14 regions of Augustan Rome

[1] Originally designated by number, the regions acquired nicknames from major landmarks or topographical features within them.

[3] Writing in the mid-40s BC, Marcus Terentius Varro describes four 'partes urbis', referring to them individually as a ‘regio’ with both names and numbers: I Suburana, II Esquilina, III Collina and IV Palatina.

[3] Varro also provides evidence for vici in Republican Rome, deriving the word vicus from via and which are analogous to our modern ‘neighbourhoods’.

Regio III took its name from the sanctuary of Isis, in the area of the modern Labicana street, containing the valley that was to be the site of the Colosseum, and parts of the Oppian and Esquiline hills.

It contains parts of the Oppian and Cispian (two minor hills close to the city center) and of the Esquiline, plus the plain just outside the Servian Wall.

The name of Regio VI derives from the street (Alta Semita, "High Path") passing over the Quirinal Hill.

The Aurelian Walls marked most of its eastern and northern edge, with the Argiletum and Vicus Patricius on the south and southeast.

The name derives from the racecourse located in the southern end of the Campus Martius, close to Tiber Island.