The House of the Vestal Virgins is a second-century AD reconstruction of a building originally built by Nero. Vesta was the Roman goddess of the hearth and home, and her cult was an important one in ancient Rome. Her temple was in the charge of the so-called vestal virgins, who had the responsibility of keeping the unnameable flame of Vesta alight, and were obligated to remain chaste for the thirty years that they served (they usually started at around age ten). If the flame should go out, the woman responsible was scourged; if she should lose her chastity, she was buried alive (her male partner-in-crime was flogged to death in front of the Curia). Because of the importance of their office, they were accorded special privileges; a choice section in the Colosseum was reserved for them; only they and the empress could ride in a wheeled vehicle within the confines of the city; and they had the right to pardon any criminal who managed to get close enough to one of them to beseech their mercy. A vestal virgin could resign her post if she wished, and she had the benefit of residing in a very comfortable palace: four floors of rooms around a central courtyard, with the round Temple of Vesta at the near end. The rooms are mainly ruins now, though they’re evenhandedly recognizable on the Palatine side, and you can get a good sense of the shape of the place from the remains of the courtyard, still with its pool in the centre and fringed by the statues or inscribed pedestals of the women themselves.