The Seven Hills of Rome

Few cities are as closely associated with their landscape as Rome. The story of the city is inseparable from its hills, and the concept of the Seven Hills of Rome dates back to the Romans themselves. Writers such as Varro, Virgil, Claudian, and Martial all mention the hills in their works.

There are seven “canonical” hills of Rome: the Palatine, Capitoline, Aventine, Esquiline, Caelian, Viminal, and Quirinal. These seven canonical hills correspond to those enclosed by the Servian Wall circuit. Even the terminology surrounding the hills has an ancient history. Etymologically, there is a connection between septemontium and saeptimontium, with one meaning “seven hills” and the other meaning “enclosed hills.”

The hills themselves are a product of the natural geography of Lazio. Around 30 kilometers west of Rome, in what we now call the Castelli Romani, are dormant volcanoes. Volcanic eruptions deposited different materials over a series of eruptions of varying types, gradually building up the landscape. Over time, these mounds were shaped and weathered, and the Romans came to identify seven of them as distinct hills. They used the term collis, along with terms such as montes, to distinguish them from smaller mounds.

The location of Rome was closely connected to this landscape. The combination of the crossing point at Tiber Island and the high ground of the seven hills helped make the location particularly suitable for the city’s foundation. The hills offered both control over the Tiber crossing and the ability to fortify and protect the settlement.

By the imperial period, Rome had expanded far beyond these original boundaries. Augustus divided the city into 14 regions, extending well beyond the Seven Hills incorporated into the Servian Walls.

Capitoline Hill

The Capitoline Hill takes its name, according to one Roman tradition, from a remarkable discovery. During the laying of the foundations for the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, a human head was found. The Latin word for head is caput, and the discovery was considered significant enough that the priests and soothsayers were consulted.

Their conclusion was striking: “this meant without any doubt that on this spot would stand the imperial citadel of the capital city of the world” (Livy, History of Rome, 1.55.5-6).

Another early tradition tells us that, even before the construction of the temple, the hill was called the Tarpeian Rock. This name commemorated Tarpeia and her betrayal during the conflict between Romulus and the Sabine people in the earliest days of Rome.

Palatine Hill

The Palatine Hill takes its name from the goddess Pales, who was celebrated during the Parilia, a festival that was older than Rome itself. The festival may later have been incorporated into the celebration of Rome’s foundation by Romulus on April 21, 753 BCE.

The Palatine preserves the remains of an early ninth-century BCE settlement. This original village was gradually displaced by the houses of senators. In turn, these properties were eventually displaced to make way for the imperial palace.

What began as an early settlement therefore became one of the most important locations in the later Roman city.

Quirinal Hill

The Quirinal Hill was described as a collis rather than a mons, unlike the Capitoline and Palatine. Its name is connected to the god Quirinus, the deity as whom Romulus was worshipped after his deification (Plutarch, Life of Romulus, 28.2). Quirinus, however, was also the name of a Sabine war god.

The Quirinal was also the hill on which the Sabines lived. It was therefore the first hill absorbed into what Rome would eventually become.

Viminal Hill

Of Rome’s Seven Hills, the Viminal is perhaps one of the hardest to appreciate today. Much of the hill has been filled in during the modern era, making it difficult to identify, and it was never of great importance compared with some of the other hills.

The Viminal did have a temple dedicated to Jupiter Viminus. Later, during the empire, one end of the hill became the site of the Baths of Diocletian.

The name comes from the Latin viminalis, meaning “pertaining to osiers.” In its earliest days, the hill was therefore identified as a place where people could collect willows for weaving baskets and other goods.

Esquiline Hill

The Esquiline is the largest of the Seven Hills by area. Its name may reflect the hill’s position on the outskirts of the early city. Those who lived there were called the exquilini, in contrast to the inquilini, who lived on the Capitoline and Palatine.

There is another theory for the name. It may have come from the chestnut trees that were once plentiful on the hill. The Latin word for chestnut is aesculus.

The Oppian Hill forms one of the largest sections of the Esquiline. Here, the remains of Rome’s monumental past can still be found, including hints of the Baths of Titus, underground remains of the Domus Aurea, and the colossal remains of the Baths of Trajan.

Caelian Hill

The origins of the Caelian Hill‘s name are uncertain. One tradition connects it to Caelius Vibenna, the Etruscan hero from the mythological Regal period (Varro, On the Latin Language, 5.46). Another possibility is that the hill was named for the abundance of oak trees found there, with the Latin word for oak being quercus.

The Caelian is home to important churches such as the Quattro Coronati and San Clemente. It is also the location of the Temple of the Deified Claudius, which provided the spirit of the emperor with a fantastic view toward the Palatine Hill and the imperial palace.

Aventine Hill

The Aventine is the southernmost of the Seven Hills and is thought to take its name from Aventius, the legendary king of Alba Longa. Across the Valley of the Circus Maximus, it developed a very different character from the Palatine. While the Palatine was associated with Rome’s Senate and patricians, the Aventine became the hill of the plebeians. It was home to the Temple of Diana and the temple of the Aventine Triad of Ceres, Liber, and Libera, built by order of the Senate after the first Plebeian Secession. During the imperial period, the hill became more upmarket and increasingly attracted aristocrats who had been displaced from the Palatine.

The Aventine still preserves reminders of both its Roman and later history, including the late antique churches of Santa Sabina and Sant’Anselmo, the underground Casa Bellezza and Mithraeum beneath Santa Prisca, and traces of the Baths of Decius. The Circus Maximus ran along one side of the hill, while the Tiber ran along the other, where the remains of the emporium and navalia can be found. The hill was also closely associated with Remus and the foundation myth of Rome, in which the twins climbed separate hills to receive their auguries and determine the future of the city.

Bibliography

Heiken, Grant, Renato Funiciello, and Donatella De Rita. The Seven Hills of Rome: A Geological Tour of the Eternal City. Princeton University Press, 2005.

Mignone, Lisa Marie. The Republican Aventine and Rome’s Social Order. University of Michigan Press, 2016.

Moralee, Jason. Rome’s Holy Mountain: The Capitoline Hill in Late Antiquity. Oxford University Press, 2018.

Platner, Samuel Ball, and Thomas Ashby. A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. Oxford University Press, 1929.

Platner, Samuel Ball. “The Septimontium and the Seven Hills.” Classical Philology 1, no. 1 (1906): 69–80.