Romulus- Roman DemigodDemigod"Founder of Rome"

Wolf and River

Mars came to Rhea Silvia in the temple where her uncle Amulius had shut her away. She was a Vestal, sworn to chastity; Amulius had forced the vow on her to prevent heirs who might challenge his stolen throne. When she bore twin sons, Amulius ordered them drowned.

The servants placed the infants in a trough on the flooded Tiber. The river carried them downstream and left them at the foot of the Palatine Hill, beneath a fig tree. A she-wolf found them and nursed them in her cave, the Lupercal. A woodpecker brought them food. The shepherd Faustulus, watching from the hillside, waited for the wolf to leave, then took the boys home to his wife Acca Larentia. They raised them as their own.

Ennius tells what became of the mother: thrown into the Tiber by Amulius, Rhea Silvia was taken by the river god Tiberinus as his bride. She lived beneath the same waters that had saved her sons.

The Return to Alba Longa

The twins grew up among shepherds on the Palatine and gathered followers. During a raid, Remus was captured and brought before Numitor, the rightful king whom Amulius had deposed. Numitor questioned the prisoner: his age and the story of his twin brother. Suspicion became certainty. Meanwhile, Faustulus told Romulus the truth. Romulus gathered his men, attacked Alba Longa, and killed Amulius. Numitor was restored to the throne.

The twins did not want to rule in Alba Longa while their grandfather lived. They chose to found their own city at the site where the wolf had found them.

The Founding

Both brothers claimed the right to found and name the city. They agreed to let the gods decide through augury. Remus took position on the Aventine and saw six vultures. Romulus stood on the Palatine and saw twelve. Each claimed victory: Remus for seeing first, Romulus for seeing more.

The quarrel ended with Remus dead. Livy preserves two versions: Romulus killed him, or a follower named Celer struck the blow when Remus jumped the new walls in contempt.

Romulus plowed a furrow around the Palatine on April 21, 753 BCE, lifting the plow at the gates. The furrow marked the pomerium, the sacred boundary. What lay within it belonged to the gods. He opened an asylum on the Capitoline where fugitives and runaway slaves could find refuge. Men came from everywhere. The city filled with men and almost no women.

The Sabine Women

Romulus invited the Sabines and their neighbors to a festival. At a signal, his men seized the unmarried women and carried them off.

The Sabines came for war. Tarpeia, daughter of the Roman commander on the Capitoline, opened the gates to the Sabine army. She had asked for what the soldiers wore on their arms, meaning their gold bracelets. They gave her their shields instead and crushed her under the weight. The cliff was named for her.

Sabine and Roman forces met in the valley between the Palatine and Capitoline. The battle swung back and forth until the Sabine women themselves ran between the lines. They were daughters to one side and wives to the other. They held up their children and begged both armies to stop. The fighting ended. Romulus and the Sabine king Titus Tatius ruled Rome together until Tatius was killed in a quarrel at Lavinium.

Acron's Arms

In the war that followed the abduction, Romulus met Acron, king of Caenina, in single combat and killed him. He stripped Acron's armor, fastened it to an oak trunk, and carried it to the Capitoline, singing. He dedicated the spoils to Jupiter Feretrius. This was the spolia opima: a Roman commander killing an enemy commander with his own hands. Only two men after Romulus would earn it.

The Storm

Romulus ruled for nearly forty years. Then, while reviewing his army in the Campus Martius, a storm broke over the field. Thunder and darkness. Wind tore at their cloaks. When it cleared, the king was gone.

Some said Mars had taken him. Others whispered that the senators had torn him apart under cover of the dark and hidden the pieces beneath their togas.

Soon after, Romulus appeared to a nobleman named Proculus Julius. He told Proculus to carry a message: he was now the god Quirinus, and Rome would rule the world if her citizens practiced arms and self-restraint. The Romans built him a temple on the Quirinal Hill and called themselves Quirites in his name.