Romulus and Remus

Numitor, a descendant of Aeneas, was deposed from the rule of Alba Longa by his younger brother Amulius, who not only killed Numitor's sons but forced his only daughter, Rhea Silvia, to become a Vestal Virgin so that no children might be born of her. But the god Mars layed with the girl and she bore him twin sons, Romulus and Remus. Flinging her into prison, Amulius ordered the babies to be thrown into the river Tiber, but the basket in which they layfloated safely to the shore near a fig tree, the Ficus Ruminalis, later held to be sacred.

Here a she-wolf, hearing the infants' cries, came and suckled them and a woodpecker fed them scraps of food. Both creatures were sacred to Mars. The royal shepherd, Faustulus, chanced by and saw the she-wolf tenderly licking the babies as if they were her own young. Guessing the boys' royal parentage, he took them home and he and his wife, Acca Larentia, brought them up as their own.

They grew into fine, strong young men who often led a band of young shepherds on daring exploits. One day Remus was captured and handed over to Numitor to be punished. Numitor suspected that Remus and his brother might be his lost grandsons and had his suspicions confirmed by Faustulus. Romulus and Remus, with the help of their loyal band of young men, attacked the palace and killed the usurper Amulius. Numitor once more became king.

The brothers now decided to found a city of their own. They chose a site not far from Alba Longa and near the Tiber where they had been cast out to die. But now they quarrelled as to who should name the city and become its king. Since they could not know which twin was the elder, they left it to the gods to send a sign, with Remus taking up a position on the Aventine Hill and Romulus on the Palatine. Remus first saw six vultures, then Romulus saw twelve. Each of them was named king by their own followers, Remus on the grounds of priority, Romulus of quantity. In the brawl that followed, Remus was slain.

In another version of his death, Remus spoke slightingly of the new city walls and jumped over them at which he was killed either by Romulus or by his henchman Celer. Romulus declared in anger, "So perish anyoneelse who shall leap over my walls." Now he was left alone to found the city, which he called Rome after himself.

Source: March, Jennifer, "Cassell's Dictionary of classical mythology", Cassell&Co, London, 1998