Castratrix of Ancient Rome

By Pueros

“Even today, we believe that our Vestal Virgins can root runaway slaves to the spot by a spell, provided the slaves have not left Rome." (Pliny the Elder, ‘Natural History’, Book XXVIII, 13)

In fact the Vestal Virgins did far worse to slaves of a particular type.

The Vestal Virgins were the venerated priestesses of the Roman goddess of the hearth fire, Vesta, and thereby the guardians of the luck of Rome, who could intervene on behalf of those in trouble. Originally, there were two, then four and, finally, at the time of this narrative, six.

Girls between the ages of six and ten, originally from patrician and later from any freeborn family, were eligible to become Vestals, or ‘Sacerdotes Vestales’, provided they met certain criteria, including being free of bodily imperfection and having living parents. The latter nominated their daughters for the great honour, the subsequent decision being made by lot.

The successful young girls would ceremonially be taken from their homes by the Pontifex Maximus, who would offer the position to an initiate in a similar manner to proposing marriage, by using the phrase ‘Tu, amata, capio”, which means “You, my loved one, I take”. The man would lead the youngster away ‘as though she had been captured in war.’ Subsequent terms as priestesses lasted thirty years (ten in receiving instruction, ten in service and ten training others), after which they were free to leave and marry, although most preferred to remain single after retirement. Until that happened, they had to maintain chastity or face a frightening death.

In exchange for a commitment of thirty years and a vow of chastity, Vestals were emancipated. They were free to administer their own affairs without a guardian (i.e. they were free of their father's authority or ‘potestas’), including having the right to own property and make a will, and were regarded by all with high esteem, whilst living in luxury at state expense. They sported the distinctive short hairstyle and dress similar to that of a Roman bride, although instead of a red veil they wore a white, purple-bordered one called a ‘suffibulum’ during ceremonies. When they went out, ‘fasces’ were carried before them by their male ‘lictors’. A ‘fasces’ was a wooden bundle with an axe in the middle and the symbol of high Roman officialdom. The name also provided the word ‘fascist’ because the Italian dictator, Mussolini, adopted a ‘fasces’ as the symbol for his movement.

The office of Pontifex Maximus, occupied by a man, watched over the sacred order, as well as presided over religious rites and prescribed rules for public ceremonials. It was the Pontifex's task to administer the Vestals’ punishment. For some offences, such as permitting the sacred fire to die out, a Virgin might be whipped naked, although a dividing curtain would prevent the Pontifex from seeing her nude form. However, for the discovery that one of the sacred order was impure, the subsequent sentence would be death, as such impurity threatened the safety of Rome.

A Vestal who lost her virginity was buried alive in the Campus Sceleratus (near the Colline gate) amid solemn ritual. She would be brought to steps leading down to a room, which possessed food, a bed and a lamp. However, after her descent, the steps were removed, dirt would be heaped on the entrance and she would be left there to perish. Emperor Domitian had three Vestals executed in this manner in 83 A.D. for supposed lechery and, seven years later, the chief Virgin, Cornelia, was buried alive by his coomand.

The Vestals' chief function was preservation of an undying fire, or ‘ignis inextinctu’, in the shrine of Vesta but they had many other ceremonial roles as well. For example, the Virgins threw straw figurines, or ‘argei’, into the Tiber on the 15th of May every year, and they kept wills for others. Their positions were influential in Roman society because they would often be asked also to provide political advice. Even after their term of office concluded, former members of the sacred order were respected and their families considered more powerful by having one in their midst.

The round temple of Vesta, constructed in Corinthian style and located in the middle of the large complex of public buildings known as the ‘Forum Romanum’, was probably built by Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome and the founder of the cult of the goddess. It was renovated a couple of times, the last time by Septimius Severus after a fire in 191.

