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SEVEN HILLS OF ROME: Part 7 - THE CAELIAN HILL

THE MAKING OF A MOSAICIST

THE SEVEN HILLS OF ROME

Part Seven: The Caelian Hill

By JoFlavius

The Caelian Hill takes its name from Caelius Vibena, who was the hero of Roma's struggle with the Tarquins. Part of the Via Appia goes through it. Another major road is the Clivus Scauri.

Along the Via Appia are many family tombs and mouments, including the Tomb of the Scipios, which is the family site built for Cornelius Scipio Barbatus, who was consul in 298 BC. The most famous son of the Scipios, Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus is not buried here. He was buried at Liternum, near Napoli, where he had his favorite villa.

The Tomb of the Scipios

Along the way is the Columbarium of Pomponius Hylas and his wife Pomponia Vitalinis. It was so named because of the resemblance to a dovecote. It is a vaulted tomb of the kind made to house the cremated remains of freedmen. This area used to be outside the citywall.

The Caelian Hill became a fashionable place to live in Imperial Rome.

The Arch of Dolabella was built in the 10 AD, by the Consuls Cornelius Dolabella and Caius Junius Silanus as an entrance to the city. It was made of Travertine blocks and was used to support Nero's extension of the Claudian aquaduct that supplied the Imperial palace on the Palatine.

Nero's Domus Aurea (Golden House) occupied much of the Caelian Hill, as well as the Palatine and Oppian Hills. Much of the Domus Aurea was taken apart and covered over by the Flavians when they remodeled the city and built the Flavian Amphitheatre.

Nero's Domus Aurea

The Temple of Claudius, made of Travertine marble, was here on the Caelian. The Arch of Drusus, although a monumental arch built in the third century AD, is not a triumphal arch, but supports the branch of the aquaduct that supplies the Baths of Caracalla.

The Baths of Caracalla were completed in 216 AD. Over 1,600 bathers could enjoy the facilities at a time. Of course they had the calidarium, tepidarium, and frigidarium, a sudatorium (sweat room) as well as a natatio, an open air swimming pool. There were exercise rooms, gymnasiums, libraries, art galleries and gardens. These Baths were decorated with polychrome floor mosaics of discus -throwers, acrobats, and athletes.There are over three miles of tunnels intersecting beneath these baths, for the drainage systems, internal hydraulic and ventilation systems.

These was also a sanctuary to Mithras under the Baths. And here, Good People of HW, we will leave you in the Eternal City of Rome upon its Seven Hills. May Mithras be with you, or at least, not conflict with your other god.