Romulus Silvius

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Romulus Silvius is a descendant of Aeneas and the eleventh king of Alba Longa in Roman mythology .

His predecessor was Agrippa Silvius . He ruled for 19 years. If one uses the reigns given by Dionysius of Halicarnassus with a back calculation from the traditional year of the founding of Rome , this corresponds to the years 875 to 856 BC. His successor was Aventinus Silvius .

Conrad Trieber assumes that this king's name was added when the king lists were edited in Augustan times to flatter Augustus by identifying the kings Romulus Silvius and Agrippa Silvius with Augustus and his friend and general Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa . When Agrippa Silvius the reference would be obvious what Romulus concerns as the name of Augustus, as reported by Suetonius , for example, that the Senate had wavered whether Octavius "Augustus" or "Romulus" was to be awarded an honorary name - "Romulus", since Octavian certain sense, a second founder of the city. In the end, however, they decided on “Augustus”.

Lake Albanian with a possible approaching storm ( Jakob Philipp Hackert , 1800)

In quite a different direction, it works in Dionysius a corresponding to the position of the king list appearing Allodios or Alladius reported. This king was a hated tyrant who knew no fear of God. He went so far as to build devices with which he imitated lightning and thunder.

But the gods were not mocked: lightning struck his house, rain came and swelled the lake of Alban until it swallowed up the house of Allodios and all its inhabitants. As is customary in such cases, if on some days the depths of the lake are completely undisturbed by springs and tributaries, the ruins of the house can still be seen. Corresponding examples from antiquity are the submerged cities of Sipylos , Helike and Bura .

This agrees with what appears in a shortened form in Titus Livius and Ovid : Both report that Romulus Silvius (Livius) or Remulus (Ovid) was struck by lightning. To see here a flattering equivalent of Romulus / Augustus seems implausible. There is also an obvious resemblance to the myth of Salmoneus , who, in order to imitate thunder and lightning, dragged bronze cauldrons behind his chariot and threw burning torches into the air, for which Zeus killed him with his real lightning.

Even with Diodorus there is a story about a sacrilegious king, however there Aramulius is. Diodorus also explains how the king produced the thunder: if it had thundered threateningly during harvest time, Aramulius would have ordered his soldiers to strike shields with their swords at the same time. He then boasted that such a sound was louder and more impressive than Jupiter's thunder, whereupon Jupiter's lightning struck him.

See also: List of the kings of Alba Longa

swell

  • Livy , Ab urbe condita 1,3.
  • Ovid , Metamorphoses 14, 609-621. Fasti 4 Praefatio.
  • Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiquitates Romanae 1,71.

literature

  • Kirby F. Smith: On a Legend of the Alban Lake Told by Dionysius of Halicarnassus. In: The American Journal of Philology. Vol. 16, No. 2 (1895), pp. 203-210.
  • Conrad Trieber: On the criticism of Eusebios. I. The King's Table from Alba Longa. In: Hermes. Volume 29, Issue 1 (1894), pp. 124-142 ( online ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ According to the list of Titus Livius .
  2. ^ Trieber: On the criticism of Eusebios. In: Hermes 29 (1894), p. 131f.
  3. ^ Suetonius, Divus Augustus 7.
  4. ↑ Bibliotheke of Apollodor 1,9,7.
  5. ↑ Diodor, Bibliotheca historica 7 Frag. 5.11.
predecessor Office successor
Agrippa Silvius King of Alba Longa
875 to 856 BC Chr. 		Aventinus Silvius