Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/770

 750 EOMA. divinity as Deus Fidius (Fest. p. 241, Miill.), whose Eacellum is mentioned by Livy (viii. 20) as situated near tiie temple of Quirinus. It is also recorded in the fragments of the Argive books as seated on tlie Collis Mucialis (Varr. L.L. v.§ 62, Mull.),which hill comes next in order after the Collis Salutaris. We have already mentioned the temple of Quirinus as having been situated near the present church of & A ndrea and it may therefore be assumed that the Porta Sanqualis spanned the ascent to it at or near the modern Via delta Dataria. Between the Porta Sanqualis and the Capitoline hill there were probably two gates : at all events there must undoubtedly have been one in the very narrow ravine which in early times separated the Capitoline from the Quirinal, and which afforded the only outlet from the neighbourhood of the forum. This was, perhaps, the Porta Ratumena, which we learn from Pliny (viii. 65: ''unde postea nomen es<") and Plutarch {Pupl. 13: irapa rvv irvX7)v, %v vvv 'Parounevav /caAoCffif) was still existing in their time. Becker, indeed, di.sputes the inference of its existence from Pliny's words, and disbelieves the assertion of Plu- tarch. But there is nothingatall incredible in the fact, and therefore no reason why we should disbelieve it. We know, ftom the example of London and other cities, that a gate, and especially the name of a gate marking its former site, may remain for ages after the wall in which it stood has been removed. Even the local tradition of its name would have sufficed to mark its site ; but it seems highly probable, from the nature of the ground where it stood, that the gate itself had been preserved. The road through so narrow a gorge could never have been disturbed for building or other purposes ; and it is probable that the gate remained standing till the ravine was enlarged by cutting away the Quirinal in order to make room for Trajan's forum. We learn from the passages just cited, as well as from Festus (p. 274), that the gate derived its name from a charioteer, who, returning victorious from the Circensian games at Veil, was thrown out of his chariot and killed at this spot, whilst t'je affrighted horses, thus freed from all control, dashed up the Capitoline hill, and, as the legend runs, did not finish their mad career till they had thrice made the circuit of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. (Piin. viii. 65.) So remarkable an omen would have been quite a sufficient ground in those days for changing the name of the gate. But it matters little what faith we may be disposed to place in the legend ; for TOMB OF CAIUa BIBULUS. ROMA. even if it was an invention, it must have been framed with that regard to local circumstances which would have lent it probability, and no other gate can be pointed dut which would have so well suited the tenor of the story. Its existence at this spot is further confirmed by the tomb of Bibulus, one of the few remaining monuments of the Republic, which stands in the Mucel dei Corvi, and by the discovery of the remains of another sepulchral monument a little farther on, in the Via delta Pedacchia. It is well known that, with a few rare exceptions, no interments were allowed within the walls of Rome ; the tomb of Bibulus must therefore have been a little without the gate, and its front corresponds to the direction of a road that would have led from the forum into the Campus Martins (Canina, Roma Antica, p. 218). Bunsen, however, is of opinion (Besclir. vol.iii. p. 35) that it lay within the walls, and infers from the inscrip- tion, which states that the ground was presented as a burial-place to Bibulus and his descendants by the Senate and people " honoris virtutisque caussa," that he was one of those rare exceptions mentioned by Cicero (^Leff. ii. 23) of persons who obtained the privilege of being buried within the city. A more unfortunate conjecture was hardly ever liazarded. Becker has justly pointed out that the words of the inscription merely mean that the ground was pre- sented to Bibulus, without at all implying that it was within the walls ; and an attentive consideration of the passage in Cicero will show that it could not possibly have been so. Ever since the passing of the law of the XII. Tables against interment within the walls, Cicero could find only one example in which it had been set aside, namely, in honour of C. Fa- bricius. Now if Bibulus had lived in the period between the composition of the De Legibus and the final abolishment of the Republic, we could nut have failed to hear of an individual who had achieved so extraordinary a mark of distinction ; and if, on the other hand, he lived before that work was written, — of which there can scarcely be a doubt,— then Cicero would ceitainly have mentioned him. Besides the gates already enumerated between the spot from which we started and the Capitoline hill, there seems also to have been another for which we can .find no more convenient site than the SW. side of the Quirinal, between the Porta Ratumena and Porta Sanqualis, unless indeed we adopt the net improbable conjecture of Preller (Schneidewin's Phi- lologns, p. 84), that the Ratumena was one of the gates of the fortification on the Clivus Capitolinus, and that the Porta Fontikalis was the gate in the gorge between the Quirinal and the Capitoline. This latter gate is mentioned by Paulus Diaconus (p. 85, Miill.), in connection with a festival called Fontinalia. It is also mentioned by Varro (LZ. vi. § 22, Miill.) and other writers; and we learn from Livy (xxxv. 10) that a portico was constructed from it to th3 altar of Mars, forming a thoroughfare into the Campus Martins. The same historian again mentions the Ara Martis as being in the Campus (xl. 45), but there is nothing to indicate its precise situation. Numa instituted a festival to Mars, as a pledge of union between the Romans and Sabines (Fest. p. 372, Miill.), and it was probably on this occasion that the altar was erected. It is impossible to place any gate and portico leading from it in the short strip of wall on the S. side of the Capitoline, and therefore its site was perhaps that already indicated. The altar must have stood at no great distance from the gate, and could hardly have been so far to the W. as the