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Romulus and Remus are the twin brothers at the center of Rome's founding myth. According to Roman tradition, they were the sons of the god Mars and a Vestal Virgin named Rhea Silvia. After being abandoned as infants and raised by a she-wolf, the brothers decided to build a new city. A quarrel broke out over where to place it, and Romulus killed Remus. Romulus then founded the city of Rome on the Palatine Hill on 21 April 753 BC, becoming its first king.
The story of the twins was the most important origin tale in Roman culture. Romans saw the legend as an explanation for their city's name, its warlike character, and many of its oldest customs and institutions. Romulus was credited with creating the Roman Senate, the system of patron and client, and the division of citizens into tribes and curiae (voting units).
The image of the she-wolf nursing the twins became one of the most recognizable symbols of Rome itself. A famous bronze sculpture known as the Capitoline Wolf has depicted this scene for centuries, and versions of the image appeared on Roman coins, military standards, and public monuments throughout the Republic and the Empire.
Modern historians treat the founding legend as myth rather than history. Archaeological evidence shows that the site of Rome was occupied well before 753 BC, with settlements on the Palatine Hill dating back to at least the tenth century BC. Nevertheless, the Romans themselves took the date seriously: their calendar system (Ab urbe condita, meaning "from the founding of the city") counted years from 753 BC.
The story of Romulus and Remus comes from several ancient writers, none of whom lived close to the events they described. The earliest known version appeared in the work of Quintus Fabius Pictor, a Roman senator who wrote around 200 BC — more than five centuries after the supposed founding. The most detailed accounts come from Livy's Ab Urbe Condita Libri (written around 27–9 BC), Plutarch's Parallel Lives (written around AD 100), and Dionysius of Halicarnassus's Roman Antiquities (written around 7 BC).
These writers did not always agree with each other. Different versions of the legend circulated in the ancient world, and each author shaped the story to suit his own purposes. Livy, for example, openly admitted that some details were uncertain. Despite these differences, the core elements of the story — the divine parentage, the she-wolf, the quarrel between the brothers, and the founding of Rome — remained consistent across nearly all versions.
The Romans also connected their origins to the Trojan War through the hero Aeneas, who supposedly fled the burning city of Troy and eventually settled in Latium (the region around Rome). In the standard version of the timeline, Aeneas's descendants ruled the city of Alba Longa for several generations before Romulus and Remus were born. The poet Virgil made this connection famous in his epic poem, the Aeneid, which linked Rome's destiny all the way back to the fall of Troy.
The twins' story begins in Alba Longa, a city in the Alban Hills southeast of where Rome would later stand. Numitor, the rightful king, was overthrown by his younger brother Amulius, who seized the throne by force. To prevent Numitor's family from producing heirs who might challenge him, Amulius killed Numitor's sons and forced his daughter Rhea Silvia to become a Vestal Virgin. Vestals served the goddess Vesta and were required to remain celibate (unmarried and without children) for thirty years. Anyone who broke this vow faced the death penalty.
Despite her vow, Rhea Silvia became pregnant and gave birth to twin boys. She claimed that the god Mars had visited her. Amulius did not believe her. He imprisoned Rhea Silvia and ordered a servant to drown the infants in the Tiber River. However, the river was flooding, and the servant could not reach the main current. He placed the babies in a basket or trough and left it at the water's edge, expecting the flood to carry them away.
Instead, the floodwaters receded gently, and the basket came to rest beneath a wild fig tree (the ficus ruminalis) near the base of the Palatine Hill.
A she-wolf (lupa in Latin) found the crying infants and nursed them in a cave called the Lupercal. A woodpecker, another animal sacred to Mars, also helped feed them. Eventually, a shepherd named Faustulus discovered the twins while tending his flocks. He brought them home to his wife, Acca Larentia, who raised them as her own children.
Some ancient writers noted an alternative explanation: the Latin word lupa could also mean "prostitute," and a few scholars suggested that the "she-wolf" was actually a woman of low reputation who took the babies in. Most Romans, however, embraced the more dramatic version with the actual wolf.
Romulus and Remus grew up among shepherds, unaware of their royal heritage. They were known for their courage and natural leadership, often settling disputes among the local herdsmen and protecting their companions from bandits and wild animals. Remus was eventually captured during a conflict with shepherds loyal to Numitor and brought before the old king himself.
Numitor noticed the young man's noble bearing and began to suspect the truth. Meanwhile, Faustulus told Romulus the secret of his birth. Romulus gathered a band of followers and rescued Remus. Together, the brothers killed Amulius and restored their grandfather Numitor to the throne of Alba Longa.
Rather than remain in Alba Longa, the twins decided to found a new city at the place where they had been rescued as infants — along the Tiber near the Palatine Hill. However, since they were twins and neither could claim seniority by birth order, they disagreed about the exact location. Romulus favored the Palatine Hill, while Remus preferred the Aventine Hill.
They agreed to settle the dispute through augury (reading the will of the gods by observing the flight of birds). Each brother stood on his chosen hill and watched the sky. Remus saw six vultures first. Then Romulus saw twelve. Both claimed victory — Remus because he had seen birds first, Romulus because he had seen more. The argument escalated violently.
In the most common version, Romulus began plowing a furrow (a line in the earth) to mark the boundary of his new city. Remus mocked his brother by jumping over the shallow trench, showing how easily an enemy could cross such a weak wall. Enraged, Romulus killed his brother, reportedly declaring: "So perish anyone who shall leap over my walls." He then named the city Roma after himself and became its sole ruler on 21 April 753 BC.
