SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome

by Mary Beard

Modern historians have floated all kinds of solutions to explain the apparently redundant twin. Perhaps it points to some basic duality in Roman culture, between different classes of citizen or different ethnic groups. Or maybe it reflects the fact that later there were always two consuls in Rome. Or perhaps deeper mythic structures are involved, and Romulus and Remus are some version of the divine twins that are found in various corners of world mythology, from Germany to Vedic India, including in the biblical story of Cain and Abel. But whatever solution we choose (and most modern speculation has not been very convincing), an even bigger puzzle is that fact that one of the founding twins really was redundant – since Remus was killed by Romulus, or in other versions by one of his henchmen, on the very first day of the city.