Romulus and Remus

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Romulus and Remus, the central figures of the foundation myth of Rome. According to tradition, the twins were abandoned by their parents as babies, but were saved by a she-wolf who found and nursed them. Romulus killed his brother after a vicious quarrel, and went on to found a city, which was named after him.

The myth has been at the core of Roman identity since the 1st century AD, although the details vary in different versions of the story. For many Roman writers, the story embodied the ethos and institutions of their civilisation. The image of the she-wolf suckling the divinely fathered twins remains a potent icon of the city even today.

→ Play on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Mary Beard 11 episodes
  Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge
• Peter Wiseman No other episodes
  Emeritus Professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter
• Tim Cornell No other episodes
  Emeritus Professor of Ancient History at the University of Manchester

Reading list

• Rome: Day One
  Andrea Carandini Google Books →
• The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000 - 264 BC)
  T. J. Cornell Google Books →
• The Foundation of Rome
  A. Fraschetti Google Books →
• The Foundation of Rome: Myth and History
  A. Grandazzi Google Books →
• The Early History of Rome: Books I-V
  Livy (trans. Aubrey De Selincourt) Google Books →
• The Rise of Rome, Books 1-5
  Livy (trans. T. J. Luce) Google Books →
• Times and Reasons: A New Translation of Fasti
  Ovid (trans. Anne and Peter Wiseman)
• Lives
  Plutarch (trans. Bernadotte Perrin) Google Books →
• Remus: A Roman Myth
  T. P. Wiseman Google Books →
• The Myths of Rome
  T. P. Wiseman Google Books →

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Programme ID: b01q02t7

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01q02t7

Auto-category: 937 (Ancient Rome)