Verginia (wife of Lucius Volumnius Flamma)


Verginia, sometimes spelled Virginia, was the daughter of Aulus Verginius, a Roman patrician. Her example of modesty and virtue in the face of adversity became famous in antiquity, and during the Middle Ages, she was celebrated as one of Boccaccio's Famous Women.

Biography

In 296 BC, Verginia married Lucius Volumnius Flamma, a plebeian who had held the consulship the previous year. Subsequently the leading patrician matrons prevented her from attending the sacred rights of Pudicitia, the goddess of modesty, arguing that she had dishonoured her family by marrying a plebeian. She was removed from the temple, which was then barred to her and other women in similar circumstances.
Verginia protested she had entered the Temple of Pudicitia in good faith, and as a pure woman. Because she was refused entry to the temple, she dedicated a portion of her own house, in the Vicus Longus, as a shrine to Pudicitia, and invited the plebeian women to join her there to celebrate the rites of the goddess:

Footnotes