Were the Founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, Actually Greek?

Depiction of Romulus and Remus astatine the Cathedral of Maria Saal successful Rome. Were Romulus and Remus Greek? Credit: Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA 4.0

Romulus and Remus are important legendary figures successful Roman mythology. According to the astir celebrated mentation of the legend, they founded the city of Rome together. However, aft a disagreement betwixt the 2 brothers, Romulus killed his member Remus and continued to found the metropolis alone, naming it aft himself. Interestingly, determination is obscure but definitive grounds that they were primitively imagined to person been Greek.

The fable of Romulus and Remus

The astir celebrated mentation of the communicative of Romulus and Remus is recovered successful the writings of Livy. He was a Roman historiographer who lived successful the archetypal period BCE. According to Livy, Romulus and Remus descended from the dynasty of the metropolis of Alba Longa.

This enactment of kings was the descendants of Aeneas. He was a prince of Troy who survived the Trojan War and migrated to Italy with a radical of followers. One of Aeneas’ distant descendants, King Numitor of Alba Longa, had a girl named Rhea Silva. Rhea was the parent of Romulus and Remus.

Amulius, the younger member of Numitor, took implicit the throne and attempted to termination Rhea’s 2 infants by having them drowned successful the River Tiber. However, the infants were rescued and raised by a she-wolf. Eventually, Romulus and Remus grew up, killed their great-uncle Amulius, and restored their gramps Numitor to the throne of Alba Longa.

After this, they decided to found a metropolis connected the Tiber, wherever the she-wolf had saved them. However, during the improvement of the city, they had a disagreement. This led to Romulus sidesplitting his member and naming the caller city, Rome, aft himself.

Earlier versions of the legend

Despite the information that this is the astir celebrated mentation of the legend, it bears astir nary resemblance to the earliest mentation that we find successful the disposable records. One peculiarly aboriginal mentation (possibly the earliest, successful fact) comes from Hellanicus of Lesbos. He was a Greek writer of the 5th period BCE.

According to Hellanicus of Lesbos, Aeneas himself was the laminitis of Rome. We besides spot this aforesaid assertion successful the writings of Damastes of Siguem of the 5th period BCE. However, plentifulness of different aboriginal writers bash notation Romulus, though they place him arsenic a nonstop lad of Aeneas.

In fact, betwixt those earliest records and the clip of Livy, by acold the astir fashionable knowing was that the laminitis of Rome (Romulus) lived conscionable one, two, oregon possibly 3 generations aft Aeneas. Plutarch, for example, records 1 contented that makes Romulus the lad of Aeneas and his woman named Dexithea. Plutarch besides notes a contented that identifies Romulus arsenic the lad of Aeneas’ daughter, a pistillate named Aemilia.

Many modern researchers assertion a Greek fable had it that the Trojans founded Rome, portion the Romans had their ain chiseled legend. According to that one, Romulus and Remus founded the city. Making Romulus and Remus distant descendants of Aeneas was a precocious effort to harmonize the 2 legends. As we tin see, this thought is wholly unfounded.

Aeneas’ Flight From Troy, by Federico Barocci. Credit: Public domain

The root of Remus

The information is that the Greeks and Romans both had legends speaking of Romulus, and the bulk of the earliest versions of these legends consistently made Romulus a son, grandson, oregon great-grandson of Aeneas.

However, determination is inactive the contented of Remus. Where does helium acceptable into each of this? The solution appears to beryllium that immoderate past writers utilized a antithetic sanction for the laminitis of Rome. Rather than calling Aeneas’ lad ‘Romulus,’ immoderate of them utilized the signifier ‘Rhomus.’

It is evident that Rhomus and Romulus were primitively conscionable antithetic names for the aforesaid figure. However, it appears that immoderate writers yet came to mistakenly presumption them arsenic antithetic people. We spot this successful the enactment of the Greek writer Alcimus, for example. He refers to Rhomus arsenic the grandson of Romulus, lad of Aeneas.

Another mode that immoderate past writers harmonized the records of Rhomus and Romulus was to marque them brothers. For instance, announcement what Plutarch wrote concerning Romulus:

“For immoderate accidental that helium was a lad of Aeneas and Dexithea the girl of Phorbas, and was brought to Italy successful his infancy, on with his member Romus.”

From this, we tin spot that Romulus and Romus (simply different spelling of ‘Rhomus’) were simply presented arsenic 2 antithetic sons of Aeneas, alternatively than being correctly identified arsenic the aforesaid person. Evidently then, Romulus’ legendary member Remus came from Romus, meaning that helium is really thing much than a duplicate of Romulus. Presumably, the sanction was changed from ‘Romus’ to ‘Remus’ to debar awkwardly having 2 brothers who both look to beryllium the root of the sanction of Rome.

The Greek root of Romulus and Remus

With these facts successful mind, we tin spot that Romulus and Remus were primitively conscionable 1 figure, whose sanction appears variously arsenic ‘Romulus’ oregon ‘Rhomus.’ This fig was primitively the expected lad of Aeneas, oregon perchance his grandson oregon adjacent great-grandson. However, his being the nonstop lad of Aeneas appears to person the astir value successful literate sources.

This being the case, it would intelligibly marque Romulus a Trojan prince. The Trojans, for their part, were Greeks according to past sources. Their laminitis was Dardanus from Arcadia, on with Teucer from the Greek land of Crete.

This is accordant with however Homer presents them successful the Iliad, portraying them arsenic speaking the Greek language, worshipping the Greek gods, and observing Greek customs. The Greek historiographer Dionysius of Halicarnassus of the archetypal period BCE straight stated that Troy was arsenic Greek a metropolis arsenic immoderate other.

Interestingly, archaeology confirms that Greeks had so settled Troy successful the epoch preceding the accepted day of the founding of Rome, 753 BCE. Therefore, based connected this grounds and particularly connected past literate records, we tin spot that Romulus (and Remus, inasmuch arsenic helium was a duplicate of Romulus) were successful information of Greek descent.