Discover Palatine Hill

The Palatine is the hill above the Roman Forum, and the oldest continuously inhabited part of the city: excavation shows people living here from the tenth century BC. In Roman legend it is where the city was founded, and by the Republic it was the address of the elite.

Then it became the palace, and gave the word to Europe. Augustus, Tiberius, Domitian and their successors built imperial residences across the hill, one over another. Palatium, the hill's name, is the origin of "palace", "palazzo", "palais" and their equivalents.

What survives is layered and enormous: the Domus Tiberiana with the Farnese Gardens laid out over it in the sixteenth century, the Domus Flavia and Domus Augustana, the substructures of Domitian's palace built over Nero's Domus Aurea, and the Palatine Museum installed in what was left of a neo-Gothic villa. It is ticketed jointly with the Colosseum and the Roman Forum.

The Palatine is the hill above the Roman Forum, and the oldest continuously inhabited part of the city: excavation shows people living here from the tenth century BC. In Roman legend it is where the city was founded, and by the Republic it was the address of the elite.

Then it became the palace, and gave the word to Europe. Augustus, Tiberius, Domitian and their successors built imperial residences across the hill, one over another. Palatium, the hill's name, is the origin of "palace", "palazzo", "palais" and their equivalents.

What survives is layered and enormous: the Domus Tiberiana with the Farnese Gardens laid out over it in the sixteenth century, the Domus Flavia and Domus Augustana, the substructures of Domitian's palace built over Nero's Domus Aurea, and the Palatine Museum installed in what was left of a neo-Gothic villa. It is ticketed jointly with the Colosseum and the Roman Forum.

The hill is engineered, not merely built on. The imperial palaces were far larger than the summit, so the slopes were terraced and carried on vaulted substructures. Those vaults are the majority of what stands today — visitors often read them as basements, but they are the retaining structure that made a flat palace possible on a hill.

Two ancient measurements disagree about its size, and the disagreement is informative rather than annoying. The Forma Urbis gives a perimeter enclosing 25 hectares; the fourth-century Regionary Catalogues give 53. The hill did not grow — what counted as "the Palatine" did, as the palace complex spread down the slopes.

The palaces were built over each other rather than beside each other. Nero's Domus Transitoria burned in A.D. 64; his Domus Aurea replaced it by 69; Domitian's Palace was eventually built over that. The Domus Flavia was the public, ceremonial half of Domitian's palace and the Domus Augustana the private half — a distinction still legible in the plan, one being a sequence of grand halls and the other a set of courtyards.

The two post-antique layers are part of the architecture, not clutter on it. The Farnese Gardens of the sixteenth century sit on the Domus Tiberiana, and the Villa Mattei — remodelled around 1830 into a neo-Gothic villa by Charles Mills, then a convent, then partially demolished from 1928 — is now the Palatine Museum. You are walking through four periods of building, and only one of them is Roman.

The palaces were bigger than the hilltop, so the hill was rebuilt to fit them. The slopes were terraced and carried on vaulted substructures of brick-faced concrete, which is what created the flat platforms the residences needed. Those vaults are the majority of what stands today; read as basements they are baffling, read as retaining structure they explain the whole site.

Each palace was built on the wreck of the last. Nero's Domus Transitoria burned in the Great Fire of A.D. 64; by A.D. 69 he had replaced it with the far larger Domus Aurea; Domitian's Palace was eventually raised over that. The method was accumulation rather than clearance — later builders levelled and filled rather than demolishing to ground, which is why Republican houses survive underneath at all.

Two ancient surveys disagree about the result. The Forma Urbis gives a perimeter enclosing about 25 hectares; the fourth-century Regionary Catalogues give about 53. The hill did not change — the palace did, spreading down the engineered slopes until the definition of "the Palatine" went with it.

The last construction campaign was a demolition. Intensive excavation began in the eighteenth century and culminated in the late nineteenth, after Rome became capital of the Kingdom of Italy; from 1928 the neo-Gothic villa on the summit was partly pulled down to let the dig continue. What survives of it holds the Palatine Museum. The hill you walk is therefore a nineteenth- and twentieth-century construction as much as a Roman one.

Do I need a separate ticket? No. The Palatine is ticketed together with the Colosseum and the Roman Forum on one timed-entry ticket, so if you have been to the Colosseum you have almost certainly already paid for the hill.

What does it cost? This page does not say, on purpose: no operator for the archaeological area can be reached to confirm a current figure. Check the official ticketing rather than any third-party quote, including older ones on this site.

Is the word "palace" really from here? Yes. The hill is the Palatium, and the emperors' residences on it gave the word to most European languages.

How big is it? The ancient sources disagree, informatively: the Forma Urbis gives a perimeter enclosing about 25 hectares, the fourth-century Regionary Catalogues about 53. The difference reflects the palace complex spreading down the slopes, not the hill changing shape.

Where does the name come from? Livy records that the hill was named after Arcadian settlers from Pallantium, itself named for its founder Pallas, son of Lycaon.

Can I see the Lupercal? No. A 16-metre-deep cavity with a vault encrusted in mosaic and seashells was found beneath the Domus Livia in 2007 and claimed to be the legendary cave, but the identification is contested and it is not on the visitor route.

Why is there a neo-Gothic building on the hill? Because a Scot called Charles Mills bought the sixteenth-century Villa Mattei around 1830 and rebuilt it in that style. It became a convent at the end of the nineteenth century, was partly demolished from 1928 to allow excavation, and what survived is now the Palatine Museum.

How long should I allow? Two hours to walk the hill properly, longer in summer. If you only have two hours for the whole archaeological area, spend them on the Colosseum and Forum instead.