The generally accepted date of Rome’s founding is April 21, 753 BC. The area has been constantly inhabited since that time. The goddess of shepherds, Pales, was worshipped on April 21. Legend has it that Rome was founded 437 years after the sacking of Troy.  The name of the town might refer to Romulus, but also possibly to a proto-Indo-European word meaning ‘river’, as Rome stands on the banks of the Tiber.

A special bell tolls on the Capitoline Hill on April 21 every year, exactly at noon, to commemorate the founding of the city. This is the only day of the year on which the Cannon of Janiculum does not sound.

According to myth, the Trojan prince and war hero Aeneas sailed across the Mediterranean after the Trojan War and founded the city of Lavinium. Later, the city of Alba Longa was founded by his son Iulus, and the twins Romulus and Remus came from the royal family of Alba Longa. They were the sons of the war god Mars and Ilia. Legend has it that Ilia was the daughter of the king of Alba, Longa Numitor. Her uncle Amulius did away with her father and forced her to become a priestess to the goddess Vesta (Vestal Virgin). As the virgins took vows of celibacy for 30 years, she would have no heirs, which is exactly what Amulius wanted. However, she conceived the twins after Mars raped her. Amulius ordered the twins killed, but a merciful servant set them adrift in a basket on the Tiber. A she-wolf, Lupa, found the basket and nursed the babies. When they grew up, they established Rome. Archaeological discoveries indicate that the present-day area of Rome was first settled in the early 600s BC. 

As for the famous ancient legends of Rome, very few written before the Republic survive, and none of them are complete. At that time, the Romans had a complex series of stories about their history. Many of them were borrowed from ancient Greek myths and legends, and some stories were told in praise of great Roman families.