Romulus & Remus

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Mythic founders of Rome

0:41Who founded Rome? Well, according to mythology, the answer seems obvious. Romulus and Remus, the twin brothers suckled by a she-wolf before one killed the other to establish the eternal city. But Romulus and Remus did not stand alone. The Romans did not see these twins as the only mythic founders of Rome. There were other key figures who would be venerated over the centuries, including a hero of the Trojan War, who embarked on his own great adventure after Troy was destroyed,

1:14not Odysseus, but Aeneas. In this episode, we're going to delve into the stories of these mythical figures, and how they were all brought into Rome's origin story. We'll explore where these stories came from, what they reveal about how the Romans viewed themselves, and whether they might be any kernels of truth behind them.

Introduction to Dr Jeremy Armstrong

1:36Welcome to The Ancients. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and this is the story of Romulus, Remus, and the mythic beginnings of Rome's history. Our guest is Dr Jeremy Armstrong, Professor of Ancient History at the University of Auckland, and expert on the history of early Rome.

1:56Jeremy, it is such a pleasure to have you back on the podcast. It is wonderful to be here. Thanks for having me. Oh, you're more than welcome. And at the moment, we are the world away from each other. I'm in London, you're in Auckland, but we're soon to be united together on stage in Auckland and Canberra. And we're talking all about this topic, Romulus and Remus, that the so-called founders of Rome, suckled by a she-wolf and as children, before succumbing to this brotherly rivalry in later life. But Jeremy, their story, it's so much more than just an origins myth, isn't it?

2:30It is. I mean, it's obviously an origin myth of the city itself, Romulus, the proper founder of the city. But it is much more about how kind of the Romans thought about themselves, how they place themselves in the world, in Italy, in the wider Mediterranean, within history. It's so many other things. It's kind of a touchstone that the Romans across centuries used to, again, kind of place themselves in their wider context, in their universe. And that's why I think they're the fascinating figures to talk about,

3:02no matter which period of Roman history you're interested in. This is the thing. The fact that these characters, that Romulus and Remus, can give us an insight into later Roman history and into Roman identity, into how the Romans viewed themselves, right? Yeah. I mean, I think they probably tell us more about later history than they do actually about the 8th century when they supposedly lived. And because, of course, you know, later Romans, when we actually get people writing down these stories, probably had no idea what the world was like, what Rome was like, what Italy

3:35was like in the 8th century. But they still used and thought about and talked about these figures. And again, they were vitally important to people like Augustus, to writers like Livy, Dionysus of Halicarnassus, and even later figures as well. We get Romulus and Remus appearing on coinage well into the empire and, you know, on into late antiquity. These are really interesting figures that people keep going back to for various different reasons. And you mentioned the Emperor Augustus there. So first emperor of Rome, you know, 28 BC to roughly like 14 AD.

4:09This is generally seen as a golden age in the story of Rome, Jeremy. And how important are the figures of Romulus and Remus at that time? You know, the Pax Romana at the time of ancient Rome in its heyday? Yeah, well, yeah, again, as being somebody who specializes in early Rome, I'm never sure if I like to call the Augustan period the golden age. I mean, it's a lot of evidence. I'll give that period. They've got more evidence than we do. That's I'll allow that. And it is a golden age in terms of being able to actually we can say what like Cicero is doing

4:40on a daily basis. But anyway, back to your actual question in terms of, I mean, Romulus and Remus, they're important in that time period, but they are alongside a series of other founders as well. I mean, when we think about Augustus and we think about the founding of Rome, we typically think about Aeneas, not Romulus and Remus. So they're there, they're part of the story, but they are one of a series of different founders that men like Augustus and others at the same time are playing with, again, to kind of put their own age, their own problems, their own issues in context, and to kind of highlight

5:16that these things aren't necessarily new. They're kind of part of how the Romans have always worked. And for Augustus, I mean, Aeneas is obviously through the Aeneid, but also through his own kind of iconography and his own artistic programs. Aeneas is probably the more important of the founders and the one that he likes to emphasize. So we've got Aeneas, we've got Romulus and Remus. Are there any other key founders of Rome that we should mention before delving into this, Jeremy? So many. So the Romans loved founders, and every different figure kind of seems to have brought something

5:48else to the story, to the wider tale of Roman history. Romulus is the first Roman rex, or for lack of a better translation, king. I don't like that translation because it's got so many different kind of modern connotations to it. He wasn't a king like we think today, but he was the first Roman rex. And then we have all the other reges, all the other kings there. There were seven of them, so Numa, Tullus Hostilius, Ancus Marcius, the Tarquin, so the elder Tarquin, and then the younger, or Tarquinius Superbus, Tarquin the Proud.

6:18And in between them, we have Servius Tullius as well. So all of these reges were all founders in their own right as well. They all did important things. Numa was famous for creating almost all of Roman religion almost overnight. Servius Tullius was famous for creating the Roman constitution, even though he was one of the kings. He created the basis of Rome's republican constitution. So they're all founders as well, all builders, all people who are important for integrating and organizing the population.

6:49And even when we get into the republic, there are later founders as well. Camillus, who was active in the late fifth and early fourth century, he was, I think, one of the most underrated figures of the Roman Republic, somebody who often gets forgotten. But he was often called Rome's second founder, which is a kind of a fascinating title and one which we could also kind of unpick a little bit. So there are heaps of those there. And then, of course, Augustus himself is painted as a founder, as and we can probably highlight a few others in between as well.

7:20So there's a whole series. And Romulus and Remus and Aeneas are just parts which get their founders or kind of points in the story which get emphasized at certain points and at certain times and by certain authors and by certain politicians. But I think we always have to remember the whole spectrum here and that the Romans would have thought about them always in a sequence and not as the one founder or the key moment necessarily.

