Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/744

 724 ROMA. cept in so far as they may serve to ascertain the era of Rome. The account which has the most preten- sions to accuracy is that given by Dionysius (i. G5, TO. 71) and by Diodorus {Fr. lib. viii. voL iv. p. 21, Bipont). The sum of the reigns here given, allowing five years for that of Aeneas, who died in the seventh year after the taking of Troy, is 432 years — tliat is, down to the second year of Numitor, when Rome was founded by Romulus, in the first year of the 7th Olympiad. Now this agrees very closely with Varro's era for the foundation of Rome, viz., 753 B. c. For Troy having been taken, according to the era of Eratosthenes, in 1184 u. c, the difter- ence between 1184 and 7.'J3 leaves 431 years for the din'ation of the Alban kingdom. Varro's date for the foundation of Rome is that generally adopted. Other authorities place it rather later: Cato. in 751 B.C.; Polybius, in 750; Fabius Pictor, in 747. This is not the place to enter into the question vrhether these dates of the Alban kings were the invention of a later age, in order to satisfy the re- quirements of chronology. It will suffice to remark that the nest most prevalent opinion among those Romans who adopted the main points of this tradition assigned only three centuries to the Alban kings before tjje foundation of Rome. This was the opinion of Virgil (Aen. i. 272),— " Hie jam tercentum totos regnabitur annos," — of Justin, of Trogus Pompeius (xliii. 1), and of Livy (i. 29), who assigns a period of 400 years for the existence of Alba, and places its destruction a century after the foundation of Rome. At all events the preponderance of testimony tends very .strongly to show that Rome was not founded till several centuries after the Trojan War. Timaeus .seems to have been the first Greek writer who adopted the account of the foundation of Rome by Eonmlus. (Niebuhr, Hist. vol. i. p. 218.) II. The City of Romulus. The Roman historians almost unanimously relate Uial Rome originally consisted of the city founded by Romulus on the Palatine. (Liv. i. 7 ; Veil. i. 8 ; Tac. An7i. xii. 24; Dion3's. i. 88; Cell. siii. 14; Ov. Tr. iii. 1. 29, &c.) The ancient settlement of Evan- der on the same hill, as well as a city on the Capi- toline called Saturnia (Varr. L. L. v. § 42, Miill.; Festus, p. 322, Miill.), and another on iIons Jani- culus called Aenea or Antipolis (Dionys. i. 73; Plin. iii. 9), must be supposed to have disappeared at the time of its foundation, if indeed they had ever existed. It seems probable enough, as Dionysius says, that villages were previously scattered about on the seven hills ; but the existence of a place called Va- tica or Vaticum, on the right bank of the Tiber, and of a Quirium on the Quirinal, rests solely on the conjecture (jf Niebuhr (^Hist. vol. i. p. 223, seq., 289, seq., Eng. Trans.) Pomoerium. — Tacitus has given in the following passage the fullest and most authentic account of the circuit of the Romulean city: " Sed initium con- dendi, et quod pomoerium Romulus posuerit, noscere haud absurdum reor. Igitur a foro Boario, ubi aereuin tauri simulacrum adspicimus, quia id genus animalium aratro subditur, sulcus designandi oppidi coeptus, ut magnam Herculis aram amplecteretur. Inde certis spatiis interject! lapides, per ima montis Paktini ad aram Consi, inox ad Curias Veteres, turn ad sacellnm Larum; forumque Romanuni et ROMA. Capitolium non a Romulo sed a Tito Tatio additum urbi credidere." {Ann. xii. 24.) According to this description, the point where the furrow of the pomoerium commenced was marked by the statue of a bull, whence the name of the Forum Boariimi was by some writers afterwards d-erived. The Forum Boarium lay under the westernmost angle of the Palatine ; and the furrow probably began a little beyond the spot where the Arcus Argentarius now stands, close to the church of S. Giorgio in Velahro. embracing the altar of Hercules, or Ara IMaxima, which stood in the same forum : — " Constituitque sibi, quae Maxima dicitur. aram, Hie ubi pars urbis de bove norncn habet." (Ov.Fast. i. 581.) Hence it proceeded along the north side of the Vallis Murcia (Circus Maximus). as far as the Ara Consi. According to Becker (^Handbuch, p. 98, de Muris, §-c. p. 11), this altar must be soitght towards the lower end of the Circus, near the southernmost angle of the Palatine ; but he gives no authority for this ojjinion, which is a mere assump- tion, or i-ather a petitio principii from the passage of Tacitus before quoted, whence he thinks that it must necessarily be referred to the spot indicated. (Handb. p. 468, and p. 665, note 1438.) But there is nothing at all in the words of Tacitus to warraiit this inference ; and there seems to be no good reason why we should dispute the authority of Tertullian, from whom we learn that the Ara Consi stood near the first 7neta of the circus, and therefore somewhere near the middle of the SW. side of the Palatine ("et nunc araCon.so illi in Circo defossa est ad prinias metas," de Sped. 5). Hence, after turning, of course, the southernmost point of the Palatine, where the Septizonium of Severus afterwards stood, the po- moerium proceeded through the valley between the Palatine and Gael I us ( Via de S. Gregorio) to the Curiae Veteres. The situation of this last place has been the .■subject of much dispute. Niebuhr (^Hist. Vol. !. p. 288), though with some hesitation (t6. note 735), and Bunsen (^Beschreibimg, vol. i. p. 138), place the Curiae Veteres near the baths of Titus on the Esquiline, and they are followed hy MiiWer (^FtrnsJctr, vol. ii. p. 143). This view appears, however, to be founded on no authority, except that of the modern writers Blondus Flavins and Lucius Faunus, who state that the part of the Esquiline called Carinae, and even the baths of Titus themselves, were de- signated in ancient notarial documents as " Curia Vetus." But, first, it is highly improbable that Tacitus, in his description, should have taken so long a stride as from the Ara Consi, in the middle of the SW. side of the Palatine, to the Esquiline, without mentioning any intervening place. Again : if the line of the pomoerium had proceeded so far to the N., it must have embraced the Velia as well as the Pa- latine, as Bunsen assumes (^. c); and this must have destroyed that squareness of form which, as we shall see further on, procured for the city of Ronmlus the appellation of " Roma Quadrata." That the furrow was drawn at right angles following the natural line of the hill we are assured by more than one au- thority (TrepLypa.<pei Tfrpdyooyov ax^l^^ '''V ^f^*/"?, Dionys. i. 88 ; antiquissimum pomoerium, quod a Romulo institutum est. Palatini montis radicibus terminabatur, Gell. xiii. 14). But, further, it may be shown from satisfactory testimony that the Curiae Veteres were not seated on the Esquiline, but between the Palatine and Caelian. Thus the Notilia, in de-