The Rise of Rome (Penguin Classics)

  6. Returning to the infants, Faustulus, a swineherd of Amulius, brought them up without anyone knowing of it. Or, as some record with greater likelihood, Numitor was not only aware of it but secretly aided these foster-parents as they reared the children. When they were boys, it is said, they were taken to Gabii,22 where they were educated in literature as well as all other studies suitable for anyone of aristocratic birth. Furthermore, as the historians inform us, they were given names based on ruma, the Latin word for nipple, namely, Romulus and Remus, because, when they were first discovered, they were being suckled by a wild beast. Even when they were infants, the nobility of their appearance, owing to their size and beauty, indicated their genuine nature, and, as they matured, each of them proved courageous and manly. Their dispositions inclined towards dangerous actions and both were possessed of a boldness that nothing could intimidate. Still, Romulus seemed to have the better judgement and a keen political intelligence. Even in his dealings with their neighbours, in matters relating to the grazing of flocks or to hunting, he gave the strong impression of being a man born to rule rather than obey. For this reason, they remained on very friendly terms with their equals and inferiors, but despised the royal overseers and inspectors as well as the chief herdsmen, for they considered them in no respect their superiors and consequently took no notice of their threats or anger. Moreover, they devoted themselves to liberal pursuits and occupations, which in their view had nothing to do with idleness or sloth but rather consisted in physical exercise, hunting and running – as well as in repelling bandits or capturing thieves or coming to the rescue of any who were violently wronged. Thus they came to be celebrated far and wide.

  7. It so happened that, when a dispute broke out between the herdsmen of Numitor and of Amulius, during which quarrel Amulius’ cattle were driven off, Romulus and Remus refused to stand for it and so fell upon the robbers, putting them to flight and recovering most of the stolen cattle. This angered Numitor, but the brothers paid him little regard. Instead, they collected a following consisting of many poor men and many slaves, thereby displaying the first signs of their spirited and seditious brazenness. But while Romulus, who was devoted to sacrifice and divination, was busy in making an offering to the gods, some herdsmen of Numitor fell upon Remus as he was strolling with a few of his companions. A fight ensued, in which blows and wounds were suffered on both sides, at the end of which, however, the herdsmen of Numitor proved the stronger and took Remus prisoner. He was brought before Numitor and denounced, but Numitor did not punish him, for he feared his own brother’s harshness. Therefore he went to Amulius and asked him for justice, on the grounds that, although he was the brother of the king, he had been insulted by the king’s servants. The people of Alba Longa were likewise angry, for they felt that Numitor had been treated outrageously and unfairly, which led Amulius to hand Remus over to Numitor to treat him however he thought fit.

  And so Numitor took him away, but, when he had reached his own home, he began to marvel at the young man’s distinct superiority in stature and physical strength, and he discerned from his countenance that the courage and vigour of his mind were neither subdued nor affected by his current circumstances. Even despite this, however, it was owing chiefly to the inspiration of some divinity, busy shaping this prelude to momentous events, that Numitor was seized with the truth and prompted by a fortunate intuition to ask Remus who he was and what were his origins. His gentle voice and kindly demeanour encouraged Remus and made him hopeful, and as a result he replied boldly: ‘I shall conceal nothing from you, for in your conduct you are more like a king than Amulius. You listen and weigh the evidence before punishing, whereas he surrendered me for punishment without first judging my case. In the past, my twin brother and I believed we were the children of Faustulus and Larentia, who are servants of the king. Now, however, since we have been accused and denounced before you and we stand in peril of our lives, we hear great things about ourselves. Whether or not they are true will probably be decided in this present danger. Our birth is said to have been secret, our infant nurture fabulous. For although we were abandoned as prey to the birds and to the beasts, we were actually fed by them, from the milk given by a she-wolf and morsels brought to us by a woodpecker, as we lay in a basin alongside the great river. The basin exists still: it is preserved, made of bronze bands, and on it there is an inscription, now nearly entirely effaced, which will perhaps, after our deaths, help to inform our parents what became of us.’

  When Numitor heard these words, and after he had calculated, on the basis of the young man’s appearance, how long ago these things must have happened, he embraced a very gratifying hope. But first he had to devise a means of discussing these matters in secret with his daughter, for she was still kept under close guard.

