{
  "id": "romulus",
  "type": "entity",
  "name": "Romulus",
  "summary": "Founder and first king of Rome, twin son of the Vestal Rea Silvia and — she said — Mars; exposed in the Tiber, suckled by a she-wolf, killer of his brother Remus at the new wall, abductor of the Sabine women, and taken up in a storm to become the god Quirinus. Livy tells it with his doubts recorded; Virgil prophesies him; Ovid deifies him.",
  "locale": "en",
  "tags": [
    "roman",
    "heroes",
    "founders",
    "kings-of-rome",
    "apotheosis"
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "apotheosis"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "fortuna"
    },
    {
      "rel": "child_of",
      "target": "mars"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "quirinus"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "jupiter"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "aeneas"
    },
    {
      "rel": "attested_in",
      "target": "aeneid"
    },
    {
      "rel": "attested_in",
      "target": "metamorphoses"
    }
  ],
  "questions": [
    "Who was Romulus?",
    "Was Romulus the son of Mars?",
    "Who raised Romulus and Remus?",
    "Why did Romulus kill Remus?",
    "What happened to the Sabine women?",
    "How did Romulus die?",
    "Did Romulus become a god?"
  ],
  "claims": [
    {
      "id": "c1",
      "text": "Livy makes the divine paternity a claim, not a fact: Amulius made Rea Silvia a Vestal; \"The Vestal was forcibly violated and gave birth to twins. She named Mars as their father, either because she really believed it, or because the fault might appear less heinous if a deity were the cause of it\" (Livy 1.3.11–1.4.2).",
      "sources": [
        "livy-ab-urbe-condita-1"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.95
    },
    {
      "id": "c2",
      "text": "Exposed by the flooded Tiber at the Ficus Ruminalis, the twins were found by \"a thirsty she-wolf from the surrounding hills\" who \"gave them her teats to suck\", and then by the herdsman Faustulus, whose wife Larentia reared them; Livy adds the rationalising variant that Larentia \"from her unchaste life, had got the nickname of 'She-wolf'\" (Livy 1.4.5–7).",
      "sources": [
        "livy-ab-urbe-condita-1"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.95
    },
    {
      "id": "c3",
      "text": "The augury: Remus saw six vultures first, Romulus twelve; in the quarrel \"Remus was killed. The more common report is that Remus contemptuously jumped over the newly raised walls and was forthwith killed by the enraged Romulus, who exclaimed, 'So shall it be henceforth with every one who leaps over my walls'\" (Livy 1.6.4–1.7.3).",
      "sources": [
        "livy-ab-urbe-condita-1"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.95
    },
    {
      "id": "c4",
      "text": "Refused intermarriage, Romulus announced games to \"Equestrian Neptune\", the Consualia; at the signal \"the Roman youth dashed in all directions to carry off the maidens\"; he told the women it was their parents' pride that caused it (Livy 1.9.6–14). The women's intervention ended the Sabine war, \"the two nations were united into one State\" and the Sabines were named Quirites (Livy 1.13.3–5).",
      "sources": [
        "livy-ab-urbe-condita-1"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.93
    },
    {
      "id": "c5",
      "text": "His end: reviewing the army at the Caprae Palus, \"A violent thunder storm suddenly arose and enveloped the king in so dense a cloud that he was quite invisible … From that hour Romulus was no longer seen on earth\". The people hailed him \"a god, the son of a god\"; Livy notes the rumour \"that he had been torn limb from limb by the senators\" and the testimony of Proculus Julius (Livy 1.16.1–8).",
      "sources": [
        "livy-ab-urbe-condita-1"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.95
    },
    {
      "id": "c6",
      "text": "Virgil foretells him: \"a priestess queen, by Mars conceiving, her twin offspring bear; then Romulus, wolf-nursed and proudly clad in tawny wolf-skin mantle, shall receive the sceptre of his race\" (Aen. 1.272); Anchises shows \"the son of Mars, Great Romulus, of Ilian mother born\" (Aen. 6.756); the shield of Aeneas carries the mother-wolf and the Sabine war (Aen. 8.608).",
      "sources": [
        "virgil-aeneid"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.93
    },
    {
      "id": "c7",
      "text": "Ovid makes the apotheosis explicit: Mars claims Jupiter's promise, carries Romulus from the Palatine, \"His mortal flesh dissolved into thin air\" and he received \"the shape divine of Quirinus clad in the trabea\"; his widow Hersilia follows as the goddess Hora (Met. 14.772).",
      "sources": [
        "ovid-metamorphoses"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.95
    }
  ],
  "takeaways": [
    "Livy reports every miracle with an alternative attached — Mars \"she said\", the she-wolf who may be a prostitute, the ascension that may be a murder.",
    "Virgil uses Romulus as prophecy (Aen. 1.272, 6.756), Ovid as metamorphosis (Met. 14.772); only Ovid names the god he becomes.",
    "Remus is killed at the wall in \"the more common report\"; Livy's first version is a brawl."
