Myth of Romulus and Remus

Author: Plutarch

Time Period: 1 CE–500 CE

Country or Culture: Roman

Genre: Myth

Overview

Thanks to the intriguing image of infant twins suckled by a wolf, many people are familiar with the ancient Roman myth of Romulus and Remus. Yet the twins’ time in the care of the nursing wolf is just one of many gripping episodes in this story of the founding of Rome, which has fascinated and flummoxed scholars and general readers alike with its compelling drama and peculiar features.

Many versions of the story exist, including that of Plutarch, a Greek historian who lived from 46 to 120 CE and recorded the story of Romulus and Remus in The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, also known as Parallel Lives. In his account, the Alban king Amulius overthrows his brother Numitor’s kingdom and tries to force Numitor’s daughter to remain a virgin, but she becomes pregnant with twins. Amulius attempts to have the twins killed, but Romulus and Remus are first nursed by a wolf and protected by a woodpecker and then raised secretly by Faustulus, Amulius’s herdsman. As young adults, the twins are brave and virtuous, superior both physically and morally. Although they work as shepherds for Amulius, their true identity is revealed to the king through a series of events resulting from a conflict with Numitor’s herdsmen. Before Amulius can take action, Romulus and Remus, aided by forces hostile to the dictatorial king, overthrow him and restore Numitor to power.

The brothers then return to the land where they were raised to found their own city, but Romulus murders Remus after a dispute spirals out of control. Romulus then buries his brother and founds the city on his own, establishing its social structure and providing it protection. However, because the city lacks sufficient women, he orders his army to abduct the Sabine women, sparking a series of military conflicts. Eventually, the women choose to remain with their Roman husbands, and Romulus begins to conquer additional territories and establish sacred Roman institutions. After he divides land among his soldiers and returns hostages without the senate’s consent, he mysteriously disappears. Plutarch states that he has been either murdered by the senators or deified by the gods. Romulus’s friend confirms his deification, leading the Romans to worship Romulus as Quirinus.

Plutarch’s account is especially interesting because of its inclusion of many alternate versions of his story, which he nonetheless presents as valid history. This presentation constantly reminds readers of the tenuous nature of the details surrounding Rome’s origins. Following earlier writers, Plutarch connects the hero Aeneas to Romulus and Remus to reconcile two very different myths of Rome’s origin, a problem that has intrigued historians. A comparative analysis underscores the radical differences between the Romulus and Remus story and the Roman poet Virgil’s account of Aeneas to explore how the myths served different periods of Rome’s development. Although both myths existed long before the height of the Roman Empire, some historians believe that the Romulus and Remus story suggests a popular myth that was appropriate for Rome as a city-state, whereas Virgil is known to have developed the story of Aeneas to represent Rome as an empire.

Summary

Plutarch’s account of the origin of Romulus and Remus is long, incorporating numerous alternative accounts and digressions, but a single narrative comprising many of the most important elements of the story can be discerned. After summarizing many different versions of Rome’s origin story, Plutarch introduces “the story which is most believed and has the greatest number of vouchers” (16). He states that the kings of Alba descended from Aeneas, the hero who came to Italy after the fall of Troy. When brothers Numitor and Amulius inherit the throne, the latter suggests two equal shares and sets the kingdom as one share and an equivalent sum of money as the other. When Numitor chooses the kingdom, Amulius uses the money to usurp the kingdom from his brother. Next, fearing that Numitor’s daughter, Rhea Silvia, might produce an heir, Amulius forces her to become a vestal virgin, a priestess of the goddess Vesta. When Rhea Silvia becomes pregnant soon after, however, Amulius has her sequestered until she gives birth to twin boys “of more than human size and beauty” (16). Amulius orders a servant (possibly Faustulus) to dispose of the children, so the servant places the twins in a trough, intending to throw the trough into a river. When he finds the river swollen with rushing waters, he simply leaves the trough near the bank. The river eventually overflows and gently carries the trough to “a smooth piece of ground” (16).

“While the infants lay here, history tells us, a she-wolf nursed them, and a woodpecker constantly fed and watched them; these creatures are esteemed holy to the god Mars, the woodpecker the Latins still especially worship and honor. Which things, as much as any, gave credit to what the mother of the children said, that their father was the god Mars.”

