From Good Goddess to Vestal Virgins: Sex and Category in Roman Religion (22 page)

(Ov.,
Fast.,
4.863
–
872)

The Vinalia, which Varro said was dedicated to Jupiter, now turns

out to be a festival celebrated by prostitutes and dedicated to Venus. But five lines later Ovid asks,
‘
Why then, do they call the Vinalia a festival of Venus? And why does that day belong to Jupiter?
’
Twenty-one lines later, following an aetiological explanation, which I shall return to in a moment, he exasperatingly concludes:
‘
Hence [i.e. because of the wine that Aeneas paid out to Jupiter] the day is called the Vinalia: Jupiter claims it for his own, and loves to be present at his own feast.
’

Was the day sacred to Jupiter or to Venus? This was the problem as the ancient writers saw it. Was there a symbolic link between these deities and if so, how was it defined? This is the problem we need to address. The traditional approach has been to accept the ancient problem on its own terms and attempt to reconcile the evi- dence.
56
I suggest that we would do better to take the confusion itself as evidence for the nature of the cult of Venus Erycina. That is to say the confusion was not a manifestation of ignorance as to the significance of the day, but was itself a ritual feature of the cult. The uncertainty and confusion about the nature of the festival of Erycina must be seen in terms of the way that cults of Venus operated within the system of ritual boundaries.

The undisputed features of the festival are that 23 April was the anniversary of both temples of Erycina at Rome; there was a festival of prostitutes dedicated to Venus; and the day was known as the fes- tival of the Vinalia. The dispute is about the patron deity of the Vinalia, which name was derived from wine. Ovid offers an explana- tion as to why the Vinalia was sacred to Jupiter. Mezentius, the Etruscan king, had agreed to help Turnus in his war against Aeneas on condition that he receive the year
’
s vintage. Aeneas learning of this bargain offered the year
’
s vintage to Jupiter himself if he, Aeneas, was favoured in battle. He was favoured, Turnus was defeated, and the Vinalia commemorates the event. The story is repeated by Plutarch, but with significant variations in detail. In the
Roman Questions
he asks,
‘
Why on the festival of the Veneralia
[sic]
do they pour out a great quantity of wine from the temple of Venus?
’
57
In reply he relates approximately the same story as Ovid about Aeneas and Mezentius. But in this case the vintage was promised by Aeneas not to Jupiter but to
‘
the gods
’
. Not only does Plutarch make no mention at all of Jupiter, but he also says that the sacrifice of wine took place at the temple of Venus. The epigraphical material is no less confusing. While the
Fasti Antiatini Veteres
and

the
Fasti Caeretani
mention Venus Erycina and Venus respectively, the
Fasti Praenestini
mentions Jupiter.
58

There is never any suggestion that the day might be dedicated to both Jupiter and Venus, each receiving separate cult sacrifice. Instead it appears that a choice had to be made between the two deities. None of the accounts of the festival suggest a natural associa- tion between Venus and Jupiter. Varro and Plutarch both demand that a choice be made. Varro explicitly rejects Venus
’
significance on this day, claiming that the day was sacred to Jupiter. Plutarch, by putting the problem in terms of the same myth which Ovid used to legitimate the importance of Jupiter at the Vinalia, and yet not men- tioning Jupiter at all, implicitly rejects his significance and claims the day for Venus. Moreover, by calling the festival Veneralia instead of Vinalia he clearly invokes Venus. Ovid contradicts him- self in the course of twenty-four lines, leaving the question as to whether the Vinalia belonged to Jupiter or to Venus in effect an open one. Finally, none of the epigraphical material suggests that the day was sacred to both deities
—
it too demands that a choice be made. But nobody quite knew which deity to choose or why, and the overall impression is one of dual perception. Although never overtly acknowledged, Jupiter and Venus were both significant on this day. The controversy in itself, the very demand that a choice be made, presupposes this. The controversy also demonstrates the lack of formality in the association. There are many instances of deities being associated in cult or ritual in various ways. In this book alone we have seen Hercules and Bona Dea, Ceres and Flora, Ceres and Liber, Liber and Libera
—
yet in each case, there was some attempt made to legitimate the association, to provide a justification in myth or rite. Aetiological myth linked Hercules and Bona Dea, various cultic ritual devices linked the other pairs and the triad of Ceres, Liber and Libera. In the case of Venus and Jupiter we see no such attempt. There are two possible explanations for this. Either it was an association that was so natural that it did not need formal legiti- mation; or there was no formalized cultic association of the sort apparent in the cases where we saw an attempt at legitimation being made. Given that the result was confusion and controversy I suggest that the latter is the more likely explanation.

