Seven Hills of Rome

Is Rome really built on seven hills?  Will it be like San Francisco...trudging up Green to the Airbnb?  Some research is in order, and the first thing I discover is that a Victorian school boy would use this mnemonic to remember the hills: 

Here it is, so that we can remember them too: 

Can Queen Victoria eat cold apple pie? 

The first letters correspond to: 
Capitoline, Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, Caelian, Aventine, and Palatine, 

I'm not clear on why the school boy needed to know this, but then I'm a product of a not-so-contemporary American education.

I discover that "The hills are not really isolated hills.  Rather they are a series of ridges eroded from a plain above the floodplain of the Tiber river.  Erosion has separated the ends of some of the ridges into freestanding heights.  It's easy to understand if you look at the contour map below.  Note also that the slopes of the hills and ridges were much steeper  in ancient times and the valley bottoms were much closer to the level of the Tiber than they are today -- both natural action and human intervention have smoothed the contours and softened the edges."

So I guess I don't have to bring my walking poles, after all.  And the next map is quite useful with the historic sites and the city walls on top of the hills.  You see we will be on the Quirinal along with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano who lives in the Quirinal Palace just down the street!  See the Baths of Diocletian.  It's too bad they're not functioning now.

This is all from a Basic Rome City Topography, not the best designed site, but there is so much to learn that I've got to start somewhere.  And you can get a larger version of the above map there.

Moving over to You Tube there is a series "Digging History," produced by the American Institute for Roman Culture.  The third segment is The Geology of Rome, and it's worth watching to learn how geology influenced the development of Rome, and the series is quite well done. If you are feeling very retentive you should probably watch all the episodes and learn lots about Roman history and its excavation.  




Sometimes, however, a lighter touch is needed.  Not too many remember Mario Lanza these days, but we do courtesy of Grandpa Bill.  Here is a link to the trailer for The Seven Hills of Rome.  And, if that's not enough, you can watch the whole thing, but it looks like you'll have to pay $2.99 or find it on TCL.