Rhea Silvia- Roman FigureMortal"Vestal Virgin"

Princess and Vestal

Rhea Silvia was the daughter of King Numitor of Alba Longa. When Numitor's younger brother Amulius seized the throne, he killed Numitor's sons and faced the question of what to do with his niece. A daughter could bear heirs. Heirs could reclaim the throne. Amulius made her a Vestal Virgin, sworn to thirty years of chastity. Violation of the vow meant death. Livy records the arrangement plainly: Amulius used Vesta's service as a prison.

The Sacred Grove

Ovid tells the conception in the Fasti. Rhea Silvia went to a sacred grove to draw water from a spring. She sat down and fell asleep. Mars found her there. She woke already carrying twins.

Livy is less certain about what happened. He reports that Rhea Silvia claimed Mars as the father, and leaves open whether she believed it or said it to dignify what had been done to her. What no source disputed was the result: two boys, and a Vestal who could no longer hide what she had become.

The Tiber

Amulius acted when the pregnancy showed. A Vestal who had broken her vow faced burial alive. Livy says Amulius imprisoned her and ordered the twins exposed on the flooding Tiber, leaving her own fate unrecorded. Dionysius of Halicarnassus writes that she survived in prison until her sons grew, overthrew Amulius, and freed her.

Ennius told a different ending. In his version, Rhea Silvia was thrown into the Tiber itself. The river god Tiberinus caught her and took her as his wife. She entered the water as a condemned woman and rose from it as a goddess. Plutarch preserves variants of the same tradition in his Life of Romulus.