Mac Rating: 5.00 | Votes: 1 | Date: 04/06/2026 16:39:00

Begun in 271 AD by the emperor Aurelian and completed under his successor Probus, the Aurelian Walls remain the most intact ancient city wall in Europe, encircling the historic centre of Rome for around nineteen kilometres. The defences were built in haste against the threat of Germanic invasions, the first time in centuries that the capital had felt the need to fortify itself. Constructed largely of brick-faced concrete, the walls stood originally about eight metres high and incorporated existing structures along their line, including stretches of aqueduct, the Pyramid of Cestius and even a portion of the Praetorian Camp. Eighteen main gates and three hundred and eighty-three towers along the circuit allowed defenders to cover every approach. The walls were heightened to around sixteen metres by the emperor Honorius in the early fifth century, doubling the original height and adding a second storey along most of the line. The result is the structure that survives today, much of it still standing and visible from streets that follow the line of the old fortifications. The walls were not the only defence the city needed against the sieges of the fifth and sixth centuries, but they shaped the urban geography of medieval and early modern Rome, dividing the city inside from the open countryside outside and defining the limits of the inhabited area for more than a thousand years. Many of the gates remain in use as traffic arteries, including Porta San Sebastiano on the ancient Appian Way, Porta Pia, where Italian troops broke through in 1870 to seize Rome from the Papal States, and the elegantly restored Porta del Popolo in the north. Visitors can walk along stretches of the walls in the Museo delle Mura at Porta San Sebastiano, which incorporates the gate towers and a length of the rampart walk, and other sections can be followed from outside, particularly the dramatic stretches around the Pyramid of Cestius and along the Aventine Hill. The walls have served Rome over the centuries as much as a symbol as a defence, witnessing the entry of Goths, Visigoths and Vandals in the late empire, the medieval pilgrim columns that crossed the city, and finally the breach of Italian troops at Porta Pia in September 1870 that ended the temporal rule of the popes and brought Rome into the new kingdom of Italy. The yearly anniversary of that breach is still commemorated near the gate. A long-distance footpath, the Cammino delle Mura, follows the line of the walls and is increasingly popular with walkers and cyclists exploring the perimeter of the historic city.