Memoriam Puella (Memories of a Girl)
by Julia Peigh
Summary: A girl, a sacred priestes of the goddess Vesta, has pledged her celibacy. She has committed a sin that has condemned her to death by burial alive. Enter her memories of how she came to be so brutally doomed.
Note: A few words of the story are in Latin, but knowing Latin is not necessary for reading this story.
I turned around from the doorway to see the stairs being removed behind me. Men started filing in to heap the dirt over my door. Tears started flowing from my eyes as I watched the sunlight disappear. In my room there was food and water, and a bed, as well as a lamp. Eventually the lamp would burn out, and the food would all be gone. And then I would die.
The only thing to do in this desolate, claustrophobic room was to think. What else is there to do when you await your death? My cluttered mind, a city of reverie, was hustling and bustling with conclusions and ideas trying to claw their way to my attention. I leapt upon the most prevalent to my situation: how I managed to get myself led to my death in a room constructed for self-applied torture, the kind of torture inside your head. The kind that leaves you screaming, but no one can hear it but me.
Mentally, I fled to my days as a child. I thought of being chosen to train as a Vestal Virgin; one of six young girls, and one of eighteen girls, overall. Until I left, I remember my father boasting to his clients of this magnificent honor as he received them during the salutatio, and the deductio, as they escorted him to the forum. My father was extremely prominent in the Roman society. If he had not had such stature, my position would not have been granted to me, as only the socially elite could have a daughter chosen as a Vestal. I smiled sadly as I walked, as a memory of a little girl, to the House of the Vestal Virgins. Once there I was dressed completely in white and my hair was cut. Subconsciously, out of my reverie, I fingered the hem of my white dress and a tear unwittingly escaped my closed eyes.
From there my mind passed over the most important day of my entire service as a Vestal: the day of my vow of celibacy. It was not long after I first arrived at the temple, of course, though it wasn’t as if a six-year-old could go off and sleep with anyone. Nonetheless, the vow was made, and though I do not remember the ceremony in exact detail, I remember being with the other five girls, who were taking their vow as well. We took the vow one by one. As the youngest, I had to take my vow first. I remember standing from my kneeling position, walking forward, feeling terribly small, shaking with every inexperienced step. After my vow, I remember nothing else. As a child, I didn't then realize how truly important the vow was to my life.
Following my vow, the five other girls and I were trained by the older Vestals, the women who had only ten years of service left to Vesta, ten years to be spent tutoring us. We learned of our main duty, protecting ignis inextinctus, the undying fire that is sacred to Rome. Were this flame to extinguish, the Romans believe trouble will fall upon the glorious empire. The Vestals also make mola salsa, the holy cakes, for the Vestalia festival, among other responsibilities.
At 16 years of age, I became a second generation Vestal. During this time, I decided to leave the temple on my own. Well, not entirely on my own. Accompanying me would constantly be my attendants. To be truly honest, I grew rather weary of them. But I knew I would never be without them. Throughout my time as a Vestal, I received punishment several times for attempting to sneak out of the House of the Vestals without my attendants. More often, however, I was successful. It was on those outings that I met Leo.
Leo was a young shopkeeper whose taberna was located at the front of the domus belonging to a colleague of my father. He took over the shop when his mother and father died of illness. Leo, whose true name was Leontius, was 14 at the time. When we met, he was 18. I was barely 17. I remember every detail of our meeting. Around midday, after having completed that morning's work, I left the House, careful not to be caught. My head ached, I told the elders, offering a covert wink to one of my sister Vestals, Rosalia, informing her that I was going out, asking her to cover for me, and promising I'd bring back a trinket or two for her. She often did the same, she was just as clever as I. When I left, I ran straight to the forum. Though I stuck out some in my white clothes, I was paid very little attention to. I began scanning the crowded shops, glad to be alone. At one shop I noticed a particularly striking young man who was glancing at me frequently, as though he didn't want to lose sight of me, else I'd disappear. I smiled coquettishly as he tentatively made his way over to me.