At the beginning of the June Vestalia festival, the inner sanctum, or ‘penus’, normally closed to all but the Vestals, their servants and the Pontifex Maximus, was opened for women to bring offerings and view sacrifices. The Virgins made holy cakes, or ‘mola salsa’, for the celebration, in accordance with sacred ritual and recipe, from special salt, water and grain.

On the last day of the festival, the fire was doused, except for a few embers, and the temple would be ritually cleaned. Afterwards, the sacred flames would be rekindled with the help of the embers.

The last known chief Vestal, or ‘Vestalis Maxima’, was Coelia Concordia, appointed to the post in 380 A.D.. The cult ended in 394 on orders from the Christian Emperor Theodosius.

(Rome, late May 61 A.D., during the reign of the Emperor Nero)

Nero had been terrified that the revolt of the tribe called the ‘Iceni’, led by their Queen, Boudicca [or Boadicea], in the east of the new Roman colony of Britannia, could cost him the Imperial throne, as he feared being blamed by his people for the disaster. The 70,000 citizens of Camulodunum [now Colchester, England] had been massacred by the rebels and it looked as if his legions on the island, only recently, under his late stepfather, Claudius, finally brought under Roman control, would be defeated. However, this presumption proved false, as the military governor, Suetonius Paullinus, destroyed the Iceni in battle [near to a place now known as ‘Fenny Stratford’], with the Queen later poisoning herself.

Already by May of 61, surviving healthy Iceni captives were arriving in Rome to be sold in the massive central slave market, in partial reparation for the destruction and death that their rebellion had caused. Amongst their number were two handsome youths, both 16-year olds, life-long friends named Ferrex and Loegr.

The prospective new Iceni slaves had been divided up by age-range, gender and beauty. Ferrex and Loegr had been allocated to the group of older beautiful youths who would almost certainly end up in some rich person’s bed or in one of the many male brothels, catering for all tastes, including those of women, located throughout the Roman Empire. However, the destiny of one of the 16 year-olds was to be somewhat different, as the lovely 36 year-old Vestalis Maxima herself was present, in the company of a young handsome lictor, aged in his early twenties and carrying his fasces, and an older uglier adviser. She had come to participate in the auction, taking place after the sale of the younger boys, and was clearly being afforded much respect by the other potential bidders for young male flesh.

The Vestalis Maxima was attired, primarily in white, in a stola, the characteristic dress, usually sleeved and extending to the feet, of Roman women of standing, just as the toga was usual for most important men. The garment was fastened round the body by a girdle, just above the breast broad folds, and a clasp, or ‘fibula’, over the shoulder. An underneath tunic reached to just below the loins, but the essential distinction between the stola and tunic was that the former had a flounce sewed to the bottom. Over the stola, a type of cloth cloak, a ‘pallium’ was worn. An ‘infula’, a flock of slightly twisted white and red wool, drawn into the shape of a wreath, ornamented her head.

The youths, about thirty in number, who were to be auctioned to enrich Nero, were all humiliatingly naked and had their hands bound behind their backs, as they were introduced to a low wooden platform, where their sale would be concluded. Most exhibited fulsome erections after their bodies had been thoroughly prodded and probed by the many potential vetted customers of both sexes who, for this group of more expensive goods, mainly comprised rich homosexuals, sexually frustrated or unsatiated widows and proprietors of establishments of ill-repute.

Ferrex and Loegr were no exception in quickly displaying embarrassing arousal. Their beautiful bodies, lithe and smooth apart from little sparse hirsute tufts in their armpits and above their otherwise hairless genitals, had received much close attention. Most prospective buyers had first checked the youths’ long straight hair, dark for the former and fair for the latter, before moving downwards to examine their eyes, respectively brown and blue, and their mouths, both revealing good sets of sparkling white teeth. However, it had been the hands running across all sides of their bodies that had induced the first humiliating reaction in their groins. It was to be a continuing shameful feature that would be increased by the eventual regular fondling and weighing of their sexual organs and intimate perusal, often accompanied by the gentle probing of a finger when bent over, of their anal virginity. Their indignities were inevitably further intensified when those conducting the demeaning research were female.

