 Today, we are going to talk about priestesses and priests. So I thought, at least as a background image, to give you the Vestal Virgins and Numa and then above my head exploding out is the fire burning on an altar. Hey there in Indiana. So I hope you guys are well and safe wherever you are. We are doing pretty well here in Rome. If you follow along Museum Week, this nice collaboration we have going, I've gone to and I told you, I promise you, we're going to be filming Museo Nazanale Romano for museums and as part of the collaboration Museum Week, they allowed me the extraordinary opportunity to film in Palazzo Altam, one of those museums and I have to let this little somebody is trapped in the room, so one second, okay, so I think you guys are all here and we can get started. But just to say, Monday was Palazzo Altam yesterday was Parco Apia and we're going to be going back to all these places and filming by a great cinematographer, I'm going to be working with. Today, it was Museo Trusco, the Truscan Museum, with the director go to my Facebook page to see that. We'll be loading up other videos from these days, these visits on YouTube, I'm behind on a number of webinars as well, I apologize for those of me going up one at a time, day by day and then tomorrow we are premiering a video, a beautiful video that we did in March called Roads of Arabia, a traveling exhibition that's been traveling for years and years, came to Rome finally in the Basidiocletian Museum, and we were allowed to film with the last day of the exhibition, it's going to give you a great feel for the archeological site as well as some of the collection that is traveling around the world, that was a great opportunity, we're happy to share it with you, tomorrow it premieres at 3 p.m. All the information, hey there, Dana, the Truscan Museum was great, thank you very much, hey Robin, so what we're going to be doing is, we're also starting a lot of collaborations with schools, we have a membership that's coming up to support us annually, a lot of you have contributed, so we thank you so much, that's giving us a lot of momentum and drive and we'll be offering other content as the year moves on, looks like a lot of people will be doing school next year and university virtually, so we'll be here for you, okay, so today's talk is going to be focusing on priests and priestesses, and obviously when we look at Roman religion and we look at women's role in Roman religion, we see time and time again that they remain usually excluded, marginalized, subordinate, and at times even essential if we want to think, say, of the best of burdens, so we will talk about men and women, where the priests perform, what their background is, what their roles are depending on which priestly college, so we're just going to go through and review and talk about men and women in ancient Rome, so the priests, what are they doing, they are then traditionally the ones in charge, they are the ones that are going to be formulating and interpreting sacred law, they are the ones that continually are consulting the gods through different means, augury looking at the birds flying in the sky in the prescribed space, they're consulting sacred texts like the civil line books, they are leaving an extensive epigraphic record of procedures, so in all these accounts then it's pretty much men that are doing this and domestically, everything state versus domestic, who's in charge of the home, the pater familius, so this is the person that makes the sacrifices on behalf of the well-being of the household, the various festivals of the dead, leads to funerary processions, and so forth, so then let's turn to women for a moment before we talk about priestesses, think about how many people are kept traditionally away from the activity of say a sacrifice, women, girls, foreigners, prisoners, you don't want them usually, there are some exceptions, but usually you don't want them near the activity of the sacrifice. Plutarch, famous author, he gives us a lot of information about this, says he addresses the question of why wives were not permitted to grind, grain, or prepare meat at ancient times for their husbands, and then refers to the story of the Vestal Virgins, so an exception of that is going to be the Vestal Virgins themselves, but they are particular figures we'll see shortly because they are by definition Virgins, so they're already in another category, they're not going the normal route that people go, which is getting married and having children and so forth, so they become sacrosanct, they become holy people, so therefore they do special activities that's just not the norm for other women in society. Women also think about this, women are prohibited from drinking undiluted wine, that was for undiluted wines and strong stuff, that was for men during sacrifice and the gods, so let's turn then for a minute about the priestesses, there aren't that many really to look at per se on the grand scale, but looming large is the Vestal Virgins, public priestesses, they do 30 years of service, and by the way for this we do have a great video on HRM Live