How did Rhea Silvia become pregnant if she was a vestal virgin? Did she have sex to conceive the twins?

Most historians, when studying the myth of Rhea Silvia, use as source the writings of the famous Roman historian, Titus Livius, more popularly known as Livy. He had written a monumental work on the history of Rome, and covered the period from its earliest legends before the traditional foundation in 753 BC through to the reign of Augustus when he (Livy) was still alive. Scholars have respected his version of early Roman history as being the most accurate.

Rhea Silvia was the mother of Romulus and Remus. The circumstances of their conception have been much debated, but Livy states in his account that Rhea was raped. She had been forced to become a vestal virgin and undertake a vow of celibacy for thirty years. This was done by her uncle Amulius, who seized the throne from her father, Numitor, and killed her brother to prevent him from being rightfully challenged by him or his heirs. Amulius was imprisoned.

In terms of the myth, Rhea Silvia fell pregnant after being violated by Mars and gave birth to the twins who would eventually establish Rome. Livy states, however, that she had been violated by a man, not by Mars. He assumed that her claim to have been raped by Mars was either a result of her imagination or because it was deemed less shameful for a vestal virgin to have committed such an offense with a god. Be that as it may, the punishment for such an act was death, and Amulius ordered that she be buried alive for breaking her vow of chastity.

In a number of myths, the river god, Tiber, took pity on Rhea Silvia and rescued her from Amulius's clutches. He later made her his wife, which promoted her status to that of a minor deity.

Amulius had also instructed that Rhea's illegitimate twins, Romulus and Remus, be executed by exposure, but the servant who was to execute the sentence took pity on the two boys and set them adrift in a basket down the river Tiber. Their basket later got caught on the river bank, and they were rescued and weaned by a wolf. A shepherd and his wife later discovered them and raised them. As grown men they avenged their uncle's murder by killing Amulius and returning their grandfather, Numitor, to his rightful place on the throne.

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...

nouns - what do you call the person who passes the trophies to the prize giver/presenter?

The person who gives out the trophies to the winners are called award presenters. So what do u call the person who passes the trophies to the presenter? Thanks!

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.

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