Vestal Virgins’ home restored to the Roman Forum

This past Thurs­day, I was quite delighted to attend the inau­gural re-opening of the Atrium Ves­tae, bet­ter known as the Vestal Vir­gins’ home, next to the Tem­ple of Vesta and just below the impres­sive pala­tial remains of the Pala­tine, fac­ing the Forum.  Though uncov­ered in the Gia­como Boni cam­paigns at the end of the 19th cen­tury, the exca­va­tor of the site in recent decades has been Darby Scott of Bryn Mawr Col­lege. I was for­tu­nate (and eter­nally grate­ful) to have my first exca­va­tion expe­ri­ence with him there in 1994.

The Vestals, of course, con­tinue to cap­ture the imag­i­na­tion– so it’s great that the pay­ing pub­lic can finally expe­ri­ence the site; it’s incred­i­ble– today a field of green (most of the pave­ment lev­els have been ripped out) with 2 foun­tains refilled with water (I won­der about the gold­fish that used to be there).   These priest­esses were always in the pub­lic eye, espe­cially their role in see­ing to Rome’s safety, man­ag­ing the Vesta cult next door, remain­ing unmar­ried through­out their tenure (dis­obe­di­ence pun­ish­able by being buried alive).  The site that you visit increased in size over time, from the ear­li­est occu­pa­tion of the Forum area until its ulti­mate aban­don­ment in the reign of Theo­do­sius at the end of the fourth cen­tury AD.  A new on site PLAN details the activ­i­ties in the com­plex– apart­ments for the priest­esses, recep­tion halls, access to the emperor’s palace, pri­vate baths, and kitchens and a mill, for grind­ing the rit­ual grain (mixed with brine for mola salsa used in state sacrifices).

The slide show below gives an idea of just how beau­ti­ful it was, with a sunny, cloud­less sky.  Not only is the site now acces­si­ble to all that gain entry to the Forum, but it also allows you to skip going back in the Forum area and along the Via Sacra, to ascend the Pala­tine hill. Now, instead, you can take the ancient stair­case, as the Vestals once did, to head up to the palace of the emperor.  street up a above is the VIA NOVA (though not much younger than the Via Sacra). Along the stor­age spaces that flank the road one glassed in space houses the spec­tac­u­lar find of an alabaster tiger found nearby.  It orig­i­nally would have been in a more pres­ti­gious set­tle, such as a gar­den or hall.

On the occa­sion re-opening of the site, museum direc­tors and cul­tural min­istry direc­tors were present.  It was a nice oppor­tu­nity to see col­leagues and friends. On the same occa­sion, after the press con­fer­ence in the “Tem­ple of Romu­lus” MIBAC (Italy’s Min­istry of Cul­ture– which you can now fol­low in Eng­lish, in addi­tion to Ital­ian, both on Face­book and Twit­ter– though it’s rel­a­tively new), it was decided to give a taste of the future open­ings of the forum area– namely, Domitian’s ramp (that led you from Forum area to the palace) and nearby  Santa Maria Anti­qua.  This church (reusing a por­tion of Domitian’s palace)  has been described as a Pompeii-like site, with the wall paint­ings from the 6th to 9th cen­turies buried and left vir­tu­ally undis­turbed from the 9th cen­tury, until the early twen­ti­eth cen­tury (and the exca­va­tions of Gia­como Boni). Con­ser­va­tion work there has been going on for decades, funded by the Ital­ian Minstry, and also the Kress fund– and more recently through the World Mon­u­ments Fund– which my orga­ni­za­tion (Amer­i­can Insti­tute for Roman Cul­ture)  has been able to assist in its endeav­ors in Rome.

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