# The Vestals: honoured abstinence with a fixed term

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH09.P021](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH09.P021/#char=992,1030): "the Romans when they robed the vestals"

The Roman example supplies an institution, rather than merely an admired image. In Plutarch's *Life of Numa* 9.5–10.4, the Vestals guard the perpetual sacred fire. Their obligation lasts thirty years, divided between learning, service and teaching; afterwards they may marry. They receive exceptional public and legal privileges, but breach of chastity brings burial alive. The inspected English witness is the 1914 Loeb edition reproduced by LacusCurtius; Plutarch wrote in the Roman imperial period, centuries after the king whose institutions he describes. [Plutarch, *Numa* 9–10](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Numa%2A.html).

This supports Chesterton's limited point that sexual abstinence could command religious honour outside Christianity. It does not establish identical motives across religions, universal Roman approval of celibacy, or a requirement imposed on everyone. The fixed term also differs from lifelong consecration. His movement from several admired examples to 'the best human experience' is therefore an evaluative inference; the historical example supplies evidence for the existence of esteem, rather than proving the whole inference.

## Sources

- [Plutarch, Life of Numa, Loeb Classical Library vol. I (1914), LacusCurtius transcription](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Numa%2A.html), 9.5; 10.1–4, especially pp. 341–343

Revision 1 · 2026-11-07 · https://glosses.org/a/a_vdf6pda5/