Number 41. Romulus and Remus.
Long before the great stone temples of Rome rose to touch the Italian sky, before the paved roads stretched like veins to the ends of the earth, and before the thunder of marching legions shook the hills, there was only the wild land.
There was the rushing water of the river Tiber, the whisperings of the oak trees, and the quiet, watchful presence of the seven hills.
This is a story from the heart of ancient Rome, a culture of builders, soldiers, and dreamers, whose language, laws, and stories still echo through our world today.
Like many of the oldest tales, it has been told in dozens of ways by hundreds of voices over the course of more than 2,000 years.
Yet, at its heart, it remains a story about two brothers, a shared dream, and the heavy price of pride.
Our story begins in a time of shadows and stolen crowns, in an ancient city called Alba Longa, which nestled in the hills not far from where Rome would one day stand.
The rightful king of this city was a kind and gentle man named Numitor. He ruled with justice, and the people loved him.
But Numitor had a brother named Amulius, whose heart was cold, sharp, and hollowed out by jealousy. Amulius did not want to serve. He wanted to rule.
With a band of armed men and a heart cleared of mercy, Amulius marched into the palace, dragged his brother Numitor from the throne, and banished him to a life of quiet exile in the countryside.
Amulius crowned himself king, but like all tyrants who steal what is not theirs, he lived in constant, shivering fear. He feared the people, he feared the gods, and most of all, he feared that one day a descendant of Numitor would grow strong enough to take back the crown.
To make sure this could never happen, Amulius kept a watchful, cruel eye on Numitor's family.
When Numitor's daughter, a beautiful and gentle young woman named Rhea Silvia, gave birth to twin boys, the king's fear turned into a roaring panic. These were no ordinary babies. They were healthy, loud, and robust, with eyes that seemed to look straight through the shadows of the palace.
Rumors whispered through the stone corridors that their father was none other than Mars, the fierce God of War himself.
King Amulius knew that if these boys grew to manhood, his stolen reign would end in ruin. He could not allow them to live.
Yet, even a tyrant feared the anger of the gods if he spilled royal blood with his own hands. So Amulius chose a colder, quieter way. He summoned a trusted servant, a man whose loyalty was bound by fear, and handed him a heavy wooden cradle containing the two sleeping infants.
"Take them to the river Tiber," Amulius ordered, his voice like dry leaves scraping on stone. "Throw them into the deepest part of the current. Let the river do what I cannot. Let the water wash away my worries forever."
The servant took the cradle and hurried out of the palace, his boots clicking against the cold marble floor. He walked through the gates of Alba Longa and down into the valley where the Tiber ran wild. It was the season of rains, and the river was not its usual gentle, golden brown self.
It had swollen into a roaring monster, bursting its banks and flooding the low-lying plains. The water swirled with mud, uprooted trees and debris, rushing forward with a deafening growl.
The servant stood at the edge of the flood waters. He looked down at the twin babies. They had woken up, but they were not crying. Instead, they looked up at him with wide, bright eyes, reaching their tiny hands toward the gray sky.
The servant's heart failed him. He was a servant of a cruel king, but he was not a monster. He could not bear to throw these innocent children into the middle of that raging, freezing torrent.
Instead, he walked as far into the shallows as he dared, until the muddy water lapped at his knees. He placed the wooden cradle gently onto the surface of the flood water, near the edge, where the current was slower.
He whispered a brief, silent prayer to the river gods, turned his back and ran away, trying to block out the sound of the rushing water.
The cradle did not sink. Made of sturdy pine and coated in thick pitch, it bobbed like a cork on the surface of the yellow flood waters.
The river, instead of swallowing the boys, seemed to treat them with a strange, liquid tenderness. The current caught the cradle and carried it gently away from the shore, spinning it slowly in the eddies.
It drifted past flooded fields and through groves of half-submerged willow trees, floating downstream toward a destiny that no king could prevent.
For miles, the babies drifted, cradled by the very river that had been ordered to destroy them.
The roar of the main channel grew distant as the flood waters began to spill over a wide, marshy plain at the foot of several steep hills.
Here, the current slowed to a crawl, and the basket drifted toward the shore.
With a soft scraping sound, the cradle bumped against the gnarled roots of a wild fig tree that grew at the base of the Palatine Hill. The tree was known as the Ficus Ruminalis, and its low-hanging branches reached down toward the water like welcoming arms.
