[cogman10]

> Respectfully, this is a stronger claim than I think anyone can make.

The only reason to treat this with kid gloves is because a large portion of the population believes in it.

Nobody has a problem saying that "Romulus and Remus is an entirely fictional account it's not based on any real historical events."

The stronger claim is a valid one to make because the primary source doesn't have any corroboration.

[zoobaloo]

I'd encourage you to re-read my comment and consider that you may have jumped to conclusions about what I'm trying to say.

> Nobody has a problem saying that "Romulus and Remus is an entirely fictional account it's not based on any real historical events."

I wouldn't go so far as to say this. We have artifacts and historical texts talking about them, so we at least know that Romulus and Remus are figures that ancient humans talked about.

If we had a time machine, could we go back in time and meet them? If there were two guys named that who generally did the things the Romans thought, were they actually raised by wolves? No idea with the former. The latter sounds unusual.

My point is that there are more interesting questions to ask than these. The book I recommended does a good job of this. It's a good read if you're interested in the cultural backdrop of the ancient near east.

[tshaddox]

> We have artifacts and historical texts talking about them, so we at least know that Romulus and Remus are figures that ancient humans talked about.

Well, yeah, but you seem to be confusing the authenticity of the writings as ancient artifacts with the historical accuracy of the contents of the writings. I don’t think anyone disputes that the Torah contains stories that had been widely spread and believed among the writers, compilers, and intended audience at the time.

[ButlerianJihad]

Growing up, in popular media and my school textbooks, we learned certain foundational myths about the United States, the Founding Fathers, and other key figures around Colonial times and the American Revolution.

Come to find out that so many of these myths were not actually true: that they were legends built through the centuries to fluff up the importance and gravity of the United States in the eyes of naïve schoolchildren.

It was with some sadness that these myths were dispelled for me, but no less a sense of wonder to learn what had actually happened in this relatively recent history. There is still plenty of room for myth and legend in the popular imagination.

[astura]

What, specifically, are you talking about?

[jonhohle]

Not OP, but I learned just last week that Paul Revere would have never said “The British are coming!” because colonists considered themselves British. It’s more likely he would have said “The regulars are coming”, because that was the term used for permanent soldiers at the time. He’s one of many who would have spread the word, but the one who was named and lives on in infamy. The phrase changed in popular culture in the mid 1800s. Not terribly important in the grand scheme of things, but hundreds of millions of school children are taught a very specific quote that was never actually said.

[Amezarak]

Denying the possible, even likely, historicity of Romulus and Remus is silly, yes.

[Telemakhos]

Recognizing that the exposure myth of Romulus and Remus is an analogue of the exposure myth of Moses, of Cyrus, and of a host of other famous figures gets one thinking that early Roman history and early Jewish history, among others, map common Eurasian stories onto particular agendas.

[Amezarak]

Or perhaps its because infanticide via exposure was a very common and widespread practice for most of human history.

Either way, there's a large gulf between "Romulus and Remus weren't real" and "Romulus and Remus weren't exposed as infants." You obviously don't believe Cyrus is fictional.

[cogman10]

Likely? That's wild.

What's the corroborating evidence from ~750BC documenting their existence? Heck, where's that evidence from 650BC?

[Amezarak]

> What's the corroborating evidence from ~750BC documenting their existence? Heck, where's that evidence from 650BC?

This is a totally unfruitful line of inquiry, unless you are an academic historian doomed to publish-or-perish; in that case, it's perfectly understandable that you have to make these arguments as part of your career.

Better questions, when it comes to ancient history are:

1. Is there any negative evidence? 2. Is there any reason to expect more evidence than what we have? 3. Did ancient historians with better sources believe it? 4. Is there anything inherently unlikely about the idea?

In this case there isn't any negative evidence, there's no reason to expect more evidence than what we have, ancient historians believed various versions of the same basic story, and there's absolutely nothing crazy about it - someone had to found the polity, and to declare them fictional results in there still existing a first king of Rome, just a guy with a different name for whom there is no evidence at all. You can certainly apply (4) to specific details of the different stories - for example, it seems much more likely Romulus was murdered by Senators than raptured by Jupiter, though perhaps something altogether different happened. There's even very weak archeological evidence - a chamber was found in an area where Romulus' (empty) tomb was supposed to be, although archeologists are debating over whether it really is that.

[cogman10]

> This is a totally unfruitful line of inquiry

It's really not. This is the line of inquiry that leads you to understand the founding myth of Rome and what the motivations might have been to create such a myth. It also helps to place in time when the myth was concocted.

> Is there any negative evidence?

Is there any negative evidence against unicorns?

Things that don't exist don't leave evidence.

But yes, there is evidence. The lack of corroboration and the fact that the earliest mention of Romulus was ~300BCE is a pretty strong indicator that he didn't actually exist. Further, the fact that his story is a mishmash of common tropes and that his very name is a derivative of Rome is a pretty strong indicator that he was simply a product of myth making. There are written records from surrounding nations and people from 750BCE.

