Privileged Executions: The Vestal Interment Ritual in Ancient Rome

Rather than trying to locate the Vestal interment ritual somewhere on the matrix of Roman crime and punishment, I suggest finding a more natural place for the live burial of Vestals in Roman ideologies of mortality as a variety of honorable death. I believe the Vestals\u27 unique status as the embodiments of Roman prosperity served as a justification for a modified punishment resulting in a respectable death, rather than a justification for an exceptionally punitive execution. I examine several other Roman death practices - military devotio, enforced suicide, and typical funerary rituals - and show that the Vestal ritual was carefully crafted to allow the doomed Vestal a modicum of dignity and honor, reflecting the continuation of her accustomed privilege even as she was executed. Indeed, the interment ritual, far from being a harshly punitive execution, allowed the Vestal to approximate the proverbial good death