Aeneas and the Trojan War

7:44Let's explore, well, the first of these founders on our list, which is the figure that takes us the furthest back, well beyond long before 753 BC. And this is the figure you've already mentioned, very important to Augustus, the main man of the Aeneid, this figure of Aeneas. So introduce Aeneas to us, Jeremy. Who was Aeneas? Aeneas was really a minor character, a background figure in all the early stories. He's a minor prince from an allied community who happens to be fighting on the side of the

8:15Trojans in the Great Trojan War, this great conflict between the Greeks and the Trojans, which Homer wrote about in the Iliad and was part of this whole epic cycle of all these other lost poems, which are unfortunately lost to us, which the Odyssey and the Iliad are a part of. So he's a minor figure there. He's mentioned by Homer, but he doesn't do a lot in the battle. He's apparently destined for great things, but Homer never says what and he doesn't do a lot in the actual war itself. He's mainly remembered because after the Trojans lose, he escapes and he's allowed to escape by the

8:50Greeks because as he's going out of the city, it's not just him. He is carrying his father on his shoulder and the Greeks look at this and they are just immensely respectful of this piety, this honor and respect he's showing to his father. And so they say, hey, you're carrying your dad out of the city. We'll let you go. And so he's able to escape the great fire and the massive kind of massacre that happened after the Greeks finally took the city after sneaking in with the Trojan horse. So he escapes and then he wanders the Mediterranean like all these other figures who often, you know,

9:23thinking at this particular moment, thinking about the Odyssey and the new Nolan movie. But of course, Odysseus is only one of many figures who is wandering the Mediterranean at this time. Odysseus is trying to get to his home and Aeneas is trying to find a home. But there's there's lots of these figures wandering around and Aeneas apparently just wanders all over. Almost all the stories have him going west. But of course, when you start off in Troy, west is the main direction open to you. And he ended up in a wide range of places, depending on which stories you believe.

9:58Some have him ending up in Greece. Some have him ending up in North Africa. Some have him ending up in modern day Spain. And of course, we have some of him ending up in Italy as well. So he's a great traveler who, according to the collected tradition, goes west and may or may not end up in Italy. And how old do we think this story is, particularly the one where he ends up in Italy? That tradition goes back to the very beginning of what we have of the recorded tradition for Aeneas and for these heroes goes back to about the sixth century.

10:30We have some very early Greek poets. I mean, you know, Homer is really probably only writing at the end of the eighth century. So very early on, sixth century, we have stories of Aeneas going west and ending up in at least parts of Italy. Many of the traditions actually have him associated with Sicily and not central Italy, where Rome is located. But in that rough area, going back to that date, there's a few different traditions, a few different sources, which seem to have him ending up there. And we say Italy, but we haven't said Rome.

11:03So how do we then get the next part in the story, which is linking Aeneas to the founding of Rome, to Romulus and Remus? Well, it's a very sketchy, very fuzzy, very, you know, tentatious link. It does. It's not particularly direct, even in the much later literary sources. Most traditions don't have him going to Rome at all. And in fact, he doesn't found the city, even in Virgil's great Aeneid. He visits it, but there's another community there which he's completely unassociated with. So he looks around, says, yes, you have a great community here.

11:34This would be a good spot for a city, but I see you already have one. So I'll go somewhere else. So even in that tradition, he doesn't found the city of Rome. What he does do, though, is found kind of the lineage of Rome, the family. He has children whose descendants will ultimately become Romans. But it's a very kind of distant, kind of fuzzy, disconnected link to get there. He's much more associated with other communities dotted around central Italy. The Alba Longa, which is this great center in the Alban Hills, where Romulus and Remus are actually born, according to tradition.

12:11And the site where he apparently lands in Italy. So a bit before that, the site of Lavinium and Lavinia, his wife, supposedly the name is a connection there. And that's actually, as opposed to Rome, the place where he is most commonly and tightly associated, at least geographically. And do we see that archaeologically? Do we see certain artifacts, certain objects from Italy that reinforce this Aeneas and Italy connection, central Italy connection, I guess? We do have a few. There are a couple of representations coming from Etruria, a couple like Intaglio.

12:45Some of the Etruscan civilization we mean there. Yes, the Etruscans, I never like separating them out as a distinct civilization, really. They're all just central Italians. The people north of the Tiber do like to write in a different language. But actually, apart from the linguistic differences, the writing that we have is possibly religious or ritual. So they are all probably speaking languages and they understand each other. So the people just north of Rome, just north of the Tiber, who we commonly call the Etruscans, we do find some images of Aeneas there.

13:17He's most commonly identified by carrying his father. Anytime you see a warrior carrying someone on his shoulder, we can guess it's Aeneas. And he does appear on a few pots. But in the grand scheme of things, thinking about all these heroes associated with the Trojan War and their images in Italy, he is still not very popular. We have maybe 20 or so across central Italy compared to literally thousands or tens of thousands of figures like Heracles or he wasn't at the Trojan War.

13:48But even some of the other Trojan heroes that are there, they're actually far better represented in Italy than Aeneas is. We went looking for Aeneas because we knew about the Aeneid and this later connection. We found some. But actually, when you look at him in context, he's not incredibly popular at this time. But we do have some other kind of archaeological bits of evidence. At Lavinium, for instance, we do have the so-called Tomb of Aeneas, which is this fascinating, it's called a Harun or a kind of monumental burial, often to a founding figure, which was venerated as a shrine.

14:22That's definitely something was a main cult site, one of the many cult sites. Lavinium is full of cult sites, got altars, you know, I think we're up to 20 or so different altars there, as well as the grave of Aeneas. So we do have some archaeological evidence, but it's honestly raises more questions than it answers. That's interesting. So does, later on in Roman times, does the site of Lavinium, does it become almost a place of pilgrimage, as you say, a cult site for people who know the story of Aeneas by that time, who know the importance of him settling at Lavinium, and so would go there almost as like to pay their homage to who they believed was like the oldest ancestor of the Roman people, almost.

15:05It does become part of even kind of a Roman state cult. There are different magistrates who will go out there to perform different rites, though how tightly that's connected with Aeneas is a bit debated. We know they go to Lavinium, and we know they perform rites there, but whether it's to do with Aeneas or not is a bit debatable. Aeneas is not, again, he's one of many different founders, and he has his connection with Rome until we get to the late Republic, until we get to really the time of Augustus.

