Romulus (, ) was the legendary founder and first king of Ancient Rome. Various traditions attribute the establishment of many of Rome's oldest legal, political, religious, and social institutions to Romulus and his contemporaries. Although many of these traditions incorporate elements of folklore, and it is not clear to what extent a historical figure underlies the mythical Romulus, the events and institutions ascribed to him were central to the myths surrounding Rome's origins and cultural traditions.
Traditional account
The myths concerning Romulus involve several distinct episodes and figures, including the miraculous birth and youth of Romulus and his
twin brother,
Remus; Remus' murder and the founding of Rome; the Rape of the Sabine Women, and the subsequent war with the
Sabines; a period of joint rule with
Titus Tatius; the establishment of various Roman institutions; the death or
apotheosis of Romulus, and the succession of
Numa Pompilius.
[ Gods and Mortals in Classical Mythology; Michael Grant and John Hazel, editors; Merriam-Webster, Springfield (Massachusetts), 1993; pp. 357-358]
Romulus and Remus
According to
Roman mythology, Romulus and Remus were the sons of
Rhea Silvia by the god Mars. Their maternal grandfather was
Numitor, the rightful king of
Alba Longa, through whom the twins were descended from both the
Troy hero
Aeneas, and
Latinus, the king of
Latium. Before the twins' birth, Numitor's throne had been usurped by his brother,
Amulius, who murdered Numitor's son or sons, and condemned Rhea Silvia to perpetual virginity by consecrating her a
Vestal virgins.
[Livy, History of Rome i. 3.][Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities i. 76.] When Rhea became pregnant, she asserted that she had been visited by the god Mars. Amulius imprisoned her, and upon the twins' birth, ordered that they be thrown into the
Tiber. But as the river had been swollen by rain, the servants tasked with disposing of the infants could not reach its banks, and so
infant exposure the twins beneath a fig tree at the foot of the
Palatine Hill.
[Dionysius, i. 77–79.]
In the traditional account, a she-wolf happened upon the twins, and suckled them until they were found by the king's herdsman,
Faustulus, and his wife,
Acca Larentia. The brothers grew to manhood among the shepherds and hill-folk. After becoming involved in a conflict between the followers of Amulius and those of their grandfather Numitor, Faustulus told them of their origin. With the help of their friends, they lured Amulius into an ambush and killed him, restoring their grandfather to the throne.
[Livy, i. 3–6.][Dionysius, i. 79–83.] The princes then set out to establish a city of their own.
They returned to the hills overlooking the Tiber, near where they had been exposed as infants, but disagreed on the site of their new city. Each took up station on a different hill, and awaited an omen to decide between them. Remus sighted six vultures over the Aventine Hill, then Romulus saw a flight of twelve above the Palatine Hill. Remus argued for the Aventine based on priority, Romulus the Palatine based on number. The conflict escalated, and Romulus or one of his followers killed Remus.[Dionysius, i. 85–87.] In a variant of the legend, the augurs favoured Romulus, who proceeded to plough a square furrow around the Palatine Hill to demarcate the walls of the future city (Roma Quadrata). When Remus derisively leapt over the furrow to show how inadequate it was against invaders, Romulus struck him down in anger. In another variant, Remus was killed during a melée, along with Faustulus.
Establishment of the city
The founding of Rome was commemorated annually on April 21, with the festival of the
Parilia. Romulus' first act was to fortify the Palatine with the
Murus Romuli, in the course of which he made a sacrifice to the gods. He laid out the city's boundaries with a furrow that he ploughed, performed another sacrifice, and with his followers set to work building the city itself.
[Livy, i. 7.][Dionysius, i. 88.] Romulus sought the assent of the people to become their king. With Numitor's help, he addressed them and received their approval. Romulus accepted the crown after he sacrificed and prayed to Jupiter, and after receiving favourable omens.
[Dionysius, ii. 3–6.]
Romulus divided the populace into three Roman tribe, known as the Ramnes, Titienses, and Luceres, for taxation and military purposes. Each tribe was presided over by an official known as a tribune, and was further divided into ten curia, or wards, each presided over by an official known as a curio. Romulus also allotted a portion of land to each ward, for the benefit of the people.[Dionysius, ii. 7.][Varro Reatinus, On the Latin Language v. 81, 89.] Nothing is known of the manner in which the tribes and curiae were taxed, but for the military levy, each curia was responsible for providing one hundred foot soldiers, a unit known as a century, and ten cavalry. Each Romulean tribe thus provided about one thousand infantry, and one century of cavalry; the three hundred cavalry became known as the Celeres, "the swift", and formed the royal bodyguard.[Livy, i. 13, 15.][Dionysius, ii. 13.]
