Temple of Vesta

It was an ancient custom at Rome, continued down to the time of the Gracchi, 131 B.C., for the Pontifex Maximus, the head of the Pontifical College or Corporation, to write down every year the most remarkable events and to publish them on wooden tablets for the information of the people.

These tablets were preserved in the Regia, the official dwelling of the chief pontiff near the Temple of Vesta on the Roman Forum.

The attention of the sacerdotal chroniclers, it is true, was directed not so much to political transactions as to occurrences which were looked upon as manifestations of the divine will, such as dearth, famine, pestilence, inundations, earthquakes, and eclipses of the sun and moon.

The anger of the gods on such occasions was averted by expiatory sacrifices which the pontiffs prescribed.

Every house, gens, or association of families had its sanctuary.

So had the curia or association of houses, every quarter of a town, every tribe, and finally the state itself.

The temple of Vesta was the symbolic hearth of the whole nation in the old Sabino-Latin town.

The temple of Jupiter erected by the Tarquins on the Capitol was the center of the enlarged state.

Um, so you know, that's, it's a kind of a status thing to be able to make a will, and you put your will somewhere safe, I guess like we do.

Antony's will has been left i- in the Temple of Vesta with the Vestal Virgins, which is apparently where I'm hanging out-

That's what you should've been looking for-

[laughs]

Though Rome being Rome, and Octavian being Octavian, there must be a legal pretext.

In 32 BC, Octavian storms into the Temple of Vesta, repository of Rome's important documentation.

Pushing past its guardians, the Vestal Virgins, he seizes Antony's last will and testament.

It is a highly illegal act, but no matter.

None of them was at all finished, but the hasty blocking in showed considerable vigor, and the subjects were at least original.

There was no Castle of St. Angelo with a boatman in the foreground, and no Temple of Vesta set off by a line of scarlet seminarists.

One of the chalk drawings was of an old chestnut woman crouched over a charcoal fire.

Another was of the octroi officer under the tall arch of the San Giovanni gate, prodding the contents of a donkey cart with a steel rod.

An artistic souvenir of Rome is made by buying a copy of the marble faun, or Roba de Roma, in the Tauchnitz edition, and inserting the vignette photographs of the places described, mounted on fresh pages, binding the hole in the lovely Roman vellum, which has the advantage, when soiled, of being easily made white and spotless again, by washing with soap and water.

At one time, the arrangement of these albums was so much the fashionable amusement among foreigners, who could neither sketch nor paint such charming bits of antiquity as the Temple of Vesta, Hilda's Tower, or the Ghetto Bazaars, that complete sets of the photographs arranged in regular order could always be had in the print and bookshops.

In ending as in the beginning this paper on Rome, I can but express the conviction that to a sculptor it has everything to offer.

From the Vatican, Capitol, New Museum, Ludovici, and so many other collections, to even the street fountains, and the strong conceptions of the modern Monteverdi, all are for the worker in clay.

Not many people, honestly, have heard about much, at least about the pontifiques or the augures, but the Vestals definitely have a reputation.

Their job was to keep a perpetual flame burning in their temple of Vesta, the goddess of the hearth, in the city centre.

and also to keep absolutely virginal while they were priestesses.

And if they broke that vow of chastity they were buried alive.

But if you come to Rome and you want to find the Vestals, your best chance is to go to the Forum, where their temple is.

There's six of them, six priestesses.

And as we've said, their main obligation, they had others, was to tend the perpetual flame of the city day and night, which burned in their temple, the temple of Vesta, the goddess of the hearth.

And it wasn't just about kind of keeping warm or giving light.

These women carry a lot of responsibility on their shoulders in terms of maintaining the relationship with the gods.

Partly, this is because the fire in the Temple of Vesta is thought to be the original fire of the world.

This is the first point of significance.

If that fire goes out for any reason, it is considered a sign that the vessels are not doing their job properly and Enkestum could be at play.

They become this visual and symbolic representation of the power of Rome to be able to continue to be powerful.

Part of this is not just about the flame itself, but also about the things that are then stored inside the temple.

There are a couple of things that we think were kept inside the Temple of Vesta.

One of them is the palladium.

Dilapidated old houses, some of them partly pulled down with rooms showing, stood between classical ruins.

Passing some detached houses which looked as if they had been forgotten in the general destruction, they reached the piazza by the Vesta Temple.

Behind the big new steam mill and the lovely little church with a pillared portico and the slender tower, the Aventino rose distinct against the sunny sky, with the monasteries on the hill and dust-gray nameless ruins among the gardens on the slope.

The thing that always gave him a shock, in Germany and in Florence, was that the ruins he had read about and imagined standing in a romantic frame of green leaves with flowers in the crevices, as you see them in old etchings or on the scenery in a theater, were in reality dirty and shabby, with bits of paper, dented, empty tins and rubbish lying about.