ABSTRACT
Alongside their religious duties within the precincts of the aedes Vestae, the Vestal Virgins also participated more publicly in at least nine annual state rites.1 These rites spanned almost the entire calendar year, beginning with the traditional New Year’s rites on 1 March and ending with the rites of Bona Dea in December. The Vestals’ roles in them varied from a brief appearance at the side of the Pontifices at the Consualia to a more central position as the religious officials primarily responsible for tossing straw figures into the river Tiber at the rites of the Argei. Despite this seemingly broad range of rites and ritual activities, the same common motifs of purification and storage that we have seen in Chapter 1 appear here as well, suggesting once again that it was these ritual areas that were of special concern to the Vestals.
