When you look at the Colosseum from here, it seems like the usual picture-postcard view — but only until you remember everything that lies underneath this part of Rome. This slope once marked the edge of Nero’s private estate, the Domus Aurea, before the land was reclaimed for the public. Long before the amphitheatre was built, this whole area was taken up by Nero’s artificial lake — a vast body of water created purely to amplify the scale of his palace. It was the kind of gesture only an emperor could make: putting a “sea” in the middle of the city. When Nero fell, the Flavian emperors used the geography against his memory. Vespasian drained the lake and placed the new amphitheatre right on top, turning a symbol of personal excess into a public monument. Archaeologists still find traces of the lake’s old edges beneath the northeastern side of the Colosseum — bits of the retaining walls that shaped the shoreline. So this isn’t just a grand ruin; it’s a place where the landscape itself was redesigned to make a political point. The whole district shifted around the new amphitheatre. To make room for crowds, the slopes of Colle Oppio were reshaped, streets were widened, and part of Nero’s buried palace was filled in so Trajan’s Baths could stand securely above it. The transformation of this hillside was one of the Flavian dynasty’s most significant urban projects. Another detail people rarely know: the Romans didn’t call it the Colosseum. For centuries, it was simply the Flavian Amphitheatre. The nickname “Colosseum” likely came later from the giant bronze statue of Nero — the Colossus — that once stood nearby. Even the name carries a faint echo of the ruler everyone tried to erase. And the building’s life didn’t stop with the games. In late antiquity, it hosted ceremonies and public gatherings; in the Middle Ages, it became a fortress for the Frangipani family; later, its stones were reused in houses and churches across Monti. From this viewpoint, it may seem like a solitary monument. Still, it’s deeply tied to everything around it: the buried halls of the Domus Aurea on Colle Oppio, Trajan’s Baths above them, and the everyday streets that still follow the old imperial topography. Rome constantly rewrites itself, and the Colosseum stands right where several of those versions meet.
Rome rises on seven hills, and this walk takes us across two of its most revealing ones — Esquiline and Palatine. The Esquiline, once the city’s eastern edge, still carries traces of imperial gardens, hidden nymphaea, magical gates, and traditions that survived the fall of the empire. The Palatine, the hill of the emperors, preserves stadiums, palaces, terraces and views where the entire history of Rome — Republic, Empire, Middle Ages, Baroque and modern Italy — lies in a single panorama. Along the way, we meet the monuments, streets and layers we uncovered in this journey: the baths of Trajan, the Domus Aurea beneath the grass, the Palatine stadium, the Forum’s arches and temples, and the buildings that reshaped Rome across two millennia. And we pause for something timeless: a pastry shop on the Esquiline that has kept its flavours unchanged for more than a century — a taste of Rome as constant as its stones.
