Almagest

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Vesta in the seventh house

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

What the tradition reads

What the tradition holds of Vesta is recent and briefly stated. Wikipedia's account of asteroids in astrology, which dates the practice to the 1970s, says astrologers use Vesta to determine what a person is devoted to; Cafe Astrology's asteroid pages list dedication, focus, warmth, devotion and a sense of purpose, with hard work, structure and tradition beside them; Always Astrology calls Vesta the keeper of the hearth, focus and dedication, mental clarity and self respect. The seventh house, in Alan Leo's account, is unions, marriage and partnerships, individual character and humane tendencies. He calls it the Descendant and the house of relation, in which partnerships and unions of every kind are shown, names marriage its chief influence, adds enemies to its matters, and reads the house as the complement of the first, the unifying of all that is separated or isolated in the Ascendant. He counts it angular, among the houses he says show what must be expressed outwardly, and assigns to it the veins and kidneys. Of the sources consulted, none gives a reading for Vesta in the seventh 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 priesthood was defined by a promise rather than a partner. Wikipedia's account of the goddess records that entry to her temple was permitted only to her priestesses, and that their virginity was held to be essential to Rome's survival. Its account of the Vestal Virgins sets out the terms: chosen before puberty, freed from every legal tie to their birth families, enrolled in a college of six, they vowed to serve at least thirty years, to study and practise the rites on behalf of the Roman state, and to keep their chastity throughout. A broken vow of chastity, the same page says, was permanent and irreversible, and no expiation could restore or compensate for it. What followed a completed term is less often told: most Vestals retired with a generous pension and universal respect, were then free to marry, and few of them did, while some appear to have renewed their vows. Their dress, the page adds, had elements in common with high status Roman bridal dress and with the formal dress of married citizen women.

Written from

Corpus key point:Vesta:house:7.