Rome's Vestal Virgins by Robin Lorsch Wildfang

This paper primarily focuses on the production and application of mola salsa, but will also investigate suffimen. Subsequent to this will be an examination of how it is used, succeeded by a consideration of what mola salsa can tell us about the Vestal Virgins who prepared it. This will be followed by an analysis of the times during the year that it was made. In order to explore this idea this paper will first investigate the procedure involved in the manufacture of mola salsa. It will be argued here that the main characteristic of both mola salsa and suffimen is unification. The other, suffimen, made once a year from the ash of burned animal components, was used on a single occasion.

One of them, mola salsa, made by the Vestal Virgins three times a year out of salted ground spelt, was used in every public animal sacrifice.

2 Both these substances are floury and food-like, in addition to having purificatory qualities. The primary activity performed on this hearth was the transmutation through the use of fire of animal, vegetable and mineral substances into two types of purifying powder. 1 As the public hearth situated in the center of Rome, the Vestal fire was the focus and symbolised the nucleus of the collective home that was Rome.

The perpetually-burning fire in the aedes Vestae was considered to be essential to the safeguarding and continuation of the Roman state. Sacred Flour from the Hearth of Rome’s Vestal Virgins

Rome's Vestal Virgins by Robin Lorsch Wildfang