TALES OF ROME'S BEGINNING: AENEAS, ROMULUS, THE SHE-WOLF AND SEVEN HILLS 753 B.C.

At the center of the Sala della Lupa, the Wolf Room in Rome's Musei Capitolini, is a bronze statue of Rome's iconic she-wolf suckling the city's mythical founders, Romulus and Remus. The two bare-bottomed boys crouch beneath her teats, their palms upturned in cherubic rapture as providence flows down upon them. The Lupa Capitolina, donated to the people of Rome in 1471 by Pope Sixtus IV, was long thought to date to the early 5th century B.C., but carbon dating suggests she could be 1,000 years younger. Not possible, say critics, biting back on the hallowed wolf's behalf — Rome's symbol in the Middle Ages was a lion. Such speculation only adds to the mystique of Rome's beginnings.

Rome's history is a mesh of fantastic fable and fact. Tales of the city's beginning flow from the pen of Titus Livius, who began his monumental 142-book History of Rome in 27 B.C., under Rome's first emperor, Augustus. Written over four decades, the opus — of which thirty-five tomes survive — is widely acknowledged to blend truth and legend. Responding to critics with great foresight, Livy, as he is known, said embellishing history was a question of style, sparing the reader from "heavy and tedious" narrative. To accuse him of "violations of truth" would be absurd, he wrote — after all, he was simply retelling some of Rome's greatest legends, handed down through the ages from various sources.

The most popular of these legends is that of the twin brothers who battled each other for supremacy over the new city in 753 B.C., about two decades after being thrown into the Tiber River and suckled by a she-wolf. The wolf is Rome's most famous mascot — the surrogate mother of a city whose birth indisputably lies with the Tiber and the sweep of hills encircling it on the volcanic Latium plain.

The legend of the twins also links to that of the fabled exiled Trojan leader Aeneas, who fled the sack of Troy in the 11th century B.C. Borrowing from Homer's 8th-century B.C. Greek epic, The Iliad, ancient Romans adopted Aeneas as their own mythical ancestral hero.

After years of wandering, Aeneas is said to have built a town in the Roman countryside, calling it Lavinium, after his wife. "The region was called Latium, and the people there were termed Latins," wrote ancient historian Cassius Dio in his 80-book Historia Romana.

It was Aeneas's son, Ascanius, who would go on to found the ancient Latium city of Alba Longa, southeast of Rome. From his lineage sprung the legendary Romulus and Remus, and the Roman race.

The main thread of truth running through all the colorful stories of Rome's origins is the Tiber — as Livy exclaimed, the city's founding was all about location: "Not without reason did gods and men choose this spot ... destined to grow great."

The history of the Eternal City has flowed down the Tiber, between its seven hills, separating Etruscan lands to the north and Latin Campania to the south.

Archeological evidence suggests rudimentary settlements existed on Rome's hills as far back as the 10th century B.C. — long before Romulus supposedly founded the city. Strategically located on the east side of the Tiber, between the Palatine and Esquiline hills, these small Latin camps, run by village chiefs, fell to the powerful Etruscans around 625 B.C.

This still leaves room for a shred of truth in the legend of Romulus and Remus. According to Livy, the twins were the sons of a Vestal Virgin, Rhea Silvia, who was raped by the god Mars as she slept. Rhea was the daughter of Numitor, King of Alba Longa.

Numitor's brother, Amulius, had seized the throne, disposed of Numitor's son and forced Rhea to become a celibate priestess of the goddess Vesta, to prevent her producing a heir for Numitor.

When Amulius, the twins' great-uncle, learned of their birth, he was enraged, and buried Rhea alive for having broken her vow of chastity. Next he ordered his servant to throw Romulus and Remus in the Tiber. Instead, the slave set them afloat in a cradle — when it washed ashore, a thirsty she-wolf from the surrounding hills came to their aid. Wandering along the riverbank, Faustulus, a king's shepherd, found the wolf licking the boys and took the children home to his wife Acca Larentia, who raised them.

There is a twist in the wolf's tale. The "marvelous story" of the lupa, wrote Livy, may rest entirely with Larentia. An alternative version of the legend paints her as a prostitute, who was nicknamed the she-wolf for being "free with her favors"...