Sunday, August 24, 2008

Romulus and Remus the original and the new legend

(according to iol.ie/~coolmine/typ/romans/romans9.html) this is the original story of Romulus and Remus (my additions on how it relates to my vampires and the vampire world are in white):
"According to the Roman legend, Romulus was the founder of Rome and Remus as his twin brother (they were brothers in life, and turned by the same person so still brothers in undeath). Their story begins when their grandfather Numitor, king of the ancient Italian city Alba Longa, was deposed by his brother Amulius. Numitor's daughter, Rhea Silvia, was made a Vestal Virgin by Amulius-this means that she was made a priestess of the godess Vesta and forbidden to marry. Neverheless, Mars, the god of war, fell in love with her and she gave birth to twin sons.
Amulius, fearing that the boys would grow up to overthrow him, had them placed  in a trough and thrown into the River Tiber (who do you think the servant who did this was? Perhaps the one who turned these two babies into vampires?) . At the time the river was in flood, and when the waters fell, the trough, still containing the two boys, came ashore. They were found by a she-wolf who, instead of killing them, looked after them and fed them with her milk (with her blood) . A woodpecker also brought them food, for the woodpecker, like the wolf, was sacred to Mars.
Later the twins were found by Faustulus, the king's sheperd. He took them home to his wife and the two adopted them (they realized rather quickly that they were monsters, and that they were Rhea Silvia's sons, but being friends of their mother,continued to care for them) calling them Romulus and Remus. They grew up as bold strong young men, leading a warlike band of shepherds (with all those animals, it certainly is rather easy to get fresh blood and blame it on a wolf).
One day Remus was captured (he was suspected for murder- aka, the first known account of a vampire drinking human blood) and brought before Numitor for punishment. Numitor noticing how unlike a shepherd's son he was, questioned him and before long realized who he was (he realized that, not only was he Rhea Silvia's daughter, but also that he was some sort of monster, for the word vampire did not exist then). Romulus and Remus then rose against Amulius, killed him and restored the kingdom to their grandfather (aka the second account of a vampire drinking human blood).
Deciding to found a town of their own (once again, rather pompous) , Romulus and Remus chose the place where the she-wolf had nursed them (it was, and remains to be, a sort of sacred place for them) . Romulus began to build walls on the Palatine Hill, but Remus jeered at them because they were so low. He leaped over them to prove this, and Romulus in anger killed him (Romulus did not in fact kill his brother. A man who lived in the woods nearby had gotten curious about the two young he kept seeing near his home. One day he snuck up behind one of them, Remus, and realized that he was sucking the blood out of a bear. He realized this man was a monster and cut his head off before Remus could even realize a man was behind him. He then burned the body. Later, when Romulus went searching for Remus, he found his dead brother's ashes, the drained bear and axe the man had used to kill Remus. He figured out what had happened and revenged his brother)
Romulus continued the building of the new city, naming it Roma (Rome) after his own name. Its first citizens were outlaws and fugitives (some of the first vampires) , to whom Romulus gave the settlement on the Capitoline Hill. There were however not enough wives for all these men, and so Romulus decided to steal women from the Sabines, an Italian tribe. He then proclaimed a festival and invited many Sabines to it. While the attention of the men was elsewhere Romulus' men rushed in and carried off the women. This was the famous 'Rape (carrying off) of the Sabine women' , which later became a subject for painters.
The Sabine men were furious and, led by their king Titus Tatius, made war on Romulus. When the fighting had reached its peak the Sabine women, who had grown fond of their Roman husbands (and knew they were vampires, and so feared for their Sabine husbands" lives) , rushed beetween the ranks and begged both sides to make peace. So the battle was stopped, Romulus and Titus Tatius ruled together over the two peoples until Titus Tatius was killed in battle (Romulus did not want to share his throne. He later became more mature) .
For the rest of his life Romulus ruled alone, proving himself a great leader in peace and war. He did not die but dissapeared one day in a violent storm (yeah, this one kind of speaks for itself). The Romans believing he had been taken up to heaven worshipped him under the name of Quirinus"
So that is the history of the ancient, Romulus (or, as he is called by the other two ancients, Quirinus).

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