Silvius

Lavinia fled into the woods after Aeneas died. She left the city that Aeneas had founded and named Lavinium after her. Among the trees, she gave birth to his son. Aeneas had already died when the child was born, so the boy became known as Aeneas’s posthumous son.

The child’s birth in the woods shaped his name. He received the name Silvius because he had been born among the trees, away from Lavinium and its people. His birth also connected him to both of his parents. Lavinia was counted as his mother, and Aeneas was counted as his father, even though he had died before the child’s birth.

Silvius therefore belonged to the line of Aeneas and Lavinia. His birth followed Aeneas’s death, but it did not remove him from Aeneas’s family. The woodland birth marked the child and gave him the name by which he was remembered.

In another telling, Lavinia did not give birth to Silvius as Aeneas’s son. That telling made Ascanius, Aeneas’s son, the father of Silvius instead. Silvius still carried the woodland name, but his place in the family changed. He became the son of Ascanius rather than the posthumous son of Aeneas.