes, the farmer nodded. Do you have any money at all? The oracle asks. A few pennies, the farmer says, offering them to the oracle. No, no, the oracle says, keep your pennies. Have the hole mended and that’ll take care of it. Okay?”
“Right, the farmer answers then instead of following the oracle’s advice to have the bag mended runs off to a temple and buys a sacrifice to the gods to make the mice go away.”
Vespasian shook his head. “Theophrastus is right. The dear little people, love them as we do, seem to need their superstitions.”
A servant brought us a platter piled with bread, fresh cheese and smoked grapes. Vespasian was the first to reach for some cheese. “Come on,” he said, “dig in. I'm not Lycurgus, and this is not Sparta.”
“Let us hope not,” Musonius remarked. “We love our freedom too much to be Spartans. We, anyway the three of us, are free. But not so our servants, or wives, or what Vespasian calls his dear little people.”
“Exactly,” I agreed. “That’s why they need their magic. They've so little control over their lives. Magic at least gives them the illusion of control.”
“So,” Vespasian interrupted, “How can we get this superstitious monkey off the people’s back? No one has less control over their lives than our women, and no one is as superstitious as they. Mostly we, I mean us men, we go to the temple or light our incense by our lares in a practical sort of way, right? Just in case...But the women, why they're caught up in it heart and soul.”
“So at last we agree,” Musonius interrupted, “that the first step to freeing ourselves of this nonsense is to grant women the rights they deserve. And of course, as I’ve always said, the best way to do that is to educate them as we educate our men.”
“Are you suggesting...” Vespasian was about to ask, munching a grape. But Musonius wouldn’t let him continue.
“When you were selling mules,” he asked the emperor, who had slipped out of bed and walked to look out the window of his bedroom, “you trained the female mules along with the males, didn't you? Bitches are trained to hunt as easily as male dogs. It’s only in our own kind that we treat the sexes differently, as though the virtues we hold in esteem, common sense, courage, justice, moderation, don’t apply to both sexes. Remember a few days ago, my friend,” he addressed the emperor, “when you and Pliny argued that knowledge is a prerequisite for virtue? Well, we expect our women to uphold the virtues, yet we deny them the education they need to practice them!”
Vespasian looked out the window. “The sun has arrived!” he announced. “Well said, my friend. I agree with you. But I need to remind you,” he offered, “I’ve come to reform the empire, not turn it upside down.”
“Then you’re not so powerful as people think,” Musonius rejoined.
Vespasian stood between us, his two favorite advisers. He stretched his aging limbs. “Powerful? I can get what I want to eat, or bring in the best harpist from Attica, or condemn man or woman on the frailest of charges. But no, I can’t order an earthquake or an eclipse, heal a truly blind man, or bring about the kind of changes you’d like.”
An aide entered and announced that it was time for the morning salutatio – the usual crowd of well-wishers had gathered in the atrium and were waiting for Vespasian to show himself. He dressed quickly and left the two of us alone. The crowd in the atrium was large. On accession he’d discarded Claudius’ rule of only allowing the privilege of the salutatio to a select few. No, in as many ways as possible, Vespasian’s reign would be open to the public.
Musonius and I finished our breakfasts, remarking the empire’s good fortune in our friend’s accession.
“Yes but a good fortune not shared by all,” Musonius added. “I’ve been thinking lately of that class even below slaves or women.”
“Yes?”
“I mean the little infants, bless them, born with a defect.”
My heart rose, and sank. “I’ll tell you something I’ve told no-one before,” I confessed. “I had a brother, once, a nameless, unspeakable one, who I called Aulus.” I paused a moment. “If only I could forget...”
Musonius was quiet. “Ah. I didn’t know. If we could talk of such things I think we’d find they are more common than we know, and I believe most people feel as we do. It’s by making it taboo that this horror can continue. I’m sorry.” We sat in silence for a moment, then Musonius went on. “So long as he lets me into his chambers I'll keep reminding him of the downtrodden.”
“Yes,” I sighed. “At heart he’s a commoner, and knows them, at heart. It would be easy from his position to forget them. I think it’s why he lets you in. You are his conscience.”
“Do you think so?” Musonius mused. “I never thought of it that way. And, you too. Perhaps a man in his position needs more than one conscience.”
We walked together out of Vespasian’s bedroom and into the noisy chatter of the crowd come to greet the emperor, a crowd which hadn’t like us showed up to discuss the injustices of the empire but in hopes of a job or appointment which would make them rich. But most didn't know that the rules had changed and the more obsequious they were and the more they asked for, the less likely they were to be given anything.
Chap. 15
Hispania Tarraconensis
February, 73 C.E.
“..from the midst of a cloud of dust,
of a density quite incredible,
the victorious miners gaze upon
this downfall of Nature...
And yet we must hew down these
mountains, and carry them off,
and this for no
other reason than to gratify our
luxurious inclinations...
Pliny, Natural History, 33.21; 36.1
I was riding through a shrub-spotted valley ringed by rugged dry mountains when, noticing a small flowering cactus, I dismounted and knelt over it. I knew that the flower, a lovely yellow tinged with orange, would in time become a fruit. I wondered if the fruit was edible. I’d never tasted one, though many can be eaten and some are even cultivated. I touched the blossom, leathery with wax, swarming with pretty little green flies. A finch lighted on a nearby shrub and poured out an elaborate melody, high in the upper ranges at the very edge of my hearing.
I held the speckled mare’s reins and scanned the valley, alive with blooms. The sky was a deep, clear blue. Over a low ridge to the north I noticed a small cloud of dust, which as I watched grew eastward.
This was interesting. I swung myself onto the mare and started up the road. I wished Lucius was with me. At Ostia we’d had to board separate ships and though we left together we were separated two days into the trip by a nasty storm, one of the winter’s last.
I was to land at Tarraco but the storm took us south to New Carthage. I've no idea what happened to Lucius. A merchant ship, the Nehalennia, was heading up the coast day after tomorr
ow. As the newly-appointed subprocurator of Hispania Tarraconensis, in charge of the province’s finances, I'm given priority and a guaranteed passage. With a free day before I embarked, I borrowed a horse and decided to explore the countryside. I rode out of New Carthage into this lovely Spanish spring. Closer to the city the landscape was more civilized, the maquis having given way to the machete and hoe, where small land-holdings had a tenuous grip on the land, with their vegetable and herb gardens and small fields of madder, the dye used for the bright red Colossian wool our legionaries wear. Olive groves and vineyards made the countryside seem almost like home to me. I saw saffron beds too, fed by canals from a pretty little stream running down the valley.
As I rode farther into the countryside the landscape became wilder. Here the maquis was in full bloom, spread across the valley and rising up in many-colored patches toward the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Here though I was alone I kept a close eye out. I’d been warned that our foothold on this land was tenuous, the natives unpredictable, and the farther I strayed from the city the more dangerous it would be.
A rider rounded a hillock from the west. He was one of ours. I hailed him and learned a mine accident had raised the dust cloud I'd seen. I mounted and broke my horse in that direction. She rode solidly and tractable. It had been several years since I’d been on horseback. By the time I turned onto the cut-off leading up to the mine my back, legs and bottom were sore. As I dismounted I had to catch my breath. I walked up a slope covered with russet mine-tailings. Here the shrubs and native herbs had died, unable to survive the tailings.
