they could prove having conceived, not from a man, but from the sun.
"Several authors worthy of credence assure us that these vestals were guarded by eunuchs. The temple at Cuzco had one thousand virgins, that of Caranqua two hundred. It would appear, however, that the virginity of these vestals was not so very sacred after all, for the Inca Kings used to choose from among them concubines for themselves or for their principal vassals and favourite friends.
"Marco Polo narrates how young girls were exposed by their mothers on the public highways in order that travellers might freely make use of
sexual psychology, for we have ample evidense that some of the Vestals failed in their duty, which was, nominally, to guard the sacred fire and the Holy Things of Rome. "Far up by Porta Pia," says F. Marion Crawford (Ave Roma Immortalis: London, 1903), "over against the new Treasury, under a modern street, lie the bones of guilty Vestals, buried living, each in a little vault two fathoms deep, with the small dish and crust and the earthen lamp that soon flickered out in the close, damp air." Vestal Virgins had many privileges denied to other Roman women; they were free for life; they had a right to be present at the Emperor's games; and they were treated with marked respect by the highest in the land. That the privileges of virginity did not necessarily make for the owner's happiness is instanced by Brantome's grim story. "Maids and virgins," he writes (Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies), "would seem in old days at Rome to have been highly honoured and privileged, so much so that the law had no jurisdiction over them to sentence them to death. Hence the story we read of a Roman Senator in the time of the Triumvirate, which was condemned to die among other victims of the Proscription, and not he alone, but all the offspring of his loins. So when a daughter of his house did appear on the scaffold, a very fair and lovely girl, but unripe years and yet a virgin, 'twas needful for the executioner to deflower her himself and take her maidenhead on the scaffold, and only then when she was so polluted, could he ply his knife upon her. The Emperor Tiberius did delight in having fair virgins thus publicly deflowered, and then put to death, a right villainous piece of cruelty, pardy!"
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