The Palatine Hill: The Palace of the Caesars

Why is it significant?

Ascend the gentle slope among stone pines and fragrant rosemary bushes onto the broad plateau of the Palatine Hill.

Key Facts

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Ascend the gentle slope among stone pines and fragrant rosemary bushes onto the broad plateau of the Palatine Hill. You are standing on the mythological birthplace of Rome: it was here, according to legend, that the twin infants Romulus and Remus were nursed by the she-wolf in the Lupercal cave, and here on April twenty-first, seven fifty-three BC, that Romulus plowed the first sacred furrow of the city walls.

The very word palace in English, and in nearly every European language, derives directly from this hill: the Palatium. Emperor Augustus chose to live modestly here near Romulus's hut, but subsequent emperors, especially Domitian in ninety-two AD, transformed the entire hill into a colossal royal palace complex—the Domus Augustana—with private sunken gardens, banquet halls, and private stadium terraces overlooking the Circus Maximus.

Walk out onto the Farnese Gardens terrace: below you, the entire Roman Forum spreads out like an architectural map.

Walk across the ridge toward the Capitoline Hill and Michelangelo's Piazza del Campidoglio.