The Kingdom of Rome Part 1
The Foundation of Rome - The Kingdom of Rome
Legend and myth would have us believe that the city of Rome was founded by either Romulus and Remus or the survivors from the siege of Troy. While these myths are very well know in today’s society to anyone with a passing interest in history, they are completely unsupported by any historical evidence yet to be discovered.
The legend of Romulus and Remus concerns two brothers that were abandoned as babies because it had been prophesised that the two brothers would overthrow their uncle Amilius. It is said that Amilius ordered the two babies to be thrown into the Tiber river, but the two servants tasked with the deed left the babies in the wild instead. Legend then claims that a she-wolf raised the two boys. Upon ascending to adulthood the two brothers would fulfil the prophecy and successfully overthrow their uncle. From this point the brothers would, according to the legend, decide to found a city but would fallout over either the naming of this new city or the location to build this new city. Romulus would kill Remus and the city would be named Rome after the victorious brother.
Romulus would go onto rule Rome for nearly forty years and in those thirty seven years he would oversee the strengthening of the Kingdom of Rome. One of the most infamous and defining events regarding the early days of the Kingdom of Rome would be the ‘Rape of the Sabine Women’.
‘The Rape of the Sabine Women’ is an event which would spark war in Ancient Italy. Rome had been founded and populated by this point and the populace had been divided into three tribes by Romulus (The Ramnes, the Titenses and the Luceres). From the top families of each tribe, Romulus would form the hundred strong senate. To encourage the growth of his new city, Romulus would first outlaw infanticide and make Rome an asylum where both freemen and slaves could claim protection.
Though the population of Rome swiftly swelled with colonists, most of these colonists were young, unmarried men. Thus in the early days of Roman History, the number of men in the city vastly outnumbered the number of women. Romulus knew that without women that the city would swiftly die. Though Romulus and the Senate would try and negotiate with neighbouring settlements to allow intermarrying between them and the Romans, these settlements would refuse. This refusal would lead to the ‘Rape of the Sabine Women’.
Following the refusal of what they saw as a reasonable request, the Roman Senate and Romulus began to plot to take Sabine Women for their own. They held a large festival in honour of the sea god Neptune and invited the neighbouring Sabines. According to the historian Livy, the festival attracted attendants from other towns as well as the Sabine, but it is not clear whether any women were taken from these other attendants or just the Sabine.
With the festival in full swing, Romulus gave a signal and the Roman men suddenly grabbed the Sabine women and made off with them while other Romans fought off the Sabine men.
While the event itself is referred to as the ‘Rape of the Sabine Women’, according to Livy, no actual sexual assault took place. What is suggested is a gradual seduction of these women by Romulus by promising them free choice as well as rights that they didn’t have with the Sabines.
The events that follow we will refer to as the ‘Rome - Sabine War’, but in actuality it is a conflict that history hasn’t named. The conflict encompassed more than just the Romans and the Sabines as a number of the nearby tribes (Ones who had attended and witnessed the abductions) would attack Rome.
Tribes known as the Caeninenses and the Antemnates were the first to enter Roman territory. The Romans, led by Romulus, defeated first the Caeninenses and then the Antemnates in battle before capturing their towns. A third tribe the Crustumini would start a war with Rome, but the same fate would befall them as that which had befallen the Caeninenses and the Antemnates.
Romulus would waste no time in ensuring that Roman colonists set up in these towns and some of the natives would even migrate to Rome.
The Sabines would finally declare war on the Romans and would be led by their King against the Romans, and the Sabines even came very close to conquering the city and perhaps changing the course of human history forever, but during the final battle between the two sides (The Battle of Lacus Curtius) the Sabine Women suddenly rushed the battlefield and put themselves between both armies. They implored both sides to stop the fighting and accept each other as family as the Sabine women had done. Ashamed, Romulus and Tatius ended the fighting between their people.
Following the end of the Roman - Sabine War, the Romans and the Sabine would become one people with Titus and Romulus sharing rule of Rome.
