Rhea Silvia and the Founding of Rome

This article is for readers of my novel Rhea Silvia which is the first book in The First Vestals of Rome Trilogy. This series covers the legendary founding and the first years of the kingdom of Rome, and focuses on the Vestal priestesses that were prominent during this time period - and that starts with Rhea Silvia, the mother of Romulus and Remus.

Many of the characters and legends that you’ll read about in my books are depicted on ancient Roman coins, so I wanted to show you some coins from my collection that feature elements from each novel. And just a heads up - there are SPOILERS ahead, so you’ll want to finish reading the novel before you read this article (you’ll find it more interesting that way, since you’ll be able to see how certain elements on these coins have been dramatized). *Also, if you’re following the trilogy, you may wish to read the articles for Tarpeia (book two) and Amata (book three) after this one.

Readers of Rhea Silvia will know that the central character Rhea is very aware and very proud of her royal lineage, and that lineage has its roots deep in the epic story of Troy. The below coin is the reverse of a second century-ish coin that was actually minted in the city of Troy as it existed in the Imperial age of Rome.

If you look carefully, you can see the figure of a man on the coin. His name is Ilus (or Ilos). Ilus was the founder of Troy, which in Greek is called Ilion. So just as Rome will ultimately take the name of its founder, Romulus, Ilion took the name of its founder, Ilus. This is why the Iliad, Homer’s famous poem about the Trojan War, is called the Iliad. It’s also why another name for Rhea Silvia is Ilia.

On this coin we see Ilus standing, sacrificing, at an altar – one that we can imagine burns with the fire of Trojan Vesta – and it’s happening before a statue of Athena. The legend goes that Ilus was looking for a place to found his city when a statue of Athena, called the Palladium, was thrown down from the heavens, and so he founded Troy in the spot where it landed.

So…if we move forward, everything is fine in Troy, the people are happily sacrificing to their gods at altars like this, and going about their business, when the Trojan war breaks out. Why that happens, and what happens during it, is a huge story in itself. Suffice it to say, it’s a long war and it only ends with the trickery of a Greek soldier named Odysseus who has the idea of wheeling a giant wooden horse to the gates of Troy.

The procession of the Trojan Horse in Troy. Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Thinking the Greeks have given up, the Trojans open the gates and drag the horse into the city. What they don’t know is that there are Greek soldiers hiding inside the horse.

The coin you’ll see below is the reverse of a third century BCE coin that has an Amazon on the front – this isn’t the Trojan horse per se, but the Amazons did fight on the side of the Trojans during the war, and this does look fairly Trojan horsey to me, so that’s why I’m including it. It’s actually a Greek coin.

The Greeks file out of the horse, open the gates of the city to the larger Greek army, and basically rain hellfire down on Troy, setting it on fire, killing the men, taking the women as slaves.   

Troy burning. Attributed to Daniel van Heil, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Now, in the chaos, as Troy is burning, some people manage to flee the city. One of these people is a kinsman of the Trojan king, and he’s called Aeneas.  He manages to flee Troy with his little son and his elderly father, taking with them the Palladium and the household gods of Troy, including embers from the sacred hearthfire.

Aeneas’s Flight from Troy. Federico Barocci, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

And we can see that very famous scene below, depicted on the reverse of this little coin which was also minted in Troy around the middle of the second century CE. You can see Aeneas holding hands with his young son Ascanius. He is also carrying his elderly father, Anchises.

Aeneas is looking back, we can assume seeing the awful sight of his city burning.  Of course this event is the prologue of the book Rhea Silvia and these names—Aeneas and Ascanius—will carry through for the rest of the book and the trilogy here. It’s a very emotional scene, really, because this family, and Aeneas’s followers, they are basically refugees.

Where they go on their travels, and what happens to them along the way, is a big story with some important players, and you can read about some of that in Virgil’s epic the Aeneid—but for our purposes here, it’s enough to know that Aeneas chooses to follow his destiny, to follow the will of the gods and to keep moving, with the intention of building his own city.

And I think that idea is represented in this very pretty reverse coin of the empress Faustina. This is a sestertius, so it’s a nice big coin, and it shows the goddess carrying the eternal flame and the Palladium.

I’ve always thought the movement in this impression, the way it looks like the goddess is moving forward, to me it captures that idea of the religion and culture of Troy, making that journey from Troy to Italy, which is so important.

During this journey, Aeneas has a prophetic dream. The gods come to him and tell him that when and where he sees a white sow with thirty piglets, that is when and where he is to build his city. And that’s exactly what happens. Aeneas is wandering along the coast when he sees a white sow with thirty piglets.

And it’s that legendary sow that’s shown on the reverse of this coin, a denarius (the standard silver coin), from 1st century CE, so again from the time of the Empire (this is actually a coin of Titus). Below her body, you’ll see three piglets, representing a total of thirty.

Aeneas of course recognizes the omen and builds his city, called Lavinium, on the spot—in Latium, in Italy, thus successfully bringing the Trojan household gods, and Vesta, to this new land.

But it doesn’t stop there. Because these men have the blood of founders in them. And so thirty years later—the same number of piglets in the white sow’s litter—Ascanius, now a man, founds his own city, called Alba Longa. Some say it was named in honor of the white sow, alba,—albino. Regardless, Alba Longa is another very important city—and if you’re counting, we’ve now seen the founding of three cities—Troy, Lavinium, and Alba Longa.

