VESTAL VIRG/NS, women dedicated to the service of the goddess Vesta, and -bound by vows of chastity for the limited period of 30 years. They were also termed vestals. The worship of this goddess is supposed to have originated in the guardianship of a central or village fire by the earliest communities of men. The difficulty of kindling fire before the inven tion of the lucifer match was general and in prehistoric times the care of a fire for the com mon use must have been a most important duty. It would naturally be entrusted to women, and preferably to those who were not distracted from it by family ties. The duty of maintaining this fire became a sacred function connected with the worship of a presiding goddess, after its original significance had been lost. Annually, on 1 March, the Latin New Year's Day, the fire was extinguishedt and rekindled either by the friction of dry sticics, or, in later times, by the sun's rays being brought to a focus by a con cave mirror.
The vestal virgins who had charge of the sacred fire were chosaa by the king in the early days of Rozne, and by the pontifex maximus under the republic and the empire. There were
originally four and later six vestal virgins. The candidate was to be over six and under 10 years of age, free from defects, with father and mother living, and daughter of a freeborn resi dent of Italy. Her hair was cut off, and she was formally initiated by the pontife.x maximus, who thenceforth held toward her the relation of a religious father. The vestals had many privileges, and the honor was eagerly sought After 30 years they could return to private life, and marry, if they chose. Violation of the vow of chastity during their years of servke as ves tals was punished by burial alive, and as the conviction was usually obtained on the evidence of slaves under torture, it is considered prob able that some suffered who were innocent. The worship of Vesta disappeared with other pagan practices when Christianity became the religion of the empire.