  8. When Faustulus heard that it was Remus who had been captured and handed over to Numitor, he called on Romulus to go to his aid. It was then, for the first time, that he gave him a complete account of his origins. Previously he had spoken of them only enigmatically, though he had revealed just enough for the twins, when they pondered the matter, to entertain elevated ambitions. Faustulus himself then took up the basin and rushed to see Numitor, for he was seized by fear and dreaded that he might arrive too late. His manner aroused the suspicions of the king’s sentries, and when he was questioned by them his answers were confused, nor did he manage to conceal the basin under his cloak. Now it happened that one of these sentries had been a member of the detachment that had taken the boys to cast them in the river and so had played a part in their exposure. As soon as he saw the basin, he recognized its construction and its inscription and so began to realize what was actually taking place. He immediately informed the king and brought Faustulus before him for interrogation. Beset by so many grave dangers, Faustulus’ resolution was broken, and yet even then he did not allow everything he knew to be forced from him. The boys, he confessed, were alive, but he said that they lived as herdsmen far away from Alba Longa; as for himself, he was taking the basin to Ilia, who often desired to see it and touch it, as a reassurance of her hopes for her children.

  Amulius now behaved just as men typically do when they are perplexed and are motivated by fear or anger. He selected a man who was thoroughly upright – and one of Numitor’s friends – to go and inquire of Numitor whether he had received any report of the children’s remaining alive. When this man arrived and saw that Numitor was all but holding Remus in an affectionate embrace, he immediately confirmed the hopes of each and exhorted them to take swift action. He straightaway joined in their cause and acted alongside them, for the critical moment had come and, even had they wished it, there could be no delay. Romulus was now very near, and he was being joined by the many citizens who hated and feared Amulius. He was also leading a large force of his own, which was divided into units of a hundred men. The man who led each of these detachments carried aloft a bundle of hay and shrubs tied around the end of a pole. Now the Latin word for a bundle is manipulus, and it is on this account that, to this very day, the Romans call the soldiers who serve in these companies manipulares. At the same time that Remus was inciting revolt within the city, Romulus attacked it from outside. As for the tyrant, still perplexed and confused, he did nothing. He did not even form a plan for his personal safety, and so was captured and put to death.

  Most of this narrative is reported by Fabius and by Diocles of Peparethus, who appears to have been the first man to publish an account of Rome’s foundation. There are some, however, who remain suspicious of its dramatic and fabulous quality. But we must believe it when we recognize how creative a poet Fortune can be, and when we accept that the grandeur of the Romans could never have been raised to such a peak had their origins not been divine and attended by profound marvels.

  9. After the death of Amulius and when public order had been restored, Romulus and Remus were unwilling to dwell in Alba Longa unless they were its rulers, nor would they consent to take power while their grandfather lived. Conse
quently, they handed the government of the city over to Numitor. They also paid their mother every suitable honour. They then decided to dwell apart and found a city in the region where they had been nourished as infants. This, in any case, was the most seemly of their possible motives. Perhaps, however, they had little choice, now that they had been joined by many slaves and fugitives, but to dismiss the whole of their following by dispersing them here and there or to live separately with these men. For it is undeniable that the inhabitants of Alba Longa would not permit the fugitives to intermarry with themselves, nor would they grant them citizenship. This is made clear, in the first place, by the Romans’ seizure of the Sabine women,23 an action they undertook, not owing to brazenness but rather to sheer necessity when they could not win consent to find wives among their neighbours (as evidenced by how, after the Romans carried off these women, they showed them every honour). The second proof is this: soon after their city was founded, the Romans established a sanctuary where fugitives could take refuge, which they called the temple of the god Asylum. There they received anyone, and none was handed over, not slave to master, not debtor to creditor, nor murderer to magistrate. Instead, they declared this place a secure asylum for all men, which they had created in accordance with an oracle delivered by the Pythian.24 The result of this is that the city was very soon well populated, for it is said that at first there were no more than a thousand houses in Rome. But more on these matters presently.

