Romulus's early life is somewhat of a mystery. Most stories tell that he was born around the year of 753 B.C. with his brother, Remus, from the vestal virgin Rhea Silvia. Many stories tell of different fathers. The King of the ancient city of Latinum at that time was King Amulius. At that time, the fate of a Vestal Virgin who betrayed her vows of celibacy was to be buried alive, but the King, fearing of enraging the god who could have been the twins father, did not kill Rhea Silvia, but put the twins in basket on the Tiber River. The basket floated for a long period of time, before coming to tangle in the roots of a fig tree. It is at this point that the twins were discovered and raised by the wolf Lupa. Soon, a shepherd in the area discovered them, and they were raised by that family to be shepherds just like their father. While they were herding sheep one day, they were discovered by one of King Amulius's shepherds. In the battle which followed, Remus was taken away to the kingdom while Romulus was left in the fields. Soon Romulus figured that he wanted to gather an army to go save his brother. With his small gang of attackers, he saved Remus, and also killed King Amulius. When the brothers got back to the fields, they decided they wanted to establish a city. There was one problem. Remus wanted the city to be on Aventine hill, while Romulus wanted the city to be on Palatine hill. They ended up agreeing that they would stay on their respective hills for a day, and they would could the birds that they could see from the top of it. The hill that houses the most birds, is clearly the hill the city should be built on. At the end of the counting day, Romulus repohted that he spotted twelve birds, and Remus stated the he had only seen six. Romulus immediately noticed that he had won by a landslide, and started celebrating, but Remus said that he had won, since he saw his six birds before Romulus had even spotted one. Romulus said that was complete nonsense, so he started to build the city without Remus on Palatine hill. Remus just laughed at him as Romulus started to put up walls. Eventually, Remus wanted to make a fool of his brother, so he trotted right up to the wall, and climber over it. This infuriated Romulus. To make a long story short, Romulus killed Remus. In the days that followed, Romulus established the city of Rome, named after himself. He populated the city, and soon was winning wars this way and that. Soon enough, peace fell over the land. Romulus was the peacefully the king of Rome for the rest of his time. Romulus's death was somewhat of a mystery, no one knows the date. Mattering on who you ask, some people will tell you that he disappeared into a whirlwind, resuming his place in heaven as a god, some people will say that the very senate he created ended up killing him because he had taken too much power for himself as king. Of course, some doubt that Romulus ever lived at all, his life was just a myth, or a combination of myth and actual life. It is quite possible that we will never know.