Romulus and Remus
Their mother Rhea Silvia, also known as Ilia,[2] was a Vestal Virgin and the daughter of former king Numitor, who had been displaced by his brother Amulius.
[8] Some elements are attested earlier than others, and the storyline and the tone were variously influenced by the circumstances and tastes of the different sources as well as by contemporary Roman politics and concepts of propriety.
[7][10][11] Quintus Fabius Pictor's work became authoritative to the early books of Livy's History of Rome, Dionysius of Halicarnassus's Roman Antiquities, and Plutarch's Life of Romulus.
He goes on to discuss the various accounts of the city's founding by others, and the lineage and parentage of the twins for another 8 chapters until arriving at the tale of their abandonment by the Tiber River.
Fasti, the epic Latin poem by Ovid from the early 1st century AD, contains a complete account of the twins' tale.
In the story, Remus appears to them while in bed and expresses his anger at Celer for killing him and his own,[clarification needed] as well as Romulus' unquestioned fraternal love.
In them, he mentions an oracle that had predicted Amulius' death by a son of Numitor as the reason the Alban king expelled the boys.
Instead, Romulus, upon being told of his true identity and the crimes suffered by him and his family at the hands of the Alban king, simply decided to avenge them.
[14] Modern scholarship approaches the various known stories of Romulus and Remus as cumulative elaborations and later interpretations of Roman origin myth.
[20][21] The three canonical accounts of Livy, Dionysius, and Plutarch provide the broad literary basis for studies of Rome's founding mythography.
Dionysius and Plutarch approach the same subjects as interested outsiders, and include founder-traditions not mentioned by Livy, untraceable to a common source and probably specific to particular regions, social classes or oral traditions.
[22][23] A Roman text of the late Imperial era, Origo gentis Romanae (The origin of the Roman people) is dedicated to the many "more or less bizarre", often contradictory variants of Rome's foundation myth, including versions in which Remus founds a city named Remuria, five miles from Rome, and outlives his brother Romulus.
To most Romans, the evidence for the veracity of the legend and its central characters seemed clear and concrete, an essential part of Rome's sacred topography.
One could visit the Lupercal, where the twins were suckled by the she-wolf, or offer worship to the deified Romulus-Quirinus at the "shepherd's hut", or see it acted out on stage, or simply read the Fasti.
[27] The image of the she-wolf suckling the divinely fathered twins became an iconic representation of the city and its founding legend, making Romulus and Remus pre-eminent among the feral children of ancient mythography.
Current scholarship offers little evidence to support any particular version of the Roman foundation myth, including a historical Romulus or Remus.
[29] The archaeologist Andrea Carandini is one of very few modern scholars who accept Romulus and Remus as historical figures, and dates an ancient wall on the north slope of the Palatine Hill to the mid-8th century BC and names it the Murus Romuli.
[32] The Franks Casket, an Anglo-Saxon ivory box (early 7th century AD) shows Romulus and Remus in an unusual setting, two wolves instead of one, a grove instead of one tree or a cave, four kneeling warriors instead of one or two gesticulating shepherds.
In the late 16th century, the wealthy Magnani family from Bologna commissioned a series of artworks based on the Roman foundation myth.
The artists contributing works included a sculpture of Hercules with the infant twins by Gabriele Fiorini, featuring the patron's own face.
The Loggia di Romolo e Remo is an unfinished, 15th century fresco by Gentile da Fabriano depicting episodes from the legend in the Palazzo Trinci.