Choosing one hundred men from the leading families, Romulus established the Roman senate. These men he called patres, the city fathers; their descendants came to be known as "patricians", forming one of the two major social classes at Rome. The other class, known as the "plebs" or "plebeians", consisted of the servants, freedmen, fugitives who sought asylum at Rome, those captured in war, and others who were granted Roman citizenship over time.[Livy, i. 9.][Dionysius, ii. 8, 12, 13.]
To encourage the growth of the city, Romulus outlawed infanticide, and established an asylum for fugitives on the Capitoline Hill. Here freemen and slaves alike could claim protection and seek Roman citizenship.[Livy, i. 8.][Dionysius, ii. 15.]
The Rape of the Sabine Women
The new city was filled with colonists, most of whom were young, unmarried men. While fugitives seeking asylum helped the population grow, single men greatly outnumbered women. With no intermarriage taking place between Rome and neighboring communities, the new city would eventually fail. Romulus sent envoys to neighboring towns, appealing to them to allow intermarriage with Roman citizens, but his overtures were rebuffed. Romulus formulated a plan to acquire women from other settlements. He announced a momentous
Consualia, and invited the people of the neighboring cities to attend. Many did, in particular the
Sabines, who came in droves. At a prearranged signal, the Romans
Bride abduction the marriageable women among their guests.
The aggrieved cities prepared for war with Rome, and might have defeated Romulus had they been fully united. But impatient with the preparations of the Sabines, the Latin towns of Caenina, Crustumerium, and Antemnae took action without their allies. Caenina was the first to attack; its army was swiftly put to flight, and the town taken. After personally defeating and slaying the prince of Caenina in single combat, Romulus stripped him of his armour, becoming the first to claim the spolia opima, and vowed to build a temple to Jupiter Feretrius. Antemnae and Crustumerium were conquered in turn. Some of their people, chiefly the families of the abducted women, were allowed to settle in Rome.[Livy, i. 10.]
Following the defeat of the Latin towns, the Sabines, under the leadership of Titus Tatius, marshalled their forces and advanced upon Rome. They gained control of the citadel by bribing Tarpeia, the daughter of the Roman commander charged with its defense. Without the advantage of the citadel, the Romans were obliged to meet the Sabines on the battlefield. The Sabines advanced from the citadel, and fierce fighting ensued. The nearby Lacus Curtius is said to be named after Mettius Curtius, a Sabine warrior who plunged his horse into its muck to stymie his Roman pursuers as he retreated. At a critical juncture in the fighting, the Romans began to waver in the face of the Sabine advance. Romulus vowed to build a temple to Jupiter Stator, to keep his line from breaking. The bloodshed finally ended when the Sabine women interposed themselves between the two armies, pleading on the one hand with their fathers and brothers, and on the other with their husbands, to set aside their arms and come to terms. The leaders of each side met and made peace. They formed one community, to be jointly ruled by Romulus and Tatius.[Livy, i. 11–13.]
Subsequent events
The two kings presided over the growing city of Rome for a number of years, before Tatius was slain in a riot at
Lavinium, where he had gone to make a sacrifice. Shortly before, a group of envoys from
Laurentum had complained of their treatment by Tatius' kinsmen, and he had decided the matter against the ambassadors. Romulus resisted calls to avenge the Sabine king's death, instead reaffirming the Roman alliance with Lavinium, and perhaps preventing his city from splintering along ethnic lines.
[Livy, i. 13.]
In the years following the death of Tatius, Romulus is said to have conquered the city of Fidenae, which, alarmed by the rising power of Rome, had begun raiding Roman territory. The Romans lured the Fidenates into an ambush, and routed their army; as they retreated into their city, the Romans followed before the gates could be shut, and captured the town. The Etruscan city of Veii, nine miles up the Tiber from Rome, also raided Roman territory, foreshadowing that city's role as the chief rival to Roman power over the next three centuries. Romulus defeated Veii's army, but found the city too well defended to besiege, and instead ravaged the countryside.[Livy, i. 14–15.]
