From Good Goddess to Vestal Virgins: Sex and Category in Roman Religion (19 page)

Three had known men at the same time. Of these Marcia had acted by herself, granting her favours to one single knight
…
. Aemilia and Licinia, on the other hand, had a multitude of lovers and carried on their wanton behaviour with each other
’
s help. At first they surrendered themselves to some few privately and secretly, telling each man that he was the only one favoured. Later they themselves bound every one who could suspect and inform against them to certain silence in advance by the price of intercourse with them,
…
So besides holding commerce with various others, now singly now in groups, sometimes privately, sometimes all together, Licinia enjoyed the society of the brother of Aemilia and Aemilia that of Licinia
’
s brother.

(Dio Cass., 26.87)

In the context of the Vestals this account of sexual excess of orgias- tic proportions is bizarre. Dio
’
s account suggests that the transgres- sions took place over a period of time, increasing in promiscuity as they went along. But according to the common belief about the Vestals, one lapse by one woman was enough for the state to begin to lose its stability. And just in case the signs of impending political disaster were missed, the fire in Vesta
’
s temple, which it was the Vestals
’
duty to tend unceasingly, would spontaneously extinguish

itself
—
a certain sign that one of its priestesses was no longer a vir- gin. Seen against the prevailing ideology of the Vestals the most striking characteristic of the story is the extraordinary degree of exaggeration. It is presented as a historical account, and it is possi- ble that the temple of Verticordia was built in expiation of Vestal transgression. But I suggest that the details have been exaggerated and that the exaggeration had some functional purpose in connec- tion with the cult of Venus Verticordia.

That functional purpose has to do, I suggest, with ritual cate- gories. The two narratives feature matrons and Vestals. But there is a third implicit category involved
—
prostitutes. In Dio
’
s description the Vestals act like prostitutes. Dio could have described a brothel in the same terms. An unchaste matron, i.e. a matron who has sexual relations with men other than her husband, is also prostitute-like. Both stories thus present a blurring of the boundaries of the distinct sexual categories. The stories also imply that such blurring of ritual boundaries is dangerous and needs to be ritually expiated. Hence the dedication of the statue and the temple. What is important is that the expiation was accomplished through Venus
—
Venus who could integrate disparate categories without compromising the rit- ual boundaries that defined them. Venus provided the mechanism that other cults lacked for restoring the ritual
status quo
when the categories were compromised. Consider for a moment the cults that operated on a principle of ritual exclusiveness. The cult of Ceres had no mechanism with which to deal with prostitutes, nor the cult of Flora with matrons. As for Vesta, her cult was indistinguishable from virginity itself. Vesta, as we shall see, was represented by the sacred fire in the
aedes Vestae
which spontaneously extinguished itself at the first whiff of Vestal unchastity.

Venus
’
significance in Roman religion thus lay in her perceived ability to integrate disparate categories. Pliny, in the passage quoted above (see pp. 101
–
2) on the plebeian myrtle and the patrician myr- tle, says that Venus presided over unions,
coniunctioni
…
Venus praeest
. Although the reference here is to the marriage of the Sabine women,
coniunctio
does not necessarily denote marriage or indeed any other type of sexual union. In Pliny
’
s passage
coniunctio
pro- vides the point of transposition of ideas from the way myrtle and therefore Venus was made to operate in the myth of the Sabine women, to the way it was used in the story of the patrician and ple- beian myrtles. The patricians and plebeians formed two competing factions of the state. The myrtle, in this case, functioned as a com-

mon symbol, which simultaneously affirmed the separate status of each faction yet united them as members of a single polity.

