Roman Forum & Palatine Hill

Historic · Rione CampitelliRome,Italy

The drained valley where Rome governed itself, its roofless temples and Senate house beneath the hill of imperial palaces that gave us the word palace.

The Roman Forum is the valley where Rome governed itself, and you walk down it on the Via Sacra, the road generals rode in triumph. Roofless temples line the way, past the Arch of Septimius Severus and the intact brick hall of the Senate house. Beside the valley rises the Palatine Hill, where emperors built palaces so grand that the hill's Latin name became our word for palace. Climb it and the ruins spread into shaded gardens and terraces, the Forum on one side and the long oval of the Circus Maximus on the other. This valley was a drained marsh, and for centuries it was the centre of the Western world: senators debated and passed the republic's laws here, and temples, law courts and markets stood crowded together on the same ground. Then it filled with earth and was used as pasture, and Romans called it the Campo Vaccino, the cow field, with almost no one realising what lay beneath the grass. On the Palatine, Romans placed the legend of their city's founding. Lizards dart across warm stone, umbrella pines throw shade, and frescoed palace walls survive in the cool half-light below.

Worth knowing

Good to know

The gardens grow over a buried palace — the Orti Farnesiani, one of Europe's earliest botanical gardens, were laid across the vaulted ruins of Tiberius's imperial residence, so you stroll formal terraces above an emperor's roof.
The Palatine empties while the Forum fills — most visitors rush the valley floor and skip the hill, so the emperors' terraces and gardens stay unexpectedly quiet.
Avoid the midday hours — the valley is almost shadeless and bakes hard; low morning or late-afternoon sun also rakes the columns into deep relief.
Read the ground, not just the ruins — worn paving and inscriptions reused as plain building blocks tell more of daily Rome than the tallest standing arch.

Things to do

1
Walk the road of triumph
Start at the Arch of Titus and walk down the Via Sacra toward the Senate house, following the route generals rode in triumph. Go slowly. Look for the grooves worn into the paving by centuries of cart wheels, and find the carved menorah relief inside the arch itself.
2
Take the Forum in one frame
Climb to the Farnese Gardens and find the terrace on the Palatine's northern edge, where the whole Forum opens below in a single frame. Time it for the last hour of light, when the columns throw long shadows and the valley floor below finally quiets.
3
Stand where Rome began
On the Palatine, find the fenced patch of bare rock near the hill's brow where the earliest huts once stood — the legendary first home of the city. Then cross to the southern edge and look down over the long grassy oval of the Circus Maximus, where chariots once raced.