The Three Mothers of Romulus and Remus

Today we're taking a look at one of Rome's foundation myths, the birth of Romulus and Remus. The twin descendants of Aeneas and his mother Venus, these boys may have been the sons of the war god Mars. But what about the women who brought them into this world? Romulus and Remus were cared for by three mothers: Rhea Silvia, their birth mother; a wolf who found them in the wild; and Acca Larentia, who adopted them as her own. In this video we explore the many (many) ancient sources who tell this story and look at what the accounts of these three women tell us about Rome's values and cultural identity.

Apologies for the weird bumping in the audio - my mic was set up wrong.

Interview with Dr. Matthew Lupu about Cassius Dio, Apollonius of Tyana, and philosophy in the Severan Age:    • Apollonius of Tyana, the Severan Age, and ...  

Ancient Sources (roughly chronological):

✨ Homer, Odyssey Book 11 (tr. Fagles)
✨ Hesiod, Theogony
✨ Herodotus, Histories Book 1 (tr. Grene)
✨ Fragments of Ennius, Annales
✨ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities Book 1.76-79
✨ Horace Odes 1.2.13-20 (Eng. mine); Latin edition I used edited by Daniel H. Garrison
✨ Livy, Ab Urbe Condita Book 1.3-1.4
✨ Ovid, Amores 3.6 (tr. Green)
✨ Ovid, Fasti Book 3 (beginning, tr. Wiseman & Wiseman)
✨ Plutarch, Life of Romulus
✨ Pseudo-Plutarch, Parallela Minora 36
✨ Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights Book 7.7
✨ Cassius Dio, Roman Histories Book 1.5 (epitome)
✨ Servius, Commentary on Vergil's Aeneid 1.273 (Latin text); buy the English version here
✨ Anonymous, Origo Gentis Romanae 19-20 (this publication also has a nice introduction)

Secondary Scholarship:

✨ Hraste, Daniel Nečas, and Krešimir Vuković. “Virgins and Prostitutes in Roman Mythology.” Latomus 74, no. 2 (2015): 313–38.
✨ Stevenson, Tom. “Women of Early Rome as ‘Exempla’ in Livy, ‘Ab Urbe Condita’, Book 1.” The Classical World 104, no. 2 (2011): 175–89.
✨ Connors, Catherine. “Ennius, Ovid and Representations of Ilia.” Materiali e Discussioni per l’analisi Dei Testi Classici, no. 32 (1994): 99–112.
✨ Pedrucci, Giulia. "Breastfeeding Animals and Other Wild 'Nurses' in Greek & Roman Mythology." Università degli Studi di Bologna (2015). Read it here.

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
06:09 Timeline of Sources
14:58 Rhea Silvia (background)
20:18 Numitor & Amulius
24:25 Rhea Silvia conceives the twins
31:52 Twins exposed, fate of Rhea Silvia
42:54 The She-Wolf
48:55 Acca Larentia
57:56 Alternate stories about Acca Larentia
1:01:47 Larentalia
1:03:07 Analysis: Royal, Chaste Mothers & Prophecy
1:11:37 Analysis: Exposure, Nursing Animals
1:16:11 Analysis: Woods, Wolves, & Arcadia
1:20:00 Birth of Cyrus (Herodotus)
1:30:32 Scholarship
1:35:32 Takeaways

Images from Wikimedia Commons and in the public domain unless otherwise noted. Stock video from Envato Elements.

Theme music: "Descent from the Olympos Pentatonic." (original)

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Website: www.hearthofhaemonia.com 
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