in the HRM Investi, they are public priestesses that do 30 years, they spend 10 years learning the trade, 10 years practicing, and then 10 years teaching the next one's coming in, so that's 30 years of service, they have a vow of chastity and sexual abstinence, and in a certain sense they are going to be married to ritually at least, not in practice, but to the Pontifex Maximus, so there's a priestly college, we'll get into the priestly colleges afterwards and the Vestal Virgins are in the Pontifical College and the Pontifex Maximus is the one in charge of that priestly college, so they have sacrificial knives, they do participate in some blood rituals, and they have special privileges, they'll have a lictor, they have a bodyguard, they are able to go around in a wagon in the city, very rare, and all kinds of interesting things are associated with them, if they witness a crime, somebody comes to them and asks them for sanctuary, then they are absolved of that crime, but they also have to swear that this wasn't a setup, that they didn't know that person and so on and so forth, so the Vestal Virgins are very very particular and have a lot of perks, it's enough to just think about where the Temple of Vesta is in the form and then where they live to protect that flame, to grind grain and mix it in with salt brine, and that's sprinkled on the sacrificial victims in the city of Rome, but it's something that's been concocted made, this Mola Salza has been made by the hands of the Vestal Virgins, so it has that extra religious um for power. The Fominica is the wife of the Flamen and the Flamen de Alis is the priest and dedicated to uh Jupiter, so they are also going to be then in a special kind of have a special status and um they're going to be uh participating in certain uh processions. Let's turn to the cult of Ceres and her daughter Persephone, um so you have then the practice that versus most of the temples and most of the gods have male priests, this deity and these two deities have priests that are matrons, that is married people, and they have a special privilege along with the Vestal Virgins of administering a public cult and expending public funds, so that's a really interesting religious aspect for the goddess of grain, who is a very important goddess to the Romans, especially when you think about the grain dole and the importance of grain feeding the people of Rome, and you know the participants in the cult are basically matrons and maidens, and there are lots of neutral liturgies, that is a prescribed set of forms for public religious worship, so there are going to be certain instances throughout the year in the calendar when there are going to be sacrifices and it's going to be carried by women, so examples of non-blood sacrifices will be say the noni caprotini, which is geared towards fertility of women, where they are the offering is the sap of the wild fig which is sacred to Juno, so it's kind of like milk if you ever look at the sap of a fig tree, in the matronalia flowers are given to Juno at her temple on the Escoline, so there are many many acts, forms of piety, festivals that are carried out by women for women, the matralia, well-born matrons in the first marriage went to Matamartuta temple at dawn and drive out evil and darkness, April 1st, Venus Ferticordia, Fortuna Virilis, you have rites in the circus maximus and a nearby bathhouse, but essentially they are then the ones that are taking care of those particular cold statues, Fortuna Virilis, so the priestess is a univiera and there's a particular myth associated with it of Coriolanus and in this legend the Roman matron equals the adult male citizen of arms or arm-bearing age and the privilege is limited to just one day and one cult, so you've got these instances in which women are empowered for a particular festival throughout the year, there's limitations on this, there's a kind of cap, but it's like women's day through the year for various aspects, for well-being, for health, for childbearing, for fertility throughout the year, Purukittia, Bonadia, and then there are going to be a lot of supplications, so we're giving thanksgivings to the gods, women are participating in ceremonies as well and also during the secular games, so obviously when you're thinking about a society and you're thinking about participation and you want to think about inclusion, you think about then the general population, you cannot exclude women, but then we think about the overall situation, the overall realities of the Roman world, men are voting in the Republic, that women and so on, obviously there's going to be a lot of exclusion, but these instances, these various rites and traditions and festivals and of course the role of the Vesta Virgins and the priestesses of the cult of the Ceres are also very important and underlined that women have quite a role in Roman society. Are certain women selected to be Vesta Virgins? For most of the history of the Vesta Virgins they come from the quote-unquote good families, the educated families, the people of certain status, and that's almost all the way through in the history