Category: Ancient Rome

The very earliest settlements along the Tiber River in the region that later became the city of Rome were most probably ruled by a chieftain or warlord with the support of the heads of the leading families within or near the settlement. Virgil and the other epic writers tell us that the city of Rome was founded by Romulus, and that early on he murdered his brother Remus for ridiculing his pomerium, or the sacred boundary of the city he had founded. This city was named Rome after its legendary founder, and we have a suitably heroic beginning for a city that would one day rule the entire Western world. Writers of later eras, including many Romans, would infer quite a bit from the part of the story where Romulus murders his brother, and say that as Rome was founded in an act of bloodshed, so the shedding of blood would become part of the Roman legacy.