Romulus : l'histoire de la fondation de Rome

by Plutarch, Ed Le Mono

Quand Romulus eut fonde Rome, il ouvrit un asile aux etrangers venus en masse, et bientot, il en fit une grande armee de combattants. Comme les soldats manquaient de femmes, il en demanda par ambassadeurs aux villes voisines. Sur leur refus, il feignit de celebrer des jeux en l'honneur du dieu Consus. Une multitude de spectateurs des deux sexes s'y rendit; et sur un signal de Romulus, les jeunes filles furent enlevees. Les nations alentours declarerent alors la guerre a Rome en represailles a ces enlevements. Les femmes que les Romains avaient enlevees s'elancerent au milieu de la melee, supplierent, d'un cote leurs peres, de l'autre leurs maris, de se reconcilier, et obtinrent enfin la paix. Rome echappa ainsi a une guerre qui aurait pu l'aneantir..."

Genres: Biography, Classics, History

90 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 75

About the author

Plutarch (later named, upon becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus; AD 46–AD 120) was a Greek historian, biographer, and essayist, known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia. He is classified as a Middle Platonist. Plutarch's surviving works were written in Greek, but intended for both Greek and Roman readers.

Reviews

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this second of Plutarch’s first two “parallel lives” more than its literary “brother” Theseus, perhaps because Romulus seems slightly closer to history, or perhaps because Plutarch, writing about the first Roman, did not have—as was the case with his biography of Athen's founder of Athens—revered local Boetian traditions to present and (at some length) defend.

Whatever the reason, “Romulus” moves at a decent pace and seems more like a mythic narrative than a treatise on the historicization of myth (although it sounds a little like that too, at times). At any rate, the narrative is generally interesting, and the passage on the Rape of the Sabine Women (that archetypal "marriage by capture" tale) is particularly fine.

Here is a bit of historicization, which deals with the question: were Romulus and Remus really suckled by a wolf?:

Others think that the first rise of this fable came from the children’s nurse, through the ambiguity of her name; for the Latins not only called wolves lupae, but also women of loose life; and such an one was the wife of Faustulus, who nurtured these children, Acca Larentia by name. To her the Romans offer sacrifices, and in the month of April the priest of Mars makes libations there; it is called the Larentian Feast.

And here is the conclusion of the episode of the Sabine women, where the women beseech both their husbands (once their abductors) and their fathers (who failed to rescue them) not to kill each other in a senseless war, making them both orphans and widows:

“Wherein,” say they, “have we injured or offended you, as to deserve such sufferings, past and present? We were ravished away unjustly and violently by those whose now we are; that being done, we were so long neglected by our fathers, our brothers, and countrymen, that time, having now by the strictest bonds united us to those we once mortally hated, has made it impossible for us not to tremble at the danger and weep at the death of the very men who once used violence to us. You did not come to vindicate our honor, while we were virgins, against our assailants; but do come now to force away wives from their husbands and mothers from their children, a succor more grievous to its wretched objects than the former betrayal and neglect of them. Which shall we call the worst, their love-making or your compassion? If you were making war upon any other occasion, for our sakes you ought to withhold your hands from those to whom we have made you fathers-in-law and grandsires. If it be for our own cause, then take us, and with us your sons-in-law and grandchildren. Restore to us our parents and kindred, but do not rob us of our children and husbands. Make us not, we entreat you, twice captives.”

[David Sarkies · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Founder of Rome
16 January 2017 - Over the Australian Desert

Well, here I am once again, thirty thousand feet in the air, flying over central Australia where there is nothing but desert for as far as the eye can see. Despite having little sleep the night before, namely because of all the last minute stuff that I ended up having to do to finalise this latest trip, I was still able to finish off this short work by Plutarch (even though the plane is being tossed all over the place by the turbulence – there seems to have been quite a bit on this flight). One thing that I suddenly realised is that I forgot to take any Mr Men books, but that is the worst thing that I forgot, then I probably shouldn't be complaining.

