in Pedagogy, Technology |

Seven Hills Mnemonic

I picked up Robert Harris’s Imperium as a little bedtime reading and as I opened to the map of Republican Rome just before the start of the book my eyes passed over the first letters of Quirinal, Viminal, and Esquiline. In a flash I’d read them as QVE, and it wasn’t a second before I read the top half of the map as CapitolinvsQVE.

The bottom half gave me AC Palatinvs, but putting these two together in that order didn’t quite work, so I decided to take another tack:

What are the three most important hills in the city’s history?

Ianicvlvm
AC Palatinvs
CapitolinvsQVE.

This has the advantages of (1) requiring students to memorize only three names (while they can more easily recall the others from the abbreviations), (2) using Latin conjunctions for the abbreviations, reinforcing a bit of the language, and (3) being somewhat visual. It gives the Seven Hills and the Janiculan, an important defense across the Tiber, read in a kind of S shape from bottom to top. I can’t help but visualize a map of Rome when I recite this and follow a steady S-shaped trail (Janiculan, then Aventine, Caelian, Palatine, Capitoline, Quirinal, Viminal, and Esquiline).

Roma_Ante_condita

You can also think of the first line as giving what’s west of the Tiber, the second line naming the hills of the southern half of the city, and the third line those of the northern half of the city.

However you break it down, I think it may turn out to be effective and I plan to use it next semester.

UPDATE: 23 February 2010.

I’ve since put this up on Google Maps:

The 7 Hills of Rome (plus 1)


View The 7 Hills of Rome (plus 1) in a larger map

Check out the other posts on the subject of plotting ancient sites with Google Maps

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Webmentions

  • Roman Hegemony in Latium (Mommsen 1.7) « the CAMPVS April 24, 2017

    […] The pic­ture becomes murky now (as though it was clear before). Inde­ci­sive skir­mishes with the Etr­uscans may have fol­lowed, but more pro­duc­tive con­quests took place to the south. Through­out this period, due to suc­cesses in the south, the impact of the Ser­vian reforms, and the alliance with the Latin League, resources flowed in and fueled the expan­sion of the city. The hills filled, then the banks, and so on. In time the walled city con­tained the seven hills as well as the Jan­ic­u­lan across the river. (This is a good time to remind read­ers of my 7 Hills of Rome (plus 1) Mnemonic.) […]

  • Plotting Ancient Sites with Google Maps | the CAMPVS April 24, 2017

    […] just plotted one of my favorite mnemonic devices (and not just because I came up with it) for the Hills of Rome, previously discussed in these very […]