We had reached the Temple of Vesta anyway. Destroyed in the Great Fire in Nero’s time, it had been quickly rebuilt, still on the ancient model: a mock round hut. In fact it was now a solid marble construction, standing on a high, stepped podium and surrounded by the famous columns and carved latticework. Smoke wreathed through a hole in the circular roof from the Sacred Fire below. At present the temple doors were open. Praetors, consuls, and dictators would sacrifice before this flame upon taking up office, but a mere Procurator of Poultry would have to find a damned good excuse before he dared approach the sanctum.
Within the temple I knew there was never an image of Vesta, only the hearth representing the life, welfare, and unity of the Roman state, shaded by a sacred laurel tree. Also there was the Palladium, an obscure article said by some to be an image of Athene/Minerva though others doubted it; whatever it was, the Palladium acted as a talisman protecting Rome, and guarding it was one of the main tasks entrusted to the Virgins. Since the public was kept out by a walled enclosure, the chances of the precious talisman being spirited away by some light-fingered wrongdoer were slim. You could not sell it, anyway. Pa once told me that since nobody knew what it looked like, the Palladium had no value as collectable art.
The Vestals were attending to their chores as we arrived. They were one short in number, of course, the position to be filled by tomorrow’s lottery. Five of them, led by the pouchy-eyed Chief Vestal, who looked as if she were having trouble with hot flushes nowadays, were here in their old-fashioned white woollen dresses, tied under the bust with girdles in Hercules knots that would never be unfastened by lovers, their hair bound up in bridal complexity and fastened with bands and ribbons. They had to tend the flame, since if it ever died it was an ill omen for the city; they would be scourged for the offense by the Pontifex Maximus, currently Vespasian, who was known for his strict views on traditional virtues. They also had to carry out daily purification rites, which would include sprinkling water from the Sacred Spring all around the temple. (One of them emerged carrying the ritual mop made from a horse’s tail with which they performed this function.) Later they would be busy making salt cakes for religious purposes. They would say prayers and attend sacrifices, with veiled heads.
Each Vestal was attended by a lictor. Since even the Praetor’s lictor was obliged to lower his ceremonial fasces if a Virgin approached, the Vestals’ lictors were notoriously cocky. The maidens themselves might represent the antique simplicity of life enjoyed by a king’s daughters back in the mists of time, but their modern guards were never slow in coming forward to stamp on your foot. These men were lounging in the enclosure, which it was possible to enter, though doing so caused suspicion even of a perfectly respectable procurator accompanied by his serene patrician wife and a demure female child. Inside the complex were an ostentatiously large shrine and the guarded entrance to the Vestals’ House. It was perfectly clear I stood no chance of reaching the house or of bypassing the lictors to get into the temple. All I could do was to stand with my womenfolk, looking pious, while the Virgins paraded from the temple straight inside their menacing home. Cloelia kicked me when one of the youngest dames passed by, to let me know that was Constantia.
Helena Justina marched boldly to the entrance gate and requested a formal interview. She even said she had information that touched on the forthcoming lottery. Her name was taken by an attendant in that bureaucratic manner that means Don’t bother to stay at home waiting for a messenger.
We stood around for a while like stale bread rolls after a party. Eventually we decided to leave, for a change making our way up the long stairway that led to the Via Nova in the deep shade of the Palatine. At the top of the steps I turned and looked back for a moment, because the view over the Forum is worth a breather any day. Suddenly Helena grabbed my arm. People were now coming out of a door in the back of the Vestals’ House. A small group headed by a lictor had emerged, at the center of which was the Virgin who must be on that day’s rota to fetch water from Egeria’s Spring for the House of the Vestals itself (to which no proper piped water had ever been led). Bearing on her head one of the special pitchers that the Vestals had to use, by good fortune today’s water-carrier was Constantia.
As the white-clad maiden made her way along the well-trodden route, Cloelia grabbed Helena and me by the hand and towed us along after her.
XXVIII
PAST THE DUST and commotion of the huge building site for the Flavian Amphitheatre and then beyond the massive plinth for the Temple of Claudius, which Vespasian was also at last completing out of gratitude to his political patron, lay the Caelian Hill. This quiet, wooded haven looks south over the Capena Gate and the Circus Maximus. It is one of the most ancient, unspoiled parts of the city, the rocky hillside rich with springs. They were originally the province of water goddesses called the Camenae, but the nymph Egeria, saucy lass, rather usurped their dominance. Here is the famous grove where King Numa Pompilius consulted (his word for it) the darling nymph night after night while she (he alleged) dictated political edicts to him; here too is the spring named after his lovely, helpful muse, to which the Vestals daily traipse.
Egeria’s Spring must have been extremely handy for the Palace of King Numa. He would not have had too long a stroll in his search for inspiration. (One more example, Helena explains to me, of a dumb but well-intentioned man in power being brought to greater glory than he ever deserved by a much more intelligent lady friend.) Egeria kept old Numa going strong to over eighty, anyway.
Constantia approached the ancient watering hole with the stately gait that her sisterhood cultivates. Carrying a water vessel on the head is supposed to improve the posture; it certainly draws attention to a full womanly figure in a way that is not supposed to happen with the damsels in white. Having a girdle tied in a Hercules knot right under a well-rounded bust is bound to draw attention to the bust. Generations of Vestals have probably been well aware of this. Constantia no doubt viewed such thoughts with disdain. She looked to be in her early twenties; she must have completed the first ten years of learning her duties and was now equipped to carry them out in a reverential-though slightly distracting-style.
While Constantia was filling the pitcher, Helena Justina took Cloelia by the hand and-with gestures to me to wait behind-they walked sedately forwards. Helena addressed the Virgin by name. The lictor immediately told Helena to get lost. Offered the threatening points of his ceremonial rods, she backed away.
Constantia, perhaps long practiced, had ignored the small flurry as her petitioners were discouraged. Now the pitcher was full it was much heavier; she needed to concentrate. She swung it up on to her head, straight-backed and superior. I began to appreciate that the complex arrangements of braids worn by the Virgins might actually make a coiled mat to support their water jars and save them bruised heads. Eyes straight ahead like a tightrope walker, the Vestal moved to retrace her steps back to the Forum. She held her free arm very slightly apart from her body for balance, but mainly swayed gently as women in far-off provinces do as they visit wells outside their mudhut villages, appearing to enjoy their carrying skills.
The stones around Egeria’s shrine were green with slimy algae. Constantia seemed to be prepared for trouble. When her foot slipped, she regained her balance with commendable aplomb. Only a little water slopped out of her jar. It probably happened every day-and every day, Constantia probably looked just as annoyed when her ankle turned.
Helena was still standing nearer than I was. I think what she muttered to me afterwards, keeping it quiet from Cloelia with a genuinely shocked air, must have been a mistake. She surely misheard what Constantia had gasped as she skidded.
“Well, you believe what you like, Marcus. You are so innocent, I expect you would have thought Numa Pompilius was just a man who liked to work with a female secretary. Egeria proved to be efficient, and of course he never laid a finger on the nymph… But I could swear that when the venerable Virgin nearly turned her ankle, she winced and cursed.”
Little Cloelia looked up scornfully. “Of course she did, Helena. She said ‘Balls!’ ”
XXIX
