Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/775

 ROMA. and S. Saha now stand. It seems probable that it must, at all events, have included a considerable portion of it, since, had it proceeded along the valley, it would have been commanded by the hill; and indeed the most natural supposition is that it enclosed the whole, since the more extended line it would thus have described affords room for the several gates which we find mentioned between the Porta Trigemina and the Porta Capena near the foot of the Caelian. Among these we must, perhaps, assume a Porta MiNUCiA or MiNUTiA, which is twice mentioned by Paulus (pp. 122, 147), and whose name, he says, was derived from an ara or sacellum of Minucius, whom the Eomans held to be a god. We hear nowhere else of such a Roman deity; but we learn from Pliny (xviii. 4) that a certain tribune of the people, named Jlinutius Augurinus, had a statue erected to him, by public subscription, beyond the Porta Trigemina, for having reduced the price of corn. This occurred at an early period, since the same story is narrated by Livy (iv. 13 — 16) B. c. 4.36, with the additional information that it was Jlinutius who procured the condemnation of the great corn monopoliser, Maelius, and that the statue alluded to was a gilt bull. It is possible therefore that the gate may have been named after liim ; and that from the extraordinary honours paid to him, he may hare come in process of time to he vulgarly mistaken for a deity. If there is any truth in this view, the gate may be placed somewhere on the S. side of the Aventine. In the mutilated fragment which we possess of Varro's description of the Roman gates (L.L. v. § 163, Miill.) he closes it by mentioning three, which it is impossible to place anywhere except in the line of wall between the Aventine and Caelian. He had been speaking of a place inhabited by Ennius, who lived on the Aventine (Hieron. Chron. 134, vol. i. p. 369, Rone), and then mentions consecutively a Porta Naevia. Porta Rauduscula, and Porta Lavernalis. He must therefore be enumerating the gates in the order from W. to E., since it would be impossible to find room for three more gates, besides those already mentioned, on the Aventine. The P. Naevia, therefore, probably lay in the valley between that hill and the adjoining height to the E. It could not have been situated on the Aventine itself, since the Basis CapitoUna, mentions in the 12th Eegio, or Piscina Publica, a vicus Porta Naevia, as well as another of Porta Raudusculana. But the exact position of the latter gate, as well as of the Porta Lavernalis, it is impossible to determine fur- ther than that they lay in the line of wall between the Aventin*and Caelian. After so much uncertainty it is refreshing to arrive at last at a gate whose site may be accurately fixed. The Porta Capena lay at the foot of the Caelian hill, at a short distance W. of the spot where the Via Latina diverged from the Via Appia. The latter road issued from the P. Capena, and the discovery of the first milestone upon it, in a vineyard a short distance outside of the modern Porta di S. Sthastia7io, has enabled the topographer accurately to determine its site to be at a spot now marked by a post with the letters p. c, 300 yards beyond the Via S. Gregorio, and 1480 within the modern gate. That it was seated in the valley, appears from the fact that the Rivus Herculaneus, probably a branch of the Aqua Marcia, passed over it ; which, we are expresiily told, lay too low to ROAIA 755 supply the Caelian hill. (Front. Aij. 18.) Heme Juvenal (iii. 11): — " Substitit ad veteres arcus madidamque Capenam " where we learn from the Scholia that the gate, which in later times must have lain a good way within the town, was called " Arcus Stillans." !^'o Martial (iii. 47).; — " Capena grandi porta qua pluit gutta." A little way beyond this gate, on the Via Appia, between its point of separation from the Via Latina and the P. S. Sehastiano, there still exists one of the most interesting of the Roman monuments — the tomb of the Scipios, the site of which is marked by a solitary cypress. From the Porta Capena the wall must have ascended the Caelian hill, and skirted its southern side; but the exact line which it described in its progress towards the agger can only be conjectured. Becker {Handb. p. 167), following Piale and Bunsen, draws the line near the Ospedale di S. Giovanni, thus excluding that part of the hill on whidi the Lateran is situated, although, as Canina observes {Indicazicme, p. 36), this is the highest part of the hill. There was perhaps a gate at the bottom of the present Piazza di Navicella, but we do not know its name ; and the next gate respecting which there is any certainty is the Porta Caelimontana. Bunsen (Beschr. i. p. 638) and Becker, in conformity with their line of wall, place it by the hospital of S. Giovanni, now approached by the Via S. S. Quattro Coronati, the ancient street called Caput Af'ricae. The Porta QuERQUETUL.^A, if it was really a dis- tinct gate and not another name for the Caelimontana, must have stood a little to the N. of the latter, near the church of S. S. Pietro e Marcellino, in the valley which separates the Caelian from the Esqui- line. This gate, which was also called Querque- tularia, is several times mentioned, but without any more exact definition. (Plin. xvi. 15; Festus, p. 261.) The Caelian hill itself, as we have before remarked, was anciently called Querquetulanus. From this point the wall must have run northwards in a tolerably direct line till it joined the southern ex- tremity of the agger, where the PoiiTA Esquilina was situated, between which and the Querquetulana there does not appear to liave been any otjier gate. The Esquilina, like the others on the agger, is among the most certain of the Roman gate.s. We learn from Strabo (v. p. 237) that the Via Labicana proceeded from it; whilst at a little distance tho Praenestina branched off from the Labicana. It must therefore have lain near the church of & Vita and the still existing arch of Gallienus; but its exact site is connected with the question respecting the gates in the Aurelian wall which corresponded with it, and cannot therefore at present be deter- mined. The site of the Porta Colli.na, the point from which wc started, is determined by the fact; mentioned by Strabo {lb. p. 228) that both the Via Salaria and Via Nomentana started from it ; and it must consequently have stood near tho northern curner of the baths of Diocletian at the commence- ment of the present I'm del Macao. We learn from Pauliis Diaconus (p. 10) that tills gate was also called Agonensis and Quirinalis. Agonus, as we have said, as the ancient name of the Quiriual hill. The Porta Collina, then, and the Porta Esquilina were seated at the northern and southern extremities 3c 2