Romulus and Remus: The Legendary Founders of Rome

According to legend, Rome was founded in 753 BCE by twin brothers Romulus and Remus, though one brother would be dead before the city walls were fully raised. The brothers were purportedly the descendants of the Trojans via the hero Aeneas, the son of Aphrodite. The twins were also the sons of Mars, the god of war. This extraordinary lineage helped justify Rome’s right to dominate the surrounding region through military conquest. This article will examine Rome’s founding legend, its origin and purpose, and how likely it is to be historically accurate.

According to Roman legend, the people of Rome were heirs of Troy, which the Greeks may have destroyed in 1184 BCE. The hero Aeneas was a member of the Trojan royal family, a second cousin of the princes Hector and Paris. He escaped Troy with a group of men, carrying his elderly father Anchises on his back. Aeneas’s mother was the goddess Aphrodite, known as Venus in Rome.

The Trojans wandered for many years looking for a new homeland, stopping in Sicily and Carthage before making their way to the Italian peninsula. There they were initially welcomed. Latinus, king of the Latins, who had no sons, gave Aeneas his daughter Lavinia to marry. This led to conflict as another prince, Turnus, wanted to marry Lavinia. Blood was shed with Venus supporting Aeneas, and Juno, the Roman version of Hera, supporting Turnus. In the end, the two men decide to settle their differences through single combat. Jupiter, the Roman Zeus, convinced Juno to give up her support of Turnus, and Aeneas was successful.

Aeneas then founded the city of Lavinium, named for his wife, and became the leader of the Latins. He was succeeded by his son Ascanius, who built the city of Alba Longa as his capital, on the Alban hills about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the future city of Rome. Generations passed, and in the 8th century BCE, his descendant Numitor became the king of Alba Longa.

The Twins Cast Out

During the first half of the 8th century BCE, King Numitor of Alba Longa was displaced by his brother Amulius. The new King Amulius received an oracle that a grandson of Numitor would oust him from power, so he made Numitor’s daughter, Rhea Silvia, a Vestal Virgin. Her oath of virginity in the goddess’s service meant that she should never have children. However, one night she was visited by the god Mars, the Roman version of Ares, and eventually gave birth to twin boys, Romulus and Remus.

When Amulius saw the boys, he ordered them thrown into the Tiber River. But like the huntsman in Snow White, the men charged with this duty seem to have been unable or unwilling to complete the task. Rather than throw the boys in the river, they left them by the side of the river, expecting that they would die of exposure.

Romulus and Remus were saved from exposure by a she-wolf, known as the Lupercal, who suckled the boys and protected them until they were found by Faustulus, a shepherd loyal to Numitor. He brought the boys home and raised them with no knowledge of their true identities. Nevertheless, they soon emerged as natural leaders and gathered a band of young fighting men around them.

One day, when the twins were caring for their adopted father’s sheep, they encountered some shepherds of Amulius and got into a fight. Remus was captured and taken before King Amulius. Romulus gathered a band of his followers to rescue Remus, and killed Amulius in the process, allowing Numitor to be restored to power. At some point during this action, Romulus and Remus became aware of their true identities. They may also have been offered the kingship of Alba Longa, which they rejected in favor of establishing their own, new city.

Romulus and Remus decided to establish their city close to the location where they were left as babes and found by the she-wolf. But the pair could not agree on the best place for the city, with Romulus preferring the Palatine Hill and Remus preferring the Aventine Hill.

They decided to leave the decision to the gods and consult auguries to determine the best site. An augury involves consulting the action of birds to divine the desire of the gods. Each brother prepared a sacred space on their respective hills and watched for the signs. Remus later reported seeing six birds, while Romulus reported seeing twelve, therefore claiming that his site had won divine favor. Remus did not agree, saying that he saw his omen first, and therefore had the primary claim.

This led to conflict between the brothers, and they argued. Romulus then ignored his brother and started to dig a trench and build walls around his hill. In retaliation, Remus made fun of Romulus’s wall, eventually jumping over it. This irritated Romulus and his supporters, and either Romulus or one of his supporters killed Remus in anger.

While most versions of the story say that Remus died at the hands of Romulus, in his account, Ovid suggests that it was one of Romulus’s men, called Celer. He says that Remus appeared to his adopted father Faustulus and his wife Acca after his death to complain about Celer, but also praised his brother Romulus for his brotherly affection. This may have been an invention of Ovid to save Romulus from the charge of fratricide. The sources agree that Romulus mourned his brother and granted him full funeral honors.

