Almagest

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Vesta in the ninth house

the asteroid Vesta in the ninth house, in modern Western asteroid astrology

What the tradition reads

The tradition's Vesta is a modern point with a narrow brief. Wikipedia's account of asteroids in astrology says astrologers use it to determine what a person is devoted to; Cafe Astrology's asteroid pages list dedication, focus, devotion, warmth and a sense of purpose, adding devotion to a higher purpose, hard work, structure, tradition and righteousness; Always Astrology calls Vesta the keeper of the hearth, focus and dedication, mental clarity and self respect. The ninth house, in Alan Leo's account, is the house of philosophy and travel: the higher mentality, the scientific, philosophic and religious tendencies, long journeys, dreams and what he calls the image making power. In the chapter he gives it he sets the ninth against the third as the subjective and abstract mind against the concrete brain mind, the house of reason and intuition against the house of perception and learning, adds rapid transit, sea voyages and foreign travel, and allows it some connection with legal matters on the ground that Jupiter governs it in the natural order of the signs. Of the sources consulted, none gives a reading for Vesta in the ninth house: the two delineations that treat Vesta placement by placement, Always Astrology and Astrology Club, work by sign only, and Cafe Astrology's asteroid pages give Vesta's keywords without any delineation by house, so no reading is offered here.

The story

Vesta's worship was older and wider than the city that made it famous. Wikipedia's account of the priestesses records that priesthoods with functions similar to the Vestals of Rome had an ancient and deeply embedded religious role in various surrounding Latin communities, and that Livy gives the Vestals pre Roman origins at Alba Longa; its list of Vestals outside Rome names, from inscriptions, a chief Alban Vestal at Bovillae, another of the Alban citadel, a senior virgin of Lavinium and two Vestals of Tibur. The goddess herself arrived, on the Roman account, from further still: Wikipedia's mythological article reports the tradition that her worship in Italy began at Lavinium, the mother city of Alba Longa and the first settlement of the Trojan refugees led there by Aeneas, that it passed from Lavinium to Alba Longa, and that Roman magistrates appointed to higher office travelled to Lavinium to sacrifice to Vesta and to the household gods of the Roman state. The poet calls her Vesta of Ilium and her hearth the hearth of Troy, and her Greek equivalent is Hestia.

Written from

Corpus key point:Vesta:house:9.