Source Verification: The Founding of Rome

What the Sources Attest

Where Accounts Differ

• who-killed-remus
• augury-and-the-vultures
• order-of-founding-rites
• who-proposed-the-city
• date-of-the-founding
• the-asylum
• archaeology-and-the-legend

• Who killed Remus is disputed. Livy, Ab Urbe Condita 1.7, gives two versions: Remus died in the tumult after the augury, or Romulus killed him for leaping the new walls, which Livy calls the more common report. Plutarch, Life of Romulus 10, says Romulus struck him in some accounts and Celer in others. Ovid, Fasti 4.837-856, names Celer alone, on Romulus's own order to kill anyone who crossed the wall. Dionysius, Roman Antiquities 1.87, prefers death in a battle between the two parties and gives Celer's mattock as a second story.
• The augury is told with different details. Livy, Ab Urbe Condita 1.6-1.7, puts Remus on the Aventine and gives no hint of fraud. Plutarch, Life of Romulus 9, reports that some said Romulus lied about his twelve vultures. Dionysius, Roman Antiquities 1.86, says Romulus sent for Remus before seeing any bird, and places Remus's station on the Aventine or, according to others, at Remoria. He also has Numitor set the test, where Livy has the twins choose it.
• The order of the founding rites differs. Ovid, Fasti 4.809-856, has Romulus plough the boundary first, and Remus leap the raised wall afterwards. Plutarch, Life of Romulus 11, says Romulus buried Remus first and then built the city with Tuscan ritual. Dionysius, Roman Antiquities 1.87-1.88, likewise has the ploughing follow Remus's death. Plutarch and Dionysius yoke a bull and a cow to the plough. Ovid has a white cow and a snow-white steer.
• Who proposed the new city is not agreed. In Livy, Ab Urbe Condita 1.6, the twins conceive the wish themselves once Numitor is restored. Plutarch, Life of Romulus 9, gives a practical reason: they would not rule under their grandfather, and fugitives were gathering around them. Dionysius, Roman Antiquities 1.85, makes it Numitor's own plan, with a district granted to the twins and the disloyal sent along.
• The date and year are told in different ways. Plutarch, Life of Romulus 12, says it is agreed that the city was founded on 21 April, the Parilia, and reports a rival dating from an eclipse and a horoscope worked out by the astrologer Tarutius, which he treats as a curiosity. Dionysius, Roman Antiquities 1.88, says he cannot tell whether the Parilia was already a feast or became one because of the founding. The Livy passages read for this page give no date.
• The asylum is explained in different ways. Livy, Ab Urbe Condita 1.8, calls it an old founders' policy for gathering a crowd of obscure origin. Plutarch, Life of Romulus 9, says the founders called it the sanctuary of the God of Asylum and claimed a Delphic oracle for it, and that the lack of marriages with Alba made the fugitives a people apart. Livy does not mention the oracle in the passage read.
• The archaeology and the age of the legend are modern judgments, not ancient testimony. The Wikipedia article on the founding of Rome, read for this page, reports that huts on the Palatine date to the ninth or eighth century BC and that there is no persuasive archaeological evidence for a foundation by Romulus. It calls Andrea Carandini's view that the legend reflects a real founding event a minority position. This page reports that summary and does not test it.

Sources