On April 21, 753 BCE, Romulus founded Rome (traditional, from Roman
mythology). Romulus, considered by the ancient Romans to be the first King
of Rome, began
laying the foundations on this day. The same day, his brother Remus was
slain by Romulus or his workmen, for having ridiculed the walls being built.
Roman writers of the late centuries BCE (Before the Common Era),
working backwards from their own time, arrived at this as the date of the
founding of their great city. There were two traditions on the founding of Rome. According to
one, Aeneas was the founder, while, according to the other, it was Romulus.
According to Jane
Gardner, Cato, in the early second century BCE, combining the two
stories came up with what is the generally accepted version, with Aeneas
coming to Italy and Romulus founding the actual seven-hilled city of Rome.
The seven hills are the Palatine,
Aventine, Capitoline or Capitolium, Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline and Caelian.
Tarquin the Proud, an early king of the city, had been expelled and
the Roman Republic was founded, in (it was believed) 510 BCE. By counting
back through the reigns of Tarquin's predecessors, ancient researchers
counted back about two or three hundred years. After various
‘guesstimates’ by a number of writers, the author Varro, greatly respected for
his learning in the first century BCE, settled on the year 753, which became
the official date. All subsequent dates were expressed ab
urbe condita” (a.u.c. – ‘from the city's founding’).
Roman tradition ascribed the foundation of the city to Romulus,
whose name means ‘man of Rome’, but Greek writers from at least the 5th
century BCE attributed it to Aeneas, the exile from Troy. In the first
century BCE, the Roman poet Virgil (who was
superstitiously believed by people in the Middle Ages to himself have been
the founder of Naples) developed the Aeneas myth in his epic poem The Aeneid, which told of Aeneas’s journey to Rome.
Soon the two versions were conflated. After the fall of Troy (traditionally
dated to 1184 BCE), Aeneas went to Central Italy where he married Lavinia,
the daughter of King Latinus. Their descendants formed a dynasty that ruled
Alba Longa (twelve miles southeast of Rome) until the time of Numitor,
whose throne was usurped by Amulius, his younger
brother. Amulius forced Numitor's daughter Rhea Silvia to become a Vestal
Virgin, as he wanted to ensure she would not have any sons that might
attempt to overthrow him.
However, the god Mars came to her in her
temple and impregnated her with two sons, Romulus and Remus. When they were
born, the wicked Amulius had the babies set afloat on the Tiber. (This
practice was a form of quasi-infanticide tolerated in
many ancient cultures, including the Roman and Greek, when children were
unwanted.)
Romulus and Remus, however, were found washed
ashore beneath a fig
tree called Ruminalis, near the Palatine Hill, by Tiberinus and suckled by a
she-wolf, thus
surviving. According to one version of the myth, a woodpecker helped to feed
them, both the wolf and the woodpecker being totems or creatures of Mars.
Later the children were cared for by Faustulus, a shepherd, who
brought the children to his home. Faustulus and his wife, Acca
Larentia, who raised the boys as their own. According to Livy, some said that Loba,
wife of Faustulus, had suckled them, not a female wolf. Indeed, her name
meant wolf which was Lupus in Latin.
Romulus and Remus grew to courageous manhood
and killed Amulius, reinstating Numitor, their grandfather, as King of Alba Longa.
They then built a settlement on the Palatine Hill on April 21, 753 BCE (Varronian
date). Remus then mocked the short height of the walls and Romulus killed
him. He then named the city Rome and made himself
king, marrying Hersilia. The violent tone
of Rome is said to have been set in this first violent act at its founding.
Romulus attracted a population to his city by
inviting exiles, refugees, murderers, criminals and runaway slaves. He
acquired women by stealing the Sabine women after inviting
them to a festival. Eventually, the Sabines accepted Romulus as their king.
After Romulus' death, his father, Mars, brought him
to the heavens and he was worshipped as the god Quirinus. He was succeeded
by Numa Pompilius.
We might wonder why it was that Romulus
had a twin in the legend. It might be that the twins originated in a
Indo-European creation myth. Perhaps it is related to the dual consulship in
Rome; or two separate communities thought to have existed in early times on
the Palatine and the Quirinal. Compare
with Castor and
Polydeuces (Castor and Pollux, the twins of Gemini in the Zodiac, also
known as the Dioscuri) of Greece, and with Amphion and Zethus
of Thebes.
Romulus and Remus have even been compared with Cain and Abel. It has been
suggested that Remus came into the story quite late, because of Roman
politics.
The sacred Ruminalis fig tree was held in respect by the Romans,
and the nearby Lupercal cave was pointed out as the she-wolf's lair. The
Lupercalia, a feast day that involved the cave and customs associated with
the wolf, influenced Valentine’s
Day customs.
The actual date
It is now believed that the date decided upon by
Varro for the foundation of Rome is not the right one. The foundation of
Rome took place 437 years after the capture of Troy (1182 BCE), according to Velleius
Paterculus (VIII, 5), shortly before a solar eclipse that was
observed at Rome on June
25, 745 BCE.
