Roman foundation myth
The legendary account of Rome’s origins, centered on the twins Romulus and Remus, their survival, and Romulus’s founding of the city.
Romulus and Remus: Twin sons of Rhea Silvia and Mars, raised by a she-wolf in Roman legend; Romulus became Rome’s founder. Their contested founding story supplies the myth’s central characters.
Aeneid: Virgil’s Latin epic, which follows Aeneas from Troy to Italy and links his descendants to Rome’s destiny. The epic connects Rome’s foundation traditions to the aftermath of the Trojan War.
Rhea Silvia: The Vestal Virgin who, in Roman legend, bore Romulus and Remus to the god Mars. Her forbidden motherhood explains the twins’ royal and divine ancestry.
Roman nationalism: A form of collective identity centered on Rome’s history, institutions, civic belonging, and claims to supremacy. The foundation story presented Rome as a people with an exceptional ancestry and destiny.
Rape of the Sabine women: A Roman legend in which Romulus’s followers abduct Sabine women to secure wives for the new settlement. The episode turns Rome’s early lack of families into a story of expansion and conflict.
Aeneas: A Trojan hero who, in Roman tradition, escaped Troy and became an ancestor of the Roman people. His Italian descendants place Romulus within a longer story of migration from Troy.
Mars (mythology): The Roman god of war, identified with the Greek Ares and regarded as the father of Romulus and Remus. Mars gives Rome’s founders a divine lineage associated with warfare.
Roman imperialism: The expansion and rule of Roman power over territories and peoples beyond the city of Rome. The myth’s stories of conquest and incorporation offered precedents for Rome’s expanding power.
Battle of the Lacus Curtius: The legendary battle in which Sabine women intervened between Roman and Sabine forces. Their intervention resolves the war sparked by Rome’s abduction of Sabine women.
Alba Longa: An ancient Latin city, legendary home of the Alban kings from whom Romulus and Remus descended. The twins’ royal ancestry runs through Alba Longa before Rome is founded.