Lavinia

Daughter of King Latinus of Laurentum and his wife Amata, the 'foreign bride' of oracle who became Aeneas's second wife after the death of Turnus and the eponym of the city Lavinium that Aeneas founded at the Tiber mouth in her name (Virgil *Aeneid* 7.52–106 for the prophecy; 12.605–613 for Amata's suicide when she thinks Turnus has fallen; 12.937–952 for the duel that clears the way to the marriage; Livy 1.1.9–1.3.3 for the wedding, the foundation of Lavinium, Ascanius's later move to Alba Longa, and Lavinia's regency for her unborn son Silvius; Dion. Hal. 1.70.1–3 for the disagreement whether Ascanius was her own son or Creusa's). The Aeneid leaves her silent — she is named thirteen times in the poem but never speaks. The post-Virgilian prose tradition (Dion. Hal. 1.70.1–4) fills in the widow-regent role: at Aeneas's death she was pregnant, fled Ascanius's possible hostility to a sacred grove, and gave birth there to Silvius, whose line inherits Alba Longa from Ascanius.

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