Th Vestal virgins.

A lone priestess walks toward an underground chamber.

humans line the streets to look at as she proclaims her innocence.

It would not rely.

She's already been judged and observed responsible.

The sentence?

stay burial.

The underground chamber consists of a part of bread, water, milk, and oil.

she will be able to have a lamp, a bed, and a blanket,

but she won't emerge alive.

At the edge, the priestess pauses,

claims her innocence one last time,

then enters the chamber in no way to be seen once more by the Roman humans.

The priestess is considered one of Rome's six Vestal Virgins,

each carefully decided on as kids from Rome's maximum aristocratic households.

but now together with her loss of life, there are handiest 5,

and a new priestess should be selected.

The six-year-vintage Licinia witnessed the spectacle,

never suspecting that a few days later, she'd be chosen as the next Vestal Virgin.

Her age, her patrician circle of relatives lineage,

and her obvious correct fitness

makes her the exceptional candidate to serve the goddess Vesta in the eyes of the Romans.

Her mother and father are proud that their daughter's been selected.

Licinia is afraid, but she has no choice inside the count number.

She need to serve the goddess for as a minimum the next 30 years.

For the primary ten years of Licinia's provider,

she's taken into consideration in training, gaining knowledge of a way to be a Vestal Virgin.

Her most critical responsibility is maintaining vigil over the flame of Vesta,

the virgin goddess of the fireplace.

Vesta doesn't have a statue like different Roman gods and goddesses.

as a substitute, she's represented by using the flame which burns day and night in her temple

positioned next to the forum inside the center of the metropolis.

like any Vestal priestesses, Licinia spends a part of every day on shift,

looking and tending to the flame.

The flame represents things.

the first is the continuation of Rome as a power in the global.

The Romans believed that if the flame goes out, the city's in hazard.

The flame additionally symbolizes the persevering with virginity of Vesta's priestesses.

For the Romans, a Vestal's virginity signaled now not best her castitas,

or modest spirit and frame,

however also her ritual purity.

So Licinia is aware of she must by no means let the flame go out.

Her existence,

the lives of her fellow Vestals,

and the protection of Rome itself relies upon upon it.

Licinia learns to acquire water each day from a nearby fountain

to cleanse the temple.

She learns the Fasti, the calendar of sacred rituals

and she or he watches whilst the senior priestesses conduct sacrifices.

by the point Licinia completes her education,

she's 16 years antique.

Licinia understands that the way she should act

is a mirrored image of the goddess she serves.

while it is her turn to accumulate the water, she continues her eyes reduced to the ground.

while she performs sacrifices, she focuses intently at the task.

Licinia directs her power toward being the pleasant priestess she may be.

She's concerned that sooner or later the nation will declare her existence for its very own functions

to defend itself from hazard.

Licinia might be accused of incestum, that means unchastity,

at any time and be sacrificed whether or not she's innocent or guilty.

Licinia completely understands now why her predecessor become buried alive.

Ten years in the past, the flame of Vesta went out.

The priestesses knew that they could not maintain it a mystery.

The future of Rome depended upon it.

They went to the leader priest and he opened an research

to discover why the flame had failed.

a person got here forward and claimed that one of the Vestals

became now not a virgin.

That was the beginning of the cease.

The accused protested her innocence, but it wasn't sufficient.

She turned into tried and located guilty.

That Vestal's loss of life turned into supposed to protect the town,

however Licinia weeps for what has been lost and for what she is aware of now.

Her very own route turned into paved via the demise of some other,

and her life could be taken just as without problems

for some thing as easy as a flame going out.