Fire and Sacrifice

by Victoria Collins

  Dustin Wade Simmons, From Obscurity to Fame and Back Again: The Caecilii Metelli in the Roman Republic – A thesis submitted to the faculty of Brigham Young University, pp. 120–121.

  Solid connections to the Metellan family are difficult to see, but affiliations with the high nobility at Rome are explicit.

  There is an outside chance that two of the Vestals had connections to the Metelli, but all three of them were from families who had previously clashed with the religious establishment . . . and despite the religious nature of this particular trial, ‘no trials involving members of the noblest houses in Rome could remain divorced from politics’. Politics definitely came into play and political loyalties and betrayals were surely not forgotten during the trial, but genuine religious concern should probably be seen as the motivating and decisive factors in the outcomes.

  Friedrich Munzer, Roman Aristocratic Parties and Families, with English translation by Therese Ridley, p. 224.

  After the death of the old M Ledpidus in 152 [BC], the position of chief priest passed to the house of the Scopiones Nasicae, whereby, in an unprecedented manner, son followed father in 141. These leaders of the Scipionic party seized every means to weaken their enemies; for that reason they carried off to punishment in the cloistered house of Vesta the daughters of aristocrats who wanted to undermine their power in the priesthood, in the same way as other pontifces maximi had attempted to deprive young sons of the patriciate of political rights. The proudly aristocratic and self-assured young women, however, did not intend to lead a secluded, pious life, but sought to compensate for enforced spinsterhood by benefiting from their privileges, by participating in public life and the struggles of the political parties. Like their male relatives, they not only won victories but also suffered defeats – defeats which cost both life and honour. In this respect the trial of the Vestals of 115 and 114 [sic] – irrespective of the how great the guilt of the accused – is connected with the feuds fought out under Scipio Aemilianus and the Gracchi. Aemilia . . . was, therefore, quite certainly the daughter of the princely house of the Lepidi, the very closest kin to the chief pontiff [Metellus Dalmaticus] and Porcina.

  Erich S. Gruen, Roman Politics and the Criminal Courts 149–78BC, pp. 127–128.

  Terror and religious disquiet among the masses provided the atmosphere, but calculating members of the nobility were prepared to turn it to their own advantage . . .

  Whatever their origin, no trials involving members of the noblest houses in Rome could remain divorced from politics. The identities of the Vestals provide illumination. Licinia was daughter of a Gaius, almost certainly C. Licinius Crassus, tribune in 145, who had sought to increase the college of pontiffs* through popular elections instead of cooptation, a proposal thwarted through the efforts of C Laelius and the Scipionic faction. Licinia was defended in this case by L Licinius Crassus, probably her first cousin and not the son-in-law of Q Mucius Scaevola.

  Political hostilities of an earlier day may also elucidate the backgrounds of Aemilia and Marcia. In the same years in which C Licinius Crassus clashed with Laelus, a Q Marcius Rex, praetor in 44, and a M Aemilius Lepidus Porcina, praetor in 143, were cooperating in a public works project that was opposed by the decemviri sacris faciudis. Porcina’s involvement is especially revealing because his career provides a precious thread linking these generations. Porcina was a political ally of Ap Claudius Pulcher and an opponent of Scipio Aemilianus. In his consulship of 137, he opposed the measure of L Cassius Ravilla to extend the ballot to all criminal trials except perduellio, a measure that had the endorsement of Scipio. The hostility between Porcina and Cassius Ravilla perpetuated itself. In 125 Porcina was charged with excessive luxury and fined by the censors of that year, one of whom was Cassius. By 113 Porcina was dead . . .

  * In this book referred to as the College of Priests

  WATER

  Pompeia

  December 114 BC

  It was a full moon. A time when things reach their zenith. For fat bellies and round fruit and full hearts. And a time for seeing. The night when light shines into the hidden places, and hunters can best see their prey.

  That morning Terentia had me help her take a brazier and a pot of burning coals dug out from our sacred fire to the senate house at the other end of the forum. She presented it as a gift for the senators, coming into winter, a blessing and guidance, she said. And a spy, I thought.

