The Capitoline Wolf

Gentle Readers, this entry was written by superstars Marielle Pomereau and Lindsay Tango.

The Capitoline Wolf, in the Capitoline Museum

This January, we spent some time in Rome, Italy. It’s an amazingly beautiful place, and we’re learning a ton of cool new historical things! You know what they say, Rome was not built in a day. We can definitely tell you that is true. We’ve been all over Rome from the smallest Gelato shop on Via dell’Ara Coeli to the Colosseum. One place that was truly amazing was the Capitoline Museum, and within the walls of that museum is the famous Capitoline Lupa. This sculpture tells the story about how Rome came to be.

The Capitoline Lupa, also known as the She-Wolf, is an extremely symbolic sculpture in Rome in regards to the foundation of the city. The story behind this sculpture begins in Alba Longa when King Numitor was overthrown by his brother Amulius. In order to protect Amulius’ reign, he killed Numitor’s sons and made Numitor’s daughter Rhea Silvia a vestal virgin, or also known as a priestess. However, Rhea was impregnated by the god of war, Mars, and gave birth to twin boys, Romulus and Remus. When Amulius discovered the twins, he had her imprisoned and the twins to be killed by exposure in the Tiber River. However at the time of the twin’s exposure, the men put the children on the edge of the river’s flooded shores expecting that the children would drift away to never be seen again. Unfortunately to Amulius’ expectations, the river receded, leaving the twins on the dry land on the river’s edge. The twins were suckled by the She-Wolf who heard their cries. The babies were eventually taken in by a local shepherd who raised them on Rome’s Palentine Hill. Later on in life, the twins would overthrow Amulius to restore power to their grandfather, King Numitor. Romulus and Remus decided to go and found a city upon where they were found by the shepherd, but only one of the twins could be king. In a fight between the two, Romulus killed Remus, making him the king of the city that he would name Rome.

There are many depictions of the Capitoline Lupa and the twins in art. Two of the most common forms are found as a sculpture and coins. In the two depictions, the expression and stature of the she-wolf are vastly different. On the coins, the She-Wolf turns her head inward to gaze upon the suckling infants. She appears as nourishing and thoughtful towards the infants. In contrast, the sculpture has the She-Wolf looking away from the children, completely malnourished, and shows her thoughts on the matter through her surprised and dismayed expression.

Ancient coin showing the lupa with the twins Romulus and Remus.

As of 2006, the sculpture of the She-Wolf’s validity as an ancient sculpture dating back to the time of the Etruscans is being questioned. The twins were added to the sculpture at a later time during the renaissance period, but this has been a known fact to many historians. The She-Wolf was believed to date back to the fifth century BCE Etruria, but because of the sculpture was made through a casting method that was not used during that time period and radio-carbon dating suggest that the sculpture was actually made in the middle ages, specifically in the twelfth century CE. During the fifth century BCE, many large scale sculptures were made through multiple hollow casting techniques of separate areas of the sculpture that would later be combined to create a whole ginormous sculpture. The She-Wolf was discovered to be made as a single hollow piece, an art method that was more stylistically during the medieval period.

Side view of the lupa.