"Well, let us have it now," answered her father. "Let us sit down on this old stone block right where we can look at the hill over yonder. The present city of Rome is built on seven hills. Our story tells how the city was first started on that hill and how the first wall was built around it."
"Is the story really true, father?" asked May.
"People used to think it was true, but it happened such a long time ago we cannot be sure about it. Even if it is not true, it is a good story about twin brothers who were said to have lived nearly three thousand years ago. The father of the boys was supposed to have been the young god Mars, and their mother was a beautiful maiden called Sylvia.
"It was Sylvia's work to care for the sacred fire in the temple of the goddess Vesta. Such maidens were treated with great honor, but they were not allowed to marry. So the people were very angry when Sylvia said the great god Mars was her husband and the two baby boys were her own little children. As a punishment the young mother was buried alive, and her helpless babies were put into a wooden trough, which was set afloat on the river Tiber.
"Now it happened just at that time that the river overflowed its banks. But very soon the water went down, and the little trough in which the twin babies lay was left safely on high ground. Of course the babies became very hungry and probably cried loudly for their mother to come and feed them. But the poor mother could not come, though another mother did. She was a mother wolf, and she carried the hungry babies away to her lair, where she tenderly nursed and cared for them.
The little trough in which the babies lay was left safely on high ground
"Some time later a shepherd found the baby boys living in the woods with their wolf mother. He was a kind man, and he took the children home to his wife. She named the boys Romulus and Remus, and brought them up to be shepherds like her husband.
"When the twin brothers grew to be young men, trouble arose between the shepherds belonging to their mother's father, who should have been king of the country, and the shepherds of the wrongful ruler. Romulus and Remus did many brave things of which their grandfather heard, and one day he asked to have them brought before him. He then discovered that they were the twin sons of his beautiful daughter Sylvia.
"The proud young men gathered an army together at once and seized the country in the name of their grandfather, the rightful king. They then decided to build a city, but they could not agree upon a place for it. Romulus wished to build it on one of the seven low hills in that region, while Remus wished to build it on another. Finally they went to their grandfather for advice, and he told them to watch for a sign from the gods. So Romulus stood on the hill which he had chosen and Remus stood on his hill, both watching for some sign to show them the right spot on which to build their city.