Rome I: Foundation

Rome was famously founded by Romulus in 753 BCE, but that’s not the end of the story, for the Romans also traced their ancestry back to Aeneas, a survivor of the Trojan War. In this lecture and the next, we explore what these two lineages offer Rome and how Rome’s first emperor, Augustus, claimed descent from the gods themselves. Here we consider the significance of history in Rome’s mythic beginnings, and how Rome’s early history and kings reflect important facets of Roman identity. Copyright 2013 Rhiannon Evans / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.