Romulus strained to keep an even tone. “I’ve done a good enough job so far, brother, building an army and leading them in battle.”
“Running a city will be a different matter. Are you such a fool you can’t see that?”
“You dare to call me a fool, Remus? I wasn’t the fool who got himself captured by Amulius and needed rescuing—”
“How dare you throw that in my face! Or do you enjoy reminding me of the hours I spent suffering, needlessly, because you wasted time here in Roma—”
“Unfair, brother! Untrue!”
“And because you strangled Amulius, you wear the crown every day, even though you promised it would be shared equally between us.”
“Is that what this is about? Take it! Wear it!” Romulus lifted the iron crown from his head, cast it to the ground, and stalked away. Pinarius ran after him.
When they were boys, the twins had never argued. Now they seemed to argue all the time, and their arguments grew more and more heated. From childhood, Romulus had been the more headstrong and impulsive, and Remus had been the one to restrain his brother. But the torture he had received at the hands of Amulius had wrought changes in Remus. His body had never fully recovered; he still walked with a slight limp. More than that, his even temper had deserted him; he had become as quick to anger as his brother. Romulus had changed as well since Alba. He remained as high-spirited as before but was more disciplined and purposeful, and more self-assured and arrogant than ever.
At Alba, Remus had suffered the tortures of Amulius; Romulus had enjoyed the glow of triumph and the satisfaction of rescuing his brother. One had been a victim and the other a hero. This disparity had created a rift between them, small at first but constantly growing. Potitius knew that the argument he had just witnessed was not about the wall, but about something that had gone terribly wrong between the twins, which neither could put a name to or knew how to set right.
The castoff crown had landed at Potitius’s feet. He stooped to lift it from the grass, and was surprised at how heavy it was. He offered it to Remus, who took it but did not place it on his head.
“This matter of the wall must be settled once and for all,” said Remus quietly, staring at the crown. “What do you think, Potitius?” He saw the troubled look on his friend’s face and laughed ruefully. “No, I’m not asking you to take sides. I’m asking your advice as a haruspex. How might we settle this matter by consulting the will of the gods?”
As quick as a blink, a shadow passed over them. Potitius looked up to see a vulture high above. “I think I know a way,” he said.
The contest was held the next day. It was not Potitius who called it a contest, but the twins, for clearly, that was how they thought of it. To Potitius, it was a very solemn rite, calling upon all the wisdom he had learned in Tarquinia.
The rite was conducted simultaneously upon each of the contesting hills. Romulus stood at a high spot on the Palatine, looking north; beside him was Pinarius, in his role as a priest of Hercules. Remus, with Potitius, stood on the Aventine, looking south. At each site, an iron blade had been driven upright into the earth, so that by its shadow the exact moment of midday could be determined. A mark had been made in the ground a set distance from the blade, to mark by the blade’s moving shadow the passing of a precise measure of time. Within that span of time, each brother and his priest would watch the sky for vultures in flight. The priests would keep count of each vulture that was sighted by scraping a furrow in the dirt with a spear.
Why vultures? Potitius had explained his reasoning to the brothers: “The vulture is sacred to Hercules, who was always joyful at the sight of one. Among all creatures, it is the least harmful; it damages neither crops, nor fruit trees, nor cattle. It never kills or hurts any living thing, but preys only upon carrion, and even then it will not prey upon other birds; whereas eagles, hawks, and owls will attack and kill their own kind. Of all birds, it is the most rarely seen, and few men claim ever to have seen its young. Because of this, the Etruscans believe that vultures come from some other world. Therefore, let it be the sighting of vultures that determines the will of heaven in situating the city of Roma.”
Midday arrived. Upon the Aventine, Remus raised his arm and pointed. “There’s one!”
Potitius suppressed a smile. His training as a haruspex had taught him to recognize every sort of bird at a great distance. “I believe that is a hawk, Remus.”
Remus squinted. “So it is.”
They continued to watch. The time seemed to pass very slowly.
“I see one, over there,” said Potitius. Remus followed his gaze and nodded. Potitius pressed his spear to the ground and scraped a furrow.
“And there’s another!” cried Remus. Potitius agreed, and scraped a second furrow.
So it went, until the shadow of the blade reached the mark that signaled the end of the contest. There were six furrows in the ground, to mark the six vultures seen by Remus. He smiled and clapped his hands and seemed pleased. Potitius agreed that it was a considerable number and boded well.
They descended from the Aventine. They were to meet Romulus and Pinarius at the footbridge over the Spinon, but after a long wait, Remus became impatient. He headed for the Stairs of Cacus, with Potitius following him. As Remus ascended, he tripped on some of the steps. Potitius noted that his friend’s limp was very bad that day.
