Remoria (also spelled Remuria, Remora, and Remona) [1] [2] is a place associated with the legendary founding of Rome by Romulus and Remus where, according to Roman tradition, [3] Remus saw six birds land and which he chose as an auspicious location for the future city. Some variants of the legend say that Remoria was also the place where Remus was buried after he was killed by Romulus. [4]
Roman historical sources provide conflicting information about the exact location of Remoria. While some sources place it on the peak of the Aventine, [5] [6] others place it on a hill near the Tiber, [3] [7] [8] at a distance of either 5 Roman miles or 30 stadia downstream from the Palatine hill. [2] [3] Plutarch identifies the summit of the Aventine as the auguraculum and the tomb of Remus but refers to it as Ρεμώνιον (Rhemónion) or Ρεμώνια (Rhemónia), noting that it was contemporaneously called Ριγνάριον (Rhignárion). [9] Later generations of historians have used literary and archaeological evidence to build a hypothesis that places Remoria on the left bank of the Tiber, further south of the city. During their study on the walls of Rome, the archaeologists Antonio Nibby and William Gell placed the site on the location of the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in the Ostiense quarter. [10]
In a 2003 essay, the archaeologist and historian Filippo Coarelli notes that the legendary figures of Romulus and Remus, first appearing in the historical record no earlier than the 4th century BC, were substituted into an earlier myth of the founding of Rome by the Lares, twelve sons of the deity Acca Larentia (etymologically, Mother of the Lares). Remus represents the Roman plebs, thus explaining his traditional association with the Aventine hill, where the plebs staged a secession in 449 BC. By combining the figurative location of Remoria at a place associated with the plebs and the literal location at a distance of 5 miles from the ancient city (a symbolic number representing the limit of the archaic ager romanus ) on the banks of the Tiber, Coarelli argues that the location of Remoria is in the sacred grove of the goddess Dea Dia near the Via Campana, in the present-day zone of Magliana on the right bank of the Tiber. During the Kingdom and early Republic, the grove was an important site for auspication and haruspication in the care of the Arval Brethren, a college of priests tracing their descent from Romulus and the sons of Acca Larentia. In this view, Romulus and Remus represent the dichotomy between the Urbs (city) dominated by the patricians and the Arva (farmlands) dominated by the plebeians. [11]
Lupercalia also known as Lupercal was a pastoral festival of Ancient Rome observed annually on February 15 to purify the city, promoting health and fertility. Lupercalia was also known as dies Februatus, after the purification instruments called februa, the basis for the month named Februarius.
The founding of Rome is a legendary event much embellished by later Roman myth. Archaeological evidence indicates that Rome was developed from earlier hilltop villages and was never so singularly founded. The habitation of the Italian Peninsula goes back far into prehistory; evidence of settlement on the Capitoline hill goes back to 1700–1350 BC, in line with more general archaeological evidence of settled habitation c. 1600 BC. Evidence of graves on the site goes back to 1000 BC. Likely influenced by a trend for city-state formation emerging from Greece, these hilltop settlements agglomerated into a single polity by the later eighth century BC.
In Roman mythology, Romulus and Remus are twin brothers whose story tells of the events that led to the founding of the city of Rome and the Roman Kingdom by Romulus, following his fratricide of Remus. The image of a she-wolf suckling the twins in their infancy has been a symbol of the city of Rome and the ancient Romans since at least the 3rd century BC. Although the tale takes place before the founding of Rome around 750 BC, the earliest known written account of the myth is from the late 3rd century BC. Possible historical bases for the story, and interpretations of its local variants, are subjects of ongoing debate.
Acca Larentia or Acca Larentina was a mythical woman, later a goddess of fertility, in Roman mythology whose festival, the Larentalia, was celebrated on December 23.
In Roman mythology, Faustulus was the shepherd who found the infant Romulus and his twin brother Remus along the banks of the Tiber River as they were being suckled by the she-wolf, Lupa. According to legend, Faustulus carried the babies back to his sheepfold for his wife Acca Larentia to nurse them. Faustulus and Acca Larentia then raised the boys as their own. Romulus later killed King Amulius of Alba Longa and his brother Remus before founding the city of Rome "in the place where they [Romulus and Remus] had been raised."
RheaSilvia, also known as Ilia, was the mythical mother of the twins Romulus and Remus, who founded the city of Rome. This event was portrayed numerous times in Roman art Her story is told in the first book of Ab Urbe Condita Libri of Livy and in Cassius Dio's Roman History. The Legend of Rhea Silvia recounts how she was raped by Mars while she was a Vestal Virgin, resulting in the twins, as mentioned in the Aeneid and the works of Ovid.
