Rome - House of Augustus

One of the stand-out sites on Rome's Palatine Hill, the House of Augustus *** continues to attract academic argument. Whether or not this really was the home of Rome's first princeps, and (spoiler alert) it almost certainly wasn't, the building is worth visiting for its stunning and well-preserved wall decorations, giving us a first hand view of an opulent dwelling from the late republican era.

Brief Historical Background

The western corner of the Palatine Hill has been settled since the Iron Age. Here you are at the very heart of ancient Rome. The traditional 'House of Romulus', a reed hut that was rebuilt and maintained until the late 4th century AD, stood nearby (the exact location is uncertain) and by the end of the 3rd century BC it had been joined by two important temples (the Temples of Victory and of the Great Mother). Two large dwellings (now known as the Houses of Augustus and Livia) were built at some point during the 1st century BC, followed by the Temple of Apollo which sits on top of part of the House of Augustus. Apart from its podium, very little of the Temple of Apollo has survived (below) - in stark contrast to the House of Augustus below.

Temple of Apollo - the podium is all that remains of this structure, which lies above the House of Augustus.

The continuous occupation of this part of the Palatine Hill, and the multi-layered strata of the resulting ruins, makes the interpretation and dating of structures quite a challenge. In part, this explains the ongoing debate about the history of the House of Augustus. I'm only giving a short summary here: see the references listed at the end of this blog post for more information, notably those of Amanda Claridge and Timothy Wiseman.

The house has been identified as the residence of Augustus for many years, and this is still the official view (see the Parco Archeologico del Colosseo website). The basis seems to be a reference in Suetonius' The Twelve Caesars (Augustus 29:3) to Augustus erecting the Temple of Apollo on part of his Palatine 'domus' that had been struck by lightning, the idea being that the thunderbolt was a signal from the deity that a bit of worship would be appreciated here. However, Suetonius was probably using domus in this context to describe more than just a single dwelling. While Suetonius also tells us that Augustus moved into a house on the Palatine (The Twelve Caesars: Augustus 72:2), that dwelling is described as being modest and plain. Which cannot be said for the building that we can now visit.

House of Augustus - Room of the Masks

It is more likely that the dwelling now displayed as the House of Augustus was abandoned or decommissioned when work began on constructing the Temple of Apollo around 36 BC. The house may indeed have been bought by Augustus (as the then-named Octavian would become) with the intention of expanding it for personal use, but there is no evidence that he ever lived in it. One of the rooms contains a ramp that rises towards the temple above, but whether this ever acted as a functional link is uncertain. The limited amount of pottery found within the building dates to either before or just after the temple's construction. Nevertheless, for the sake of clarity, I'm still calling it the House of Augustus in this blog post.

Setting the Augustus link to one side, the site is a spectacular time capsule that paints a vivid picture of a well-decorated and decidedly up-market late republican-era dwelling. For me, it was one of the highlights of my visit to the Palatine Hill.

Location and Access

The House of Augustus sits on the Palatine Hill to the north-west of the Palace of Domitian complex (Google Maps link here). The building is close to the present-day edge of the hill, occupying a lower level behind the scanty remains of the Temple of Apollo. The path down to its entrance, which runs through the Precinct of Victory (below) to the top of the former Scalae Caci stairs, can easily be missed.

You reach the House of Augustus by heading to the left along this path. In the background is the concrete podium of the Temple of the Great Mother (Magna Mater) 

Access to the House of Augustus is not included with the basic admission to the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill. It is one of a number of monuments (called the SUPER sites) that can only be visited with certain ticketing options. If you are visiting the Forum and Palatine Hill then I would strongly recommend that you seek one of these out: in addition to the House of Augustus, the SUPER sites include a number of other 'must-see' buildings such as the Senate House (Curia), Temple of the Divus Romulus, Church of Santa Maria Antiqua and more. At all of these locations, we saw visitors without the correct tickets being turned away. (Mind you, having the correct ticket doesn't guarantee that all of the SUPER sites will be open on the day of your visit.)

Given how long the queues can be at the Forum for day entry tickets, I would also recommend that you buy them in advance, although the booking website (link here) is not very user-friendly.

Date of my Visit

The photos in this blog post date from my visit in 2026. 

House of Augustus - on-site signage with arrow (my edit) showing modern entrance

Exploring the House of Augustus

As can be seen from the diagram above (my photo of an on-site sign), the house was arranged around two courtyards. Only the rooms around the first (western) courtyard - the one on the left in the above image - can now be visited. I have indicated the modern entrance point with a red arrow.

However, this layout is not easily appreciated during a visit. The south-western side of the first courtyard has been lost in a landslide (we are right on the edge of the Palatine Hill here) while the second (eastern courtyard) is not visible. 

After entering the site, a left turn takes you into a range of rooms running along the north-east side of the first courtyard. These are linked by a long gallery (below); the wall on the right and several brick and concrete piers on the left are later than the dwelling, being built to support structures on the higher (Temple of Apollo) level above.

House of Augustus - gallery in north-east range

Before walking along the gallery, take a left turn into what may have been a separate apartment with several rooms accessed from a narrow corridor. Two of these have impressive wall decorations. First up is room 6 - the Room of the Pines (below).

