Romulus in the ancient sources

Ancient Sources / Figures / Romulus

46 passages from 4 ancient authors that tell of Romulus, in the original with English translation, author by author in the order the Greeks read them. Romulus and his twin brother Remus were the founders of Rome in Roman mythology. Their mother was Rhea Silvia, daughter of the king of Alba Longa, Num... For the story in one place, read our article on Romulus.

Ovid (16)

Ovid, Fasti 4.807–862Fasti 4: The founding of Rome and the death of RemusOvid tells how Romulus and Remus settle the right to found a city by watching for birds, with Remus seeing six and Romulus twelve. Romulus ploughs the boundary furrow and prays to Zeus (Jupiter), Ares (Mars) and Hestia (Vesta). Remus mocks the wall and jumps it, and Celer kills him; Romulus weeps and buries him.
Ovid, Fasti 2.475–532Fasti 2: The Quirinalia: Romulus becomes Quirinus (17 February)On 17 February Ovid explains that Quirinus is Romulus and offers three sources of the name. Ares (Mars) asks Zeus (Jupiter) to take his son, and during a storm at the Goat's Marsh Romulus vanishes. Julius Proculus meets him on the road and he tells the people to honour Quirinus. The same day is the Feast of Fools, tied to Fornax, goddess of ovens.
Ovid, Metamorphoses 14.772–851Romulus and HersiliaAmulius seizes the kingdom, and Numitor wins it back with the help of his grandsons, and Rome's walls are begun. The Sabine king Tatius makes war, Tarpeia betrays the citadel, and a hot spring, raised by Juno, closes the gate against the Sabines. After a battle the Romans and Sabines make peace. Mars asks Zeus (Jupiter) to fulfil his promise of heaven to Romulus, and the king is taken up in the god's chariot, and Hera (Juno) sends Iris to his widow Hersilia, who is received among the gods as Hora, the consort of Quirinus.
Ovid, Fasti 2.359–424Fasti 2: Romulus and Remus and the she-wolfOvid gives a Latin reason for the naked run. During a goat sacrifice to Pan (Faunus), Remus recovers stolen cattle and eats the meat with the Fabii, so Romulus finds only bones. The poet then explains the name Lupercal: the Vestal Silvia's twins are set adrift on the flooded Tiber on a king's order, wash up under a fig tree and are suckled by a she-wolf.
Ovid, Fasti 3.43–166Fasti 3: The twins, Romulus' walls and the month of MarsSilvia bears the twins, and Amulius orders them drowned, but they survive and grow up as judges among the herdsmen. Romulus kills Amulius, founds the city and names the first month for Mars. Ovid compares other calendars, explains the ten-month year, and gives proofs that March began the year. Numa added two months, and Caesar later set the length of the year.
Ovid, Fasti 5.1–110Fasti 5: The name of May: the Muses' three answersOvid asks the Muses where May's name comes from. Polyhymnia says it comes from Majesty, born of Honour and Reverence, who stood by Zeus (Jupiter) against the Giants. Urania says it honours the old (maiores), whom Romulus made Fathers, and Calliope says it honours Maia, mother of Hermes (Mercury). The Muses' votes are tied and Ovid declines to choose.
Ovid, Fasti 5.419–492Fasti 5: The Lemuria: the midnight rite and the ghost of RemusOn 9 May Ovid describes the midnight Lemuria: the householder throws black beans over his shoulder nine times, clashes bronze, and asks the ghosts to leave. Hermes (Mercury) explains the name. The ghost of Remus appears to Faustulus and Acca, and Romulus names the day for him; the festival keeps temples closed and makes weddings unlucky.
Ovid, Fasti 6.65–100Fasti 6: Hebe (Juventas) and Concord on the name of JuneHebe (Juventas), wife of Heracles (Hercules), argues in turn that June is named for her, saying Romulus divided the people by age and June is the month of the young. Concord then arrives and says it comes from the union of Tatius and Romulus. Ovid declines to judge between the goddesses.
Ovid, Metamorphoses 15.552–621Tages and CipusThe wonder of the nymphs and of Hippolytus at this story is compared with that of the Etruscan ploughman who saw a clod of earth take human form as Tages, and with that of Romulus when his spear grew into a cornel tree. The poet then tells of Cipus, a Roman praetor, who finds that horns have grown on his head when he looks in water, and the seers tell him that he is destined to be king of Rome. He goes into exile rather than become king, and the people reward him with as much land as he can plough round in a day.
Ovid, Fasti 1.1–62Fasti 1: Dedication to Germanicus; the year of Romulus and NumaOvid announces a poem on the Roman calendar, its festivals and the rising and setting stars, and asks Germanicus to accept it. He says Romulus gave the year ten months, with Ares (Mars) first and Aphrodite (Venus) second, and Numa prefixed two more. He then explains lawful and unlawful days and the Calends, Nones and Ides.
Ovid, Fasti 2.119–152Fasti 2: Augustus, Father of his Country (5 February)On 5 February Ovid says he wishes for a thousand tongues to sing the day on which Augustus was given the title Father of his Country by people, senate and knights. He compares Augustus with Romulus point by point, on walls, conquests, laws and mercy. He then notes the Water-Pourer rising and the start of spring around 9 February.
Ovid, Fasti 2.425–474Fasti 2: The Luperci and Juno Lucina; the Fishes, Dione and Eros (Cupid)Ovid says brides are struck by the Luperci with hide thongs to bear children. Romulus laments the childless wives, and in a sacred grove Hera (Juno) speaks; an Etruscan augur has the women beaten, and births follow in the tenth month. He then tells of Dione and Eros (Cupid), who flee Typhon to the Euphrates and are carried by two fish, now stars.

