On the occasion of Christmas in Rome we set up an iconographic exhibition.
ENEA, THE PROGENITOR
Troy burns. Aeneas with the old Anchises on his shoulders, Ascanius by the hand and the simulacra of Athena and the Penates clasped in her arms, flees from her city and her land to fulfill her fatal destiny.
Having landed after many wanderings on the Lazio coast, near Lavinio, he comes across a sow, which he sacrifices to the Penate gods and ritually feeds on. Then comes the meeting with King Latino, whose daughter Lavinia he will marry, generating Silvio, the future king of Albalonga, birthplace of Romulus and Remus. In fact, Virgil narrates that Aeneas, having descended into Hades, meets his father Anchises, who, among the shadows that populate that underground world, points out to his son the souls of those who will become his glorious descendants. Here is Silvius, who will be born from Aeneas and Lavinia, then the kings of Albalonga, and Romulus, founder of Rome, and so on, up to Caesar and Augustus, who will bring the empire to the ends of the world. And the review ends with the exaltation of Rome’s civilizing mission.
THE GOD OF WAR AND THE GUARDIAN OF THE HEARTHEAT
Albalonga was the hegemonic center of the Latin cities that divided the territory of Lazio between them in the pre-urban age. Here, upon the death of King Procas, his first son, Numitor, obtains the throne, but his evil brother, Amulius, takes it away from him. For fear of revenge on the part of Numitor’s sons, Amulius has the male killed and appoints his female daughter Rhea Silvia as priestess of Vesta, thus forcing her to remain chastistic. The young girl is in fact feared by Amulius, who tries to interrupt her lineage, as she is a possible transmitter of succession to the throne through women.
But he reckoned without the gods and without Fate. Some time later Rhea Silvia goes to a spring in a forest sacred to Mars to draw water to use in sacrifices. Some wonders related to the divine nature of the place occur in the woods and the girl is seized by a deceptive sleep that makes her fall asleep. While she sleeps she is possessed by Mars, who makes her pregnant, heralding the birth of twins with particular characteristics: Romulus and Remus. According to another version of the myth, Rhea Silvia was possessed by a divine phallus that appeared in the royal hearth of Albalonga, which, as a vestal virgin, she had the task of guarding.
THE FATAL TWINS
At the end of the pregnancy, which was kept hidden, Rhea Silvia secretly gives birth to twins, which Amulio entrusts to a servant to kill. However, with a good heart, he places them in a basket and abandons them to the waters of the Tiber. The basket lands at the foot of the Palatine near a cave sacred to Mars, called Lupercale, near which there was also a spring and a fig tree called Ruminale in honor of the goddess Rumina, protector of infants. At that point a wolf arrives: she has recently given birth and feeds the newborns with her milk as if they were her own puppies. Romulus and Remus are eventually found and finally saved by the shepherd Faustolo and his wife Acca Larenzia, who raise the children in their hut on the top of the Palatine. Years of pastoral life pass; one day the two young people participate in the ritual of a sacrifice to Faunus. While the priests take care of the ritual cooking of the meat of a goat, in the countryside the twins with some companions perform gymnastic exercises. From which they are distracted by the sudden call for help from a shepherd: cattle thieves take away the herd! The young people rush in, defeat the gang, and return. But the thieves, shepherds of Numitor, kidnap Remus to take revenge and take him to Alba. The twins are separated. Romulus wants to rush to free his brother, but Faustolo, while begging him not to go alone, reveals the truth about their origins.
The young man then gathers his companions and goes to attack Alba. In the meantime, Numitor has reported Remus to Amulius, on charges of cattle theft. He entrusts the task of killing him to Numitor himself, who, however, by divine intuition, understands that it is his nephew. The recognition leads to an agreement between the two to eliminate the usurper Amulius. But Romulus will arrive and kill him, bringing his grandfather Numitor, the legitimate king, back to the throne.
Once the Alban adventure is over, the twins return definitively to the site of Rome: Romulus to found the city, Remus to be killed.
THE SYMBOL OF THE WOLF
The choice of the wolf as the animal intended for breastfeeding the two potential founding heroes is interesting due to the ambiguous character of the animal, predatory and at the same time sociable, with almost human aspects in parental care. Breastfeeding by an animal, especially a wild one, is a recurring theme in heroic myths. The fact that the twins are nursed by a she-wolf is therefore a distinctive sign and represents the passing of a test that reveals superiority and predisposition for great feats.
The famous statue of the She-Wolf in the Middle Ages was located in the Lateran. During the thirteenth century it was placed on the Annibaldi tower, from which it presided over the executions of the condemned, as evidenced by a drawing from 1438, which shows, next to the statue, the severed hands nailed to the tower of the thieves guilty of stealing especially in churches . At the end of 1471 there was the famous donation to the Roman people by Sixtus IV; the two small statues of the twins are the work of Antonio Pollaiolo. The sculpture, according to the most widespread opinion, was considered an Etruscan production from the first decades of the 5th century BC. C. Recent C14 analyzes carried out on it (following those already carried out in 2007) unequivocally confirm the attribution of the sculpture to the medieval era.
BIRDS FLY. ROMULUS DRAW THE FURROW
Wanting to found a new city on the banks of the Tiber, in the place where they had been saved and raised, having obtained the consent of Numitor, restored to the throne of Albalonga, the two twins are preparing to ask for that of Jupiter. However, Romulus wants to found the city on the Palatine and call it Rome; Remus, on the other hand, wants his Remuria or Remora on the Aventine. Only the father of all the gods can resolve the dispute, making his will explicit through the interpretation of the flight of birds, the auspices. The chosen one is Romulus.
From the western peak of the Palatine, then, Romulus indicates the limits of the area that must be inaugurated (blessed by the god). The area is delimited by four stones that mark its ends, thus forming a quadrilateral that encompasses the entire Palatine. The continuous line, which ideally unites the four corners of the area, is the pomerium, the sacred space of the city which will be surrounded by the walls. The culminating act of the foundation consists in carrying out a sacred plowing around the hill, following an Etruscan ritual and after wearing the appropriate dress, the cintus Gabinus.
Romulus yokes a white cow and a bull to a bronze plow and traces a furrow around the Palatine, establishing the route of the walls and interrupting the plowing at the 3 access gates to the future city. In fact, the gates do not enjoy the same inviolability as the city walls, which can thus be crossed with impunity only in correspondence with them. But that is precisely the sacrilegious gesture that Remo makes: crossing the sacred furrow, he virtually jumps over the walls in an unauthorized point. For this reason he is killed and the place where the execution of the sacrilege was imagined to have taken place was still indicated in the 1st century AD. from 4 memorial stones, found along the so-called Clivio Palatino near the Arch of Titus.
It is April 21st of a year around the middle of the 8th century BC. Romulus remains alone, Rome is founded.
AB URBE CONDITA: LE PALILIE
April 21 of a year around the middle of the 8th century BC: ab Urbe condita. The time of the Romans began from here and in their calendars this day was marked as a holiday. The oldest calendar, obviously attributed by tradition to Romulus, consists of ten months – between March and December – in which time is regulated by holidays.
On this day for the Romans the festival of Parilia or Palilia fell, dedicated to the goddess Pales, protector of that south-western sector of the Palatine called Cermalus. The Roman Palilia descended from a sort of ancient New Year of the Latin shepherds, linked to the reproductive cycle of sheep. On that day lambs were killed, cheese was curdled and men, flocks and sheepfolds were purified. Before proceeding with the sacred plowing, Romulus therefore performs some rituals: in fact the foundation of Rome does not consist only in urban construction, but above all in a series of ceremonial, political and sacral acts at the same time. For this reason, the date traditionally handed down by literary sources is important, because it coincides with the beginning of cults and institutions that can be defined as public.
TO THE PALATINE TO THE CAPITOL
After having established the urbs, the second undertaking of the founder Romulus consists in the establishment of public places intended for carrying out sacral and political activities of the state. Wanting to create a connection between the Palatine and Campidoglio-Arce, one of the hills inhabited since pre-urban times, Romulus began the reclamation of the valley located between the two hills, the Velabro. The completion of this immense work, with the creation of the forensic space, will be carried out only at the end of the first royal age (as demonstrated by recent archaeological excavations, which date the first floor of the Forum to 700 BC).
Here, immediately outside the walls at the foot of the Palatine, the sanctuary of Vesta was built, home to the city’s common hearth and where the king’s house was also established, with the cults of his father Mars, Ops and the Lares. Just as that of Vesta hosted the king’s house, the sanctuary of Vulcan in the Forum hosted his Council and the nearby Comitium hosted the citizens’ assemblies. On the top of the Capitoline Hill Romulus inaugurates the first temple of the city and consecrates it to Jupiter Feretrius.
CHERCHEZ LA FEMME. THE RAPE OF THE SABINE WOMEN
After having inaugurated and surrounded the Palatine with a wall and having established the new order which is configured as a first formula of city-state, Romulus searches for women to marry for himself and for his all-male people. He then sends a request to this effect to his neighbors, but only receives refusals: the Romans are not rich, they do not enjoy prestige, they are rude parvenus, there is really no one who aspires to become related to them. Offended and irritated by the refusals, Romulus then decides to kidnap the women not granted. To implement this plan, he invites his neighbors to parties and games organized in honor of Neptune, vowing to Consus, the god who presides over secret decisions, to celebrate an annual festival in his honor if the kidnapping is successful. This is how it happens: attracted by the celebrations, the proud but naive neighbors rush to the new city and, distracted by its beauties and the playing of the games, are unable to prevent the kidnapping of their women. After the threatening and violent start, immediately followed by promises of love and family stability, the Sabine women are convinced to willingly remain with the Roman kidnappers, who will make them their legitimate wives, mothers of their children.
Beyond some variations, the dual motivation for the kidnapping attributed to Romulus appears quite clear from the mythological tale. A demographic reason, to ensure the survival of his young people. A political reason: to strengthen and extend the power of the city through marriages with which to form alliances with neighboring peoples or, in case of refusal, to have the pretext to wage war against anyone who wants to oppose this expansionist project.
SOME CHRISTMAS OF ROME FROM THE PAST
21 April 47 AD: CLAUDIUS, THE FIRST CHRISTMAS IN ROME
The establishment of the official holiday to commemorate the birth of Rome is due to the will of Emperor Claudius (10 BC – 54 AD), who in 47 AD. C., on the occasion of the eighth centenary of the foundation of the city, inserted a day called Natalis Urbis into the Roman calendar. On the occasion of this new festivity, Claudio instituted the ludi saeculares, three days and three nights of religious ceremonies, sacrifices and theatrical performances, with a secular cadence, which were to celebrate the end of one century and the beginning of another.
21 April 80 AD: TITUS AND THE COLOSSEUM
Coinciding with Rome’s Christmas, Emperor Titus wants to inaugurate the Flavian amphitheater and the Baths that bear his name, organizing sumptuous games there for that day and for the hundred to follow. Started by Vespasian in 72 AD. the Flavian amphitheater was inaugurated by Titus but completed by Diocletian. The imposing construction, which can accommodate up to 70,000 spectators, is made with one hundred thousand cubic meters of travertine and three hundred tons of metal. Duels between gladiators take place here, but also venationes, hunts for wild animals and naumachie, or naval battles.
21 April 1483: THE POPE, THE WOLF AND THE LITERATURE
Pope Sixtus IV was Roman pontiff from 1471 to 1484. A first-person promoter of the recovery of classical art, he founded the first nucleus of the Capitoline Museums with the donation to the Roman people of some important bronze statues, including the Capitoline She-Wolf. However, the restoration of the classical Christmas holiday in Rome is due to the great scholar Pomponio Leto, who, together with other humanists, founded the Roman Academy in 1460. This group of enthusiastic classicists, supported by the will of the Pope, decides to resume celebrating the Christmas of Rome right at the home of Pomponio Leto, on the Esquiline, with the reading of texts written for the occasion in honor of the city, dated, rather than from the birth of Christ, ab Urbe condita.
13-14 September 1513: LEONE X, GIULIANO DE’ MEDICI AND THE CAPITOL THEATER
In 1513 Rome’s Christmas was celebrated in September. The shift in the date was caused by an event steeped in Romanism and nepotism: Giuliano de’ Medici, brother of the reigning Pope Leo X, solemnly received the nomination as a Roman patrician. The backdrop to the sumptuous ceremony is the very Roman Feast of the Palilie and on the Capitoline Hill a wooden theater for 3000 people is erected, designed by Pietro Rosselli, with sets by Baldassarre Peruzzi. The event being celebrated is represented, from a historical perspective, and a comedy by Plautus, the Poenulus. For the occasion, a medal was minted, which shows the profile of the new patrician Julian on the obverse and a depiction of Rome on the reverse.