In the glorious city of Alba Longa, the descendant of the great Trojan hero Aeneas, Numitor, reigned, who was a just and merciful ruler. But his brother Amulius, who was jealous of Numitor and himself aspired to royal power, bribed the king’s associates and, taking advantage of Numitor’s gullibility, overthrew him from the throne. However, Amulius did not dare to kill his brother. In order to secure royal power for himself, he decided to kill the son of Numitor, and made the beautiful Rhea Silvia, the king’s daughter, a priestess of the goddess Vesta.
The priestesses of this goddess had to take a vow of celibacy and maintain an unquenchable sacred fire that burned day and night in the sanctuary. A Vestal Virgin who violated her vow of purity and thus desecrated the sanctity of Vesta’s hearth was condemned to a terrible execution - she was buried alive in the ground. Captivated by the beauty of Rhea Silvia, the god Mars entered into a relationship with her, and the daughter of the overthrown king gave birth to twin boys. As soon as they were born, they amazed King Amulius with their unusual appearance: some incomprehensible power emanated from them.
Enraged and frightened by the appearance of the twins, in whom he saw contenders for the throne, Amulius ordered the newborns to be thrown into the waters of the Tiber, and their mother to be buried in the ground for breaking her vow. However, the god Mars did not allow the death of his children and their beloved mother. When, by order of Amulius, the royal slave brought a basket with crying babies to the shore of the Tiber, he saw that the water was high and raging waves threatened everyone who dared to approach the river. The frightened slave, not daring to go down close to the water, threw the basket on the shore and ran away. The raging waves swept over the basket with the babies lying in it and would have carried it downstream if it had not been held back by the branches of a fig tree growing near the water. And then, as if by magic, the water in the river began to subside, the storm stopped, and the twins, falling out of the leaning basket, raised a loud cry. At this time, a she-wolf, who had recently given birth to cubs, approached the river to quench her thirst. She warmed the twins, who greedily clung to her breasts, full of milk. The she-wolf brought them to her lair, where they were soon discovered by the royal swineherd named Faustulus. Seeing two beautiful babies in a wolf's den, Faustulus took them to his hut and, together with his wife, raised the boys, who were named Romulus and Remus.
The twins, both when they were children and when they became young men, stood out for their beauty, strength and proud bearing among other children of the shepherds. The milk of the she-wolf who suckled them made young Romulus and Remus bold and daring in the face of any danger, their hearts were courageous, their arms and legs were strong and muscular. True, both of them were quick-tempered and stubborn, but Romulus still turned out to be more reasonable than his brother. And at community gatherings, when it came to hunting or grazing livestock, Romulus not only spoke with wise advice, but also made those around him understand that he was born to command rather than to be subordinate to others. Both brothers were universally loved, they were distinguished by their strength and dexterity, they were excellent hunters, defenders from the robbers who devastated their native lands. Both Romulus and Remus stood up for the unjustly offended, and a variety of people willingly gathered around them, among whom one could meet not only shepherds, but also tramps and even runaway slaves. Thus, each of the brothers had a whole detachment.
It so happened that Remus was captured by the shepherds of Numitor in one of the skirmishes. When he was brought to the deposed king, he was amazed by the beauty and noble appearance of Rem. When asked who he was and where he came from, Rem answered frankly. He said that previously he and his brother considered themselves the sons of the shepherd who raised them. Then they learned that a she-wolf fed them with her milk, that woodpeckers brought them food, and that the stormy river spared the helpless babies. Then the brothers realized that their birth was connected with a deep mystery that they could not solve.
Listening to the young man’s story, Numitor suspected that due to their age, the mystery surrounding their birth, and their miraculous salvation, the twins could well be his grandchildren, whom everyone considered dead and whom he mourned. While Remus was telling his story to Numitor, who was imbued with more and more affection and trust towards the narrator, the shepherd Faustulus, hearing that Remus had been captured by the king’s servants, and fearing the treachery of Amulius, rushed to Romulus for help. Faustulus told Romulus everything he knew about the secret of the brothers' birth. Romulus, having gathered his detachment, moved towards the city to free his brother. On the way to Alba Longa from the outskirts of the city, the local population began to join him, who hated the greedy and treacherous king Amulius, who cruelly oppressed his subjects. The inhabitants of Alba Longa, led by Romulus, freed Remus and overthrew Amulius from the throne. He was killed, and Numitor was again returned to the royal throne. But neither Romulus nor Remus wanted to stay in Alba Longa even under the benevolent rule of their grandfather. For them, the thought of being dependent on anyone was unbearable. They wanted to found a new city and rule over those they brought with them - shepherds, vagabonds and slaves, who saw their leaders in the twin brothers. And the residents of the city of Alba Longa would not want to accept as equal citizens all the motley rabble that Romulus brought.
The brothers decided to build a new city on the very spot where they were thrown out by the waters of the Tiber (this was the ancient Palatine Hill - the cradle of the great city of Rome). However, the very thought of building a city immediately caused disagreements between the previously friendly brothers. They began to argue about where to start the construction, whose name the founded city would be called and which of them would reign in it. After much wrangling, the brothers decided to wait for the gods' instructions and began to tell fortunes by the flight of birds. In anticipation of a divine omen, they sat apart from each other. Rem cried out joyfully - he was the first to see six kites slowly circling in the clear sky. A moment later, twelve kites flew past Romulus with a noise accompanied by thunderclaps. The brothers began to argue again. Remus, to whom the messengers of the will of the gods first appeared, believed that he should be king. Romulus, since twice as many kites flew past him, insisted that the decision of the gods was made in his favor. Both brothers were stubborn, and neither wanted to give in to the other. When Romulus, wanting to insist on his own, began to dig a ditch that was supposed to outline the contours of the future city, Remus, annoyed by his brother’s stubbornness, began to mock him and, easily jumping over the ditch and the embankment, mockingly said that he had never seen such powerful fortifications. The enraged Romulus, beside himself with anger, shouted: “This will happen to everyone who dares to cross the walls of my city!” - and dealt a terrible blow to Rem, from which he fell dead.
Having buried Remus, Romulus most carefully fulfilled the rite of founding the city prescribed by the gods. First of all, Romulus himself and his companions underwent purification by sacred fire - each of them jumped over the blazing fire in order to begin laying the city with pure thoughts. Then Romulus dug a small round hole into which he threw a lump of earth that he had brought from Alba Longa, where his ancestors lived. Everyone else did exactly the same. This was done so that for each settler the land on which he was going to live became his native soil. The ancients believed that along with a handful of their native land they carried the souls of their ancestors, protecting them (their mans). It was at this place that Romulus built an altar and lit a sacrificial fire. Thus arose the sacred hearth of the new city, its center, around which residential buildings were to be erected. Following this, Romulus drew a sacred furrow that outlined the boundaries of the city. A white bull and a white cow, harnessed to a plow with a copper coulter, guided by Romulus in the garb of a priest with a covered head, slowly drove a deep furrow. Following Romulus, his companions moved, zealously ensuring that the clods of earth dug up by the ploughshare were thrown back inside the drawn line. Neither a local resident nor a foreigner had the right to cross this furrow. Such an act would have been considered a great dishonor, and perhaps Remus paid so cruelly precisely because he committed it. In those places where the entrance and exit from the city should have been, the furrow was interrupted - this is how the location of the city gate was indicated. To do this, Romulus raised the plow and left unplowed space. The walls erected on this consecrated furrow were also considered sacred. Romulus, who performed the rite of founding the city for everyone. requirements of the religious ideas of that time, became his first king, and gave him his name. The city began to be called Rome (in Latin - Roma).
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru