The tradition that the
virgines Vestae, like most other Roman religious institutions, were instituted by king Numa is given by Livy (1. 20.3), Gellius (1.12.10) and Ovid (
Fasti 6.259) but may be no more than a reconstruction from the established connexion between Numa and the nymph Egeria who inspired him: the Vestals drew water from the well of the Camenae, where Numa and Egeria met (Plutarch,
Numa 13). Another origin, Romulean or Alban, may be infered: according to Livy (1.3.11), Ovid (
Fasti 3.11–52), and Plutarch (
Romulus 3), Rhea Silvia, daughter of Numitor and mother of the twins Romulus and Remus, was consecrated to the cult of Vesta by King Amulius, who wanted to deprive her of descendants. Tarpeia, who betrayed the Romans during the war between Romulus and Titus Tatius, was also perhaps a Vestal Virgin (Livy 1.3.11).
Since the cult of Vesta goes back to the origins of the Latin city, it escaped the anthropomorphism of the Etruscan and Greek environments, as evidenced by Ovid, who writes that even in his time the ignis Vestae was sufficient by itself and had no cultic statue (Fasti 6.295–298).
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