There is a lot about the palatine that can be confusing, as there are a series of ruins of a great house that's creation has spanned decades, and it is hard to tell one part from the other. On top of that, the ruins did not seem to be labeled, as far as I could see, and the maps so sparse it is easy to get lost. Often only able to figure out where I was after a couple of times circling the same place, I came across something that truly baffled me. A good deal below the ground level where I was standing there were ruins of something that looked somewhat like a racetrack. I had never heard of a racetrack in the Domus Augustana/Flavia, which is where the rectangular ruin was located, and it was definitely too small to be the circus maximus. I was truly confused about what it could be. After looking in the blue book (which has a map of the entire palatine, making it a little bit more manageable regardless of not counting for the multiple different levels it seems to have), I was able to figure it out. Apparently, it is not a racetrack at all, but actually the remains of a sunken garden. It is in the style of a hippodrome, which is what caused the confusion. Apparently it dates back to the time of Domitian; it was my favorite part of the old ruins to see.
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