Livy in the first book of his History (I,7) writes that Romulus, after having killed Remus "fortified the Palatine Hill". The act of securing a hill was provided in the ancient world through the construction of a wall. Until the 1990s all the scholars knew that Rome had originally two walls: the so called " Servian Walls", that were built after the sack of the Gauls in the year 384 BC using the Tufa from the already conquered Veii, and the Aurelian walls built in the year 270 AD, almost at the end of the Roman civilization. Excavations carried out by the Professor Andrea Carandini ( Who was also my Professor at the University of Rome) revealed that also the Romulean Rome had a wall. As a matter of fact Carandini discovered remains of a wall between the Roman tabernae located in the Via Nova of the Roman Forum, and the Arch of Titus.The wall was built in ashlar masonry and was composed of Cappellaccio tufa blocks,which is a stone that comes from the quarries of the Alban Hills.
Moreover, as common in Livy though,the Patavinian author describes two versions of the death of Romulus: the first king of Rome may have been taken away up to heaven by a cloud while parading his troops in the Campus Martius or he may have been killed by the Roman senators.Ancient writers such as Festus and Dionisius of Halicarnassus used to refer to the Lapis Niger as the place where Romulus may have been executed by the Senators he had just created. The Lapis Niger is indeed a fascinating monument shrouded by mystery.It is located in front of the steps of the Curia Julia in the Forum and is marked by a fenced area that has a grayer and darker colored pavement. It is also composed by an underground section with a three sided altar; a stone is part of the Lapis and contains the earliest know inscription in Rome. The inscription is carved with a zig zag path recalling the way in which the oxen plows the land and it is called a bustrofedic inscription.The inscription is a lex sacra and warns everybody to not violate that place,under penalty of being sacrificed to the Gods. During the excavation of the Forum in the early 1900s by Giacomo Boni, also a fragment of a cup with the name "rex" inscribed was found. But all this does not tell us much about Romulus at all and in this second piece of evidence, the literary tradition can not be confirmed by the archaeological discoveries.
Moreover, as common in Livy though,the Patavinian author describes two versions of the death of Romulus: the first king of Rome may have been taken away up to heaven by a cloud while parading his troops in the Campus Martius or he may have been killed by the Roman senators.Ancient writers such as Festus and Dionisius of Halicarnassus used to refer to the Lapis Niger as the place where Romulus may have been executed by the Senators he had just created. The Lapis Niger is indeed a fascinating monument shrouded by mystery.It is located in front of the steps of the Curia Julia in the Forum and is marked by a fenced area that has a grayer and darker colored pavement. It is also composed by an underground section with a three sided altar; a stone is part of the Lapis and contains the earliest know inscription in Rome. The inscription is carved with a zig zag path recalling the way in which the oxen plows the land and it is called a bustrofedic inscription.The inscription is a lex sacra and warns everybody to not violate that place,under penalty of being sacrificed to the Gods. During the excavation of the Forum in the early 1900s by Giacomo Boni, also a fragment of a cup with the name "rex" inscribed was found. But all this does not tell us much about Romulus at all and in this second piece of evidence, the literary tradition can not be confirmed by the archaeological discoveries.
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