So today we return to the narrative last time we left off with Aeneas and his merry followers arriving in Italy.Now today i wish mainly to focus on the life of Romulus and the founding of Rome so I’m afraid I’m only going to briefly sum up the rest of Aeneas life so again if you’d like to learn more I’d recommend the Aeneid once again.

Aeneas has arrived in Italy and instead of a warm welcome which should have awaited such a superstar he was immediately met by a armed mob of Latins but luckily Latinus the king of the Latins made peace with the Trojans and married his daughter to Aeneas,but this immediately started a war with the Rutuli who’s king had already been promised Latinus’s daughter.Anyway the Trojan/Latins win the war but Latinus dies and Aeneas becomes king of the united Trojans/Latin alliance who are fast becoming one people due to inter-marrying and he spent the rest of his reign defending his new kingdom from the Etruscan’s and establishing the border between his Latin kingdom and the Etruscan’s to the north and the Greek colonies in the south.

Indigenous tribes of Italy

So we’ll now skip forward a few centuries to the Ancient Latin city of Alba Longa founded by Aeneas’s son Venus.The city at the time is ruled by a man named Numitor a decedent of Aeneas ,but he was overthrown by his brother Amulius and Amulius who wanted no rivals to his throne had all his brothers family killed except for the man himself and his sister Rhea who we forced to become a vestal virgin so she could bare no children.I’m sure this plan seemed foolproof to Amulius but alas history can be funny some times and Rhea, never saying who the father was apart from insisting it was the God Jupiter gave birth to the twins Romulus and Remus.



Now wanting no Rivals to his Rule Amulius had the Mother drowned and the boys abandoned on the banks of the Tiber to die,but history had other plans for the boys and on the site which would eventually become Rome the boys were suckled by a she-wolf which kept them alive till they were taken in by a Shepard and raised as his own.Now fast forward a few years and the two boys are now men confident,popular and strong fighters who loved fighting robbers who attacked their adopted families farm,In fact they loved fighting so much they used to enjoy taking the fight to the robbers raiding their camps until one day Remus was captured and taken to the robbers leader the local land owner and in a M.Night Shyamalan Twist moment the local land owner turned out be none other than the boys Grandfather the exiled King Numitor.



Now the robbers wanted Remus punished put Numitor suspecting straight away that the boy in front of him was his blood did nothing,and when Romulus organized an effort to free his brother Numitor somehow was able to explain the situation to Romulus and then the three of them joined forces to overthrow Amulius and restore Numitor to the throne.With their combined forces with each of Romulus and Remus leading a host of men Amulius was easily defeated and killed and once the people had learned of the situation they welcomed the return of Numitor as their king.As for the two boys well being Grandson of a king wasn’t enough for them and they desired to build a city of their own on the spot where they had been suckled by the she-wolf,but the issue arose when the tricky subject of who would rule came up and with no mother to tell them to just share they both retired to a separate hill and awaited a sign from the gods on who should rule.A sign did come as six eagles flew to the feet of Remus but then after this had been reported to Romulus twelve eagles flew to his feet and as bothers do they argued over what was more important who had the most Eagles or who received them first,the argument was ended when a fight broke out and Remus overstepped a wall Romulus built and Romulus in his rage killed his brother and in action hero mode Romulus said “woe to anyone who oversteps my battlements” and just like that Rome was born and it had its first King.



Romulus killing Remus for overstepping his walls

So to finish off just a few little things id like to talk about even though this story is most certainly fictitious the date of the founding of Rome 21st April 753 BC is pretty close to the date most archeological evidence suggests so there may be some truth in the Legend.I’d also like to mention the significance of Romes location now unlike the story the reason the location of Rome was chosen most likely was because of its location next to the Sea and being in between the Etruscan cities in the north and the Greek colonies in the south,making Rome a massive trading Hub.Final Thing for today I’d like to point out the similarities between this story an other mythologies from other cultures the death of Remus certainly reminds me of the biblical tale of Cain and Abel and I’m sure we all recognize the Virgin birth element of the story its certainly fascinating from me how many cultures mythology can have so many similarities like how almost every religion on Earth has the Great flood event from the bible.



Anyway that’s all for today hope you enjoyed it!