15:36It's not sure he's really one they're thinking about all that much. He's certainly there, but he's not necessarily the most important. But you say he's certainly there. So what bits of evidence do we have from earlier in the Republic, or maybe before then, from Rome itself, that shows that the name Aeneas was known to these early Romans?

The archaeological evidence for Aeneas

15:53Well, again, not very much. This is the problem with early Rome, is the very sketchy nature of the evidence. But looking at some of our earliest literary sources, which are preserved to us only in fragments, things like Aeneas and his Inales, we know that in these kind of the earliest sources that we have for the Romans thinking about their past, thinking about where they came from, Aeneas is there. But again, in a sequence, Aeneas also mentions Romulus, and then he also, even in the fragments we have, mentions a few of these other figures.

16:25So in the earliest accounts we have of that, and again, these aren't all that early. Aeneas is writing about 200 BCE, so, you know, not what we would call the Middle Republic, even towards the tail end of the Middle Republic, but he is mentioned there. So as far back as we have evidence, and for names, we've got Aeneas. But personally, I actually wouldn't push it too much earlier than maybe the 4th century BCE. The 4th century seems to be a really important time of myth-making in Rome for a lot of different reasons.

16:56And I think the 4th century, so maybe about 350 to 300 even, so the second half of the 4th century, is probably when I would pinpoint Aeneas becoming an important figure in Rome and Roman politics and Roman imagination. Why do we think that? I mean, do we think it is a Roman admiration or a growing Roman interest in the story of the Trojan War, of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and wanting to connect themselves to it? Or is it more than that? It is that, I mean, to a certain extent, but I think it's thinking about what function do these stories serve, not just in Rome, not just in Italy, but really around the Mediterranean.

17:35These stories act as points of connection, and Aeneas is a great connector. You know, he has this, in Homer and onward, as I mentioned a little bit ago, he is remembered as being destined for something great, and he's a great traveler. So he pops around to a lot of different communities, and so a lot of, he's an easy person for communities to kind of grab onto and say, hey, we're connected with Aeneas, he came by here too. We are part of his, this great destiny that he is a part of. And by the third century, we know in Roman politics that, like the community of Segesta, which is another place in Sicily that Aeneas supposedly mentioned, they are using Aeneas as a connecting point with Rome in politics, as a way of saying, hey, we are both connected to this figure.

18:22I think most of the elites there would have accepted that this is entirely fictional, but it's a, it's a useful and pleasant fiction that they can claim this mythical founder and through that negotiate a very practical political treaty. And that's what these figures are doing. They are, everyone's recognizing, yes, they might not be real, but that doesn't mean they're not really useful. And so you get Aeneas, you get Pericles, you get, you know, you get all kinds of these figures, these travelers, you know, Odysseus as well.

18:55He's also in, in some too, he also obviously goes West, is in the Western Mediterranean. He's another connecting figure that a lot of these communities are using to negotiate with each other. And I think in, in that kind of sense, they are very interested in these figures and the Trojan War because of how useful they are in their present day. Just keep on that bit longer. Of course, if you mentioned it, like the fourth century BC, this is a time before Carthage and Rome are at each other's throats. And of course, you've got Queen Dido in the later Aeneid and Aeneas visiting Carthage.

19:27So maybe in this earlier period of history, when Rome and Carthage have treaties with each other, have agreements, maybe even in those circumstances, they were both raising their joint stories and how they were also both linked to Aeneas there as well. Almost certainly. I think, I think we don't, we know Rome is the end, as you mentioned, there's trees with Carthage. These are some of these things, these, these few little historical nuggets. So these, these things we like to hang quite a bit on, but I'm, I'm certain if not Aeneas, other of these figures were being used in these negotiations and connections there.

19:59And of course, this is a time, the late fourth century, when Rome is in a process of renegotiating. The Romans are in a process of renegotiating their relationships across Italy and really the Mediterranean. This is a time of ascendancy for this kind of Roman political system. It's fascinating to me how these figures, which we think of as, as mythic figures, that surely these, they can't be useful. They are. These are the, the actual kind of sinews that are linking together these kind of, you know, Roman foreign policy.

20:32It's through figures like Aeneas and Odysseus that they are doing it. Even if everyone recognizes that it, hey, it's all kind of made up. So interesting. Well, I think we've covered everything Aeneas now. Let's move on to the next key founders of Rome that would have also had, you know, a big input in diplomacy, as you've mentioned there, Jeremy. And from the time of Aeneas, we are in the mythology.

Sources for Romulus and Remus

20:53We're going on a little bit to the time of Romulus and Remus. And Jeremy, before we delve into their story, can you explain how we have the story surviving to us today? Which are our main authors that tell us the, the account of Romulus and Remus? Most, most, most people would go to Livy. The great Titus Livy is the great historian of the late Republic for the basic story. We also have one of his rough contemporaries writing in Greek, Dionysus of Halicarnassus. These are the, the two main historians we rely on for the, all the early stories.

21:26And they both give a really nice full account of the story of Romulus and Remus. And then we've also got Plutarch, who wrote his paired lives, one of which was the life of Romulus. He's writing a bit later, about a hundred years later, a hundred fifty years later. So he is actually drawing himself, drawing on Livy and Dionysus of Halicarnassus for his version. But he gives a slightly fuller version. And he also seems to be referring to a few now lost texts or maybe other traditions as well.

21:58So he's a very useful source, even though, again, he's coming later and using Livy. He's using Livy and Dionysus plus a few others. So those three authors are the big ones. And then we have a few others as well. Cicero, Cicero writes about just about everything. He also will mention Romulus occasionally and a few other bits and pieces. But just as, you know, this figure, whoever he, she, they were of Homer in the 8th, 7th century was, I mean, their story is being based on an oral tradition several centuries long by that point with either the Trojan War and Odysseus and so on.

