Tiber River - Tiberine Island
According to legend, twins Romulus and Remus were fathered by the war god Mars and born to a Latin princess. The Latin king at the time was afraid the twins might make claim to his throne so he had them put in a basket and set adrift on the Tiber River. The king assumed they would die, but Romulus and Remus were found by a female wolf who fed them her own milk. Soon after, a shepherd adopted them and raised them as his own. Upon growing up, the boys vowed to build a city where they had been abandoned as babies. Each brother chose a hill and became leader of a new city. Eventually quarrels broke out and Romulus killed Remus, leaving Romulus's hilltop, Palatine, the center of the new city called Rome.
Some of the earliest Roman settlements (8th-9th centuries
B.C.) rose from this Palatine Hill. Later it became an exclusive
residential district including an imperial palace and several
patrician villas.
Rome's Beginning | Colosseum | Forums | Pantheon | Roman Walls | Roman Baths | Circus Maximus | Catacombs | Roman Theatre | Pompeii |