Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/755

 ROirA. liave been on a height. Servius had occupied a residence not far from it, over the Clivus Urbius (/6.; Liv. i. 48), and it was probably situated at or near the spot now occupied by the church of S. Martina. There is not the slightest ground for Niebuhr's assumption (Hist. i. 390) that the Fagu- tal was what he calls " the plain " between the Caelian and Palatine. The Cermalus or Germalus — for originally c and g were the same letter — was, like the Velia, only a distinct portion of the Palatine liill. (" Huic (Palalio) Cermalum et Velias con- juuserunt," Varr. v. § 64, Miill.) Preller {Iiegio7ien, p. 180) considers the Germalus to be that side of the Palatine which overhangs the Velabrum between the modern churches of S. Giorgio in Velabro and S. Anaslasia ; and it is not improbable, as Becker conjectures (p. 418), that the hill formerly projected further to the W. than it now does, and descended in shelves or ledges. It does not appear on what grounds Niebuhr (l. c.) assumed the Germalus to be a " spot ai the foot of the Palatine." It contained the Lupercal, which, being -a cave or grotto, must liave been excavated in a hill or cliflf, as indeed Dionysius states in his description of it : ■)]f Se rh apxaiov, ws Xfyerai (jiti]Ku.iov inrh r(f <p(a fiiya (i. 32). All the places, then, enumerated by Labeo appear to have been heights, with the exception of the Su- bura. But on counting the names, we find that he mentions eight places instead of seven, or one more than is required to make a Septimontium. Hence Niebuhr {lb. p. 389) omitted the Subura, — not, however, because it was situated in the plain, — and was followed by Bunsen {Bescltr. i. 141), who after- wards altered his mind, and struck out the Caelius (/6. p. 685); and this last opinion is also followed by Becker (Eandb. p. 124) and Wiiller (^ad Fest. p. 341). The chief reason assigned for this view is that a principal part of the first regio (Suburana) was called Caelimontium, — a name afterwards pre- served as that of one of the regions of Augustus ; aiid on comparing this name with that of Septimon- tium it is inferred that, like the latter, it must have indicated a distinct and independent city union, and could not therefure have been included in any ante- Servian union. But if there had been any distinct and independent township of this kind, we must surely have heard of it in some of the ancient authors. We do not know when the term Caeli- tnontium first came into use; but it is not improbable tliat it arose from another small hill, the Caelius Jlinor or Caeliolum, having been annexed to the larger one. Jlartial mentions them both in the fol- lowing liries: — " Dum per limina te potentiorum Sudatrix toga ventilat, vagumque Major Caelius et minor fatigat." — (xii. 18.) We learn from Varro that the junction of these two bills had taken place in or befure his time : "Caeli- olus cum Caelio nunc conjunctum" (/>. i. v. § 46, JIUII.), though popular use, as we see from the lines of Martial, sometimes still continued to regard them as distinct ; nor can we tell for what purpose they had been united. Little can be inferred from the order in which the hills are mentioned in the text ot lestus, as local sequence is entirely disregarded ; or from the circumstance that Cispius is called " mons" and Oppius not, unless we leave out "Caelio;" or from the omission of Caelius in some of the MSS. of Paulus Diaconus. On the whole it seems most ROMA. 735 probable that Stdmrue may be the redundant word ; unless indeed we might suppose that there were two Fagutals or groves of Jupiter, and that Suburae was inserted here to define the place of the one which overhung it. Becker regards the Septimontium not as a proper city festival, but as commemorating traditions con- nected with the site of Home long previous to the building of the city. In confirmation of this he refers (^Ilandb. p. 12.5) to a passage in Varro {L.L.v. § 41, MUll.) and to another in Festus (p. 321), where it is said that a people of Reate, called Sacrani, drove the Ligurians and Sicilians out of Septimontium; and a third passage is adduced from Servius (ad Aen. xi. 317) to prove that the Sicilians once occupied the site of Rome; that they were expelled thence by the Ligurians, and the Ligurians in their turn by the Sacrani. Now, without entering into the historical questions con- nected with these obscure traditions, it may be al- lowed in genei'al to be probable enough that such traditions were afloat ; and when, as we have ven- tured to assume, Numa instituted the festival, he made them the basis of it; just as he instituted the Argive chapels and the twenty-four mannikins to conmicmorate the tradition of the Argive chiefs and their abolishment of human sacrifices. But the fes- tival, nevertheless, was a proper city festival. Becker urges (Ilandb. p. 124) that the Septimontium de- scribed by Labeo could not have been in commemora- tion of a city union immediately preceding that of Servius, because it included the Oppius and Cispius, which were first added to the city by Servius. A great deal depends upon what we understand by the words " added to the city " (" zur Stadt gezogen"). To say that they were not included in the wall and agger afterwards completed by Servius would be a mere puerility; but they must have been inhabited and formed part of the city before his time, since there were Argive cliapels upon them (Varr. v. § 50); and these chapels, as we have seen, formed the basis of the city union formed by him. The festival must certainly have been post-Romulean, since some of the names of places where it was ce- lebrated were not known before the time of Romulus. Caelius occupied the Caelian hill in his reign ; the name of Germalus is said to be derived from the twins (germani) Romulus and Remus, who were landed there (Varr. v. § 54); whilst Oppius and Cispius are said by Festus (p. 348, Jliill.), on the authority of VaiTO, not to have been so named till the reign of Tullus Hostilius. But as they are mentioned by those names in the sacred books of' the Argives (Varr. v. § 50) it is probable that they were so called at least as early as the time of Numa. Such, then, was the ancient Septimontium. The walls of Servius included a different group of seven hills which came to be regarded by the later Romans as the real Septimontium. They are those already described at the beginning of this article, namely, the Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, Caelian, Aventine, Capitoline, and Palatine. IV. PuOGUIiSS OF THE ClTY Tll.l. TIIK Tl.MICOF AUGUSTU.S. Having thus brought down the history of the city to the foundation of the Servian walls, we shall pro- ceed to sketch its progress to tiie time of Augustus, and then till the walls of Aurclian. Tiie former walls marked the rise and consolidation of a city, which,