Romulus

The Plutarch Podcast

Parallel - Theseus

Origin Stories

• Rome: What's in a name?
• From Aeneas to Alba Longa
• Romulus and Remus: Childhood
  • Left to die by a river
  • Wolf and woodpecker
• Romulus and Remus: Off to Found a City
  • Rome is for runaways! Open the gates and seize the...day?
  • Location, location, location!
  • Vultures? 6/12? First/Second?
  • Walls and Ditches – death of Remus
  • Plows the circumference: pomerium etym.

Rome's Birthday - April 21, 753 BC

Roman Customs: More Etymologies and etiologies

• Legion v. Populus
• Patricians
• Senate < senex – old man
• Patrons and Clients

Sabine Women

• Not the Sobbin' Women...
• Did Romulus need women or want war?
• R. sets up a feast (finds an altar?)
• Conses < consilium
  • On my signal…
  • How many taken?
    • 30, 527, or 683?

Origin of the Roman Triumph

• Acron v. Romulus: 1 v. 1
• R. wins and dedicates his armor to Jupiter

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780–1867), Romulus’ Victory over Acron (i.e. the first Roman Triumph), (1812), tempera on canvas, 276 x 530 cm, École des Beaux Arts, Paris. Wikimedia Commons.

Plutarch's Walking Tour of Rome

• Tarpeian Rock
• Lacus Curtius
• Jupiter Stator
• Etym. Quirites?

Civic Duties

• Three Tribes
• 100 more Senators
• Privileges for Women
• Feasts, old and new
• Vestals, sacred fire (more on this in the Life of Numa)
• Lituus and Augurs
• Laws
• Divorce
• Murder / Parricide

Romulus' End and Rome's Beginning

• Tatius, co-king, killed
• Haughty King
  • Lictors – etym.
• Numitor dies; Romulus inherits Alba
• Romulus disappears
  • Murdered?
  • Taken up into heaven?
• Romulus' advice to the Romans:
  • "Tell the Romans that if they practice self-restraint, and add to it valor, they will reach the utmost heights of human power."

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