There were a great many very extraordinary rites and ceremonies connected with the service of the vestal altar, and many singular regulations for the conduct of it, the origin and design of which it would now be very difficult to ascertain. As has already been remarked, the virgins were chosen when very young, being, when designated to the office, not under six nor over ten years of age. They were chosen by the king, and it was necessary that the candidate, besides the above-named requisite in regard to age, should be in a perfect condition of soundness and health in respect to all her bodily limbs and members, and also to the faculties of her mind. It was required too that she should be the daughter of free and freeborn parents, who had never been in slavery, and had never followed any menial or degrading occupation; and also that both her parents should be living. To be an orphan was considered, it seems, in some sense an imperfection.
The service of the vestal virgins continued for thirty years; and when this period had expired, the maidens were discharged from their vows, and were allowed, if they chose, to lay aside their vestal robes, and the other emblems of their office, and return to the world, with the privilege even of marrying, if they chose to do so. Though the laws however permitted this, there was a public sentiment against it, and it was seldom that any of the vestal priestesses availed themselves of the privilege. They generally remained after their term of service had expired, in attendance at the temple, and died as they had lived in the service of the goddess.
One of the chief functions of the virgins, in their service in the temple, was to keep the sacred fire perpetually burning. This fire was never to go out, and if, by any neglect on the part of the vestal in attendance, this was allowed to occur, the guilty maiden was punished terribly by scourging. The punishment was inflicted by the hands of the highest pontifical officer of the state. The laws of the institution however evinced their high regard for the purity and modesty of the vestal maidens by requiring that the blows should be administered in the dark, the sufferer having been previously prepared to receive them by being partially undressed by her female attendants. The extinguished fire was then rekindled with many solemn ceremonies.
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.
Ascanius, in the mean time, on the death of his father, was for a time so engrossed in the prosecution of the war, that he paid but little attention to the departure of Lavinia. The name of the king of the Rutulians who fought against him was Mezentius. Mezentius had a son named Lausus, and both father and son were personally serving in the army by which Ascanius was besieged in Lavinium. Mezentius had command in the camp, at the head-quarters of the army, which was at some distance from the city. Lausus headed an advanced guard, which had established itself strongly at a post which they had taken near the gates. In this state of things, Ascanius, one dark and stormy night, planned a sortie. He organized a desperate body of followers, and after watching the flashes of lightning for a time, to find omens from them indicating success, he gave the signal. The gates were opened and the column of armed men sallied forth, creeping noiselessly forward in the darkness and gloom, until they came to the encampment of Lausus. They fell upon this camp with an irresistible rush, and with terrific shouts and outcries. The whole detachment were taken entirely by surprise, and great numbers were made prisoners or slain. Lausus himself was killed.
Excited by their victory, the Trojan soldiers, headed by Ascanius, now turned their course toward the main body of the Rutulian army. Mezentius had, however, in the mean time, obtained warning of their approach, and when they reached his camp he was ready to retreat. He fled with all his forces toward the mountains. Ascanius and the Trojans followed him. Mezentius halted and attempted to fortify himself on a hill. Ascanius surrounded the hill, and soon compelled his enemies to come to terms. A treaty was made, and Mezentius and his forces soon after withdrew from the country, leaving Ascanius and Latium in peace.
Ascanius then, after having in some degree settled his affairs, began to think of Lavinia. In fact, the Latin portion of his subjects seemed disposed to murmur and complain, at her having been compelled to withdraw from her own paternal kingdom, in order to leave the throne to the occupancy of the son of a stranger. Some even feared that she had come to some harm, or that Ascanius might in the end put her to death when time had been allowed for the recollection of her to pass in some degree from the minds of men. So the public began generally to call for Lavinia's return.