Some ancient writers told a softer version in which Remus was killed in the confused fighting between the two groups of followers, rather than directly by Romulus. Livy recorded both versions without committing to either one.
As the first King of Rome, Romulus organized his new settlement along practical lines. He divided the citizens into three tribes (Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres), each made up of ten curiae (voting assemblies). He established the Senate, originally consisting of 100 elders (later called patres, meaning "fathers"), who served as the king's advisory council. The members of these first families became the patrician class — the hereditary aristocracy of Rome.
Romulus also created the patron and client system, in which wealthier citizens (patrons) provided legal protection and material support to poorer ones (clients) in exchange for loyalty and political backing. This relationship became one of the most distinctive features of Roman social life and lasted for centuries.
Rome's earliest problem was a shortage of women. The city attracted men — outlaws, runaway slaves, and refugees — but neighboring communities refused to let their daughters marry Romans, whom they considered dangerous and disreputable.
Romulus devised a plan. He announced a great festival in honor of the god Consus and invited the neighboring Sabines and other peoples to attend. At a signal during the celebrations, Roman men seized the unmarried women from the crowd and carried them off. This event, known as the "Rape of the Sabine Women" (where "rape" translates the Latin raptio, meaning "abduction" or "carrying off," not necessarily sexual violence), became one of the most famous episodes in Roman legend and a popular subject in later Renaissance art.
The outraged Sabines, led by their king Titus Tatius, eventually marched on Rome. A fierce battle took place in the valley between the Palatine and Capitoline Hills (the area that would become the Roman Forum). At the critical moment, the Sabine women themselves rushed between the two armies, begging their fathers and husbands to stop fighting. Their intervention ended the war, and the Romans and Sabines agreed to merge into a single community. Romulus and Titus Tatius ruled jointly until Tatius was killed in a dispute several years later.
After reigning for about 37 years, Romulus vanished during a sudden storm or eclipse while reviewing his army on the Campus Martius (the "Field of Mars"). Some Romans believed the gods had taken him up to heaven, and he was afterward worshipped as the divine Quirinus. Other, more cynical accounts suggested that senators had murdered him during the darkness and torn his body apart, perhaps because they resented his growing power.
Livy recorded both explanations. The divine version became the official story, and Romulus joined the ranks of Rome's deified rulers — a tradition that would be revived centuries later when the Senate began declaring deceased emperors to be gods (a practice called apotheosis).
The image of the she-wolf nursing the twins became the most iconic symbol of Rome. The most famous depiction is the Capitoline Wolf, a bronze sculpture now housed in the Capitoline Museums. The wolf figure itself is believed to be Etruscan or medieval in origin (scholars have debated its date for centuries), while the twin figures beneath it were added during the Renaissance, probably in the late fifteenth century.
Romans placed images of the she-wolf on coins, military standards, and public buildings throughout their history. The symbol appeared across the entire extent of the Empire, from Britannia to Syria. It represented not just the city's mythical origins but also the values Romans associated with their founders: toughness, divine favor, and the willingness to fight for survival.
The she-wolf remains a symbol of Rome today. The city's coat of arms and its major football club, A.S. Roma, both feature the image.
Modern archaeology has confirmed that people lived on and around the Palatine Hill long before the traditional founding date of 753 BC. Excavations have uncovered remains of huts from the Iron Age, dating to approximately the tenth or ninth century BC. The site's location — where the Tiber could be easily crossed and where several hills provided natural defenses — made it a natural place for settlement.
The traditional founding date of 753 BC, calculated in the first century BC by the scholar Marcus Terentius Varro, became the standard starting point for Rome's calendar. While the date does not correspond to any single founding event, it roughly matches a period when the scattered hill settlements began to come together into something more like a unified community. Archaeologists have found evidence of drainage work and shared public spaces from around this period, suggesting increasing social organization.
The Lupercal cave, where the she-wolf supposedly nursed the twins, was a real place that Romans maintained as a sacred site for centuries. The annual Lupercalia festival, celebrated every February, was connected to this location. In 2007, Italian archaeologists announced they had found a richly decorated cave beneath the Palatine Hill that might be the historic Lupercal, though this identification remains debated.
The story of Romulus and Remus shaped how Romans thought about themselves and their history. The tale explained why Rome was named Rome, why it was a martial (warlike) civilization, and why it had been great from the very beginning. The fratricide (brother-killing) at the heart of the legend also carried a darker message: Roman writers sometimes pointed to the murder of Remus as the original sin that cursed the city with a cycle of civil war, from the conflicts of Marius and Sulla to Caesar's civil war and beyond.
The legend influenced later Western culture far beyond Rome. The motif of abandoned royal children raised in humble surroundings by animals or shepherds appears in myths from many cultures, including the stories of Moses, Cyrus the Great, and Sargon of Akkad. The Romulus and Remus story became one of the most widely known versions of this pattern.
In the Middle Ages, European cities and kingdoms claimed descent from Roman or Trojan founders in imitation of Rome's own origin story. Renaissance artists returned to the legend repeatedly, producing famous paintings and sculptures of scenes like the she-wolf, the augury on the hills, and the abduction of the Sabine women. The story continues to appear in modern literature, film, and popular culture as a symbol of both civilization's origins and the violence that often accompanies them.
| Romulus (753–717 BC) · Numa Pompilius (717–673 BC) · Tullus Hostilius (673–642 BC) · Ancus Marcius (642–617 BC) · Lucius Tarquinius Priscus (616–579 BC) · Servius Tullius (578–535 BC) · Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (535–510 BC/509 BC) |
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