Q & A: The Palatine Hill

As I was walking along the paths of the scenic Palatine Hill, it was obvious why the Roman aristocracy has valued it as the most desirable real estate for nearly three thousand years. The area is conveniently a short distance from each of the fora and its height provides panoramic views of the city’s landmarks. As I was exploring the ruins of the imperial palaces, however, I began to wonder why emperors were so hasty to rebuild and effectively change the face of the historical land so many times. Since the Palatine is thought to be the very land on which Romulus and Remus were nursed by the she-wolf and the preferred hill of the ultimate victor Romulus, why would emperors want to manipulate the land and repurpose predecessor’s designs? Palaces like the Domus Aurea were hailed for their splendor; why, then, did later emperors like Domitian and Hadrian cram the land with their own visions of architectural grandeur? Reading about these changing dynamics across different imperial reigns, I have realized that the answer is complex. Emperors like Domitian in fact incorporated parts of the Domus Aurea into his own palace, and their pursuits were influenced by the damnatio memoriae of Nero. The existence of the cryptoporticus of Nero, for example, is a functional part of the Domus Aurea that was not destroyed because it connected the Domus Flavia with the Domus Tiberiana. Although there was certainly an element of megalomania and extravagance in the emperors building palace upon palace on the Palatine Hill, it is useful to understand the historical contexts within which each palace was built. The ruins, even the deceiving substructures and inaccessible excavations in progress, are physical manifestations of political failures and successes of an empire that has come to be defined by its structures.