Romulus / Makers of History

by Jacob Abbott

He follows the stream.
The children thrown out upon the sand.

The name of the peasant who performed this task was Faustulus. The peasant also who subsequently,—as will hereafter appear,—found and took charge of the children, is spoken of by the ancient historians as Faustulus, too. In fact we might well suppose that no man, however rustic and rude, could give his time and his thoughts to two such babes long enough to make an ark for them, for the purpose of making it possible to save their lives, and then place them carefully in it to send them away, without becoming so far interested in their fate, and so touched by their mute and confiding helplessness, as to feel prompted to follow the stream to see how so perilous a navigation would end. We have, however, no direct evidence that Faustulus did so watch the progress of his boat down the river. The story is that it was drifted along, now whirling in eddies, and now shooting down over rapid currents, until at last, at a bend in the river, it was thrown upon the beach, and being turned over by the concussion, the children were rolled out upon the sand.

The wolf.
The woodpecker.

The neighboring thickets soon of course resounded with their plaintive cries. A mother wolf who was sleeping there came out to see what was the matter. Now a mother, of whatever race, is irresistibly drawn by an instinct, if incapable of a sentiment, of affection, to love and to cherish any thing that is newly born. The wolf caressed the helpless babes, imagining perhaps that they were her own offspring; and lying down by their side she cherished and fed them, watching all the time with a fierce and vigilant eye for any approaching enemy or danger. The rude nursery might very naturally be supposed to be in dangerous proximity to the water, but it happened that the river, when the babes were set adrift in it, was very high, from the effect of rains upon the mountains, and thus soon after the children were thrown upon the land, the water began to subside. In a short time it wholly returned to its accustomed channel, leaving the children on the warm sand, high above all danger. The wolf was not their only guardian. A woodpecker, the tradition says, watched over them too, and brought them berries and other sylvan food. The reader will perhaps be disposed to hesitate a little in receiving this last statement for sober history, but as no part of the whole narrative will bear any very rigid scrutiny, we may as well take the story of the woodpecker along with the rest.

The children rescued by Faustulus.
He carries the children home.

In a short time the children were rescued from their exposed situation by a shepherd, who is called Faustulus, and may or may not have been the same with the Faustulus by whom they had been exposed. Faustulus carried the children to his hut; and there the maternal attentions of the wolf and the woodpecker were replaced by those of the shepherd's wife. Her name was Larentia. Faustulus was one of Amulius's herdsmen, having the care of the flocks and herds that grazed on this part of the royal domain, but living, like any other shepherd, in great seclusion, in his hut in the forests. He not only rescued the children, but he brought home and preserved the trough in which they had been floated down the river. He put this relic aside, thinking that the day might perhaps come in which there would be occasion to produce it. He told the story of the children only to a very few trustworthy friends, and he accompanied the communication, in the cases where he made it, with many injunctions of secrecy. He named the foundlings Romulus and Remus, and as they grew up they passed generally for the shepherd's sons.

Their education.

Faustulus felt a great degree of interest, and a high sense of responsibility too, in having these young princes under his care. He took great pains to protect them from all possible harm, and to instruct them in every thing which it was in those days considered important for young men to know. It is even said that he sent them to a town in Latium where there was some sort of seminary of learning, that their minds might receive a proper intellectual culture. As they grew up they were both handsome in form and in countenance, and were characterized by a graceful dignity of air and demeanor, which made them very attractive in the eyes of all who beheld them. They were prominent among the young herdsmen and hunters of the forest, for their courage, their activity, their strength, their various personal accomplishments, and their high and generous qualities of mind. Romulus was more silent and thoughtful than his brother, and seemed to possess in some respects superior mental powers. Both were regarded by all who knew them with feelings of the highest respect and consideration.

The character of the boys.

Romulus and Remus treated their own companions and equals, that is the young shepherds and herdsmen of the mountains, with great courtesy and kindness, and were very kindly regarded by them in return. They, however, evinced a great degree of independence of spirit in respect to the various bailiffs and chief herdsmen, and other officers of field and forest police, who exercised authority in the region where they lived. These men were sometimes haughty and domineering, and the peasantry in general stood greatly in awe of them. Romulus and Remus, however, always faced them without fear, never seeming to be alarmed at their threats, or at any other exhibitions of their anger. In fact, the boys seemed to be imbued with a native loftiness and fearlessness of character, as if they had inherited a spirit of confidence and courage with their royal blood, or had imbibed a portion of the indomitable temper of their fierce foster mother.