Q 01/05

Rome is the capital of which Italian region?

A) Tuscany

B) Umbria

C) Campania

D) Lazio

Answer · why

D) Lazio

Lazio is the Italian form of Latium, and the Latin language, which Rome spread across its empire, takes its name from that region.

Q 02/05

Which river flows through the centre of Rome?

A) Arno

B) Tiber

C) Adige

D) Reno

Answer · why

B) Tiber

The Tiber's island, one legend says, grew from the grain of the exiled king Tarquin, which Romans threw into the river after overthrowing him.

Q 03/05

Which Roman landmark was built on the site of the private lake of Nero's Golden House?

A) Baths of Caracalla

B) The Colosseum

C) Theatre of Marcellus

D) Circus Maximus

Answer · why

B) The Colosseum

The Colosseum rose where Nero's lake had been, in what is seen as Vespasian's populist gesture of handing land Nero had seized back to the people.

Q 04/05

In legend, which twin founded Rome on the Palatine, one of its seven hills?

A) Remus

B) Castor

C) Romulus

D) Pollux

Answer · why

C) Romulus

Romulus and Remus quarrelled over which hill to build on, and in the most common telling Romulus killed Remus for leaping over his new walls.

Q 05/05

Which Roman square keeps the long oval shape of the stadium Emperor Domitian built there?

A) Piazza Navona

B) Piazza di Spagna

C) Campo de' Fiori

D) Piazza del Popolo

Answer · why

A) Piazza Navona

Piazza Navona was deliberately flooded every weekend in August for more than two centuries, a summer spectacle that ended in the 1860s.