The ancient Roman Forum really is a most impressive place, even if one needs to use a fair amount of imagination to picture it as it might have been in its glorious days gone by. (Yours truly, for example, managed to wander straight past the former temple of the Vestal Virgins without even noticing).
Having said that, it didn’t take much for me to conjure up the sort of goings-on that must have taken place amidst these stone columns during the time of the Caesars. Picture the imperial household on the eve of some particularly-important festival (celebrating that oh-so-decadent god Bacchus, perhaps?). Each year, the emperor’s staff would be despatched to find the six most beautiful young women from the city’s slave markets: they’d be bathed and dressed in fresh robes, and brought before him at the end of a celebratory dinner.
He’d take them to his chamber, and lock the door firmly behind them. The following morning, the girls would be lined up in the temple – bound, naked, often somewhat dishevelled – in front of the assembled nobles and senators. Five would be dismissed. The sixth, the emperor’s favourite, would be tied before the altar and whipped – and would then, provided she had borne her flogging with fortitude, be granted the honour of Roman citizenship.
Indeed, it was likely that the girl would soon find herself married to the sons of distinguished noblemen (“If she’s good enough for Caesar…”). One imagines her – now elegant and beautifully-dressed – meeting the emperor again at some future banquet, blushing at the memory of their previous encounter.
As for the five rejected girls*, Haron and I differ in our views as to what would happen. She’d have them sent back to the slave market; I’d have them given to the officers of the Praetorian guard to ‘use as they choose for their pleasure’. My approach may be slightly less politically correct, I accept, but I doubt the Roman emperors paid much attention to that sort of consideration…
* “Ancient Rome’s Got Talent”?
I managed to find that temple fairly easily on my trip to Rome. However, I did manage to miss the *entire* forum on my first visit to the spot – or rather, found the forum but thought I was somewhere else entirely. Yes, my internal map is that bad.
Love the story!
Unfortunately the Romans never touched the Vestal Virgins. If a Virgin was thought to have misbehaved she was bricked into a chamber and left to starve.