Woman holding a vessel, marble. Perhaps depicting a vestal. In ancient Rome, the Vestals were six priestesses of the goddess Vesta, selected as children (at the age of 6-10) among the city’s foremost families.

Vestals could serve life and they were forbidden both to marry and to have sexual intercourse: transgression was punishable by death. The priestesses were separated from their family formation, and in place of the father came the high priest, pontifex maximus.

One of the vestals’ main tasks was to ensure that the fire in Vesta’s house at Forum Romanum was rekindled on New Year’s March 1 and otherwise always burning.