Perhaps Varro
used the consular list with its mistakes, and called the year of the first
consuls “245 ab urbe condita” (a.u.c.). He may have accepted
the 244-year interval from Dionysius of
Halicarnassus for the kings after the foundation of Rome. Some modern
historians claim that ab urbe condita did not actually exist in the
ancient world, and the use of reckoning the years in this way is modern.
According to Lucius Tarrutius of Firmum, Romulus was conceived in
the womb on the 23rd day of the Egyptian month Choiac, at the time of a
total eclipse of the Sun. (This eclipse occurred on June 15, 763 BCE. He
was born on the 21st day of the month Thoth. The first day of Thoth fell on March 2 in that
year. It means that Rhea Sylvia's pregnancy lasted for 281 days. Rome was
founded on the ninth day of the month Pharmuthi, which was the April 21.
The Romans add that about the time Romulus started to build the
city, an eclipse of the Sun was observed by Antimachus, the Teian
poet, on the 30th day of the lunar month (see above). Romulus vanished at
the age of 54, on the Nones of Quintilis (July), on a day when the Sun was
darkened. The day turned into night, which sudden darkness was believed to
be an eclipse of the Sun. This occurred on July 17, 709 BCE. Plutarch
placed it in the 37th year from the foundation of Rome, on the fifth of our
July, then called Quintilis, on ‘Caprotine Nones’; Livy (I, 21) also states that
Romulus ruled for 37 years.
He was slain by the senate or disappeared in the 38th year of his
reign. Most of these facts have been recorded by Plutarch (Lives of
Romulus, Numa Pompilius and Camillus), Florus (Book
I, I), Cicero
(The Republic VI, 22: Scipio's Dream), Dio (Dion)
Cassius. Dionysius of
Halicarnassus (L. 2). Dio in his Roman History (Book I)
confirms our data by telling that Romulus was in his 18th year of age when
he founded Rome. Therefore, three eclipse records prove that Romulus reigned
from 746 to
709 BCE.
However, the first small settlements on the Roman
hills have been dated by archaeologists at around the 10th century BCE, well
before the traditional date.
Rome founded by a
woman?
A fragment of writing rediscovered and embraced
by growing numbers of Italians today, challenges the popular legend that
Romulus was Rome's founder.
The fragment, by Stesichorus
(‘Chorus Master’; c. 640 - 555 BCE), a Graeco-Sicilian
poet who wrote not long after Rome's founding, suggests Rome was named after
a Trojan woman called Roma. The poet described how Roma, with her Trojan
fleet, fled the war-torn city of Troy, arriving in an idyllic place where
visitors were “enticed to dream while being caressed by the off-shore
breeze”. Roma and her companions, captivated by the beautiful location,
did not desire to leave, so she had all of her ships burned. The happily
stranded group then named the place after Roma.
The story is also recounted in a 5th Century historical narrative
entitled ‘Roman Antiquities’, by the Greek writer Dionysius of
Halicarnassus. He referred to the woman as Rhome, which means
‘power’ in Greek.
In support of this notion, on April 21,
2003, about 1,000 people dressed as gladiators, centurions, emperors and
maidens marched through the centre of Rome led by the 'Goddess Roma'
clutching a spear and an orb.
Sources:
Wikipedia
et
al
See
also the Consualia
festival of ancient Rome
Palilia (or
Parilia) festivals, ancient
Rome
These are festivals celebrated on April 21 honouring Pales, the Roman god (later a goddess) of
shepherds and their flocks. They’re held on the anniversary of the day on
which Romulus, the boy suckled (with his brother Remus) by a she-wolf, drew
the first furrow at the foot of the hill, thus laying the foundations of
Rome.
Sheepfolds were decorated with green branches on this day.
Fires were kindled and animals driven through the smoke; milk and cakes were
offered to the deity today.
However, the Palilia, or Parilia, were held long before the
foundation of Rome. They celebrated the beginning of Spring pasture, and
were held to purify cattle, the herds and the herdsmen. Only later were they
used to commemorate Romulus and Remus’s foundation of Rome. Then it became
the Natalis urbis Romae in the
calendars of Polemius Silvius and Philocalus.
The Roman writer Ovid, in his work on Roman
feast days, Fasti, tells us that the
first part of the solemnities involved a public purification by fire and
smoke. Smith
relates:
“The things burnt
in order to produce this purifying smoke were the blood of the October-horse,
the ashes of the calves sacrificed at the festival of Ceres, and the
shells of beans. The people were also sprinkled with water; they washed
their hands in spring-water, and drank milk mixed with must (Ovid, Fast.
