The Palace Root

Palatine Hill in Rome is a well known area featured throughout history and called “the first nucleus of the Roman Empire.” It is the centermost of the seven hills that fostered settlement near the Tiber River long ago.

Palatine Hill housed an array of Palaces, starting with the Palace of Domitian in 81 CE. In fact, Palatine is the etymological origin of the word palace and its cognates in other languages. We call them palaces because they were on Palatine Hill.

However, there’s an argument that the Hill’s name is derived from the name of Pallantium, a city of Magna Graecia founded by an Arcadian Greek, Evander of Pallene, which was absorbed into ancient Rome. Pallantium, in turn, had been named for the homonymous (Pallantium or Pallantion) town in Arcadia founded by Pallas, son of Lycaon king of Arcadia.

So there you go, a little context to show that the root of our word “palace” is… Greek.