Law, Religion, and Constitution of the Vestal Virgins
2010; Routledge; Volume: 22; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1525/lal.2010.22.3.418
ISSN1541-2601
Autores Tópico(s)Classical Antiquity Studies
ResumoAbstractThe aim of this paper is to put the Vestals at the center of legal, religious, and political life in the Roman republic as was done by lawyers, historians, and poets. With their virgin bodies they represented the separation of the legal, religious, and political spheres of Roman life, the domestication of raw power through division. As sovereign figures, the Vestals would wander freely among the religious world of the aedes Vestae, in which they were subject to the sacral jurisdiction of the pontifex maximus, the legal world, where they acted as personae sui iuris, and the political Rome, in which magistrates would honor them as symbols of the state, lowering their fasces before the Vestals’ “public virginity.” As a “living constitution” or “totem” of the republic, the Vestals stood as guardians at the border of civilization and chaos.Keywords: Vestal virginvirginitygenderpriesthoodunchastitysovereignitysacral lawconstitutional lawcivil law Notes1. 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Proceedings against Fabia, a half-sister of Cicero’s first wife, Terentia, among other proceedings, were held in the aftermath of Catiline’s conspiracy in 73 bc: Cicero Cat. 3, 9. On this subject, see R. G. Lewis, “Catilina and the Vestal,” 51.1 The Classical Quarterly 141–49 (2001) [Google Scholar].139. Fundamentally, Friedrich Münzer, “Die römischen Vestalinnen bis zur Kaiserzeit,” 92 Philologus 47–67, 199–222 (1937) [Google Scholar].140. A list of convictions and acquittals is given by Mekacher, supra note 15, at 259.141. An impressive example is Livius’ account of the conviction of the Vestal Oppia in 483 bc, Livy 2, 42, 9–11. The events took on their own almost inevitable dynamics. See Parker, supra note 12, at 579ff.142. Fundamentally, René Girard, Der Sündenbock (Zürich: Benziger, 1988) [Google Scholar].143. Koschorke et al., supra note 14, at 37.144. 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