l.c.; compare Propert. iv.1.20). As regards the October-horse
(equus October) it must be observed that in early times no bloody
sacrifice was allowed to be offered at the Palilia, and the blood of the
October-horse, mentioned above, was the blood which had dropped from the
tail of the horse sacrificed in the month of October to Mars in the Campus
Martius. This blood was preserved by the Vestal
virgins in the temple of Vesta for the purpose of being used at the
Palilia (Solin. p2, d; Festus, s.v. October equus; Plut. Romul. 12). When towards the
evening the shepherds had fed their flocks, laurel-branches were used as
brooms for cleaning the stables, and for sprinkling water through them,
and lastly the stables were adorned with laurel-boughs. Hereupon the
shepherds burnt sulphur, rosemary, fir-wood, and incense, and made the
smoke pass through the stables to purify them; the flocks themselves
were likewise purified by this smoke. The sacrifices which were offered
on this day consisted of cakes, millet, milk, and other kinds of
eatables. The shepherds then offered a prayer to Pales. After these
solemn rites were over, the cheerful part of the festival began:
bonfires were made of heaps of hay and straw, and under the sounds of
cymbals and flutes the sheep were again purified by being compelled to
run three times through the fire, and the shepherds themselves did the
same. The festival was concluded by a feast in the open air, at which
the people sat or lay upon benches of turf, and drank plentifully (Tibull.
ii.5.87, andc.; compare Propert.
iv.4.75).
“In the city of Rome the festival must, at
least in later times, have been celebrated in a different manner; its
character of a shepherd-festival was forgotten, and it was merely looked
upon as the day on which Rome had been built, and was celebrated as such
with great rejoicings.”
Source
Ovid (Fasti,
iv, 721), tells us much about how the Parilia was celebrated:
“Ye people, go fetch materials for fumigation
from the Virgins' altar. Vesta will give them; by Vesta's gift ye shall
be pure Shepherd, do thou purify the well-fed sheep at fall of twilight;
first sprinkle the ground with water. Deck the sheepfold with leaves and
branches fastened to it. Adorn the door and cover it with a long
festoon. Make blue smoke with pure sulphur, and let the sheep, touched
with the smoking sulphur, bleat. Burn … olives and pine and savines,
and let the singed laurel crackle in the midst of the hearth. And let a
basket of millet accompany cakes of millet; the rural goddess
particularly delights in that food. Add viands, and a pail of milk, such
as she loves; and when the viands have been cut up, pray to Sylvan
Pales, offering warm milk to her. Say, “O, take thought alike for the
cattle and the cattle's masters; ward off from my stalls all harm. O let
it flee away! If I have fed my, sheep in holy ground, or sat me down
under a hallowed tree … if the nymphs and the half-goat god have been
put to flight at sight of me; if my pruning-knife has robbed a holy
copse of a shady bough … pardon my fault … forgive it, nymphs, if
the trampling of hoofs has made your waters turbid. Do thou, goddess,
appease for us the springs and their divinities; appease the deities
dispersed through every grove … Drive far away all diseases: may men
and beasts be hale, and hale too the sagacious pack of watch-dogs. May I
drive home my flocks as numerous as they were at morn … Avert dire
hunger. Let grass and leaves abound, and water both to wash and drink.
Full udders may I milk; may my cheese bring me in money; may the sieve
of wicker-work give passage to the liquid whey … And let the wool grow
so soft that it could not fret the skin of girls nor chafe the tenderest
hands. May my prayer be granted, and we will year by year make great
cakes for Pales, the shepherds' mistress! With such things is the
goddess to be propitiated; these things pronounce four times, facing the
east, and wash thy hands in living dew. Then mayest thou get thee a
wooden bowl to serve as mixer, and mayest quaff the snow-white milk, and
purple must; anon leap with nimble foot arid straining thews across the
burning heaps of crackling straw.”
School of the
Seasons tells us that at one time the Catholic Church renamed this
joyful festival ‘Urbs Aeterna’ and declared that today was the
last possible date for Easter
so that this merriment would not disturb the austerity of Lent.
Larentalia,
Roman
Empire
A festival on December 23 held
in honour of Larenta (Acca Larentia), the wife of Faustulus
and the nurse of Romulus and Remus, or the she-wolf that suckled them. She
was also called Lupa on account of her ‘loose morals’ – she-wolf (lupa),
prostitute (lupa). After the death of her wealthy husband, she
inherited his fortune, and donated it to Rome, a generosity which the
Romans celebrated with an uproarious feast. The sacrifice in this festival
was performed in the Velabrum
at the place which led into the Nova Via, which was outside of the old
city not far from the porta Romanula.
Acca is an obscure
Latin word: in Greek akko means a 'ridiculous woman' or 'bogey'; in
Sanskrit akka means 'mother'. Acca Larentia, therefore, would appear to be
the Mater Larum (Mother of the Lares) showing that she was originally a
goddess of the earth, to whom men entrusted their seed-corn and their
dead. She is also called Lara, Larunda, Larentina and Mania. In the old
Roman calendar, this day was called the Brumalia, the shortest day of the
year. Festivities took place at the foot of the Palatine between the
Circus Maximus and the Tiber.
This is also the
seventh, and last, day of the Saturnalia. The Saturnalia is one of the
most festive and uninhibited that the ancient Romans celebrated.
The Larentalia was
also held on the last day of April.
If you enjoyed this page, click to receive
similar items daily with a free subscription to Wilson's Almanac ezine
Webmaster, webmasters free content, or
else articles at very reasonable rates
Pip Wilson's articles are available for your website or publication, on
application. Further details
