The Romans clung to the conviction that Romulus, the founder of Rome, was the son of a virgin by a god, that his life was marvellously preserved, that he was saved from the floods of the river and was reared by a she-wolf.  That this poetry is very ancient cannot be doubted; but did the legend at all times describe Romulus as the son of Rea Silvia or Ilia?  Perizonius was the first who remarked against Ryccius that Rea Ilia never occurs together, and that Rea Silvia was a daughter of Numitor, while Ilia is called a daughter of AEneas.  He is perfectly right:  Naevius and Ennius called Romulus a son of Ilia, the daughter of AEneas, as is attested by Servius on Vergil and Porphyrio on Horace; but it cannot be hence inferred that this was the national opinion of the Romans themselves, for the poets who were familiar with the Greeks might accommodate their stories to Greek poems.  The ancient Romans, on the other hand, could not possibly look upon the mother of the founder of their city as a daughter of AEneas, who was believed to have lived three hundred and thirty-three or three hundred and sixty years earlier.  Dionysius says that his account, which is that of Fabius, occurred in the sacred songs, and it is in itself perfectly consistent.  Fabius cannot have taken it, as Plutarch asserts, from Diocles, a miserable unknown Greek author; the statue of the she-wolf was erected in the year A.U. 457, long before Diocles wrote, and at least a hundred years before Fabius.  This tradition therefore is certainly the more ancient Roman one; and it puts Rome in connection with Alba.  A monument has lately been discovered at Bovillae:  it is an altar which the Gentiles Julii erected lege Albana, and therefore expresses a religious relation of a Roman gens to Alba.  The connection of the two towns continues down to the founder of Rome; and the well-known tradition, with its ancient poetical details, many of which Livy and Dionysius omitted from their histories lest they should seem to deal too much in the marvellous, runs as follows: 

Numitor and Amulius were contending for the throne of Alba.  Amulius took possession of the throne, and made Rea Silvia, the daughter of Numitor, a vestal virgin, in order that the Silvian house might become extinct.  This part of the story was composed without any insight into political laws, for a daughter could not have transmitted any gentilician rights.  The name Rea Silvia is ancient, but Rea is only a surname:  rea femmina often occurs in Boccaccio, and is used to this day in Tuscany to designate a woman whose reputation is blighted; a priestess Rea is described by Vergil as having been overpowered by Hercules.  While Rea was fetching water in a grove for a sacrifice the sun became eclipsed, and she took refuge from a wolf in a cave, where she was overpowered by Mars.  When she was delivered, the sun was again eclipsed and the statue of Vesta covered its eyes.  Livy has here abandoned the marvellous.  The tyrant