22:35Do we think that Livy and Dionysus of Halicarnassus and the rest, that their sources are stories that had also been passed down for several centuries before they're written down by these figures? Absolutely. Absolutely. Again, as I mentioned, we have the writer Ennius, who's writing 150 years or so before Livy, and he's telling a story of Romulus as well. And then before even those kind of early written histories of Rome, we definitely have stories in circulation because we have art. We have a famous statue group, which was set up in Rome right around 300 BCE by the Agulni brothers of Romulus and Remus being suckled by the she-wolf.

23:14This was, we, for a long time, it was argued that the famous Capitoline wolf in Rome was this statue, and this was kind of proof. And then some people said, no, no, this statue is actually much earlier. It goes days to the 6th century, goes, you know, almost back to the time of Romulus himself. Now, arguments are it's actually medieval, but we do have literary records of at least one statue group set up about 300, and it was commemorated, it seems, by one of the first Roman silver coins, which may have also been minted by one of these brothers, which provides a really nice kind of picture of this kind of the core bit of Romulus and Remus being suckled by the she-wolf.

23:51And that, I think, is really solid evidence that at least that bit of the story is circulating around Rome by the late 4th century and probably going quite a bit earlier. There's a lot of really interesting, very kind of just archaic feeling bits of the story, which just feel old. They don't make sense in a middle Republican context. There's, you know, raiding, pastoralism, as well as these kind of almost core Indo-European myth aspects of the story, which seem to go back a very long way.

24:24And I would suspect that there is a very strong oral tradition surrounding whether he's called Romulus, whether his brother's called Remus or not. There's actually a bit of debate around that as well in some of the early versions, but some sort of story, which is there that the Romulus and Remus myth comes from in circulation for hundreds of years. We're certainly going to delve into all of that, those key themes, those potential kernels of truth that might go back to Iron Age, Italy, very early Roman times. But first of all, let's tell the story, Jeremy.

The birth of Romulus and Remus

24:54I mean, first of all, how far ahead are we going from Aeneas to the time of Romulus and Remus? And if I remember correctly, it's a different city. It's a different setting that this story begins in, too. It is. It's I mean, I think we're probably about 400 years on. Livy gives the whole list of trying to to track the lineage between Aeneas and Romulus and Remus. So clearly the ancient authors were trying to connect it. But even there, it was a little bit fuzzy. But Aeneas is kind of end of the Bronze Age, maybe 1100 BCE.

25:26And Romulus and Remus are being born in the 8th century. So sometime, you know, 790 or so, somewhere around there. And yes, and they are being born in a different community, not Rome, but Alba Longa in the Alban Hills. So not too far from Rome. And again, that close connection is important because they are going to end up in Rome through just being, as we'll see in a minute, following a river. They are the twin children of Rhea Silva, who is a princess in Alba Longa.

25:56She is the daughter of King Numitor, who is the rightful king. And so she is part of that royal family. But there's there's a whole lot of internal squabbles, as in many families, but particularly in these kind of early Italian families. Numitor has a brother, Amulius, who wants his throne. He overthrows his brother and takes over and is trying to basically wipe out Numitor's side of the family. He doesn't want to kill Rhea Silva, but he needs to make sure that she's not going to have any children.

26:29So he makes her a Vestal Virgin. He thinks job done there. Numitor has no sons. He just has Rhea Silva. I have made her a Vestal Virgin now. She's not going to have any kids. This community, this kingdom is now mine. But, of course, that's not how it ends up. As we know, she is going to have children. Who the father of those twins is, is a bit debated, even amongst the Romans. The tradition goes that it's Mars, but even the later Roman authors are a little bit dubious about that.

26:59I mean, Libby says they claim it's Mars. There are some suggestions that that's just what she said because of some, you know, having, doing something out of she's not married. She's a Vestal Virgin. A Vestal Virgin, if they do have sex, is, you know, would be killed. So she's obviously, you know, having a child is very problematic for her there. So there are some suggestions that Mars has put forward as a way to explain this situation in a way that alleviates possibly any guilt. But either way, she has these two boys and she says it's Mars is the father.

27:33Amulius is then in a bit of a quandary. He's not quite sure what to do. What he eventually decides on doing is I'm not going to kill these children directly just in case they are the children of a god. So he puts them into a basket, has that basket thrown into the river and leaves their fate up to the gods. And the gods take care of them. The basket gets carried down the river Tiber, ends up alighting on the on the side of the river at the site of Rome underneath a fig tree, which is remembered as the ruminal and becomes a famous cult site in Rome.

28:04They're found by a she-wolf, suckled by the she-wolf, eventually found by a shepherd, and they grow up in the family of the shepherd. I'm glad that you stopped there before we get to the rest of the story, Jeremy, because I think we can explore these themes straight away. Because anyone familiar with other myths of ancient history and of the ancient Near East, there are some parallels you hear straight away. I will say the one I think of straight away, the baby being carried down the river and being discovered. That makes me think of Moses.

28:35Absolutely. Me too. And it's not the only one. There's a few other ones as well that very, very similar kind of traditions. Even some of the early stories around Zeus and others, these ideas of, you know, a baby being cast out, being carried by the gods and, you know, suckled by an animal. All these kind of things. These are kind of classic, what we would often call kind of Indo-European myths, things at least shared by a lot of cultures, particularly around the Mediterranean. You know, Sargon, even in the Near East, we have a whole lot of other figures that fit this sort of motif.

29:06And this is, again, what makes me think that this particular story is actually quite old. That whether it was Romulus and Remus or not, there were stories like this in circulation around central Italy, as there were everywhere else, kind of associated with people who you expect a lot of. So do you think that this myth, I mean, yeah, this particular story, whether the figures of Romulus and Remus were there, is another question. But that part of the story could have been circulating in central Italy as far back as the early first millennium BC.

29:38Absolutely. And probably further. I think it is. That is. Yeah. But again, whether it's Romulus and Remus is a whole other question. But I do absolutely think that this story in some form was there. Shall we also talk about the she-wolf?

