There was more at stake in this than just the question of how the city first took shape. As they crammed into Romulus’ old temple to listen to the new ‘Romulus of Arpinum’, those senators would have been well aware that the foundation story raised even bigger questions, of what it was to be Roman, of what special characteristics defined the Roman people – and, no less pressing, of what flaws and failings they had inherited from their ancestors.