But further, we also have evidence that Rome itself is a lot older than Romulus is supposed to be. There's evidence that the first founders of Rome showed up around 1600BCE.

The fact that the first records of Romulus trace the lineage of the rule of the city directly back to him is a very good indicator that the author was myth making.

> Is there any reason to expect more evidence than what we have?

Yes. People write about their leaders. It's quite common. And very influential leaders tend to leave pretty extensive records.

That's why, for example, we are so certain Ramesses II existed.

> Did ancient historians with better sources believe it?

You'd expect passing references to Romulus if they did. That doesn't exist.

> Is there anything inherently unlikely about the idea?

Yes, we have evidence Rome is a lot older than the Romulus myth. Seems pretty unlikely that Romulus founded Rome in 753BCE unless he was some sort of time traveler.

> ancient historians believed various versions of the same basic story, and there's absolutely nothing crazy about it

Ancient historians who wrote over 1000 years after the actual founding of Rome.

Imagine if I dubbed myself a historian and started writing about how China was founded by Jackie Chinamus in 1000AD, who also just so happen to have an army of pandas and consumed only bamboo. That is the problem with the Romulus founding myth. The historian placed the foundation WAY later than it actually was and wrote a fantasy story about Romulus where the only thing that could possibly be true is his name (Unless you want to claim it's possible Mars was his father).

[Amezarak]

> what the motivations might have been to create such a myth.

These are almost always absurdly simplistic, when they're not simply projections of how modern peoples think and what motivates them. It's really not useful to speculate about motives because you feel events resemble patterns of myth.

> Further, the fact that his story is a mishmash of common tropes and that his very name is a derivative of Rome is a pretty strong indicator that he was simply a product of myth making.

You could make precisely the same argument about Alexander founding Alexandria.

> There are written records from surrounding nations and people from 750BCE.

Very, very few, precious few. There are zero comprehensive timelines or histories of notable events of cities in the region at that time. Indeed this is transparently not true, because obviously if there were written records contradicting the early history of Rome we have, then we would be talking about those. Indeed most of what we do have we cannot understand, because it's in Etruscan, which we have a very limited understanding of...because a very limited amount of text survived. [Ed - in fact from a brief survey, and given what we can read of Etruscan, it appears there are no surviving Etruscan references to Rome at all. Maybe Rome didn't exist!]

> There's evidence that the first founders of Rome showed up around 1600BCE.

Cities were seldom founded in desert wastes. They were almost always founded on prior settlements where people were already living. There were settlements in the general area of Rome for many, many thousands of years, not just going back to 1600 BC.

> The fact that the first records of Romulus trace the lineage of the rule of the city directly back to him is a very good indicator that the author was myth making.

So who was the first king of Rome?

> That's why, for example, we are so certain Ramesses II existed.

Egypt famously has some of the best records and archeological evidence in the ancient world. (And there are nevertheless huge gaps and mysteries in ancient Egyptian history!) The amount of records and archeological evidence for this time period in southern Europe is comparatively scanty.

> And very influential leaders tend to leave pretty extensive records.

I see no reason to believe Romulus and Remus would have been "very influential" outside of central Italy, and even then, the phrase is probably a stretch.

> The historian placed the foundation WAY later than it actually was and wrote a fantasy story about Romulus where the only thing that could possibly be true is his name

And somehow magically convinced everyone else all the history they knew was wrong. And convinced all the people in the cities around them. Interesting hypothesis. It seems like a much more parsimonious explanation to say that there really was a Romulus that ruled Rome and founded or refounded the city, and that's why all the Romans thought there was. It also conveniently explains why there is an ancient temple under the Forum with an empty sarcophagus dated to the 500s BC that appears to be dedicated to Romulus.

https://apnews.com/general-news-8996e6a7d9983ce25290408d2146...

[cogman10]

> It also conveniently explains why there is an ancient temple under the Forum with an empty sarcophagus dated to the 500s BC that appears to be dedicated to Romulus.

Bad article.

Here's a better one [1]. What the archeologists found was a shrine to a "holy king". Because of it's location and time, the title of "Romulus" was given to it by the modern archeologists.

> So who was the first king of Rome?

Who knows. That could easily be lost to history. After all, Rome started small before it grew to it's historical peek size. But if a figure like Romulus existed, there would be additional documentation that didn't show up 1000 years later.

> And somehow magically convinced everyone else all the history they knew was wrong. And convinced all the people in the cities around them. Interesting hypothesis.

Not really magic or hard to believe. It's not as if the entire population was literate. And a founding myth is quite useful for current politics. For example, using the founding myth of Romulus allowed for the ancient Romans to claim the Senate was created by him and thus divinely inspired.

The parallel to this is the Bible, where the creation of Abraham and Moses served the original authors in endowing their king with supernatural power and origin. Much like the Egyptians did with their Pharaoh. It was a common practice in the region and at the time.

[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/possible-shrine-ro...