  No sooner had they set out to found their city than a controversy arose over its location. Romulus established the site called Roma Quadrata (the latter word meaning square) and wished to build the city in that place.25 Remus, however, laid out a defensible precinct on the Aventine Hill, which was given the name Remorium, after his own name, but is now called Rignarium.26 They agreed to settle their dispute by looking to the flight of sacred birds, and so, when each had taken a position distant from the other, we are told that six vultures were seen by Remus, but twice that number by Romulus. Some authorities, however, report that, whereas Remus in fact saw six, Romulus actually lied about the twelve, but, when Remus came to report his observation, at that very moment twelve birds did appear to Romulus. This is why, to the present day, the Romans, whenever they take auguries from the flights of birds, pay the most regard to vultures.

  Herodorus Ponticus27 makes the point that even Heracles rejoiced whenever a vulture appeared to him while he was engaging in some exploit. This is because the vulture is, of all animals, the least destructive to human concerns, for it does no harm to grain or fruit-trees or cattle. Instead, it feeds on carrion. It does not kill, nor will it even harm another living creature. And, as for other birds, a vulture will not touch them, even when they are dead, on the grounds that they are kindred species – unlike eagles and owls and hawks, which peck at their own kind, even when they are alive, and kill them. And yet, as Aeschylus puts it, ‘how could a bird that feeds on another bird be pure?’28 Furthermore, all other birds rally round our eyes, so to speak, and let themselves be seen constantly, whereas a vulture is a rare sight, and we scarcely ever come upon a vulture’s young. In fact, some men entertain the strange notion that vultures come here from some distant and alien land, so rarely and infrequently do they appear, which is of course the very quality that soothsayers deem characteristic of any apparition that does not occur naturally or spontaneously but only through divine agency.29

  10. When Remus learned of his brother’s trick, he was very angry. Now Romulus was at work digging a trench along the course he intended the city’s wall to run. Remus ridiculed some of these works, others he obstructed. Finally, when he leapt over the trench, he was struck down, by Romulus himself according to some authorities, by Celer, one of Romulus’ companions, according to others. Faustulus also fell during this struggle, along with his brother Pleistinus, who, we are told, had aided him in bringing up Romulus. Celer then removed himself to Etruria, and it is because of him that Romans call men who are fast or swift celeres. Quintus Metellus is an example. Only a few days after the death of his father he exhibited gladiatorial games in his honour. Everyone was amazed by the speed at which these preparations were made and so they gave him the surname Celer.30

  11. Romulus buried Remus in the Remoria,31 along with his two foster-fathers. Thereafter he turned to the foundation of his city. He first summoned men from Etruria, who guided and instructed him in every detail, so that everything was done in strict accordance with sacred rites and formulas, as if in a religious ceremony. And so a circular trench was dug around what is now the Comitium32 and in it they deposited the first fruits of all things that are essential to life or deemed precious by custom. Finally, each man brought a small portion of earth from his native land and threw it in among the first fruits, so that everything was mixed together. The Romans call this trench by the same word they use to describe the heavens, which is mundus.33 With this as its centre, the Romans then laid out their city around it in a circle. The founder fitted a bronze ploughshare to a plough and yoked to it a bull and a cow, and with this he drove a deep furrow around the limits of the city. Meanwhile, it was the task of those following him to turn any clods of earth thrown up by the plough inwards, towards the city, and to leave none turned outwards. By means of this boundary the Romans defined the course of their city wall, and it is called, in a contracted form, pomerium, which means behind or next to the city wall.34 Wherever they decided to make a city gate, at that point they lifted the plough from the earth and carried the ploughshare, thus leaving a space that was not ploughed. This is why the Romans regard the city wall as sacred, but not its gates. Indeed, if they believed that the gates were sacred, they could not, without fear of offending the gods, bring into the city, or remove from the city, those things which, though necessary, are nevertheless ritually unclean.35

  12. It is agreed that the city was founded on the eleventh day before the Calends of May,36 and the Romans celebrate this day with a religious festival which they call the birthday of their country. When this festival first began, so they say, it included the sacrifice of no living creature. This was because they believed that this occasion, which marked the birth of their country, ought to remain pure and undefiled by blood. But, even before the city was founded, they celebrated, on the same day, a pastoral festival known as the Parilia.37

