Romulus and Remus

Assyria was a great kingdom, but it was conquered by Babylon. Babylon was a great empire, but it was conquered by Persia. Persia and Greece were great empires, but they were conquered by Alexander the Great.

That is what the story of the ancient world is like. One king comes along, wins battles, and builds a big empire. His empire lasts for a little while, but the kings who come after him slowly lose control of it. Then another king from another country does the same thing and builds another empire. After a little while, that empire too falls apart. This happens over and over again.

So you won’t be surprised to learn that we’re going to learn now about another big empire. But this one was bigger and stronger than any empire we’ve read about before. It grew to be bigger than Alexander’s empire, and it lasted much longer. As a matter of fact, it lasted for hundreds and hundreds of years. Over a thousand years after this empire fell, people were still learning its language, reading its books, and copying its government. This empire was called Rome.

At first, Rome was just a tiny village in the hills of Italy. Go west from Greece and you’ll see a piece of land that looks like a boot, jutting down into the Mediterranean Sea. This is called a peninsula, because it sticks out into the water. This peninsula is Italy.

The people who lived in Rome told this story about the village’s beginning:

nce upon a time a great king named Numitor had twin grandsons—strong, healthy baby boys, named Romulus and Remus. But Numitor also had a wicked younger brother who plotted against him and stole his throne.

“Those babies might grow up to take my crown!” he said. “Go put them in the Tiber River!”

So a servant took the boys down to the Tiber River. But she felt sorry for them, and put them into a basket and pushed it out into the current.

The basket floated along the river until it got stuck in the root of a fig tree at the river’s edge. That might have been the end of the two boys—but a wolf heard them crying. She peered around the trunk of the fig tree, and saw the basket with the babies in it.

Now, this wolf had cubs of her own. She felt pity for the two hungry babies, and so she tugged the basket up onto the bank and then back to her own den. There, she raised the babies with her own wolf cubs, as her own.

One day a shepherd, out looking for a lost lamb, heard a coo and then a gurgle from the brush surrounding the wolf’s den. He pushed some branches aside—and there saw two fat, happy baby boys, playing naked among the wolf cubs. The shepherd and his wife had no children of their own. So he took the boys home, and the two of them raised the babies to be tall, handsome young men.

When Romulus and Remus were grown, they went back to the fig tree where their basket had landed, so many years ago. They looked around and saw seven hills. “This is the perfect place to build a town,” they said to each other. “A town on top of these seven hills would be strong and hard to attack!” So they began to build a town. And Romulus declared himself the king of this new town. He put himself in charge of building a wall around it. “This wall will keep us safe!” he declared. “Anyone who climbs over my wall will instantly be killed!”

But Remus was angry with his brother. He thought to himself: “We built this town together! Why should Romulus be the ruler of it? I want to be the leader.” So he walked up to the wall and vaulted easily over it.

“What kind of a wall is that?” he sneered. “Anyone can climb over it! How can you keep this town safe?”

Romulus was so angry that he drew his sword, charged at his brother, and killed him on the spot. Then he named the town Rome, after himself. He was Rome’s first king.

What does this story remind you of? Do you remember the story of Sargon, the ruler of one of the very first kingdoms we studied? He floated down the river in a basket until someone rescued him. And do you remember Cyrus? He was also raised by shepherds in the woods. Ancient people liked these stories about their kings. The stories made the kings seem even more legendary—like great fairy-tale heroes who could do anything!