Romulus.
The original version of the story of Romulus and Remus, as told by the most ancient Roman annalist, Fabius Pictor, is rendered as follows by Mommsen. [55] “The twins borne by Ilia, daughter of the preceding king Numitor, from the embrace of the war god Mars were condemned by King Amulius, the present ruler of Alba, to be cast into the river. The king’s servants took the children and carried them from Alba as far as the Tiber on the Palatine Hill; but when they tried to descend the hill to the river, to carry out the command, they found that the river had risen, and they were unable to reach its bed. The tub with the children was therefore thrust by them into the shallow water at the shore. It floated for a while; but the water promptly receded, and knocking against a stone, the tub capsized, and the screaming infants were upset into the river mud. They were heard by a she-wolf who had just brought forth and had her udders full of milk; she came and gave her teats to the boys, to nurse them, and as they were drinking she licked them clean with her tongue. Above them flew a woodpecker, which guarded the children, and also carried food to them. The father was providing for his sons: for the wolf and the woodpecker are animals consecrated to father Mars. This was seen by one of the royal herdsmen, who was driving his pigs back to the pasture from which the water had receded. Startled by the spectacle, he summoned his mates, who found the she-wolf attending like a mother to the children, and the children treated her as their mother. The men made a loud noise to scare the animal away; but the wolf was not afraid; she left the children, but not from fear; slowly, without heeding the herdsmen, she disappeared into the wilderness of the forest, at the holy site of Faunus, where the water gushes from a gully of the mountain. Meanwhile the men picked up the boys and carried them to the chief swineherd of the king, Faustulus, for they believed that the gods did not wish the children to perish. But the wife of Faustulus had just given birth to a dead child, and was full of sorrow. Her husband gave her the twins, and she nursed them; the couple raised the children, and named them Romulus and Remus. After Rome had been founded, later on, King Romulus built himself a house not far from the place where his tub had stood. The gully in which the she-wolf had disappeared has been known since that time as the Wolf’s Gully, the Lupercal. The image in ore of the she-wolf with the twins [56] was subsequently erected at this spot, and the she-wolf herself, the Lupa, was worshipped by the Romans as a divinity.
The Romulus saga later on underwent manifold transmutations, mutilations, additions, and interpretations. [57] It is best known in the form transmitted by Livy (I, 3 et seq.), where we learn something about the antecedents and subsequent fate of the twins.
King Proca bequeaths the royal dignity to his first born son Numitor. But his younger brother, Amulius, pushes him from the throne, and becomes king himself. So that no scion from Numitor’s family may arise, as the avenger, he kills the male descendants of his brother. Rea Silvia, the daughter, he elects as a vestal, and thus deprives her of the hope of progeny, through perpetual virginity as enjoined upon her under the semblance of a most honorable distinction. But the vestal maiden was overcome by violence, and having brought forth twins, she named Mars as the father of her illegitimate offspring, be it from conviction, or because a god appeared more creditable to her as the perpetrator of the crime.
The narrative of the exposure in the Tiber goes on as follows: The saga relates that the floating tub, in which the boys had been exposed, was left on dry land by the receding waters, and that a thirsty wolf, attracted from the neighbouring mountains by the children’s cries, offered them her teats. The boys are said to have been found by the chief royal herder, supposedly named Faustulus, who took them to the homestead of his wife, Larentia, where they were raised. Some believe that Larentia was called Lupa, a she-wolf, by the herders, because she offered her body, and that this was the origin of the wonderful saga.
Grown to manhood, the youths Romulus and Remus protect the herds against the attacks of wild animals and robbers. One day Remus is taken prisoner by the robbers, who accuse him of having stolen Numitor’s flocks. But Numitor, to whom he is surrendered for punishment, was touched by his tender age, and when he learned of the twin brothers, he suspected that they might be his exposed grandsons. While he was anxiously pondering the resemblance with the features of his daughter, and the boy’s age as corresponding to the time of the exposure, Faustulus arrived with Romulus, and a conspiracy was hatched, when the descent of the boys had been learned from the herders. The youths armed themselves for vengeance, while Numitor took up weapons to defend his claim to the throne he had usurped. After Amulius had been assassinated, Numitor was re-instituted as the ruler, and the youths resolved to found a city in the region where they had been exposed and brought up. A furious dispute arose upon the question which brother was to be the ruler of the newly erected city, for neither twin was favored by the right of primogeniture, and the outcome of the bird oracle was equally doubtful. The saga relates that Remus jumped over the new wall, to deride his twin, and Romulus became so much enraged that he slew his brother. Romulus then usurped the sole mastery, and the city was named Rome after him.
