The Sons of Mars
A myth from ancient Rome
Retold by Rohini Chowdhury
Many many hundreds of years ago, in the city of Alba in what is now southern Italy, there ruled King Numitor. Numitor was a good king, but he had an evil brother called Amulius.
Amulius wanted the throne of Alba for himself. So one night, while the good king Numitor slept, Amulius marched into the palace with some soldiers and took the king prisoner.
Amulius also took prisoner the beautiful princess Rhea Silvia, Numitor’s daughter. Amulius forced Rhea Silvia to become a Vestal Virgin, to live within the sacred walls of the Vestals’ palace, and to promise never to marry. He was afraid that if Rhea Silvia were to marry and have children, those children would one day take back the throne of Alba from him.
One day Mars, the god of War and the Avenger of the Wronged, heard the sad tale of Numitor and his beautiful daughter Rhea Silvia. He saw Rhea Silvia walking in the gardens of the Vestals’ palace, and fell in love with her. That night, as the world lay asleep, Mars came to Rhea Silvia, and from his love Rhea Silvia conceived twin sons.
When Amulius heard that Rhea Silvia was pregnant, he was furious. ‘Bind her in chains and take her away!’ he ordered his soldiers. ‘Throw her into the darkest prison. Watch her night and day!’ For nine long months Rhea Silvia lay bound in chains in the deepest darkest prison in Alba. Till one day her babies were born – two beautiful little boys.
But the wicked Amulius ordered that the boys be killed at once. ‘Throw them into the River Tiber,’ he commanded. ‘Let the river take them.’
The soldiers, though full of pity for the beautiful princess and her babies, did not dare disobey Amulius. They put the babies into a basket of reeds and set them afloat on the Tiber. Amulius was sure the twins would drown for the Tiber was a deep and swift-flowing river. He was satisfied he had rid himself of the last threat to his kingship.
But it was the very violence of the river that saved the babies. The force of the water threw the basket up onto the riverbank, at the foot of the Palatine Hill, where it came to rest under a fig tree. There a she-wolf found the babies.
The she-wolf lay down beside the twins, and suckled them, and kept them warm. A woodpecker stood guard over them in the branches of the fig tree. The wolf and the woodpecker were sacred animals, sent there by Mars himself, to look after his sons and keep them safe.
One day, a shepherd called Faustulus was passing by. He heard the babies gurgling and playing, and went to investigate. There, under the fig tree, lay the babies, being suckled by their foster-mother, the she-wolf.
The she-wolf and the woodpecker saw the shepherd and knew that their task was done. The babies had been found and would now be loved and looked after. The she-wolf walked off into the wilderness, never to be seen again. The woodpecker flew away.
Faustulus took the children home to his wife Acca Larentia. ‘Look,’ he called to his wife. ‘Look what I found beside the Tiber today. Two beautiful boys, abandoned!’ And he told his wondering wife how he had heard the babies and then found them under the fig tree, being suckled by a she-wolf. Faustulus and Acca Larentia had no children of their own. So they decided to adopt the twins and bring them up as their own sons. They named the boys Romulus and Remus.
Romulus and Remus grew up with the other shepherd lads. They were tall and handsome, and skilled in sport and hunting. Of the two, Romulus was the more level-headed, Remus the more impetuous.
One day, the brothers and their friends the shepherd boys were attacked by a band of robbers. Romulus managed to escape, but Remus was captured and handed over to the wicked king Amulius.
Numitor, the deposed king, and the twins’ own grandfather, heard of the capture of Remus, and came to know that Remus was one of twins found abandoned by the river Tiber. Numitor realised at once that Remus must be one of his own grandsons.
Meanwhile, Faustulus the shepherd had also told Romulus the truth about his birth and how he had found the twins by the river and decided to bring them up as his own sons.
Romulus, furious at his brother’s capture, attacked Amulius. When the people saw that there was someone brave enough to stand up to the wicked king, they came running to help him. In the battle that followed, between Romulus and the people of Alba on one side, and Amulius and his soldiers on the other, the wicked Amulius was killed.
The people of Alba welcomed back Numitor as their true king, and gave him back the crown of Alba. Numitor embraced Romulus and Remus as his own true grandsons, the sons of his daughter Rhea Silvia and the god Mars.
Thus Romulus and Remus found once again their true place in the world.
The Founding of Rome
When the twins grew to manhood, they went to their grandfather Numitor and said, ‘Grandfather, we miss the hills and forests of our childhood. Give us permission to return there, so that we may found a new city in the place where we grew up.’
Numitor gave his grandsons his permission and his blessing, and the twins set out for the hills and forests of their childhood.
Romulus and his friends explored the Palatine Hill, while Remus and his friends explored the Aventine Hill. High in the sky some vultures appeared. Six of them flew off towards the Aventine where Remus stood, and twelve of them hovered over Romulus on the Palatine.
Romulus took this as a sign from the gods that he was to build the new city on his chosen site. So he yoked a bull and a cow to a plough, and drew a furrow in the ground to mark the boundaries of his new city.
But Remus was jealous that the gods had chosen his brother, and not him. He laughed at Romulus, and mocked him. ‘Your city will never be strong or great or beautiful,’ he teased Romulus. ‘It will fall into enemy hands as easily as I can jump across the furrow you have drawn to mark its boundaries.’ Laughing and taunting, Remus jumped over the sacred furrow that Romulus had drawn. This made Romulus so angry that he picked up his spear and killed Remus on the spot.
Romulus then went on to found his city, and gave it his own name. The city still stands. It is called Rome.
The story of the twins Romulus and Remus tells of the founding of the city of Rome. According to Plutarch, the Roman biographer, Rome was founded by Romulus on the Palatine Hill on April 21st, 753 B.C. Statues, paintings, and frescoes of the she-wolf and the two babies are seen all over Rome even today.
This story was first published in The Three Princes of Persia,
by Rohini Chowdhury, Penguin Books India, 2005.
Copyright © Rohini Chowdhury 2005. All rights reserved.