SPQR and the Sabines

[<JHertzman@xxxxxxx>]

I was delighted that there were no fewer than seven of us (so far) who picked
up on SPQR. But it is now morning, and went trolling for the name of the she-
wolf. Alas. The scrolls say that Romulus and Remus were the sons of Mars and
the Vestal Virgin Rhea Silva, after which the story gets complicated. R. & R.,
abandoned in the Tiber, were suckled by the wolf and fed by a woodpecker
beneath a wild fig-tree. Got the name of the fig-tree (Ficus ruminalis) but
not the names of the wolf or the woodpecker. 

Romulus survived various vicissitudes and eventually led a band of outcasts
and fugitives in the Rape of the Sabine Women, which, after an appropriate
gestation period, populated the area, which is roughly what is meant by the
"founding" of Rome. Paul Rollins' suggestion of a "Roman Sports Chariot Club"
notwithstanding, there is nothing to suggest that any of this took place in
the package trays of chariots or, for that matter, the backs of gardening
wagons.

Does anybody know the name of the she-wolf or, for that matter, the
woodpecker?

John

------------------------------