Casa Romuli

[2] It was a traditional single-roomed peasants' hut of the Latins, with straw roof and wattle-and-daub walls, such as are reproduced in miniature in the distinctive funerary urns of the so-called Latial culture (ca.

[3] Over the centuries, the casa was repeatedly damaged by fire and storms, but carefully restored to its original state on each occasion.

[4] Destruction by fire is recorded for 38 BC, as a result of a ceremony held inside the casa by the pontifices ("College of High Priests"), presumably a burnt sacrifice to Romulus in his deified state as the god Quirinus, during which the altar-fire probably ran out of control.

On this occasion, the casa was apparently set on fire by some crows which dropped pieces of burning meat, again snatched from an altar, onto the thatched roof.

[6] It has been speculated that a tugurium Faustini ("the cottage of Faustinus") on the Palatine recorded in the time of the emperor Constantine I (ruled AD 312–337) was in reality the still surviving casa Romuli.

Villanovan culture cinerary hut-urn, showing the likely shape of Romulus' hut in Rome, a simple mud-and-straw shelter
Iron Age hut foundations on the Palatine Hill considered to be the Casa Romuli