The name of the protagonist is not John Romulus Brinkley. Brinkley’s middle name was Richard.  He claimed to have been born John Romulus and said it was later changed to John Richard, either because a preacher said it was a heathen name or because his schoolmates made fun of him (he told different versions of this story).  Logic suggests he invented the Romulus story – given that he’s named after his father, whose name was John Richard – but we decided to use Romulus exclusively in this film because (1) it’s way more awesome, and (2) it underscores the fact that for whatever reason, Brinkley liked to identify himself with the mythical founder of Rome.

This statue is a replica of the iconic “Capitoline Wolf,” depicting future founders of Rome Romulus and Remus suckling at a wolf’s teat. The image was a favorite of Mussolini’s, who liked to cast himself as the founder of “New Rome.” He gave replicas of the Capitoline Wolf to many U.S. cities called “Rome” as a gesture of goodwill c. 1929-1931. We don’t know where Brinkley got his copy from, but Brinkley visited Italy in 1925 (where he received a medical degree from the University of Pavia, later rescinded). He was quite enamoured of Italian culture and especially Mussolini himself.

Incidentally, the Capitoline Wolf was traditionally thought to be an Etruscan work from the 5th century B.C., with the twins added in the 15th century A.D., but recent scholarship and carbon dating have established pretty certainly that the sculpture is from between the 11th and 12th centuries A.D.

“If only they had the wisdom to cooperate with the inspired healer from Milford . . . but the doctors had no more sense than the geese of Rome who could only call out ‘Quack! ‘Quack!,'” is taken directly from The Life of a Man (219).