The cradle wedged itself tight between two thick roots, held fast against the gentle tug of the receding tide.
The twins were safe from the deep water, but they were now alone in the wilderness, shivering in the damp air as the sun began to sink behind the hills. They began to cry, their small, high voices carrying across the lonely marshes, calling out for warmth, for food, and for a mother who was miles away.
The wild places of the world are filled with eyes, and the cries of the hungry infants did not go unheard.
Deep in a dark, cool cave on the side of the Palatine Hill, a great she-wolf lay resting. Her name, in the stories the Romans would tell for centuries, was Lupa. She was a magnificent creature, with a coat the color of winter earth and eyes like polished amber.
She was strong and fierce, a hunter of the forests. But on this evening, her heart was heavy with her own quiet sorrow. She had recently lost her litter of cubs, and her milk was full, heavy, and aching.
The wind carried the sharp, thin wailing of the human babies up the slope of the hill and into the mouth of her den. Lupa raised her head, her ears twitching, her nose catching the scent of damp wool, river mud, and the unmistakable smell of newborn life.
Slowly, she rose to her feet. She stretched her powerful limbs and trod softly down the rocky path of the Palatine, her paws making no sound on the wet leaves. She moved through the thickets of brushwood until she reached the edge of the water, where the wild fig tree stood.
There, in the wooden cradle wedged between the roots, she found the two babies. They were cold, their skin blue-tinged from the river air, and they were crying with the desperate hunger of those who have nothing left to lose.
Any other wolf might have seen them as easy prey, but Lupa was guided by an instinct older than hunger, a deep and mysterious pity that the Romans would later point to as proof that the gods themselves were watching over the boys.
She stepped into the shallow water, her heavy fur soaking up the mud. She approached the basket and lowered her great gray head.
The babies stopped crying. They smelled the wild, musky scent of the forest, the warmth of living fur, and the rich promise of milk.
Instead of shrinking away, one of the boys reached out a tiny, chubby hand and buried his fingers in the thick ruff of her neck.
Lupa let out a low, rumbling purr. She began to lick the babies with her rough, warm tongue, cleaning the river silt from their faces and warming their cold limbs.
Then, with great care, she nudged the basket further onto the dry bank. She lay down beside them in the soft mud, offering them her milk.
The twins, Romulus and Remus, crawled to her side and drank, finding life and warmth from the wildest mother in the forest.
For many days, this was the life of the royal twins. Lupa carried them one by one in her jaws, up to her dry, warm cave, which became known as the Lupercal.
She kept them safe from the eagles that soared above the cliffs, and the wild boars that rooted in the valleys.
A woodpecker, a bird sacred to the God Mars, also came to the cave, bringing sweet wild berries and dropping them into the babies' mouths. It was a strange, wild nursery, where the fiercest creatures of the forest became the guardians of the future.
One afternoon, a man came walking through the woods. His name was Faustulus, and he was the head shepherd of King Amulius's royal flocks.
Faustulus was a quiet, observant man, who spent his days watching the clouds, the grass, and the behavior of his sheep.
For several days, he had noticed a large she-wolf behaving in a very unwolf-like manner. Instead of hunting the sheep, she was slipping quietly back and forth between the riverbank and the cave on the Palatine Hill, her teats heavy with milk.
Curiosity overcame his fear. Clutching his heavy wooden shepherd's staff, Faustulus crept up the rocky slope of the hill, hiding behind the trunks of the great oak trees. He reached the mouth of the cave and peered inside, squinting in the dim, golden light.
What he saw made him rub his eyes in disbelief. There, lying on the soft earth of the cave floor, was the great she-wolf. And there, rolling in the dirt, laughing and playing with her tail as if she were a cub, were two beautiful, healthy human babies.
The wolf looked up as Faustulus's shadow fell across the cave entrance. She did not growl, she did not bear her teeth. She simply looked at the shepherd with her deep amber eyes, as if she were waiting for him.
Faustulus stepped forward, his heart hammering against his ribs. "By the gods," he whispered.
He knelt on the dirt. Lupa stood up slowly, gave the babies one last lingering lick, and then slipped past the shepherd into the bright afternoon sun, disappearing into the forest.
She had done her part. The wild had saved them, and now it was time for them to return to the world of men.
Faustulus gathered the two laughing boys into his arms. They were heavy, strong, and smelled of pine needles and wild milk. He carried them down the hill to his humble hut on the nearby hill, where his wife, Acca Larentia, was waiting.
