According to the canonical version of the founding myth of Rome, Rhea Silvia was the daughter of Numitor, king of the city of Alba Longa (“proto-Rome”). Numitor was dethroned by his brother Amulius. Amulius sentenced Rhea Silvia to eternal virginity. The god Mars found Rhea Silvia sleeping in a grove dedicated to him. According to legend, he raped her. The result of this event were the twins: Romulus and Remus.
Amulius ordered his servants to abandon the infants in a basket in the waters of the Tiber. A she-wolf found the basket and fed the children with her own milk. The boys were raised by the royal shepherd Faustulus. When they grew up, they killed Amulius and gave the throne to Numitor – their maternal grandfather. Having meted out justice, they went where the she-wolf found them and founded a city – Rome. And that’s how it all started.
Today I will tell you about a certain monument hidden from the eyes of tourists, which is a sculptural illustration of the myth of the founding of Rome. We are talking about the front of the sarcophagus, which today is built into the wall of the staircase of Palazzo Mattei in Rome. In the small space resulting from the dimensions of the sarcophagus, the sculptor managed to place all the important elements of the story about the founding of the city.
So let’s look at it one by one:
The central figures in the relief are, of course, the god Mars and Rhea Silvia. On the sarcophagus we see Rhea Silvia lying in the lower part of the relief, slightly to the right. The woman is depicted in a position signifying sleep. On her left we see a wonderful god. Notice his nakedness symbolizing heroism. The only elements of Mars’ clothing are military attributes: a helmet, a cloak and a weapon. Mars is depicted higher than Rhea Sylwia and appears to be slightly suspended in the air, as if descending towards her from the clouds. The depiction of his left hand is charming – Mars gives the spear to Cupid on his right. God is heading towards the woman and plans to have pleasure with her – so he will not need a weapon.
In the upper left corner you can see a chariot drawn by four horses. The figure wearing a radiant crown (“corona radiata”) indicates that this is a chariot of the sun. The horses are rising, so this is a symbolic expression of dawn. Perhaps in this way the sculptor wanted to signal that the love union of Mars and Rhea Sylvia took place at dawn?
To the chariot’s right, we see an almost naked young man with long hair, holding a torch. This is probably Hymen – the god of marriage, wedding ceremonies and the wedding night. The association with today’s word “hymen”, which is a synonym for the hymen, is not accidental. The presence of Hymen in the bas-relief indicates without beating around the bush what Mars intends to do to Rhea Sylvia.
Many other details are referring to the myth in the relief: at the bottom left we see, for example, a half-naked god lying on the waves – it may be a personification of the Ocean or (which seems more likely to me) the Tiber, which plays a very important role in the myth. On the right we see a tree – it is a fig tree: a symbolic representation of the place where the Tiber washed a cradle with twins on the shore.
At the bottom right we see a lying goddess with the so-called “horn of plenty” – this is the image of the goddess Tellus: the patroness of fertility and abundant harvests, considered the mother of the human race. There is an allusion to Rome’s future growth, power and wealth.
Some of the sculptural elements of the sarcophagus are controversial and cause disputes: who is the majestic female figure in a sitting position, placed in the upper right corner? There are various theories: that it is the goddess Juno (unlikely, but not impossible. According to some versions of the myth, Rhea Silvia was not a priestess of Vesta, as is usually believed, but of Juno). This figure can be interpreted as Vesta. Some see her as Venus – the goddess from whom Aeneas’s family was said to have descended and thus the patroness of the city. The weakness of this interpretation is that Venus is usually depicted in a more flirtatious pose, and not as monumental and dignified. What I find most convincing is the theory that it is the personification of Rome – the goddess Roma.
The temple in the upper right corner is equally controversial. If we assume that the goddess next to us is Roma, the temple would then be dedicated to her (the podium of the double temple of Venus and Roma is today located between the Roman Forum and the Colosseum in Rome). Others consider the sanctuary a symbol of the sacred grove of Mars, where the divine rape was supposed to take place, and still others – the temple of Vesta (I don’t like the theory of the sanctuary of Vesta, because the sculptor would certainly depict it as a rotunda).
If I were to look for the goddess Venus in this bas-relief, I would be inclined to assume that it is the figure in the lower left corner – a half-naked woman leaning on one hip, looking towards Mars. Let us remember that according to mythology, Mars was the lover of Venus, who was the wife of the lame god Vulcan. The volcano is also present on the sarcophagus (a seated figure, to the left of the temple). Thus, the sculptor presented us with a real love quadrangle: the betrayed husband (Vulcan), the unfaithful wife (Venus), who cheats on her husband with Mars, who in turn, seeing the alluring Rhea Silvia in the sacred grove, gives in to male desires and abandons his constant lover for her ( Venus). The love confusion here is even emphasized by the arrangement of the characters: note that Mars is located exactly between the divine spouses: Vulcan and the supposed Venus. He separates them, but goes to another one… The raised hand of Venus looks as if the goddess was in vain summoning Mars, who succumbs to the charms of Rhea Silvia.
I’m not sure who the male figure in the very center is – a bearded man in a tunic and cloak, extending his hand towards Rhea Sylvia. Is this her father (and therefore Romulus and Remus’s grandfather)? Or maybe Faustulus, who raised the twins? Or maybe the villain of this story, the evil and insidious Amulius? I really don’t know.
Finally, pay attention to one detail. An expressive and full of symbols bas-relief referring to the myth of the founding of Rome cannot obscure the most important thing: we are dealing with a sarcophagus, i.e. the resting place of a Roman. And here we come to the point: all the figures present in the bas-relief have quite regular features without any particularly individual features, but there are two exceptions: Mars and Rhea Sylvia. If you look carefully, neither he nor she is particularly beautiful. Mars in particular, with its receding lower jaw and probable overbite, is far from the Roman canons of male beauty. The explanation seems simple to me: these are probably real people for whom the sarcophagus was intended. It’s nice to think that the reference to Mars and Rhea Silvia is perhaps a romantic reminder of their fiery love, the fruits of which were to be for their families what Romulus and Remus were for Rome: the beginning of family glory.
