According to

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom ...

's description of the founding of

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

Romulus Romulus () was the legendary founder and first king of Rome. Various traditions attribute the establishment of many of Rome's oldest legal, political, religious, and social institutions to Romulus and his contemporaries. Although many of these ...

(Fasti IV.809 ff.), Celer was the name of an otherwise unknown foreman, appointed by Romulus to oversee the building of Rome's first walls. Ovid, perhaps in part to exonerate the emperor

Augustus Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pr ...

' great forefather, relates how it was actually this foreman Celer (not Romulus) who struck down Remus for jumping over the wall in its early stages in an act of mockery towards his brother's attempt to fortify the new city. Romulus is portrayed by the poet as putting on a brave front at Remus' funeral, stoically suppressing his tears and grief in order to be a role model for his people. Ovid relates the account in connection with his description of the Roman festival of

Parilia upright=1.5, ''Festa di Pales, o L'estate'' (1783), a reimagining of the Festival of Pales by Joseph-Benoît Suvée The Parilia is an ancient Roman festival of rural character performed annually on 21 April, aimed at cleansing both sheep and sh ...

(April 21). Ovid also provides additional allusions to Celer's killing of Remus further on in the ''

Fasti In ancient Rome, the ''fasti'' (Latin plural) were chronological or calendar-based lists, or other diachronic records or plans of official and religiously sanctioned events. After Rome's decline, the word ''fasti'' continued to be used for simil ...

'', in connection with the festival of

Lemuria Lemuria (), or Limuria, was a continent proposed in 1864 by zoologist Philip Sclater, theorized to have sunk beneath the Indian Ocean, later appropriated by occultists in supposed accounts of human origins. The theory was discredited with the d ...

(Fasti V - May 9). This may also be the same "Celer" who

Valerius Antias Valerius Antias ( century BC) was an ancient Roman annalist whom Livy mentions as a source. No complete works of his survive but from the sixty-five fragments said to be his in the works of other authors it has been deduced that he wrote a chroni ...

claims served as the first head of the ''

Celeres __NoToC__ The ''celeres'' () were the bodyguard of the Kings of Rome. Traditionally established by Romulus, the legendary founder and first King of Rome, the celeres comprised three hundred men, ten chosen by each of the curiae.Livy, i. 15. Th ...

'' bodyguard during Romulus' reign as king, which would have likely provided the group its name, though Ovid does not mention this.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Celer Ovid People of the Roman Kingdom 8th-century BC Romans Romulus and Remus Builders Ancient murderers

See also

References