The She-Wolf and the Shepherd

Somewhere beneath this slope lay the Lupercal, the cave where the animal is said to have found the children.

A she-wolf who had just given birth heard them crying, and she suckled them, while a woodpecker brought food. Both creatures belonged to Mars, so to Roman ears that settled the question of who the father was. Then the shepherd Faustulus found the twins, carried them home, and raised them together with his wife.

The boys grew up on this hill as shepherds, and according to Livy they also led a gang that ambushed robbers and shared out the loot among their friends. During one such quarrel Remus was captured and brought before Numitor, and that was the moment the penny dropped: the old king recognised his grandsons in the two young men. Together they deposed his brother and gave him back his throne.

The cave itself gained a cult of its own. Every February the Romans celebrated the Lupercalia here, when young men dressed in goatskin ran along the foot of the hill and struck bystanders with straps, which was believed to bring fertility. The festival survived right up to the end of the fifth century AD.

We keep following the street and then climb the slope towards the archaeological site.