  Dalmaticus looked into her like he didn’t believe in the surface of it. ‘You know the trial won’t be heard here, Terentia. It will be in the Regia.’

  ‘Yes but here is where the senators are heard,’ she said, ‘and each is a patron of many clients.’

  Back at home she had called for Cor to send a message to her brother, to arrange a meeting with some priest who belonged to an allied family, I can’t remember which. ‘Tomorrow afternoon,’ she said. ‘My brother can invent a reason.’

  But Cor had slunk back into the square before noon. Terentia’s invitation was declined. ‘The priest is called to Abruzzo on urgent business and will not meet with the family at this time.’

  ‘He’d risk insulting your brother’s house?’ Laynie harrumphed. ‘The Dis-ease reaches high.’

  Terentia stole a glance at the temple chimney. ‘Ember!’ she snapped. Poor girl jumped so high she landed on the side of her ankle and buckled. ‘The woodpile is low. See to it at once. Green wood! I asked for green!’

  Terentia was gone from us, then, until midnight.

  At midnight she built a small altar of her own in the middle of the square, out where the ancient altar once stood. She had Cor bring a pile of mud bricks during the day, and kindling, but she assembled the little altar herself, brick by brick, allowing dirty hands and broken nails, and earth on her whites.

  All afternoon, Licinia stood blocking the view into the sacred square to save us the gossip and fearmongering should the new altar be seen by stickybeaks passing by.

  Beautiful Licinia with her jet black hair against the white robes, the prettiest face and the darkest intent, the virgin’s dress and the harlot’s grin, and all the power of the goddess behind her, flaring out from her so the air was full of her hate for these little-minded men who could not possibly understand our true goddess nor the feminine power that now so terrified them. The street past the temple was uncommonly well used in those days before the trial.

  She shot fire at the people with every piece of her being, making them scurry and look away lest her curses catch their eye.

  One turned back to look over his shoulder and she hissed at him, so quick and quiet he’d wonder if it really happened. He got the heebies and tripped on a paver.

  I caught Dalmaticus biting down on a grin, watching as he did from across the street.

  Not even a sword would have made her more scary and, most frightening of all, she smiled to herself.

  And the people, who may not have been convinced before, began to see that the Vestals were at the same time awesome yet vulnerable, and if them, then so Rome. Their Rome was as vulnerable as the girl beneath the robes, their victories as flimsy as the flesh at the sword tip, and in their horror they would turn their fear onto Licinia and Marcia and Aemilia, because they will not turn it on themselves.

  Innocent as anything, Licinia dipped her toe over the step in a little tease that she might just step out of her sanctuary and into their path.

  Come midnight, Terentia stacked her little altar just high enough to kneel at. She pulled her clothes off her shoulders and tucked them under her knees, then set a fire under her altar and began to chant, running her hands through the heat and smoke and pouring them over her head to anoint herself.

  We gave Terentia her space, each of us spending the night in our rooms, or the closed temple, wide-eyed and listening. I dragged Ember into my room behind the wall.

  A woman praying to protect her children is a lonely thing. Terentia needed to take the mother’s burden alone.

  What would she do when there were only
half the priestesses left in a broken temple, and she would have to carry on attending state rituals, smiling at the magistrates who ruined her, living by the laws that failed her?

  She would retreat to the intimacy of her goddess of earth and fire, one-to-one in dirt and heat, naked to the waist, just she and Vesta, the goddess who has no statue, no human likeness, no grand monument or story like the big boys on the hill. Just fire.

  ‘So?’ I asked her next morning.

  As she spoke to me, she hammered her altar bricks back to dust to return to the earth from whence they came, smashing the hammer heavily with every syllable. Her hands were still covered in the brick mud and her stola hung crooked off her shoulders.

  ‘Nothing of use.’ Smash. ‘This is not of the goddess, or her kin’ – smash – ‘or us.’ She slumped over the sledgehammer. ‘The gods for a miracle.’