The Aventine Hill is one of the Seven Hills on which ancient Rome was built. It belongs to Ripa, the modern twelfth rione, or ward, of Rome.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Emperor Augustus. His literary style was atticistic – imitating Classical Attic Greek in its prime.
The Roman festival of Larentalia was held on 23 December but was ordered to be observed twice a year by Augustus; by some supposed to be in honour of the Lares, a kind of domestic genii, or divinities, worshipped in houses, and esteemed the guardians and protectors of families, supposed to reside in chimney-corners. Others have attributed this feast in honour of Acca Larentia, the nurse of Romulus and Remus, and wife of Faustulus. During this festival, offerings were made to the dead, usually at altars dedicated to Acca Larentia. A sacrifice was typically offered in the Velabrum, the spot where Acca Larentia is buried. Larentalia was part of a series of ancient Roman festivals and holidays celebrating the end of the old year and the start of the new.
The Ficus Ruminalis was a wild fig tree that had religious and mythological significance in ancient Rome. It stood near the small cave known as the Lupercal at the foot of the Palatine Hill and was the spot where according to tradition the floating makeshift cradle of Romulus and Remus landed on the banks of the Tiber. There they were nurtured by the she-wolf and discovered by Faustulus. The tree was sacred to Rumina, one of the birth and childhood deities, who protected breastfeeding in humans and animals. St. Augustine mentions a Jupiter Ruminus.
Lares were guardian deities in ancient Roman religion. Their origin is uncertain; they may have been hero-ancestors, guardians of the hearth, fields, boundaries, or fruitfulness, or an amalgam of these.
The Velabrum is the low valley in the city of Rome that connects the Forum with the Forum Boarium, and the Capitoline Hill with the western slope of the Palatine Hill. The outer boundaries of the area are not themselves clear. Roman etymologies of the name are confused, with attempts to connect it to the Latin words vehere (conveyance) and velum (cloth): Varro, Propertius, and Tibullus claimed that it was the location of a ferry; Plutarch, however, claimed the name derived from the awnings placed over the Circus Maximus during games. The name may also translate to "place of mud".
The Great Altar of Unconquered Hercules stood in the Forum Boarium near the Tiber River in ancient Rome. It was the earliest cult location of Hercules in Rome, possibly originally dating as early as the 6th century BCE. Its foundations possibly lie beneath the present church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin in Rome, Italy.
Romulus was the legendary founder and first king of Rome. Various traditions attribute the establishment of many of Rome's oldest legal, political, religious, and social institutions to Romulus and his contemporaries. Although many of these traditions incorporate elements of folklore, and it is not clear to what extent a historical figure underlies the mythical Romulus, the events and institutions ascribed to him were central to the myths surrounding Rome's origins and cultural traditions.
The Shrine of Vulcan, or Vulcanal, or Volcanal, was an 8th-century BC sacred precinct on the future site of the Roman Forum in Rome, modern Italy. Dedicated to Vulcan, the Roman god of fire, it was traditionally considered to commemorate the spot where the legendary figures Romulus and Tatius concluded the peace treaty between the tribes known as the Latins — on the Palatine Hill — and the Sabines — on the Quirinal and Esquiline. This famous merger of the hill-villages was said to be the foundation of the Roman state.
The Mons Sacer, Sacer Mons, or Sacred Mount is a hill in Rome, famed as the location of the first secession of the plebs, in 494 BC.
The Aventine Triad is a modern term for the joint cult of the Roman deities Ceres, Liber and Libera. The cult was established c. 493 BC within a sacred district (templum) on or near the Aventine Hill, traditionally associated with the Roman plebs. Later accounts describe the temple building and rites as "Greek" in style. Some modern historians describe the Aventine Triad as a plebeian parallel and self-conscious antithesis to the Archaic Triad of Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus and the later Capitoline Triad of Jupiter, Minerva and Juno. The Aventine Triad, temple and associated ludi served as a focus of plebeian identity, sometimes in opposition to Rome's original ruling elite, the patricians.
In the Roman foundation myth, a she-wolf was an Italian wolf who nursed and sheltered the twins Romulus and Remus after they were abandoned in the wild by decree of King Amulius of Alba Longa. She cared for the infants at her den, a cave known as the Lupercal, until they were discovered by a shepherd, Faustulus. Romulus would later become the founder and first king of Rome. The image of the she-wolf suckling the twins has been a symbol of Rome since ancient times and is one of the most recognizable icons of ancient mythology.
The First King: Birth of an Empire, released as Romulus v Remus: The First King in the UK, is a 2019 Italian historical drama film directed by Matteo Rovere. It stars Alessandro Borghi and Alessio Lapice.