Romulus and Remus: A Wall Between Brothers

Before Rome had a name, it had two brothers. A king had ordered them drowned. Years later, only one would survive the city they wanted to build together.

The river carried their basket to safety. In the story Romans told, a wolf heard the hungry infants and fed them beneath the trees.

A shepherd brought them home. Romulus and Remus grew up sharing a roof, rough work, and the knowledge that each had someone at his back.

When they learned who had abandoned them, they helped overthrow the king. Their grandfather regained his throne. The brothers wanted a city of their own.

They agreed on the land near the river. They could not agree on the hill, the ruler, or whose name people would say when they came home.

So they asked the gods to choose, watching for birds. Remus saw six vultures first. Then Romulus saw twelve.

“We saw ours first,” Remus’s followers said. “We saw twice as many,” said Romulus’s. Each brother heard the answer he wanted. The argument moved down from the hills.

Romulus began his wall. Remus came to watch. The brother who had always stood beside him was now being told which side to stand on.

Remus stepped across it. A joke, perhaps. A challenge. The wall was not yet high enough to keep a man out.

Romulus struck him down. The brother who had survived the river did not survive the boundary.

The city took Romulus’s name. Men would make its walls taller. They would tell their children where its greatness began.

They also kept telling the story of the wolf: a creature that had room beneath its body for both of them.