A SHE-WOLF AMONG ROME'S ANIMALS

When considering the presence of animals in the history and the geography of Rome, there is little doubt that the she-wolf comes first: There is no Rome before her and there would be no Rome without her. Rome is a she-wolf and the she-wolf is – in so many ways – Rome. As Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi, writer and politician, wrote in 1863, “Rome has the nature of the she-wolf” (572). The beast is maternal: She rescues and feeds twins of a different species the way Rome, since its beginnings, has hosted visitors from other lands and settlers of diverse backgrounds; the wolf god was the protector of fugitives and exiles, and these outcasts were indeed the earliest inhabitants of Romulus's city. (Of course, one never knows whether Rome and the she-wolf will protect their vulnerable charges or gobble them up.) The she-wolf is a wild predator that attacks those weaker than herself; she prefers lambs above all else. Rome, too, has done its share of preying on the weakness of others; any history book easily confirms the city's proverbial greed: “The she-wolf of Rome devoured many sheep. Carthage, Corinth, Jericho, Jerusalem, Londinum (London), Piraeus, Seleucia, Troy – these are but a few of the cities that the Romans destroyed” (Schneider 133). The she-wolf, perhaps, was not a wild animal at all but rather a very human prostitute, her profession indicated by the Latin word for she-wolf, lupa.