April 26, 2012
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Palatine Hill
If you exit the Colosseum and head to your left, you’ll come to a low hill.
This hill, Palatine Hill, is the most important of Rome’s seven hills. Why is this so important? It is the hill where Rome was “born.” It’s the hill where Romulus and Remus were supposedly found by their wolf-mother. Since this seemed like home to Romulus, he decided to build a city here on April 21, 753 BC. Yes, I’m not kidding about the date. Rome has a birthday, and every year it is celebrated with fireworks and a big party on April 21st. (We were there! We know!) Why this date? None of my Google searches turned up an acceptable answer.
Anyhow, Palatine Hill was the heart of Rome, and that is where everyone wanted to live. At one point in history, it was the most exclusive and expensive neighborhood in the entire world. All the emperors (except Nero) had palaces here. That is where we get the word “palace”–from PALAtine Hill.
We had a tour of this place, which was good because otherwise we’d have said, “Yep, a falling-down pile of a former something-or-other.” This was our tour guide, David. He was amusing.
The first thing we saw was Domitian’s huge palace. This is only a part of it.
What you see is a big porch that had pillars all along the side. If Domitian didn’t want to go ALL the way down the hill to the Colosseum, he’d have entertainment brought to him. They’d race horses, have athletic events, and even gladiator fights here for the emperor’s amusement.
These ruins were scavenged, too. But there is a different story for the holes. These holes are regular and square. Can you see that in the picture? What they did was build the buildings from bricks. Then, they’d drill big holes in the brick wall and insert wooden beams with a big hook on the end. From this hook, they’d hang slabs of marble. So, the palace would look like it was solid marble with no seams, but without the cost.
The guide said to us that 500 years or so ago, the first botanical garden in Europe, the Farnese Gardens, were made. In 1550, a cardinal had these gardens designed. In order to create it, though, they brought in loads of dirt and covered over the ruins of somebody’s palace. So the Romans have a problem: rip up the oldest botanical garden to see what is underneath or keep the garden?
The tour guide said, “Whenever Italians are confused, they just stay confused.” So they’ve made no decision either way. As for me, I was glad for the beautiful garden on such a lovely day!
There were gardeners busy at work planting and pruning and making the place even more lovely!
We had some great views of Rome, too!
Next up…The Roman Forum
