The Role of the Vestal Virgins in Roman Civic Religion: A Structuralist Study of the Crimen Incesti

This study introduces a question, somewhat disregarded or discounted in recent years, regarding the link between the Vestals and early Christian consecrated virgins. In a political interpretation of the ancient Roman virginity cult, this work demonstrates that female virginity was understood by both Christian and non-Christian Romans as a symbolic analogue of the securely intact body politic.