Hills of Rome

Rome is ''the city of seven hills''. This book examines the need for the ''seven hills'' cliché, its origins, development, impact and borrowing. It explores how the cliché relates to Rome''s real volcanic terrain and how it is fundamental to how we define this. Its chronological remit is capacious: Varro, Virgil and Claudian at one end, on, through the work of Renaissance antiquarians, to embrace ...