Romulus (Latin: Romulus, born on March 24, 771 BC in Albalange, passed away in Rome on July 5 or 7, 716 BC) was the twin brother of Remus and a mythological figure. According to the chronicle, he created Rome and its primary political system, making him the first king of Rome. Rome was also named after him, Romulus.
The debate over the historicity of Romulus began in the 19th century, when his character image began to appear in traditional literature.

Creation of Rome
Romulus and Remus were aware that they could not rule the Albalange during their grandfather's tenure, so after obtaining permission, they decided to leave and rebuild a new city, right where they grew up. Romulus wanted to build it on the Palatine mountain and name it Rome, but Remus wanted to build it on the mons Aventinus mountain and name it Remoria.
About the Roman system
Romulus drafted the initial rules and regulations of the city of Rome. From the appearance, the first thing he did was organize the army, whose members were all people who knew how to use weapons. Afterwards, he established a grand assembly consisting of one hundred nobles, called Senatus, named after senex, which symbolized old age.
He formulated the Exile Law regarding those who left or fled to surrounding cities, which concerns the needs of urban populations. Since the reign of Romulus, there has been a noble system, where these nobles can become guarantors or protectors of the common people in exchange for their services. This relationship is called clientelism.
Tito Levy recorded that after the peace agreement was signed between the Romans and the Sabines, due to population growth, not only did a hundred nobles be elected among the Sabines, but the number of military personnel doubled (consisting of 6000 infantry and 600 cavalry), and all people were divided into three tribes: Tities, Ramnes, and Luceres. Each tribe was further divided into ten Curias and named after thirty women.

According to Plutarch's records, the two kings did not have a common council, and each king would only discuss with his own hundred nobles before gathering together to discuss.
Romulus was too proud of his many victories and deviated from the original democratic system, beginning a series of monarchical autocracy. He was oppressed and paranoid, wearing a purple cloak and purple Roman robe. He always listened to his subordinates on the throne, surrounded by a group of bodyguards and swordsmen named celeres, who used sticks to protect the king's safety in the crowd. In fact, this form already existed in the cities of the Etruscans, and the Romans may have borrowed it from their culture.
In addition, it is said that after the death of Romulus's grandfather Numitore, the throne of Albalange was waiting for him to inherit. However, he chose to elect an official every year to manage Albalange, which made his citizens accustomed to living freely in an environment without king rule.
In fact, after Romulus turned Rome into an authoritarian country, the nobles were left with only an empty title and did not hold real power. They gathered in the Senate more to deal with superficial etiquette, but in reality, they did not have the right to express themselves. Everyone had to submit to Romulus's feet, and he became the one in charge of all power. Plutarch added that Romulus became an embarrassment for the Senate as he allocated the land conquered during the war to his soldiers without consulting with senators and returned the hostages to the Veii

Early forms
It was Romulus who introduced private land property rights, and after the establishment of the city in Rome, he distributed 1 heredium (the unit of land area calculation in Rome at that time, 1 heredium was approximately 5039.8 square meters) of land to each family. The right to use this land could be passed down to the next generation within the family.
Romulus also issued a law stating that a wife has no right to divorce her husband, but on the contrary, if she intentionally wants to poison her children, change the keys of the house on her own, or have an affair, she will be punished. If punished for other reasons, then her husband needs to compensate her with a portion of his family property and contribute a portion to the temple of Demeter. If a man punishes his wife without permission, he will be sacrificed to the god of hell.
Festivals and religious ceremonies
The Sabins and Romans formed an alliance during the times of Romulus and Titus Tatius, and they would celebrate and participate in each other's ethnic festivals and rituals, without excluding each other's unique customs. Even they will initiate new festivals such as Matronalia (March 1st), Caritalia (January 11th to January 15th), and Lupercalia (February 13th to February 15th). Romulus decided to accept the festival related to Hercules, although it did not originate in Rome. During his reign (or during the reign of Numa), Rome also added a new god of fire called Virgo Vestalis.
Romulus calendar
According to Roman tradition, Romulus was the first person to establish the Roman calendar. Starting from the full moon of March, it consisted of 10 months, with 30 days in 6 months and 31 days in 4 months, totaling 304 days in a year. The remaining 61 days belonging to winter were not included in any one month. Although this statement has always been a controversial issue among historians, as some argue that the calendar at that time allocated dates in a rather chaotic manner, with each month consisting of 20 to 35 days.

