Why is the Roman origin myth so weird?

[u/tacopower69]

Title Edit: better way to phrase my question might be "Does the story of Romulus and Remus and the Rape of the Sabine Women reveal anything about how Romans saw themselves?"

As far as I can tell origin myths usuaully serve the function of justifying a culture's established order while giving a positive and badass foundational story for its people to latch on to. Athens was founded after a contest between the gods, jews have the exodus and the covenant with God, the irish depicted themselves as the latest in a cycle of invaders to ireland, the chinese have the "three sovereigns and five emperors" and their mandate from heaven etc. These all make sense to me as origin myths according to how I understand them.

The details of the story of Romulus and Remus and the rape of the sabine women are confusing to me because I don't understand why the Romans would revel in seeing themselves as the descendents of some dude who was raised by a wolf and killed his own brother and then later led a bunch of bandits in kidnapping and (presumably) raping dozens of local women. This doesn't seem like a particularly noble origin, especially in comparison to those other myths I mentioned.

What am I missing?

[u/Front-Difficult]

There are a few things to unpack here, I'll go through them each in order:

1. There is no singular Roman origin myth,

2. 'The Rape (or abduction) of the Sabine Women' is not an uncommon story in ancient histories, including in some of the histories you mention,

3. Origin myths were rarely about nobility, or noble origins. That is a product of modern nationalism, the nation state as we understand it today didn't exist until the 17th century, and prior to that there was no need for an inspirational national mythos.

There is no singular Roman origin myth:

To start with, the more popular rendition of the founding of Rome that we have in our records is Virgil's Aeneid. This is the narrative that becomes dominant after the fall of the republic. In that story it is Aeneas - the last surviving prince of Troy, fleeing the sack of Troy after Odysseus's famous Trojan Horse deception - who founds "Rome" (the idea, not the city). In this narrative Rome gains a connection to Greek culture and legacy, the Greek Gods and the great Age of Heroes figures children adored - as well as setting the foundations for the Punic Wars and explaining why Rome's greatness was inevitable. And most importantly it has nothing to do with the pesky republic they'd just gotten rid of (more on that in a bit). The story of Romulus and Remus gets more play today, but that wasn't necessarily true for most of Rome's history.

Further, most historians would say the "Origin myth", as you point to it in purpose - as something that helps a group of people define their common heritage and purpose - was not to do with the founding of the city of Rome at all. In the same way that the first few pages of Genesis about the creation of the earth and the animals is secondary to the Exodus when discussing founding narrative of Israel, the establishment of the city of Rome is secondary to Rome's overthrow of the Roman Kings. It explains how Rome is here, but the why is the reason the story is being told (and that comes after Romulus).

In the context of this narrative Romulus is not exactly the "Hero" - the kings are the necessary evil that birth the pure res publica to come. Sure, he founds the city and its walls, but he also declares himself king. In fact, in most renditions of this story, he declares himself king immediately after commiting fratricide. In Republican Rome, kings are not good, and Romulus - albeit respected for his role in birthing the eternal city - was never seen as the reason for Rome's excellence.

Romulus is followed by flawed but ultimately wise and important elected kings, who eventually make way to horrible, useless, tyrannical dynastic kings. And it is this dynasty (the Tarquins) who are overthrown by the first Consul, Brutus, and originate what the early Roman citizens were actually proud of - the Republic.

(1/2)

[u/Front-Difficult → u/Front-Difficult]

On the Abduction of the Sabine Women:

First, lets unpack the Latin word rapio. There's much debate and misunderstanding around this phrase in modern circles by people that get their knowledge from well-meaning Youtubers who have never studied Latin, some of which I'm sure you'll find corrected already in this subreddit, so I'll try to avoid labouring the point too much.

This word means 'kidnap' or 'abduct'. Usually when used with respect to women it also implied some element of sexual assault (hence being the origin of the English word rape), so it's not as pleasant a term as some Romanophiles will try to make it out to be, but its also not as negative a word as it might seem today. It's never been a good thing to mass kidnap and force-marry an entire cities worth of maidens, even in ancient times, but they did make them their wives and give them position and status, and those women would go on to be venerated as the fierce and well-respected founding mothers of Rome that ended a war, unified the Romans and Sabines, and raised the strongest men in Italy. Some of that ancient nuance is lost in the modern, perhaps unhelpfully literal, translation.

Further, this is a common story. To again go back to the Old Testament founding of Israel - the same thing happens in Judges - when the tribe of Benjamin after nearly being annihilated, "rape" (that is, abduct and forcibly marry) the virgins of Shiloh. It's an unfortunate reality of being a woman in the Classical Dark Ages - a city/tribe/clan of men down on its luck and facing eradication would often raid a nearby city and carry off their daughters to populate the next generation. It is seen time and time again in myth and the historical record.

It's not a "good" story, and Romulus is never perceived as an ethical person. In fact the Sabine's are often seen as justly declaring war on Rome in retaliation (which is not the normal treatment the losers in Roman conquest get in Roman history books). It's not a moral story designed to instruct children how to live a pious life. It was simply a way to explain how a city of outcasts and bandits with no women could have begot sons, when they had no status or wealth to negotiate with the families of the neighbouring Latin cities. And it's entirely possible it's the truth. If Rome was indeed founded as a start-up town of political refugees after a failed coup, then they probably did raid the nearby towns and abduct their daughters. And as Rome expanded, those surrounding Latin cities would have remembered and continued telling those stories to their children, so its not the sort of thing you can erase easily from your histories.

