The First Rome Roma Quadrata

Cue (NZERS), 1 June 1944, Page 2

The First Rome Roma Quadrata

The names and dispositions of the hills of Rome are very important if the city development is to be followed easily—see map. Their relation to the Tiber crossing had important strategical bearings, and the rapid variation of river level affected both agricultural, architectural and religious development. In the early stages the most important priesthood was that which propitiated the Tiber gods, a ceremony which was carried out from a bridge or pons, hence the term /Pontifex' from- which has been -derived our Pontiff. Rome was in all senses a Bridge town. West of . the Tiber, were two hills J aniciilum—mentioned in the poem of Horatius and the bridgeand Vaticanus. East of the river lay a stretch of high ground- with four spurs the Quirinal, Piminal, Esquiline -and Caeline, and within their arc, the Aventine, Palatine and finally the Capitolina, the smallest and most precipitous of the three. Between the Palatine and Aventine was a deep valley, while another : separated it from Quirinal. Even in Roman times these valleys gradually became filled with debris which has now accumulated to a depth of nearly 70 feet while the tops of the. hills have in some instances since disappeared, The valley bottoms especially that' between

the Palatine and the Quirinal were, marshy. . Before it was drained and the first Forum constructed, the area was used as a burial ground by the early inhabitants who settled as a small community on the Palatine with later offshoots on the Quirinal on the other side of the marsh, and on the Esquiline. This early community appears to have celebrated a communal festival .similar to that of other Latin villages and this was later known as the Septimontium. ■' The settlement was surrounded by an earth wall and its houses probably- to the number of a thousand were, largely built of clay and wood. The population about 630 ; b.c. appears to have been as high as 10.000 and already the sacred fire of the Aedes Vesta was kept going in one of the huts. This city which developed into that known ' as the Roma Quadrata —Rome of the four regions—soon spread, beyond its original: limits, (see inset to map.)