that's where the Vesta Virgins are coming from, they're coming from senatorial class, that's the way it was for most of the time. Now in the fringes of religious life we can think about the Bacchanalia, the famous Bacchanalia decree in 186 BC where there are a lot of rites, they're held privately and a lot of people are fraternizing together, freed men, slaves, women and men and that ultimately is considered a no-no and they put down in the second century BC a lot of that activity not because there's anything wrong in the worship of Bacchus, but the fact that the senate is not pleased that there's an association of women and men that are not married to each other, so think of it in those terms. Again think about women and to a certain degree we could say they're disqualified in Roman society, they can't do all the things that men can do, but with the Vesta Virgins, with the caring of the flame of Vesta, with the the Sibyl who's the priestess of Paul of Cumi giving the Sibylian books, the wife of the Flamen Dialis and they also have roles within the household, obviously women are essential particularly regarding the rites of fertility, rites of marriage, obviously everything that the matron does, the matron is right there alongside with the husband and the paterfumilius and they can help occasionally in the role in the masculine role in a very with a very very limited purpose some of the things of which we've already undermined, so I do think we want to keep all those things in mind when we think about Roman religion and we touch upon this a little bit in other webinars about daily life for children, education, just living in the city and where are the women, they're there, they're everywhere but I think that this little look into the role of women in religion shows there's a lot of exclusion but then for a lot of specific instances through the year and roles and aspects of the lives of of children going into adulthood, getting married and participating in particular cults of deities that then have special aspects relating to lives of women then they have obviously a more prominent role and then of course over here you have the Vestal Verge and we talked about how important they are, so we do a quick rundown of religion of the ancient Romans and we think about what Romulus gave to the people, so cults like the Lupercalia Festival, the Consolalia Festival, Jupiter Peretris, Jupiter Stator, at one point I think we've talked about the lack of Cursus and then the deification of Romulus followed by this guy behind me, Numa who's setting up a lot of the calendar, the worship of Janus, the month of January that is, and the role of the auger, one of these priests that will interpret the signs from Jupiter in the sky, looking at birds and interpreting, he's supposed to be setting up the role of the Vestal Virgin, the role of the Pontifex, this very important priest that we'll be talking about, so when we look at regal period, we're looking at the Seven Kings of Rome, each king is going to be contributing something to the development and the religious system according to the oral tradition of the Romans, Romulus, Numa, the Tarquin, Servicetilius, and so forth. So there are going to be lots of religious sources and oral traditions that we can take a look at. We also look at the epigraphic evidence, the inscriptions, and we look at the different elected officials because that's the whole thing. When we look at religion today and we're looking at the priest, we're looking at the priestess, we're looking at the person in charge of a temple or a mosque, a church, and we think about that person's role. Instead in ancient Rome, they're almost all elected officials that have the supreme authority of divination, interpreting the signs of the gods. So we have the seven men bore bankwaters, the septum viri epulonis, we have the duovir, which eventually becomes a two-men group, which then becomes a ten-men group, and then finally a fifteen-men group, the quindecin viri sacri subquinis, so this group of men for conducting the rites, so that people in charge of the religious banquets, the people in charge of religious rites. Then we have the augurs that are going to be observing birds and lightning strikes and all kinds of unusual phenomena like comets passing by. That's number three, the augurs, and then there is going to be the college of the pontiffs. Maybe this one stands out because who is the pope today, but the pontifex matimus. So we take an old idea of a priestly college, the most famous one, ultimately the most powerful one. You're a member for life, you're an expert and interpreter of religious matters, and then there are a number of priests within that group. You can be devoted to Jupiter, one can be devoted to Mars, one can be devoted to Quirino, but the head of the whole college is the pontifex maximus, there are other minor priests, and then the pontifex maximus is in charge, as we said earlier, the vestal virgins. So if a vestal virgin misbehaves, one, that's the flame boat of the temple of Vesta, they get whipped by the pontifex maximus. If the vestal virgin who's