House of Augustus - Room of the Pines

The decoration, dating to the mid 1st century BC, shows columns linked by garlands containing sprigs of pine and a few cones. Above, and behind, lies an image of a colonnade.  On the floor there is a simple black and white geometric mosaic. This is characteristic of the dwelling as a whole; decorative effort in the House of Augustus was focused on the walls rather than the floors.

This is even more apparent in the wall decorations of the room next door - the Room of the Masks - room 5. Although they are perhaps not of the highest artistic quality, the resulting effect is striking (below).

House of Augustus - Room of the Masks

The frescoes present a theatrical setting, including comic and tragic masks which look more unsettling the longer that you gaze at them. The central image, rather washed out in my photos, shows a pastoral or garden scene containing a strange pointed object looking rather like the Skylon from the 1950s Festival of Britain. There is a better image of it on the Skenographia Project website. I can't find any suggestions as to what it might represent - comments are welcome.

Returning to the main gallery, the walkway takes you past a series of rooms. These are not as well decorated as those already described, and some may have been abandoned before the wall paintings were completed. The best example of this is room 11 - the Room of the Perspective Paintings (below):

House of Augustus - Room of the Perspective Paintings

Here we see another architectural-type wall decoration which, like the Room of the Masks, uses perspective to create an illusion of depth. This is classed as 'Second Style' decoration, a type that initially appeared around 100 BC. (First Style was a simpler rendition showing masonry, while Third and Fourth styles became progressively more fantastical.) It took over a thousand years for the technique of perspective to be rediscovered (or, as some authors put it 'invented') in the Italian Renaissance.

Unfortunately some details from this room's decoration have been removed in the intervening years, with a few sections crudely hacked out. The room's side walls of are mostly undecorated, suggesting that the overall design was never completed, while the floor shows the imprint of a lozenge-shaped marble pattern - now lost.

Next door, a narrow corridor contains more architectural-style decorations (below). The wall on the left may be part of later structural work that was added after the house was abandoned to support the buildings above.

At the far end of the gallery a doorway leads through to the rooms on the south-eastern side of the courtyard. This is shorter than the north-east range, as much of the remainder of the building is still buried. However, four rooms can be visited, including one on the upper level, and all are of great interest. The first is room 12, a corridor containing the ramp (below).

House of Augustus - Room 12 - the ramp

The purpose of this ramp is not fully understood. Some authors suggest that it may have acted as a link between the Temple of Apollo above and the house below. But what is more likely is that the temple's construction obliterated the top of the ramp, which had previously been used to access the upper level of the original dwelling. The ceiling of the ramp room is partly decorated; this was painstakingly restored by piecing together many fragments. 

A doorway leads to room 13, a large reception room or oecus (below).

House of Augustus - room 13 - the large hall or oecus

This room would have had internal columns, their positions now marked by blocks of stone, mirrored by the columns shown in the architectural wall decorations.

A final doorway leads into a smaller chamber (room 14), known as the lower cubiculum; a cubiculum was a bedroom or other private area of a Roman house, although the exact usage of this space is unclear. The colours of the wall paintings here, showing more architectural details, are especially vivid (below).

House of Augustus - room 14 - the lower cubiculum

House of Augustus - room 14 - the lower cubiculum - detail

The final room on display at the House of Augustus (room 15) lies directly above the lower cubiculum, and is called (unsurprisingly) the upper cubiculum or (more fancifully) the Emperor's study. It is now reached by an external metal staircase, which leads to a small glazed opening. There is only room for one person at a time to get a proper look inside, so you may have to queue. But it's worth the wait, as this room contains possibly the best wall decorations in the entire house (below), although reflections from the glass covering the opening make photography difficult on a sunny day.

House of Augustus - room 15 - the upper cubiculum

House of Augustus - room 15 - the upper cubiculum

Fragments of the ceiling decoration - white stucco with coloured sections - have also been preserved in this room (below). Again, this is a triumph of the art of the restorer.

House of Augustus - room 15 - the upper cubiculum - ceiling detail

And that concludes our tour of the House of Augustus. The House of Augustus is usually considered - and indeed visited - in conjunction with the House of Livia, located on the opposite side of the Temple of Apollo. Of course Livia (who was the wife of Augustus - I always think of Sian Phillips' masterful performance in the BBC's I Claudius) didn't live there either, but the interior of the house is apparently even more impressive than that of the House of Augustus. I say 'apparently', as it was closed to visitors - under restoration - at the time of my visit. All that I could do was look into a room and passage at its south-eastern corner (below). Some excellent images of this building's internal decorations are in the Following Hadrian Photography blog. A future visit is on my list.  

House of Livia - brief glimpse into the south-east corner of the building

References

Claridge, Amanda (2010) Rome - An Oxford Archaeological Guide (2nd edition). Oxford: OUP

Romano, David Gilman, and Borbonus, Dorian (2002). Mapping Augustan Rome. Edited by Lothar Haselberger, and Elisha Ann Dumser. JRA - link

Wiseman, Timothy P. (2022) 'Palace-Sanctuary or Pavilion? Augustus's House and the Limits of Archaeology'. Papers of the British School at Rome, 90 pp 9-34 - link

Link to the website of the Parco archeologico del Colosseo (which includes Palatine Hill).

There are good photographs of the Houses of Augustus and Livia in the Following Hadrian Photography blog

(See also the general References page of this blog).

Text and photographs (c) Mike Hetherington. Visits to sites described in this blog are at your own risk.