Down in the Forum, look for a long courtyard lined with statues of women, with the remains of a large house behind it. This was the home of the Vestal Virgins, and their story is the strangest kind of power the Roman world produced. Because in a city run by emperors who could kill anyone on a whim, these six women were, in some ways, the freest people in Rome.
They were chosen as little girls, between six and ten years old, and bound to thirty years of service — ten spent learning, ten serving, ten teaching the next generation. The whole order traced back, in legend, to a Vestal named Rhea Silvia, said to be the mother of Romulus himself. So the priesthood that guarded the city's flame was tied, from the very start, to the city's birth.
Their job was to keep the sacred flame of the city burning and never let it go out. In return, they got things no other Roman woman could dream of. They could own property and write their own wills, at a time when most women were legally controlled by
a father or husband. They had front-row seats at the games. They safeguarded the wills of the most powerful men in Rome — Caesar himself left his will in their care. And if a condemned prisoner being led to execution happened to cross paths with a Vestal, he was pardoned on the spot. Their status was so high that even emperors handled them carefully. A Vestal's reserved seat at the games came wit
