O. Müller supposes that there was a similar ground in the worship of Apollo for the descent of the Julii from Æneas. Augustus, at any rate, refers very explicitly to Apollo as the tutelary god of the Julian family. Julius Cæsar, on the contrary, always speaks of Venus as the foundress of his family. So that the worship of Venus or Aphrodite can be attributed to the Julii with equal reason.
The connection of the Julian family with Æneas could be very simply established by the fiction that the eponymous founder of the family Iulus was one and the same person as Ascanius, the son of Æneas, who consequently had two names. The advantage gained by the Julian race from this fiction was considerable. The descent from Æneas gave a certain appearance of legitimacy to the claims of Julius Cæsar upon the sovereignty. Therefore Cæsar used every opportunity of certifying this origin of his race. Virgil’s Æneid has also the subordinate political aim of investing the monarchy of Augustus with the halo of legitimacy by basing it to a certain extent on the idea of succession.
The Romulus Legend Examined
The deeds and institutions ascribed by the Romans to Romulus are the outcome of their conception of him. In the first two kings of the Roman state legend has personified the two fundamental elements of the Roman state—the warlike spirit of the nation, and its religious character.
Accordingly the first king was made to found the Roman state on the power of arms, imbuing it with the spirit of conquest and the ambition for ascendency in arms, whilst the second, founding it on religion and morality, was made to give it a second birth.
Warlike activity is the chief feature of the influence of Romulus, his last word to his Romans and his political testament was the call to a zealous following of the art of war. A truthful conception incontestably lay at the root of this tradition.
The conditions of every state are in accordance with its origin, nothing can alter its historical basis; and if it be true that a kingdom must be maintained by the means by which it was founded, the opposite conclusion—that the means by which a state is maintained are those upon which its foundation was based—seems no less to be a truth. Hence a state which is maintained by the sword must owe its origin to the sword. In the legends of their origin many nations exhibit a very just knowledge of their national character and their mission in history. The trade and artifice claimed as the foundation of Carthage were a happy emblem of the spirit of this commercial race.
Rome was founded by the sword, a warrior hero made it, and no other founder was worthy of so great a military state. But Romulus, the first king, was not only credited with the foundation and military organisation of the rising state, but with the establishment of its fundamental political institutions. Accordingly he was supposed to have divided the people into tribes and curiæ, and some writers go so far as to credit him with their division into the two classes of patricians and plebeians, as well as the institution of patronage and clientage. Religion and religious law were attributed to Numa for the most part, though the Rome of Romulus could not have been quite destitute of religious worship. Some temples (those of Jupiter Feretrius and of Jupiter Stator) are unanimously reported by tradition to have been founded by Romulus. He is also said to have erected several chapels and altars, instituted festivals and services, founded priesthoods, the sacra of the curiæ, and, in particular, to have instituted the order and manner of the worship of the gods. But the particular form of worship which he is supposed to have introduced is not specified more clearly. There is even some doubt as to whether Romulus or Numa instituted the worship of Vesta, the primal worship of every colony.
On the other hand it is impossible for the institution of the augurs, which was wholly religious, to have originated with Numa. For the foundation—i.e., the existence of the Roman state, no less than that of her fundamental institutions, must have rested upon divine sanction, and been consecrated by divine protection, if the Roman nation’s consciousness of being a chosen people under the protection and guidance of the immortal gods has any historical foundation. The faith of the Romans in their divine origin and the institution of their state by providence necessarily involves the augustum augurium which decided the foundation of Rome and was the groundwork of Roman faith. Hence Romulus must have built the city after consulting the augurs, and in settling all the early institutions he must have been the first and best augur.