← Back to the map Modern photograph of the excavated foundations of the Regia in the Roman Forum

Regia, Roman Forum · Wikimedia Commons

Regia

MonumentItalia · Rome, Italy, Roman ForumBuilt 715 BCE

About

Traditionally the residence of the kings of Rome, later the official headquarters of the Pontifex Maximus and seat of the pontifical archives, the Regia was rebuilt in stone and marble after a fire in 36 BCE by Cn. Domitius Calvinus. Excavations led by Giacomo Boni between 1899 and 1904 uncovered its trapezoidal tufo and travertine foundations, and a second campaign under archaeologist Frank Brown beginning in 1964 traced the building back through Iron Age huts on the same spot. Its western chamber, the sacrarium Martis, held the twelve sacred shields of Mars and his consecrated spears; twice a year the leaping Salii priests carried the shields in procession before returning them to their chapel. Standing and functioning as the pontifical office in 117 CE, when the emperor himself held the title of Pontifex Maximus.

What happened here

It was put up to be argued with. Public monuments carry an inscription at eye height naming who paid, what for, and by whose authority, because being read is the whole return on the investment. People meet at them, give directions by them, and shelter under them. Children climb them. The bronze fittings are stolen often enough that they are re-attached with lead. On anniversaries the base is garlanded and the local council makes a short speech nobody listens to. Monuments also date the town for you: a run of them along one street shows which families were rising in which decade, and which ones stopped. When a family falls out of favour, the name is chiselled out and the stone is quietly reused.

In ancient writing

Ovid, Fasti 6.263-264
Ovid names the Regia directly, describing the small space now holding Vesta's atrium as once having been the great palace (regia) of long-haired King Numa.