Acca Larentia had no children of her own, and when her husband walked through the door with two crying, dirty babies, her heart melted.
She washed the mud of the Tiber from their skin, wrapped them in warm wool, and fed them goat's milk by the hearth. They named the boys Romulus and Remus.
In that simple shepherd's hut, the twins grew up. They did not know they were princes. They did not know that their grandfather was a deposed king, or that their great uncle was a tyrant who wanted them dead.
They believed they were the sons of a shepherd and a shepherd's wife.
But the wild blood of their father Mars, and the fierce spirit of the wolf who had nursed them, could not be hidden. As Romulus and Remus grew into boys, they were taller, stronger, and swifter than any of the other children in the hills.
They did not walk, they bounded. They did not speak in the quiet tones of the valley, their voices were loud and clear, carrying across the ridges.
They spent their days guiding the sheep through the valleys, defending the flocks from wolves and wild dogs, but they also hunted the bandits who hid in the rocky ravines, stealing back the cattle and sheep that had been taken from the poor shepherds.
They divided the recovered treasure equally among their friends, and soon, a band of brave, young, and adventurous shepherds gathered around the twins, looking to them as leaders.
Romulus was the thoughtful one, quiet and calculating, with a gaze that seemed to look at the horizon and see what could be built there.
Remus was the fiery one, quick to laugh, quick to anger, and always the first to leap into a river or charge up a steep cliff. They were inseparable, bound by a love that was as deep as the river that had spared them.
But they were also incredibly proud, and in their pride lay the seeds of a future they could not yet see.
As the twins grew into young men, their reputation spread across the countryside. They were no longer just shepherds, they were the protectors of the hills.
But their bold deeds eventually brought them into conflict with the men of the valley.
One spring day, while Romulus was away gathering his followers, a group of shepherds belonging to Numitor, the exiled king who still lived on his private estates nearby, brought their cattle to graze on the same meadows where Remus was watching his sheep.
The valley was rich, but pride was richer. An argument broke out over who had the right to the sweet green grass.
The argument quickly turned into a brawl. Remus, with his wild, wolf-like courage, fought like a demon, but he was outnumbered.
Numitor's men, angry and bruised, managed to overpower the young man. They bound his hands with thick ropes and dragged him away to their master's villa, accusing him of stealing cattle and causing trouble on their lord's land.
When Romulus returned and found his brother gone, his anger was like a sudden summer storm. He gathered his band of young shepherds, their bronze spears and wooden clubs gleaming in the sunlight, ready to march on Numitor's estate and tear it down stone by stone.
But Faustulus, the old shepherd, stopped him. He laid a trembling hand on Romulus's strong shoulder.
"Wait, my boy," Faustulus said, his voice cracking with the weight of a secret he had kept for nearly 20 years. "There is something you must know before you go to war. You are not my sons. You do not belong to these simple huts."
Romulus stared at him, his brow furrowed. "What do you mean, father?"
And so, by the light of the setting sun, Faustulus told him the whole story. He told him of King Amulius's cruelty, of the basket set adrift on the raging Tiber, of the wild fig tree where the cradle had washed ashore, and of the she-wolf who had nursed them in her cave.
He told him of the royal blood of Alba Longa that flowed in their veins.
"You are princes," Faustulus said softly. "And the man who holds your brother, Numitor, is not your enemy. He is your grandfather, the rightful king who was robbed of his crown."
Romulus's heart swelled with a mixture of wonder and fury. The wild stories of his youth suddenly made sense. The strength in his limbs, the respect his followers gave him, the strange connection he felt to the hills and the river.
He knew what he had to do.
Meanwhile, in the grand hall of Numitor's villa, Remus stood bound before the elderly exile. Numitor looked at the young prisoner. He did not see a common thief or a wild shepherd. He saw a young man who stood tall and proud, even in chains.
There was something in the shape of Remus's jaw, the flash of his eyes, and the noble way he carried himself that stirred an old, painful memory in Numitor's heart.
"Who are you?" Numitor asked, his voice trembling slightly. "Who are your parents?"
Remus looked the old man in the eye, without fear. "I was raised by Faustulus the shepherd," he said. "But my brother and I have always been told that our birth is a mystery. We were found as babies, washed up by the Tiber, and nursed by a wolf."
Numitor stood up from his chair, his hands shaking. He looked at the boy's face and saw the features of his lost daughter, Rhea Silvia. Tears filled the old king's eyes.
