Ascanius, Aeneas' son founded Alba Longa, where a succession
of 16 Latin kings reigned for 431 years. Ascanius had a son named Silvius which means born in the woods. This nomen
followed his descendants all the way down to Rhea Silvia, the Vestal Virgin who was the mother of Romulus and Remus.
King Numitor, a descendant of Aeneas was driven from power
by his brother Amulius. Amulius compelled the daughter of Numitor, Rhea Silvia to become a Vestal Virgin, hoping
thus to destroy all chance of an heir being born to inherit the throne of Numitor. In Greece, the sacred fire of
the goddess Vesta was tended by men, but in Italy it was the charge of maidens, who were treated with great honor,
but were never allowed to marry under pain of death.
So there was a great anger when Rhea Silvia became the mother
of twin boys, and moreover, said that her husband was the god Mars. But Mars did not save her from being buried
alive, while the two infants were put in a basket on the waters of the river Tiber, there to perish. The river
had overflowed its banks and left the children on dry ground. They were found by a she-wolf, who fed them like
her own offspring in the shade of a fig tree, which still stands today in the Roman Forum.
A shepherd, Faustulus found them and took them to his hut
on the Palatine. Faustulus knew the babies history as he was in Alba Longa at the time of their expulsion. They
were raised by Faustulus and his wife Acca Laurentia and went to school at Gabii.
When the twin brothers were growing into manhood, there was a fight between the shepherds of Numitor and Amulius,
in which Romulus and Remus did such brave feats that they were led before Numitor. He inquired into their birth,
and their foster father Faustulus told the story of his finding them, showing the basket in which they had been
placed. It became plain that they were grandsons of Numitor. On finding this out Romulus and Remus collected an
army, drove away Amulius and reinstated their grandfather as king of Alba Longa.
They resolved to build a new city for themselves on one
of the seven low hills beneath which ran the river Tiber; but they were not agreed on which hill to build, Remus
wanted to build on the Aventine Hill and Romulus on the Palatine. Their grandfather, King Numitor advised them
to watch for omens from the gods, so each stood on his hill and watched for birds.
Remus was the first to see six vultures flying, but Romulus saw twelve, and therefore the Palatine Hill was chosen
and Romulus was chosen king. Remus was affronted, and when the mud wall was being raised around the space intended
for the city, he leapt over it and laughed, whereupon Romulus struck him dead, crying out, "So perish all
who leap over the walls of my city."
Romulus traced out the form of the city with a plow, and
made it almost a square.
Romulus tracing the foundations of his city
Romulus named his city Rome and lived in the midst of it
in a mud hovel, covered with thatch. In his new city lived about fifty families of the old Trojan race, and a great
many young men, outlaws and runaways from the neighboring states. The date of the building of Rome was April 21,
753 BC; and the Romans counted their years from it, as the Greeks did from the Olympiads, marking the date A.U.C.
anno urbis conditae, the year of the city being built.
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The She-Wolf became the symbol of Rome.