“Romulus and Remus” by Roche Gardies

(Originally posted June 2013 – written years before)
 

Alba Longa the sun-washed place of their birth
Sons of Mars he abandoned as infants
Suffered cuckolded rage of Amulius
Who cast them in tumulted tides of the Tiber
Caught by the roots of a rescuing fig
Brought to safety by a suckling she-wolf
Tending them same as pups drawn from her womb
When discovered by kind shepherd Faustulus
He raised up the pair to their manhood

Strong and fearless they fought righteous battles
Made war on cruel kings and released slaves
From bondage acquiring their lifelong loyalty
Then they set off to build a new city
A virtuous state giving outcasts and runaways
Exiles and sundry manner of fugitives
Place for fresh start free from tyrants
But the twins fell to violent quarrel
Over who would lay down the first stones

Remus dreamt of his own Remoria
Carved from rocks upon Aventine hill
But Romulus held his own vision
For a Rome risen up from the Palatine
So they took up grave contest of omens
Counting eagles on wing overhead
Remus first spotted six and deemed triumph
But his brother saw twelve and declared
That ‘most’ confers moreso than ‘first’

The reaction of Remus was hostile
Rejecting that judgment even as
Romulus dug his foundations for Rome
Anger raged and convulsed Cain and Abel
Whose ghosts saw that Cain’s malevolent brand
Indeed marked the souls of his issue
And men would kill men with depravity
The fratricide dyeing the Tiber that day
Left the young Remus dead and Romulus king

Thus was civilization recentered
New vanishing point of the known western world
Where Legions would learn skills for conquest
And Caesars would learn to steal power
From Senates and citizen councils
To rule under burnished gold glory
That time would corrupt and tarnish with shame
In all, seven hills would be settled
By the corpus of decadent empire

The Palatine, center of centers,
Held the throne and patrician precincts
While plebeians moved up the Aventine
Building temples to lesser-made gods
Fortress stronghold surmounted Capitoline
And Quirinal hosted doomed Sabines
Caracalla would bathe on Caelian
While Esquiline saw the first suburbs
And small Viminal overlooked slums

Amid vying pagan panoply rituals
Soils drenched densely with sacrifice
As bloodlust made sport of men’s torture
Yet here did the Galilee fisherman Peter
Set down his new Christian church into rock
S-P-Q-R and I-N-R-I became
Emblems profane and sacred in turn
Preeminent signets competing for
Genuflection of mortal-bound souls

One wonders if Cain stayed his hand
Would men still have learned to love murder
If Remoria rose as envisioned by Remus
Would peace have been usher of progress
Might a bloodless Rome better have flourished
Less gold, more humane, steeped with virtue
But hypothesis bears no real edible fruit
When we hunger to understand nature of man
All we have is our deeply flawed history’s crumbs