Editing Religion in ancient Rome (section)

== Founding myths and divine destiny ==
{{See also|Roman mythology|Founding of Rome}}
[[File:Altar Mars Venus Massimo.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|[[Relief]] panel from an altar to [[Venus (mythology)|Venus]] and [[Mars (mythology)|Mars]] depicting Romulus and Remus suckling the she-wolf, and gods representing Roman topography such as the [[Tiber]] and [[Palatine Hill]]]]
The [[Roman mythology|Roman mythological tradition]] is particularly rich in historical myths, or [[legend]]s, concerning the foundation and rise of the city. These narratives focus on human actors, with only occasional intervention from deities but a pervasive sense of divinely ordered destiny. For Rome's earliest period, history and myth are difficult to distinguish.<ref>[[Alexandre Grandazzi]], ''The Foundation of Rome: Myth and History'' (Cornell University Press, 1997), pp. 45–46.</ref>

According to mythology, Rome had a semi-divine ancestor in the [[Trojan War|Trojan]] refugee [[Aeneas]], son of [[Venus (mythology)|Venus]], who was said to have established the basis of Roman religion when he brought the [[Palladium (mythology)|Palladium]], [[Lares]] and [[Penates]] from Troy to Italy. These objects were believed in historical times to remain in the keeping of the [[Vestal Virgin|Vestals]], Rome's female priesthood. Aeneas, according to classical authors, had been given refuge by King [[Evander of Pallene|Evander]], a Greek exile from [[Arcadia (ancient region)|Arcadia]], to whom were attributed other religious foundations: he established the ''[[Ara Maxima]]'', "Greatest Altar", to [[Hercules in ancient Rome|Hercules]] at the site that would become the [[Forum Boarium]], and, so the legend went, he was the first to celebrate the [[Lupercalia]], an archaic festival in February that was celebrated as late as the 5th century of the Christian era.<ref name="ReferenceA">Beard et al., Vol. 1, 1; 189–90 (Aeneas and Vesta): 123–45 (Aeneas and Venus as Julian ancestors). See also Vergil, ''[[Aeneid]]''.</ref>
[[File:Iapyx removing arrowhead from Aeneas.jpg|thumb|Pompeian fresco; [[Iapyx]] removing an arrowhead from Aeneas' thigh, watched by Venus ''[[Velificans]]'' (veiled)]]

The myth of a Trojan founding with Greek influence was reconciled through an elaborate genealogy (the [[Latin kings of Alba Longa]]) with the well-known legend of Rome's founding by [[Romulus and Remus]]. The most common version of the twins' story displays several aspects of hero myth. Their mother, [[Rhea Silvia]], had been ordered by her uncle the king to remain a virgin, in order to preserve the throne he had usurped from her father. Through divine intervention, the rightful line was restored when Rhea Silvia was impregnated by the god [[Mars (mythology)|Mars]]. She gave birth to twins, who were duly [[infant exposure|exposed]] by order of the king but saved through a series of miraculous events.

Romulus and Remus regained their grandfather's throne and set out to build a new city, consulting with the gods through [[augury]], a characteristic religious institution of Rome that is portrayed as existing from earliest times. The brothers quarrel while building the city walls, and Romulus kills Remus, an act that is sometimes seen as sacrificial. Fratricide thus became an integral part of Rome's founding myth.<ref>[[T.P. Wiseman]], ''Remus: A Roman Myth'' (Cambridge University Press, 1995), ''passim''.</ref>

Romulus was credited with several religious institutions. He founded the [[Consualia]] festival, inviting the neighbouring [[Sabines]] to participate; the ensuing [[rape of the Sabine women]] by Romulus's men further embedded both violence and cultural assimilation in Rome's myth of origins. As a successful general, Romulus is also supposed to have founded Rome's first temple to [[Jupiter (mythology)#Epithets of Jupiter|Jupiter Feretrius]] and offered the ''[[spolia opima]]'', the prime spoils taken in war, in the celebration of the first [[Roman triumph]]. Spared a mortal's death, Romulus was mysteriously spirited away and deified.<ref>Or else was murdered by his resentful Senate, who successfully concealed their crime. See Beard et al., Vol. 1, 1; Vol. 2, 4.8a for Livy, 1.9 & 5–7 (Sabines and temple to Jupiter) and Plutarch, ''Romulus'', 11, 1–4.</ref>

