Romulus

The founder of the city of Rome. It is unnecessary in the present work to prove that all the stories about Romulus are mythical, and merely represent the traditional belief of the Roman people respecting their origin. Romulus, which is only a lengthened form of Romus, is simply the Roman people represented as an individual, and must be placed in the same category as Aeolus, Dorus, and Ion, the reputed ancestors of the Aeolians, Dorians, and Ionians, owing to the universal practice of antiquity to represent nations as springing from eponymous ancestors. But although none of the tales about Romulus can be received as an historical fact, yet it is of importance to know the general belief of the Roman people respecting the life of the founder of their city. It is, however, very difficult to ascertain the original form of the legend; since poets, on the one hand, embellished it with the creations of their own fancy, and historians, on the other hand, omitted many of its most marvelous incidents, in order to reduce it to the form of a probable history. The various tales related respecting the foundation of Rome may be reduced to two classes, one of Greek and the other of native origin.

The former bring Romulus into close connection with Aeneas. A few Greek writers make Aeneas the founder of Rome, and speak of his wife under the name of Roma; others represent Romulus as his son or a remote descendant; but the greater part make him his grandson by his daughter Ilia. In most of these accounts the twin brothers are spoken of, but they appear under the names of Romulus and Romus, not Remus. These accounts, however, scarcely deserve the name of traditions, as Niebuhr has remarked; they are for the most part the inventions of Greek writers, who were ignorant of the native legend, but having heard of the fame of Rome, wished to assign to it an origin.