Ego te amata, capio

“I take you, beloved,” was what was said to a virgin Vestal of Rome during the rite of the captoo at the time of her consecration, which simulated a marriage by rapture. Choices between twenty patrician girls at the appropriate age and of ancient and highly selected families, these priestesses, among their various duties, guarded the sacred fire of the city, prepared the mola sauce, the spelled and salt offered during the most solemn sacrifices (from where the word immolate). And they dedicated many years of their lives to the worship of the goddess Vesta and to chastity. A chastity on which the very existence of Rome depended, and whose violation would bring endless misfortune and ruin. The most important and “vital” female order of the city had been founded by the wise King Numa Pompilius, at the dawn of time, and survived until the 4th century AD, when it was wiped out by the edict of Thessalonica issued by the emperor Theodosius. “I’ll take you”, must have thought even the king rooster Brennus thinking of Rome, after he defeated the army on the Salaria and spread inside its walls in 390 a. C. It was so devastating that, following the destruction of the state archives by the enemy troops, even the historical memory preceding the event was lost. Tito Livio tells us: it is the Gallic Clades, the Gallic defeat, one of the hardest moments of Roman antiquity. So, while the enemy soldiers entered the city from Porta Collina, the senators, part of the army and some willing ones stood on the Campidoglio to try a last resistance. Incidentally, it is on this occasion that the famous geese proved to be incredible allies. Someone else, on the other hand, chose to repair the walls from the North-West. Clinging to the Gianicolo, along the route of the ancient Via Cornelia, these Romans were directed towards Caere, a friendly city that at that time still retained its autonomy from the city. Immersed in the dense countryside of the Agro, a column of defeated human beings left Rome to violence and devastation. With means of fortune and few goods picked up in a hurry, the glorious people of the Republic escaped in search of shelter. Vestal virgins also traveled among these. On foot, they too go to Caere, where the Etruscans would protect them, helping them to keep alive a religious heritage that at that moment would have seemed the last banner of a journey perhaps interrupted forever. From here, frightened and tired, the arms loaded with the sacred furnishings of the temple succeeded and put to safety. And in these conditions – Tito Livio always tells us – they met Lucio Albinio, a plebeian, who took his family off the cart and offered it to the priestesses, accompanying them in their flight. It is a very powerful image that, in addition to the devotion of the citizen taken as an example by Tito Livio, strongly transmits the value of the sacred and its power in Roman civilization. On the road to exile the importance of these symbols was understood by everyone. Even Lucius Albinius, an anonymous plebeian, had no more doubts. That fire and those women, in such a dramatic moment, were the effigy of the very survival of a people. And the people, at the moment of its greatest misfortune, when everything seemed lost, took charge of it. Becoming responsible and custodian of a possible new life in Rome.