Chapter 5

June 1 Juno Moneta Festival

On June 1, 344 BC, the Temple of Juno was completed on the Capitoline Hill, and people thanked her for saving the Romans half a century ago.

It is believed that it was Juno who warned the Romans in advance when the Gauls tried to sneak into the Capitoline Hill. Juno’s sacred objects, a group of geese, exposed the Gauls’ plan with their unpleasant calls. The Romans built fortifications on the mountain in advance and avoided a massacre.

“!@#￥” A man in gorgeous purple clothes gave a speech in front of the temple.

Okachi stood in the crowd and looked up. He didn’t understand a word. He only knew that they had elected a king, and he didn’t know how they chose it. Anyway, they had a king, and the king’s name was Tryphon.

After the king’s speech, cheers rang out from the crowd, and Okachi cheered along with them. Then the crowd dispersed, and Okachi followed the captain out to carry out his mission.

Everyone was assigned his own task. Okachi’s task was to burn the crops while the rest of the team killed the male master, tied up the female master, and liberated the slaves.

He felt deeply guilty about burning the crops, but if the farmland was not burned, many slaves would not join the team after being liberated, but would still want to stay and continue to cultivate the land. Only by burning the farmland would all these slaves join the uprising team.

Virgins who broke their vows to keep their virginity would be buried alive near the Collin Gate. There was a bed with a blanket, a lit lamp, and a few necessities of life, such as a little bread, a bowl of water, milk and oil. It seemed to wash away the responsibility of the torturer: using hunger to destroy a life that had been dedicated to the most noble religious ceremony.

Then, the criminal was placed on a stretcher, covered with bedding and tied with ropes. So no shouting could be heard from the outside world. The stretcher was carried through the square, and all the people there silently made way for it, followed it without saying a word, and were extremely depressed. No other scene was more shocking, and no other day would bring more gloom to the city of Rome than this day. ——Plutarch’s “Life of Numa”

Annual Founding of Rome: 6497th year (104 BC).

Roman Republic, Rome.

Roman roads are narrow, and vehicles are prohibited from passing during the day. But there is an exception, the pillartum, which is a gorgeous four-wheeled carriage, but its sides are open, and you can see most of the street scene while lying on the luxurious soft cushions.

Anyone who encounters this carriage must give way. The carriage is not sacred, but the people in it are sacred. Any action that may be considered disrespectful to her may bring about a fatal disaster. Because the person sitting in the carriage is a Vesta virgin.

Mania, who was chosen as a virgin at the age of 6, has served the goddess Vesta for 30 years. After the Vesta Festival on June 9, the marriage that has been suspended for more than a month will be resumed, and she will retire.

In addition to being a Vesta virgin, she is also the daughter of the noble Manius family.

The worship of Vesta (Hestia in Greek) predates the establishment of Rome. The hearth fire is so important to human survival that the worship of fire is common in all continents and among all ethnic groups.

The temple was originally just a public stove guarded by a tribe. When the stove of a tribe went out, the tribe was naturally in trouble. If the stove of a family goes out, the family will naturally be in trouble. By extension, if the stove of Rome goes out, the whole of Rome will naturally fall into great trouble.

Among the twelve main gods, Vesta is the most worshipped as a household god, especially in rural areas, where more than half of the families worship her. The flame in the stove represents both abundance and continuity.

Therefore, the work of the six virgins in the Temple of Vesta in Rome means whether the whole country will have good weather or be in turmoil. Even the Roman consuls and tribunes must give way when they encounter the carriage of the virgins.

The carriage was arranged for them by the high priest, with two large silver urns placed behind the carriage, and the destination was the Fountain of Egeria near Capet Gate. This gate is located in the south of Rome and is the gate of the Appian Way into the city.

Legend has it that Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, was a clear-headed and relatively peaceful person who liked to rest in the oak forest. In such a small forest watered by a mountain spring, he met the nymph Egeria, and their friendship soon developed into a deeper exchange. Later, Numa built the Temple of Vesta and entrusted the mountain spring where he met Egeria to the care of the virgin, which was the exclusive holy spring of the Temple of Vesta.

Mania deliberately took a detour to go there. In addition to her love of walking through the prosperous and noisy city, there was another reason. The virgin of Vesta had the power to release death row prisoners. The original route often encountered death row prisoners sent to the arena, and the escorting guards often took a detour to avoid giving the virgins the opportunity to release the death row prisoners. However, Mania liked to give her goddess a chance to exercise mercy, and like the guards, she did not take the usual route.

Unfortunately, when she arrived at Capet Gate, Mania did not meet the guards escorting the prisoners.

The carriage stopped outside the oak forest, and the coachman guarded by the side with a dagger in his hand. He was forbidden to look at the virgin, approach her within ten steps, or talk to her.

Mania walked behind the carriage, took down a silver urn, and walked into the woods. The oak leaves swayed in the east wind, the sun shone on her face through the gaps between the branches, and the birds jumped and sang on the branches. The hustle and bustle of the city was filtered out by the whispers of the oak trees in the breeze and the sound of the stream hitting the rocks.

