Romulus and Remus: the twins, the wolf and the founding of Rome, told for kids

A basket drifts down the river Tiber. Inside are two baby boys. Nobody is waiting for them downstream, nobody is looking for them, and the current decides where they end up.

That is how one of the most famous stories ever told begins: Romulus and Remus, the brothers who founded Rome. The Romans told it to themselves to explain where they came from, and it has everything a child wants in a story — an animal that rescues, brothers who argue, and a city built out of nothing.

Here it is in full, in order, with the parts that usually get left out.

The twins in the basket

Romulus and Remus were born into a royal family, but their great-uncle had taken the throne from their parents. Afraid the boys would claim it back when they grew up, he ordered them thrown into the river.

The servant sent to do it could not. He left the basket at the water's edge among the reeds and walked away. The Tiber was high, and instead of dragging the basket off, the water set it down gently at the foot of a fig tree.

The she-wolf who found them

What happened next is the image everyone recognises even if they don't know the story: a she-wolf came down to drink, heard the babies crying and, instead of attacking, fed them.

Children love this part because it breaks what they expect a wolf to do. It is worth stopping there and asking them why they think she did it. There is no right answer — the legend doesn't give one either.

Later a shepherd called Faustulus found the twins and took them home, and he and his wife raised them as their own. Romulus and Remus grew up not knowing who they were.

Finding out the truth

As young men the brothers became leaders of a band of shepherds. In a scuffle Remus was captured and brought before the king — and there, talking to him, the story of where he came from came out.

The twins gave the throne back to their grandfather. And then, instead of staying, they chose something harder: to found a city of their own, on the very spot where the river had left them.

The argument that changed everything

This is where the legend turns uncomfortable, and it is exactly the part that makes children think.

The brothers could not agree. Romulus wanted the city on the Palatine hill; Remus preferred the Aventine. They let the birds decide: whoever saw more would choose. Remus saw six. Romulus, shortly after, saw twelve. Both declared themselves the winner.

Romulus began marking out his city wall. Remus, mocking him, jumped over it. In the argument that followed, Romulus killed his brother.

How to tell a child that part

It is an ancient legend and it does not have a kind ending. There is no need to hide it, but it helps to place it: the Romans did not tell this as an example to follow. They told it as a warning about what happens when pride matters more than love.

A question that works well: "what could they have done instead of fighting?" Most children find three or four ways out that never occurred to the twins.

Rome starts out empty

Romulus finished his city and hit a practical problem: nobody lived in it. He opened the gates to anyone who would come — shepherds, travellers, people running from somewhere else — and it filled up.

But something was still missing, and that is where the next story comes from: The Sabine Women, about how the Romans and their neighbours ended up as one people after a terrible start. It is a story about reconciliation and it follows the twins' tale naturally.

The other great Roman hero: Horatius

If Romulus and Remus explain how Rome was born, Horatio on the Bridge explains how it survived.

Horatius was a soldier who held a bridge alone while, behind him, his companions tore it down to stop an enemy army crossing. It is a short, single-scene story, and children of six to nine love it because the tension is so easy to follow: one man, one bridge, and time running out.

How much of it is true?

Rome certainly exists. And archaeologists have found traces of a settlement on the Palatine that roughly fit the date the Romans gave (753 BC).

The wolf is another matter. Some think the Latin word lupa, "she-wolf", was also used for women who worked tending animals — and that the wolf of the legend may have been a shepherdess. We don't know. And that is fine: children rather like an adult saying "nobody knows this one".

Rome and Greece: the same gods with different names

A question that always comes up once a child meets both mythologies: why are they so alike?

Because the Romans took over much of the Greek pantheon and renamed it. Zeus became Jupiter; Hera, Juno; Ares, Mars. Even Hercules, the strongest hero, is the Greek Heracles under a Roman name.

That is why many "Roman" stories told today — the Trojan Horse, Medusa and Perseus — are Greek in origin. Explaining that early saves a child a lot of confusion later.

By age

• 3 to 5: the basket, the wolf and the shepherd. You can stop there, with the twins growing up happy.
• 6 to 8: the whole story, quarrel included, with the conversation about what they might have done differently.
• 9 to 11: add the history — what archaeology found, why the Romans told this, and the parallel with the Greek gods.

Listen instead of reading

All three Roman stories are narrated, and can be listened to with eyes closed, which for many children is the best way to take in a legend: Romulus and Remus, The Sabine Women and Horatio on the Bridge.

And if mythology catches on at home, the mythology collection has the Greek ones too — Hercules, Medusa, the Minotaur and the Trojan Horse.

Read next: The Norse myths a child already half-knows · The Egyptian gods with animal heads

Start here: Romulus and Remus, narrated and illustrated.