The Mythological Foundations and Societal Contradictions of the Eternal City

The ancient narratives detailing the origins of the eternal city along the Tiber River reveal far more than simple myths about an early settlement. These foundational stories serve as a profound reflection of the deepest societal anxieties, moral contradictions, and core values of a civilization that would eventually dominate the known world. The intellectual elite, possessing ample wealth and leisure time, projected their own political and moral concerns onto these legendary tales. In antiquity, cultural anxieties were often a privilege of the affluent, making the legends of violence, sibling murder, and the acceptance of outcasts a perfect canvas for examining the internal demons of the ruling class. This context is essential for understanding how the empire viewed its own turbulent beginnings.

The Enigma of the Dual Founders and the Fatal Sibling Murder

Within these historical transmissions, some of the most crucial themes of the later imperial era subtly shine through the text. A central motif was the nature of the local marriage customs and their brutal origins, highlighted by the intervention of the abducted women who sought to reconcile their fighting parents and spouses. This motif of internal civil conflict would accompany the imperial history for centuries, repeatedly breaking out in devastating wars. To the great enigmas of this foundation legend belongs the claim that there were two original founders. Modern historians have attempted to explain the apparently superfluous twin in every conceivable way.

Explaining the Duality and the Inevitable Internal Conflicts

Perhaps this duality points to a fundamental division within the culture, existing between different classes of citizens or ethnic groups. Alternatively, it might reflect the later political reality of having two consuls governing simultaneously. It could also involve basic mythical structures, since divine twins appear in various myths worldwide. Regardless of the chosen explanation, the fact that one of the founding twins was actually superfluous presents an even greater puzzle. The sibling was killed on the very day of the city foundation by the other twin or one of the followers.

The Attempts of Chroniclers to Conceal the Fratricide

For many citizens who did not simply dismiss this narrative as a harmless legend, this event was the most difficult aspect of the foundation story to digest. A prominent orator and statesman was so obviously embarrassed by this detail that the individual completely omitted it in the account of the early days. The sibling only appears at the beginning when being exposed and then disappears without a trace. Another chronicler, living in the city during the 1st century before the common era, portrayed the murderer as inconsolable, claiming the individual nearly committed suicide out of grief and remorse. Yet another author found an even bolder solution to this problem by completely reversing the murder story.

The Heroic Glorification and the Omnipresent Symbolism

This alternative writer claimed that the victim had grown extremely old and survived the sibling. These attempts were desperate and certainly unconvincing in trying to escape the bleak core of the story. This core stated that fratricide was firmly anchored in the politics of the empire and that the terrible internal struggles, which repeatedly broke out from the 6th century onward, were inevitably predestined. After all, what city founded with a sibling murder could escape murder among its own citizens? The answer to this question was obvious to many ancient poets and thinkers.

The Expansion of Symbols to the Edges of the World

A famous lyric poet lamented the bitter fate of the citizens after the bitter ten-year struggles that followed the assassination of a well-known dictator. The poet attributed the eternal internal unrest directly to the ominous blood that had once flowed into the earth of the innocent sibling. One could therefore say that the civil war was literally in the genes of the populace. Naturally, the murderer could also be proudly presented as a heroic founding leader, which actually happened frequently in antiquity. The obvious discomfort of some intellectuals did not prevent them from wrapping themselves in the mantle of the founder during political disputes.

The Unique Integration Policy of a Global Empire

Despite the dark shadow cast by the fratricide, images of the twins suckled by a wolf were found everywhere in the ancient world. From the capital, where such statue groups stood on the forum and the hill, this symbol spread to the most remote parts of the empire. When the inhabitants of a Greek island wanted to demonstrate their loyalty in the 2nd century before the common era, they decided to erect a monument depicting the birth of the two brothers. The monument itself has not survived, but a marble tablet on which the islanders recorded their decision remains. Nevertheless, there was consistently a clear moral and political tension regarding the character of the sole surviving founder.

The Contrast to Greek Exclusivity and Provincial Origins

Equally unsettling was the idea that the founder offered asylum to all newcomers in search of inhabitants for the newly founded city. The leader welcomed foreigners, criminals, and runaway slaves, integrating them into the young society. This attitude had positive aspects, particularly reflecting the extraordinary openness and willingness to integrate outsiders. Thereby, the political culture differed from all other known western societies of antiquity. In no ancient Greek city was naturalization anywhere near as simple as in the settlement on the river.

The Demographic Impact of the Manumission Practices

Athens particularly restricted access to civil rights and jealously guarded its own privilege. However, this is no proof of a liberal attitude in the modern sense of the word. The empire conquered large areas in Europe and beyond, sometimes with terrible brutality, and often displayed a xenophobic attitude toward peoples they called barbarians. But in a procedure unique for pre-industrial empires, the inhabitants of these conquered territories gradually received full civil rights. This development culminated in the year 212 when an emperor made every free inhabitant of the empire a citizen.

The Rise of Former Slaves into the Citizenship

Even before this time, many from the provincial elite had gained access to the political hierarchy of the capital. Gradually, the senate had developed into a body that one would probably describe as decidedly multicultural today. In the list of emperors, there are some who were born outside Italy. The parent of a later ruler was the 1st emperor who came from the African part of the empire, and two more regents came from the Spanish province. When another emperor argued before the reluctant senate in the year 48 to admit citizens from Gaul to the senatorial office, the ruler reminded the assembled members extensively that the city had always been open to strangers.

The Mockery of Aristocratic Conceit and the Asylum Narrative

The text of the speech, including some interjections, was immortalized on bronze tablets and erected in the province of Gaul, where it has survived to this day. A similar situation existed with slavery, which was in many ways just as brutal in the empire as the military conquest methods. Many slaves, especially those working in urban houses, did not remain enslaved for life. It regularly happened that they were granted freedom or bought themselves free with their savings. If the owner was a citizen, these freed individuals also received full civil rights and were then hardly disadvantaged compared to those born free.

The Political Instrumentalization of the Foundation History

Here too, the contrast to Athens in classical antiquity is striking, because there only very few slaves received freedom and the freed people did not get civil rights. The practice of manumission was such a characteristic feature of the culture that outsiders commented on it. A king of Macedon noted in the 3rd century before the common era that the citizens had enlarged their country in this way. This population growth was of such dimensions that, according to estimates by some historians, the majority of free citizens in the 2nd century before the common era had slaves among their ancestors. The narrative of the asylum granted by the founder clearly points to this openness.

The Refuge for Slaves and Runaways in the Early Settlement

This suggests that the societal diversity was a feature that dated back to the very beginnings of the city. There were certainly citizens who shared the view of the Macedonian king and considered the integration policy essential for the success of the city. However, there was also the opposing view, which highlighted a far less flattering side of the story. Not only opponents of the empire, but also some citizens themselves, saw a certain irony in the fact that an empire traced its descent to the criminals and outcasts of the peninsula. A renowned satirist, who liked to pour scorn and mockery over arrogance, denounced the class conceit that shaped life in the capital.

The Enduring Legacy of the Controversial Origins

The satirist mocked the patricians who boasted of their centuries-old family trees and ended one of the poems with a swipe at the beginnings of the city. The writer mockingly asked what this arrogance was based on, since the city had been a refuge for slaves and runaways from the very beginning. The implication was that the ancestors of the supposedly noble families had either been simple shepherds or something even worse. A similar allusion was made by another famous orator, who mocked the scum of the early settlement in a letter. The speaker compared the political conditions of the time to a pigsty and mocked a contemporary who made motions as if in a philosophical ideal state.