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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 ก.ย. 2024
- Legend holds that the city of Rome was founded by Romulus on April 21st, 753 BCE.
Romulus, for whom the city was named, was born alongside a twin brother, Remus, and the boys were said to be the sons of the war god Mars and a woman named Rhea Silvia. When the circumstances of their conception were understandably considered suspicious, the twins were declared illegitimate and thrown into the river Tiber, but the river, swollen by rain, dropped them off on a sandy bank, where they were sheltered by a fig tree and nursed to strength by a she-wolf.
As adults, the twins decided to found a city upon the banks where they'd been reared, but a bitter dispute between the brothers led Romulus to slay Remus -- a tragic outcome, but one which prevented the modern capital of Italy from being known as Reme.
Romulus would become the king of the new city, and the leaders who claimed to be his successors would expand Rome far beyond the border of the Pomerium into the most powerful empire the world had ever known.
But...how much of that really happened? Is there any evidence for Romulus' existence beyond oral tradition? Was the wolf ever interviewed? In this video, we examine the case for Romulus' historicity -- and the answer is more complicated than you might think.
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Romulus was so great and powerful, that the Romulans named their planet after him.
Same with Vulcan
A man of culture...🥂
Ancient people probably thought that "creating something" in general meant taking a sharp tool (shovel, plow, pen, knife, chisel) to a large block of unrefined material (soil, untilled land, paper, wood, marble). They wouldn't have imagined creating matter from absolutely nothing like a Big Bang. Either our modern English doesn't have exact equivalent words to what they meant, or possibly the sources we use from ancient periods were closer to poetry meant to be sung around campfires than precise historical records.
Great point, this is an excellent way of thinking about it
I also think our experiences in the new world, were cities were founded and established in previously unsettled sometimes untouched lands, gives us an idea that there was nothing there before.
The best channel on ancient Rome in my opinion.
That’s high praise, thank you so much!
@@tribunateSPQRmine too well this and romewise tours
@@FirstmaninRome thank you! We aim to keep putting out content that lives up to this billing
As a long-time fan of Herodotus, I find the shift in perspective that you offer us here to be very interesting. Cheers.
Thanks! Our goal here isn’t to assert with any certainty that he existed but just to pose a meta-historical question about how we should evaluate ancient evidence
Interesting perspective here. Great work as always!
Thank you! We were hoping that this would present a sort of interesting thought-exercise.
It's fun to think about this kind of thing. Is it one person, a succession of people mashed together or completely based in myth? And then, did gods ever start out as kings etc. and get elevated then the historical figure forgotten and layers of embellishment settle like sediment over the facts? Keep up the great work guys, always enjoy your videos.
It's an interesting thought experiment, and the fact that we'll likely never be able to know what aspects are myth and which have a grain of truth makes it a bit more fun.
Great work as always
Thanks!
This was so awesome. 👏🏻👏🏻 Thank you.
Many thanks! Glad you enjoyed it.
@@tribunateSPQR So much.
Great video and an excellent thought experiment
Thank you! Cheers!
Very interesting video. Keep it up bro!❤️
Thanks so much, glad you enjoyed it!
Awesome video, if you guys keep it up you'll be a very successful channel
Thank you for the encouragement! Glad you have enjoyed our content!
Even the tradition doesn't say that Romulus was the first to build at the site of Rome. It would have been good if you had talked about Evander.
It's rare that I agree 100% with a video. Historians skepticism flirt with irrationality sometimes.
There is little we moderns like more than assuming we're smarter than those who came before us. If we assume that ancient people were being reasonable in their attempts to make sense of the world around them, it does not necessitate we accept every detail of their interpretation, but it will maybe give us better insight into the world as they experienced it.
There has fortunately been a course correction in reaction to the trends of 100+ years ago that saw ancient sources as inherently suspect. The ancients were every bit as smart as us, they just didn't have access to the same tools
According to Mary Beard, the name translates as "Mr. Rome"
Quite the moniker
adore your work
Thanks so much! We're glad you're here.
Cool video, deserves more attention.
Thank you! Every comment helps with visibility so thanks for doing your part to help us grow
This same debate has been going on for other historic figures; particularly that of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
During the early 20th century, it was a commonplace view among the academics to dismiss the notion of Jesus’s existence (and that of most of the biblical figures mentioned in the Bible). However, in the early 21st century, the attitude towards the existence of Jesus has shifted towards accepting him as a historic figure - even if mythologized - as more evidence verifying the Biblical narrative have come up over the years (Pontius Pilate, for example).
So, it wouldn’t surprise me if the historical community’s consensus on Romulus shifts away from a harsh skepticism towards a more accepting view of Romulus being a historic figure.
We fully agree - though the evidence for Jesus and Romulus is radically different, I don't think it's too radical to speculate that a dynamic first king of a unified Rome existed and that this figure inspired later legends
Wonderful stuff, thought provoking and entertaining
Thanks!
Sometimes myth is truer than history.
1:32 why would you say this is a palestinian town, I don’t wanna get political but that’s why I’m asking…someone who is a historian of roman history should know. It’s kinda odd sounding chronologically.
It's for a place and people that have been there a long, long time. Bethlehem is located in a place that has long been called Palestine, or to that effect for thousands of years. Ancient Egypt had called the region Peleset in the 1100s BC. The actual word Palestine was being used by the Greeks for the region starting around 5th century BC. In the 3rd century AD the Roman Empire renamed the province of Judaea into Syria Palaestina. The people had been there basically forever. The people and region aren't a modern fabrication.
@@Warmaker01Peleset are a people that were MOVING to that region when mentioned by Egyptians. Aren't you making politics, as the authors of the video seem to be doing?
@@Warmaker01 It wasn’t officially named that. Herodotus is a greek and that was persian land. So what did Cyrus The Great call it? The only sources we have from the 5th century BC are the books of the bible which mention Cyrus The Great some 22 times and the area which Jerusalem is called Judah. Even if you are an atheist, it’s fact that the bible was written by the people in that region and we have cuneiform tablets which strongly support the events which deal with Cyrus The Great like the great babylonian captivity and return home. It officially is called that by the Romans as you said. That was my point, it chronologically doesn’t make sense with the evidence we have. Is Herodotus enough to convince you? Take the land of Arabia for instance. Go try and look at the sources and they say it’s in all kinds of places depending on what they know about the place, at the time of these sources they would’ve had official names of these places and it wouldn’t have been what the greeks and roman’s called “Arabia”. I don’t know why Herodotus calls it that but I haven’t read that excerpt, I have his Histories so allow me to actually see what he’s saying.
Palestinian town of Bethlehem? 🤔
1:40 at 0 AD the region was still known as judea, it was Hadrian who chabged the name to philistea on 135 AD
Palestinian? 😂
Yes?
Weird that you call it a Palestinian town when the region had not yet been named Syria Palestina by the Romans. Your anachronisms betray your politics, young padawon.
Palestine was a preexisting name used by greeks and romans for the region, that's why the name was chosen by the romans after bar kokhba, they didn't just invent it out of whole cloth. I'd personally refer to it as judaean since it is still a foreign term and, actually, discount the idea jesus was born in Bethlehem entirely and just say galileean, but it's not anachronistic to refer to Palestine
@@ju44_0it's definitely weird and not the act of an honest historian
@@kightsun If this is the only conclusion you take away from this video, God help us all…
@@steven_003God helps us all, because the guy is pointing out an error made out of political bias?