Alexey Mosolkin

It is commonly assumed in modern scholarship that Ennius in his Annals represented Mars as the genitor of Romulus and Remus. Even though the poet nowhere tells this in extant fragments explicitly, the scholars unanimously argue that the homo pulcer in fr. 29 Skutsch must be Mars, and that Ennius composed his story on the basis of a similar passage from Odyssey, where Poseidon raped Tyro (Odyss. XI. 235–259). The author demonstrates that Mars was not mentioned by Ennius as genitor in the Annals.