The two deities were clearly associated, but that association was not legitimated or formalized either by a myth or by a particular rit- ual practice or injunction. The uncertainty arose in the exegetical writing precisely because of the absence of a legitimating device.

The way in which Plutarch frames the question is particularly instructive. One almost feels, when reading it in the context of the other evidence and looking specifically for a legitimating device, that an opportunity has been missed. The sacrifice of the wine at the Vinalia
—
Plutarch calls it the Veneralia, but it is clearly the same festival
—
took place outside the temple of Venus. This would have ritually connected Venus and Jupiter, except that Jupiter is not men- tioned at all. Plutarch says the vow was made
‘
to the gods
’—
tois theois
. The structure of Ovid
’
s account compounds the ambiguity. Was the presiding deity Venus? Jupiter? Both? Thus although the evidence appears to demand that a choice be made, the nature of the evidence is such that a choice is impossible. If we try to reconstruct the ritual of 23 April from the evidence we have, we are left with the following scenario: at the temple near the Colline gate prostitutes offered cult to Venus; outside one of the temples, either the one by the Colline Gate or the one on the Capitoline, a large quantity of wine was sacrificed. The problem is that the wine was not sacrificed to Venus. That is about the only fact on which there is general agreement. To slip for a moment into a somewhat crude analysis of
mentalit
é
,
the participants at the rite had in one way or another to confront the ambiguity inherent therein. They might have made a deliberate choice between the deities, accepted the involvement of both or made no attempt to reconcile the dilemma. But it is indis- putable that both Jupiter and Venus were, in one way or another, invoked
—
perhaps evoked would be a better word
—
at the rite. The confusion and uncertainty were a part of the ritual structure of the festival.

The absence of clearly delineated parameters for the ritual signifi- cance of the Vinalia is consistent with the model of Venus that I have presented in this chapter. It is an extreme expression of the logic of the model. When categories are not kept separate but are drawn together, confusion must sometimes result. But it is important to understand that this was a ritualized confusion, an inherent compo- nent not merely of the rite at the temple, but of the day in general. The festival of prostitutes at the temple of Venus Erycina took place on a day that was perceived as commemorating an event that was in terms of Roman self-identity primordial: the divine legitimation of Aeneas
’
establishment on what might best be described
—
in ritual terms
—
as proto-Roman soil. In Ovid
’
s terms, a festival of Venus was celebrated on a day sacred to Jupiter. As far as ritual categories were concerned, the motifs of military and political power implicit

in the aetiological myth of the Vinalia as well as the foundation leg- ends of Erycina
’
s temples would have operated in the general percep- tion of the significance of the day, side by side with the motif of a festival of prostitutes. It might appear to us, as it did to the ancient exegetists, to have been a muddle. But it was a ritual muddle, as much part of the nature of the day as licentiousness was part of the Floralia. The cult of Venus Erycina appears to have taken the ideol- ogy of inclusion to its logical limits.

We come full circle back to Plutarch
’
s question: why was myrtle excluded from the rites of Bona Dea? Or to put it another way, why were Venus and Bona Dea so incompatible that the incompatibility had to be ritually demonstrated?

