The Timpson Lyceum · History of Rome – Titus Livius (2025)

The Founding of Rome – Lecture 1 (History of Rome)

Overview

Rome told its own origin story as a bridge between the burning towers of Troy and a small settlement on the hills above the Tiber. This lecture traces that legendary arc from Aeneas, the Trojan refugee, through the long line of kings at Alba Longa, down to the twins Romulus and Remus, the she-wolf, and the fratricide that gave the city both its name and its founding date of 753 BC. It matters because these are not merely fairy tales: they are the charter myths a whole civilization used to explain who it was, why it was destined to rule, and why it would one day fight Carthage to the death.

Almost none of the earliest material is history in the strict sense — Rome's own records before the Gallic sack of 390 BC were thin and much was lost — yet the tradition is remarkably self-aware, layering divine ancestry, Greek epic (Homer and Virgil), and folk memory over a genuine 8th-century-BC settlement that archaeology does confirm. Understanding the legend is the key that unlocks Roman self-image for the next thousand years: the reverence for ancestry, the sacredness of the city's boundary, and the conviction that Rome was founded by the son of a god.

Key Concepts

• Aeneas — Son of the Trojan prince Anchises and the goddess Venus (Greek Aphrodite). He escapes the sack of Troy carrying his father and leading his son and a band of Trojans, and is fated by Jupiter to found a new nation in Italy. His story is told in Virgil's Aeneid, composed centuries later, deliberately echoing Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.
• Dido and Carthage — The Trojan fleet is blown off course to Carthage, whose queen Dido falls in love with Aeneas. When the gods order him onward to Italy he abandons her; she kills herself on a pyre, cursing his descendants to eternal enmity — the mythic seed of the later Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage.
• Latium and King Latinus — Landing in Latium, Aeneas allies with the local king Latinus, marries his daughter Lavinia, and founds the city of Lavinium. This triggers war with Turnus, king of the Rutuli, to whom Lavinia had been promised.
• The Latins — After Latinus dies in the fighting, Aeneas unites Trojans and natives into one people, the Latins, and finally defeats and kills Turnus. His death marks the end of the Aeneid.
• Alba Longa — Aeneas's son Ascanius (Iulus) founds Alba Longa, which becomes the chief city of the Latins. A long dynasty of Alban kings then bridges the gap of centuries between Aeneas and Romulus.
• Numitor and Amulius — The rightful Alban king Numitor is overthrown by his brother Amulius, who kills Numitor's sons and forces his daughter Rhea Silvia to become a Vestal Virgin so she can bear no rival heirs.
• Rhea Silvia and Mars — Rhea Silvia nonetheless bears twin sons by the war god Mars. Divine parentage on both sides — Venus for Aeneas, Mars for the twins — signals a hero in Roman myth.
• The she-wolf (lupa) — Ordered drowned in the flooded Tiber, the infants are left in a receding pool and suckled by a she-wolf, then raised by the shepherd Faustulus. Livy notes a rationalizing tradition that lupa also meant the shepherd's wife — but Rome cherished the wolf.
• Romulus and Remus — Raised as shepherds and natural leaders of a following, they discover their identity when Remus is captured and brought before Numitor. They overthrow Amulius, restore their grandfather, and set out to found their own city at the Seven Hills.
• The augury and the fratricide — Disputing which hill to build on and who should be king, the twins seek a sign. Remus sees 6 vultures on the Aventine; Romulus then sees 12 on the Palatine. Romulus claims the throne, begins his walls, and kills Remus when he leaps over them.
• The pomerium — The sacred boundary Romulus plows around the city. Crossing it in arms becomes a capital offense; for a thousand years it separated the civil sphere (inside) from the military (outside) — a general lost his imperium the moment he crossed it.
• 753 BC — The traditional founding date, celebrated each 21 April. Archaeology confirms a real settlement on the Palatine in the 8th century BC, making the legendary date surprisingly close to the historical one.

Worked Example

Placing the founding on a single Roman timeline: ab urbe condita dating. Romans often counted years from the founding of the city — ab urbe condita (AUC), "from the founding of the city." Because the tradition puts the founding in 753 BC, that year is defined as AUC 1 (Romans had no concept of a year zero).

1. Set up the conversion. AUC 1 corresponds to 753 BC, AUC 2 to 752 BC, and so on — each step forward in AUC is one step down in BC. A year $n$ AUC therefore satisfies

$\text{BC year} = 754 - n \qquad (\text{for } n \le 753).$

1. Check the anchor. For the founding itself, $n = 1$ gives $754 - 1 = 753$ BC. Correct.

2. Convert a landmark: the traditional founding of the Roman Republic in 509 BC. Solve $754 - n = 509$, so

$n = 754 - 509 = 245 \text{ AUC}.$

The monarchy therefore lasts on the tradition about $245 - 1 = 244$ years across its seven kings — an average reign near $\tfrac{244}{7} \approx 35$ years, implausibly long and a hint that the "seven kings" compress a longer, messier history.

1. Cross the BC/AD gap carefully. Since there is no year 0, AUC 753 is 1 BC and AUC 754 is AD 1. For any AD year $y$,

$n = 753 + y.$

Thus AD 1 is AUC 754, and the great fire under Nero in AD 64 falls in AUC $753 + 64 = 817$.

1. Gauge the legendary depth. The fall of Troy was traditionally dated to 1184 BC. The stretch from Troy to Rome's founding is

$1184 - 753 = 431 \text{ years},$

a span the legend papers over with the Alban king-list — enough generations to carry Aeneas's bloodline down to Romulus. $\blacksquare$

Summary

• Rome's origin legend runs Aeneas → Alba Longa → Romulus, fusing Trojan refugees, Homeric-Virgilian epic, and native Latin tradition into a single national charter.
• Divine ancestry frames every hero: Aeneas is son of Venus, the twins are sons of Mars; the she-wolf and shepherd rescue them from Amulius's usurpation.
• The city is founded on the Palatine after the augury of the vultures, and Romulus kills Remus for violating the new sacred boundary, the pomerium.
• The traditional founding date is 753 BC (AUC 1), celebrated on 21 April; ab urbe condita dating converts by $\text{BC} = 754 - n$, and archaeology supports a genuine 8th-century settlement.
• Much pre-390-BC material is legend rather than record, but it reveals what Rome believed about itself: descended from gods and heroes, boundary-obsessed, and destined for empire.