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Comment by Analemma_ | Hacker News Reader

> I highly doubt Romulus and Remus were actually children raised by wolves that founded Rome, but that's what the history books will say.

This is a weird example to prove your point. There are absolutely no current historians seriously claiming Rome was founded by Romulus and Remus, and even contemporary Romans didn't really believe the story (sort of: Roman beliefs about their own history were a delicate balance of keeping a few different, mutually contradictory, ideas in mind simultaneously, but it's safe to say that a lot of them didn't think the story of Romulus and Remus was literally true).

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Every history of Rome I've seen details the story, though they usually do call it a "legend." And presumably in centuries closer to the founding, it wasn't called a legend but passed off as the actual founding of Rome.

My point is that over the centuries every founding story becomes a "legend" that basically can't be considered true, like the founding of Rome. Eventually people should look back on it and say "that's highly mythologized nonsense."

Is the legend of the founding of Rome really comparable to the founding of America, though? I feel as if one is relatively well recorded and historically agreed upon, save the minor details, while the other is quite literally a legend from ancient times.

I don't think there will ever, or should ever, be a time when people look back and doubt the rough narrative behind the founding of the US.

Remove a few minor details and the story of Romulus and Remus becomes one of two brother founding a new settlement before having a disagreement that results in one being killed by the other. Add a few more details and who knows what the history of the founding of America will become, it's already acceptable for politicians to appeal to the founding fathers to justify their decisions and policies to the public.

There's a ton of stuff about the founding of the US that isn't generally known.

The original genesis of the constitutional convention was a trade problem, although I read at one point it started as a navigation/fishing dispute between the Mid-Atlantic states.

In any case, it was interesting that the new constitution was essentially the second american revolution, in that the new government essentially (and potentially illegally) superseded the old government lock stock and barrel.

What's nonsense is equating stories that are obviously mythological with factual, historical record.

Yes, there are obviously some mythological stories about the US founding fathers (George Washington's cherry tree, for example). But there are also reams and reams of historical evidence for their true activities and true natures, and it's absurd to claim that they are somehow "complete fabrications".

The stories of the founding fathers have been heavily mythologized. Yes, we can refer back to the original sources, but we also have two centuries of historiography using those original sources to spin a variety of narratives. To the point where you can use their actions to tell basically any story you want.

An example of this is "Hamilton." The musical and the book that inspired it tell a version of events different enough to what other sources say that it may as well be complete fiction.

>and the book that inspired it

Genuinely wondering - Where do those other sources differ, and why are they authoritative enough to mean the book Alexander Hamilton may as well be complete fiction? Looking online, I can't really find much contemporary criticism of its accuracy from the time of its release or afterwards, just general acclaim from book reviewers. I can't find much academic opinion of it either way, save for one review I don't have library access to but seems to have a positive first page.[0]

I'm not really familiar with the musical, but I did find a few articles noting Ron Chernow consulted on its historical accuracy. I wouldn't really hold a musical theater production to the same standard of historic accuracy as a biography, though, so I am more curious why you describe the biography as "complete fiction."

[0]https://www.jstor.org/stable/3542686

I will admit "complete fiction" was hyperbole. Events in it did happen, but it ignored many other events and his true rationale behind it. This is either what I read or inspired what I read about the issue, https://web.archive.org/web/20170313043444/http://bostonrevi...

Obviously? Growing up, the "cherry tree" story was related to me as gospel truth and absolute fact. I do not know the point at which I discovered it was a legend/myth only, but it was far later than finding out about Santa Claus, I can tell you that.

There are lots of legends of this sort.

How the Hawaiian islands were “created”. How the Japanese archipelago came to be…

All quite unrealistic even more so than children raised by wolves, but people repeat it as a suspended belief and mystic flair without literally believing them.

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