The Roman tale of Romulus and Remus has a close counterpart in the Greek myth of a city foundation by the twin brothers Amphion and Zethos, who were the first to found the site of Thebes of the Seven Gates. The enormous rocks which Zethos brought from the mountains were joined by the music drawn from Amphion’s lute strings to form the walls which became so famous later on. Amphion and Zethos passed as the children of Zeus and Antiope, daughter of King Nykteus. She escaped by flight from the punishment of her father, who died of grief; on his death bed he implored his brother and successor on the throne, Lykos, to punish the wrongdoing of Antiope. Meantime she had married Epopeus, the king of Sikyon, who was killed by Lykos. Antiope was led away by him in fetters. She gave birth to twin sons in the Kithairon, where she left them. A shepherd raised the boys and called them Amphion and Zethos. Later on, Antiope succeeded in escaping from the torments of Lykos and his wife, Dirke. She accidentally sought shelter in the Kithairon, with the twin brothers, now grown up. The shepherd reveals to the youths the fact that Antiope is their mother. Thereupon they cruelly kill Dirke, and deprive Lykos of the rulership.
The remaining twin sagas, [58] which are extremely numerous, cannot be discussed in detail in this connection. Possibly they represent a complication of the birth myth by another very ancient and widely distributed myth complex, that of the hostile brothers, the detailed discussion of which belongs elsewhere. The apparently late and secondary character of the twin type in the birth myths justifies the separation of this part of mythology from the present theme. As regards the Romulus saga, Mommsen [59] renders it highly probable that it originally told only of Romulus, while the figure of Remus was added subsequently, and somewhat disjointedly, when it became desirable to invest the consulate with a solemnity founded on the old tradition.
Hercules [60]
After the loss of his numerous sons, Elektryon betroths his daughter, Alkmene, to Amphitryon, the son of his brother, Alkäos. However, Amphitryon, through an unfortunate accident, causes the death of Elektryon, and escapes to Thebes with his affianced bride. He has not enjoyed her love, for she has solemnly pledged him not to touch her until he has avenged her brothers on the Thebans. An expedition is therefore started by him, from Thebes, and he conquers the king of the hostile people, Pterelaos, with all the islands. As he is returning to Thebes, Zeus in the form of Amphitryon [61] betakes himself to Alkmene, to whom he presents a golden goblet as evidence of victory. He rests with the beauteous maiden during three nights, according to the later poets, holding back the sun one day. In the same night, Amphitryon arrives, exultant in his victory and aflame with love. In the fulness of time, the fruit of the divine and the human embrace [62] is brought forth and Zeus announces to the gods his son, as the most powerful ruler of the future. But his jealous spouse, Hera, knows how to obtain from him the pernicious oath, that the first-born grandson of Perseus is to be the ruler of all the other descendants of Perseus. Hera hurries to Mykene, to deliver the wife of the third Perside, Sthenelos, of the seven months child, Eurystheus. At the same time she hinders and endangers the confinement of Alkmene, through all sorts of wicked sorcery, precisely as at the birth of the god of light, Apollo. Alkmene finally gives birth to Herakles and Iphikles, the latter in no way the former’s equal in courage or in strength, but destined to become the father of his faithful friend, Iolaos. [63] In this way Eurystheus became the king in Mykene, in the land of the Argivians, in conformity with the oath of Zeus, and the after born Herakles was his subject.
The old legend related the raising of Herakles on the strength giving waters of the Dirke, the nourishment of all Theban children. Later on, however, another version arose. Fearing the jealousy of Hera, Alkmene exposed the child which she had borne in a place which for a long time after was known as the field of Herakles. About this time, Athene arrived, in company with Hera. She marvelled at the beautiful form of the child, and persuaded Hera to put him to her breast. But the boy took the breast with far greater strength than his age seemed to warrant; Hera felt pains and angrily flung the child to the ground. Athene, however, carried him to the neighboring city and took him to Queen Alkmene, whose maternity was unknown to her, as a poor foundling, whom she begged her to raise for the sake of charity. This peculiar accident is truly remarkable! The child’s own mother allows him to perish, disregarding the duty of maternal love, and the stepmother who is filled with natural hatred against the child, saves her enemy without knowing it (after Diodor, IV, 9; German translation by Wurm, Stuttgart, 1831). Herakles had drawn only a few drops from Hera’s breast, but the divine milk was sufficient to endow him with immortality. An attempt on Hera’s part to kill the boy, asleep in his cradle, by means of two serpents, proved a failure, for the child awakened and crushed the beasts with a single pressure of his hands. As a boy, Herakles one day killed his tutor, Linos, being incensed about an unjust chastisement. Amphitryon, fearing the wildness of the youth, sends him to tend his ox-herds in the mountains, with the herders, among whom he is said by some to have been raised entirely, like Amphion and Zethos, Kyros and Romulus. Here he lives from the hunt, in the freedom of nature (Preller, II, 123).
The myth of Herakles suggests in certain features the Indian saga of the hero Krishna, who like many heroes escapes a general infanticide, and is then brought up by a herder’s wife, Iasodha. A wicked she-demon appears, who has been sent by King Kansa to kill the boy. She takes the post of wet nurse in the home, but is recognized by Krishna, who bites her so severely in suckling (like Hera, when nursing Herakles, whom she also means to destroy), that she dies. (The early history of the pastoral god Krishna is related in the so-called Kariwamsa.)