Mania first recited a prayer by the stream, then put the silver urn into the stream to fetch water. Fetching water is a very tiring physical work, but it is a small price to pay compared to being alone in the quiet grove for a while. She had to be very careful when she walked with the silver urn, and the water in the urn could not overflow. If it overflowed, it would be unlucky, and she would need to run to the holy spring again to fetch water.

After fetching two silver urns of spring water, although the breeze was cool, she was exhausted and sweating. After struggling to move the silver urn onto the rack at the back of the carriage, she slumped in the seat. Without her words, the coachman drove the carriage back to the temple.

There were two white mares in front of the carriage, and a castrated eunuch was on the carriage. The high priest prevented the virgins from contacting any male that might arouse their sexual desire.

According to legend, after the death of the King of Alba Longa, his uncle, who had always coveted the throne, asked Princess Lavinia to become a virgin to the goddess Vesta while still a virgin. Because the uncle knew very well that his throne was not obtained properly, he was afraid that it would be very disadvantageous to him if the princess had a child.

However, things did not go as planned. One day, after offering sacrifices to the gods, the princess fell asleep by the river. At this time, the god of war Mars passed by her, fell in love with her at first sight and possessed her body. The princess never woke up, which was probably called magic. Later, the princess gave birth to twins, named Romulus and Remus.

The king was furious when he learned about this and threw the princess into prison. The slaves were ordered to throw the twin brothers into the Tiber River. The slaves did not want to kill the two little lives with their own hands, so they put them in a barrel and floated them down the Tiber River. The barrel floated to the river mouth and was blocked by the grass by the river. The babies cried loudly in the barrel, and the cry reached the ears of a wolf wandering nearby.

The she-wolf (she-wolf and prostitute are the same word) put her nipple into the mouths of the two babies and saved them from the brink of death. After that, a shepherd named Faustul and his wife Aka Laurentia adopted them together and treated them like their own sons and raised them up. After the two brothers grew up and learned about their life experience, they returned to Alba Longa and killed the king. Their mother was no longer alive because she could not bear the prison life.

The two brothers did not stay in Alba Longa, because the place where they grew up was located in the lower reaches of the Tiber River, so they decided to build a new city there, which was later renamed Rome. The Romans also believed that they were descendants of the god of war Mars.

Even though the founder of Rome was the product of the Vestal Virgins’ loss of virginity, loss of virginity was absolutely prohibited.

Their chastity was the goddess’s sacred object. If a Vestal Virgin lost her chastity, Rome would pay the price of fire, famine, earthquake or military destruction.

Even if she was once a Vestal Virgin, she was sacred and could not be executed. Because she had broken her vows, she could not be buried in the city, and because she was still a Vestal priest, she could not be buried outside the city. So she would be buried inside the city wall. Because no one was allowed to kill a Vestal Virgin, she would be forced to climb up a ladder into a small room embedded in the wall. There, there was water, light, and the only meal, and she was imprisoned there until she starved to death.

Mania sat in the carriage, looking at the shops and pedestrians on both sides of the street. When she passed a blacksmith’s shop, she perked up. A blacksmith with his upper body naked was forging iron as usual. With every hammer, his muscles were trembling and sweat was jumping out of him.

Mania felt something improper stirring in her body. Fortunately, after the cleansing ceremony of the Temple of Vesta, she would gain freedom that other women could not enjoy. Because the privileges of the Vesta virgins would not be deprived because of her retirement.

The carriage crossed the Roman Forum and stopped in front of the Temple of Vesta.

The temple is circular, with Greek Corinthian columns, marble and a central nave. The nave is surrounded by 20 Corinthian columns and built on a platform with a diameter of 15 meters. There is another circular outer wall with more columns. There is a vent on the roof. The gate faces east, symbolizing the connection between the fire of the hearth god and the sun as the source of life.

Another third-level virgin, Seville, saw Mania coming back and came to help her move the silver urn filled with water into the temple.

The stove of the eternal flame is on the innermost wall. People can see clearly whether the flame is burning from outside the door. There are high piles of firewood in front of the walls on both sides of the stove. There are two bunk beds with three beds on the two walls near the gate that are difficult to see from the outside.

The Vestal Virgins are divided into a stage every ten years. Manya is a virgin in the third stage, and her student Aquilia is a 13-year-old virgin in the first stage.

Mania is watching the firewood in front of the stove. Today, they are on the day shift. The two masters and apprentices on the night shift are sleeping on the bed, and the other two masters and apprentices waited for Manya to come back and went out for a stroll. The six virgins in the temple, two in a group, take turns to serve the eternal flame.

Mania took the wood ash out of the stove, put it in a rattan basket, and pulled it outside the door. Believers will come to pick it up. Some believers believe that the wood ash can be cured by spreading it under the bed. She moved a stool and sat down at the door of the temple.