Venus and Bona Dea represented different ways in which ritual categories were treated in cult. The cults of Venus integrated dis- parate and apparently unrelated categories within a single ritual entity. Venus
’
most enduring characterization as the goddess of sex- ual love was, I have suggested, just one facet of a broader function of integration. The hallmark of the festival of Bona Dea, by contrast, was its elaborately flaunted exclusiveness. I suggest that the rejec- tion of myrtle from the cult was an affirmation of this distinction. It represented a deliberate distancing of the cult from the ideology of integration represented by Venus.

Plutarch
’
s was not the only attempt, as we saw, to explain the exclusion of myrtle from the festival of the Bona Dea: the two stories of Faunus and Bona Dea were also used for this purpose. Macrobius describes Bona Dea as the daughter of Faunus, who refused her father
’
s incestuous advances and was beaten by him with twigs of myrtle. Hence myrtle was excluded from her rites. We can give an account of this in terms of the integrative function of Venus. The beating with myrtle symbolized the attempt to draw together the opposite ritual categories of male and female. But we are dealing here with incest. Incest, particularly between father and daughter, could never be mediated by any ritual device.
59
Even Venus could not bring those two categories together. This seemingly trivial story was in fact a powerful rejection of the integrative function of Venus and a legitimation of the function of exclusion for which Bona Dea

stood. It provided an account of one aspect of human behaviour that never could be reconciled.

The second myth which has been transmitted by Plutarch, Arnobius and Lactantius provided a somewhat weaker exegesis for the rejection of the integrative principle. Bona Dea is here the wife of Faunus, who was beaten by him with myrtle twigs for drinking wine. I have argued that wine was to be understood as a symbol of the male principle, which was overtly at least excluded from Bona Dea
’
s rites. By drinking wine Bona Dea undermined the principle of separation of gender categories on which her rites were based. Here myrtle was used to punish a ritual offence rather than as an instru- ment to force the commission of one. It was an apt punishment, for myrtle was the symbol of an ideological position that the cult of the Bona Dea eschewed. As an instrument of chastisement its effect was to identify the nature of the offence: that is the failure to respect the boundary between male and female. Its function in this myth as in the other one was to distance the two competing ideologies of Venus and Bona Dea.

The cults of Venus viewed in these terms play a very important role in the dynamics of the Roman religious system. In their variant treatment of ritual categories the cults of Venus provided a foil to those defined by exclusivity. The dynamic interplay of function between these various cults constituted a system of meaningful inter- relations which formed the very basis of Roman religion.

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INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER 4

The Vestal Virgins were Rome
’
s most extraordinary religious phe- nomenon. At any given time there were six Vestals who might range in age from early childhood to extreme old age. A newly selected Vestal had to be between six and ten years old and was committed to serve for a period of thirty years. After that she was free to leave the priesthood but could choose to serve until her death. Many chose to remain. The Vestals were virgins
extraordinaire
. Virginity was not merely a necessary attribute of the Vestals, it was reified. Individu- ally and collectively the Vestals were an embodiment of virginity. This chapter explores the reasons for this phenomenon and its impli- cations for the Roman collectivity.

The most conspicuous aspect of the priesthood was the live inter- ment of a Vestal who was suspected of having lost her virginity. This fact more than any other underscores sharply the extraordinary character of the Vestals. Suspicions of unchastity and its almost inevitable aftermath
—
burial alive
—
arose typically during periods of political instability. The loss of a Vestal
’
s virginity was a sign that all was not well with the state
’
s relationship with its gods. The only way that that relationship could be repaired was by the ritual of live interment. A Vestal
’
s perceived physiological virginity had a tremendous power. It was a signifier of the political stability of the state as well as the instrument which restored stability when crisis threatened. Two questions inform the analysis of this chapter: First, how was the physiological fact of virginity transformed into this extraordinary power? Second, what was the essential character of this transformed virginity? Did it have some ritual purpose besides its function of maintaining political stability?