  ],
  "faqs": [
    {
      "q": "Was Romulus the son of Mars?",
      "claim": "c1"
    },
    {
      "q": "Who raised Romulus and Remus?",
      "claim": "c2"
    },
    {
      "q": "Why did Romulus kill Remus?",
      "claim": "c3"
    },
    {
      "q": "What happened to the Sabine women?",
      "claim": "c4"
    },
    {
      "q": "How did Romulus die?",
      "claim": "c5"
    },
    {
      "q": "Did Romulus become a god?",
      "claim": "c7"
    }
  ],
  "evidence_tier": "primary",
  "evidence": {
    "level": "theoretical",
    "source_types": [
      "paper"
    ]
  },
  "moat_flag": false,
  "winning_edge": "Keeps Livy's hedges in the claims, so an agent can answer \"was Romulus the son of Mars?\" with what Livy actually says — that his mother said so.",
  "confidence": 0.94,
  "last_verified": "2026-09-03",
  "media": [],
  "x": {
    "myth": {
      "pantheon": "roman",
      "kind": "hero",
      "group": "other",
      "domains": [
        "founding of Rome",
        "kingship",
        "war"
      ],
      "symbols": [
        "she-wolf",
        "twelve vultures",
        "wolf-skin"
      ],
      "wikidata": "Q2186"
    }
  },
  "canonical_url": "https://mythosdata.dev/k/romulus",
  "api_url": "https://mythosdata.dev/api/k/romulus.json",
  "jsonld": {
    "@context": "https://schema.org",
    "name": "Romulus",
    "description": "Founder and first king of Rome, twin son of the Vestal Rea Silvia and — she said — Mars; exposed in the Tiber, suckled by a she-wolf, killer of his brother Remus at the new wall, abductor of the Sabine women, and taken up in a storm to become the god Quirinus. Livy tells it with his doubts recorded; Virgil prophesies him; Ovid deifies him.",
    "url": "https://mythosdata.dev/k/romulus",
    "license": "https://spdx.org/licenses/CC-BY-4.0.html",
    "dateModified": "2026-09-03",
    "citation": [
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "Ovid, Metamorphoses — tr. Brookes More (1922), Perseus TEI edition",
        "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-latinLit/blob/master/data/phi0959/phi006/phi0959.phi006.perseus-eng3.xml"
      },
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "Virgil, Aeneid — tr. Theodore C. Williams (1910), Perseus TEI edition",
        "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-latinLit/blob/master/data/phi0690/phi003/phi0690.phi003.perseus-eng2.xml"
      },
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, Books 1–10 — tr. Rev. Canon Roberts (1912), Perseus TEI edition",
        "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-latinLit/blob/master/data/phi0914/phi001/phi0914.phi001.perseus-eng3.xml"
      }
    ],
    "@type": "Article",
    "headline": "Romulus"
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}