LEGENDS: Battles And Quests by Anthony Horowitz

Author:Anthony Horowitz
Format: epub
Publisher: Macmillan Children's Books

‘Being captured by an overweight bandit is nothing to be proud of,’ Romulus countered, going red himself. ‘It was my idea and I shall be king of the new city and it will be called Rome, after me.’

‘I shall be king,’ Remus cried. ‘And it shall be called Reme, after me.’

‘Rome!’

‘Reme!’

There seemed to be no way to resolve the argument. For, being twins, they couldn’t even say who was the older – which might have been one way to decide the matter. But at the same time, they were unwilling to fight each other. They had been through too much together for that.

In the end, they decided to let the gods sort it out. Romulus climbed the Palatine Hill, while Remus climbed the nearby Aventine.1 They didn’t have to wait long for the omen. Almost at once the clouds folded back and six great vultures flew down to the Aventine and began to circle around Remus.

‘There you are!’ Remus shouted triumphantly. ‘The city will be Reme and I will be king. The gods have decided it.’

‘No!’ Romulus shouted back. ‘The gods are on my side. The city will be Rome and I will rule. Look!’

Remus looked up, the colour draining out of his face as twelve more vultures soared out of the sky to flap around his brother. Romulus had twice as many birds. Remus had lost.

Remus took his defeat with bad grace, and after that there was never any love between him and his brother. In fact, even after the new city had been constructed, he took every opportunity to taunt Romulus about it, saying that the streets were too narrow and the walls too high, that there were too many temples and not enough shops. Things finally came to a head when Romulus dug out the long trench that marked the city’s boundaries and Remus jumped over it, laughing, as if to say that Rome could be captured just as easily. For Romulus, this was the last straw. He drew his sword. It flashed through the air. And before he knew what he had done, his brother lay at his feet in a spreading pool of blood.

In this way was the city of Rome founded – in blood. And perhaps it was the reason why so much blood would flow through its streets in the next two thousand years.

But that is not the matter of myth or of legend. That is a matter of history.

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