Eventually, Ascanius has his own son, whom he names Silvius.

Silvius-posth. Published by Guillaume Rouille (1518?-1589), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Silvius succeeds his father as king of Alba Longa and it’s from him that we get this great Silvian Dynasty of kings from which our title character, Rhea Silvia, takes her name.

Her father is king Numitor Silvius...unfortunately, he is usurped by his brother.  The new king, however, worries that his niece Rhea Silvia will have a son who may grow to oppose him, so he forces her to become a Vestal Virgin—a priestess who guards Vesta’s sacred fire, and who must remain chaste.

The condemnation of Rhea Silvia by Amulius. Creator: Guillaume Guillon-Lethière, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

But the gods don’t care about what a mortal king wants…there’s still a destiny to be fulfilled here, and so, the god Mars—the god of war—comes to Rhea Silvia while she’s serving as a Vestal priestess, and he impregnates her.

Mars and Rhea Silvia. Giulio Bonasone, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

And that famous scene is depicted on the reverse of the below coin, a very beautiful coin (a bronze As) from the 2nd century CE. It’s a coin of the emperor Antoninus Pius.

You can see the figure of Rhea Silvia sleeping while, from above, descends Mars—the helmet, the spear, the coming down from the heavens, it’s all kind of a giveaway. Now Mars doesn’t mess around and Rhea Silvia actually delivers twin boys—a virgin birth of course—who she names Romulus and Remus.

When her uncle discovers this, he orders the infants to be killed. But obviously the story can’t end there...so through a series of events, the twins are put in a basket and sent down the Tiber River where they float along, ultimately coming to rest against a tree on the shore.

It’s here that the legend, the mythology, ramps up even more. A wolf, a she-wolf—which is of course the animal of Mars—finds the basket along the shore of the Tiber and protects the infants, even nurses them.

She-Wolf Suckling Romulus and Remus. Ludovico Carracci, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

And that enduring legend is depicted on the reverse of the below coin, a Republican denarius.

You can see the wolf here, looking very lovely, with the two infants below. You can see the fig tree, you can even see a woodpecker in the tree, another symbol of Mars. Off to the side is a figure - this is a shepherd stumbling upon this amazing sight. His name is Faustulus, and he takes the infants and raises them.

Eventually, the boys grow up and learn their true identity. When that happens, they do two important things. First, they rescue their mother, Rhea Silvia, from captivity.  Second, they restore their grandfather, Numitor, to the throne of Alba Longa.

Those things done, they return to the area by the Tiber to found their own city…because remember, these are men with the blood of founders in them. But unfortunately, we see a theme here develop that really haunts Rome for a lot of its history, and that is the concept of brother against brother, of civil war, really. We saw it with Numitor and his brother, and we see it again now between Romulus and Remus.

Medallion of Romulus and Remus. Carlo Brogi, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The brothers disagree about where exactly to build the city—Romulus wants to build it on a certain hill called the Palatine, but Remus wants to build it on a hill called the Aventine. They argue, and Romulus and ends up killing Remus. He builds his city on the Palatine, it’s called Rome—after him obviously—and he becomes King Romulus, the first king of Rome.

Now how Rhea Silvia factors into all of this is obviously the subject of the novel. Her lineage, her years of living as a captive, the return of these sons and then what happens between them...all against the backdrop of mythology, and legend, and Rome...it’s really powerful stuff. And in the novel, it is Rhea Silvia, the priestess, who brings the flame of Vesta to the spot where the temple is ultimately built. When she does this, she prays to Vesta Aeterna, or Eternal Vesta. And that’s a concept, a name, we can see on the reverse of the below Imperial Coin.

On this coin we see the figure of Vesta, holding a sceptre in one hand and the Palladium in the other. And of course the words VESTA AETERNA above that...Eternal Vesta who protects the Eternal city (I’ve circled the V in VESTA and the A in AETERNA so you can easily see the letters).

So - this has been a very general overview of the founding of Rome…or more specifically, the founding of Troy, of Lavinium, of Alba Longa and then of Rome. It’s a big story with different traditions, different sources and ways to tell it, but this should give you a basic understanding especially if you’re new to this subject matter.

In any event – since we started here with a Trojan altar, we’ll end with a Roman altar, as on the reverse of the below gold coin, called an aureus, another Imperial coin from the time of Titus. This is actually Aeternitas, the personification of eternity, standing before an altar. She’s holding the sun and the moon in her hands, and you can see the flame of the altar fire, the flame of Vesta, burning on top of the altar.

So you can see that coins offer a way for Rome to spread its story, and the message that it is the Eternal City—there’s a continuity that extends into the future, yes, but also into the past. And of course the ultimate expression of that sense of perpetuity, of eternity, is embodied in the Eternal Flame of Vesta. The same way that the Trojans believed the Palladium, that statue of Pallas Athena, was the guardian of their city, the Romans believed that the sacred fire of Vesta protected their city—that’s one reason why the Palladium was kept in the Temple of Vesta.

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy the novel Rhea Silvia. And again, I hope that, when you are finished reading the books, you visit the articles for Tarpeia (book two) and Amata (book three) to see ancient coins that are relevant to those stories.