Jovinian: A Story of the Early Days of Papal Rome

by William Henry Giles Kingston

“Away with the girl: terror has made her mad!” cried the enraged pontiff, forgetting the dignity of his position, and shaking his fists fiercely at the accused maiden.

Coelia did not reply, but raising her hands to heaven—the only time she had altered the position which she had from the first maintained—she implored that protection which He in whom she believed was able and willing to afford.

She did not deign to plead to her cruel judges. She saw clearly that, for some object of their own, they had pre-determined on her destruction. She calmly waited to hear what more they had to say.

Coecus, standing up, pronounced her doom—that which from time immemorial had been inflicted on vestals who had been guilty of breaking their vows.

Her garments—worn by the vestals—and badges of office were to be taken from her, and she was to be habited as a corpse, placed in a litter, and borne through the Forum, attended by her relatives and friends, with all the ceremony of a real funeral. Then she was to be carried to the Campus Sceleratus, situated close to the Colline Gate, just within the city walls. In this spot a small vault underground, as in other cases, would have been prepared. It would contain a couch, a lamp, and a table, with a jar of water and a small amount of food.

Had the Pontifex Maximus been in Rome, it would have been his duty to take a chief part in the ceremony. Having lifted up his hands, he would have opened the litter, led forth the culprit, and placed her on the steps of the ladder by which she would be compelled to descend to the subterranean cell, and he would there have delivered her over to the common executioner and his assistants. They would lead her down into her living tomb, draw up the ladder, and then fill in the passage to the vault with earth so as to make the surface level with the surrounding ground.

Here the hapless vestal, deprived of all marks of respect ordinarily paid to the spirits of the departed, would be left to perish miserably by starvation, should terror not have previously deprived her of life.

Such was the doom pronounced on Coelia.

She heard it unmoved, and walked with unfaltering steps between two of the officers of the pontiff, to be delivered back to Fausta, the Vestalis Maxima, who was in waiting to receive her. Not an expression of pity escaped the lips of the old vestal, although she knew as well as Coecus that Coelia was innocent of the graver crime of which she was charged. But her heart had become hardened and scathed; not a grain of sympathy for her fellow-creatures remained in her bosom.

She believed she was acting in a way pleasing to the goddess she served; and she would have been ready to sacrifice her nearest relatives, if by so doing she would have advanced the cause of idolatry. She was aware that she no longer retained the affection of any of the vestals under her charge. Marsh and irritable, she ruled them with a rod of iron; and believed that the service of the temple was never so faithfully performed as it had been since she became its principal priestess. Fausta has since had countless imitators, most of whom have been as completely deceived as she was.