30:09Because it's Looper, isn't it? And isn't there one line of thoughts that actually that is also the word for a female sex worker? It is. And yes, that is something that Lupa is sometimes interpreted as the wife of Faustulus, the shepherd who finds them. That is one possibility. I think it is also part of a kind of very long history of denigrating women in these stories. That is, you know, I think my own take on it is that actually the earliest versions we have, the earliest iconography we have, it's clearly a wolf.

30:42And wolves and a she-wolf, particularly a she-wolf who has just given birth, is known in Italy and known apparently in other places as being probably one of the most ferocious animals you can possibly come across. She will protect her young and is probably one of the most dangerous creatures you can come across. So I really do think it is a she-wolf as an actual animal, that this is something that it's the protective nature, the ferocity, all these kind of things are things which very much kind of resonate to me with how a lot of these Italian families and Italian communities would have thought about themselves.

31:19And, of course, we also know of other Italian peoples that were connected with animals like wolves, you know, the Samnites, Sabines. A lot of these populations have wolves as kind of core parts of their early origin stories and how they move around and how they find places to live and settle. So I think all that to me suggests that actually the animal is, you know, that the Lupa as an actual she-wolf is the correct interpretation. And it's only maybe a bit later when the Romans start to look back on this, that they possibly try and change it around a little bit and offer other alternatives there and more human options.

31:57But again, we don't know. That's just my gut feeling. Absolutely, Jeremy. And you read my mind on my next question, which was actually the popularity of the wolf in Iron Age, Italy, in art, in archaeology from, you know, 3,000 years and into more recent ancient times. Do we have a lot of imagery of the wolf from that period in Italy? We do. We do. This is, again, one of these things that, a bit like we were talking earlier about Aeneas and looking for images, when we go looking for it, we can find a lot of them.

32:30And wolves are much easier to find in Italian iconography than Aeneas is. So all across the Italian peninsula, we've got quite a few wolves. And again, particularly she-wolves, that we could tell, you know, who have recently given birth. That is actually quite a common motif. And again, I think it is because of the intense ferocity which they can represent. So absolutely. And it's something, again, I think that's an interesting thing that, you know, the Romans and other Italians kind of wanted to latch on to. It is a very violent place.

33:01And, you know, that kind of animal, you know, ferocity that's coming through and embodied by the she-wolf, that that is a part of their origin story as well. These are, even thinking back to this really early time when we have, you know, there's just poor, you know, poor babies here that are being saved. They're being saved by probably one of the most dangerous animals in the Italian peninsula. I think that's a very interesting thing when they're thinking about who they are and what their temperament is. It is that. Well, let's move on with the story, because the next part with Romulus and Remus is their return to Alba Longa and then going on to found Rome, if I'm not mistaken.

Building the city and fratricide

33:39That's correct. So they grow up in the household of Faustulus, the shepherd. But again, we might think of being a shepherd as a nice peaceful occupation. That is absolutely not how it was in archaic Italy. And shepherds were part shepherd, part warrior. There was a lot of raiding going on between shepherds. And Romulus and Remus apparently made quite a name for themselves in raiding. They were very, very good at this. They were increasing the flocks of Faustulus. And they've got enough of a name for themselves that they were actually called before Numitor, their grandfather, this kind of outed king of Alba Longa, but one who is still there.

34:17His brother didn't kill him off. He was just trying to, you know, destroy his line, but kept his brother around. As soon as they arrived there, they were recognized for their heritage, as often is the way. It's kind of, you know, obviously these big, strong, beautiful boys who are, you know, very good warriors. These must be related to me because I am also like that. And then once they're recognized, they very quickly put their grandfather back on the throne and get rid of Amulius, his evil brother. But Alba Longa is not big enough for them. They want their own kingdom.

34:49They're going to let their grandfather have the old place. They're going to go start somewhere new. And where best to start their own community. But that nice little spot on the river where they washed up as babies. And so they head back to the site of Rome to start up their own community there. And before we delve into that, I must ask about that fascinating part you mentioned there, Jeremy, which also feels like going back to the, you know, very ancient Italy. This idea of raiding and it almost sounds like, so the shepherd being a subject of that king, taking livestock from another community nearby, adding it to their own flock and therefore increasing the livestock available to the larger community and the king that they were serving.

35:32Do we think, I mean, I might think of the Bronze Age elsewhere in the world where you get those kind of mythological stories like the Irish Iliad, the Cataract of Cooley and stuff like that, which is all about that raiding and taking livestock. We think that's happening elsewhere in the world. Do you also think that that is actually happening in Italy, you know, some 3000 years ago that it was very much this raiding case of taking your neighbouring community's livestock and stuff like that? Absolutely. I think there is quite a lot of raiding going on very, very late, actually.

36:03I think most warfare in Italy, down to the mid-4th century, really, down even a bit later than that, is raiding. And even personally, I think even the First Punic War, even when we get into these great conflicts with Carthage, we often kind of wonder, why does the First Punic War take so long? I mean, there's lots of different reasons there. But even when we get quite late, I think there's quite a lot of raiding happening there as well. Maybe not about livestock anymore, but this raiding ethos is a really important part of the Italian military mentality.

36:38So, absolutely. Lots and lots. I think this is another one of these kind of things where I'm not sure if it... The problem is it makes it hard to date, because if raiding's happening kind of all the way through, we can't say, oh, this is actually an 8th century kind of thing. It could be any time. But I definitely think it makes it very Italian. This is something... Obviously, raiding, as you just mentioned, kind of happens a lot of other places, but it's really important in central Italy, particularly raiding for animals in this sort of way. We've got lots of iconography and actually looking through Livy and Dionysus' kind of history of the early republic, it's full of instances of raiding.

37:12All right, let's keep on with the story then. So, they decide they need to found their own city and they go to the place where they washed up on the Tiber. Perfect place to found the city. But it goes wrong. Jeremy, what happens? Well, it goes wrong because they're both ambitious men. These are ambitious brothers. They are twins. Again, we often focus on Romulus and kind of assume he's the stronger one, but they really are quite evenly matched. And they both go and they can't agree on which hill they're going to bound their city on or what it's going to be named or really anything about it.

