This first section is a brief explanation of my Italy blog posts, which were inspired by my 2-week trip to Italy in May, 2025. Feel free to skip this section if you’ve read it before.
Dear Reader, If you read my Italy posts in the order in which they’ve come out, it may seem as though we hopped back and forth all over the country, but I have decided not to write these posts sequentially. I want to write about the things that interest me most, as the spirit moves me. For some topics, I may even combine cities. I hope that by doing so, you’ll find it a lot more interesting than if I just give you a tedious day by day description of our itinerary, as if I were your Aunt Mabel forcing you to sit down and watch all her Super 8 films of the family road trip to Niagara Falls from 1966.
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions about how I’m approaching this travelogue-within-a-blog, please let me know in the comments below!
Of the seven hills of Rome, Palatine Hill is the central one, and it is said to be the one where Romulus and Remus were kept alive by the she-wolf Lupa, and where Romulus chose to found the city and murder his brother. While this is almost definitely a myth, it is true that excavations have unearthed evidence of people living on this hill since the 10th century BC. I consider Palatine Hill to be the historical heart of Rome, and I was very excited to have a chance to explore it.
Unlike Pompeii, where the rich and poor lived side by side, in Ancient Rome, the neighborhoods were extremely segregated. During the Republican period, between 509 BC and 44 BC, the Roman aristocracy all had their opulent houses on Palatine Hill. Notables such as Cicero and Mark Antony lived there. These opulent homes with their extravagant floor and wall decorations have left remnants here and there that you can still see. Once the Empire began in 27 BC, Caesar Augustus built his palace there, and over time the hill became the sole domain of emperors.
Most languages derive their word for palace from Palatine Hill. I can’t say this for certain, but I don’t think I’ve ever been to a place that has given birth to as many words as Rome has. Decimate. Triumph. Ovation. Consul. Dictator. Forum. Circus. Curator. Patrician. Senate. Mercenary. Bishop. Pope. Satire. Martyr. Villa. I could go on for ages. I’m not sure if that’s a function of their arrogance, or simply that when you innovate as much as the Romans did, you have to come up with words for those innovations.
The first site we visited on the hill, of course, was Augustus’ sanctuary and residential complex. To get there, we walked past the supposed site of the hut of the supposed Romulus. Given that there’s no evidence that the man actually existed, and if he did exist, there’s no evidence as to where he lived and what his home would have looked like, and then there’s the fact that this particular hut has burned down and been rebuilt so many times over the centuries it would hardly be an exact replica anyway, especially since the only thing left are the post holes, I was hardly impressed. But, hey, Augustus was impressed enough to want to build his house next to it and consider it a sacred spot worth his devotion and reverence. So I paused for a good 5 seconds and bowed my head to the glorious Romulus and then moved on.
The residential portion of Augustus’ palace was surprisingly modest given that this was the most powerful man in the world. He wasn’t building a disgustingly massive pleasure palace of debauchery and a monument to himself like Nero would do about 90 years later. No. Augustus was not a wasteful man, relatively speaking, and he took his position seriously. He also was intent upon appearing modest. His palace overlooked the valley of the Circus Maximus, and its positioning right near the legendary hut of Romulus sent the message that Augustus was the embodiment of the Roman Empire.
In the complex, he also built a grand temple to Apollo, the primary god of his family, a shrine to Vesta, and a large library where the Senate occasionally met. Next to his residence was the residence of his wife, Livia, as well as the state residence to which he was entitled as High Priest. Once Augustus put his mark on it, Palatine Hill was transformed from an aristocratic neighborhood to a series of sacred buildings linked to the memory of Rome’s first emperor.
You enter Augustus’ House through the peristyle, and on one side are the first set of public rooms, which were larger and more grand. Unfortunately, much of the marble has been pilfered from these rooms, and can be found in churches and buildings all over Rome, so you can see where the grand marble once existed, and there are some beautiful frescos here and there, but overall, I was rather disappointed, after having been spoiled in so many other sites we had visited up to this point. The private apartments are also rather dull. Black and white marble, black and white walls. Yawn.
But then you go into the second public sector, and that made the whole visit worthwhile. These brightly frescoed rooms were reserved for state functions and dinners, and also included an upstairs study where Augustus could go when he wanted to be alone or have a private meeting. The vaulted ceilings in these rooms were impressive. It was hard to imagine that I was standing in the very place where the most powerful man in the world once stood. I wonder what he would have made of his palace being overrun by so many tourists in Tshirts.
And here is a short compilation of some of the videos Dear Husband took as we walked in Emperor Augustus’ footsteps through his home:
Sadly Palatine Hill, like the Baths of Diocletian, is another place that is very confusing to navigate. We should have been able to find the House of Livia quite easily after that, as it is right nextdoor, but we couldn’t. Granted, a lot of things on Palatine Hill were closed for restoration, and that may have been the case with her house. At least that is what I’m choosing to believe to avoid kicking myself, because from the pictures online, if I simply overlooked it, I’ll be kicking myself for life.
I do know that Caligula’s palace was closed, as was much of that of Tiberius. That was a particular shame, because underneath that lies the tunnel where Caligula was finally, thankfully assassinated, and I’d have loved to have seen that. As a general rule, I don’t condone murder, but some deaths are a gift to the future of mankind, and his was definitely one of those. It’s a high bar. Hitler. Pol Pot. Mao Tse Tung… you get the picture.
Anyway, from there, we kind of stumbled upon places at random. For example, an ancient cistern where people tossed ritual shards of pottery that indicated the existence of an ancient cult that was dedicated to some goddess for hundreds of years. That must have been an archeologist’s dream.
Then we wandered through the ruins of the Flavian Palace. A multi-story portion of it is still standing, but you can’t go in. Still, it was rather startling, because it looks almost modern, even after 2000 years. Like a townhouse in South Florida. The hexagonal garden was impressive, too.
We also went into the Palatine Museum which is housed in the Convent of the Visitation, which was built on top of the Palace of Domitian. (Rome has so many layers!) It’s full of all sorts of things that have been discovered on the hill. Sculptures, frescoes, pottery, and the like. They also present dioramas that give you an idea of what the hill may have looked like at various points in history.
After that we were who-knows-where, seeing ruins and gardens. It’s a pleasant, quiet place that is slowly being taken over by nature. I can see why people would come here and think, “Yes, I can call this place home.”
For my part, it was enough to know that I was on Palatine Hill. On that very spot, more than most other spots I had stood on in my life, something significant, at some time or other, had happened. There’s nothing quite like walking in the footsteps of history.
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