A Child's Book of Myths and Enchantment Tales  by Margaret Evans Price

Romulus and Remus

R OMULUS and Remus were twin babies. Their mother died when they were very tiny. No one else loved them enough to care for them, so they were placed in a watertight basket and sent floating down the river Tiber.

The winds took care not to ripple the surface of the water, lest the basket tip. The sun shone on the babies and warmed them as they drifted slowly down the river. It was very much like being rocked in a mother's warm arms.

Although the Tiber could carry them gently on his breast, and the winds could watch over them, and the sun could keep them warm, there was one thing that still troubled the babies. They were hungry and had no milk.

Then the river Tiber called all the little streams which emptied their water into his. They poured into the Tiber until he overflowed his banks and the basket was carried high on the sand. Then the water drew back and left the babies on dry land.

A mother wolf came prowling beside the river, looking for food. When she saw the basket she trotted over. Romulus and Remus were crying and putting their fists in their mouths. Somehow they reminded the wolf of her own babies, although her own cubs were covered with fur and could stand on their feet.

Romulus and Remus reminded the wolf of her own babies.

She licked the babies with her tongue, but never once thought of eating them. She rolled them out of the basket with her paw, and pushed them ever so gently over the sand and grass to her cave.

Dragging them inside, she put them in the nest where her little wolves were sleeping. They wakened as she stretched herself beside them, and crowded around her to get their milk. Romulus and Remus drank too, and went to sleep cuddled up close to their strange new mother.

For many weeks they lived in the cave and played with the little wolves, rolling over and over and wrestling with them. They grew strong and could walk long before other babies.

For many weeks Romulus and Remus lived in the cave.

One day they crept to the opening of the cave and saw the blue sky and the sunshine. After that the mother wolf had a hard time keeping them inside. One day when she was away a shepherd came by and saw the two babies playing on the grass. He carried them home to his wife, who brought them up as her own children.

She taught them to drink from cups, and made them tunics to wear. They grew to love the shepherd and his wife, but they never forgot their wolf mother, and often ran back to the cave to see her and romp in the sunshine with her cubs.

The twins often ran back to the cave.

They loved to play beside the river, and wade and swim in the warm water, or dig in the sand.

"When I am grown," said Romulus, "I shall build a house with wide porches and tall columns of marble beside the Tiber."

"When I am grown," said Romulus, "I shall build a house beside the Tiber."

Little Remus did not live to grow up. But years after, Romulus built his house on the banks of the Tiber near the cave where the mother wolf had nursed him.

He had many friends who came and built their houses near by. In time a beautiful city grew up, and Romulus was so strong and wise that the people made him their ruler. That was the beginning of the great city of Rome, which still stands and grows beside the River Tiber.