4 more passages of Ovid that name Romulus

Plutarch (25)

Plutarch, Life of Romulus 23.1–25.5The death of Tatius, a plague and the war with VeiiRetainers and kinsmen of Tatius kill ambassadors from Laurentum, and Tatius puts off justice, so the friends of the ambassadors kill him at Lavinium while escorting Romulus away with praise. Romulus buries Tatius but does not punish his killers, and later a plague and a rain of blood strike Rome and Laurentum until the murderers of Tatius and the ambassadors are punished on both sides. Romulus then conquers Cameria and sends colonists there. Veii demands Fidenae and loses two battles to Romulus, and buys peace with land and fifty hostages, and Plutarch explains the custom of leading an old man through the forum crying Sardians for sale.
Plutarch, Life of Romulus comp.1.1–comp.6.5Comparison of Theseus and RomulusPlutarch weighs Theseus, who chose great deeds freely, against Romulus, who was driven to them by danger, and sets the road robbers, the Centaurs, the Amazons and the Cretan tribute against Amulius, Acron and the Sabine war. He judges that both rulers changed, Theseus towards democracy and Romulus towards tyranny, and compares the anger of Romulus at his brother with that of Theseus at his son. Romulus rose from humble beginnings and gained a lasting union through the Sabine marriages, while the abductions of Theseus, from Ariadne to Helen, brought Athens only war.
Plutarch, Life of Romulus 16.1–8Romulus kills Acron and dedicates the first spolia opimaThe Sabines send ambassadors asking for their daughters back, but Romulus refuses and demands intermarriage, and Acron, king of the Caeninenses, marches against him. Romulus, having vowed to dedicate his enemy's armour, kills Acron in single combat, routs his army, takes his city and brings its people to Rome as citizens. He hangs the armour on an oak trophy and carries it in a march that becomes the model of all triumphs, dedicated to Zeus (Jupiter) Feretrius. Plutarch names Romulus, Cornelius Cossus and Claudius Marcellus as the only three Roman leaders to win the spolia opima.
Plutarch, Life of Romulus 21.1–22.4Roman festivals: the Matronalia, Carmentalia and Lupercalia; the Vestals and laws of RomulusRomans and Sabines share feasts and sacrifices, adding the Matronalia, which honours the women for stopping the war, and the Carmentalia, and Plutarch discusses whether Carmenta was a Fate or the prophetic wife of Evander. He describes the Lupercalia, with its goat sacrifice, the two noble youths, the running Luperci with thongs and the sacrificed dog, and compares explanations linking it to the she-wolf, to Faunus and to the Greek Lycaea. He reports that Romulus first consecrated fire and appointed Vestals, though others credit Numa, and that he carried an augur's staff, the lituus. Romulus also enacted laws on divorce and counted all murder as parricide.
Plutarch, Life of Romulus 11.1–13.6The ritual founding of Rome, the Parilia, the date of foundation and the first senateRomulus buries Remus and has men from Tuscany teach him the sacred rites, with a circular trench called the mundus and a furrow ploughed round the boundary with a bull and a cow, leaving a space at each gate. Rome is founded on the twenty-first of April, the day of the pastoral festival Parilia, and Plutarch tells how Tarutius worked out for Varro the day and hour of the conception and birth of Romulus and of the founding of the city. Romulus then forms the legions and appoints a hundred councillors, called patricians, as a senate. He also sets up the bond between patrons and clients.
Plutarch, Life of Romulus 9.1–10.2Founding Rome: the sanctuary of asylum, the vultures and the death of RemusWith Amulius dead, the brothers restore the government to their grandfather and resolve to found a city where they were reared. Plutarch argues that the Albans would not let the fugitives and slaves around them intermarry, as the rape of the Sabine women shows, and that the new city made a sanctuary of refuge that soon filled it with people. Romulus builds Roma Quadrata and Remus marks out a precinct on the Aventine, so they settle the dispute by augury, and Remus sees six vultures and Romulus twelve. Remus, enraged by the deceit, leaps over the trench of the new wall and is struck dead, by Romulus himself or by Celer, and Faustulus and Pleistinus fall in the fighting.
