Lion vs Wolf

Ask anyone what animal represents Rome, and the answer comes instantly: the she-wolf. Romulus and Remus, the bronze twins suckling beneath a fierce bronze mother — it's one of the most recognizable images in Western civilization. You'll find her on manhole covers, taxi doors, football jerseys, and at the heart of the Capitoline Museums.

But here's what most visitors don't know: for centuries, Rome's symbol wasn't a wolf at all. It was a lion.

If you wish to see the real she-wolf statue in Rome, also known as the Lupa Capitolina, book a Capitoline Museums Private Tour with CityEyes!

During the Middle Ages, the animal that embodied Rome's civic power was the lion — the king of beasts, a universal symbol of dominance and justice. At the foot of the grand staircase leading to the Palazzo Senatorio on the Capitoline Hill, an ancient marble sculpture of a lion attacking a horse stood as both a warning and a declaration of authority. It was in front of this sculpture that death sentences were publicly announced — and sometimes carried out.

The statue itself dates back to the Hellenistic period, likely the late 4th century BCE, created in the era of Alexander the Great. How it arrived in Rome is uncertain, but by the 1300s it occupied the most politically charged spot in the city. The image of the lion overpowering the horse became Rome's emblem: raw power, retribution, civic order.

The association ran deep. Medieval Romans believed their city was physically laid out in the shape of a lion. Cola di Rienzo, the populist leader who briefly seized control of Rome in 1347, declared that the very walls of the city had been built to mirror the beast's form. It was political mythology at its finest — the kind of story a city tells itself to feel invincible.

And it wasn't just symbolic. Rome kept real lions on the Capitoline Hill. Robert of Anjou, King of Naples, gifted a live lion to the city in the 14th century. The gesture was so well received that Roman magistrates turned to the Medici family in Florence for more. For decades, caged lions prowled the hilltop — occasionally escaping, to the terror of everyone in the vicinity.

The shift happened in 1471, when Pope Sixtus IV ordered a collection of ancient bronze sculptures to be transferred from the Lateran Palace to the Capitoline Hill. Among them was the famous bronze she-wolf — a tense, alert figure with ears perked and eyes glaring, originally created centuries earlier by Etruscan or Magna Graecia workshops (though some scholars now argue it may be medieval).

The twins weren't there yet. Romulus and Remus were added later, around the end of the 15th century, likely by the sculptor Antonio del Pollaiolo. The addition transformed what had been an abstract symbol of justice into the Mater Romanorum — the Mother of Romans — and reattached the city's identity to its founding myth.

The pope's move was deliberate. The she-wolf carried a double symbolism that the lion couldn't match. For pagans, the wolf was sacred to Mars, god of war — and the legend of the twins nursed by a wild animal embodied the warrior spirit that built an empire. For Christians, wolves were agents of divine will, sent either to punish sinners or to test faith. Either way, the animal served the teachings of the Catholic Church and reinforced the papacy's spiritual authority over the city.

The lion, symbol of Rome's independent civic government, was quietly displaced. The wolf, symbol of the papacy's power, took its place. It was a transfer of identity as much as a transfer of bronze.

The Lion Attacking a Horse now sits in the Exedra of Marcus Aurelius inside the Capitoline Museums, right next to the original equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius — a placement that reflects its historical importance, even if most visitors walk past it toward the more famous she-wolf.

The Capitoline Wolf stands in her own room in the Palazzo dei Conservatori, the twins reaching up beneath her with an almost eerie calm. She's smaller than you'd expect — about 75 centimeters tall — but the intensity of her expression fills the space.

Between the two sculptures, separated by a few rooms and a few centuries, lies one of Rome's most fascinating untold stories: a city that changed its soul by changing its animal. The lion represented civic independence, secular justice, the Rome that governed itself. The wolf represented myth, faith, and papal dominion. When the wolf won, Rome became a different kind of city.

Both animals are still there, though. Waiting on the same hill where they've always been.

Are you curious about Rome's myths and legends? Check our Rome Private Tours!