Andrea Carandini of Rome's La Sapienza university has spent 20 years trying to prove the sceptics wrong and last month he and his team hit on the final piece of a puzzle he believes shows the myth has root in fact.
"Archaeology and legend appear to go better together than contemporary historians thought," Carandini told Reuters in an interview, ahead of a presentation of his findings this weekend.
"We now have all the elements to show that part of the legend may very well be true."
The source of Carandini's confidence is the discovery of traces of an eighth century B.C. house of regal proportions on the edge of the Forum that dates from the period of the Eternal City's legendary foundation.
Lying 10 metres below pines growing on the surface of the Palatine and under centuries of construction from classical to Renaissance times, the palace has a courtyard and covered inner area spanning a total of 350 square metres.
Wooden columns marked its entrances, ceramics decorated it and seats sat against the walls of a grand central hall.
It lies by the Sanctuary of Vesta, the Roman goddess of the hearth, close to the slopes of the Palatine, the site of the earliest traces of Roman civilisation and where legend has it Romulus killed Remus before building Rome.