"Is there anything I can help you with, ma'am?" He murmured, clearly perplexed. I started at the realization that he was the shopkeeper. He seemed so young! He was truly beautiful though. Fair skin with stunning grey eyes that could easily see through any lie I put forth to conceal my glamorous life. He recognized me as a priestess, though no one else did.
He smiled at me, and suddenly I was more glad to be alone than ever. If my attendants had been here, I wouldn't even be allowed to make conversation with this enticing entrepreneur. I asked him for his name, and he told me it was Leo. I smiled back at him and told him my name was Aurelia. Customers rushed in and out, but we stayed there talking together for ages, until it dawned on me that I needed to return to the House. I grabbed a small ornament for Rosalia and paid him for it, then bade him farewell and started to run back toward the House. I turned around and sighed happily, because he was standing at the corner of the shop, watching me leave. It wasn't until that night, lying awake thinking about the day, that a sudden, foreboding thought occurred to me. Leo, as much as I liked him, could possibly compromise my position as a Vestal Virgin. I grimaced, remembering my title with particular emphasis on the second half. Rubbing my head, I sighed, a true headache, my alibi from earlier, forming rapidly.
Over the next several years I continued to see Leo in secret, despite my growing fears of breaking my vow. Rosalia knew everything, and I frequently got lectures from her about it. She told me I would break my vow. That a man couldn't wait 12 years to marry a woman, no less to steal her virginity. But I kept seeing him. He was shy and kind, but he also knew how to love. He truly loved me; he told me so, and I loved him too. He begged me to sleep with him, after years of clandestine visits, though time and time again I refused. He became less shy than I remembered him to be, becoming Leo the Lion. He became confident and insistent, arrogant almost to the point of cruelty. I guess involvement with a priestess can do that to a man. I knew I could resist him only so much longer, and I grew afraid. But he assured me if I lost my virginity to him, it was highly unlikely that anyone would find out unless I told them or he did. For months I considered this, and he grew impatient. Until one night, after he served me a few too many glasses of wine, I consented.
In remembering this, I was swept back to reality, unable to bear recalling any more of my horrid mistakes. Weeping vehemently, I was hysterical over my irremediable stupidity in allowing that man to take advantage of me so destructively. It was his great mouth that trapped me in my eternal prison. Several days after my final encounter with him, just as the day was ending and I had finished my duties, the elders came to find me and accused me of becoming impure and breaking my vow. I later learned that my deep love and trust of Leo had been abandoned and betrayed in a tale reminiscent of Venus and her treacherous love affair with Anchises. For boasting purposes, Leo doomed me by revealing to some of his friends that he had succeeded in winning intimacy with one of the most important women in Rome, and from there the elders were told, and I was sentenced to death by means of burial alive. Shame fell upon my family. Rosalia was whipped for helping me escape all those to see Leo. The guilt was overwhelming, as if someone had ripped my heart from my chest, buried it in a shovelful of sand for every time I thought about Leo, and shoved it back into the gaping hole that was my chest, sand and all.
I looked suddenly back at the disappearing outside world, abruptly desperate for a last glimpse of my life. Just as the last bit of sand covered the doorway, a face looked in through the hole. Leo. I ran to the opening, staggering and shaking in a fit of frenzied screaming. I screamed his name. I screamed curse words unfit to befall the ears of any upstanding citizen. I just screamed. And then I fell silent because Leo the Lion was roaring at me. Leo was laughing madly and grinning a malicious, evil grin that showed he regretted nothing, and never ever felt one bit of any emotion for me. He was proud that he managed to trick such an upstanding member of society. I fell to my knees and last thing I heard before my fate was sealed off forever was the maniacal laughter of Leo the Lion who had finally pounced on his prey.
I ignored my provisions. I did not want them. I extinguished the lamp, knocking it over and breaking it in the process, so I was completely in the dark. My hand got cut, badly. I just let it spill its blood. Soon it wouldn't matter. I wanted to die as fast as I could. I couldn't stand this misery. So I waited. And waited, smiling bitterly all the while. I thought to myself, "Not too much longer...it will all be over soon..."