  ‘What did you want? Names?’ Urgulania took the hammer from her. ‘Fire doesn’t speak that language and you know it. You have to come back to the fire, Terentia. All of you. Vesta is fire and fire is Nature. Bring it back to that and there are no fickle, self-obsessed gods whose wrath you must work to avoid. There is no wrath, no worship, no subjugation. There is only being. None of this matters and none of this will end anything. If only we could make the people see this there would be only peace.’

  That was too big to achieve in time so I latched instead on her other words: None of this will end anything. They would not go so far as to convict any of us, it was ludicrous and unhelpful. Just get through the trial.

  Chapter 8

  EARTH

  Fragments

  Matthew Dillon and Lynda Garland, Ancient Rome: From the Early Republic to the Assassination of Julius Caesar, Taylor & Francis, Oxford, 2005, pp. 397–398.

  Bona Dea was the ‘Good Goddess’; she had two rites, one on 1 May, and more importantly, on 3 December. Men were not permitted to know her real name, and simply knew her as ‘Bona Dea’ (Cic. Har.Resp.37). Her December nocturnal rites were secret, as were the May rites held during the day . . . The nocturnal festival was celebrated in the house of the consul (Cicero in 63) or the praetor (Julius Caesar in 62).

  . . . Cicero describes the sacrifice performed at the December Bona Dea festival as ‘ancient and secret’; taking place in the absence of men and performed by the Vestals ‘on behalf of the Roman people’ (as does Asc.43) . . . The sacrifice (which was accompanied by a libation to the goddess) was a young sow, and burnt for Bona Dea. With the Vestals were Roman matrons, wearing purple headbands: presumably they were aristocrats, meeting in the magistrate’s house with the aristocratic Vestals. Plutarch refers to ‘fun and games’ and the playing of music . . .

  Given its secrecy, absence of men, and connection with the good of the state, Bona Dea was presumably a fertility goddess of women whose role was extended to include prosperity of the state.

  WATER

  Pompeia

  December 114 BC

  There was pretty pipe music from Cato’s house for all the street to hear but my grumps had set in and the light music only made me feel heavier.

  A fresh thought of our task was like a stone plonked into my waters. My insides wobbled horribly.

  All Rome’s women of aristocracy would be here for the rites of Bona Dea, or as many as could fit into a consul’s modest villa. Selections would have been made. I prayed they were in our favour. These were wives of magistrates, senators, pontiffs – those who would be our judges or allies.

  If only we could elicit the women’s support surely these ghastly stories could be squashed. Here, through the wives, was our only way to the talk of their men.

  The consul’s wife, Cornelia, opened the door before we needed to knock. She was dressed in a rather triumphant wine-red stola of brushed silk, gathered with a wide ribbon designed to show off a youthful waist, and matching crimson slippers in a show of relaxed grace, by all appearances having cast off her husband’s devastatingly public fall earlier in the year.

  She pressed her lips over the shock at seeing Aemilia and Licinia in our company. There was no choice that Vestals must be present for these rites, but which of us would come tonight was quite another thing. She quickly melted her stiffness into a warm welcome and a polite bow. ‘Priestesses, you honour our household with your presence.’

  Pet was her glorious self, all composure and priestess-ness, except that I could see her hands shaking. Pet is not accustomed to being negatively judged. Spent her life avoiding it, matter of fact.

  Inside, the busy room was thick with the perfume of competing unguents, floral to spice, to green tones and woody. Their bearers huddled in little circles in every spare space, each circle occasionally opening to swallow a new member in, or release a member to another huddle.

  Cornelia swept an arm wide both to entreat us into the room and display the immense preparations that had clearly gone on. Because consuls hold office for only one year, Bona Dea is in a different place every year: I am always entertained by the efforts to outdo one’s predecessor. It makes for scrumptious food!

