Roma quadrata

Roma quadrata (Latin; lit. 'square Rome'; Ancient Greek: Τετράγωνος Ῥώμη, Tetrágōnos Rhṓmē) was an area or structure within the original pomerium of the ancient city of Rome, probably the Palatine Hill with both its Palatium and Cermalus peaks and their slopes. It apparently dated to the earliest stage of the city's formation. The original meaning had already become obscure to both Latin and Greek historians by the late Roman Republic (2nd century BC).

A hypothetical location of the walls of Roma quadrata on a topographical map of the area of Rome c. 753 BC

See also

• Murus Romuli – the walls of Roma quadrata
• Founding of Rome

References

Ancient sources

• Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, Bk. II, ch. 65
• Plutarch, Parallel Lives, Bk. 1: "Romulus", ch. 9
• Tacitus, Annals, ch. 12, §24
• Varro, cited in Solinus, Polyhistor, Bk. 1, ch. 17

Modern scholarship

• Brocato, P. "Dalle capanne del Cermalus alla Roma quadrata". Roma Romolo Remo e la fondazione della città (Catalog of the Exhibit) (2000): 284–287.
• Carandini, Andrea. Remo e Romolo: dai rioni dei Quiriti alla città dei Romani (775/750-700/675 a. C.). Vol. 210. Einaudi, 2006.
• Carandini, Andrea, "The Blessing of the Palatine and the Founding of Roma Quadrata", in Idem, Rome: Day One (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2011), 50–62.
• Castagnoli, F. "Roma Quadrata", Studies presented to DM Robinson, I, St. (1951): 389–399.
• Castagnoli, Ferdinando. "Il Tempio Romano: Questioni di Terminologia e di Tipologia". Papers of the British School at Rome (1984): 3–20.
• Musti, Domenico. "Varrone nell'insieme delle tradizioni su Roma quadrata". StudUrb 49 (1975): 297–318.
• Platner, Samuel Ball (1901), "III.—The Pomerium and Roma Quadrata", The American Journal of Philology, vol. 22, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 420–425, doi:10.2307/288334, JSTOR 288334.
• Quercioli, Mauro. Le mura e le porte di Roma: dalla Roma quadrata alle mura aureliane, dalla città leonina alle moderne fortificazioni: un singolare itinerario storico tra imponenti porte e possenti bastioni alla riscoperta delle "difese" di Roma. Newton Compton, 1982.
• Rykwert, Joseph, The Idea of a Town: The Anthropology of Urban Form in Rome, Italy and the Ancient World (MIT Press, 1976, 1988), limited preview.