Date of Graduation

5-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

History

Advisor/Mentor

Charles E. Muntz

Committee Member

Michael McCoy

Second Committee Member

Tiffany Montgomery

Third Committee Member

Jared Phillips

Abstract

This study exames the figure of Romulus in imperial Roman literaure as neither a fixed mythological nor historical subject, but as a flexible rhetorical and historiographical tool. Surveying a range of authors from the late first to fourth centuries CE, inlcuding historians such as Florus, Tacitus, Justin, Suetonius, and the Historia Augusta, as well as literary authors like Juvenal, Silius Italicus, Valerius Maximus, and Seneca, the thesis argues that references to Romulus and his deified counterpart Quirinus are deliberately manipulated to serve distinct authorial purposes. Rather than merely recounting Rome’s foundational myth, these writers employ Romulus to construct comparisons, legitimize or critique political authority, and frame moral judgments about prominent figures and Roman society. By analyzing both historiographical and literary texts, this thesis demonstrates how Romulus functions as a symbolic figure whose meaning is continually reinterpreted to reveal a broader processes of adaptation and narrative control within imperial Roman writing.

Keywords

Ancient History; Latin; Romulus; Classics; Historiography; Classical Literature

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