Long after the foundation of Rome, when that city had
grown rich and powerful, her poets and historians delighted to relate the many
myths which clustered about the earlier stages of her career. According to
these myths Rome began as a colony of Alba Longa, the capital of Latium. The founder
of this city was Ascanius, son of the Trojan prince Aeneas, who had escaped
from Troy on its capture by the Greeks and after long wanderings had reached
the coast of Italy. Many generations afterwards, when Numitor sat on the throne
of Alba Longa, his younger brother, Amulius, plotted against him and drove him
into exile. He had Numitor's son put to death, and forced the daughter, Rhea
Silvia, to take the vows of a Vestal Virgin.
ROMULUS AND REMUS
But Rhea Silvia, beloved by Mars, the god of war, gave
birth to twin boys of more than human size and beauty. The wicked Amulius
ordered the children to be set adrift in a basket on the Tiber. Heaven,
however, guarded these offspring of a god; the river cast them ashore near
Mount Palatine, and a she-wolf came and nursed them. There they were discovered
by a shepherd, who reared them in his own household. When the twins, Romulus
and Remus, reached manhood, they killed Amulius and restored their grandfather
to his kingdom. With other young men from Alba Longa, they then set forth to
build a new city on the Palatine, where they had been rescued. As they scanned
the sky to learn the will of the gods, six vultures, birds of Jupiter, appeared
to Remus; but twelve were seen by Romulus. So Romulus marked out the boundary
of the city on the Palatine, and Remus, who in derision leaped over the
half-finished wall, he slew in anger. Romulus thus became the sole founder of
Rome and its first king.