"My grandson," he whispered. "The river did not take you."
Before they could embrace, the doors of the hall were thrown open. Romulus burst into the room, not with an army of enemies, but with his band of loyal shepherds. He saw his brother standing unharmed beside their grandfather, and the tension in the room dissolved into a joyful, roaring reunion.
But the joy was short-lived. The brothers knew that as long as the tyrant Amulius sat on the throne of Alba Longa, none of them would ever be safe. The time had come to right the wrongs of the past.
With Romulus leading a force of brave shepherds from one side, and Remus leading a band of loyalists from the other, they marched on the city of Alba Longa. The citizens, weary of Amulius's cruel rule, opened the gates.
The brothers stormed the palace, overcoming the royal guards with the strength and speed they had learned in the wild forests.
Amulius, trapped in his chambers, faced the two young men who had returned from the grave of the river. With a swift and just blow, the tyrant's reign was ended.
The brothers did not take the crown for themselves. Instead, they led their grandfather Numitor to the high terrace of the palace, before the assembled crowd of citizens. Romulus and Remus were the first to kneel before him, hailing him as the true and rightful king of Alba Longa.
The crowd took up the cry, and the city rejoiced.
Numitor, weeping with gratitude, offered his grandsons wealth, land, and high positions in his court. But the twins looked at each other, and in their eyes, there was the same restless, wild spirit.
They had restored their grandfather to his throne, but they did not want to live in his shadow. They had grown up in the fresh air of the hills, sleeping under the stars and running with the wind. They did not want to inherit a city, they wanted to build one.
"We will return to the place where we were saved," Romulus said, his voice echoing with a grand, new dream. "We will build a city of our own on the banks of the Tiber, on the very hills where the wolf found us."
Numitor blessed them, giving them gold, tools, and a large band of followers, shepherds, farmers, and adventurers who wanted to be part of this bold new venture.
The brothers turned their backs on the ancient palace of Alba Longa and set out toward the river, ready to carve their names into the earth.
When the brothers returned to the banks of the Tiber, the sun was shining, and the seven hills stood like silent giants watching over the river. It was a beautiful, wild landscape, filled with endless possibilities.
But as they looked out over the land, the first crack in their perfect brotherhood began to show.
A city must have a center. It must have a heart, a place where the first stones are laid, and the protective walls are built. But which of the seven hills should it be?
Romulus walked up the steep slopes of the Palatine Hill. He stood under the shade of the wild fig tree, the Ficus Ruminalis, where their cradle had washed ashore. He looked down at the dark mouth of the cave where the she-wolf had nurtured them.
To Romulus, this was sacred ground. This was the place of their salvation, the place where the wild had kept them alive.
"Here," Romulus said, his voice firm and filled with authority. "The city must be built here, on the Palatine. It is steep, easy to defend, and it is the place where our story began. We shall call the city Rome, after me, and I shall be its king."
Remus, however, was standing on the Aventine Hill, a short distance away. The Aventine was slightly higher, with a broad, flat top that looked out over a wide, sweeping bend in the river. It was a magnificent vantage point, offering a clear view of any enemies who might approach by water or land.
"No!" Remus called back, his voice carrying across the valley between the hills. "The Aventine is the superior hill. It is grander, stronger, and has more room for our people to build their homes. The city must be built here. We shall call it Remuria, after me, and I shall be its king."
The followers who had traveled with them from Alba Longa gathered in the valley between the two hills, looking back and forth. They were divided. Some favored Romulus and the Palatine, others favored Remus and the Aventine.
For days the brothers argued. The love that had bound them together through danger and exile began to warp under the heat of their matching pride. Neither brother had ever learned to yield. They had survived the river, the wilderness, and a tyrant by being unbending. And now, they could not bend to each other.
"The Palatine is the hill of the wolf!" Romulus insisted, his eyes flashing.
"The Aventine is the hill of the future!" Remus countered, his jaw set in a stubborn line.
There was no king to command them, no father to guide them, and no law to decide between them. They were equal in birth, equal in strength, and equal in their stubborn determination.
Finally, realizing that their followers might come to blows before a single stone was laid, Romulus proposed a solution.
