Rhea Silvia (also written as Rea Silvia), and also known as Ilia, was the mythical mother of the twins Romulus and Remus, who founded the city of Rome. Her story is told in the Ab Urbe Condita of Livy.
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The legend
According to the legend, she was the daughter of Numitor, king of Alba Longa and descendant of Aeneas. Numitor's brother Amulius seized the throne and killed Numitor's son. Amulius forced Rhea Silvia to become a Vestal Virgin, a priestess to the goddess Vesta, so that she (and through her, Numitor) would have no heirs; Vestal Virgins were sworn to celibacy for a period of thirty years. The god Mars, however, came upon Rhea Silvia[1] and raped her in the forest, thereby conceiving the twins. When Amulius learned of this, he ordered Rhea Silvia buried alive and ordered a servant to kill the twins, but the merciful servant instead set them adrift in the river Tiber. The river-god, Tiberinus found the twins and gave them to a she-wolf, Lupa, who had just lost her own cubs, to suckle.[2] Subsequently, Tiberinus rescued and married Rhea Silvia. Romulus and Remus went on to found Rome and overthrow Amulius, reinstating Numitor as King of Alba Longa. Livy presents a somewhat rationalised version of this tale. In Ab Urbe Condita, the Tiber had overflown and the soldiers were ordered to expose the babies to the Tiber, thinking that the muddy flooded ground would be sufficient to drown the twins. Livy also casts doubt on whether the twins were actually suckled by a wolf. Livy commented that it was believed that the wife of the shepherd who would eventually raise the twins was a prostitute known to the other shepherds as the Wolf. That Livy's euhemerist and realist deflation of this myth that was central to the origins of Rome was not general, is demonstrated by the recurrence of the theme of Mars discovering Rhea Silvia in Roman arts: the Latinists' "Invention of Rhea Silvia"[3] appears in bas-relief on the Casali Altar (Vatican Museums, in engraved couched glass on the Portland Vase (British Museum) or on a sarcophagus in the Palazzo Mattei. In a version presented by Ovid,[4] it is the river Anio that takes pity on her and invites her to rule in his realm.
Etymology
The name Rhea Silvia suggests a minor deity, a demi-goddess of forests. Silva means woods or forest, and Rea may be related to res and regnum; Rea may also be related to Greek rheô, "flow," and thus relate to her association with the spirit of the river Tiber. Carsten Niebuhr connected the name Rhea Silvia with 'Rea' meaning 'guilty' and 'Silvia' 'of the forest' and so assumed that Rhea Silvia was a generic name for 'the guilty woman of the forest,' i.e. a woman who had been raped there.
See also
References
Livy, Ab urbe condita Book 1
Footnotes
- ^ Mars' discovery of Rhea Silvia is a prototype of the "invention scene", or "discovery scene" familiar in Roman art; Greek examples are furnished by Dionysus and Ariadne or Selene and Endymion. (Noted by D. E. L. Haynes, "The Portland Vase again" The Journal of Hellenic Studies 88 (1968:58-72) p. 67; the Portland Vase features a celebrated depiction of the "invention", or coming-upon, of Rhea Sylvia by Mars.
- ^ The she-wolf is memorialised in the Etruscan bronze Capitoline Wolf, a symbol of Rome.
- ^ The theme is sometimes termed the "invention" of Rhea Silvia, in the Latin sense of "invenire", to come upon; compare the "Invention of the True Cross" by Empress Helena.
- ^ Ovid: Amores, book III, elegy IV: 'The Flooded River'.
