Roma quadrata
Roma quadrata is a Latin phrase meaning "square Rome", and it names one of the most puzzling features of the ancient city's earliest days. The Greek equivalent, Tetrágōnos Rhṓmē, carries the same idea: a rectangular, bounded thing at the very heart of what would become one of history's great cities. What exactly it was, where it stood, and what its name truly meant were questions that even Roman scholars could not fully answer. By the late Republic, in the second century BC, the original meaning had already grown obscure to historians writing in both Latin and Greek. How does a city lose track of its own foundations so quickly? And what does this strange, half-remembered square tell us about the moment Rome began?
The Palatine Hill is the most likely candidate for what Roma quadrata actually referred to. Scholars believe the term described not a building alone but the Palatine in a broader sense, encompassing both its Palatium and Cermalus peaks together with their slopes. The Cermalus peak figures in modern scholarship as a specific location worth attention. Paolo Brocato examined the transition "Dalle capanne del Cermalus alla Roma quadrata" in a 2000 exhibition catalog on the founding of Rome, tracing the physical evolution from the earliest huts on that slope toward the more organized form implied by the phrase. The Palatine sat within the original pomerium, the sacred boundary line that distinguished the city from the land beyond it, which placed Roma quadrata at the ritual and geographic center of Rome's origins.
Four ancient writers left behind the passages that scholars still return to when trying to reconstruct what Roma quadrata meant. Dionysius of Halicarnassus addressed it in Book II, chapter 65 of his Roman Antiquities. Plutarch touched on it in his life of Romulus, the first book of his Parallel Lives, chapter 9. Tacitus recorded something relevant in chapter 12, paragraph 24 of his Annals. Varro, whose original text has not survived intact, was cited by Solinus in the Polyhistor, Book 1, chapter 17. The fact that writers working across such different genres and centuries all felt compelled to comment on Roma quadrata suggests it retained symbolic weight even as its precise meaning slipped away. Each of these authors approached the phrase from a slightly different angle, and none of them agreed on a single definition.
Ferdinando Castagnoli published a direct study titled "Roma Quadrata" in 1951, in a volume of studies presented to D.M. Robinson, working through the textual and topographical evidence available at that time. His later work from 1984 in the Papers of the British School at Rome turned toward broader questions of Roman temple terminology and typology. Andrea Carandini approached Roma quadrata as part of a larger argument about the very first days of the city. His 2006 book on Romulus and Remus, published by Einaudi, placed Roma quadrata within a chronological framework running from around 775-750 BC to 700-675 BC. He returned to the subject in a 2011 Princeton University Press volume, dedicating a chapter specifically to "The Blessing of the Palatine and the Founding of Roma Quadrata", pages 50-62. Joseph Rykwert brought a different perspective through his anthropological study of urban form, The Idea of a Town, published first by MIT Press in 1976 and again in 1988.
Domenico Musti examined how Varro in particular fit into the wider web of traditions surrounding Roma quadrata, publishing his analysis in StudUrb 49 in 1975. The Murus Romuli, the walls associated with Roma quadrata, forms a related thread that scholars have traced alongside the textual evidence. Mauro Quercioli placed Roma quadrata at the very opening of his survey of Rome's walls and gates, in a 1982 Newton Compton volume tracing the city's defenses from Roma quadrata through the Aurelian Walls and beyond to modern fortifications. What each of these scholars confronted, across more than seven decades of modern research, is a concept that the Romans themselves had already begun to misplace. The structure or area apparently dated to the earliest stage of the city's formation, which means the gap between its creation and the first attempts to explain it may have spanned centuries even before Plutarch or Tacitus picked up their pens.
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Common questions
What is Roma quadrata in ancient Rome?
Roma quadrata was an area or structure within the original pomerium of ancient Rome, most likely the Palatine Hill including its Palatium and Cermalus peaks and their slopes. The Latin phrase means "square Rome", with the Greek equivalent Tetrágōnos Rhṓmē carrying the same meaning. It apparently dated to the earliest stage of Rome's formation.
Where was Roma quadrata located?
Roma quadrata was probably located on the Palatine Hill, encompassing both its Palatium and Cermalus peaks together with their slopes. It fell within the original pomerium, the sacred boundary line of ancient Rome.
Which ancient authors wrote about Roma quadrata?
Four ancient authors left key passages on Roma quadrata: Dionysius of Halicarnassus in his Roman Antiquities (Book II, chapter 65), Plutarch in his life of Romulus (Parallel Lives, Book 1, chapter 9), Tacitus in his Annals (chapter 12, paragraph 24), and Varro as cited by Solinus in the Polyhistor (Book 1, chapter 17).
When did the meaning of Roma quadrata become lost?
By the late Roman Republic in the second century BC, the original meaning of Roma quadrata had already become obscure to both Latin and Greek historians. The term apparently dated to the very earliest stage of Rome's formation, meaning its meaning may have begun fading centuries before the late Republic.
What is the Murus Romuli and how does it relate to Roma quadrata?
The Murus Romuli refers to the walls of Roma quadrata. It is a related structure that scholars have traced alongside the textual evidence for Roma quadrata itself.
What has Andrea Carandini written about Roma quadrata?
Andrea Carandini wrote about Roma quadrata in his 2006 Einaudi book on Romulus and Remus, placing it within a chronological framework of roughly 775-750 BC to 700-675 BC. He also dedicated a chapter titled "The Blessing of the Palatine and the Founding of Roma Quadrata" in his 2011 Princeton University Press volume Rome: Day One, pages 50-62.