"Let us leave the decision to the gods," Romulus said. "They saved us from the river, and they should choose which of us will rule. We shall use the ancient art of augury, the reading of the flight of birds. Tonight, we will take our stations. You will sit upon the Aventine, and I will sit upon the Palatine. We will watch the sky from sunset to sunrise. Whichever of us receives the clearest sign from the heavens will be the king, and his hill will be the heart of the city."
Remus agreed. It was a fair test, a trial of patience and spiritual sight that both brothers trusted.
As the sun began to sink below the western horizon, painting the sky in shades of bruised purple and deep orange, the brothers climbed to their respective summits.
Remus sat on the highest rock of the Aventine Hill. He wrapped his woolen cloak tightly around his shoulders against the creeping chill of the night. He cleared his mind, staring up at the darkening vault of the heavens. He watched the stars appear, one by one, like silver nails driven into the sky. He listened to the hooting of the owls and the rustling of the night wind through the grass.
On the Palatine Hill, Romulus did the same. He sat in silence, his eyes scanning the horizon, waiting for a sign from Jupiter, the king of the gods.
The hours crawled by. The night was long, cold, and silent. The followers of both brothers waited in the valley below, huddled around small campfires, their eyes turning occasionally to the dark shapes of the two hills, where the young men kept their lonely vigil.
Just as the first pale light of dawn began to gray the eastern sky, Remus stood up on the Aventine. His eyes, sharp as a hawk's, caught a movement in the distance.
From the south, rising out of the morning mist, came a group of large, majestic birds. They were vultures, birds of great power and ancient omen, sacred to the gods of the sky.
Remus counted them as they circled high above his hill, their broad wings catching the first golden rays of the rising sun.
"One, two, three, four, five, six," Remus whispered, his heart leaping with triumph. "Six vultures! It was a magnificent sign!"
Remus did not wait. He let out a joyful shout that echoed across the valley and began to run down the hill to announce his victory to the waiting crowd.
"The gods have spoken!" Remus cried, his face bright with excitement. "Six vultures have flown over the Aventine! The city is mine to build!"
His followers erupted into cheers, raising their spears in salute. But their shouting was cut short by a sudden, roaring cry from the Palatine Hill.
Romulus was standing on the summit, pointing up into the sky. There, high above the Palatine, flew another flock of vultures. They had appeared just a few moments after Remus's birds, but they were far more numerous.
They circled in a grand, wheeling pattern, their shadows sweeping over the earth.
"Look!" Romulus shouted, his voice ringing like a bronze bell. "Twelve vultures! The gods have sent me twelve!"
The crowd fell into a stunned, uneasy silence. The sign was indeed twice as great as the one Remus had seen, but it had come later.
The brothers met in the valley between the hills, surrounded by their anxious followers. The air was thick with tension. The brief joy of the dawn, replaced by a cold, sharp anger.
"The victory is mine!" Remus said, stepping close to his brother, his hand resting on his hip. "The gods showed their favor to me first. I saw the six birds while your sky was still empty. The first sign is the true sign."
"The victory is mine!" Romulus replied, his voice low and dangerous. "The gods showed me double the favor. Twelve birds represent double the power, double the strength, and double the approval. The greater sign is the true sign."
They stood chest to chest, two identical brothers, both believing with absolute certainty that the heavens had chosen them. There was no referee to decide between them, no law to appeal to. There was only their pride, which had grown as tall and unyielding as the hills they stood upon.
The dispute over the birds was never settled. The followers of the brothers began to argue among themselves, splitting back into two bitter factions. But Romulus, driven by a fierce, burning conviction that he was the chosen one, decided he would not wait for his brother's permission.
He returned to the Palatine Hill and gathered his workers. "We build today," he commanded.
Following the ancient, sacred rituals of their ancestors, Romulus prepared to mark out the boundaries of his city. He chose a white bull and a white cow, yoking them to a heavy bronze plow. With his head covered in a fold of his toga as a sign of reverence, Romulus gripped the handles of the plow and began to walk.
He pressed the bronze blade deep into the earth, cutting a clean, dark furrow through the grass around the base of the Palatine Hill. This furrow was not just a ditch, it was the Pomerium, the sacred boundary of the city.
According to the ancient laws, the earth thrown up by the plow represented the city walls, and the trench itself was a holy space. To cross this boundary without permission was a crime against the gods, an act of war.
As Romulus walked, his followers followed behind him, carefully turning any clods of earth inward toward the city side, ensuring that the boundary was clean and distinct.