One of these was the Vestalis Maxima, who spent much more time with Ferrex and Loegr than the other youths being offered for sale, although she did not personally manhandle the 16 year-olds themselves, as that would not be right other than for reasons of sacred ritual. This task was performed instead by her older adviser, who was responsible for securing and supervising the slaves of his master, the Pontifex Maximus.

The pair of Romans indulged in conversation about Ferrex and Loegr as they conducted their examination. Of course, the adviser talked to the Vestalis Maxima in Latin, a language the youths did not fully know, as they had only become acquainted with the foreign tongue since their capture a few months earlier. However, they had, by necessity to stay alive and well, been compelled to learn certain phrases and expressions during the long journey from their homeland to Rome, the only relief on the way to their fate being the fact that they had not been physically or sexually abused. This had not only been caused by their compliant behaviour, encouraged from observing many of their family and friends being slaughtered by the vengeful victors, but also by appreciation by the slave traders, working for their Emperor for a commission, that the goods would be much more valuable if they arrived unharmed.

The essence of the discourse between the Vestalis Maxima and her adviser, about which Ferrex and Loegr could understand little, was that the young male pair seemed to be the best on offer to meet the needs of the sacred order, a conclusion finally agreed upon. Accordingly, as the Vestals could easily outbid any rivals, the two youths were quickly in the ownership of the sacred order, although for one this would be short-lived. The 16 year-olds were therefore soon being escorted, still bound and shamefully naked and erect, and now dribbling precum, through the crowded narrow streets of Rome to much ribald commentary from many members of the throngs through which they passed.

Ferrex and Loegr were led by the adviser, by means a rope linking his hands to their necks, the Vestalis Maxima having now gone elsewhere with her lictor on other business. Neither youth was accustomed to any form of public nudity and the fact that it was taking place in such busy thoroughfares in such a great metropolis only added to their degradation. Their only compensation was that they could not understand many of the rude remarks loudly hurled at them, from people of both sexes and all ages, but their distress was only marginally improved, as the gist was obvious. As a consequence of their deep shame, both 16 year-olds exhibited dampness in their eyes as they were finally handed over to two young expectant male servants at a minor entrance to the temple of Vesta.

Ferrex and Loegr soon found themselves still without cover but now unbound in small adjacent cells located in the gloomy cool basement of the large temple, lit only by oil lamps. Their new tiny prisons were clean and possessed fresh straw bedding on the floor, which would herein be changed daily, but nothing else apart from a drainage hole down which to toilet. Illumination was by way of light coming through the small barred window in the locked heavy wooden door. It was the sort of final destination that neither had anticipated, fearing, from information that the slave traders had occasionally taunted them with, soon being in the bed of a sodomite, either in his home or in a brothel. The youths knew that they were in the rather unpleasant cellars of a shrine, which was contrastingly magnificently resplendent above, but did not know which or why. They were soon to find out.

Ferrex and Loegr hoped to be fed but all they received was a goblet of distasteful potion each, which they were forced to drink in front of the slightly older servants, although they would have preferred to have poured the obnoxious drink down the hole that was the toilet facility. Instead, it was the few remaining contents of their stomachs that were quickly flowing down that particular aperture from both their oral and anal orifices, as the strong and effective purgative began its work. Afterwards, neither youth, still queasy, felt hungry, a feeling maintained by further forced and unexplained consumption of the liquid.

As well as recently being starved of food by the save traders, both for reasons of economy and the fact that it was known that some of their human commodities could suffer the fate that Ferrex and Loegr now faced, the young pair of friends had also been denied the opportunity to masturbate, their only sexual outlet up to this moment in time. This had been a factor in quickly becoming shamefully aroused in the slave market. When they had first arrived in their cells in the temple of Vesta and been unbound, it was a situation that both were eager to rectify. However, the speedy infusion of purgative had temporarily driven away their desire and, when it eventually returned after their bodies could empty no more, they found their hands again restricted behind their backs, this time by manacles connected to an iron neck collar. As a consequence, the youths frequently sported hard-ons in the loneliness of their confinement because of their unrequited needs.