Nevertheless, Romulus went on to establish his city, which he called Rome in honor of himself. He was also elected the city’s first king by his supporters. This kicked off a period of elected monarchy that lasted around 200 years, from 753 BCE to 509 BCE, when the last king was ousted, and the Republic was established.

Romulus is credited with establishing the basic foundations of the future great city. He fortified the perimeter with the Murus Romuli and set its boundaries with a plow furrow. He then divided his new citizens into three tribes for tax purposes and military service and established the senate. He reportedly made sacrifices to Jupiter at every step to ensure the favor of the god. He also procured wives for his mostly male citizenry by kidnapping women from the neighboring Sabine tribes. Those tribes were incorporated into the Roman population when they resolved the dispute over the kidnapping.

After his death, the Romans came to believe that Romulus underwent apotheosis and ascended to the heavens with the gods.

Once the Republic was established, the Romans completely rejected the idea of kingship. Checks and balances were put in place to ensure that no single man could gain too much power. While these measures would eventually fail and lead to the dictator perpetuo Julius Caesar and the princeps Augustus, neither would call themselves rex, because the term king was so hated in Rome.

Nevertheless, Rome’s founder and first king was honored among the Romans. From around the 3rd century BCE, the she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus became the symbol of Rome.

From around the 1st century BCE, Romulus became associated with the ancient Roman god Quirinus. According to Plutarch’s Life of Romulus, after his disappearance and presumed death, Romulus appeared to a man named Proculus Julius and told him that he was Quirinus and should be worshipped as such. Consequently, the ancient Sabine war god was merged with the deified Romulus.

There is no evidence that Remus was ever singled out as an important figure among the Romans. He was the brother of Romulus and appeared alongside him suckling the wolf, but was never treated individually by the Romans in art or literature.

But What Really Happened?

The story of Romulus and Remus is the legendary story of the foundation of Rome according to the Romans themselves, but does it reflect what really happened? The earliest evidence for the story among the Romans appears in the 3rd century BCE, at which time it was already ancient history. But while the individual figures of Romulus and Remus may be inventions, the story probably reflects elements of the process of the foundation of Rome.

Archaeological evidence suggests that Rome was established as a small settlement of Latins and Sabines in the early 7th century BCE, so a little after the legendary age of Romulus, but not by much. However, the evidence suggests that Alba Longa, apparently a powerful kingdom ruled over by grandfather Numitor, was just a collection of small villages at this time, throwing doubt on this element of the story. Alba Longa was probably chosen to play an important role in the story because it was an important religious center linked to Vesta and Jupiter.

The tribes that came together to establish Rome probably chose the location for practical reasons, rather than in response to childhood trauma. The Tiber provided transport links for trade and the hills were highly defensible. The conflict between Romulus and Remus may represent conflict between the different tribal groups during Rome’s early days.

While Romulus is credited with establishing a grand city fairly quickly, the evidence suggests that Rome remained small until the end of the 7th century BCE when the Etruscans came in and took control of Rome. This is also reflected in the legendary stories of Rome, with Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, an Etruscan, reportedly being elected king of Rome at the end of the 7th century. The Etruscans were a confederation of city-states that extended from Bologna to the Bay of Naples. It seems to be via their influence that the marshes between the Roman hills were drained, roads were built, and the foundations of the grand city of the Republic and Empire were established. They also brought Jupiter to Rome who, under the name Tinia, was their principal god.

The first Capitoline Triad worshipped in Rome was Jupiter, supreme among the Etruscans, Quirinus, an important god among the Sabines, and Mars, an important god among the Italics. Worshipping triads of deities was not common in the region, so this unique formation may reflect the coming together of different tribes and the need to honor all their gods. But this triad was already replaced by the more familiar triad of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, Juno Regina, and Minerva by the end of the 6th century BCE.

The story of Romulus and Remus almost certainly isn’t an accurate historical portrayal of the exact events that led to the foundation of Rome. Nevertheless, the story reflects how the Romans understood their origins and place in the world.

Like Romulus, a descendant of Venus and a son of Mars whose city was blessed through augury and who later became a god himself, the Romans believed that they were uniquely favored by the gods. This divine favor gave them the right to dominate Italy and later much more of the world. Maintaining divine favor was the central tenet of Roman state religion.