The triumph and imminent demise of the liberal world order

The ancient history of the eternal city is inextricably linked to dazzling myths that have significantly shaped the self-image of an entire civilization over many centuries. If you look at the political and social upheavals of Roman antiquity, it quickly becomes clear that the return to the legendary founding fathers is an extremely powerfulTool of rhetorical influence. This deep connection between past and present is the crucial key to understanding the Roman mentality and its unique cultural expression. The stories about the first settlers on the Tiber were always adapted to the respective political requirements and provided with new levels of interpretation.

The strategic foresight in the founding of the city

A well-known statesman of Roman antiquity dealt intensively with the philosophical foundations of good governance in his later years, as his own political power gradually waned. He devoted himself in detail to the historical development of the Roman constitution since its very beginnings. After a short introduction in which he describes the divineAncestry of the city founder was rather awkward, but other fable elements of the tradition were clearly in doubt, he proceeded to a serious discussion. He praised the geographical advantages that the place chosen by the founder of the city for his new settlement undoubtedly possessed. The statesman noted that the benefits of the seaside location and the avoidance of its shortcomings are hardlycould have been more divine than to lay the city on the bank of an uninterrupted and steady stream.

The reality of geography

The river made it easy to import goods from abroad and export domestic surpluses, while the hills provided ideal protection from enemy attacks. It seemed as if the founder had known that the settlement he had built would one day form the centre of a vast empire. Patriotically, however, he disguised the fact that the electricity regularlywith devastating floods and the hills favored the spread of dangerous fevers. These health risks were consistently ignored in the official reading of the political elite in order not to cloud the picture of a perfect city foundation.

The origin of the twins and the power struggle

Another important historian, who came from a city in northern Italy and began his historical records around the year 20 BC, left a much more vivid narrative. He told of a virgin priestess named Rhea Silvia who gave birth to the two boys in the Italian town of Alba Longa. She had by no means voluntarilydetermined to enter the service of the temple, but had been forced to do so in a crushing power struggle. Her uncle Amulius had deposed his brother Numitor as king and himself seized power to usurp dominion.

The Divine Assistance and Salvation in the Water

The new ruler used the religious office as an excuse to reliably prevent the unwanted birth of any heirs from his brother’s line. However, this precaution failed, because soon the temple servant became pregnant and claimed that the god Mars had raped her. The narrator had as much doubts about this as the previously mentioned statesman and suspected,the God may have served only as a useful camouflage of a thoroughly human affair. However, other accounts described with full conviction that a detached phallus had appeared from the flames of the sacred fire that the mother had guarded.

The Exposure and the Miraculous Beast

When the twins were born, the tyrannical uncle ordered his servants to drown the children in the nearby river, but they survived this cruel command. The men entrusted with this unpleasant task did not want to or could not carry out the command to the letter and placed the infants in a basket immediately next to the water that had spilled over the banks.the children, the famous wolf appeared and saved them from drowning safely. The historian was one of the skeptics who tried to explain this implausible part of the legend, since the Latin word for wolfess was also used colloquially for a prostitute.

Growing up with the shepherds and revenge

The question arose as to whether such a courtesan might not find the twins and take care of them, until soon a friendly shepherd took the boys in and kept them with him. Unrecognized, Romulus and Remus grew up in his family in the country until chance brought them together with their grandfather years later as young men. After overthrowing King Numitor as ruler,of Alba Longa, they set out to found a city of their own. Soon, however, they quarreled with devastating consequences, with the narrator suspecting that rivalry and ambition had spread to the brothers over the generations.

The fight for the right hill

The twins could not agree on the location for their new foundation, in particular on which of the various hills should be the center of the first settlement. Romulus chose the Palatine Hill, on which the grandiose imperial palaces were located in later times and from which our word palace is derived. In the course of the following dispute, Remus, whohad spoken in favour of the Aventine, about the fortification that his brother had just built around his preferred location. This jump was a serious insult and led to a conflict that could no longer be resolved peacefully.

The Brotherhood’s Deadly Outcome

The best-known variant of the tradition describes that Romulus then killed his brother and thus became the sole ruler of the place, which henceforth bore his name. When he carried out this terrible blow to fratricide, he cried out loudly that in the future it should happen to everyone who jumps over his walls. This appropriate slogan fit perfectly with a city that from then onas a belligerent state. However, such wars were always presented as a reaction to the aggression of others and thus always justified as completely justifiable.