Rome's foundation myth (the story of Romulus) had asylum at it's heart

As Italy takes it's anti-immigrant turn (led by La Lega whose base is in Northern Italy), it's worth reflecting on Rome's unusual founding myth.

Most countries and cities have a founding myth, and they usually involve stories about how wise and wonderful the founders are (see the story of the wise, egalitarian Pilgrim Fathers founding "the shining city on the hill", and then later the story of the honest George Washington "I cannot tell a lie" and the wise James Madison, eloquent Jefferson, wily Ben Franklin and the rest).

But the founding myth of Rome deviates from all that.

The story goes that two twin boys, Romulus and Remus were born to a princess. But the King, the princess's uncle, feared that the twins would become his rivals one day, and ordered them to be drowned. But his servants left the babies in a basket at the edge of the river, where they were discovered by a wolf, who suckled them. Later a shepherd discovered them and raised them to adulthood.

As young adults, Romulus and Remus quarrelled about where to establish their new city - and Romulus settled the argument by murdering his brother.

Romulus had no citizens for his new city, so he declared it an Asylum. So - criminals, the down and out, runaway slaves and generally neer-do-wells were welcomed into the new Asylum, which Romulus called Rome.

This is a weird foundation myth by any standard.

First, instead of one founder, there are two. Instead of being rescued straightaway by the shepherd, there is the bit where they are suckled by a wolf, a predator. (The story would seem different if a cow or ewe had suckled them). Then you've got violence and fratricide. And then the original citizens were all runaways and outsiders.

It tells us a bit about how the Romans saw themselves - a place founded by orphans, given suckle by a fierce predator, the violent killing of family members that we see later in stories of the Roman Emperors, and the fact that their city was built by outsiders, anyone could come to Rome and make it, earn citizenship, even become Emperor.

The Roman empire was founded on these ideas - the reason the empire lasted as long as it did was because it was inclusive. Places were conquered violently to be sure - but they were then absorbed and the newly conquered could rise up the ranks, so lots of people sought to become part of the system, rather than oppose the system. The Emperor Vespasian started out as a plain soldier who rose up the ranks. The emperors Trajan and Hadrian were Hispano-Romans (from Spain), and the Emperor Septimus Severus was from Roman Libya.

The Roman Empire died in the west in about 410 AD, over 1500 years ago. And Italy itself was over-run in the north by Germanic tribes who sought to settle in what they felt was a wealthy fertile land.

La Lega, the virulently anti-immigrant party that is in Italy's coalition government, has it's base in Lombardy, the place settled by the Lombards, a Germanic tribe, after the fall of the western empire.

And though it is 1500 years since the Lombards arrived, La Lega's roots in Lombardy explain everything. They were immigrants to Italy, but helped cause the downfall of the Roman Empire, because they didn't believe in the Empire's ideals. They certainly don't believe in the ideal of a country founded by asylum-seekers.