taken a vow of chastity is found to be not chased, they are punished by being buried alive. Who conducts this, who carries out the sentence? The pontifex maximus, that's after a trial. So and there are a couple of instances recorded when it did happen. Sometimes it looks like there was a little bit of scapegoating, like in the reign of Domitian, but it was a serious, serious thing to consider. Yes, so coming back here to some more questions about the vestal virgins. Certain women selected to be vestal virgins were talking about people from the upper classes, thinking about them being educated, proper reading and writing, probably knowing Latin and Greek and so forth, and what age would one typically become a vestal virgin? Six, something like that. Little kid, little kid, ten years to learn the trade, ten years to practice, ten years to teach the next two coming in, and of course then afterwards, you're free. You can get married, most of them do not, but some of them do. So yes, we're really I think got a lot of interest in this very particular group of women in a prestigious location in the Roman Forum with direct access to the emperor, ultimately, when there is the emperor living on the Palatine Hill, and they were in charge of his will. So they would often intercede on behalf of somebody who wanted favors or to get close to the emperor. So when you go into the atrium vestal, you see all these beautiful statues of the vestal virgins that were found. They were destined for a lime kiln. They're all dumped together, but never burned down for lime. So they were set up again in the atrium. What we see is the inscriptions that are preserved is people thanking the mother superior over and over again. So the leader of the vestal virgins, there's got to be one leader, and the inscriptions usually say, thank you so much, Benevolent. Well, thank you so much for your help and so on. So you can imagine the networking and the political aspect of the vestal virgins, especially in the imperial period. I've talked about a lot of priests, but who is the person then that's in charge of a temple? A person's there every day, upkeeping and making sure the gods are being pleased. That's an edictus, so a person in charge of the actual structure. So we don't look at that person as a priest, but more like a keeper, an overseer of the temple itself. They're almost like a custodian, a guardian of that particular temple. Could provide information to visitors. Hey, what's about that temple? Who's that god who made it? When was it refounded? And so forth. And then there are lots of smaller, minor priesthoods. They are our brethren, the Lester Flaminese, the Fethiales, the Salii. They go around and dance, say an archaic dance when required when Rome was going to declare war on somebody. So there are lots of interpretations and lots of changes in the religious system, but then there's a lot of tradition. And sometimes even the Salii are these guys that in the imperial period nobody even knows what they're actually talking about. Doesn't even know that archaic language that they're speaking. So you need to get the signs from the gods. And the divination is then the reading of those signs from the gods. You can interpret messages or signs through taking the auspices, reading portents, viewing prodigies, having dreams, or also even having prophecies. And then a number of people are then in charge, charged with interpreting those. So, for example, you can go to the diviners. They're not priests, but they're diviners, the herispicies, that would then practice the Etruscan art of looking at the entrails of a sacrificial victim. Oh, that heart is in this shape. Oh, that liver looks like this. Oh, the spleen is enlarged. And so they would interpret whatever they find from the sacrificial victim. And also they could look in the sky and interpret what the lightning strike meant, a lightning strike, or thunder, or an earthquake. So they're putting interpretation onto some sort of natural formality. And something strange or a miraculous occurrence takes place that could also be interpreted, like hail. So when you have a hail storm, you go, oh, wow, that's amazing. Look at all the hail. But in ancient times, as rare as it is today, it would be, ooh, this means something. Don't go start that war today. Don't run for that election or something like that. So true, true. I mean, it's all subject to interpretation. You can ignore the signs, you can interpret the signs that best fit you, and then think that all the things that we're talking about, we can pivot into the private space. We can pivot into rights at home, private tombs, you know, private life, your hopes and aspirations and so forth. And you're also going to be interpreting those signs. Hey, dad, dad, I saw this happen when I came home. You know, there's a famous one like this. A dog brought a human hand into the Senate. Okay, somebody's executed. Who knows what happened, right? But that was a sign. Was it a good sign? Was it a bad sign? And that's the sort of thing that needs to be interpreted. And then, of course, you interpret it to go off