The ancient Roman mythology of Romulus and Remus

p The Ancient Roman Mythology of Romulus and Remus

The Ancient Roman Mythology of Romulus and Remus While it is both tempting and convenient to ascribe a specific date for the '93founding '94 of Rome , such speculations , like those which regard identifying a specific date for the '93collapse '94 of the Roman Empire , seem more indicative of the historian (and student '92s longing for certainty and specificity than in demonstrable evidence '93The traditional date for the founding of the greatest city of the Western world was the product of

guesswork by Roman of the late centuries BC , working backwards from their own time '94 (Cavendish

Even for Roman , the subject of the city '92s founding was shrouded in speculation and myth . '93After ranging shots by various , the author Varro , greatly respected for his learning in the first century BC , settled on the year 753 , which became the accepted official date . All subsequent dates were expressed ab urbe condita `from the city 's founding '94 Just as the matter of a specific date for the city '92s produced long-lived and contentious debates , the story of the city '92s founding evolved though the centuries , beginning with a traditional myth-symbolism that played an ongoing role in the development of Roman culture and history (Cavendish

Many variations of the Roman founding-myth can be researched and described in general terms , Roman tradition attributed the founding of Rome to '93Romulus , whose name means simply `man of Rome , but Greek from at least the fifth century BC attributed it to the Trojan exile Aeneas . By the first century BC the two versions had coalesced '94 (Cavendish

The resulting merging of myths became a more or less accepted historical record for many centuries , deeply complex and symbolically dynamic . '93After the fall of Troy [ .] Aeneas went to Central Italy and married Lavinia , the daughter of the local king , Latinus . From them sprang a line of kings who ruled Alba Longa (twelve miles southeast of Rome ) down to Numitor , whose throne was usurped by Amulius , his younger brother '94 (Cavendish ) Romulus and Remus -2-

After Amulius forces Numitor 's daughter Rhea Silvia into chastity , she is raped by Mars , the Roman War God , and from this action she becomes pregnant and bears twin boys . Then , in symbolism which recalls the Biblical story of Moses , Amulius sets the babies adrift on a river - '97 the river Tiber . They washed up under a fig tree near a hill called Palatine

A she-wolf that had lost her cubs , attracted by the cry of the children and impelled by the pain of her distended udder , gave them suck and presently a shepherd named Faustulus , who had watched the wolf often going and coming to the place , found the boys , and took them to his wife Laurentia , who brought them up and called them Romulus and Remus (Shuckburgh 22

The myth recounts how , as grown men , Remus and Romulus avneged themselves by murdering...