Rome will blow out 2,779 candles in 2026, with events taking place from 18 to 21 April.
The Eternal City celebrates its 2,779th birthday on 21 April with historical re-enactments including costumed parades past the Colosseum and gladiator fights in the Circus Maximus.
Known as Natale di Roma, the annual birthday celebration is based on the legendary founding of Rome by Romulus in 753 BC.
This year’s Natale di Roma festival, which includes the largest historical parade in Europe, will take place over four days, from 18-21 April.
Rome’s birthday has been marked for the past three decades by the Gruppo Storico Romano, a historical dramatic society that re-enacts battles, Roman rituals and displays of ancient theatre and dance.
The group also re-enacts the assassination of Julius Caesar on 15 March every year.
Celebrating Rome’s 2,776th birthday in style with the #NatalediRoma2023 parade pic.twitter.com/7HzApk0IDh— Wanted in Rome (@wantedinrome) April 23, 2023
The annual event goes from strength to strength and has come a long way since Sergio Iacomoni, the founder and president of the Gruppo Storico Romano, first marked Natale di Roma with a few friends at the Colosseum more than 30 years ago.
Today the festival enjoys institutional support from the highest levels, including the European parliament, Italy’s culture ministry, the Italian Olympic committee, the Lazio region, the city of Rome and several foreign embassies.
Natale di Roma 2023. Photo Wanted in Rome.
Most of the Natale di Roma events will be centred in the Circus Maximus, including a gladiator tournament as well as live music and games.
There is also the trench-digging ritual, known as the tracciato del solco. This custom recalls the founding of ancient Roman towns when a trench or mundus was dug and offerings thrown into it to encourage the gods to watch over the inhabitants.
Rome celebrates its 2,777th birthday today with a grand parade through the Eternal City #NatalediRoma pic.twitter.com/QXjqaRrd6E— Wanted in Rome (@wantedinrome) April 21, 2024
Other re-enactments include the agricultural Palilia ceremony. Dating to before the founding of Rome, the ceremony was held in honour of the goddess Pales, protector of flocks and herds, and involved vestal virgins distributing straw and the ashes and blood of sacrificed animals before jumping over a bonfire three times.
The Circus Maximus also traditionally hosts a match of Harpastum, an ancient ball game imported to Rome from Greece and described by organisers as the “ancestor of rugby”.
Natale di Roma celebrations at the Circus Maximus. Photo credit: Corina Daniela Obertas / Shutterstock.com
The highlight of the Natale di Roma festivities, the grand parade, will take place at 11.00 on Sunday 19 April, to and from the Circus Maximus via the Colosseum.
This year there will be around 1,300 costumed participants, hundreds of whom travel to Rome from across Europe every April at their own expense.
Full details of the 2026 programme of events are available on the Gruppo Storico Romano website.
Cover image: Natale di Roma 2024. Photo Wanted in Rome.
