The hut and the birds

The house of Romulus stood up here on this corner of the hill, and the Romans kept it standing for nearly a thousand years.

It was a hut of reeds and clay on a wooden frame, exactly the kind of home the shepherds here actually lived in during the eighth century BC. Archaeologists found the traces of it back in the 1940s: holes in the tufa rock where the posts once stood. While the city around it filled with marble temples, this little hut stayed put, repaired again and again with the same materials, treated as a national relic. The emperor Augustus deliberately built his own house right next to it.

This is also where the decision was made that changed everything. Back from their adventure in Alba Longa, the brothers wanted to found a city of their own, and they couldn't agree on where it should go. Romulus wanted this hill, Remus the Aventine across the valley. So they let the gods choose by watching for birds. Remus spotted six, Romulus twelve, and both of them claimed victory, one because he'd seen his first and the other because he'd seen more.

We head down the slope to the north and come out onto the open ground of the Forum.