“Perhaps I do believe it,” answered Romulus. “Can you tell me the name of the woman who gave birth to me and to Remus, Potitius? No. Then why not say it was Rhea Silvia?”
“But…that would make Amulius your father—the man you killed for a crown!”
“Perhaps. Or was it the war god Mavors who fathered us? Don’t scoff, Potitius! You say you’re descended from that god that hangs from your neck, and you claim that the blood of Hercules runs in your veins. Why shouldn’t Remus and I be the sons of Mavors? Either way, the story makes us out to be the grandsons and heirs of old King Numitor. When we got rid of Amulius and took his treasury, we were doing nothing more than avenging our grandfather’s murder and reclaiming what was rightfully ours!”
There was a long silence, until Remus finally spoke. “Like Potitius, I have reservations about this idea. But I must admit, claiming a royal bloodline for ourselves might solve a great many problems for us, not only now, to pacify the people in Alba, but later on as well, if people hereabouts waver in their loyalty to us, or grow jealous of our good fortune.”
Romulus placed a hand on Remus’s shoulder and smiled. “My brother is the wisest of men. And you, Pinarius, are the most clever.” Pinarius grinned back at him. “And how lucky we are, on this day, to welcome back our oldest and most loyal friend, after so many years away.” He gazed at Potitius with a look of such warmth and affection that Potitius’s feelings of uneasiness vanished, as morning mist on the Tiber vanishes beneath the rising sun.
753 B.C.
In the months that followed, the twins continued to build on their success at Alba. Scattered across the countryside within a few day’s ride of Roma were numerous men who had accumulated enough wealth and power to rule over their neighbors, surround themselves with warriors, and call themselves kings. One by one, Romulus and Remus found reasons to challenge those men, and one by one they defeated them in battle, claimed their wealth, and invited their warriors to join them at Roma. The twins were ferocious and fearless fighters. As their victories mounted, they acquired a reputation for invincibility. Men found it easy to credit that they were the offspring of Mavors.
As their fame spread, more men flocked to join them, drawn by the chance for adventure and a share of the booty. Every day, new strangers appeared in the marketplace, asking for the twins. These men were very different from the honest traders who had been visiting the market for generations, or the hard-working laborers who passed through, looking for seasonal employment in the butchering pens and meat-salting operations. These newcomers were rough-looking men. Some carried weapons, wore bronze helmets or mismatched pieces of armor, and bore the scars of previous battles. Some arrived with nothing more than the rags they wore, and many of these were shifty-eyed and secretive about their pasts. A few were innocent and starry-eyed, adventure-hungry youths smitten by tales of the twins and eager to serve under them.
“What have they done to our Roma?” moaned the elder Potitius. “I can remember a time when you could circle the Seven Hills and not meet a single person you didn’t know by name. You knew your neighbor; you knew his grandparents, and who his cousins were, and which of the gods were most sacred to his household. Every family among us had been here for generations. Now, every time I leave the hut, I feel I’ve stumbled into a gathering of cast-offs and cattle-thieves! It was bad enough when these strangers began showing up among us, straggling in, uninvited. Now the twins have put out a call for such men to come to Roma! ‘Come, join us!’ they say. ‘It doesn’t matter who you are, or where you’ve been, or what you’re running from. If you’re fit to fight and willing to take an oath of loyalty, then take up arms and go looting with us!’ Every cutthroat and bandit from the mountains to the sea can find a home in Roma, up on Asylum Hill. And why not? Cutthroats and bandits are just the sort of men Romulus and Remus are looking for!”
Potitius, who had his own hut now, living near the twins on the Palatine, had come home merely to pay a brief visit, but had found himself trapped by his father’s rantings. His father’s reference to Asylum Hill was particularly stinging. As the number of the twins’ followers had grown larger and larger, room to lodge them had been found atop the high hill directly above the market. It was a natural spot to lodge an army; the two highest points at opposite ends of the hill afforded commanding views of the surrounding countryside, and steep flanks on every side made the hill the most defensible location in Roma. The name which people had lately given to the hill, Asylum, came from the altar which the twins had erected there, dedicated to Asylaeus, the patron god of vagabonds, fugitives, and exiles, who offered sanctuary to those who could find it nowhere else. As a haruspex, and because of his training as a priest of Hercules, Potitius had presided at the consecration of the Altar of Asylaeus. His father’s harsh words about the Asylum and its inhabitants struck Potitius as a personal rebuke.
But the elder Potitius was only beginning his tirade. “And you, my son—you go on these raids with them. You join in the looting!”
“I travel with Romulus and Remus as their haruspex, father. At river crossings, I ask the numina for safe passage. Before each battle, I take the auspices, reading the entrails of birds to determine if the day is propitious for victory. During storms, I study the lightning for signs of the gods’ will. These are the things I was trained to do, during my schooling in Tarquinia.”
“Before you became a haruspex, you were a priest of Hercules, my son. First and foremost, you are the keeper of the Ara Maxima.”
“I know that, Father. But consider: Hercules was the son of a god, and a hero to the people. So are Romulus and Remus.”
“No! The twins are nothing more than orphans raised by a pig farmer and his whore of a wife. They’re more like Cacus than like Hercules.”
“Father!”
“Think, my son. Hercules rescued the people and moved on, asking for nothing. Cacus killed and stole without remorse. Which of those two do your beloved twins more closely resemble?”
Potitius gasped at the recklessness of his father’s words. If he himself had ever harbored such thoughts, he had banished them once he made the decision to stand by the twins and to bind his fortunes to theirs.
“And now,” his father went on, “they plan to encircle a good portion of Roma with a wall, even higher and stronger than the pickets that surrounded the great house of Amulius at Alba.”
“But surely, Father, a wall is a good thing. Roma will become a proper city. If we’re attacked, people can find safety inside the walls.”
“And why should anyone wish to attack the good, honest people of Roma—except for the fact that the twins have wrought bloodshed and misery on others, and brought home more loot than they have any need for? There are two ways of making a way in the world, my son. One is the way that your ancestors pursued—trading with others peacefully and fairly, offering hospitality to strangers, accumulating no more wealth then is needed to live comfortably, and diligently seeking to offend neither men nor gods. People must barter for the things they need; Roma provided a safe, honest place to do so, and thus it was to everyone’s advantage to leave Roma unmolested. And because we did not pile up riches, we did not attract the envy of greedy, violent men.
“But there is another way of living, the way of men like Amulius, and of Romulus and Remus—to take by force that which other men have accumulated by hard work. Yes, their way leads quickly to great wealth—and just as surely to bloodshed and ruin. It is all very well to bully and rob your neighbors, then use the treasure you’ve stolen to pay strangers to help you bully and rob yet more neighbors. But what will happen when those neighbors unite and come looking for vengeance, or a stronger bully appears on the scene and comes looking to steal the twins’ treasure?