37:45So, they decide to get some insight from the gods. They sit on respective hills and they look for an omen. And actually, Remus sees the first sign. He sees six birds crossing the sky. He says, yes, I've got an omen. And I've seen that. And a little bit later, Romulus sees birds. He sees double the number. But he sees them slightly later. And they're still not quite sure which omen is the one, you know, which one the gods are kind of approving here. Is it the person who sought first or the person who sought more? So, actually, they start to build two separate settlements.

38:17And they each have their followers who are helping them out here. And there seems to be a lot of what was initially possibly quite friendly rivalry between these little settlements, which very quickly turns violent. In particular, Remus comes over to Romulus's settlement and apparently jumps over his half-finished wall and says, yeah, what is this silly wall? But jumping over somebody's wall is obviously quite insulting. He's making fun of Romulus and his half-finished wall. But it's also a ritual transgression. And so, in response to this kind of transgression, this insult, Romulus kills Remus.

38:54This act of fratricide, which everyone remembers is quite an important moment. But one that gets glossed over very quickly. Because apparently all of Remus's followers say, well, I guess we don't have a leader anymore. I guess we'll just join your thing. And it comes together in an amazingly unified and friendly way after this murder. You would think if Remus's followers were, you know, really connected to him, that they would have maybe tried to enact revenge or something like that. But no, they immediately join up with Romulus. And that kind of answers all the rest of the questions as opposed to calling the city Ream.

39:27They call it Rome. And it gets based on the Capiline Palatine Hills, where Romulus was constructing his settlement. Yes. We don't have the Remans today. Yes. The Reman invasions and so on. There are a couple of things we can explore there. And let's do this now. First off, this idea with, you know, the beginning of what will be Rome, that there is not one community. That there are two separate cities, communities at the beginning with Romulus and Remus.

39:59And it almost feels like on separate hills. Do we think that that was drawing on a memory? What do you think of that part of the story, Jeremy? Whether it was an exact memory or not, I'm always a little bit dubious of. I think there definitely was a memory of different communities on the different hills of Rome, but not just on the hills. Rome was, you know, we have the so-called 30 Curiai. Romulus later on, not to get too far ahead of the story here, divided up the city of Rome into 30 Curiai or kind of 30 divisions, which seem to also have kind of geographic things.

40:30And we might think about these as actually kind of 30 separate little villages as well. So there always was a sense that even as a early city, it was composed of distinct parts which came together. And within this, the Roman Forum is a vitally important thing. It was a place where actually archaeologically we could tell there were people living early on, but it's always remembered as a kind of a neutral space that kind of nobody owned. And that, you know, the early, you know, formation of the city was a whole bunch of different communities, families, entities coming together in this place.

41:08And so, yes, within that kind of early story of at least two, I think there is a bit of an idea of what the city of Rome represented. It was a composite entity. It was a composite community, never just one group. And the other key thing there is, of course, as you mentioned, fratricide. I can't think of any other origin stories at the moment, but you can obviously correct me if there are, Jeremy, where fratricide is such a key part. But although having said that, I might think of Cain and Abel from the Old Testament. Yes, I mean, brothers often fight.

41:38This is a thing. Although the fratricide bit here, I think I'm sure I can't off the top of my head remember, but I'm sure somebody has has probably tried to draw out other aspects. I do think, though, that there are kind of a couple very local connections to the central Italian context and to the Roman context in particular, which we can see here. One of them, I think, is related to the fourth century when we seem to have the Romulus and Remus story, just like the Aeneas story, really kind of emerging in a form that we would recognize. And to my mind, one of the kind of the key aspects here, what we see in the fratricide between Romulus and Remus is a lot of it's to do with the relationship between Rome and the Latins.

42:19The Romans and the Latins kind of grew up as brothers, as kind of two different parts of this kind of central Italian population. And in the fourth century, the Romans end up conquering the rest of the Latins. They end up killing them and integrating them in a way not dissimilar to what we see with with Romulus and Remus. And of course, Remus is actually not just a Roman figure, not just part of this Romulus and Remus tradition. He's actually a Latin hero as well. He's associated with various other Latin communities and his name pops up elsewhere.

42:51He is a very Latin figure. Well, Romulus, as you can get from his name, which means Roman guy, is a Roman figure. So there's that bit. But I think also later on, there are kind of resonances of the Civil War and the brothers fighting against brothers in the civil wars of the first century BCE. And I think there's an acknowledgement that sometimes this happens. But what should we do afterwards? Well, exactly what happened when Remus was killed. Everybody came together. So I think there's a little bit of the first century context here as well.

43:23When Livy is writing about this fratricide, he might be thinking about the civil wars of that time period and say, yes, it happened. Yes, it was terrible. But we're all going to come together and form a single community afterwards. And so how does the story progress from there when all of the people come together for the single community with Romulus at their head?

Constitutional foundations of Rome

43:42Because there's still a bit more to the story, isn't there? There is. Well, you know, when Romulus kills his brother, his brother jumped over a half-finished wall. He doesn't have a community yet. So what Romulus does, he sets about suddenly becoming a very kind of clear-headed, single-minded founding figure. He finishes those walls. No one's going to jump over them anymore. And he also creates a bunch of cults. He creates a bunch of kind of religious activities, which I always find incredibly fascinating. I think we often try and separate kind of religion and politics in our own modern day.

44:16But religion was vitally important to ancient communities. Temples were what brought people together. They were the key parts of the infrastructure. They were some of the earliest kind of buildings we have in Rome are temples, the temples and walls. This is what we have preserved. So he sets some of those up. And then he also goes about kind of creating the basics of what we might think of as the Roman constitution. As I mentioned, he divides up the population or he recognizes existing divisions and formalizes them.

44:46And goes about kind of, you know, organizing the population, giving them voting systems and creating some of the basic institutions, which the Romans would look back on and which the Romans still had all the way down to the late Republic. They often put the origin of these on Romulus.