Family Origin
According to legend, Romulus and Remus were the sons of the war gods Mars and Rhea Silvia. Silvia was a priestess and the daughter of King Numitore of Albalange, who was a direct descendant of Aeneas. Therefore, Romulus's maternal lineage is the true family of Albalange. Plutarchus once said that there was a mathematician who was also an astronomer and a friend of Marcus Terentius Varro. His name was Lucius Taruntius Firmanus, and he had calculated the birth date of these twins, which was March 24, 771 BC.
After Aeneas left Troy, he fled to Lazio and received the favor of the Latin king, who introduced him to his daughter Lauinia. Aeneas fell in love with her like this, but this girl had already been promised to Rudhuli's king Turnus. Lavinia's father understood Aeneas' idea, but he was afraid that the breach of the agreement would lead to the hatred of Tulenus, so the dispute about the girl turned into a war, in which most Italians participated, including Etrusci and Vols. So Aeneas decided to join forces with the Greeks who lived in the city of Pallas in the Palatine Mountains. At that time, the rulers of the city were Euander and his eldest son Pallas. This war was very bloody, and Pallas was quickly killed by Tulenus. In order to prevent more people from sacrificing themselves, it was decided to have Aeneas and Tulenus duel. The result was that Aeneas won, so he successfully married Ravinia and established the city of Lavinium. But Titus Livius proposed another version in his first to second chapters of the first volume of the Roman History, stating that the Trojans arrived in Rome during a pilgrimage, and after a struggle, Aeneas and the Latin king reached an alliance agreement and married the latter's daughter Lavinia, then established the city of Lavinium in the name of his wife. They gave birth to a son named Ascanius. Tulenus, who had been repented of his marriage, declared war on the Latin people. In the end, the Latin people won, but Aeneas died in the war.

Childhood experiences
Thirty years later, Ascanio established a new city called Albalange, where his descendants continued to thrive. After a long time, Numitore became the king of Albalange, but his brother Amulius usurped the throne and overthrew Numitore, forcing his daughter Lavinia to become a priestess and maintain her chastity for life. But the God of War Mars raped her, causing her to conceive a pair of twins, Romulus and Remus. Amuliusler ordered the twins to be killed, but his servant felt sorry for them and did not have the courage to kill them. So he put them in a basket and let them drift away along the Tiber River. A basket carrying two babies drifted to the shore of a swamp between Mons Capitolinus and Palatini Mountains. It was discovered by a mother wolf and it fed the two little babies (although it could also be a prostitute, as prostitutes were also called lupa in the past, with the same name as the mother wolf). A woodpecker also protected them, and both animals were sacred symbols at that time. Afterwards, a herdsman named Faustulus and his wife Acca Larentia adopted them and raised them like biological sons. After the two brothers grew up and learned about their origins, they returned to Albalange, killed Amulius, and then helped their grandfather Numitore up to the throne again.
During his tenure
Plutarchus tells the story of Romulus, who, after burying his brother Remus who died in the struggle over the establishment of the city of Rome, invited legal experts from Etrusia and introduced sacred scriptures, all of which were to understand the rituals that needed to be held. A circular pit was once dug near Comitium, where sacred objects were enshrined to seek refuge from the gods. But Romulus needed more people to make his city prosperous, so he invited Latin and Itrascan herdsmen, some even from the other side of the sea, as his people.
Each resident brings a small piece of soil and throws it together with others into a large pit called Mundus, which becomes the center of the city. There is a plow ditch called Primigenius around the city, with its boundary called Pomerium, representing the range delineated by the "sacred wall".

Afterwards, he asked his people what kind of government system they wanted, and the latter claimed that they were willing to accept Romulus as their king. However, Romulus only accepted this title after being instructed by the gods to occupy the bird, and his display was a lightning bolt from left to right.
After Romulus became the king of Rome, his first task was to build a fortress for the city of Rome, and according to the traditional rituals of Alba and Greece, he offered sacred objects to the god Hercules, which had been passed down from the time of Euander. Subsequently, he established the first legal system of the city of Rome, accompanied by twelve swordsmen.
As time passed, Rome gradually expanded, as Tito Levy [1-2] described in his book, "Rome was so powerful that its military power could rival any neighboring ethnic group.". Women were scarce at that time, and if the Romans could not find women to reproduce, the strength of the city might only last for a generation, so in the end, only a coercive method could be adopted. Romulus claimed to hold a solemn and sacred competition in the name of Neptunus, called Consualia, and this tradition continued until the era of Strabo. So he ordered his subordinates to invite people of different ethnicities around him to participate, from Ceninensi, Antemnati, Crustumeni to Sabinus. Romulus's goal is to snatch their women during the competition performance. At that time, there were many people present, and most of them brought their children and spouses, mainly to visit this new city.
After the performance, most of the girls' parents fled on their own, accusing the Romans of not complying with the peace treaty they had initially drafted. But it seems that over time, the anger of the girls has also been smoothed out, and they have developed feelings towards them in their future interactions with the Romans. Romulus's wife is also one of these girls, and her name is Ersilia. They gave birth to a son and a daughter named Avilio and Prima.

