Rome

Brief information

Rome’s first settlements did not arise on a flat open area, but on the hills above the marshy lowlands by the Tiber. Ancient dwellings and burials have been found on the Palatine and at its foot; huts were cut directly into the rocky ground. Nearby there was a ford across the river, so trade appeared here before the city became the capital of a vast state.

This original geography still helps one read Rome today. The Forum occupied the valley between the Palatine and the Quirinal, and roads radiated from the center toward sanctuaries, markets, and later the provinces. The expression “All roads lead to Rome” is not only a saying here: it recalls that the city grew from a convenient crossing over the Tiber into a political, military, and commercial hub.

What to notice right away

It makes sense to compare three types of boundaries and centers. The seven hills explain why old Rome does not look like a city drawn on a flat grid: the Palatine is associated with the early settlements, while the valley between the Palatine and the Quirinal became the Forum. The streets around it can also be read as markers of power: the Sacred Way climbed toward the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, and nearby, at the foot of the Palatine, ran the Via Nova.

The later walls show another Rome: one that had already expanded and was forced to mark its limits again. The Aurelian Walls enclosed almost the entire city and in places even incorporated tombs, among them the Pyramid of Cestius and the Tomb of Eurysaces. A separate example of form being turned to a new function is Castel Sant’Angelo: it began as Hadrian’s mausoleum, and in the Middle Ages became a fortress beside the Vatican Hill.