Soon after, a she-wolf approaches to suckle the infants, and a woodpecker feeds and guards them. Plutarch notes that these animals are sacred to Mars, the Roman god of war, whom some Romans believed to be the boys’ father. The servant Faustulus discovers the twins, and he and his wife, Acca Larentia, raise them as their own in secret. As the twins grow, their pleasing physical appearance “intimate[s] their natural superiority” (17), and they both prove to be courageous, becoming famous for hunting, capturing thieves, and protecting the weak. Romulus, however, displays particular wisdom, projecting “the idea of being born rather to rule than to obey” (17). Working with Faustulus as Amulius’s herdsmen, the twins, along with their fellow shepherds, have a quarrel with Numitor’s shepherds and drive them away. One day when Romulus attends a sacrifice, Numitor’s shepherds take advantage of his absence and capture Remus. The herdsmen accuse Remus in the presence of Numitor, who requests justice from Amulius for his servants’ misdeeds. Amulius gives Remus back to Numitor to punish as he sees fit, but when the latter is impressed by Remus’s physical and mental superiority, he invites the shepherd to reveal his identity. At this point, Remus confesses that he has recently heard that Faustulus and Larentia are not his true parents and that he and Romulus were abandoned as infants and nurtured by beasts. Hearing this and suspecting that the twins are in fact his grandsons, Numitor confirms the story with his daughter.

Meanwhile, Faustulus entreats Romulus to help rescue his brother and reveals the full details of their birth. Faustulus then attempts to take the trough in which the infant twins had been originally placed to Numitor, but on his way he is stopped and questioned by Amulius’s guards, one of whom recognizes the trough and seizes Faustulus for questioning. Faustulus is forced to admit that the twins are alive, but he says that they live as shepherds far from Alba and that he had intended to bring the trough to reassure the boys’ mother. Alarmed, Amulius sends a messenger to question Numitor about his knowledge of the twins, but the messenger allies himself with Numitor and urges him to act swiftly against Amulius. Having gathered citizens and other forces opposed to Amulius, Romulus attacks the city from the exterior while Remus rouses forces from within. Together they overthrow Amulius, restore Numitor to power, bestow due honor on their mother, and depart from Alba to found a city in the land where they were raised.

The twins disagree, however, about where to found the city, with Romulus choosing Roma Quadrata, or “Square Rome,” and Remus favoring the Aventine Mount. They decide to settle the matter via divination, the ancient art of predicting the future through omens. Romulus wins when he sees twelve vultures, whereas Remus observes only six. Believing that Romulus has cheated, Remus ridicules and obstructs his brother’s work in building the city walls. When Remus leaps over the walls, Romulus (or perhaps a character named Celer, Plutarch notes) kills him, and Faustulus is also killed in the conflict. Romulus buries Remus and founds his new city, establishing a sufficiently large population, a military, and a patrician class. The city lacks wives for its new inhabitants, however, partly because of the foreign, humble, and suspicious origin of many of the new citizens, a number of whom are escaped slaves and criminals. Romulus thus has his army abduct the Sabine women during a festival and forces the women to marry the men of his city. This sparks a series of armed conflicts between the Sabines and Romans, but eventually, the women intervene and ask the Sabines to allow them to remain with their new husbands and children.

The rest of Plutarch’s account concerns the institutions established by Romulus, his military victories over various territories, and his growing arrogance as king. When Numitor dies, Romulus inherits the throne in Alba, but wanting to “court the people,” he gives the people governing power, thus encouraging “the great men of Rome to seek after a free and anti-monarchical state” (27). Romulus then, without the senate’s consent, divides the lands acquired by war among his soldiers and returns hostages to the Veientes, a conquered people of Tuscany. Shortly after, he disappears. Some Romans claim that the senators murdered him and cut his body to pieces, while others believe that Romulus was taken up by the gods as the sun darkened. A close friend of Romulus, Proculus, testifies that he encountered the deified Romulus, who told him, “By the exercise of temperance and fortitude, they shall attain the height of human power; we will be to you the propitious god Quirinus” (28). The Romans henceforth worship Quirinus as a god.

Bibliography

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