All of these actions became the trigger for the subsequent wars, such as the Senenarians attempting to attack Rome, but they were ultimately defeated by the Roman army. Their commander, named Acrone, was killed by Romulus himself, and his body was sent as a trophy to the temple in Jupiter, which was Rome's first temple located on the Monts Capitolinus mountain. After the leader of the Senenarians was killed, Romulus led his troops to directly attack their city. He surrendered on the first attack and was subsequently incorporated into Rome, enjoying the rights of Roman citizens. This victory was recorded in the year 752/751 BC by the fasti trials.
According to Plutarchus, according to Quintus Fabius Pictor, this event occurred three months after the founding of Rome (which was built in July 753 BC).
After defeating the Sennenese, Romulus turned his arrow towards the Antemnati, whose city was occupied in an attack, bringing glory to Romulus for his second victory. This event is recorded in the year 752/751 BC.
The remaining Crustumenis persisted for even less time than the others and were quickly occupied. After the successful conquest, the Roman king established a colony on the conquered land, and the most populous city was undoubtedly Crustumerium, because it had more fertile soil compared to other places.
At the same time, many conquered ethnic groups, as well as the parents and relatives of previously abducted girls, also came to Rome to take root.

The last enemy that Rome had to face was the Sabines of Mount Quirinale. Legend has it that there was a priestess named Tarpeia, who was the daughter of the defense commander Spurius Tarpeius. She was bribed by Titus Tatius with a gold armband, allowing the enemy's armed forces to enter the Roman defensive fortress on Mount Capitolius. Due to the occupation of the Sabins, the two armies had to confront each other at the foot of the Palatine and Cabitolio mountains, where the later Roman square was built. The leaders of both armies were encouraging their soldiers to enter battle, with the Sabine leader named Metius Curtius and the Romans named Hostus Hostilius. The latter fell to the ground during the war but immediately became agitated, leading the Roman army to retreat to the old city gate of the Palatine Mountains. At this moment, Romulus requested the blessing of Cupid from the gods and promised to build a new temple in his name in the ancient Roman square if the war was won. After praying, he rushed into the battlefield and successfully led his army to regain the situation, gaining the upper hand. It was at this moment that the Sabine women who had been robbed before also joined in, trying to quell the conflict and resolve the misunderstanding between the two sides.
Due to the Sabine women's actions, the two armies ceased fighting and decided to form an alliance, signing a peace treaty, where both ethnic groups had equal rights, recognizing the existence of the two kings (Romulus and Titus Tatius), and agreeing to continue naming the city after Rome, even though all Romans were called Cuirites at the time, in order to comply with the Sabine people's commemoration of Titus Tatius' hometown, Its name is Cures/Curi. At the same time, a lake next to the ancient Roman square was named Lacus Curtius in memory of the war between the Romans and the Sabines. However, the place where the confrontation between the two sides ended was called Comitium, which evolved from the verb "Comire" and means "to fight".
A few years later, Titus Tatius was killed in Lavinium, and Romulus became the true king. Afterwards, he successively conquered Medulia and Fidenae, and placed 2500 people here as colonies, defeating the people of Cameria. In the end, he successfully defeated the powerful Etrusia and took seven villages called "septem pagi". These villages were located to the west of Tiber Island, and to compensate the Romans, he signed a century long ceasefire treaty with them, And this was the last war that Romulus fought during his lifetime.