Death and succession
After a reign of thirty-seven years,
[Livy, . "Romulus reigned thirty-seven years."][Plutarch, Parallel Lives, Romulus. "Romulus is said to have been fifty-four years of age, and in the thirty-eighth year of his reign when he disappeared from among men."] Romulus is said to have disappeared in a
whirlwind during a sudden and violent storm, as he was reviewing his troops on the
Campus Martius. Livy says that Romulus was either murdered by the senators, torn apart out of jealousy, or was raised to heaven by Mars, god of war. Livy believes the last theory regarding the legendary king's death, as it allows the Romans to believe that the gods are on their side, a reason for them to continue expansion under Romulus' name.
[Livy, i. 16.]
Romulus acquired a cult following, which later became assimilated with the cult of Quirinus, perhaps originally the indigenous god of the Sabine population. As the Sabines had not had a king of their own since the death of Titus Tatius, the next king of Rome, Numa Pompilius, was chosen from among the Sabines.[Livy, i. 17, 18.]
Various sources state that Romulus had a wife, Hersilia. In Livy, following the defeat of the Caeninenses and the Antemnates, the Sabine women begged Hersilia to intercede with her husband on behalf of their families so that they would be received into the state rather than slain by Roman arms.[Livy, i. 11.] In Dionysius, Hersilia was herself one of the Sabine women, and the only one who was already married at the time of her abduction. Dionysius explains that she was either mistaken for a virgin, or, he thinks more probably, that she was the mother of one of those abducted, and refused to abandon her daughter.[Dionysius, ii. 45.] Plutarch also relates that Hersilia was one of the Sabine women, and the only one already married. He also mentions that some authorities make Hersilia the wife of Hostus Hostilius, rather than Romulus. Two children are attributed to Romulus in Plutarch: a daughter, Prima, and a son, Avillius, but here Plutarch notes that his source, Zenodotus of Troezen, is widely disputed.[Plutarch, "The Life of Romulus", 14, 18, 19.]
Primary sources
Livy, Dionysius, and
Plutarch rely on Quintus Fabius Pictor as a source. Other significant sources include
Ovid's
Fasti, and
Virgil's
Aeneid. Greek historians had traditionally claimed that Rome was founded by Greeks, a claim dating back to the logographer Hellanicus of Lesbos of 5th-century BC, who named Aeneas as its founder. Roman historians connect Romulus to Aeneas by ancestry and mention a previous settlement on the
Palatine Hill, sometimes attributing it to Evander and his Greek colonists. To the Romans, Rome was the institutions and traditions they credit to their legendary founder, the first "Roman".
The legend as a whole encapsulates Rome's ideas of itself, its origins and moral values. For modern scholarship, it remains one of the most complex and problematic of all foundation myths. Ancient historians had no doubt that Romulus gave his name to the city. Most modern historians believe his name is a back-formation from the name of the city. Roman historians dated the city's foundation to between 758 and 728 BC, and Plutarch reports the calculation of Varro's friend Tarutius that 771 BC was the birth year of Romulus and his twin.
Romulus-Quirinus
Ennius (fl. 180s BC) refers to Romulus as a divinity in his own right, without reference to
Quirinus. Roman mythographers identified the latter as an originally
Sabine war-deity, and thus to be identified with Roman Mars.
Lucilius lists Quirinus and Romulus as separate deities, and
Varro accords them different temples. Images of Quirinus showed him as a bearded warrior wielding a spear as a god of war, the embodiment of Roman strength and a deified likeness of the city of Rome. He had a
Flamen called the Flamen Quirinalis, who oversaw his worship and rituals in the ordainment of Roman religion attributed to Romulus's royal successor,
Numa Pompilius. There is however no evidence for the conflated Romulus-Quirinus before the 1st century BC.
[Evans, 103 and footnote 66: citing quotation of Ennius, 1.41.64.][.]
Ovid in Metamorphoses XIV ( lines 805-828) gives a description of the Apotheosis of Romulus and his wife Hersilia, who are given the new names of Quirinus and Hora respectively. Mars, the father of Romulus, is given permission by Jupiter to bring his son up to Olympus to live with the Twelve Olympians.
