vestals

Ay! upon my knees, amid the dust and blood of the arena, I begged that poor boon, while all the assembled maids and matrons, and the holy virgins they call vestals, and the rabble, shouted in derision, deeming it rare sport, forsooth, to see Rome's fiercest gladiator turn pale and tremble at sight of that piece of bleeding clay!

Evolution of Expression — Volume 1 Charles Wesley Emerson 1872

The Romans, at some periods of their history, paid extraordinary respect to their women; the institution of the vestals is a memorial of the estimation in which female virtue was held, and the emperor Heliogabalus was desirous that his wife should have

Female Scripture Biographies, Volume II Francis Augustus Cox 1818

The wedding was a rich one, and so the "vestals" appeared in state.

From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan 1861

"vestals" held him up while I went below for some rum and water.

The Ebbing Of The Tide South Sea Stories - 1896 Louis Becke 1884

Elcho, however, was in that age a peaceful nunnery, and the walls with which it was surrounded were the barriers of secluded vestals, not the bulwarks of an armed garrison.

The Fair Maid of Perth 2008

Darsie Latimer, — of the damsel in the green mantle and the vestals of

Redgauntlet 2008

But that she should he here — in the savage and sequestered desert — among vestals, who rendered themselves habitants of wilds and of caverns, that they might perform in secret those Christian rites which they dared not assist in openly; that this should be so, in truth and in reality, seemed too incredible — it must be a dream — a delusive trance of the imagination.

The Talisman 2008

The ancient scorn of the vestals for the ambubajae is one of the most profound instincts of feminine dignity; the sisters felt it with the double force contributed by religion.

Les Miserables 2008

Greeks and two Gauls to expiate the gallantries of three vestals.

A Philosophical Dictionary 2007

Many persons, it is too well known, have been buried alive, like Roman vestals, and it is what happens after every battle, especially in cold countries.

A Philosophical Dictionary 2007