Note: A few words of the story are in Latin, but knowing Latin is not necessary for reading this story.
I turned around from the doorway to see the stairs being removed behind me. Men started filing in to heap the dirt over my door. Tears started flowing from my eyes as I watched the sunlight disappear. In my room there was food and water, and a bed, as well as a lamp. Eventually the lamp would burn out, and the food would all be gone. And then I would die.
The only thing to do in this desolate, claustrophobic room was to think. What else is there to do when you await your death? My cluttered mind, a city of reverie, was hustling and bustling with conclusions and ideas trying to claw their way to my attention. I leapt upon the most prevalent to my situation: how I managed to get myself led to my death in a room constructed for self-applied torture, the kind of torture inside your head. The kind that leaves you screaming, but no one can hear it but me.
Mentally, I fled to my days as a child. I thought of being chosen to train as a Vestal Virgin; one of six young girls, and one of eighteen girls, overall. Until I left, I remember my father boasting to his clients of this magnificent honor as he received them during the salutatio, and the deductio, as they escorted him to the forum. My father was extremely prominent in the Roman society. If he had not had such stature, my position would not have been granted to me, as only the socially elite could have a daughter chosen as a Vestal. I smiled sadly as I walked, as a memory of a little girl, to the House of the Vestal Virgins. Once there I was dressed completely in white and my hair was cut. Subconsciously, out of my reverie, I fingered the hem of my white dress and a tear unwittingly escaped my closed eyes.
From there my mind passed over the most important day of my entire service as a Vestal: the day of my vow of celibacy. It was not long after I first arrived at the temple, of course, though it wasn’t as if a six-year-old could go off and sleep with anyone. Nonetheless, the vow was made, and though I do not remember the ceremony in exact detail, I remember being with the other five girls, who were taking their vow as well. We took the vow one by one. As the youngest, I had to take my vow first. I remember standing from my kneeling position, walking forward, feeling terribly small, shaking with every inexperienced step. After my vow, I remember nothing else. As a child, I didn't then realize how truly important the vow was to my life.
Following my vow, the five other girls and I were trained by the older Vestals, the women who had only ten years of service left to Vesta, ten years to be spent tutoring us. We learned of our main duty, protecting ignis inextinctus, the undying fire that is sacred to Rome. Were this flame to extinguish, the Romans believe trouble will fall upon the glorious empire. The Vestals also make mola salsa, the holy cakes, for the Vestalia festival, among other responsibilities.
At 16 years of age, I became a second generation Vestal. During this time, I decided to leave the temple on my own. Well, not entirely on my own. Accompanying me would constantly be my attendants. To be truly honest, I grew rather weary of them. But I knew I would never be without them. Throughout my time as a Vestal, I received punishment several times for attempting to sneak out of the House of the Vestals without my attendants. More often, however, I was successful. It was on those outings that I met Leo.
Leo was a young shopkeeper whose taberna was located at the front of the domus belonging to a colleague of my father. He took over the shop when his mother and father died of illness. Leo, whose true name was Leontius, was 14 at the time. When we met, he was 18. I was barely 17. I remember every detail of our meeting. Around midday, after having completed that morning's work, I left the House, careful not to be caught. My head ached, I told the elders, offering a covert wink to one of my sister Vestals, Rosalia, informing her that I was going out, asking her to cover for me, and promising I'd bring back a trinket or two for her. She often did the same, she was just as clever as I. When I left, I ran straight to the forum. Though I stuck out some in my white clothes, I was paid very little attention to. I began scanning the crowded shops, glad to be alone. At one shop I noticed a particularly striking young man who was glancing at me frequently, as though he didn't want to lose sight of me, else I'd disappear. I smiled coquettishly as he tentatively made his way over to me.
"Is there anything I can help you with, ma'am?" He murmured, clearly perplexed. I started at the realization that he was the shopkeeper. He seemed so young! He was truly beautiful though. Fair skin with stunning grey eyes that could easily see through any lie I put forth to conceal my glamorous life. He recognized me as a priestess, though no one else did.
