Livy has here abandoned the marvellous. The
tyrant threw Rea with her infants into the river Anio: she lost her life
in the waves, but the god of the river took her soul and changed it into
an immortal goddess, whom he married. This story has been softened down
into the tale of her imprisonment, which is unpoetical enough to be a
later invention. The river Anio carried the cradle, like a boat, into
the Tiber, and the latter conveyed it to the foot of the Palatine, the
water having overflowed the country, and the cradle was upset at the
root of a fig-tree. A she-wolf carried the babies away and suckled them;
Mars sent a woodpecker which provided the children with food, and the
bird _parra_ which protected them from insects. These statements are
gathered from various quarters; for the historians got rid of the
marvellous as much as possible. Faustulus, the legend continues, found
the boys feeding on the milk of the huge wild beast; he brought them up
with his twelve sons, and they became the staunchest of all. Being at
the head of the shepherds on Mount Palatine, they became involved in a
quarrel with the shepherds of Numitor on the Aventine--the Palatine and
the Aventine are always hostile to each other. Remus being taken
prisoner was led to Alba, but Romulus rescued him, and their descent
from Numitor being discovered, the latter was restored to the throne,
and the two young men obtained permission to form a settlement at the
foot of Mount Palatine where they had been saved.

Out of this beautiful poem the falsifiers endeavored to make some
credible story: even the unprejudiced and poetical Livy tried to avoid
the most marvellous points as much as he could, but the falsifiers went
a step farther. In the days when men had altogether ceased to believe in
the ancient gods, attempts were made to find something intelligible in
the old legends, and thus a history was made up, which Plutarch fondly
embraced and Dionysius did not reject, though he also relates the
ancient tradition in a mutilated form. He says that many people believe
in demons, and that such a demon might have been the father of Romulus;
but he himself is very far from believing it, and rather thinks that
Amulius himself, in disguise, violated Rea Silvia amid thunder and
lightning produced by artifice. This he is said to have done in order to
have a pretext for getting rid of her, but being entreated by his
daughter not to drown her, he imprisoned her for life