Excerpt from the Lives of the Alban Kings

SILVIUS
 

    When the war against Mezentius had ended, the Lavinians began to turn their attention to domestic affairs. As has already been mentioned, at some time after the accession of Ascanius, the queen Lavinia secretly took flight from the city. No one knew where, and for what reason. The Latins of the city made a scandal out of that fact, and clamored with increasingly strident demands to know what had become of their beloved queen. Some, who had never approved of the alliance between Trojans and Latins, accused Ascanius of having murdered her; these were at first ignored in deference to the character of the king, which few really doubted, but as no evidence ever turned up, suspicions began to rise.

    Without delay then, and as much out of his own personal affection for her as his peoples’, Ascanius dispatched men throughout Latium to find her out, whether she had been seen passing through any towns or whether she had been but another casualty of Mezentius. But the search was in vain: months dragged on and the Latins had resigned themselves to believing her lost forever, and their suspicions more often than not alighted on Ascanius.

     Meanwhile, a certain old man by the name of Tyrrheus who had been in the service of king Latinus as his royal swineherd, hearing of the plots and machinations which some partisans among the Latins were harboring against Ascanius, was concerned that some harm would befall the king, whom he knew to be innocent. At length he appeared at court and announced that he knew the whereabouts of the queen, and to a stunned audience, he divulged the circumstances behind Lavinia’s flight, which were as follows.

    Upon the death of Aeneas and the dedication of his hero-shrine, Lavinia learned that she was with child, and this revelation had imparted to her a sudden curious urge to abandon the city. Having fled the town which her husband had built for her, she took toward the Alban Hills and and eventually came upon Tyrrheus, the old swineherd. He, naturally, had known her as a youth when in service to Latinus, and was overjoyed to once again see the princess Lavinia, now turned Queen. She divulged to him her condition, and called upon his aid as well as his absolute secrecy. Without hesitation, Tyrrheus took her in his care and confidence, and ministered to her during her birth and in the following months.

    What Lavinia hoped to gain by this flight, I do not know; some allege that omens prompted her to leave, or a prophesy that a son, born of the forest, would found a race of leaders. Others maintain that she feared the jealousy of Ascanius her step-son, who she thought would look amiss at any potential heir to the throne which was not of his direct issue; this I think to be the most probable reason. In any case, the matter which had been brought to light by the confessions of Tyrrheus soothed for a moment the conficts between Latins and Trojans. For the Latins were pleased that their queen had been found alive, and that she had brought forth a potential heir who carried the blood of Latinus. The Trojans were likewise joyed to learn of another son of Aeneas, and also gratified by the fact that Ascanius was immediately exonerated of all blame in the disappearance of his step-mother. This child, named Silvius by his mother Lavinia because he was born not in the palace but in the Latin woods, was accepted into the royal household by Ascanius the king and raised alongside his own son, Iulus.

    Skeptics of bygone ages and of this age as well, have been inclined to doubt the veracity of the story as brought forth by Tyrrheus, preferring to believe a more sordid version in which Lavinia’s actions were not quite so honorable. These persons say that Lavinia fled into the woods as a lover of Tyrrheus, and Silvius’ father was not the hero Aeneas but Latinus himself. It is even claimed by some that Lavinia, while the great wars raged around her, desired neither Turnus nor Aeneas but rather the lowly swineherd, and after numerous dalliances with him, conspired with her paramour to have her husband Aeneas fall in battle and never to be seen again; at which point she fled and rejoined Tyrrheus in the woods.

    But with this, as in many other things, it is evident to the author that the skeptics have been too zealous in their search for scandal among our ancestors. Such actions are entirely out of character with the piety and honor of both Aeneas and Lavinia, against either of whom no trustworthy historian or poet has cast any aspersions. Secondly, the affection which Ascanius showed his step-brother, and raised him in the court alongside his own son Iulus—even, as we shall see, to the latter’s political detriment—shows clearly that the king believed him to be of blood no less regal than his own. No fool was Ascanius, neither would he tolerate an impostor son of his beloved father.

    Such aspersions upon the names of the good are too often promulgated by the wicked, in order that their own misdeeds might seem less offensive. For if the annals of a nation cannot produce any men or women of virtue, those who make vice their habit will feel more secure. History is filled with scoundrels already; let historians be not hasty to add any more.
 

Copyright © 1998, Claudio R. Salvucci.  All Rights Reserved.