Romulus and Remus: The Founding of Rome

The twins are born in Alba Longa, an ancient Latin city near Lake Albano in the Alban Hills. Their mother, Rhea Silvia, is a Vestal Virgin and the daughter of the former king Numitor, displaced by his brother Amulius. Amulius orders the babies killed, and they are abandoned on the bank of the Tiber to die. Years later the grown twins return: Amulius is killed and Numitor is restored as king of Alba Longa. The city's exact site is not known.

Precisión del lugar: The legend names the city but archaeologists cannot fix its exact spot; the pin marks the Alban Hills area near Lake Albano.

The abandoned twins' cradle comes to rest on the bank of the Tiber where a wild fig, the Ficus Ruminalis, grows. Tradition says the tree gave them shade and shelter while the she-wolf suckled them, just outside the Lupercal cave. It was placed in the Velabrum, a short distance from the Lupercal, and Livy says it still stood in his day. In 296 BC the aediles Gnaeus and Quintus Ogulnius set up images of the baby twins suckling under the wolf.

Precisión del lugar: Roman sources only place the tree in the Velabrum; the pin marks Via del Velabro, not a proven spot.

Para el visitante: The Velabrum lies along Via del Velabro, at the foot of the Palatine; nothing of the tree survives.

In the best-known episode, a she-wolf suckles the twins in a cave at the southwest foot of the Palatine until the shepherd Faustulus finds them. Priests of Faunus later held Lupercalia ceremonies at the cave. In 2007 archaeologist Irene Iacopi announced a vaulted grotto beneath the house of Augustus as the probable Lupercal. The current scholarly consensus is that the grotto is not the Lupercal, which lay somewhere between the temple of Magna Mater and Sant'Anastasia al Palatino.

Precisión del lugar: The cave has never been securely identified; the pin follows the Lupercal article, at the southwest foot of the Palatine.

Para el visitante: The church of Sant'Anastasia al Palatino stands at the foot of the Palatine, near the traditional site.

Grown up, the twins disagree over where to build. Romulus prefers the Palatine, Remus the Aventine, and they ask the gods to decide by augury. Remus sees 6 auspicious birds first, but Romulus sees 12 and claims divine approval. In most versions Remus pitches his augural tent on the Aventine, though an older variant has Romulus taking the Aventine instead. The exact spot of the augury is unknown.

Precisión del lugar: Sources disagree on which twin watched where; the pin marks the Aventine Hill as a whole.

The Palatine is where the adult Romulus chooses to found his city, and where Remus dies. Remus insults the new city and is killed, by Romulus or one of his supporters. Romans later pointed to the Casa Romuli on the hill's southwest corner, a hut with a straw roof and wattle-and-daub walls. Excavations in 1946 found early Iron Age hut foundations nearby. Roman tradition dated the founding to the middle of the eighth century BC.

Para el visitante: The reputed site of the Casa Romuli is on the south-western corner of the Palatine.

The bronze she-wolf with the twins is Rome's best-known image of the legend. The wolf is shown in a tense, watchful pose, while the babies, cast in a different style, are absorbed in nursing. Its age is debated: the wolf may have been cast between 1021 and 1153. In December 1471 Pope Sixtus IV ordered it moved to the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Capitoline Hill, where it has been housed since.

Para el visitante: On display in the Capitoline Museums, Palazzo dei Conservatori, Piazza del Campidoglio.