ROMULUS the mythical eponym founder and first king of Rome, is represented in legend as the son of Mars. His mother, the Vestal Silvia or Ilia, was daughter of Numitor, who had been dispossessed of the throne of Alba by his younger brother Amulius; Silvia’s twin sons, Romulus and Remus, were placed in a trough and cast into the Tiber by their cruel granduncle. The trough grounded in the marshes where Rome afterwards stood, under the wild fig-tree {ficus ruminalis) which was still holy in later days. The babes were suckled by a she-wolf and fed by a woodpecker, and then fostered by Acca Laurentia, wife of the shepherd Faustulus. Growing up they became leaders of a warlike band of shepherds on the Palatine, and in course of time were recognized by their grandfather, whom they restored to his throne, slaying the usurper Amulius. They now proposed to found a city on the site where they had been nurtured; but a quarrel broke out between the brothers, and Lemus was slain. The story goes on to tell how Romulus strengthened his band by receiving outlaws, found wives for them by capture, and waged war with the indignant parents. The most formidable foe was Titus Tatius, king of the Sabines, but after an obstinate struggle he and Romulus united their forces and reigned side by side till Tatius fell in a blood feud with Laurentum. Romulus now reigned alone till he suddenly one day disappeared from earth in darkness and storm, and was thereafter worshipped as a god under the name of Quirinus, which, however, is really a Sabine form of Mars. This legend, best preserved in Livy (book i.), belongs throughout to mythology, not to history. See also Plutarch’s Romultts, and Dionysius, books i., ii.
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