He smiled at me, and suddenly I was more glad to be alone than ever. If my attendants had been here, I wouldn't even be allowed to make conversation with this enticing entrepreneur. I asked him for his name, and he told me it was Leo. I smiled back at him and told him my name was Aurelia. Customers rushed in and out, but we stayed there talking together for ages, until it dawned on me that I needed to return to the House. I grabbed a small ornament for Rosalia and paid him for it, then bade him farewell and started to run back toward the House. I turned around and sighed happily, because he was standing at the corner of the shop, watching me leave. It wasn't until that night, lying awake thinking about the day, that a sudden, foreboding thought occurred to me. Leo, as much as I liked him, could possibly compromise my position as a Vestal Virgin. I grimaced, remembering my title with particular emphasis on the second half. Rubbing my head, I sighed, a true headache, my alibi from earlier, forming rapidly.
Over the next several years I continued to see Leo in secret, despite my growing fears of breaking my vow. Rosalia knew everything, and I frequently got lectures from her about it. She told me I would break my vow. That a man couldn't wait 12 years to marry a woman, no less to steal her virginity. But I kept seeing him. He was shy and kind, but he also knew how to love. He truly loved me; he told me so, and I loved him too. He begged me to sleep with him, after years of clandestine visits, though time and time again I refused. He became less shy than I remembered him to be, becoming Leo the Lion. He became confident and insistent, arrogant almost to the point of cruelty. I guess involvement with a priestess can do that to a man. I knew I could resist him only so much longer, and I grew afraid. But he assured me if I lost my virginity to him, it was highly unlikely that anyone would find out unless I told them or he did. For months I considered this, and he grew impatient. Until one night, after he served me a few too many glasses of wine, I consented.
In remembering this, I was swept back to reality, unable to bear recalling any more of my horrid mistakes. Weeping vehemently, I was hysterical over my irremediable stupidity in allowing that man to take advantage of me so destructively. It was his great mouth that trapped me in my eternal prison. Several days after my final encounter with him, just as the day was ending and I had finished my duties, the elders came to find me and accused me of becoming impure and breaking my vow. I later learned that my deep love and trust of Leo had been abandoned and betrayed in a tale reminiscent of Venus and her treacherous love affair with Anchises. For boasting purposes, Leo doomed me by revealing to some of his friends that he had succeeded in winning intimacy with one of the most important women in Rome, and from there the elders were told, and I was sentenced to death by means of burial alive. Shame fell upon my family. Rosalia was whipped for helping me escape all those to see Leo. The guilt was overwhelming, as if someone had ripped my heart from my chest, buried it in a shovelful of sand for every time I thought about Leo, and shoved it back into the gaping hole that was my chest, sand and all.
I looked suddenly back at the disappearing outside world, abruptly desperate for a last glimpse of my life. Just as the last bit of sand covered the doorway, a face looked in through the hole. Leo. I ran to the opening, staggering and shaking in a fit of frenzied screaming. I screamed his name. I screamed curse words unfit to befall the ears of any upstanding citizen. I just screamed. And then I fell silent because Leo the Lion was roaring at me. Leo was laughing madly and grinning a malicious, evil grin that showed he regretted nothing, and never ever felt one bit of any emotion for me. He was proud that he managed to trick such an upstanding member of society. I fell to my knees and last thing I heard before my fate was sealed off forever was the maniacal laughter of Leo the Lion who had finally pounced on his prey.
I ignored my provisions. I did not want them. I extinguished the lamp, knocking it over and breaking it in the process, so I was completely in the dark. My hand got cut, badly. I just let it spill its blood. Soon it wouldn't matter. I wanted to die as fast as I could. I couldn't stand this misery. So I waited. And waited, smiling bitterly all the while. I thought to myself, "Not too much longer...it will all be over soon..."
Julia Peigh's story, "Memoriam Puella (Memories of a Girl)" won 2nd place in the National Ancient Coins for Education story contest.