Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/773

 ROMA. spot therefore Lad the significance of a kind of out- post of the city. As this theory is evidently framed with a view to the triumph of Vespasian and Titus, and as the account of that triumph is also one of the main arguments adduced by Becker for his Porta Tri- uniphalis, it will be necessary to examine it. The narrative of Josephus runs as follows (^Bell. Jud. vii. 5. § 4, p. 1305, Huds.): " The emperor and his son Titus spent the nicjht preceding their triumph in a public building in the Campus Martins, near tiio temple of Isis, where the army was assembled and marshalled. At break of day the emperors came forth and proceeded to the Porticus Octaviae (near the theatre of Marcellus), where, according to ancient custom, the senate were assembled to meet them. Vespasian, after offering the usual prayer, and delivering a short address, dismissed the troops to their breakfast, whilst he himself returned to the gate named after the triumphal processions that used to pass through it. Here the emperor break- fasted, and, having put on the triumphal dress, and sacrificed to the gods whose shrines were at the gate, caused the pageant to proceed through the circi." Becker concludes from this narrative that the Porta Triumphalis must have been outside the town, in the Campus Martins, and near the public building where the emperor had slept. A further proof is, he contends, that the procession went through the circi, which must mean the Circus Flaminius and Circus Maximus; and that this was so may be shown from Plutarch {Aem. PaiiU. 32), who says that Paullus went through the Circi, and in another passage expressly relates {Lvcull. 37) that Lucullus adorned the Circus Flaminius with the arms, &c. which he had taken, which it would be absurd to suppose he would have done unless the procession passed through that circus. Then comes the supposition we have already noticed, that the procession of Vespasian passed through the arch re-erected by his younger son Domitiau some years after his father's death. After passing through the Circus Flaminius, Becker thinks that the pro- cession went through the P. Carmentalis, and by the Vicus Jugarius to the forum, along the latter suh Veteribus, and finally through the Vicus Tuscus, the Velabrum, and Forum Boarium, into the Circus Maximus. Having conducted the emperors thus far, Becker takes leave of them, and we remain com- pletely in the dark as to the manner in which they got out of the circus and found their way back again to the forum and Capitol, the usual destina- tion of triumphant generals. Admitting that Becker has here given a true inter- pretation of the text of Josephus as it stands, we shall proceed to examine the conclusions that have been drawn from it, beginning with those of Preller. That writer has very properly assumed (^Regionen, p. "240) that if the triumphal arch did not actually cross the pomoerium it led at all events into a terri- tory subject to the jurisdiction of the city, into which it was unlawful for a general cum imperio to pass without the permission of the senate. Had not this been so the whole business would have been a n:ere vain and idle ceremony. Tiie account of Vespasian's tri- umpli seems indeed a little repugnant to this view, .since he met the senate in the Porticus Octaviae, which on this supposition was considerably beyond the boundary, and which he had therefore crossed before he had obtained authority to do so. Still more re- pugnant is Dion's account of the triumph of Tiberius, VOL. II. ROMA. 753 who, we are told, assembled the senate at the same place precisely on the ground that it was outside of the pomoerium, and that consequently he did not violate their privileges by assembling tiiem there (es re rh 'OKTaoveiou t^v /SouAV iidpoirre Stu rh ^a> Tov ■Koi/j.-npiou avrb ejfai, Iv. 8). But as these instances occurred in the imperial times, when it may be said with Becker {Ilandh. p. 151, note) that the ceremony no longer had any meaning, we will go back for an example to the early ages of the Republic. First, however, we must demand the acknowledgment that the triumphal gate passed by Vespasian was the same, or at least stood on the same spot, as that which had been in use from time immemorial. We cannot allow it to be shifted about like a castle on a chessboard, to suit the convenience of commentators; and we make this demand on the authority of Josephus himself in the very passage under discussion, who tells us that it took its name from the circumstance that the triumphal processions had alwayx passed through it (kirh TOV Tri/xTrfffdat Si avTris ail rovs Sipidj.i€ovs rrjs irpoaTiyoplas ott' avrwv TeTvxv7av). Now Livy, in his account of the triumph of the consuls Valerius and Horatius, relates that they assembled the senate in the Campus Martins to solicit that honour; but when the senators complained that they were overawed by the presence of the military, the consuls called the senate away into the Prata Flaminia, to the spot occupied in the time of the historian by the temple of Apollo. (" Consules ex coinposito eodem biduo ad urbem accessere, sena- tumque in Martium Campum evocavere. Ubi quum de rebus a se gestis agerent, questi primores Patrum, senatum inter milites dedita opera ten-oris causa haberi. Itaque inde Consules, ne criminationi esset locum, in prata Flaminia, ubi nunc aedes Apollinis (jam turn Apollinare appellabant) avocavere se- natum," iii. G3.) This temple was situated close to the Porticus Octaviae (Becker, Handb. p. 605), and therefore considerably nearer the city than the spot indicated either by Becker or Preller. The consuls therefore must have already passed beyond the Porta Triumplialis before they began to solicit the senate for leave to do so! Becker, Jiowever, has been more careful, and has not extended the jurisdiction of the city beyond tiie walls of Sei-vius, at tliis part of the Campus, before the time of the emperor Claudius. But wliat re- sults from his view? That the whole affair of the Porta Triumphalis was mere farce, — that it led nowhere, — that the triumphant general, when ho had passed through it by permission of the senate, was as much outside the city boundary as he was before. But that it afforded a real entrance into the town clearly appears from the passage in Cicero's oration against Piso (c. 23): "Cum ego Caelimon- tana porta introisse dixissem, sponsione ine, ni Ksquilina introisset, homo promt issimus lacessivit. Qtuisi vero id aut ego scire debuerim, ant vcstrum ([uispiam audierit, aut ad rem jiertineat qua tu porta introioris, raodo ne triumphali; qu:io porta JMacedonicis semper proconsulibus ante to patuit." The Porta Triumphalis being here put on a level with the Caclimontana and ICsquilina, the natural conclu- sion is that, like thein, it allbnled an actual, thon^jh not customary, entrance within the walls. We further learn from the preceding psussagc that this same Porta Triumphalis had been open to every proconsul of Macedonia before Piso, including of course L. Acnii- lius Paullus, who triumphed over I'crscus n.c. 167 3 c