Aventine Hill

The Aventine is one of Rome’s seven hills, standing in the southern part of the city. It rises in two distinct heights, the larger to the northwest and the smaller to the southeast, separated by a steep cleft where an ancient road once ran. The hill lies within the modern Ripa district and has long marked the boundary between Rome’s ancient regions. In Roman times it stood outside the city’s sacred boundary, the pomerium, and was linked to the arrival of new peoples and foreign cults. The Aventine’s slopes were once home to temples, aristocratic houses and public baths, and its lower slopes led down to the Circus Maximus and the Tiber. The Aventine played a key part in Rome’s founding myths and early history. According to legend, Remus set up his augural tent on the hill when he and Romulus competed to found the city. The hill was also where Hercules killed the monster Cacus for stealing Geryon’s cattle. By the late regal period the Aventine had a temple to Diana built by Servius Tullius and later became the site of the Aventine Triad’s temple. This temple held plebeian records and overlooked the Circus Maximus and the Temple of Vesta. The hill absorbed many foreign deities, including Juno Regina, Summanus, Vortumnus and Minerva. Today the Aventine is a quiet, elegant neighbourhood filled with palaces, churches and gardens. Visitors walk past the 5th-century basilica of Santa Sabina, the church of Santi Bonifacio ed Alessio and the Rome Rose Garden. The hill’s broad avenues and shaded piazzas offer views over the city’s rooftops and the dome of St Peter’s. Its winding paths and hidden courtyards preserve the atmosphere of an aristocratic quarter that once housed emperors and senators. The Aventine remains a place where ancient stones and modern Rome meet.