Silva Arsia

Battle of Silva Arsia
	Part of Overthrow of the Roman monarchy
Date	28 February 508 BC [1]
Location	Arsian grove, Latium
Result	Decisive Roman Republic victory; solidifies dual rule in Rome, battle leads to a final victory of the Romans over Lucius Tarquinius Superbus in the Battle of Lake Regillus
Belligerents
Roman Kingdom	Roman Republic
Commanders and leaders
Lucius Tarquinius Superbus	Lucius Junius Brutus, Publius Valerius Publicola
Strength
unknown	unknown
Casualties and losses
11,300 killed	11,299 killed [2]

Last updated September 12, 2019

The Silva Arsia was a forest or wooded area near Rome situated where the Roman and Veientine territories abutted.^[3] Legend has it that in 509 BCE Romans heard the prophetic voice of Silvanus foretelling their victory over the Etruscans (Livy), 2.7.2). At the Battle of Silva Arsia that year the forces said to have been assembled by the Etruscan Tarquin ^[4] were defeated, though with the loss of the Roman consul Lucius Junius Brutus.^[5] The forest, rich in timber essential for shipbuilding, had been seized from the Etruscans of Veii by Ancus Martius.^[6]

Veii was an important ancient Etruscan city situated on the southern limits of Etruria and only 16 km (9.9 mi) north-northwest of Rome, Italy. It now lies in Isola Farnese, in the comune of Rome. Many other sites associated with and in the city-state of Veii are in Formello, immediately to the north. Formello is named after the drainage channels that were first created by the Veians.

Silvanus was a Roman tutelary deity of woods and fields. As protector of the forest, he especially presided over plantations and delighted in trees growing wild. He is also described as a god watching over the fields and husbandmen, protecting in particular the boundaries of fields. The similarly named Etruscan deity Selvans may be a borrowing of Silvanus, or not even related in origin.

Titus Livius – simply rendered as Livy in English – was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people – Ab Urbe Condita Libri – covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional foundation in 753 BC through the reign of Augustus in Livy's own lifetime. He was on familiar terms with members of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and even in friendship with Augustus, whose young grandnephew, the future emperor Claudius, he exhorted to take up the writing of history.

Since woodland was everywhere the province of Silvanus, there is no reason to connect the otherwise unknown Silva Arsia with the "forest of Silvanus [Silvanus luccus] outside the walls at a distance, all overgrown with a willow grove" noted in Plautus' Aulularia 674.^[7]

Plautus Roman comic playwright of the Old Latin period

Titus Maccius Plautus, commonly known as Plautus, was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by the innovator of Latin literature, Livius Andronicus. The word Plautine refers to both Plautus's own works and works similar to or influenced by his.

Notes

↑ Plutarch, Life of Publicola 9.5
↑ Plutarch Life of Publicola, 9.5
↑ Dionysius of Halicarnassus 5.14-17 mentions in this context the sacred grove of a hero Horatus; in their notes on Livy 2.7.2, Charles Anthon and Hugh Craig minimized its extent as a forest: "It was probably nothing more than a sacred grove." (Anthon and Craig, eds.Titi Livi Ab Urbe Condita: libri I, II, XXI et XXII (New York, 1884:412);.
↑ "Though the battle of the Silva Arsia is mentioned so often as to deserve some credence, the part played by Tarquinii in the campaign cannot be treated seriously in the absence of evidence that its introduction is due to more than", Cambridge Ancient History7 (1954:396).
↑ Livy, Ab urbe condita , 2.6-7
↑ Guglielmo Ferrero, Corrado Barbagallo, A Short History of Rome vol. 1 (1905:47).
↑ Yves Bonnefoy, Wendy Doniger, Roman and European Mythologies, s.v. "Silvanus".

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[1] Plutarch, Life of Publicola 9.5

[2] Plutarch Life of Publicola, 9.5

[3] Dionysius of Halicarnassus 5.14-17 mentions in this context the sacred grove of a hero Horatus; in their notes on Livy 2.7.2, Charles Anthon and Hugh Craig minimized its extent as a forest: "It was probably nothing more than a sacred grove." (Anthon and Craig, eds.Titi Livi Ab Urbe Condita: libri I, II, XXI et XXII (New York, 1884:412);.

[4] "Though the battle of the Silva Arsia is mentioned so often as to deserve some credence, the part played by Tarquinii in the campaign cannot be treated seriously in the absence of evidence that its introduction is due to more than", Cambridge Ancient History7 (1954:396).

[5] Livy, Ab urbe condita , 2.6-7

[6] Guglielmo Ferrero, Corrado Barbagallo, A Short History of Rome vol. 1 (1905:47).

[7] Yves Bonnefoy, Wendy Doniger, Roman and European Mythologies, s.v. "Silvanus".