45:03Do we think these parts of the story are also really, really, you know, important to that, to those Romans who are hearing about it much later on? And I mean, we can explore kind of the Sabines and the Curiae as well. But I mean, initially, first of all, I think the importance of a wall for a city, you hearken to the Greek city-states, all of them except Sparta.

45:38What is one of the most important things in their construction? It's to have the defensive wall. And Rome, you know, in this story, the Romans are saying from the beginning, Rome was fortified. Rome was ready to repel potential threats. This is an interesting thing, because actually there is a big debate around actually whether the archaeology supports this at all. And generally speaking, actually, it doesn't look like this is one where you're going to get different opinions depending on who you ask. But my reading of the evidence is that actually Rome doesn't have full circuit walls until the fourth century, that there may be some walls, but they don't go all the way around.

46:14So I think the archaeology doesn't show that kind of picture. But I do think the story is quite important. And there it is defensive, but also it's a us and it's a division between us and them. It is the idea of from Romulus, we have a clear community with a line that goes around it, something which we might also associate with the pomerium or the ritual boundary of Rome, that when Romulus creates this set of walls, what he's doing is really kind of defining the urban community in a very physical way.

46:49And I think if he didn't do that, Rome would have felt a bit fuzzy for later writers and later listeners and readers. But it is something which, again, I think this is something that I don't think the archaeology supports particularly well. I think actually Rome was quite an open and accepting and quite fluid place, which probably couldn't have held up to a siege in the way that we would think about it being prosecuted today.

The Sabine women and the end of Romulus

47:15Jeremy, shall we talk about how the Romans believed Romulus and his followers, how they gained more followers, how they were able to make this community work? Because there are interesting stories attached to this, aren't there? There really are. I mean, Romulus, when he creates Rome, is trying to make it big and powerful. And the way you do that is to make it attractive. I often think about these kind of early cities a bit like a shopping mall, where they're trying to get different clients and different shoppers in through any which way they can. So he makes it appealing as an open asylum for anybody who wants to come.

47:49You can come and join up with this project that he's doing. But he doesn't get everybody he wants. In particular, he seems to be getting a lot of men, but not enough women. So there is the famous story of the Sabine women, where he invites some local neighbors, the Sabine tribes, and invites them for a festival. And when they arrive, he has his men jump in and grab all the most beautiful women and carry them off in order to flesh out his community in that way. And this is, I think, fascinating because of, I mean, on so many different levels, which we could talk about for another hour on its own.

48:28But I think that the key thing it is here is that, you know, all the different mechanisms through which, you know, Romulus, I think the Romans thought about expanding their community. They could do it through violence. They could do it through, as ended up with the Sabine women, with marriage. Obviously, this is probably not the way anyone wants to get married, but they did a pair. There's a lot of marriage customs associated with that particular tradition, or they could do it through just making their community appealing to others. But the main thing is the Romans are trying to get more people.

48:58They're always looking to integrate more, different, anybody who they can get their hands on, who might be able to add something to this Roman project. They are welcome to come and join up and become Romans themselves. And so we get to the death of Romulus right at the end. And this is also quite a mythic part of the story. What is the end of Romulus? The end of Romulus is incredibly confusing in many ways. He walks out on the campus, Martius, and then there's a few different stories that would happen to him there. Basically, he walks out onto the field of Mars in order to review the army, and then he never comes back.

49:35Given that he's reviewing the army, there's a lot of witnesses, you'd think we'd have a good tradition. But the two main stories, one of which is that he disappears in a great cloud of lightning and becomes a god. The other, he is torn apart, literally by hand, by a group of senators, recalling very much the tradition of, you know, the death of Julius Caesar. And I think there's a lot of kind of residences there. Both of these things are preserved for us and our sources. They seem to kind of hold them both equally. Either is an option, which, again, I find fascinating.

50:07The fact that these great Roman authors are able to say, well, he was either murdered by other Romans or he becomes a god. These are both equally valid options. And they seem okay with having both of those as the end of this great founder of theirs. That's the end of Romulus's story. The big question, Jeremy, we've explored some key themes and how they may well have their origins in the time that supposedly Romulus and Remus lived or even earlier.

Historical reality of the founders

50:34But is there actually any evidence that Romulus and Remus, these figures, might actually have existed? As named figures, as, you know, kind of Romulus and Remus as actual people, honestly, probably not. These are, there is really no evidence here. I wouldn't say that they didn't because we can't say either way. And as we've touched on, there are some really interesting kind of archaic resonances in this story, which may go back at least that far, sometimes even further.

51:05But was there actually a person called Romulus? Honestly, probably not. But does that matter to the Romans? Well, it's hard to say. They did actually have the so-called hut of Romulus, a house which they associated with Romulus up on the Palatine, which you can still go and see the foundations of the Cassidy Romuli. It's right up there next to the house of Augustus on top of the Palatine. There was an idea that there was actually a person in some way. But from our modern kind of, you know, historic scientific approach to history, did it actually happen in that sort of tangible way?

51:39I would say probably not. And what is this Cassidy Romuli that you mentioned? It is literally some post holes at the moment, but it does seem to be the foundations of a archaic hut, which may date to roughly the 8th century BCE. It's just a few holes cut into the tuff of the stone on top of the Palatine. And it's interesting. I find it really interesting because it shows that when the Romans are thinking about their past and they're thinking all the way back to this time period, it isn't just stories for them.

52:11They are looking for kind of physical artifacts as well. And of course, walking around Rome, they would have had loads of these, not just the Cassidy Romuli, but, you know, there is the black stone of the Forum, which, according to some traditions, very late traditions, covered a grave of Romulus. We now know that's probably not the case. But this is, again, something very interesting about the Romans. They often forgot the history of certain parts of their city and then invented new interesting stories to make sense of them a bit later on.

