"Amulius had no children, or at least only one daughter: so that the race of Anchises and Aphrodite seemed on the point of expiring, when the love of a god prolonged it, in spite of the ordinances of man, and gave it a lustre worthy of its origin. Silvia had gone into the sacred grove, to draw water from the spring for the service of the temple. The sun quenched its rays: the sight of a wolf made her fly into a cave: there Mars overpowered the timid virgin, and then consoled her with the promise of noble children, as Posidon consoled Tyro, the daughter of Salmoneus. But he did not protect her from the tyrant; nor could the protestations of her innocence save her. Vesta herself seemed to demand the condemnation of the unfortunate priestess; for at the moment when she was delivered of twins, the image of the goddess hid its eyes, her altar trembled, and her fire died away. Amulius ordered that the mother and her babes should be drowned in the river. In the Anio Silvia exchanged her earthly life for that of a goddess. The river carried the bole or cradle, in which the children were lying, into the Tiber, which had overflowed its banks far and wide, even to the foot of the woody hills. At the root of a wild fig-tree, the Ficus Ruminalis, which was preserved and held sacred for many centuries, at the foot of the Palatine, the cradle overturned. A she-wolf came to drink of the stream: she heard the whimpering of the children, carried them into her den hard by, made a bed for them, licked and suckled them. When they wanted other food than milk, a woodpecker, the bird sacred to Mars, brought it to them. Other birds consecrated to auguries hovered over them, to drive away insects. This marvellous spectacle was seen by Faustulus, the shepherd of the royal flocks. The she-wolf drew back, and gave up the children to human nature. Acca Laurentia, his wife, became their foster-mother. They grew up, along with her twelve sons, on the Palatine hill, in straw huts which they built for themselves: that of Romulus was preserved by continual repairs, as a sacred relic, down to the time of Nero. They were the stoutest of the shepherd lads, fought bravely against wild beasts and robbers, maintaining their right against every one by their might, and turning might into right. Their booty they shared with their comrades. The followers of Romulus were called Quinctilii, those of Remus Fabii: the seeds of discord were soon sown amongst them. Their wantonness engaged them in disputes with the shepherds of the wealthy Numitor, who fed their flocks on Mount Aventine: so that here, as in the story of Evander and Cacus, we find the quarrel between the Palatine and the Aventine in the tales of the remotest times. Remus was taken by the stratagem of these shepherds, and dragged to Alba as a robber. A secret foreboding, the remembrance of his grandsons, awakened by the story of the two brothers, kept Numitor from pronouncing a hasty sentence. The culprit's foster-father hastened with Romulus to the city, and told the old man and the youths of their kindred. They resolved to avenge their own wrong and that of their house. With their faithful comrades, whom the dangers of Remus had brought to the city, they slew the king; and the people of Alba again became subject to Numitor.
"But love for the home which fate had assigned them drew the youths back to the banks of the Tiber, to found a city there, and the shepherds, their old companions, were their first citizens.... This is the old tale, as it was written by Fabius, and sung in ancient lays down to the time of Dionysius."—Niebuhr's Hist. of Rome.
In the cliff of the Palatine, below the fig-tree, was shown for many centuries the cavern Lupercal, sacred from the earliest times to the Pelasgic god Pan.
"Hinc lucum ingentum, quem Romulus acer Asylum
Retulit, et gelidâ monstrat sub rupe Lupercal,
Parrhasio dictum Panos de monte Lycæi."
Virgil, Æn. viii. 342.
"La louve, nourrice de Romulus, a peut-être été imaginée en raison des rapports mythologiques qui existaient entre le loup et Pan défenseur des troupeaux. Ce qu'il y a de sûr, c'est que les fêtes lupercales gardèrent le caractère du dieu en l'honneur duquel elles avaient été primitivement instituées et l'empreinte d'une origine pélasgique; ces fêtes au temps de Cicéron avaient encore un caractère pastoral en mémoire de l'Arcadie d'où on les croyait venues. Les Luperques qui représentaient les Satyres, compagnons de Pan, faisaient le tour de l'antique séjour des Pélasges sur le Palatin. Ces hommes nus allaient frappant avec les lanières de peau de bouc, l'animal lascif par excellence, les femmes pour les rendre fécondes; des fêtes analogues se célébraient en Arcadie sous le nom de Lukéia (les fêtes des loups), dont le mot lupercales est une traduction."—Ampère, Hist. Rome, i. 143.
In the hut of Romulus were preserved several objects venerated as relics of him.
"On conservait le bâton augural avec lequel Romulus avait dessiné sur le ciel, suivant le rite étrusque, l'espace où s'était manifesté le grand auspice des douze vautours dans lesquels Rome crut voir la promesse des douze siècles qu'en effet le destin devait lui accorder. Tous les augures se servirent par la suite de ce bâton sacré, qui fut trouvé intact après l'incendie du monument dans lequel il était conservé, miracle païen dont l'equivalent pourrait se rencontrer dans plus d'une légende de la Rome chrétienne. On montrait le cornouiller né du bois de la lance que Romulus, avec la vigueur surhumaine d'un demi-dieu, avait jetée de l'Aventin sur le Palatin, où elle s'était enfoncée dans la terre et avait produit un grand arbre.
"On montrait sur le Palatin le berceau et la cabane de Romulus. Plutarque a vu ce berceau, le Santo-Presepio des anciens Romains, qui était attaché avec des liens d'airain, et sur lequel on avait tracé des caractères mystérieux. La cabane était à un seul étage, en planches et couverte de roseaux, que l'on reconstruisait pieusement chaque fois qu'un incendie la détruisait; car elle brûla à diverses reprises, ce que la nature des matériaux dont elle était formée fait croire facilement. J'ai vu dans les environs de Rome un cabaret rustique dont la toiture était exactement pareille à celle de là cabane de Romulus."—Ampère, Hist. Rom. i. 342.
Turning along the terrace which overhangs the Velabrum we reach the ruins of the Palace of Tiberius,[113] in which he resided during the earlier part of his reign, when he was under the influence of his aged and imperious mother Livia. Here he had to mourn for Drusus, his only son, who fell a victim (A.D. 23) to poison administered to him by his wife Livilla and her lover the favourite Sejanus. Here also, in A.D. 29, died Livia, widow of Augustus, at the age of eighty-six, "a memorable example of successful artifice, having attained in succession, by craft if not by crime, every object she could desire in the career of female ambition."[114]
The row of arches remaining are those of the soldiers' quarters. In the fourth arch is a curious graffite of a ship. In another the three pavements in use at different times may be seen in situ, one above another. On the terrace above these arches has recently been discovered a large piscina, or fish-pond, and the painted chambers of a building, which is supposed to have been the House of Drusus (elder brother of Tiberius) and Antonia. Several of the rooms in this building are richly decorated in fresco, one has a picture of a street with figures of females going to a sacrifice, and of ladies at their toilette; another of Mercury, Io, and Argus; and a third of Galatea and Polyphemus. From the names of the characters in these pictures represented being affixed to them in Greek, we may naturally conclude that they are the work of Greek artists.