Death and Decryption
After 38 years of reign, according to traditional records, 54 year old Romulus was swept into the sky by a storm while patrolling troops near Campus Martius, hiding in the clouds of a lunar eclipse. Faced with the sudden disappearance of the lord, the Roman people had no choice but to deify him in the name of Quinus, the son of the god of war Mars, the king and leader of Rome. In the era of Plutarch, there were still many rituals about him, which happened on the day Romulus disappeared, around July 5th or 7th, 716 BC.
It seems that in order to confirm the reliability of this statement, it is said that he appeared in front of his Alba partner Proculus IUlis, a well-known elder in the Yulius family, after his disappearance.
Due to traditional similarities, many historians believe that this story has many similarities with the resurrection of Jesus. In real history, it is more likely that Romulus was murdered by nobles at a Volcanal conference. The reason is that the monarchy of Romulus became even more severe after the death of Titus Tatius, which caused dissatisfaction and anger among the aristocrats who had been deprived of their rights. After the death of Romulus, his body was dismembered by the Senate and buried in different parts of the city due to his harsh personality.

Romulus has Latin ancestry and was the son of the god of war Mars, who had a forced relationship with Rhea Silvia. Silvia was the daughter of Numitore and the king of Albalange. According to legend, he founded Rome and on April 21, 753 BC, he divided the sacred border of pomerium/pomoerium. It was precisely because his twin brother Remus crossed the sacred border with weapons that Romulus killed him, and this act of killing his brother was also considered an indispensable symbol of violence in the monarchy. After the establishment of Rome on the Paladinus mountain, he invited criminals, escaped slaves, and other exiles to join his power and promised them asylum. Thus, five out of the seven hills of Rome gained popularity. Afterwards, he also seized Sabine women as wives for his men in Rome, which sparked a war between the two countries. Eventually, he peacefully resolved the conflict with the Sabines and promised them to settle with their king Titus Tatius on the nearby Collis Quirinalis mountain, sharing five years of rule with Roman King Romulus.
Romulus divided the people into two types: combatable and non combatable, and selected one hundred noble citizens to form the Senate, so that their descendants would become the nobles of the republic. He created the Comitia Populi Curiata, whose task was to approve laws. Therefore, he also launched multiple expeditions. He divided the people into three tribes, namely Tities, Ramnes, and Luceres, and each tribe was further divided into ten curias. In case of danger, they had an obligation to provide a military task force consisting of one hundred infantry and ten cavalry to the Roman army. Therefore, the total number of thirty curias was three thousand infantry and three hundred cavalry. According to legend, after more than 37 years of rule by Romulus, he was swept into the sky in a storm. Following his own wishes, he was revered as the god Quirinus after his death and enshrined by the Sabines on Mount Quirinale.

The existence of Romulus has always been a topic of debate among historians, but in the eyes of a historian named Theodor Mommsen, it has been confirmed that the Roman family, originally mentioned by Titus Tatius, was a descendant of Romulus, and some ancient territorial tribes were also named after Romulus. What is even more certain is that the existence of the Roman Romelian family was also mentioned in Paulus Diaconus's book. But there are also some other writers who believe that Romulus's story is fabricated and only incorporates real geographical, political, and religious elements.
For linguist Carlo de Simone, both the words Rome and Romulus evolved from "ruma", meaning "breast". The etymology of this word may be in Etruscan, as its root was not found in the Indo European language family, where only Etruscan languages were not part of the Indo European language family at that time. So it is possible that this word was borrowed and added to Latin by the Romans at that time, and its initial form should have been "Ruma", which later evolved into "Roma". At that time, the affix "Rume" became "Romus", and "Rumel (e) na" became "Romulis". Another linguist, Villar, believes that the word "Roma" was likely originally the name of the Tiber River in Early Indo European, and later used as the name of the city it flows through. This naming method was popular in ancient times.
Other theories suggest that the original kings of Rome were virtual symbolic figures, especially Romulus and Numa.

After archaeologist Andrea Carandini excavated the slopes of the Palatine Mountains, he reassessed the true existence of Romulus as a Roman founder, legislator, and king priest. In the palace of Romulus, which is said to have been surrounded by the sacred boundary, relics that can be confirmed to belong to the seventh century BC were found to confirm the origin of Rome.
According to literary records, a relic containing black marble (lapis niger) was discovered in 1899, and it is likely to be the tomb of Romulus or the site of ancient rituals dedicated to him. Regarding this possibility, in February 2020, archaeologists discovered a monument about Romulus in the stone staircase area leading to the underground of Kuria, dating back to the 6th century BC. Inside, there is a stone coffin about 1.5 meters long, which some scholars speculate may be Romulus's tomb, while others rule out this possibility. However, the length of the sarcophagus corresponds to the average height of men in that era, which implies that the complete body will be stored inside instead of being partially buried separately.