Includes bibliographical references and index.

Foreword / by James J. O'Donnell -- Interpreting culture. Historical consciousness and historiography ; Human experience and cultural structures of meaning ; The body as a political site and symbol ; Embodiment and cultural structures of meaning ; Embodiment and cultural identity ; The body as a political paradigm ; Gender and culture ; Sex as category of social differentiation ; Summary -- Roman civic religion. Roman marriage, family, and gender relations ; The Roman family ; Roman gender relations ; Roman civic identity : Romanitas ; Roman religion -- Roman myth and ritual. Structural elements of Roman myth and ritual ; Cult symbols and themes ; Roman religious sensibility -- Roman virginity and the vestal cult. Ancient texts ; Archaeological record ; General features of the vestal cult ; Language of the vestal cult -- Vestal mythology. Mythic narratives ; Vestal themes and images ; Vestal characters and relationships ; Vestal sexuality and gender -- The vestal ritual tradition. Rituals of the vestal cult ; The vestal role in Roman civic cult observance ; Ritual patterns of the crimen incesti ; The crimen incesti ritual as sacrificial purification The crimen incesti ritual as heroic ordeal -- Interpreting vestal virginity. Virginity in the late antique political imagination ; What happened to the vestals? ; Concluding thoughts.

Description based on print version record.