page_title: Vestal Virgin
section_title: Duties
hierarchical_section_title: Vestal Virgin / Terms of service / Duties
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Roma, Foro Romano, Casa delle Vestali, lato occidentale, e tempio di Vesta, dal Palatino. Foto personale (maggio 2005) by MM in it.wiki. English: Description: House of the Vestals, western side, and the Temple of Vesta.
context_page_description: In ancient Rome, the Vestals or Vestal Virgins were priestesses of Vesta, goddess of the hearth. The College of the Vestals was regarded as fundamental to the continuance and security of Rome. These individuals cultivated the sacred fire that was not allowed to go out. Vestals were freed of the usual social obligations to marry and bear children and took a 30-year vow of chastity in order to devote themselves to the study and correct observance of state rituals that were forbidden to the colleges of male priests.
context_section_description: Their tasks included the maintenance of the fire sacred to Vesta, the goddess of the hearth and home, collecting water from a sacred spring, preparation of food used in rituals and caring for sacred objects in the temple's sanctuary. By maintaining Vesta's sacred fire, from which anyone could receive fire for household use, they functioned as "surrogate housekeepers", in a religious sense, for all of Rome. Their sacred fire was treated, in Imperial times, as the emperor's household fire.
  The Vestals were put in charge of keeping safe the wills and testaments of various people such as Caesar and Mark Antony. In addition, the Vestals also guarded some sacred objects, including the Palladium, and made a special kind of flour called mola salsa which was sprinkled on all public offerings to a god.
caption: House of the Vestals and Temple of Vesta from the Palatine
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