Aventinus, one of the mythical kings of Alba Longa

Alba Longa

Alba Longa – in Italian sources occasionally written Albalonga – was an ancient city of Latium in central Italy southeast of Rome in the Alban Hills. Founder and head of the Latin League, it was destroyed by Rome around the middle of the 7th century BC. In legend, Romulus and Remus, founders of...

, who was buried on the Aventine Hill

Aventine Hill

The Aventine Hill is one of the seven hills on which ancient Rome was built. It belongs to Ripa, the twelfth rione, or ward, of Rome.-Location and boundaries:The Aventine hill is the southernmost of Rome's seven hills...

 later named after him. He is said to have reigned thirty-seven years, and to have been succeeded by Procas

Procas

Procas or Proca was one of the Latin kings of Alba Longa in the mythic tradition of the founding of Rome. He was the father of Amulius and Numitor.-The name:...

, the father of Amulius

Amulius

In Roman mythology, Amulius was the brother of Numitor and son of Procas. He was the hostile uncle of Romulus and Remus' mother.-Myth:His brother, Numitor, was the King of Alba Longa. Amulius overthrew him and took the throne. Amulius forced Rhea Silvia, Numitor's daughter, to become a Vestal...

.

Servius, in analysing Virgil

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...

's Aeneid

Aeneid

The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...

, Book vii. 656, speaks of an Aventinus, a king of the aboriginal inhabitants of Rome, who was killed and buried on the hill afterwards called the Aventine Hill

Aventine Hill

The Aventine Hill is one of the seven hills on which ancient Rome was built. It belongs to Ripa, the twelfth rione, or ward, of Rome.-Location and boundaries:The Aventine hill is the southernmost of Rome's seven hills...

. This king may be conflated with this one or with a separate figure

Aventinus (mythology)

Aventinus was a son of Hercules and the priestess Rhea mentioned in Virgil's Aeneid, Book vii. 656, as an ally of Mezentius and enemy of Aeneas :...

 in the Aeneid:

"The Aventine is a hill in the city of Rome. It is accepted that it derives its name from birds (aves) which, rising from the Tiber, nested there (as we read in the eighth book of a suitable home for the nests of ill-omened birds). This is because of a king of the Aboriginal Italians, Aventinus by name, who was both killed and buried there - just as the Alban king Aventinus was, he who was succeeded by Procas. Varro, however, states that amongst the Roman people, the Sabines accepted this mountain when it was offered them by Romulus, and called it the Aventine after the Aventus river in its area. It is therefore accepted that these different opinions came later, for in the beginning it was called Aventinus after either the birds or the Aboriginal King: from which it is accepted that the son of Hercules mentioned here took his name from that of the hill, not vice versa."http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0053&layout=&loc=7.657

Sources

• Liv. i. 3
  Livy
  Titus Livius — known as Livy in English — was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people. Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Chapters from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC...
  
  
• Dionys. i. 71
  Dionysius of Halicarnassus
  Dionysius of Halicarnassus was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Caesar Augustus. His literary style was Attistic — imitating Classical Attic Greek in its prime.-Life:...
  
  
• Ovid, Fasti iv. 51.
  Fasti (poem)
  The Fasti is a six-book Latin poem by Ovid believed to have been left unfinished when the poet was exiled to Tomis by the emperor Augustus in the year 8...
  
  
• Smith, Biographical Dictionary