lupercal found?

As a follow up from our read earlier this year of Scullard's "History of The Roman World: 753-146 BC" and in anticipation of next year's read of T J Cornell's "The Beginnings of Rome", our regular readers may be interested to know of a report from the BBC that a cavity has been found near the remains of Augustus' palace in Rome.

The archaeologists who discovered it speculate that it may be the Lupercal, the cave the Romans thought was the place where the famous she-wolf suckled Romulus and Remus. In his note to the entry on the Lupercal in Platner's Topographical Dictionary, Bill Thayer of LacusCurtius seems to be sceptical, as does Mary Beard.

Comments

[Irene Hahn]

Here maybe an answer to the resurrected publicity: Vote Veltroni! Vote Romulus!

[Irene Hahn]

I'm with Mary here and had the same thoughts when you alerted me to the article yesterday. The keyword is "myth", and even if the Romans used a cave to make the myth real, is it the one?