and do something. And then something bad happens to you. You say, oops, maybe interpret it incorrectly. Or I told you it was a bad sign and something bad happened to you. See, you're correct in interpreting as being a bad sign. So that's how people are going to kind of go along with this and really, you know, try to see these read into these strange things that take place in our lives. Today we say, oh, that's luck. Oh, that's a freaky accident. Or someone is trying to tell you something. Take this stuff seriously. You could have gotten hurt. But that flowerpot that came off that terrace that just missed you, right, reevaluate your life, or just ignore it. I mean, it's the whole way in which the Romans are dealing with realities as well. And then of course, you step in and you have philosophical views and schools. And they can actually coexist side by side for women and for men. It's not that because you believe you adhere to a philosophical belief or you become a Stoic or an Epicurean. It doesn't mean that all that stuff you were born and raised with and saw and the sacrifices and performances and pageantry and festivals is worthless. They can all coexist. And that is the, gives you a level of the complexity, or you can look at it the same. Well, that's just a bunch of nonsense. But people like Cicero were coming to terms with different points of view and different interpretations of these strange things that happen in life, this natural phenomena and so on. And he himself was in the priestly colleges as well. So it's not really about the set and sense of a belief or, you know, adherence to all of these traditions. It's more like a participation in it and being part of the larger picture of what your ancestors did and it worked for them. And then you, men and women, priests and priestesses continue to perpetuate those traditions. And of course, with the passing of time, some modifications, some alterations, some adaptations, so things did continue to evolve and change. Let me see if there's another question. Yes, is it true the Vessel Virgins have front receipts at the Colosseum? Was it obligatory to attend and so forth? There's like a cinema ticket and it feels like it. Yes, so basically the Vessel Virgins were coming back to them. They enjoyed a special privilege and honor to be where normally speaking women could not be, to be, yes, in the front row across from the Emperor at the Colosseum, which was normally not for women. So we do have a lot of examples of the Vessel Virgins kind of bucking the norm. But again, they're women with special special relationships with the God Vesta. They're women that are then standing in for everybody to intercede on behalf of everybody, the state for the well-being of the city and ultimately the Empire. So this is a long-standing tradition. And I think it makes us really think then, as we kind of peel back the layers and we look at women in Roman society, just how prominent and just how much of a role we turn into politics and look at the way many women were famously involved in the discourse and the time of Julius Caesar and the Republic. A lot of Empresses, of course, are weighing in. There's a lot of politics going on in those family dynasties. And of course, right men didn't live in the Roman society and Rome and the Empire without women, without girls and the family and so forth. They're all there together. There are certain prescribed defined roles. And we then see different ways in which women were confined and other ways in which women had a lot of freedom compared to a lot of other people in the ancient world. We think about managing property. We know women are making investments. We know women are owning slaves. Women are entrepreneurial. Women have many jobs out there. So just look at the different things that people are doing. Women have been cited as being gladiators. Just every walk of life, women are participating. Women are going to the baths. Women are not in the military. Women are not going to be in the priestly colleges, per se, other than the Vestal Virgins. But we do see then, I think, just giving a quick cursory look at Roman religion, the role of priests and priestesses that women obviously are filling many important roles alongside men in different capacities. And then the real standout, I think, feature in Roman religion is then, of course, the role and the prominence of the Vestal Virgins. Thank you guys very much. Please subscribe to the YouTube channel. We dig Rome on YouTube. You can also get more information on the ancient Rome live.org website. We're going to continue to visit sites all week long through Sunday for Museum Week. We have a number of other great partnerships we'll be launching and celebrating. Tomorrow, we're going to be premiering a special video. We have permission to film the Rhodes of Arabia exhibition in the Museum de la Terre, so we'll be premiering that tomorrow. Look for that around 3 p.m. Rome time. Please take a look at that and share. And thank you guys for tuning in. And all webinars are going to be on the YouTube channel. Thank you guys very much. Have a great day.