The cult of Venus Verticordia, however, was not concerned with political factions but with sexual categories. But like the patrician myrtle and plebeian myrtle the cult also had integration as its theme. It is important to note that in integrating disparate categories the cult of Venus does not deny the existence of the categories. Ritual categorization was a defining feature of Roman cult. Venus simply provided an alternative way of treating those categories. But the integrity of the separate categories was never compromised; their boundaries never blurred. It is worth reiterating that the cult of Venus Verticordia was not even overtly a generic cult of women, as was Bona Dea
’
s cult, but of women separated into the same ritual groups that functioned separately in other cults within the Roman system. The hyperbole which characterized the two foundation leg- ends drew attention to this feature of the cult. The exaggeration of the differences between the groups served to reiterate their indepen- dent existence within the cult.
15

We now turn to the ritual connected with the cult of Venus Verti- cordia. Her festival took place on 1 April each year. Ovid provides the most detailed account:

Rite deam colitis Latiae matresque nurusque et vos, quis vittae longaque vestis abest. aurea marmoreo redimicula demite collo, demite divitias: tota lavanda dea est.

aurea siccato redimicula reddite collo: nunc alii flores, nunc nova danda rosa est.

vos quoque sub viridi myrto iubet ipsa lavari: causaque, cur iubeat
—
discite!
—
, certa subest litore siccabat rorantes nuda capillos: viderunt satyrii, turba proterva, deam.

sensit et opposita texit sua corpora myrto: tuta fuit facto vosque referre iubet.

discite nunc, quare Fortunae tura Virili detis eo, calida qui locus umet aqua. accipit ille locus posito velamine cunctas vitium nudi corpori omne videt;

ut tegat hoc celetque viros, Fortuna Virilis praestat et hoc parvo ture rogata facit.

nec pigeat tritum niveo cum lacte papaver sumere et expressis mella liquata favis;

cum primum cupido Venus est deducta marito, hoc bibit: ex illo tempore nupta fuit. supplicibus verbis illam placate: sub illa

et forma et mores et bona fama manet.

Roma pudicitia proavorum tempore lapsa est: Cymaeam, veteres, consuluistis anum.

templa iubet fieri Veneri, quibus ordine factis inde Venus verso nomina corde tenet.

Duly do ye worship the goddess, ye Latin mothers and brides, and ye, too, who wear not the fillets and long robe [i.e. the
stola
]. Take off the golden necklaces from the marble neck of the goddess; take off her gauds; the goddess must be washed from top to toe. Then dry her neck and restore to it her golden necklaces; now give her other flowers, now give her the fresh-blown rose. Ye, too, she herself bids bathe under the green myrtle, and there is a certain reason for her command; learn what it is. Naked, she was drying on the shore her oozy locks, when the satyrs, a wanton crew, espied the goddess. She perceived it and screened her body by myrtle interposed: that done, she was safe, and she bids you do the same. Learn now why ye give incense to Fortuna Virilis in the place steamy with warm water. All women strip when they enter that place, and every blemish on the naked body is plain to see; Fortuna Virilis undertakes to conceal the blemish and hide it from men, and this she does for a little incense. Be not reluctant to take poppy pounded with snowy milk and liquid honey squeezed from the comb; when Venus was first escorted to her ardent spouse, she drank that draught: from that moment she was a bride. Propitiate her with supplications; beauty and virtue and good reputation are in her keeping. In the time of our forefathers Rome had fallen from a state of chastity, and the ancients consulted the old woman of Cumae. She ordered a temple to be built to Venus, and when that was duly done, Venus took the name of
Verticordia,
Changer of the Heart, from the event.
16

The festival was clearly an all-female affair, although there is no record of an overt exclusion of men, no explicit ritual prohibition of males such as we find in the rites of Bona Dea, and no prescriptions for secrecy.
17
Nor can an argument be made for the symbolic pres- ence of males at the rites, such as I made in the case of Bona Dea. Nevertheless, the whole point and purpose of the rites of Venus Ver-

ticordia presupposes the existence of men, not as politically domi- nant, but in the role of sexual partners of the female participants. The whole ritual was centred around the importance of the physical relationship between male and female. Although males did not par- ticipate in the rite as a ritual category, they played a fundamental role in the construction of the ideology of the cult.

