Born in Alba Longa to Rhea Silvia (Ilia), daughter of the deposed king Numitor, the twins were endangered by the usurper Amulius who ordered them exposed. In the tradition summarized by classical and later sources they were saved at the Tiber—accounts attribute their preservation to the river god Tiberinus and the emblematic care of a she‑wolf—and raised by a shepherd, Faustulus. As youths they became leaders, restored Numitor by overthrowing Amulius, and agreed to found a city. A dispute over the auspices and site (Palatine preferred by Romulus; Aventine by Remus) was settled by a contest of augury; after the contest one twin (Remus) was killed—sources differ as to whether Romulus himself slew him or whether he was killed by Romulus's supporters—and Romulus went on to found Rome and establish its early institutions and rites. The foundation is traditionally dated to 753 BC in Roman historiography, though the narrative was written down and varied in form over centuries.
No detailed individual physical descriptions are given in the provided sources. The most iconic associated image in literary and artistic tradition is that of a she‑wolf suckling the infant twins, a motif attested in Roman art and literature and used as a symbol of the city from at least the late 3rd century BC. Narratives otherwise present the twins as human youths raised tending flocks and later as adult leaders and warriors consistent with mortal royal founders.
The twins are not described in the provided material as possessing inherent supernatural powers. Their notable capacities in the tradition are political and military leadership, charisma in attracting followers, and the ability to institute civic, military, and religious structures—Romulus in particular is credited with founding the city, its government, military organization, and religious traditions. The story also involves appeals to divine agency (reported paternity by Mars in some accounts), divine rescue (Tiberinus), and use of augury as a ritual means of securing the gods' approval for public acts.
Naga
Divine serpent beings of Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain cosmology — powerful guardians of water, earth, and underground treasures. Revered as deities in South and Southeast Asia.
Tengu
Proud, warrior-like mountain spirits of Japan, associated with martial arts, pride, and the wild mountains. Neither fully good nor evil — they test and train warriors and monks, but punish the arrogant.
Tiberinus
Tiberinus is the Roman name attested for the divine personification of the River Tiber and separately for a legendary king, Tiberinus Silvius, listed among the early kings of Alba Longa. The name thus appears in two registers of Roman tradition: as a river-god tied to Rome's central watercourse and as a figure in mytho-historical genealogies.
Abandinus
Abandinus is a locally attested Romano‑Celtic theonym known from a single inscribed bronze feather (votive object) dedicated at Godmanchester (the Roman fort Durovigutum) in Cambridgeshire. Scholars interpret him as a local god or male spirit tied to a specific place and possibly associated with a nearby spring or stream; this association is tentative and based on etymological readings of the name.
Abarbarea
Abarbarea is a name attested in classical Greek and Roman sources for freshwater nymphs (naiads). The name appears for at least two individual mythic figures — a naiad wife of Bucolion and a naiad counted among ancestors of the Tyrians — and Hesychius records plural forms that may indicate the name was also used as a class-name (Abarbareai / Abarbalaiai).
Abas
Abas (Ancient Greek: Ἄβας, gen.: Ἄβαντος) is not a single mythic being but a recurring personal name borne by multiple mortals and minor mythic figures in Greek epic and genealogical traditions — kings, founders, seers, warriors, attendants, a centaur, and a youth transformed by a goddess. The name is glossed in the sources as 'guileless' or 'good-hearted' and appears across Argive, Theban, Trojan, Euboean, and other local cycles.
Abellio
Abellio is a theonym attested in Roman‑period inscriptions from the Comminges area of the Pyrenees and reported as worshipped in the Garonne Valley of ancient Gallia Aquitania. Surviving evidence is limited to a small number of inscriptions; scholars have variously hypothesized solar or arboreal associations and compared the name to forms of Apollo or to Celtic Belenus, but the deity's precise role in local cosmology remains uncertain.
Abnoba
Abnoba is a Gaulish theonym and toponym attested in Roman-era sources and inscriptions: a localized deity associated with woods, springs and the sources of rivers (notably the Danube) and simultaneously the name applied to a mountain or mountain range in the Black Forest/Baar/Odenwald region. Roman altars equate her with Diana, reflecting syncretic cult practice in frontier provinces.
Aborigines (mythology)
A mytho-historical label used in Roman and general reference sources to denote the oldest inhabitants of a region (specifically central Italy in the cited Roman context). The term functions as an identity/category for original human populations rather than as a characterized supernatural being in the provided sources.
Abundantia
Abundantia is the Roman divine personification of abundance and material plenty, used primarily in imperial propaganda and public iconography to signify secure grain supplies, wealth, and the promise of a 'Golden Age' under the emperor. She also appears in later medieval European folklore as Domina Abundia / Dame Habonde, a household benefactor in accounts condemned by ecclesiastical writers.
Acamas
Acamas (Ancient Greek: Ἀκάμας) is a personal name recurrent in ancient Greek narrative traditions applied to multiple human characters (warriors, princes, suitors), once to a Cyclops, and once as a hound's name. Rather than a single supernatural entity, bearers of the name appear episodically across the Trojan War, Theseid, and Theban cycles as mortal actors whose deeds intersect with gods and fate.
Acantha
Acantha (Ancient Greek: Ἀκάνθα, 'thorn') is a late or secondary mythological figure known from modern retellings as a nymph transformed into the acanthus plant. The tale that she scratched Apollo and was changed into a spiny-leaved plant is not attested in surviving classical corpora and appears to be a modern compilation or invention rather than a firmly documented ancient myth.
Acerbas
Acerbas (also recorded as Sychaeus, Sycharbas, Zacherbas) is a figure in classical Greco‑Roman accounts of Phoenician/Tyrian tradition: a wealthy priest of Melqart (the Tyrian Hercules) whose concealed riches and murder by King Pygmalion precipitate Elissa/Dido's flight from Tyre and the foundation of Carthage. He is presented as a human priestly figure of high social rank rather than as a supernatural being.
Acestes
Acestes is a Roman/Greek founder-hero associated with the Sicilian city Segesta (Aegesta/Acesta). Presented as son of a Trojan woman and, in one tradition, the Sicilian river-god Crinisus (in animal form), he hospitably receives Aeneas and the Trojans, participates in the funeral games in Virgil's Aeneid (Book V), and functions as an eponymous culture-founder and local ruler.
Achaemenides
Achaemenides is a literary mortal figure introduced into Virgil's Aeneid as a marooned member of Odysseus' crew whom Aeneas rescues on Sicily. In Roman epic he functions as a chance survivor and eyewitness who helps link the Homeric tradition to the Trojan refugees and to illustrate Aeneas' magnanimity.
Community Record
- [1]Romulus and Remus. Wikipedia contributors, 'Romulus and Remus,' Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.wiki
- [2]Romulus and Remus (Wikidata). Wikidata entry Q2197, 'Romulus and Remus.'wiki
- [3]Numa Pompilius #history #rome #romans #kings (archive video). Archive.org entry for a popular video referencing Roman kings/mythology.other
- [4]Non, les Romains n'ont pas tout copié sur les Grecs ! - La fondation de Rome (archive video). Archive.org entry for a popular educational video on the foundation of Rome.other