  It is still the case that Roman months do not correspond with Greek ones, but it is reported that the day on which Romulus founded his city was precisely the thirtieth day of the month38 and, on that day, the conjunction of the moon and sun produced an eclipse, which is believed to be the one observed by Antimachus,39 the epic poet of Teos, during the third year of the sixth Olympiad.40 Now, in the time of Varro the philosopher,41 a Roman who was superbly well read in history, one of his companions was a philosopher and mathematician named Tarutius.42 This man’s speculative instincts had brought him to the study of astrology, in which subject he was regarded as an expert. Varro once suggested to him that he deduce the moment of Romulus’ birth, down to the day and the hour, drawing his conclusions from the recorded events of the man’s life, just as if he were solving a problem in geometry. After all, he said, the same science that can predict the events of a man’s life on the basis of the time of his birth must be able, on the basis of the actual events of a man’s life, to calculate the time of his birth. Tarutius undertook this assignment, and, after a close study of Romulus’ experiences and actions, as well as an examination of the length of his life and the manner of his death, pronounced, with a bold and even daring confidence, that Romulus had been conceived in his mother’s womb during the first year of the second Olympiad, on the twenty-third day of the Egyptian month of Choeac,43 in the third hour, during a total eclipse of the sun. He furthermore concluded that Romulus was born on the twenty-third day of the month of Thoth,44 at sunrise, and that Rome was founded by him on the ninth day of the month of Pharmuthi,45 between the second and the third hour – for the fortune of a city, like that of a man, is believed by a
strologers to be governed by a specific moment in time, which is determined by the position of the stars when the city is founded. Perhaps it will be the case that these conclusions, and other reports of their like, will, on account of their novelty and peculiarity, attract readers more than they offend them, owing to their fantastic quality.

  13. After the founding of the city, Romulus’ first act46 was to select from the multitude those men who were of a suitable age and divide them into military companies, each of which consisted of 3,000 infantrymen and 300 cavalry. Each company was called a legion47 because its soldiers were selected from the whole of the populace. The remainder of the population he then established as the people, and in Latin this multitude is called populus. He appointed a hundred of the best men to be his advisers, and he designated them patricians48 and their assembly as the senate. The word senate literally means a council of elders,49 and, according to some sources, these senators were described as patricians because they were fathers of legitimate offspring. Others, however, attribute this title to the fact that each of these men could demonstrate his own legitimacy, by adducing the identity of his father, which few among those who first streamed into the city were able to do. Still others derive the word from patronage, the word they used then – and use to this day – to describe the protection of the weak by the powerful, for they believe that among the companions of Evander50 there was a man named Patron51 who defended and protected the poor and the needy and who left his own name as the word for this institution. By far the likeliest explanation, however, is that Romulus deemed it a duty of the most distinguished and powerful men in the city to look after the lowly with fatherly care and concern. At the same time, he taught the rest of the populace neither to fear their superiors nor to resent their honours, but rather to think of them fondly and regard them and even address them as fathers. Hence their designation. For, even today, whereas non-Romans refer to men who are in the senate as authorities, the Romans themselves call them conscript fathers,52 a title conveying the highest honour and dignity but inciting the least degree of envy. At first they were called simply fathers, but, later, as more men were enrolled in their number, they were addressed as conscript fathers, and this more solemn title was employed by Romulus to distinguish the senate from the common people. He found other means as well for discriminating between the powerful and the common people: the former he called patrons (which is Latin for protectors), the latter clients (which means dependants). At the same time, he inspired in each class an astonishing degree of goodwill for the other, and this became the basis for important rights and obligations. Patrons advised their clients in legal matters, defended them in court and offered them counsel and assistance in all their affairs. For their part, clients displayed their devotion to their patrons not simply by holding them in high esteem but also, should their patron fall on hard times, by contributing to his daughter’s dowry or helping him to pay his debts. And neither the law nor any magistrate could compel a patron to give evidence against his client, nor a client against his patron. This relationship persists, and it is felt by the Romans to be base and dishonourable for the powerful to take money away from men in humble circumstances. This, however, is a sufficient discussion of these matters.53