Romulus's face was set, his mind focused on the future. He could see the stone walls rising where the dirt now lay. He could see the temples, the streets, and the empire that would one day bear his name.
But Remus was not watching with reverence. He stood on the slope of the Aventine, his heart bitter and full of resentment. He felt cheated. He had seen the first sign, yet his brother was ignoring the gods and carving up the earth as if he were already king.
Remus walked down into the valley and approached the place where Romulus was plowing. He watched the dirt turning over, his lip curled in a mocking sneer. The wall of earth that the plow had created was low, barely reaching a man's ankle.
"Is this the great wall of your mighty city?" Remus called out, his voice dripping with scorn. "Are these the ramparts that will protect your people from their enemies? A child could climb them. A goat could knock them down."
Romulus did not answer. He kept his eyes fixed on the path ahead, his hands gripping the plow, his jaw clenched so tight his muscles stood out like cords. He tried to ignore his brother's voice, hoping that if he kept walking, the sacred ritual would protect them both from their own anger.
But Remus would not be ignored. He wanted to hurt his brother, to prove that this sacred boundary was nothing but dirt. He took a few running steps forward.
"Watch how easily your great city is conquered!" Remus laughed.
With a light, mocking spring, Remus leaped high into the air, his boots clearing the furrow and landing heavily on the inner side of the boundary line.
It was a simple, foolish jump. But in that single moment, the world seemed to stop.
The sacred boundary had been crossed. The gods had been mocked. The pride of Romulus, already stretched to its absolute limit by the days of arguing, snapped like a dry branch in a gale.
The brotherly love that had survived the river, the wilderness, and the wrath of kings vanished, replaced by a sudden, blinding fury. In the sudden, blinding heat of a brother's fury, a blow was struck, and Remus fell, never to rise again.
The silence that followed was heavier than any stone.
The bronze plow stopped. The white oxen stood still in the furrow, their breath rising in pale plumes in the morning air. The followers of both brothers froze, their breath catching in their throats.
Romulus stood over his brother. The anger that had consumed him just a second before evaporated, leaving behind a cold, hollow terror. He looked down at his hands, then at the still form of Remus lying in the dirt of the sacred trench.
"Remus," Romulus whispered, his voice cracking. He knelt in the mud, reaching out to touch his brother's shoulder. "Remus, get up. The joke is over. Get up."
But there was no answer. The fiery, stubborn, laughing prince of Alba Longa, the boy who had run with the wolves and fought the bandits of the hills, was gone.
Romulus bowed his head, his tears falling into the very dirt he had plowed. The grief that washed over him was a vast, silent ocean. He had won the argument. He had his hill, his boundary, and his city.
But the price of his victory was the one thing he could never replace.
Romulus did not abandon his dream, but he carried it from that day forward with a heavy, sorrowful heart. With the help of his grieving followers, he buried Remus with the highest honors of a prince. They laid him to rest on the summit of the Aventine Hill, the very place where Remus had watched the vultures at dawn.
Romulus placed his brother's spear and shield in the earth beside him, leaving him to rule the hill he had loved so much.
When the funeral was over, Romulus returned to the Palatine. He picked up the handles of the plow once more, but he did not mock the earth again. He built the walls of his city, and he built them high, strong, and thick, as if he could shut out the memory of what had happened at their birth.
The city was completed, and as Romulus had declared, it was named Rome. It became a haven for the bold, the restless, and the forgotten. Shepherds, adventurers, and travelers from all over Italy came to live within its walls. Romulus ruled them as their first king, wise and strong, but always shadowed by the tragedy of the first day.
For more than a thousand years, the Romans would tell this story about themselves. They did not hide the tragedy. They did not pretend that their city began in perfect peace or gentle harmony. They told the story of the she-wolf with pride, but they told the story of the brothers' quarrel with a kind of clear-eyed, solemn unease.
They knew that the foundations of their great empire were marked from the very first day by a line drawn in anger and a brother's loss.
The great stone temples of Rome have long since crumbled into ruin, and the Latin language is no longer spoken in the streets. But the story of the twins remains, as fresh as the water of the Tiber.
It leaves us with a question to carry with us into our own dreams. Romulus and Remus both had the same beautiful vision, to build a great city where they had once been saved. But their pride would not allow them to share it.
When two people want to build the same dream, what happens if neither will give way? Is a dream truly worth winning if you must lose the person you shared it with to achieve it?
Think about that tonight as you watch the stars rise over your own hills, and sleep well.