One theory regarding this tradition proposes the emergence of two mythical figures from an earlier, singular hero. While Romulus is a founding hero, Quirinus may have been a god of the harvest, and the Fornacalia a festival celebrating a staple crop (spelt). Through the traditional dates from the tales and the festivals, they are each associated with one another. A legend of the murder of such a founding hero, the burying of the hero's body in the fields (found in some accounts), and a festival associated with that hero, a god of the harvest, and a food staple is a pattern recognized by anthropologists. Called a " dema archetype", this pattern suggests that in a prior tradition, the god and the hero were in fact the same figure and later evolved into two.[Brelich, Angelo. 1960. Quirinus: una divinita' romana alla luce della comparazione storica "Studi e Materiali di Storia delle religioni".]
Historicity
Possible historical bases for the broad mythological narrative remain unclear and disputed.
Modern scholarship approaches the various known stories of the myth as cumulative elaborations and later interpretations of Roman Founding myth. Particular versions and collations were presented by Roman historians as authoritative, an official history trimmed of contradictions and untidy variants to justify contemporary developments, genealogies and actions in relation to Mos maiorum. Other narratives appear to represent popular or folkloric tradition; some of these remain inscrutable in purpose and meaning. T.P. Wiseman sums up the whole issue as the mythography of an unusually problematic foundation and early history.[.][. — A critical, chronological review of historiography related to Rome's origins.]
The unsavoury elements of many of the myths concerning Romulus have led In antiquity such stories became part of anti-Roman and anti-pagan propaganda. More recently, the historian Hermann Strasburger postulated that these were never part of authentic Roman tradition, but were invented and popularized by Rome's enemies, probably in Magna Graecia, during the latter part of the fourth century BC. This hypothesis is rejected by other scholars, such as Tim Cornell (1995), who notes that by this period, the story of Romulus and Remus had already assumed its standard form, and was widely accepted at Rome. Other elements of the Romulus mythos clearly resemble common elements of folk tale and legend, and thus strong evidence that the stories were both old and indigenous. Likewise, Momigliano finds Strasburger's argument well-developed, but entirely implausible; if the Romulus myths were an exercise in mockery, they were a signal failure.
Tomb of Romulus
The Tomb of Romulus is a long rectangular chest composed of
tuff that was itself likely extracted from the
Capitoline Hill. The site was first discovered in 1899 by the Italian archaeologist Giacomo Boni as part of the same excavation that unearthed the
Lapis Niger, an ancient stone that—according to legend—marked the location of either the death or grave of Romulus. However, Boni provided little documentation for the object, and the site was concealed once more by later construction projects in the 1930s that built a new entrance to the nearby
Curia Julia. Later excavations at the same site that were initiated in 2019 in honor of Giacomo Boni had—by 2020—rediscovered the artifact, which had only survived the earlier construction efforts due to a brick shell built specifically to encase the area.
Subsequent examination of the artifact indicates that it dates to the 6th-century BC, and therefore it is contemporaneous with the Lapis Niger. The proximity of the object to sites of prominent cultural and political importance, such as the Senate House and the Lapis Niger, may indicate that the tomb was itself assigned a great degree of social significance. Moreover, the symbolic connections between the area and the death of Romulus may indicate that the site was intended to serve as the hypogeum for the legendary figure. However, no human remains were found at the area and the partially mythical nature of the stories surrounding the death and burial of Romulus cast doubt upon their veracity. According to the archaeologist Alfonsina Russo, the director of the Colosseum Archaeologist Park, it is more likely that the site functioned as a cenotaph, an empty monument dedicated to Romulus by his cult, but not necessarily his genuine tomb.
Depictions in art
The episodes which make up the legend, most significantly that of the rape of the Sabine women, the tale of
Tarpeia, and the death of Tatius have been a significant part of ancient Roman scholarship and the frequent subject of art, literature and philosophy since ancient times. This already began in Roman antiquity, when Romulus, together with Aeneas, was the dominant motif when it came to Rome's mythical past.
Palazzo Magnani
In the late 16th century, the wealthy
Magnani family from Bologna commissioned a series of artworks based on the Roman foundation myth. The artists contributing works included a sculpture of Hercules with the infant twins by Gabriele Fiorini, featuring the patron's own face. The most important works were an elaborate series of frescoes collectively known as
Histories of the Foundation of Rome by the Brothers Carracci: Ludovico, Annibale, and Agostino.
