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In Our Time: Romulus and Remus

Romulus and Remus

24/01/2013

BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Romulus and Remus

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Romulus and Remus, the foundation myth of Rome.

Melvyn Bragg and guests Mary Beard, Peter Wiseman and Tim Cornell discuss Romulus and Remus, the foundation myth of Rome.

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.

With:

Mary Beard
Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge
 
Peter Wiseman
Emeritus Professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter
 
Tim Cornell
Emeritus Professor of Ancient History at the University of Manchester.


Producer: Thomas Morris.

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