[[File:Aeneis 3 147.jpeg|thumb|left|Aeneas urged by the Penates to continue his journey to found Rome (4th century AD illustration)<ref>Illustration of Vergil, ''[[Aeneid]]'' 3.147; MS Vat. lat. 3225, folio 28 recto</ref>]]
His Sabine successor [[Numa Pompilius|Numa]] was pious and peaceable, and credited with numerous political and religious foundations, including the first [[Roman calendar]]; the priesthoods of the [[Salii]], [[Flamen|flamines]], and Vestals; the cults of [[Jupiter (mythology)|Jupiter]], Mars, and [[Quirinus]]; and the Temple of [[Janus]], whose doors stayed open in times of war but in Numa's time remained closed. After Numa's death, the doors to the Temple of Janus were supposed to have remained open until the reign of Augustus.<ref>Beard et al., Vol. 1, 1–2 & Vol. 2: 1.2, (Livy, 1.19.6): 8.4a (Plutarch, Numa, 10). For Augustus' closure of Janus's temple doors, see Augustus, ''[[Res Gestae]]'', 13. Festus connects Numa to the triumphal ''[[spolia opima]]'' and Jupiter Feretrius.</ref>

Each of Rome's legendary or semi-legendary kings was associated with one or more religious institutions still known to the later Republic. [[Tullus Hostilius]] and [[Ancus Marcius]] instituted the [[fetial]] priests. The first "outsider" Etruscan king, [[Lucius Tarquinius Priscus]], founded a [[Capitoline Triad|Capitoline temple to the triad]] Jupiter, [[Juno (mythology)|Juno]] and [[Minerva]] which served as the model for the highest official cult throughout the Roman world. The benevolent, divinely fathered [[Servius Tullius]] established the [[Latin League]], its [[Aventine Hill|Aventine]] Temple to [[Diana (mythology)|Diana]], and the [[Compitalia]] to mark his social reforms. Servius Tullius was murdered and succeeded by the arrogant [[Tarquinius Superbus]], whose expulsion marked the end of Roman kingship and the beginning of the Roman republic, governed by elected [[Roman magistrates|magistrates]].<ref>Beard et al., Vol. 1, 3, and footnotes 4 & 5.</ref>

[[Roman historiography|Roman historians]]<ref>The [[Augustan literature (ancient Rome)|Augustan]] historian [[Livy]] places Rome's foundation more than 600 years before his own time. His near contemporary [[Dionysius of Halicarnassus]] appear to share some common sources, including an earlier history by [[Quintus Fabius Pictor]], of which only a terse summary survives. See also [[Diocles of Peparethus]], [[Romulus and Remus]] and Plutarch, ''The Parallel Lives, Life of Romulus'', 3. Loeb edn. available at Thayer's site: [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman/texts/plutarch/lives/romulus*.html]. Fragments of an important earlier work (now lost) of [[Quintus Ennius]] are cited by various later Roman authors. On the chronological problems of the kings' list, see Cornell, pp. 21–26, and 199–122.</ref> regarded the essentials of Republican religion as complete by the end of Numa's reign, and confirmed as right and lawful by the [[SPQR|Senate and people of Rome]]: the sacred [[Topography of ancient Rome|topography of the city]], its monuments and temples, the histories of Rome's [[gens|leading families]], and oral and ritual traditions.<ref>Beard et al., Vol. 1, 8-10; Cornell, pp. 1–30; Feeney, in Rüpke (ed.), 129–42, on religious themes in Roman Historiography and epic; Smith, in Rüpke (ed.), 31–42 for broad discussion of sources, modern schools of thought and divergent interpretations.</ref> According to Cicero, the Romans considered themselves the most religious of all peoples, and their rise to dominance was proof they received divine favor in return.<ref>Cicero, ''On the Responses of the Haruspices'', 19.</ref>