The library · The other points and bodies

Vesta in Scorpio

the asteroid Vesta in the sign Scorpio, in modern Western asteroid astrology

What the tradition reads

Scorpio is the second sign the sources connect with Vesta beyond the single placement: Wikipedia's account of asteroids in astrology, having reported the contested Virgo affinity, adds that Vesta also seems to bear influence over Scorpio. For the placement itself, Always Astrology reads Vesta in Scorpio as passionate and exacting, seeking absolutes and intimacy, good at finding what is hidden, capable of a complete regeneration of the personality, intense and constantly working on itself; it names vulnerability to guilt and shame that can tip into a repressive state, a critical and judgmental streak, and moderation and knowing when to trust as what such a person has to learn. Astrology Club reads the same placement as protecting the flame of passion, truth and sexuality, disciplined and strong willed, attentive to the undercurrents that run beneath a life, at home in what it calls the world of the occult, the mysterious and the hidden, with a mission to bring the truth of life into the open. By that page's pattern, what is guarded is also what is refused: it reads such a person as likely to deny their own strong sexual needs and to repress the urge to investigate purpose at all.

The story

The Roman practice around Vesta's fire had a severe edge, and the sources record it plainly. Wikipedia's account of the Vestal Virgins states that a Vestal who let the sacred fire go out could be scourged, a beating carried out in the dark and through a curtain to preserve her modesty, after which the fire could be relit with the correct rituals and the purest materials. Loss of chastity was treated differently: it was a broken oath, permanent and irreversible, for which no expiation existed. Such a Vestal was held guilty of incestum and sentenced to live burial, a bloodless death meant to appear voluntary, in an underground chamber in a place called the Campus Sceleratus, the evil field, near the Colline Gate; if known, her partner was publicly beaten to death. The same page records that trials of this kind were extremely rare, that most fell during military or religious crises, and that some Vestals were probably used as scapegoats, their alleged failures held to account for civil disturbance, war, famine and plague. The charges in several famous cases, it notes, were almost certainly trumped up and may have been politically motivated.

Written from

Corpus key point:Vesta:sign:Scorpio.