Rhea Silvia
Made a priestess so she could never bear children — and the woman who bore Rome.
She was a princess of Alba Longa. Her uncle Amulius, who had seized the throne from her father Numitor, made her a Vestal priestess — a calculation to keep her childless forever.
Yet by Mars she bore the twins Romulus and Remus; the infants were cast into the Tiber and survived on a wolf's milk.
Livy, recounting the founding story, noted in advance that such passages belong more to poetry than to history. That caution, too, is the Roman way.
SourcesLivy, History of Rome
Commonly confused
A Roman figure, unrelated to the Titan Rhea, wife of Cronus. Mars corresponds to the Greek Ares, Vesta to Hestia.