  Great garlands of vine looped round the ceiling, punctuated in the corners by perfect spheres of flowers tied with ribbon. Herbs on the stalk – fabulously Bona Dea – were linked into chains and draped through the candelabras on the table. Floating candles filled the atrium pond, lighting, as though from within, the transparent winter roses scattered between, and a hundred flickering candles round the walls bewitched into dance the figures in the frescos while a trio of flautists and lyre players swayed in the corner.

  A nod from Cornelia to a wide-eyed servant brought the well-rehearsed service of a specially reserved jug of spiced milk with honey for we sober priestesses. The rest of the party were on wine in patterned earthenware goblets discretely kept topped up by servants, such that none suffered the awkwardness of asking for more, and all quickly lost track of how much they had drunk.

  Other servants circulated with huge bronze leaf-shaped platters of food in dainty portions designed to not interrupt conversation and be tidily consumed. I promised Ember I would report in detail: rounds of smoked cheese with a slice of pear and a dollop of fig preserve jostled against rolls of honey-glistened ham and roasted morsels of pigeon brightened with mint leaves; on another platter piles of tiny fried fish glittered with the frost of salt crumb, then a ring of egg halves sprinkled with cumin and topped with a sliver of radish. Embroidered squares of linen were laid over deep earthen bowls to keep snugly warm the hundreds of little bread rolls meant to sop up the wine but which also did very nicely with my honeyed milk.

  In the centre of it all, of course, a fire and a little altar laden with votive offerings ready for our rites.

  All conversation stopped as we moved into the room. I’ve never felt so gaudy and indelicate in our whites.

  And then: ‘Cinny! My darling girl! It’s an outrage!’ Licinia’s mother lunged at us, throwing an arm round Licinia and kissing her cheek noisily. I didn’t mean to recoil but it was the most ghastly thing to begin our night.

  ‘I am raging, it makes me so angry. Terentia, are you not raging?’ Her cheeks were flushed pink already. The woman wore a sky-blue stola with dark blue and silver trim. Matching blue ribbon through her black hair served to highlight the dark features she shared with her daughter. She could pass as our Cinny’s sister, both carrying the same proud prettiness but the mother’s rather lost to her sense of entitlement and too boisterous for the dainty blue stola to be convincing.

  ‘I don’t need rage, I need reason,’ said Terentia. ‘Nor do I intend to let ridiculous innuendo make waste of an evening with the Good Goddess, and good women.’ Pause for effect. ‘I am pleased to have you with us, Licinia.’

  She gave the senior Licinia a wry grin and a little bow of gratitude, but not a deeper bow than given to us. Both Licinias seemed satisfied and their approval seemed to reopen the party for the chatter rose again and we were welcomed to another circle, while the Licinias and their daughter/sister-in-law (who
glared at Pet most of the evening) huddled in the corner talking about us all.

  I didn’t miss, though, that from across the room Pomponia raised her eyebrow to Cornelia from above the rim of her goblet as she threw down the last of her wine a little too fiercely. Pomponia and friends, who’d been at every Bona Dea festival I remember, and every time in their own huddle, backs to us. An unfortunate-looking thing whose clothes seemed to sag from her for want of a feminine curve to display, but who managed somehow to hold herself with such strength she was oddly alluring. She frightened me.

  Had Pomponia convinced Cornelia to blame us for her husband’s demise? This woman who greeted us so sweetly, who dressed her home and welcomed us in – was that triumphant red dress a disguise for hatred and the blame she had to endure while the Vestals were expected in her home for an evening?

  I didn’t feel it, but I was such a mess of frets that night I couldn’t quite be sure of myself.

  Cornelia was careful to keep her distance for the evening, that I most certainly felt. It was big enough to have us in her home for all to see so she could not be seen to overdo it, but gods, if we could just get close enough long enough to speak in friendship!

  A conspicuous few approached us during the party. We met the newly elected consuls’ wives, due to begin office in the new year, only by them being pointed out to us from across the room. Usually a ceremonial introduction is made at the December Bona Dea, but evidently we were too controversial to be associated with at such a point in a career. One new consul would be Dalmaticus’s nephew but that didn’t seem to help the wide-eyed new wife.