For centuries the Roman Forum lay buried under earth and used as pasture, and Romans called it the Campo Vaccino, the cow field. Almost no one realised that the Senate house and the temples of an empire stood beneath the grass. This valley was a drained marsh, and for centuries it was the center of the Western world. Senators debated and passed the republic's laws here, victorious generals paraded through it, and temples, law courts, and markets stood crowded together on the same ground. Beside the valley rises the Palatine Hill, where Romans placed the legend of their city's founding. Emperors built palaces on it so grand that the hill's Latin name, Palatium, became our very word for "palace."
Today a gravel path leads down the Via Sacra, the road generals rode in triumph, past roofless temples, the Arch of Septimius Severus, and the intact brick hall of the Senate house. Climb the Palatine and the ruins spread into shaded gardens and terraces; the whole Forum lies on one side, the long oval of the Circus Maximus on the other. Lizards dart across warm stone, umbrella pines throw shade, and fragments of frescoed palace walls survive in the cool half-light below.