Palatine Hill- Roman LocationLocation · Landmark"Birthplace of Rome"

Evander's Hill

Before Romulus, before the twins, an Arcadian exile named Evander settled on the Palatine. In Aeneid Book 8, Virgil places Aeneas on this hill as Evander's guest. The old king leads him through a landscape of cattle and huts, pointing out the Lupercal cave and the grove of the Asylum. The future Forum is a pasture. The future Capitoline is thick with brambles. The hill's name, Pallanteum, comes from Evander's home city in Arcadia.

Hercules and Cacus

During Evander's time, the fire-breathing giant Cacus, son of Vulcan, laired in a cave on the Aventine slope facing the Palatine. Virgil describes the entrance hung with pallid faces of victims, the ground reeking with gore. When Hercules passed through driving the cattle of Geryon, Cacus stole some of the herd by dragging them backward into his cave to confuse the tracks. The lowing of the hidden cattle betrayed him. Hercules tore the peak from the cavern, exposed the monster cowering within, and strangled him despite the flames and smoke he belched.

The Ara Maxima in the Forum Boarium honored Hercules for this killing. The Potitii and Pinarii, two ancient families, claimed hereditary priesthood of the altar stretching back to the deed itself.

The She-Wolf's Cave

On the southwestern slope, facing the Circus Maximus, lay the Lupercal. Here the she-wolf found Romulus and Remus, abandoned on the bank of the flooded Tiber, and nursed them. Dionysius of Halicarnassus describes the grotto adorned with a bronze group of the wolf and twins.

Each February 15, the Lupercalia began at this cave. The Luperci, young men stripped nearly naked and smeared with goat blood, ran a circuit around the Palatine striking bystanders with goatskin thongs. Women held out their hands to the blows. The touch, they believed, would make them fertile.

The Furrow of Romulus

When Romulus and Remus grew to manhood and overthrew their great-uncle Amulius, they decided to build a city near the spot where they had been saved. Romulus chose the Palatine. Remus chose the Aventine. They agreed to let augury decide.

Each took his position and watched the sky. Remus saw six vultures first. Then Romulus saw twelve. Both claimed victory: Remus by priority, Romulus by number. Ennius preserved the scene in his Annales: Romulus watching the sky with fierce devotion. The quarrel turned violent and Remus was killed. Dionysius records that Romulus's follower Celer struck the blow; Livy places the killing later, at the wall itself.

Romulus traced the pomerium, the sacred boundary of his new city, around the Palatine with a bronze plow drawn by a white bull and cow. Where gates would stand, he lifted the plow to leave gaps in the furrow. The boundary was sacrosanct. Crossing it under arms meant death. April 21 became Rome's birthday.

The Hut of Romulus

Romans preserved the Casa Romuli, the Hut of Romulus, on the Palatine's slope for centuries. Dionysius reports that it was built of sticks and thatched with straw. When it burned, as thatched huts do, they rebuilt it to its original form. Vitruvius cited it as evidence of how the first Romans built. The emperors' marble palaces rose around it, and still the hut stood.