The Esquiline Hill includes three prominent spurs, which are sometimes called "hills" as well: • Cispian (
Cispius) – northern spur •
Oppian (
Oppius) – southern spur • Fagutal (
Fagutalis) – western spur Rising above the valley in which was later built the
Colosseum, the Esquiline was a fashionable residential district. According to
Livy, the settlement on the Esquiline was expanded during the reign of
Servius Tullius, Rome's sixth king, in the 6th century BC. The king also moved his residence to the hill in order to increase its respectability. The political advisor and art patron
Maecenas (70–8 BC) sited
his gardens, the first in the Hellenistic-Persian garden style in Rome, on the Esquiline Hill, atop the
Servian Wall and its adjoining
necropolis. It contained terraces, libraries and other aspects of Roman culture. At the
Oppius,
Nero (37 AD–68 AD) confiscated property to build his extravagant, mile-long
Golden House, and later still Trajan (53–117) constructed
his bath complex, both of whose remains are visible today. The 3rd-century
Horti Liciniani, a group of gardens (including the relatively well-preserved
nymphaeum formerly identified as the non-extant
Temple of Minerva Medica), were probably constructed on the Esquiline Hill. Farther to the northeast, at the summit of the
Cispius, is the
Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. In 1781, the first known copy of the marble statue of a
discus thrower – the
Discobolus of
Myron – was discovered on the Roman property of the
Massimo family, the Villa Palombara, on the Esquiline Hill. The famous
Esquiline Treasure, now in the
British Museum, was found on the Esquiline Hill. ==Namesakes==