They found Romulus and Pinarius sitting on a fallen tree not far from the spot where they had kept watch on the Palatine. The two of them were laughing and conversing, obviously in high spirits.
“We were to meet at the Spinon,” said Remus. “Why are you still here?”
Romulus rose. He smiled broadly. “Why should the king of Roma leave the very center of his kingdom? I told you that the Palatine is the heart of Roma, and today the gods have made it clear that they agree.”
“What are saying?”
“Go see for yourself.” Romulus pointed to the place where Pinarius had marked furrows in the ground.
When Potitius saw the number of furrows, he drew a sharp breath. “Impossible!” he whispered.
There were so many furrows that they could not be numbered at a glance. Remus counted them aloud. “…ten, eleven, twelve. Twelve!” He turned to confront Romulus. “Are you saying that you saw twelve vultures, brother?”
“Indeed, I did.”
“Not sparrows, not eagles, not hawks?”
“Vultures, my brother. The bird most sacred to Hercules, and most rare. Within the allotted measure of time, I saw and counted twelve vultures in the sky.”
Remus opened his mouth to say something, then shut it, dumbfounded. Potitius stared at Pinarius. “Is this true, cousin? You verified the count with your own eyes? You made each of these furrows in the earth? You performed the ritual openly and honestly before the gods, as befits a priest of Hercules?”
Pinarius stared back at him coldly. “Of course, cousin. All was done in a proper manner. Romulus saw twelve vultures, and I made twelve marks. How many vultures did Remus see?”
If Pinarius was lying, then Romulus was lying as well, deceiving his own brother and smiling as he did so. Potitius looked at Remus; his friend’s jaw quivered and he blinked rapidly. Since his torture by Amulius, Remus’s face was sometimes subject to a violent twitching, but this was something else. Remus was fighting back tears. Shaking his head, unable to speak, he hurriedly walked away, limping badly.
“How many did Remus see?” Pinarius asked again.
“Six,” whispered Potitius.
Pinarius nodded. “Then the will of the gods is clear. Do you not agree, cousin?”
When Romulus later took him aside and asked for his counsel, as a haruspex, regarding the making of the city boundaries, Potitius resisted him. He stopped short of accusing Romulus of lying, but Romulus read his thought. Never admitting deceit, he dismissed Potitius’s doubts about the counting of the vultures. There had been a disagreement, the disagreement had to be settled somehow, it had been settled, and now they must all move on.
By subtle flattery, Romulus convinced Potitius that his participation was essential to the establishment of the city. There was a right way and a wrong way to do such a thing, and surely, for the sake of the people of Roma and their descendents, all should be done in accordance with the will of the gods—and who but Potitius could reliably divine their will? Romulus stated his earnest desire that Remus should perform an equal share of the ritual, and persuaded Potitius to play peacemaker between them.
Thanks to Potitius, when the day arrived to establish the pomerium—the sacred boundary of the new city—all was done properly, and both twins took part.
The ritual was performed in accordance with ancient traditions handed down from the Etruscans. At the place which Potitius determined to be the exact center of the Palatine, and thus the center of the new city, Romulus and Remus broke ground and dug a deep pit, using a spade they passed back and forth. All those who wished to be citizens came forward one by one and cast a handful of dirt into the pit, saying, “Here is a handful of dirt from…” and speaking the name of the place they came from. Those who had lived in Roma for generations performed the ritual as well as those who were newcomers, and the mixing of the soil symbolized the melding of the citizenry. Even the father of Potitius, despite his reservations about the twins, took part in the ceremony, casting into the pit a handful of dirt he had scooped from the ground before the threshold of his family’s hut.
When the pit was filled, a stone altar was placed in the soil. Potitius called upon the sky-god Jupiter, father of Hercules, to look down upon the foundation of the city. Romulus and Remus invited Mavors and Vesta to pay witness—the war god rumored to be their father and the hearth goddess to whom their reputed mother, Rhea Silvia, had been consecrated.
Ahead of time, the twins had circled the Palatine and decided upon the best course for an encircling network of fortifications. Now they descended to the foot of the hill, where a bronze plough had been hitched to a yoke drawn by a white bull and a white cow. Taking turns, the brothers ploughed a continuous furrow to mark the boundary of the new city. While one plowed, the other walked beside him and wore the iron crown. Romulus began the furrow; Remus took the last turn and joined the furrow’s end to its beginning.
The throng that had followed every step of their progress cheered, laughed, and wept with joy. The brothers lifted their weary arms to heaven, then turned to each other and embraced. At that moment, it seemed to Potitius that the twins were truly beloved by the gods, and that no power on earth could lay them low.
On that day, in the month that would later be named Aprilis, in the year that would later be known as 753 B.C., the city of Roma was born.