Commentary Prepared by Dr. Julia Lenaghan, Ashmolean Museum

B 201
Portrait Statue of a Vestal Virgin. National Museum, Rome

Marble
Statue
1.21 m

From Rome. Found in the Forum in the House of the Vestals
Italy, Rome, Museo Nazionale Romano, 639
Hadrianic to Antonine

Preservation:
The statue is broken just below the hips. The lower portion and both forearms are missing.

Description:
The statue wears a band or fillet wrapped around the hair which falls down on each shoulder in a loop; a suffibulum over the head which falls like cape over the shoulders and is fastened under the throat by a rosette-shaped fibula; a tunica which has buttons on the sleeves and which is belted under the breasts; and a palla worn as a "hip mantle". The cord of the belt is knotted in the center of the chest in a "Herakles" knot". The palla wraps around the left side of the body and the left arm. The left arm, bent at a 90 degree angle, pushes up the bottom edge of the palla so that the left hand would have been uncovered. The other end of the palla is taken from the left shoulder and brought around the back and possibly over the head; (this is concealed by the suffibulum). It is then pulled forward to the front of the body. Its upper border crosses the front of the body in a roll which hangs between the hips and then falls over the bent left arm. The palla probably extended downwards from the hips to the right knee and the left thigh. It leaves the tunica exposed in the area between the hips to the shoulders. In this area the tunica, the surface of which is rendered by engraved lines, clings to the body beneath it. Even the navel appears through it. The right arm, free of the palla, extends downwards and away from the body, and the head turns to the right. The head has a rectangular face with portrait features. Under the tall brow are horizontal eyebrows and small eyes. The irises are defined by a shallow engraved circle and the pupils are drilled and semi-lunate in shape. The mouth is small and the thin lips are finely shaped. The small chin recedes and the cheeks sag. Both the naso-labial lines and the lines running downwards from the corners of the lips are deeply marked in the soft flesh. The front of the straight hair has a central part and is combed back off the brow. Behind this front hair there is not part. Only a few centimeters, however, of the hair are visible before it disappears under the suffibulum.

Discussion:
The portrait statue is certainly that of a Vestal Virgin. Not only was found in the House of the Vestals but it also wears the appropriate head gear of a Vestal. Festus describes a suffibulum as a garment which is worn by the Vestal Virgins over their heads and which is fastened by a fibula: “suffibulum est vestimentum album [praetextum qua]drangulum oblongum, quod in ca[pite virgines ve]stales cum sacrificant semper [habere solent] idque fibula comprehenditur.” Moreover, he mentions six braids or locks that are worn by both brides and Vestal Virgins: “senis crinibus nubentes ornabantur quod his ornatus vetustissimus fuit. Quidam quod eo vestales virgines ornentur…” These six locks have been associated with the number of times the wrapped band, from which hang the fillets, goes around the head. The wrapped band is in any case an infula (Servius Aen X 538, “fascia in modum diadematis a qua vittae ab utraque parte dependent: quae plerumque lata est, plerumque tortilis de albo et rocco”) which would be worn by one making a sacrifice. Whether the fact that it wraps around the head six times is really a reference to the sex crines is disputed. The portrait head of the statue can be plausibly dated to the late Hadrianic or early Antonine period. The irises are lightly defined and the pupils lightly drilled which suggests a date after 130. The hairstyle resembles that of Faustina Maior in its central parting of the front edge of the hair. However, since the hair is mainly concealed, one cannot make too many judgements from it. The body of the statue was probably similar to that of a portrait statue in the Villa Doria Pamphili collection (Calza, Villa, p.287 no.356) or a portrait statue in the Louvre (Ma 2364). It is a variation of the most common female hip-mantle statue format. The most common hip-mantle statue format featured a mantle which folded over itself considerably at the hips but the lower border of which still reached the shins. In this statue one senses that the bottom border of the palla on the right side will only reach the right knee, as it does in the two examples cited above. This type of statue format was used for ideal figures as well as portrait statues. Neither arms of the format are constricted and could possibly hold attributes or, as in this case, a patera in the right hand.

Bibliography:
E. van Deman, "The Value of the Vestals as Originals" (AJA 12 1908) p.339 fig.15
B. Felletti Maj, Museo Nazionale: I Ritratti (Rome 1953) no.214
H-J. Kruse, Römische wiebliche Gewandstatuen des zweiten Jahrhunderts n. Chr. (Göttingen 1975) pp.364-365 D69
, Museo Nazionale Romano: Le Sculture I, 1 (Rome 1979) pp.269-270 no.165