Proca ruled next. His sons were Numitor and Amulius; to Numitor, the elder, he bequeathed the ancient realm of the Silvian family. Yet violence proved more potent than a father's wishes or respect for seniority. Amulius drove out his brother and ruled instead of him. Adding crime to crime, he killed Numitor's sons; and Rhea Silvia, his brother's daughter, he made into a Vestal under pretence of honouring her, and by consigning her to perpetual virginity, deprived her of the hope of children.
But the Fates were resolved, as I suppose, upon the founding of this great City, and the beginning of the mightiest of empires, next after that of Heaven. The Vestal was raped, and having given birth to twin sons, [she] named Mars as the father of her doubtful offspring, whether actually so believing, or because it seemed less wrong if a god were the author of her fault. But neither gods nor men protected the mother herself or her babes from the king's cruelty; the priestess he ordered to be manacled and cast into prison, the children to be committed to the river. It happened by unusual good fortune that the Tiber had spread beyond its banks into stagnant pools and there was nowhere any access to the regular channel of the river. The men who brought the twins hoped that being infants they might be drowned, no matter how sluggish the stream. So they decided to obey the king's command, by exposing the babes at the nearest point of the overflow, where the fig-tree Ruminalis —formerly, they say, called Romularis —now stands. In those days this was a wild and uninhabited region. The story is told that when the floating basket in which the children had been exposed was left high and dry by the receding water, a she-wolf, coming down out of the surrounding hills to slake her thirst, turned her steps towards the cry of the infants, and with her teats gave them suck so gently, that the keeper of the royal flock found her licking them with her tongue. Tradition gives the name of this man as Faustulus, and adds that he carried the twins to his hut and gave them to his wife Larentia to rear. Some think that Larentia, having been free with her favours, had got the name of “she-wolf” among the shepherds, and that this gave rise to this marvellous story. The boys, thus born and reared, had no sooner become young men than they began — without neglecting the farm or the flocks —to explore the mountains and hunt for game. In this way they gained both strength and resolution, and decided to not only face wild beasts, but also attack robbers carrying their loot, and divide up what they took from them among the shepherds who shared their work and pranks, while their band of young men grew larger every day….
[Romulus and Remus met Numitor, who recognized their identity, and began a conspiracy to overthrow King Amulius. The conspiracy was successful and Numitor took over as ruler of Alba Longa.]
After the Alban state was turned over to Numitor, Romulus and Remus were seized with the desire to found a city in the region where they had been exposed and brought up. ... Their plans were interrupted by the curse of their grandfathers, the greed of kingly power, and by a shameful quarrel which grew out of it, upon an occasion innocent enough. Since the brothers were twins, and they did not know which was born first and desired more respect, it was agreed that the gods who had those places in their protection should choose by augury who should give the new city its name, who should govern it when built. Romulus took the Palatine for his augural quarter, Remus the Aventine.
Remus is said to have been the first to receive an augury, from the flight of six vultures. Just after that omen, twice that number of vultures appeared to Romulus. Then each brother was claimed as king by his own followers, one side laying claim to the honour from priority, the other from the number of the birds. They then engaged in a battle of words and, when angry insults led to bloodshed, Remus was struck down in the fight. The more common story is that Remus leaped over the new walls in mockery of his brother, and then Romulus in great anger killed him, and in a menacing voice, added these words , “So perish whoever else shall leap over my walls!” Thus Romulus acquired sole power, and the city, thus founded, was called by its founder's name….
