Cornelia (Vestal Virgin)

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Cornelia († around 91 AD) was a Roman noblewoman and vestal virgin from the Cornelier family who was accused and accused of unchastity ( Crimen incesti ) twice during her career as a priestess under Emperor Domitian .

First procedure

Cornelia was charged with unchaste behavior and found innocent together with three other Vestals around 83 AD. The other Vestals, including a pair of siblings named Oculate and Varonilla , were found convicted and sentenced to death . For mercy, however, they were allowed to choose their own way of death and commit suicide.

Second method

Cornelia, who in the meantime had risen to become Superior of the Vestals ( virgo Vestalis maxima ), faced another procedure for unchastity around 91 AD. She was accused of getting involved with the knight Celer . The praetor Lucius Valerius Licinianus , who, alongside Cornelia and Celer, was also accused of crimen incesti , according to recent research, was not directly complicit , but rather by withholding a witness who was a freedman of Cornelia, aiding and abetting or attempting to prevent punishment in a separate proceeding to answer for. His function as praetor made things even more difficult because Licinianus, even if he was not originally responsible for sacred jurisdiction, as a representative of ordinary jurisdiction should have supported the high priestly prosecution , or at least should not have hindered it.

The negotiation with the condemnation of Cornelia by the emperor in his function as Pontifex Maximus was carried out contrary to the procedural rules in her absence and without the possibility of a legal hearing. The judgment had the classic legal consequence, namely to be buried alive . According to the descriptions of the ancient historian Cassius Dio , who wrote about 150 years after the events , Cornelia, who is said to have credibly asserted her innocence to the end, seems to have been convicted only on the basis of unproven speculation or, according to Pliny , solely at the instigation of Domitian. In more recent research, however, it is assumed that the contemporary Pliny, who had an extremely negative attitude towards Domitian, did not even know the true background of the case and that the vestal virgin actually committed a crimen incesti .

Celer, the convicted lovers of the priestess, was following her walling traditionally on the Comitium with a flagrum to death scourged . Licinianus, the confessed supporter, was not given the same legal consequence because of his mitigating confession , but with exile . Under Emperor Nerva , the punishment was lessened by allowing the exile to move his residence to the island of Sicily.

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ Pliny the Younger , epistulae 4, 11, 6–13; Suetonius , Domitian 8, 4; Eusebius of Caesarea , Chronicle (Armenian and by Hieronymus ), ad anno AD 91
  2. ^ Jan-Wilhelm Beck : The Licinianus scandal and the crimen incesti (Pliny epist. 4,11). In: Göttingen Forum for Classical Studies. Volume 15, 2012, pp. 129–152 ( PDF ).
  3. ↑ Suetonius, Domitian 8.3 f.
  4. ^ Suetonius, Domitian 8, 3 f.
  5. ↑ Pliny the Younger, epistulae 4, 11, 11.
  6. ^ Cassius Dio, Römische Geschichte 67, 3, 3 f.
  7. ↑ Pliny the Younger, epistulae 4, 11, 9.
  8. ^ Suetonius, Domitian 8, 4.
personal data
SURNAME Cornelia
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Vestal virgin
DATE OF BIRTH 1st century
DATE OF DEATH at 91