God(s) of the Week: Romulus and Remus

God of the Week 01/04/10: Romulus and Remus

Romulus and Remus were the sons of the god Mars and the Vestal virgin Rhea Silvia.  They were credited as being the founders of Rome. When their power hungry uncle Amulius began to do in his relatives in order to consolidate power, their mother put the twins into a basket and set it adrift on the Tiber river. They were found and nursed by a she wolf until a shepherd took them in. Once they aged they hunted down and killed their uncle. But the tale doesn’t end there:

Unable to sever their [connections] with the locality
where they had spent their boyhood, they jointly founded a
new city there, but when it became necessary to decide the
question as to which of them should rule, they fell to quarrel-
ling, until finally, in an outburst of anger, Romulus killed
Remus, and, now without a rival, assumed the title and the
powers of king. To perpetuate his own name he called his city
Rome. – Mythology of All Races, Vol 1, Greek and Roman by William Sherwood Fox, Louis Herbert Gray editor

Who know founding a city would entail so much blood shed.

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