52:43So when they're looking around the city, even if, again, Romulus, from our point of view, didn't exist and wasn't a real person, he was very much there for them as they looked around the city. And again, as they placed themselves within the wider world that they lived in. So if, let's say, the Romans of Augustus' time, let's say they had an audio tour of the city of Rome, these are the places that they'd be taken to. This is their own ancient history. This is almost where they'd be taken on school trips to learn about their, you know, who they believed was a historical figure, the figure of Romulus and his followers, you know, where he lived, where they created the wall, where they had the marriage ceremony with the Sabine women, where he grants asylum to slaves and all these other outsiders.

53:28They would have had all of that told to them, would they, by going to different spots in the city? Very possibly. But I think, again, kind of going back to what we talked about at the very beginning, it would have been in context. It would have been in a much longer sequence. I think we often focus on particular individuals and different kind of, you know, points going all the way back. We're going to tell the story, as we are here, of Romulus kind of in Remus on their own. When they would go to the Palatine and they saw the Casa de Romuli, they would also see the temples right next door that were built a couple centuries later.

54:01And, of course, they'd see the Temple of Apollo and the House of Augustus. They would see it in a sequence which included them. It wasn't just, oh, look at this thing which happened a long time ago. It's look at that thing and how it's connected to us today. And you could see it all in one place through the layers of history of the city of Rome. It's like living in a museum in this kind of, you know, wonderful stratigraphy of history, all visible to them as they walked around. Which, again, I think you could still see it today, but I think it would have been even much more vivid and striking as they were walking around back then.

54:37And again, I think they would have felt a part of it. And I think that's a very important thing as well. This is not a distant, it is distant to them, but it's also very, very present. In 753 BC, that's the date that's then given for, you know, when they believed Rome was founded by Romulus. How did they reach that date? How do they then believe that that was the time in their history when Rome was founded? A lot of plausible guesswork. There's a lot of antiquarians and a lot of other thinkers who like to count things back.

55:09Although that dating itself, they were very concerned with kind of, you know, annual dating. The interesting thing with 753 is how close it is to the beginning of Greek recorded time and 776 in the first Olympiad. And the Romans seem to be doing quite a lot to match it up to the Greek calendar as much as they could. And that's not because necessarily they were always kind of, you know, feeling inferior to the Greeks. I think we often think about the Romans as always stealing things from the Greeks. I think the main thing, you know, it's, it's, they're, they're really kind of, again, two brothers, two partners, two parts of this kind of wider Mediterranean landscape.

55:44And I think they, they were trying again to, to line up their own history with other peoples and other communities that they knew. We're pretty sure they could actually go back pretty accurately to 509. There was a great temple, the great temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus that they would often, they would hammer a nail in each year to mark the years. They could get back that far. Beyond that, some plausible guesswork pushing things back. But actually, again, archaeologically speaking, we are fairly certain that, that a lot of that is made up, partly because the massive changes we can now see at the site of Rome in the sixth century and how much that's changed our interpretations.

56:20Well, Jeremy, this has been a lot of fun. We've dedicated most of the chat to exploring the mythical stories of Aeneas and Romulus and Remus, and then delving into particular themes and, and the archaeology that the Romans in ancient times linked to these figures. We have recorded an entirely separate episode of the ancients from a few years ago with Dr. Guy Bradley exploring the actual origins of Rome known archaeologically. But Jeremy, I don't want to, I don't want you to, to not be able to talk about that briefly before we finish, because I know this is something we could dedicate a whole, another podcast to.

The archaeology of early Rome

56:53But come on then, from the archaeology that survives, what actually does a loose chronology of early Rome look like? And are there any potential clear links we can see to what we've covered about already in the myths we've told? Well, again, this could easily be of multiple other podcasts. I think probably the biggest thing is, is in recent years, we have figured out through a lot of interesting coring data, Andrea Brock in particular has done a lot of really good work on this, has shown the Tiber changed course.

57:23And actually the entire geology of Rome changed pretty dramatically about 600 BCE, the great S curve of the Tiber, which we see now that runs through Rome, which really kind of creates the physical space that we think of that dates to about 600 and Tiber Island and things like that all come after that. So I think the biggest thing archaeologically we can say now is actually there's a major disjunction between 753 and the supposed time of Romulus and the city and the communities we think about it later.

57:54But again, this is something which didn't seem to bother the Romans necessarily, and I don't think it would have bothered them as well if we were able to show them all this archaeology and say, no, the city couldn't have existed like this. Well, that would have been okay to them because I mean, the city was important, but much more as kind of a meeting place. And again, a set of ideas and a set of commute, a set of relationships. I think we often focus a little bit more on the kind of physical reality while they had a much more dynamic, relational connection with each other and with the city.

58:26So I think within that sort of context, again, the archaeology, there's a disjunction there, but not one I think that would have bothered the Romans necessarily. Jeremy, it has been an absolute pleasure to do this episode with you, and I will see you very soon in person as well. Yes, very much looking forward to that and continuing these chats then. Absolutely. Jeremy, just goes for me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show. Thank you.

58:56Well, there you go. There was Dr. Jeremy Armstrong talking all the things Aeneas, Romulus and Remus and their links to ancient Rome. I hope you enjoyed the episode. Now, I must say, as hinted at the beginning, as Jeremy hinted, this is not the end of the story. There are still several other key figures that become linked to Rome's beginnings. The kings of Rome that followed Romulus, like Numa, Tullus Hostilius and more. It's their stories that we can explore in a future episode, if you'd like us to.

59:28Now, of course, we have done other episodes about early Rome in the past, including an episode on the origins of Rome with Dr. Guy Bradley, and an episode exploring the kings of Rome with Dr. Peter Greenfield and Dr. Fiona Radford. We will put links to those episodes in the description if you'd also like to listen to those too. Now, if you've been enjoying The Ancients, please make sure to follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. That really helps us, and you'll be doing us a big favour. If you'd also be kind enough to leave us a rating as well, well, we'd really appreciate that.

1:00:02Don't forget, you can also sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week. Sign up at historyhit.com slash subscribe. That's all from me. I'll see you in the next episode. I'll see you next time.