Rhea Silvia, the mother of Romulus, was, we repeat, a vestal virgin. She lived four hundred years after the death of Æneas. During these four centuries, the kingdom had been governed by the descendants of Æneas, generally in a peaceful and prosperous manner, although some difficulties occurred in the establishment of the succession immediately after Æneas's death. It will be remembered that Æneas was drowned during the continuance of the war. He left one son, and perhaps others. The one who figured most conspicuously in the subsequent history of the kingdom, was Ascanius, the son who had accompanied Æneas from Troy, and who had now attained to years of maturity. He, of course, on his father's death, immediately succeeded him. There was some question, however, whether, after all, Lavinia herself was not entitled to the kingdom. It was doubtful, according to the laws and usages of those days, whether Æneas held the realm in his own right, or as the husband of Lavinia, who was the daughter and heir of Latinus, the ancient and legitimate king. Lavinia, however, seemed to have no disposition to assert her claim. She was of a mild and gentle spirit; and, besides, her health was at that time such as to lead her to wish for retirement and repose. She even had some fears for her personal safety, not knowing but that Ascanius would be suspicious and jealous of her on account of her claims to the throne, and that he might be tempted to do her some injury. Her husband had been her only protector among the Trojans, and now, since he was no more, and another, who was in some sense her rival, had risen to power, she naturally felt insecure. She accordingly took the first opportunity to retire from Lavinium. She went away into the forests in the interior of the country, with a very few attendants and friends, and concealed herself there in a safe retreat. The family that received and sheltered her was that of Tyrrheus, the chief of her father's shepherds, whose children's stag Ascanius had formerly killed. Here, in a short time, she had a son. She determined to name him from his father; and in order to commemorate his having been born in the midst of the wild forest scenes which surrounded her at the time of his birth, she called him in full, Æneas of the woods, or, as it was expressed in the language which was then used in Latium, Æneas Silvius. The boy, when he grew up, was always known by this name in subsequent history. And not only did he himself retain the name, but he transmitted it to his posterity, for all the kings that afterward descended from him, extending in a long line through a period of four hundred years, had the word Silvius affixed to their names, in perpetual commemoration of the romantic birth of their ancestor. Rhea, the mother of Romulus, of whom we have already spoken, and of whom we shall presently have occasion to speak still more, was Rhea _Silvia_, by reason of her having been by birth a princess of this royal line.