Roman mythology is the patchwork of stories, generally involving fantastical or magical elements, through which the Romans expressed some of their beliefs about their religion and their history. Roman myths were often based on earlier stories. These stories were gathered from all over the Roman Empire, especially from Greece, and because they were developed and recorded in Roman literature and poetry, myths from throughout the Roman Empire survive to this day.
Greek Mythology and the Romans
The Romans adopted many of the Greek gods, sometimes identifying them with gods of their own. For example, Zeus, the chief god of the Greeks, was identified with Jupiter, the Roman god of the skies.
The Romans took into their culture not only the Greek gods but also all the many stories that the Greeks had been telling about their gods. Through the myths of their gods, the Greeks had sought to explain how the world had been made and what man’s role on earth was. Greek myths answered questions such as why there were seasons and how fire came about. The Romans adopted these myths along with the gods.
The Romans, however, associated very few stories with their own gods. Rather, the gods were simply figures that represented certain powers—the sky and thunderbolts in the case of Jupiter, for example.
Many Roman myths are nonreligious. They answer historical questions, such as how Rome was established and what the early years of the city were like.
Romulus and Remus
The story of Romulus and Remus is one of the most famous historical myths of the Romans. Romulus and Remus were the twin sons of Rhea Silva and the god Mars. Rhea’s uncle Amulius had killed Rhea’s father. He did not want Rhea to have any children, and when the twins were born, he cast them into the river. However, they floated downstream to the spot where Rome would one day be built, and a female wolf found them and suckled them. Later a shepherd discovered the twin boys and brought them up.
When the boys grew up, they avenged their grandfather by killing Amulius and then founded the new city of Rome. Romulus invited people to live in his city and also stole the wives of a neighboring tribe, the Sabines, in order to increase Rome’s population. He built a wall around his city and decreed that no one could breach the wall. Remus did not know about the decree, and one day he jumped over the wall. A man named Celer, acting on Romulus’s instructions, killed Remus.
After some time Romulus seems to have disappeared. The Romans came to believe that he had been made into the god Quirinus.
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IN THE AENEID, THE ROMAN POET VIRGIL DESCRIBES THE WOLF AND THE TWIN BOYS ROMULUS AND REMUS: He had also wrought there the tale of the wolf
which after littering had stretched herself on the ground
in the green cave of Mars with twin baby boys playing around her…
while she, bending her smooth neck round and round, caressed each in its turn
and licked their limbs into shape. VIRGIL, AENEID, BOOK 1
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