Plutarch, Life of Romulus 17.1–18.7Tarpeia's betrayal, the Sabine attack and Zeus (Jupiter) StatorAfter Fidenae, Crustumerium and Antemnae are defeated, the Sabines under Tatius march on Rome, where Tarpeia, the commander's daughter, opens a gate to them for the armlets on their left arms. Tatius has her crushed under their shields and armlets, and Plutarch rejects other tales about her. In the valley a mire swallows the horse of the Sabine Curtius, giving the Lacus Curtius its name. In the last fight Romulus is struck on the head by a stone, then prays to Zeus (Jupiter) to stop the fleeing Romans, who make a stand where the temple of Jupiter Stator now stands.
Plutarch, Life of Numa 1.1–2.7When did Numa live? The interregnum after Romulus disappearsPlutarch notes the dispute over the date of Numa and over his supposed friendship with Pythagoras, and chooses to begin with the events of his life. In the thirty-seventh year of Rome, Romulus disappears in a storm at the Goat's Marsh, suspicion falls on the patricians, and Proculus swears that he saw Romulus ascending to heaven and heard him ask to be called Quirinus. The Romans and the Sabines quarrel over which people should furnish the new king. To prevent confusion the hundred and fifty senators each take the royal insignia in turn for six hours by day and six by night, a rule the Romans call interregnum.
Plutarch, Life of Numa 5.1–7.5Numa refuses the throne, then accepts and is confirmed by auguryEnvoys, Proculus and Velesus, come to Numa at the age of forty, but he refuses, pointing to the fate of Romulus and his own love of peace. His father and his kinsman Marcius urge him to see kingship as service to God, and his fellow-citizens add their entreaties, so he yields. The Romans welcome him with great joy and vote for him, but he waits until the augurs on the Capitol have confirmed his rule by omens. He disbands the Celeres and adds a priest of Romulus, the Flamen Quirinalis, to the priests of Zeus (Jupiter) and Ares (Mars).
Plutarch, Life of Romulus 19.1–20.6The Sabine women stop the battle; the two kings, the tribes and the sacred cornel-treeThe ravished women rush between the armies pleading for their husbands and fathers, with Hersilia making many appeals, and a truce follows. Romulus and Tatius become joint kings, the city keeps the name Rome and its citizens are called Quirites, a hundred Sabines join the patricians, and the people are arranged in three tribes. Plutarch lists the honours granted to the women, such as the right of way and the bulla for their children. He also tells how the cornel-tree grew from the spear Romulus cast from the Aventine.
Plutarch, Life of Romulus 7.1–8.7Remus taken captive, Numitor's discovery and the death of AmuliusAfter a quarrel between the herdsmen of Numitor and Amulius, Numitor's herdsmen capture Remus and bring him before Numitor, who guesses the truth from his bearing and listens to his story of the trough. Faustulus, hearing of this, tells Romulus the facts of their birth and carries the trough toward Numitor, but a guard who once helped expose the boys recognises it, and Faustulus is brought before Amulius. Romulus arrives with a large force in companies of a hundred, each led by a man carrying a pole with a handful of hay. Remus incites the citizens within Alba and Romulus attacks from outside, and Amulius is seized and put to death.
Plutarch, Life of Romulus 14.1–15.5The rape of the Sabine women and the cry of TalasiusPlutarch rejects the view that Romulus wanted war and says he hoped to blend his city of needy aliens with the Sabines. He announces the discovery of an altar of Consus and holds games, and at his signal his followers seize the Sabine maidens while letting the men escape. Plutarch gives the differing counts of the women, says that only one married woman, Hersilia, was taken, and gives accounts of her husband and children. He then explains the wedding cry Talasius, the custom of carrying the bride over the threshold and the date of the Consualia.

