Excavation of ruins confirm Rome myth

ROME -- Legend has it that Rome was founded in 753 B.C. by Romulus and Remus, the twin sons of Mars, the god of war, who were suckled as infants by a she-wolf in the woods.\nNow archaeologists believe they have found evidence that at least part of that tale may be true: Traces of a royal palace discovered in the Roman Forum have been dated to roughly the period of the eternal city's legendary foundation.\nAndrea Carandini, a professor of archaeology at Rome's Sapienza University who has been conducting excavations at the Forum for more than 20 years, said he made the discovery over the past month at the spot where the Temple of Romulus stands today.\nThe temple is beside the Sanctuary of Vesta, the Roman goddess of the hearth, just outside of the Palatine walls, site of the earliest traces of civilization in Rome.\nAlthough archaeologists previously had found only huts dating to the eighth century B.C., Carandini and his team unearthed traces of regal splendor: a 3,700-square-foot palace, 1,130 square feet of which were covered, with the rest courtyard. There was a monumental entrance and elaborate furnishings and ceramics.\nThe walls were made of wood and clay, with a floor of wood shavings and pressed turf. Tests on the clay allowed the archaeologists to confirm the age of the find.\nCarandini said the residence had "absolutely extraordinary dimensions, dimensions not formerly known."\n"It could be nothing other than the royal palace," he said, adding that during that period, the average abode was about one-tenth that size.\nCarandini also found a hut where vestal virgins are believed to have lit a sacred flame.\nEugenio La Rocca, the superintendent for monuments for the city of Rome, said Carandini's interpretation of the ruins appears to be accurate.\n"It seems to me that what is emerging from the excavation of Carandini, who can be considered the highest authority in this field, is a very coherent archaeological reading," La Rocca told the newspaper Il Messaggero.\n"Whoever created the legend did so with the knowledge that behind it there was a historical foundation," he told the newspaper. "That doesn't mean the story of Romulus and Remus necessarily happened that way, but only that memory as it was handed down by the majority of the Latin writers is much more than a hypothesis."\nIn Rome's founding myth, the daughter of a king deposed by his brother was forced to become a vestal virgin to prevent her from having children. But Rhea Silvia became pregnant with sons of the god Mars.\nWhen the infants were discovered, the princess was imprisoned, and the babies were set adrift in a basket on the Tiber River, which today winds its way through Rome.\nThe twins floated ashore safely and were suckled by a she-wolf until they were rescued by a shepherd, who raised them.\nWhen they learned the story of their past, they killed the usurper Amulius, restored Rhea Silvia's father Numitor to the throne and set off to found a city on the site where they were cared for by the wolf.\nThe image of the two naked babies looking up to drink the milk of the she-wolf became a recurrent theme in Roman art, and sculptures of the scene are scattered around museums throughout Italy.\nAlthough there is little evidence of the existence of twins called Romulus and Remus who founded Rome, the discovery of the palace offers tantalizing indications that the legend has roots in fact.\nCarandini began his career as an art historian before becoming involved in archaeological digs.