A vestal Virgin, engraving by Sir Frederick Leighton, ca 1890: Leighton's artistic sense has won over his passion for historical accuracy in showing the veil over the Vestal's head at sacrifices, the suffibulum, as translucent, instead of fine white wool

In Ancient Rome, the Vestal Virgins were the virgin holy priestesses of Vesta, the goddess of the hearth. Their primary task was to maintain the sacred fire of Vesta. The Vestal duty brought great honor and afforded greater privileges to women who served in that role.

Priestess Code

There were six Vestal virgins. The high priest (Pontifex Maximus) chose, by lot, young girls to serve in the order. They left the house of their father, were inducted by the Pontifex Maximus and their hair was shorn. Now they were under the protection of the Goddess. The Vestal virgins were committed to the priesthood at a young age (before puberty) and were sworn to celibacy. The punishment for violating the oath of celibacy was to be buried alive in an underground chamber with a few days of food and water to prolong the punishment. They served for thirty years, after which they could marry if they chose. Few took the opportunity to leave their respected role in luxurious surroundings to submit themselves to the authority of a man, with all the restrictions placed on women by Roman law.

The dignities accorded to the Vestals were significant. Wherever they went, they were accompanied by a lictor; at public games they had a reserved place of honor; unlike most Roman women, they were free to dispose of their property; they gave evidence without the customary oath; they were, on account of their incorruptible character, intrusted with important wills and public treaties; their person was sacrosanct: death was the penalty for injuring their person, their escort protected anyone from assault, and even to meet them by chance saved a criminal who was being led away to punishment.

Their task was to maintain the fire sacred to Vesta, the goddess of the hearth and home. Letting the fire die out was a serious offence, and punished by execution. The fire was rekindled in this case by "the rays of the sun". The exact method is unclear. By maintaining Hestia's sacred fire, from which anyone could receive it 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. It burned until AD 391, when the Emperor Theodosius I's decreees forbade public pagan worship, had the fire extinguished, closed the Temple of Vesta and disbanded the Vestal Virgins.

The Vestals lived in the Atrium Vestae near the circular Temple of Vesta at the eastern edge of the Roman Forum, near the domus publicae where the Pontifex Maximus dwelled, until that role was taken up by the emperors. The complex lay at the foot of the Palatine Hill, where a sacred grove that was slowly encroached upon lingered into Imperial times, when all was swept away by the Fire of Rome in 64 CE. The House of the Vestals was rebuilt several times in the course of the Empire.

• Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)
• Samuel Ball Platner and Thomas Ashby, A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome