At the heart of most cities lies another city, otherwise known as the “old city”. This is the “seed city”, and Rome’s seed is Palatine. As the unofficial archaeological centre of Rome, Palatine contains relics of great palaces and other structures from ancient times, including the Palace of Septimus Severus, the house of Augustus, the house of Livia, and the Huts of Romulus. Early in the first millennium BC, before Rome was great, the Tiber River divided the Italic peoples from the Etruscans in the north and west. Near by were the borders between the Sabines and the Latins, two civilizations that would pay for being so close to the fledgling Roman Empire.

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The hills of Rome, free from the malaria that had been the bane of the low-lying plains of Latium, were a healthful and relatively safe place to live and a meeting ground for Latins, Sabines, and Etruscans. It was this fortified elevation of the Palatine that made sure that Etruscans amalgamated the tiny hamlets about the Palatine into a city-state. Eventually it would be swallowed up by the growing Rome across the river. It was probably Etruscan rule that civilized Rome. Today Palatine is considered nothing more than a historic Roman hill covered with the destroyed houses of the once powerful ruing families. It is a rich source of information about what Rome was like before Agustus.

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