For a while I was confused as to who the actual founder of Rome was, and why Virgil focused on Aeneas as opposed to Romulus when he was crafting his epic piece of propaganda. Then again I suspect that it may have something to do with the journeys of Aeneas being somewhat more interesting than those of Romulus, and further it acts as a Roman version of the Odyssey, and not to mention by making the connection with Aeneas it firmly sets the Romans against the Greeks, even though by that time the Greeks were pretty much under the thumb of the Roman Empire (even though their culture had in turn permeated and changed the empire).

So, Plutarch pairs up Romulus with Theseus, and at the end he even has a comparison. These comparisons aren't so much measuring who is the better person, since both candidates have their good side and their bad. For instance Romulus was a tyrant whereas Theseus wasn't, yet on the other hand Theseus was a bit of a womaniser, and Plutarch even goes as far as condemning him for raping a woman that was literally as old as his great-granddaughter (which, by the way, was Helen of Troy). However, while Romulus orchestrated the kidnapping of over five hundred women from a nearby town, these women weren't all for him, but rather to provide wives for his subjects (an event known as the rape of the Sabine women). Mind you, that doesn't really justify his actions.

Like Theseus, Plutarch looks at the various sources that were available to him, and even compares some to others in relation to their authenticity. What I'm curious about though is whether he also wrote a life of Aeneas that we have lost, or whether he simply did not consider to have enough reliable sources, or even doubted whether he actually sailed to Rome and settled there as Virgil claims. However, on the flip side, he does seem to support Romulus as being an ancestor coming down through his blood line. Well, it is him and his brother, though they have a spat and Remus ends up being killed (and it if was the other way around it would have been the Reman empire as opposed to the Roman Empire).

I know, let's call them Romulans, though I have a sneaky suspicion that that name has already been used.



Anyway, as is the case with a lot of these stories, the story of Romulus and Remus begins with their grandparents, two brothers who divide the kingdom of Alba Longa – one takes the wealth, the other takes the land. However, to prevent any potential heirs from taking back the land, one of the brother's forbids the daughter of the other from having any children, and he does this by making her a vestal virgin (which means no sex – ever - and if you do end up having some hanky-panky then, well, you're going to be in a bit of a bother). Well, she does end up having children – twins – and to protect them from the fury of the king they are placed in a boat on a river )sounds familiar) where they are picked up and suckled by a she-wolf and fed by a woodpecker.

Well, Plutarch seems to thing that is a load of rubbish, and his theory is that since the Latin word for wolf sounds similar to the word describing a woman of lose morals, he believes that they were picked up by one such woman, and raised in a brothel, after which they then went and lived on the farm. However, after the king had been overthrown, they declined to take the crown, and instead set off into the great unknown to start a new city.

I'm not sure about the wolf story either, because I thought that if a she-wolf were to come across a couple of babies in the forest, they would probably be killed and the meat taken back to feed her legitimate children, though stranger things have happened (though, for some reason, they don't seem all that strange after the event). Anyway, whether this story is true or not, one thing that you cannot miss when you end up in Rome (though I try to avoid the place as much as possible) is that the number of statues and carvings of the story of the founders of the city (as well as the letters SPQR).

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[Peter Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Life of Romulus by Plutarch

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I read this for Online Great Books.

Plutarch's motive was to write biographies that could teach moral lessons to readers, rather than histories. The life of Romulus concerns the legendary co-founder of Rome. As with the Life of Theseus, the reader is deluged with details about the life of Romulus. There is the mysterious father of Romulus and Remus, their abandonment, rearing by a wolf, recovery by a shepherd, fratricidal murder of Remus, rape of the Sabine women, and more crimes and atrocities.

It is hard to ascertain any Christian virtue in this. The virtue that we might see may involve the martial virtue of doing whatever is necessary to found a civilization. It's not a virtue that we esteem highly today.

Plutarch seems to accept the details he relates as true. For example, there is the mysterious disappearance of Romulus and his subsequent reappearance as the god Quirenus. This passage has often been used by atheist apologists to undermine the uniqueness of Christian claims. It is worth reading this section to see that it really does not map on to the Resurrection appearance.

[Alex]

Much like the biography of Theseus, this one goes into the realm of legend, as is to be expected when the author is attempting to write a biography seven hundred years after the subject had died. There is also the fact that Romulus was the founder of a city that eventually grew into a world empire, and there is a habit later on of projecting this fate back into a time when it was not obvious at all that Rome would have such a spectacular future. Yet Plutarch acknowledges that he has to deal with conflicting legends, and dubious stories.

