Aedes Vestae
About
Round temple housing Rome's sacred hearth-fire, tended by the Vestal Virgins; rebuilt repeatedly after fires (most famously by Augustus c. 12 BCE, and later again under Julia Domna in 191 CE, after our snapshot date). The 117 CE-era structure was the Augustan-period rebuild; in continuous cult use.
What happened here
The building itself is a house for the god, and most people never go inside. Everything public happens on the steps and at the altar in front: an animal led up, examined, killed cleanly, its organs read, the meat divided and eaten. The priest covers his head and a flute player keeps up a noise so no ill-omened word is heard. Worshippers leave what they can afford — a terracotta figure, a coin, a model of the body part they want healed — and the accumulated clutter is periodically cleared and buried on site. On festival days the doors are opened and the cult statue is dressed, garlanded, and sometimes carried out through the streets. The temple also holds money, which is why towns keep their treasury in one.
In ancient writing
- Ovid, Fasti 6.249–348
Explains the round shape as an image of the earth, and that the temple holds no statue of the goddess — only the fire, which is her.
Sources
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →