Long ago, a king called Amulius ruled over the city of Alb Longa. He was a very cruel and wicked king. He had stolen the throne

from his brother, Numitor. Numitor had two sons and a

daughter. But Amulius killed the boys and locked the girl so that

she would never marry and have children.

But one day, he heard that his brother´s

daughter, Sylvia, had fallen in love with the

god Mars and had twin baby boys.

Amulius was terribly angry.

He was afraid that when they grew up, one of them might become king in his place. So he

ordered his servants to drown the babies in the River Tiber. The servants were sorry for the two little boys, so they put them in a basket and place it in the water. The babies were

unhappy, cold, wet, and really hungry. They began to cry.

A she-wolf was hiding quite near. She was feeling very unhappy because a terrible

hunter had just killed her two young cubs. This mother wolf heard the cry of the two

babies. He went to see where the noise came from. Instead of killing them, she took them to a cave and looked after them, feeding them

with her own milk

Soon after, an old shepherd called Faustulus, walking along the bank of the river Tiber, heard a strange noise. To his surprise, he found the baby boys near the wolf, who was licking them clean with its tongue.

Faustulus took the babies home with him and showed them to his wife, Laurentia. The old shepherd and his wife had no children of their own, so they decided to keep the boys and named them Romulus and Remus.The twins grew up among the shepherds.

They then built a city on a hill by the River Tiber. Both twins wanted to be kings, so they had a contest to decide who would be the top king.

There were hills in the area, so each boy stood on a different hill and counted how many vultures they could see fly before sunset. The one who counted the most, would get to pick the name.Romulus counted six vultures, but Remus saw twelve.

It appeared that Remus was going to win the

contest, but his brother got so angry that he killed him with a rock. Romulus

then became the first king of Rome.

Romulus named the Rome after himself and became the first ruler of the city.