The Vestals: honoured abstinence with a fixed term
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.
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.
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