Timeless Echoes of Rome - Roman Empire

According to tradition, the founding of the city of Rome is dated to the mid-8th century BC. Historian Marcus Terentius Varro, who lived in the last half of the 1st century BC during the reign of the Roman emperor Augustus, calculated the date of foundation as 753 BC. According to this date, the mythological hero who founded Rome was Aeneas of Troy, who escaped from the burning city carrying his father Anchises on his shoulders, and while escaping, he took with him some of the sacred belongings of the city and his family, as well as Palladion, the magical idol of the city goddess Athena. According to the legendary narration, Aeneas, after a long and tiring journey, got lost from time to time and reached the island of Sicilia and from there to Latium, the sacred place of residence shown to him by the gods. He founded a settlement there named Lavinium, and according to mythological narrative, he later ascended to the level of gods and became the first Roman leader to be deified.

According to mythology, his son Julus founded the city of Alba Longa in the Latium region and became the ancestor of the kings who ruled this city for generations. The historical founding process of Rome begins with the two brothers Numitor and Amulius, the last kings of the city of Alba Longa. Among these two brothers, Amulius, who is described as having a bad character, forces Numitor's only daughter, Rea Silvia, to become a priestess in the temple of Vesta and therefore to remain a virgin all the time, in order to extinct his brother. But the fate of the family is determined by the gods. Rea Silvia gives birth to twin boys named Remus and Romulus from Mars, the god of war. Amulius, hearing of this situation, orders both children to be released into the Tiber River in a basket. However, the basket containing the children reaches the shore and they are saved from death by being suckled by a she-wolf who finds them on the shore. They are then raised by the shepherd Faustulus, who takes care of them.

The Lupercal cave, where the twins reached the land, and the fig tree known as ficus Ruminalis, under which the she-wolf breastfed the twin brother, are later preserved and visited on the southwestern slope of the Palatinus hill (= mons Palatinus) as the basis of the mythological founding story of Rome. When Remus and Romulus grow up, they learn about the evil their great uncle did to them and kill Amulius. They put their grandfather Numitor back on the throne and found a new city themselves. When the gods were asked about who should take over the city, the divine will pointed to Romulus, and when Remus, who was angry with this, mocked the newly founded city, a fight broke out between him and Romulus, and as a result of the fight, Remus was killed.

Thus, Romulus took his place in history writing as the first king of Rome. The mythological stories told so far about the founding of Rome are stories created by Roman historians and literary writers. Some contemporary historians speculate that behind these artificially constructed stories are Greek historians who saw that Rome was gaining more and more power and therefore needed to be taken into account, and found it useful to adapt Rome to their own historical traditions. The Romans most likely took on these narratives and developed them much later than the Greeks, in order to bring their ever-growing domains into an acceptable position towards the Greeks.