Before the application of these restraints, Ferrex and Loegr had been forced to have their hair cut neatly short, in the Roman bowl style sported by all the young male servants, as well as wash their cells and themselves thoroughly under close supervision. It was therefore not now an unpleasant scene that the Vestalis Maxima came to view, accompanied by a beautiful 16 year-old fellow Vestal Virgin and the two male servants.

The shamed Ferrex and Loegr, still naked and chained, were brought out of their tiny prisons for a further inspection. However, this time the intimate scrutiny of their bodies was not carried out by a middle-aged man but by the 36 and 16 year-old females themselves, now able to apply hands to young nude male flesh because of the ritualistic context. Both youths blushed intensely as the Vestals checked and fondled them, whilst engaged in prolonged discussion.

In the circumstances, the gentle manipulation of their aroused genitalia by beautiful females brought the inevitable result. The long slim throbbing penises of both youths rose to the vertical and several spurts of white fluid erupted, in tandem with orgasmic bodily convulsions, to despoil the attire of their virginal handlers, an impertinence that both Vestals surprisingly initially reacted to by simply laughing and smiling at each other. Nevertheless, the 16 year-old males would be made to pay for such desecration of sacred garb later.

Although the appalled and deeply ashamed manacled nudes could not appreciate what was being debated, the Vestals, having quickly had the pools of semen wiped from their clothing by their servants, eventually reached mutual agreement. “Well, child,” the elder had asked of the younger, “who is to be for practice and who for the actual ceremony?” “I’d like this one for the first,” the 16 year-old girl answered, whilst pointing at Ferrex, “and the other, fair one, for the second. I like his looks slightly better.” “So be it!” the Vestalis Maxima then declared, before issuing orders to the two servants. Loegr was then escorted back to his cell, whilst he noticed that his friend was being led elsewhere.

Ferrex was in fact led upstairs to the temple’s inner sanctum, or ‘penus’, where the other four beautiful Vestals, aged 11, 21, 26 and 31,awaited the arrival, along with a few more young male servants, of the abashed naked youth. These young men soon managed to attach the younger newcomer to a rectangular plinth in front of the undying fire.

Ferrex found his wrists and ankles immovably chained to rings embedded in the four corners of the cool marble surface, in a face-up spreadeagled position. Somehow, his smooth cock, still dribbling some cum, became erect again as he was being affixed. The youth also began to produce some beads of sweat on his brow, but not from the warmth of the eternal flames nearby. They were instead created by a mixture of shame at being so disported in the present company and fear as to what was to come.

The Vestalis Maxima soon reappeared with her 16 year-old colleague. The sight of the latter caused Ferrex’s hard cock to quiver visibly for the lovely girl was almost naked herself, wearing just a sparse red loincloth. The sight of the wondrous firm orbs of her breasts, crowned with rosy upstanding nipples, almost caused the youth to climax again. However, he would not have to wait long for that further pleasure.

Ferrex noticed that the girl carried a bowl and wondered what it might contain, if anything. He found out when it came to rest became his splayed legs and he looked downwards, beyond his throbbing erection. He then saw that the dish contained a knife, a broad white cloth band, a wide leather strap and some much narrower cord of the same material. The youth puzzled momentarily at the possible use of these items until the terrible truth suddenly dawned when the girl began to bind his ball sac tightly with the cord. However, the 16 year-old’s sudden panicked protestations were rapidly quelled when the similarly aged female also used the strap to gag his mouth, before tying the white band round his head. This was a ‘vitta’, a ribbon of fillet, a common decoration of sacred persons and things, such as sacrifices. She then picked up the sharp, ivory-handled blade.

