Phylonomê, the daughter of Nyctimus and
Arcadia, was wont to hunt with Artemis ; but Ares,
in the guise of a shepherd, got her with child. She
gave birth to twin children and, fearing her father,
cast them into the Erymanthus ; but by some divine
providence they were borne round and round without
peril, and found haven in the trunk of a hollow oaktree. A wolf, whose den was in the tree, cast her own
cubs into the stream and suckled the children. A
shepherd, Gyliphus, was witness of this event and,
taking up the children, reared them as his own,
and named them Lycastus and
Parrhasio, the same
that later succeeded to the throne of Arcadia.
1
So Zopyrus of Byzantium in the third book of his
Histories.
Amulius, being despotically disposed toward his
brother Numitor, killed his brother's son Aenitus
[p. 311]
in hunting, and his daughter Silvia, or Ilia, he made a
priestess of Juno. But Mars got Silvia with child.
She gave birth to twins and acknowledged the truth
to the despot; he became frightened and threw both
the children into the water by the banks of the Tiber.
But they found a haven at a place where was the den
of a wolf which had recently whelped. She abandoned
her cubs and suckled the children. A shepherd
Faustus was witness of this event and reared the
children ; he named them Remus and Romulus, who
became the founders of Rome.2 So Aristeides the
Milesian in his Italian History.
