The Rise of Rome: From Myth to Republic

Long before Rome became the greatest empire on Earth… before the Caesars, the legions,

and the marble monuments… it was nothing more than a small cluster of huts on a quiet hillside.

Its rise began not with history, but with myth. According to legend, Rome’s story starts

with two infant twins — Romulus and Remus. Their mother, Rhea Silvia,

had been forced to live as a vestal virgin so she could never bear children. But when she gave

birth to twins, the ruling king saw them as a threat and ordered that they be killed.

The newborns were placed in a basket and cast into the Tiber River, left to die.

But destiny intervened. The basket drifted to the base of Rome’s seven hills. There,