ROMAN MYTHOLOGY AND SAGA^657f
"Go," said he, "and tell the Romans that it is the gods' will that my city of Rome
should be the capital of the world. Let them exercise their military skill and let
them know—and let them tell their descendants—that no mortal power can re-
sist the Romans."
Some of the saga of Romulus is rooted in fact, as has been proved by recent
archaeological discoveries. Much of his legend, however, is literary invention.
Romulus himself is the eponym of Rome, to whom many features of the Roman
constitution are ascribed. His deification is problematic, since Quirinus was a
Sabine god with whom Mars was associated. Sometimes his name stands by it-
self; sometimes it is attached to Mars (Mars Quirinus) or to Janus, Jupiter, or
even Hercules. One ancient Roman scholar (Servius on Aeneid 1. 292) described
Quirinus as "Mars when he presides in peacetime." The idea of a god of a mil-
itary state when it is not at war is particularly suitable for Romulus, organizer
of the peaceful state and successful leader in its first wars. Quirinus, moreover,
being Sabine, is suitably fused with the Roman Romulus; there were separate
communities with different cultures upon the Palatine, Oppian, and Quirinal
hills in the eighth century B.c. and the legend of a fusion, symbolized by the god
Romulus-Quirinus, is supported by archaeological evidence.OTHER CHARACTERS IN THE LEGEND OF ROMULUS
Several other characters in the Romulus legend are divine. Faustulus, the shep-
herd who reared the twins, may have some connection with Faunus, since the
root of his name is the same and has the connotation of "favoring" or "bringing
increase." Cato and Varro, followed by Ovid, connected Acca Larentia, Faustu-
lus' wife, with the festival of the Larentalia on December 23, at which offerings
were made to the dead, but her exact divine function is unknown. It has been
suggested that her name, Acca, is the same as the Sanskrit word for "mother,"
and that she was therefore the mater Larum, mother of the Lares (although the a
of Larentia is long and that of Larum is short). All that can be said with certainty
is that both Acca and Faustulus are old divinities whose precise attributes and
functions had been forgotten by the time of the early Roman writers.
Hersilia, the wife of Romulus, became Hora Quirini, the consort of the dei-
fied Romulus. Almost certainly her name, Hora, meant "the power" or "the will"
of Quirinus, and this was her original function, before the myth made her the
wife of the mortal Romulus.
The treacherous Tarpeia gave her name to the Tarpeian Rock, from which
criminals were thrown to their deaths. She too was divine, for libations were of-
fered at her tomb. Although Livy makes her a Sabine, her name is Etruscan.
Some of the elements in the legend explain features of the Roman constitu-
tion. The dual kingship of Romulus and the colorless Titus Tatius foreshadows
the collegiate principle of Republican magistracies, in particular the dual
consulship.