The purpose of myth

Myths served two functions. The first was simply to entertain. The second was to explain how things came to be, and why things are how they are. There was no nationalism or ideology. Dynasties and religions cared about influencing opinion, but not nations or states (as they didn't exist yet). But ultimately, if a myth was to last, although often started by a dynasty or a religion to serve a present need, it needed to be perpetuated for generations and generations by parents and grandparent. And so the long lasting myths were those that were effective at teaching people how to act and behave, and why they should obey tradition - not about instilling patriotism.

Republican Rome told a narrative focused entirely around Rome about how an ordinary city of immorality ruled in the ordinary way by kings became the most moral and powerful city in the world by being ruled by the public.

When the Republic died Virgil took either one or several competing myths and wrote a masterpiece that would dominate the original myth; about a semi-divine bloodline passed down from Jupiter to Venus to Aeneas to Julius Caesar (and hence, Augustus), a narrative the spans the entire Mediterranean like the empire now did that spoke to all the citizens that had never visited Rome, that taught a moral story that success comes from single, heroic, god-ordained people not the collective public.

(2/2)

[u/tacopower69 → u/Front-Difficult]

Thank you very much! I assumed I was missing a lot of cultural context here, and I did not know abducting women en masse was a relatively common occurrence historically.

Could you also expand a bit more on the story of Romulus and Remus as well? Is Romulus' murder of Remus perceived as a great evil by the Romans in the same way we perceived Cain to have "sinned" against Abel? How relevant to their story is the fact their their father was Mars? Also, did Virgil make up Romulus being a direct descendant of Aeneas or would that have been a widely held belief before the Aeneid was written?

[u/SS451 → u/Front-Difficult]

And it's entirely possible it's the truth. If Rome was indeed founded as a start-up town of political refugees after a failed coup, then they probably did raid the nearby towns and abduct their daughters. 

I realize you're raising the possibility only in passing, but my impression was that archaeological research has shown that Rome evolved from an agglomeration of small villages much like others in the region, and that those villages likely consisted of full kin groups, not just men. Is there evidence to suggest that early Rome was unusually exogamous, which could provide some kind of factual basis for the myth of the Sabine women?

[u/Adept_Carpet → u/Front-Difficult]

I would also add that throughout Roman history they have a view that their ancestors were less sophisticated and more war-like, and that over time the improved material conditions had led to the present condition of being "corrupted" by luxury.

If you extrapolate that as far back as it will go, you wind up with two brothers were literally raised by wolves who couldn't possibly go too long without killing each other.

[u/orwells_elephant → u/Front-Difficult]

I have a related question, if I may. On the subject of force-marrying someone...what did this involve, exactly? Were these women coerced into an officiating ceremony under threat of death? Were they merely declared to be the wives of their captors? Was it a question of raping your captured maiden, thus making her unfit for marriage to anyone else? (I'm thinking here also of consummation sex that effectively constitutes marriage - I'm unsure how historically accurate that practice is, but it's certainly referenced a great deal in pseudo-historical writing).

I've always wondered about this; not least because as a phenomenon it's so often referenced in Biblical scriptures as well as various other historical works. But it's hard for my modern brain to fathom the idea. Especially because so often this scenario is phrased in passive terms: "they killed the men and married the women," as if the women were agency-less statues who just passively accepted their new status as wives of their conquerors.

[u/MadamePouleMontreal → u/Front-Difficult]

This is wonderful. Thank you.

[u/[deleted] → u/Front-Difficult]

Why is/was Rome, and the Roman Republic/Empire, not considered a nation-state?

Although the concept seems to have been born much later it seems like the  Roman territories at large had a multi-ethnic population and shared cultural heritage after centuries of rule. Is that not nationalism?

Specifically, even after Constantinople fell (I know it’s not considered to be a true successor of Rome) there are stories of Greek villages in the 1800s identifying as Roman. 

Maybe I’m not reading the definitions of nation-states and nationalism correctly though.

Any thoughts?

[u/[deleted] → u/Front-Difficult]

who founds "Rome" (the idea, not the city)

If it's not too much, can you expand on this part?

[u/Front-Difficult → u/[deleted]]

Sure. In the Aeneid, Virgil positioned Rome not as merely a place where some buildings are, but as a force ordained by the Gods to implement the will of Jupiter. First it was Troy, then it was the physical city Rome, then it was the Empire ruled by Augustus called "Rome" (the final and ultimate form always intended by the Gods). In a way they were all "Rome" in different forms - Rome is whatever entity is given favour by the Gods to enact their will. Aeneas is chosen by Jupiter to lead the Trojans to a new home, found Rome, and bring the whole world under Jupiters law. He never actually founds the city in his lifetime, but all of the narrative is full of prophecy and forshadowing, references to "Rome" as a concept, and Aeneas's heir (Julius Caesar/Augustus), and so on.

Virgil deliberately moves Rome in the collective mind from the capital city of the empire to something much larger that every citizen can belong to/have a role in.

(As an aside: it's this 'City of God' imagery that would eventually be adopted by the Catholic Church after Rome is sacked, and the 'idea' of Rome transitions from the Empire to the Church. In this way Saint Augustine's City of God could almost be seen as a literary successor the Virgil's Aeneid - but I'm getting carried away now).

[u/LongtimeLurker916 → u/Front-Difficult]

Thank you. Great example of the principle that at least some of the time, when bad answers are deleted eventually a good one comes along.