Tarpeia, the daughter of Tarpeio, defender of the Campidoglio, loved the king of the Sabines, Titus Tatius, although at the time, Rome was at war with the Sabines. To build Rome, Romans needed women to increase their population; they invited the Sabines to a festival and abducted the women. Titus Tatius convinced Tarpeia to liberate the women; the Romans executed Tarpeia for treason by throwing her off a cliff, known since as the Rupe Tarpea. A difficult topography, seen originally as a positive thing, developed another meaning: it was a site of punishment, a site of fear. This sense of fear in the hilly territory of Rome is still visible in the way the contemporary city has spread. Entire zones have grown up following the crests of the urban valleys of the Agro Romano , leaving them isolated and sometimes dangerous. This urban fabric takes the form of rings; there is little desire to cross the empty space at their feet. Not unlike the pomerium beyond the city’s walls where any urban or commercial activity was forbidden, the uneasy topography is embedded with sacred historical boundaries. c
At the same time exploding volcanic activity in the Sabatini district, 20 km northeast of Rome, and the Colli Albani district, less than 20 km to the southeast, made further changes to the region. All the water stagnating in a low area delimited by the Monte Mario-Pomezia ridge and the Appennine chain interacted with the magma, resulting in violent explosions. The morphology of the area at this point was that of four flattened plateaus (Trigoria, Tor de Cenci, Palatino and Cavaliere) eroded by the Tiber which, by this period, had reached its present course. Valley erosion was repeated several times during the Quaternary through climate oscillation and huge volcanic material deposits; one of the most violent erosions gave birth to the seven hills. For centuries the advantages of an irregular morphology with flattened summits were preferred to the hazards of the alluvial plains of the Tiber, drained and urbanised only in the last 150 years. This demonstrates that a society appropriates territory according, functionally, to its basic needs, which were those of defence and trade only up until the last two centuries. Despite this, the legend of the Rupe Tarpea (Tarpeian Rock) which dates from the Roman period, is an interesting metaphor of how threatening an un-planar topography can be.
above: Balduina area seen from Parco Regionale Urbano del Pineto below: Valle Aurelia area seen from Parco Regionale Urbano del Pineto
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giulia piana
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