The Changing Landscape of Ancient Rome. Archaeology and History of the Palatine Hill

In the course of nearly three hundred years – from 509 till 202 b.c.e. - central, southern and northern Italy were conquered by the Romans and included into the Roman political organization as submitted or allied territories. Later on, year 146 b.c.e. was the real turning point. Greece became a Roman Province. Carthage – a city in north Africa, Rome’s enemy number one – was destroyed. The Mediterranean sea was roman: Mare nostrum, they called it: “Our Sea”. The republican political system was still working but this was, in fact, the beginning of a new Empire. The luxurious residences of the most eminent civil and political actors - nobles, knights, senators, magistrates and so forth - were on the Palatine, “the most beautiful part of the City”.

By the end of this module you will able to: discuss major changes occurred during the Late Republican phase in Rome define and identify a certain number of Roman monuments and/or places identify Late Repubblican artifacts, decorations and building techniques

Year 31 b.c.e. After nearly fifty year of Civil Wars, a 32 years old man, son of a sister of Julius Caesar, defeated his last enemy. Few years later - 27 and 23 b.c.e. – Roman Senators assigned him an immense power, asking him to watch over a new era of peace and respect for Roman laws and ancient traditions. They called him Augustus, a word meaning “blessed by Jupiter the king of the Gods”. The nephew of Julius Caesar became the first Emperor of Rome, and choose the Palatine as his own residing place.

By the end of this module you will able to: - discuss major changes occurred between Late Republican phase and Augustan age in Rome - define and identify a certain number of Roman monuments and/or places - identify Augustan artifacts, decorations and building techniques

Imperial Rome was much more like a contemporary metropolis than we can imagine. Urban landscape, in particular on and around the Palatine, was crowded by: luxury residences and, first among them, the Imperial Palace on the Palatine; buildings for spectacles; baths: buildings for leisure and culture; temples and cult places for traditional gods and for new gods, that is the deified emperors; blocks of multiple storey buildings. This is how Rome should have looked like when poets and writers called her the “Golden City” (Aurea Roma).

By the end of this module you will able to: - discuss major changes occurred during Early Imperial period in Rome - define and identify a certain number of Roman monuments and/or places - identify Early Imperial artifacts, decorations and building techniques

The embellishment of the city went on for a little further. At the beginning of the 4th century, Constantine the Great, first Christian Emperor, restored the imperial palace on the Palatine and also offered in different parts of the city monumental churches to the “new” God of the “new” Faith. The “Golden Rome”, even if wounded and besieged by the so-called “Barbarian People” pressing from East Europe and Middle East, still preserved her splendor.

476 A.D.: The German King Odoacre dethrones the last Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustus. 535 A.D.: Justinianus Emperor of Byzantium – once the capital of the eastern part of the Roman Empire - send a fleet and an army to Italy in order to “free Rome from the Barbarians”. 552 A.D.: 27 years later. War is over at last and the generals sent by Justinianus conquer Rome. But less than one thousand people lived in the urban area. Small churches, huts, small herb and vegetables gardens, tombs were scattered here and there in the vast area of the nearly empty city, between the skeletons of the ancient ruined buildings. By the end of this module you will able to: - discuss major changes occurred during Middle and Late Imperial period in Rome - define and identify a certain number of Roman monuments and/or places - identify Middle and Late Imperial artifacts, decorations and building techniques.