The horrified Ferrex, voice now stifled, tried to beg for mercy by shaking his head negatively but the young trainee castratrix of the Vestal Virgins ignored him and instead turned towards the current but retiring holder of that post, her approaching 26 year-old colleague. Both females now lent over the petrified youth’s groin from opposite sides of the plinth.

“Now child,” the older Vestal enquired, “are you sure that you can remember all that I’ve told you and that you’re up to performing the deed for the first time?” “Oh, yes,” the younger replied with obvious eagerness and excitement, “I’ve been really looking forward to castrating my first boy!” “In which case,” the retiring castratrix responded with a smile, “proceed and enjoy yourself. Don’t worry about making a mistake too much, as this is only practice for the proper ceremonial tomorrow when we initiate our new servant into our service!”

The aghast Ferrex somehow appreciated the thread of this conversation and looked at the young male servants standing nearby. It was the first time that he had realised that they were all eunuchs, although it was only later that he recognised that they had to be if they were to serve the Vestal Virgins. At this present moment, he still did not know where he was, who the females were and why they were about to geld him. However, contemplation of such issues was placed at the back of his mind when the male 16 year-old felt one of the female 16 year-old’s hands, this time her left, return to his erection and the point of her blade press against his middle scrotum, just underneath his throbbing member.

Ferrex did not know how such a lovely specimen of girlhood, now displayed in almost her naked full glory before him, could perpetrate such a cruel barbarous act on him. He did not know at the time that girls like her considered boys like him to be scum, worthy of whatever harm she wished to inflict. The new young castratrix would, in fact, gain much enjoyment from emasculating her fellow 16 year-old, a pleasure that she would repeat the next day with his friend and annually thereafter for another nine years, before training her own successor. She would also gain much happiness in the future when masturbating herself regularly whilst thinking of the handsome youths she had unmanned, most still at hand to observe as they remained in the service of the Vestals as lictors or in other more menial posts.

The girl paused momentarily to look into the terrified tearful pleading eyes of her imminent victim but she felt no compassion or sorrow when she then looked back to his still aroused genitalia to begin her incision. It soon became apparent why the Vestal wore little whilst castrating Ferrex, as much semen now spurted from the youth’s cockhead, despite his earlier ejaculation, and much blood from the widening cut.

The girl had watched such gelding rituals carefully every year for the past decade and had always wanted to assume the role of castratrix when she became 16. She had been well instructed by her predecessor, although this was her first practical assignment. She was delighting in carrying it out and would fulfil the task well, promising a successful future with the other ten youths she would emasculate, starting with Loegr on the next day, during the important Vestalia festival before many prominent women spectators, eating holy cakes.

By the new young castratrix's own choice, Loegr was to be new servant not Ferrex. The latter was just being used for castration practice, as it was essential that no mistakes were made by her during the Vestalia festival, and the victim would therefore be destined for a return to the slave market after healing. Only those who had being subjected to full ceremonial emasculation on the annual feast day could serve the Vestals, usually doing so until their youthful looks began to fade. However, the prices of eunuchs created by the Virgins on subsequent sale were always profitably high, as the female households of many rich families liked to boast about possessing someone unmanned by the sacred order.

Naturally, Ferrex did not now appreciate these niceties, or the sublime sight nearby of the gorgeous body of an almost nude beautiful 16 year-old girl, because that sublime form was currently excruciatingly squeezing his testes into view, before then, skilfully and speedily, severing with aplomb both onto the marble of the plinth, in advance of placing them into the bowl. The new young eunuch also did not welcome the new young castratrix’s subsequent collection of a special poker from the undying fire to cauterise the awful wound on his now empty scrotum.

THE END

of

‘CASTRATRIX OF ANCIENT ROME’

by Pueros

[although there’ll be more about Ferrex, Loegr and the Vestal Virgins in my later tale, to be entitled ‘Nero’]