Editing Romulus and Remus (section)

==Iconography==
Ancient pictures of the Roman twins usually follow certain [[Iconography|symbolic]] traditions, depending on the legend they follow: they either show a shepherd, the she-wolf, the twins under a fig tree, and one or two birds ([[Livy]], [[Plutarch]]); or they depict two shepherds, the she-wolf, the twins in a cave, seldom a fig tree, and never any birds ([[Dionysius of Halicarnassus]]).

The twins and the she-wolf were featured on what might be the earliest silver coins minted in Rome.<ref>Crawford, p. 31</ref>

The [[Franks Casket]], an Anglo-Saxon ivory box (early 7th century AD), shows Romulus and Remus in an unusual setting, two wolves instead of one, a grove instead of one tree or a cave, four kneeling warriors instead of one or two gesticulating shepherds. According to one interpretation, and as the [[Anglo-Saxon runes|runic]] inscription ("far from home") indicates, the twins are cited here as the ''Dioscuri'', helpers at voyages such as [[Castor and Pollux|Castor and Polydeuces]]. Their descent from the Roman god of war predestines them as helpers on the way to war. The carver transferred them into the Germanic holy grove and has [[Odin]]'s second wolf join them. Thus the picture served—along with five other ones—to influence "[[wyrd]]", the fortune and fate of a warrior king.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://deposit.d-nb.de/ep/netpub/84/95/68/987689584/_data_stat/english/left02.html |title=Romulus and Remus |website=Franks Casket |access-date=20 December 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130308052737/http://deposit.d-nb.de/ep/netpub/84/95/68/987689584/_data_stat/english/left02.html |archive-date=8 March 2013 }}; see also "The Travelling Twins: Romulus and Remus in Anglo-Saxon England"</ref>