My best friend is a Trekkie, so I feel obligated to put in a Romulan joke for this post. As a fun side fact, a race called the Remans also exists in the Star Trek universe. Much like the Romulans, they share a gene with the Vulcans.
Alright, sci-fi geekery aside, let's turn to mythology!
I talked briefly about the brothers Romulus and Remus in my post about Valentine's Day, but I wanted to delve further into their story. The two are arguably some of the most important characters in Roman mythology, since their tale is the story of the founding of Rome itself.
The story begins with a king named Numitor, who had a beautiful daughter named Rhea Silvia. Numitor ruled over a city in ancient Italy, and was a fair and wise king...but he had a jealous brother named Amulius who wanted that power for himself.
In a drastic coup, Amulius seized control of the city. He overthrew and banished Numitor, and then killed his sons, leaving him with no rightful heir. Knowing that any children born to Rhea Silvia would be descendants of Numitor with a legitimate claim to the throne, Amulius forced the young woman to take a vow of chastity, swearing to remain a virgin.
Enter the gods.
Now, I don't know if Mars was truly smitten with Rhea Silvia or if he took her vow of chastity as a challenge. Knowing the gods, it might have been both. At any rate, Mars (the god of war, and one of the most important deities in the Roman pantheon) visited Rhea Silvia and impregnated her.
Amulius was furious when he found out that his niece was pregnant - after all, the resulting sons would be a great threat to his reign. As soon as Romulus and Remus (twin boys) were born he had them exposed, a term often used in mythology for leaving children out in the wilderness to die. In this case, the boys were left naked next to the Tiber river.
(Rhea Silvia, for her part, was ordered to be drowned in the Tiber. In some versions of the story she is killed, while in others she is saved by the god of the Tiber river and made his immortal wife. One god wasn't enough for her, I guess?)
Exposing children is a very common theme in mythology...and those children often survive and come back to haunt those who exposed them. Romulus and Remus were no exception. Through a miraculous series of events, they survived exposure. A female wolf who had recently given birth nursed the two boys and took care of them until they were found by a shepherd, who along with his wife adopted Romulus and Remus.
The two boys grew up happy and healthy, and served as shepherds alongside their adopted father. They were strong, and soon proved to be natural leaders. As young men they gathered other youths from the villages around them, and eventually took to adventures outside of shepherding.
In essence, the two young men became Robin Hoods, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. I have wondered at times if they were the basis for the Robin Hood stories.
However, Romulus and Remus had one distinct difference from Robin Hood. Instead of robbing from nobles, they robbed from other robbers and brigands. The two brothers took great delight in robbing a group who had just committed successful robberies of their own, and then redistributing the goods to those who needed them most.
The robbers who were not part of our band of miscreants eventually grew tired of being mugged. They plotted a trap for Romulus and Remus' group and sprang it one night while the young men were out drinking and partying at a festival. In the confusion of the fight Remus was captured by the brigands.
Remus was taken by the bandits before King Amulius, though no one was aware of the duo's relationship. The cunning thieves accused Remus and his band of the crimes that they themselves had committed - namely, robbing the lands of Numitor, who had begun to rule over a small section of land after his banishment.
Amulius was unconcerned with the accusations put forth against Remus - after all, it wasn't his lands that were being robbed. He told the bandits to go and tell Numitor of the crimes, and so they dragged Remus to the lands of Numitor and brought him before the old man.
Numitor hardly paid attention as Remus was accused of robbing his lands. The old man was too struck by something he saw within the young man. Some stories I've read say he recognized his daughter Rhea Silvia in Remus. Others say that he recognized something kingly in Remus' bearing. Either way, Numitor began to wonder if perhaps the young man might be his grandson...particularly when he was told that Remus was a twin, since he had known of Rhea Silvia's having given birth to two sons.
Curious, Numitor ordered everyone except for Remus out of the room, desiring to question the lad alone. His plans were foiled when Romulus burst into the room with his adopted father, both having come to save Remus. Between the four of them the men managed to piece everything together, and Numitor was overjoyed to be united with his stepsons.
The youths had grown up without knowing of their royalty, or of their mother. When Numitor told them of how Amulius had stolen his throne and had their mother killed, Romulus and Remus were furious.
To make a long story short, the two young men killed Amulius and retook his throne, avenging the death of their mother. They bestowed his kingdom upon its rightful ruler, Numitor, and then left to found a city of their own.
Here is where tragedy enters the story. Romulus and Remus could not decide who should be the rightful king of the city they were constructing. They were twins, so neither had the definitive birthright to the throne. They decided that they would each stand atop a hill and watch for a sign from the gods, and whoever received the sign would become king.
Unfortunately, both men received what they took to be signs, and so they began to argue about which sign was better.
Ahh, the joys of sibling rivalries.
In the end, Romulus decided that the city should be his and so began to construct a stone wall. Remus, mocking his efforts, leapt over the wall to show how easily the city could be taken. In a fit of anger Romulus struck his brother down, killing Remus for his insolence.
He then declared that such a fate would meet any who dared attempt to storm the gates of the city.
That city, named in his honor, was Rome.
I hope you guys enjoyed the story! I'll be back next week with a special holiday post. See you then!
No comments:
Post a Comment