Image Details

Erich Lessing

Julius Caesar (shown here in a marble bust dating from the first century B.C.) was one of the first Roman leaders to form an alliance with the Vestals. Their partnership began when the virgins convinced Caesar’s enemy, the dictator Sulla (138‒78 B.C.), not to execute the young general along with the rest of Sulla’s political opponents. In later years, a grateful Caesar renovated the Atrium Vestae and entrusted his will to the care of Vestals.