Vestal Virgins featured in the foundation legend of the temple, but they did not participate directly in the rites as far as we know. The ritual categories of women that did participate were matrons and prostitutes. The joint participation in a rite of matrons and pros- titutes, especially given the nature of the ceremonies, has led to much controversy in modern scholarship. There is general agree- ment, however, as to the existence of a schism in the cult; it is widely believed that there were two separate cults, one to Venus and one to a goddess called Fortuna Virilis.
18
The debate takes off from this point, and is about the nature of the division, and of each cult. The reason for this interpretation is not only the mention of two cate- gories of worshippers, but also, seemingly, of two different deities, Venus and Fortuna Virilis. We have only two instances of the men- tion of Fortuna Virilis: by Ovid and by Verrius Flaccus in the
Fasti Praenestini
. According to the note on the
Fasti Praenestini
the festi- val on 1 April was in honour of Fortuna Virilis. There is no mention of Venus
—
if we ignore Mommsen
’
s interpolation,
19
and I shall show in a moment why I think we should. On the other hand Mac- robius,
20
Plutarch
21
and Lydus
22
all say that the festival was dedi- cated to Venus. Ovid is the only ancient writer to mention both Venus and Fortuna Virilis in the same context. In my opinion the modern debate on the cult is gratuitous because the foundation on which it is constructed, namely the existence of a schism in the cult, is flawed. The festival on 1 April was a single festival in honour of a single goddess.

Ovid is clearly describing a single ceremony. The opening lines are perfectly clear and unambiguous:
Rite deam colitis Latiae Matresque nurusque/et vos, quis vittae longaque vestis abest.
There are two categories of participants in the cult: matrons and prosti- tutes. They both offer cult to a single goddess,
deam
colitis (my emphasis). There is no reason to doubt that the various stages of the ritual were performed by all participants together: the washing and drying of the cult statue, the ritual bath under the myrtle, the offer- ing of incense to Fortuna Virilis in the baths. Schilling sees the pas- sage about Fortuna Virilis as an interpolation of a description of a

second cult into a general description of the rites of Venus.
23
But there is no reason for such an interpretation. It is merely a continua- tion, after a brief aetiological digression, of the injunction for the ritual bath. The bathing under myrtle was to take place in the baths. There is no suggestion whatsoever that this was limited to the prosti- tutes. On the contrary Ovid makes it perfectly clear that all the women participated in this part of the ceremony
—
accipit ille locus posito velamine
cunctas (my emphasis). In fact
cunctas
is the clear- est possible marker that this is not an interpolation but a continua- tion of the description. For the passage as a whole is couched in the form of ritual injunctions to two categories of worshippers function- ing together, and
cunctas
invokes both categories simultaneously. The passage then continues smoothly with the third ritual injunc- tion, the drinking of the sacred potion with an aetiological explana- tion invoking Venus.

Fortuna Virilis, I suggest, is nothing more than a cult title of Venus. It is not a name meant to denote a separate entity. Fortuna Virilis has the same force as Verticordia. Ovid uses the name to refer to Venus. His account also suggests that Verticordia might have been the later title for an older cult of Venus Fortuna Virilis. He links the cult title Verticordia very specifically with the events set forth in the foundation legends. But it is not clear which story he has in mind. The general falling off of standards of sexual conduct seems more in keeping with the story of the dedication of the statue. But he specifically refers to the dedication of the temple, which took place about a hundred years after the statue was dedicated. By Ovid
’
s time at any rate, it was a single cult. The entry in the Praenes- tine calendar marks out the ritual as devoted to Fortuna Virilis rather than to Venus Verticordia. But why this particular epithet? The Praenestine calendar, as it was inscribed
—
i.e. ignoring Momm- sen
’
s interpolation
—
offers a clue:
‘
Women in crowds supplicate Fortuna Virilis, and women of humbler rank
—
humiliores
—
do this even in the baths, because in them men exposed that part of the body by which the favour of women is sought.
’
Lydus also says explicitly that women at this festival bathed in the men
’
s baths.
24
Although this was an all-female festival the rites were meaningless without the tacit acknowledgement of the existence of men. Men played no part in the rites, but they necessarily formed a sexual category in terms of the cult. We have already seen something akin to this take place at the rites of the Parilia, where although there was no evidence for the participation of women, the rituals that the men performed