Every Wednesday after school, fifth and sixth graders at Flint Hill Elementary School gather in the library to create The Flint Hill Gazette. With the help of third grade teacher Jeffrey Bechtle and some high school volunteers, they create a weekly newspaper that they send out to the entire school. The articles range from video game reviews to slime-making tutorials to arguments favoring environmental protection policies – The Flint Hill Gazette has it all.
We partnered with The Flint Hill Gazette to create a contest for best article written by a Flint Hill student, the winner of which would be featured in The Hawk Talk. This is the winning article, written by fifth grader Jasper Shih:
The Roman Empire: republic or kingdom, it doesn’t matter, Rome was a great realm, at its height (under Trajan) spanning from Britain (Brittainia, as they called it) to Greece, (Graecia) to Iberia, to Egypt (Aegyptus). But how exactly did it get so big? Let’s go back in time. Way back, into the area where history blends into myth.
It all starts in Troy, as it is burned by the Greeks. Aeneas, of Troy’s royal blood, flees the city, with his father, Anchises, wife, Creusa, and son, Ascanius. This all comes from an old story by Homer, and probably isn’t real, and the rest of these myths won’t be either. Aeneas, his family, and followers travel to Thrace, Delos and Crete, where they try founding a city, but abandon it after a plague, and finally, make it to Italy, where they start beating the crap out of basically everyone, then settle down. This myth is important to Rome, but not too important, because Aeneas and co. never founded Rome, rather their descendants did.
Aeneas’ descendants founded many cities, but we’ll focus on one, named Alba Longa, near the future site of Rome. There were two twins, Romulus and Remus, born to Rhea Silvia, a Vestal Virgin, and daughter to King Amulius, who kicked his brother, Numitor, off the throne. Vestal Virgins couldn’t have children, but Rhea’s children supposedly had Mars, god of war, as their father. Amulius couldn’t kill them, for killing them would mean invoking the god of war’s wrath, a dumb way to die indeed, so instead, he told a servant to put them in a basket and put that basket in the River Tiber. They were saved by the god in the water, Tiberius, and they were adopted by a wolf mother named Lupa. (Weird, but this is a myth, so… yeah.)
After a while, the twins were then adopted by a shepherd, Faustulus, and the boys grew up to be shepherds, not weird grown men who act like wolves.
One day, the twins got involved in a royal dispute between their grandpa Amulius and their granduncle Numitor. Remus was taken away to the dungeon, and Romulus rallied the peasants to free his brother and reinstate Numitor as king. Their plan succeeded, they either deposed or killed Amulius, and they set off, trying to find a nice place for a new city.
They traveled all over the countryside, until they reached the seven hills, where they decided to make the city. The problem is, there were seven hills. Romulus wanted to build the city on Palatine Hill, while Remus wanted to build on Avantine Hill. This quickly descended into fighting, and one day, Romulus killed Remus, all for a city’s location. (Jeez, those hills are right next to each other! Who cares???)
After that ordeal, Romulus then marked the borders of the future city and started building the walls, and the city was finally done! (For now.) There’s probably more to talk about, but Rome lasted over a millennium, so I won’t. Bye!
