Several weeks ago, we were walking in Via Valle Murcia, entering that flat valley which is between the two legendary hills, the Aventine and the Palatine. Few people still call this place Vallis Murcia, preferring the name of Circus Maximus, the large stadium that almost totally covered this area. At the north-western edge, now close to the river, is where, according to the legend, the basket carrying abandoned twins was stranded. There, the Tiber made a marshy zone. Because of the bend this flat space become flooded with shallow waters (before the building of a sewer, the Cloaca Maxima, drained it). It�s exactly in this point were the Ficus Ruminalis (the holy fig tree) was, and where the twins ended their navigation, at the foot of the Palatine hill. According to this legend, quiet common in many Indo-European tales, a God impregnated a virgin. Here Rhea Silvia, seduced by Mars, fathered Romulus and Remus. Her uncle Amulius, king of the nearby town of Albalonga, having encroached upon her father Numitor, left the twins in the waters quite sure that they could easily be drowned. Why the villain always preferred to abandon them in the river, the sea or whatever, instead of killing at the moment with a knife, a sword or a stone, is always a mystery to me! But thanks to his magnanimity we are able to tell this tale once again, because a she-wolf found the boys and raised them. More probably was Acca Laurentia, a woman of �ill repute�, if we think of the Lupanari (the ancient bordellos) or the meaning of Lupa in ancient Rome, a synonym for prostitute because of the wild shouts they made to attract clients. Once grown they avenged their grandfather Numitor by killing king Amulius. Instead of waiting for the city of Albalonga as a legacy, they preferred to settle a new town, determining the town's name by a contest; which brother was able to see the most birds at a particular moment. Remus was on the Aventine, by the saxum sacrum, Romolus on the Palatium (the steep south-east part of the Palatine hill) so that they should stay one in front of the other. The story goes with Romulus winning the game (12 Vs 6) and deciding for the name Roma, to be built to be built in the very place in which he stood. He dug a ditch drawing a big square at the foot of the hill. In his Annales (XII-24) Tacitus tells: <<�it�s apropos to know the borders of the first foundation and the Pomerium established by Romulus. From the ox market (the Forum Boarium, just by the river), where nowadays we see the bronze statue of a bull,�, the delimiting furrow of the city was drawn, so as to embrace the great Hercules� shrine (the Ara Maxima Herculis, where is now the church of Sta. Maria in Cosmedin with the Mouth of Truth). Then, at regular intervals, stones were placed along the slopes of the Palatine to the altar of Consus (where now is Via dell�Ara di Conso, in front of U.N.- F.A.O. palace), soon afterwards to the old Curiae (Curiae veteres, on the East side of the Palatine, by the Coliseum) and then to the Sacellum Larum (or of the Mother of Lares, Larunda, sometime identified with Acca Laurentia herself). It�s thought that the Forum and the Capitolinum were added to the city not by Romolus but by Titus Tatius;�>>. It was a perfect position, on the top of a hill, close to the ford across the river. It was near the sea but not so close to be attacked by the pirates. Romolus, whether alone or possibly with a group of fugitives or outlaws or a stronghold of the Latins against the Etruscans, who were just a one mile away, on the Ianiculus, on the other side of the Tiber. It could be useful to develope relations to that people, who were sometimes their enemies, sometimes their friends with whom they could exchange goods. They were people that called the river Rumon, the word in their own language. A name impossible not to notice the connection with the name of Rome. Although much less romantic, the history probably was this. The legend told us that Romulus killed his brother because this last scene, envious and angry for the loss, Remus crossed that very ditch which Romolus swore to protect if ever anyone tried to pass without permission. And so the myth of the greatest of all the cities had just begun.