13 more passages of Plutarch that name Romulus

Strabo (1)

Strabo, Geography 5.3.2–3The founding of Rome: Aeneas and RomulusStrabo tells how Aeneas came to Laurentum, how Latinus and the Latini arose, and how Ascanius founded Alba. He recounts Rhea Silvia, the twins said in myth to be sons of Ares (Mars) suckled by a she-wolf, Romulus and Remus, the asylum and the seizure of the Sabine women. He also gives the older Arcadian account of Evander entertaining Heracles (Hercules) on the advice of his mother Nicostrata, whom the Romans worship as Carmentis.

Virgil (4)

Virgil, Aeneid 6.752–900The parade of future Romans; the gates of SleepAnchises leads Aeneas and the Sibyl to a mound and points out future descendants, from Silvius and the Alban kings to Romulus, Augustus Caesar, and other Roman leaders. He mentions the coming civil war and mourns the young Marcellus. He tells Aeneas that Rome's task is to rule, spare the humbled and crush the proud. Anchises then sends Aeneas and the Sibyl out through the gate of ivory, and Aeneas rejoins his fleet and sails to the bay of Caieta.
Virgil, Aeneid 1.223–304Aphrodite's complaint and the prophecy of ZeusAphrodite (Venus), in tears, asks Zeus (Jupiter) why Aeneas and his Trojans are still punished when he promised that Rome would rise from them. Zeus smiles, kisses her, and unrolls the fates: Aeneas will wage war in Italy and found a city, Ascanius will move the throne to Alba Longa, and Romulus will later found Rome. He promises rule without end, the coming of Caesar, and an age of peace. He then sends Hermes (Mercury) to make the Carthaginians welcome the Trojans.
Virgil, Aeneid 8.608–731The shield of AeneasAphrodite (Venus) brings Aeneas the armor made by Hephaestus (Vulcan) and hangs it on an oak. Aeneas admires the helmet, sword, corselet and greaves, and above all the shield. Its scenes show the future history of Rome, from the she-wolf and the twins through early wars and sieges to the battle of Actium, where Augustus fights Antony and his Egyptian queen. It ends with the triumph of Augustus and the conquered peoples, and Aeneas lifts the shield to his shoulder.
Virgil, Georgics 1.461–514Portents at the death of CaesarThe sun also warns of war, and the poem says it veiled its face when Caesar's light was quenched. Earth, sea, animals and Etna gave portents then, such as arms heard in the sky, speaking cattle, weeping ivory and flooding rivers. Philippi twice saw Romans fight Romans, and the poet foresees farmers ploughing up rusted weapons. He prays to the gods of the country, to Romulus and to Vesta not to forbid this new champion from mending the age, and laments the neglected plough and the wars everywhere.