B.C. ROME FOUNDED:

April 21, 753

According to tradition, on April 21, 753 B.C., Romulus and his twin brother,
Remus, found Rome on the site where they were suckled by a she-wolf as orphaned
infants. Actually, the Romulus and Remus myth originated sometime in the fourth
century B.C., and the exact date of Rome's founding was set by the Roman scholar
Marcus Terentius Varro in the first century B.C.According to the legend, Romulus
and Remus were the sons of Rhea Silvia, the daughter of King Numitor of Alba
Longa. Alba Longa was a mythical city located in the Alban Hills southeast of
what would become Rome. Before the birth of the twins, Numitor was deposed by
his younger brother Amulius, who forced Rhea to become a vestal virgin so that
she would not give birth to rival claimants to his title. However, Rhea was
impregnated by the war god Mars and gave birth to Romulus and Remus. Amulius
ordered the infants drowned in the Tiber, but they survived and washed ashore at
the foot of the Palatine hill, where they were suckled by a she-wolf until they
were found by the shepherd Faustulus.Reared by Faustulus and his wife, the twins
later became leaders of a band of young shepherd warriors. After learning their
true identity, they attacked Alba Longa, killed the wicked Amulius, and restored
their grandfather to the throne. The twins then decided to found a town on the
site where they had been saved as infants. They soon became involved in a petty
quarrel, however, and Remus was slain by his brother. Romulus then became ruler
of the settlement, which was named "Rome" after him.To populate his town,
Romulus offered asylum to fugitives and exiles. Rome lacked women, however, so
Romulus invited the neighboring Sabines to a festival and abducted their women.
A war then ensued, but the Sabine women intervened to prevent the Sabine men
from seizing Rome. A peace treaty was drawn up, and the communities merged under
the joint rule of Romulus and the Sabine king, Titus Tatius. Tatius' early
death, perhaps perpetrated by Romulus, left the Roman as the sole king again.
After a long and successful rule, Romulus died under obscure circumstances. Many
Romans believed he was changed into a god and worshipped him as the deity
Quirinus. After Romulus, there were six more kings of Rome, the last three
believed to be Etruscans. Around 509 B.C., the Roman republic was
established.Another Roman foundation legend, which has its origins in ancient
Greece, tells of how the mythical Trojan Aeneas founded Lavinium and started a
dynasty that would lead to the birth of Romulus and Remus several centuries
later. In the Iliad, an epic Greek poem probably composed by Homer in the eighth
century B.C., Aeneas was the only major Trojan hero to survive the Greek
destruction of Troy. A passage told of how and he and his descendants would rule
the Trojans, but since there was no record of any such dynasty in Troy, Greek
scholars proposed that Aeneas and his followers relocated.In the fifth century
B.C., a few Greek historians speculated that Aeneas settled at Rome, which was
then still a small city-state. In the fourth century B.C., Rome began to expand
within the Italian peninsula, and Romans, coming into greater contact with the
Greeks, embraced the suggestion that Aeneas had a role in the foundation of
their great city. In the first century B.C., the Roman poet Virgil developed the
Aeneas myth in his epic poem the Aeneid, which told of Aeneas' journey to Rome.
Augustus, the first Roman emperor and emperor during Virgil's time, and Julius
Caesar, his great-uncle and predecessor as Roman ruler, were said to be
descended from Aeneas.