File:Romolo traccia con l'aratro il confine della città di Roma.png|Romulus marking the city's boundaries with a plough
File:L'asilo per i profughi sul Campidoglio.png|The Asylum (Inter duos Lucos)
File:Il ratto delle Sabine.png|The rape of the Sabine women
File:Romolo dedica a Giove Feretrio le spoglie del re Acrone.jpg|Romulus dedicating the temple to Jupiter Feretrius
File:Battaglia tra Romani e Sabini.png|The Battle of the Lacus Curtius
File:Tito Tazio ucciso dai Laurenti.png|The death of Titus Tatius in Laurentium
File:Carracci, Romolo appare a Proculo, Palazzo Magnani, Bologna.png|Romulus appearing to Proculus Julius
File:La superbia di Romolo.jpg|The Pride of Romulus
The rape of the Sabine women in paintings and sculpture
File:Sodoma 004.jpg|Il Sodoma (1507)
File:L'Enlèvement des Sabines - Nicolas Poussin - Musée du Louvre Peintures INV 7290 ; MR 2335.jpg|Nicolas Poussin (1638)
File:Peter Paul Rubens - The Rape of the Sabine Women.jpg|Peter Paul Rubens (1634–36)
File:Rape of the Sabine Women (Loggia dei Lanzi) 2 2013 February.jpg|Giambologna (1583)
File:Jacopo Ligozzi Rape of the Sabine Women.JPG|Jacopo Ligozzi (c.1565–1627)
File:Theodoor van Thulden (attr) Rape of the Sabine Women.jpg|Attributed to Theodoor van Thulden (17th c.)
File:Rape of the Sabine Women by Sebastiano Ricci.jpg|Sebastiano Ricci (c. 1700)
File:Johann Heinrich Schönfeld - Rape of the Sabine Women - WGA21057.jpg| Johann Heinrich Schönfeld (1640)
File:Charles Christian Nahl 1870, The Rape Of The Sabines - The Abduction.jpg|Charles Christian Nahl (1870)
Tarpeia
File:Sodoma Tarpeia.jpg| The Vestal Virgin Tarpeia Beaten by Tatius’ soldiers Il Sodoma (16th c.)
File:Frieze Basilica Aemilia Massimo n3.jpg|Tarpeia's punishment, Pentelic marble fragment from the Frieze of the Basilica Aemilia (100 BC – 100 AD)
File:Tarpeia's Punishment.png|Reconstruction of Basilica Aemilia Frieze marble fragment
File:Pictura loquens; sive, Heroicarum tabularum Hadriani Schoonebeeck, enarratio et explicatio (1695) (14751427905).jpg|Tarpeia, Illustration from Pictura loquens "the Heroic Accounts of Hadrian Schoonebeeck" (1695) (14751427905)
File:Tarpeia.gif|Tarpeia conspires with Tatius in an illustration from The story of the Romans by Hélène Adeline Guerber (1896)
Hersilia
File:Romolo ed Ersilia, final scene, Act 3.jpg|Print from Romolo ed Ersilia, final scene, Act 3, Artist;: Giovanni Battista Cipriani, Engraver: Francesco Bartolozzi (1781)
File:F0442 Louvre JL David Sabines INV3691 detail01 rwk.jpg|Hersilia from a detail of Les Sabines "The Intervention of the Sabine Women", Jacques-Louis David (1799)
File:Guercino - Hersilia Separating Romulus and Tatius - WGA10944.jpg| Hersilia Separating Romulus and Tatius, Guercino (1645)
Death of Tatius
The subject for the 1788 Prix de Rome was the death of Tatius (
La mort de Tatius). Garnier won the contest.
File:Garnier La mort de Tatius.JPG|Version by Étienne-Barthélémy Garnier, now in the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Paris.
File:Girodet La mort de Tatius.jpg| The Death of Tatius by Girodet, now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Angers.
File:Jacques Réattu - La mort de Tatius.jpg|Version by Jacques Réattu, now in the Musée Réattu, Arles.
Death of Romulus
File:Rubens Apparizione di Romolo e Proculo Cardiff.png|"Apparition of Romulus before Proculus", Rubens (17th c.)
See also
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
Ancient Sources
-
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities i & ii.
-
Livy, History of Rome i–v.
Further reading
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Carandini, Andrea (2011). Rome: Day One. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press. .
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Forsythe, Gary (2005). A Critical History of Early Rome: From Prehistory to the First Punic War. Berkeley: University of California Press. .
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Hyden, Marc (2020), Romulus: The Legend of Rome's Founding Father, Pen and Sword History, ISBN 9781526783172.
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