Remus- Roman DemigodDemigod"Twin of Romulus"

Mars and the Vestal

Rhea Silvia was a Vestal Virgin, forced into the priesthood by her uncle Amulius after he seized the throne of Alba Longa from her father Numitor. Mars visited her while she slept, and she bore twins. Amulius ordered the infants thrown into the Tiber. The flooded river carried their basket to the foot of the Palatine Hill, where a fig tree caught it and held it safe. The Romans called this tree the ficus Ruminalis, sacred to Rumina, goddess of nursing.

The She-Wolf

A she-wolf found the crying infants and nursed them in her den at the Lupercal, a cave on the Palatine's slope. A woodpecker, sacred to Mars, brought them food. The royal shepherd Faustulus discovered them and, with his wife Acca Larentia, raised them among the herders of the Palatine. Plutarch notes that some Romans read the wolf as metaphor: lupa also meant prostitute, and Acca Larentia was said by some to have been one. But the Romans preferred the wolf.

The Discovery

Remus and Romulus grew into leaders of the shepherds and outlaws around the Palatine. During a cattle raid, Remus was captured and brought before King Numitor at Alba Longa. The old king looked at the young man's bearing and age, and suspicion turned to certainty. When Romulus arrived with armed men to free his brother, the truth came out.

The twins killed Amulius and restored their grandfather to the throne. In all of this they were equals. No source distinguishes between them.

Six Vultures

The twins set out to found their own city near the place where they had been raised, but they could not agree where. Romulus chose the Palatine. Remus chose the Aventine. They would let the gods decide, each taking his hill and watching the sky for birds.

Remus saw six vultures first. Romulus saw twelve afterward. Priority or number: each brother claimed the gods had spoken for him. Ennius preserved the tense silence of Romulus's vigil, sitting alone on the Palatine, scanning the sky.

What happened next divides the sources. Romulus killed Remus in the argument that followed. Or Remus mocked his brother's low walls by jumping over them, and Romulus struck him down. Dionysius has the lieutenant Celer kill Remus with a blow from a spade, the very tool used to dig the city's foundations. Livy reports all versions without choosing. What all agree on: Remus died, Romulus ruled, and Rome took the surviving brother's name.

Ovid gives Romulus the last word: "So perish whoever else shall leap over my walls."

Remuria

Ovid says the Lemuria, Rome's May festival for restless dead, was once called the Remuria. The first Roman was also the first Roman victim, and his shade had reason to be angry.

Horace made the connection between that death and Rome's future. In his seventh Epode, he called Rome's civil wars a curse passed down from Remus's blood. Every time Romans killed Romans, they were reenacting the first day.