I was surprised that there was much debate on the origin of Rome back then. Everyone has heard of Aeneas, Romulus, and Remus. Who has heard of Roma, who burnt the ships of the Trojan refugees at the mouth of the Tiber? I didn't know that some said Rome was founded by the Pelasgians, the Greek aborigines, and there are more alternative origins.

The most popular story however is told well. Aeneas landed upon Italy and his ancestors reigned over the city of Alba. Amulius usurped the throne from his brother Numitor, and made Numitor's daughter a vestal virgin. She, Rhea Silvia, nonetheless gave birth two twins Romulus and Remus, whom Amulius tried to kill, but the servant commanded with the task could not do it. He either left them to be exposed, and they were rescued by a wolf, or he raised them himself. Plutarch gives multiple possible explanations for the rise of the nursing wolf legend.

Romulus from his very youth appears destined to be a leader, showing the wisdom of a statesmen in everything from feeding flocks of hunting. The brothers went on heroic adventures, “hunting and running, repelling robers, taking of thieves, and delivering the wronged and oppressed from injury. For doing such things they became famous.”

In a minor quarrel between Numitor and Amulius, Remus finds himself in the middle and is delivered to Numitor for punishment. The latter sees “a divine influence aiding and directing the first steps that were to lead to a great results” and then Remus reveals that he and his brother are Numitor's grandchildren. Romulus then leads a successful rebellion against Amulius, a fairy tale ending, if it had ended there.

Plutarch defends the unlikelihood of the story, pointing out, not incorrectly, that men ought to remember “what a poet fortune sometimes shows herself”

Then come more very famous Roman legends. The location of a new city is chosen through an act of divination, looking for a flock of birds. Remus sees six, Romulus sees twelve, therefore the location of the city is decided by the latter, and the vulture wins honor in Roman lore. Remus suspects foul play and as Romulus is working on the boundary wall for his city, Remus leaps over it and is killed by Romulus for daring to jump over his wall. Typically however the exact manner of his death is disputed, but fratricide seems like an ominous crime to haunt the origins of a great city.

Even back then Rome embarked upon its career of conquest. “And indeed there was nothing did more the greatness of Rome than that she did always unite and incorporate those whom she conquered into herself” “Many foreign nations too showed respect to Romulus, the ancient Latins sent and entered into an alliance with him. He conqueres the city of Fidenae, but after killing its men he does not raze it but sends his own Roman colonists to take it over. This of course triggers a war, but Romulus wins again.

He concerns himself with increasing the population. He sets up an asylum. The rape of the Sabine women ends in an ironic alliance as the woman come out and defend their captors from the men sent to rescue them.

After so many victories King Romulus begins growing corrupt, and even before Tarquinus Superbus the Romans were apparently murmuring about establishing a republic, but any potential rebellion is cut short by Romulus' mysterious disappearance. Perhaps Plutarch notes, he was killed clandestinely by hostile senators, each taking a piece of the corpse home as some grotesque souvenir, then they spread the rumor that he had simply gone up to the gods. Perhaps this is what should've been done with Ceasar

We see a glimpse into Plutarch's theology which involves no resurrection of the body but nonetheless the purification and glorification of the soul. He quotes Pindar “all human bodies yield to Death's decree, the soul survives to all eternity” and Heraclitus “the most perfect soul is a dry light, which flies out of the body as lightning breaks from a cloud, but that which is clogged and surfeited with body is like gross and humid incense, slow to kindle and ascend.” I suppose he would agree with Socrates that the body is the prison of the soul.

Romulus in the popular legend however becomes the god Quirinus, who then promises the Romans that their city will become “the greatest in the world for empire and Glory...by the exercise of temperance and fortitude, they shall attain the height of human power” Perhaps the implication being that by intemperance and sloth they would lose it.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though this life has more fable than those that follow, there are great lessons. The section comparing the leadership of Theseus to Romulus is superb.
..."neither lived up to the true character of a king, but fell off, and ran, the one into popularity, the other into tyranny."